Re: [xmca] mediational theories of mind

Very helpful reflections, Tony. And I sure am accruing a PILE of articles
and worrying about which books.
In reading your comments I first highlighted the paragraph two in front of
this one:

I don't think Shotter would say that people never "deliberately contrive"
their coordinations (at any rate I wouldn't say that, or that people never
"deliberately contrive" the Wof an activity system) -- just that
this is not the normal case.

THIS paragraph resonated especially for me because in reading Shotter's
comments, I kept thinking,
"not either or, but both sometimes" -- the issue of course is which when.

In this connection, I am planning to have my students read something about
the Mescheryakov work with the
blind-deaf. What comes through VERY clearly in that work is that "first" (is
there ever a first?) comes joint, mediated
activity which is the pre-condition for creating meaning and acquiring
language.

I have to think a lot more about genre. There are several genres of films,
of novels, or written products, etc. The
intersections of genre and medium have me muddled.

mike

On 9/3/07, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote:
>
> This is a long post. There's a formatted (easier to read) version, which
> includes more context and a bibliography of articles on "genre" referred
> to below, at
>
> http://postcog.net/2007/09/03/mediation-mind/
>
> So, here it is, shortened and less formatted:
>
> XMCA list members have volunteered a panoply of suggestions in response to
> Mike's request. I want to add "genres" to the list. Obviously Mike has a
> lot of sorting, ordering, and selecting to do, lest his undergrads get
> buried in the bewildering array of mediations and approaches to mediation.
> But the addition of "genre" complicates matters not only by piling on, but
> also I think by perhaps raising questions about the diverse matters
> already on the pile.
>
> First, as to genre. By this, I mean the idea of genre derived from Bakhtin
> and developed in the North American genre school discussed by Spinuzzi in
>
> * Spinuzzi, Clay. Tracing Genres through Organizations: A
> Sociocultural Approach to Information Design. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
> 2003.
> * --. "Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication:
> Cognition/Culture/Power (Book)." Mind, Culture, and Activity 4, no. 3
> (1997): 210-13.
>
> There are some other articles (including from MCA) dealing with genre
> (there's also an article dealing with genre in MCA by Ritva Engestrom from
> before the online archives, which I haven't seen). (see link above)
>
> In his book (one of three by MIT Press that I have reviewed for MCA [too
> long review MS submitted last month]), Spinuzzi proposes a methodology of
> "genre tracing," in which genres, operating within "genre ecologies," are
> seen to operate across the levels of operations, actions, and activities
> within activity systems.
>
> Do "genres" fit in with the list alongside "film, music, tv, rituals"?
> Genre would seem to fit with "language," but it would seem that speech,
> rather than language, would belong with film, music, tv, and rituals.
> Speech (like TV) would seem to be a medium of communication, whereas
> language (like genre) would seem to be like form in which mediation is
> ordered. Of course, film, music, tv, and rituals can also be analyzed as
> matters of ordering form (i.e., as genres); but once chronotopes,
> dialogism, and dramatism are thrown into the mix (as well as the diverse
> and valuable suggestions from several other members of the list), it seems
> to me that we are surveying different sorts of things.
>
> I think Mike's reference to Shotter is suggestive: Tools, signs, and
> artifacts are often referred to as things that people use, and people
> make, and people make for use -- including their use in mediating
> interaction. Shotter's point is that the Wittgensteinian rules, language
> games, and forms of life, etc. are not artifacts (pace Clark) in the sense
> that people construct or make them for their use in interaction. Rather,
> it is in our participation in the forms of interaction (the forms that
> mediate our interaction) that we ourselves come to form, as human beings.
> As Peirce wrote, instead of saying that "thought is in us," we should
> rather say that "we are in thought."
>
> This makes a big difference for mediational theories of mind. An affinity
> with CHAT can be seen in the idea that Activity Systems come to form
> through emergence from goal-oriented action within the social function of
> the activity system -- i.e., it is not the case as a rule that the goal of
> action is construction of the activity system (which would be more in line
> with Clark's theory).
>
> I don't think Shotter would say that people never "deliberately contrive"
> their coordinations (at any rate I wouldn't say that, or that people never
> "deliberately contrive" the design of an activity system) -- just that
> this is not the normal case.
>
> A quick way to think about these things: We can think of speech or film as
> a medium that we can use; and we can think of genres, practices,
> activities as things that we participate in. Our interaction (and our
> "minding") is mediated by things we use, as well as the forms of practice,
> interaction, etc. in which we participate. It seems there is a difference.
> We can "use" a genre, but we act intelligibly within genres whether we are
> "using" them deliberately or not; and even if we are still "using" a genre
> even if unconsciously, a genre is not, in general, something that was
> consciously devised for use in the same way as, say, a telephone.
>
> Lurking beneath all this is the difference between info*mation, in the
> cybernetic sense, and in*formation, in the older sense of "information" as
> the noun form of a verb, referrring to the action in which someone or
> something (someone's character, consciousness, a concept, etc.) is formed
> in part by being in-formed by something or somebody else.
>
> On Mon, 3 Sep 2007, Mike Cole wrote:
>
> > A few quiet moments before the next tumult, Tony. I'll try to articulate
> my
> > thoughts re Shotter's review
> > of Clark.
> >
> > First, I am STILL glad, as Shotter also celebrates, that Clark is
> examining
> > joint action as the locus of language acquisition/use. (I should add
> here
> > that, havng reluctantly finished David Copperfield, I am reading
> Putnam's
> > Pragmaticism, and am on the chapter about Wittgenstein as pragmaticist,
> a
> > felicitous coincidence, although I prefer the luxury of Dickens, who has
> > somehow captivated me in "late middle age.").
> >
> > My thought when reading the first couple of chapters of Clark and now
> > reading Shotter's review, is that the term, ACTIVITY is missing. It is
> > missing
> > both from Clark and Shotter. I like joint mediated ACTIVITY as a unit of
> > analysis for lots of reasons and from this discussion I come away kind
> of
> > reinforced in that proclivity. It relates to terms like "spontaneous"
> and
> > that "spontaneous reactions between us are "the prototype of a way of
> > thinking and not the result of thought." After writing this, John uses
> the
> > term activity(top p. 3).
> >
> > I am pretty certain we have to stick with the retrospective construction
> of
> > meaning (contra herb c/descartes etc) but we have to have a place to be
> when
> > retro-specting" and that heterochrony is afforded by activity.
> >
> > So my next step would be, given the time (I hear the car in the
> driveway)
> > would be to look for the conditions that make the use of the term,.
> > spontaneous, reasonable.
> >
> > quickly
> > mike
> >
> > On 9/3/07, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> Mike,
> >>
> >> Thank you for referring us to Shotter's review. It is remarkable in
> >> several respects, not least the clarity of thought and expression.
> >>
> >> (htm version of the review is at
> >> http://www.mCassey.ac.nz/~alock/virtual/clarke.htm )
> >>
> >> While I can see how Clark would have appeared interesting in terms of
> >> "unit of analysis," it seems that viewing Shotter as differing with him
> on
> >> THAT would be to suggest that the difference is methodological, when it
> >> seems to me there's a more profound ontological difference between
> them.
> >> Shotter is challenging the idea that this "unit of analysis" is even
> real,
> >> not just its value for methodology.
> >>
> >> From a CHAT perspective, the relationship between Shotter's
> "spontaneous
> >> interaction" and Wittgensteinian "rules" bears analysis in relation to
> >> that between "operations" and aspects of "actions" and/or "activities."
> >> The idea of "spontaneity" needs interrogation, it seems to me.
> >>
> >> What do you think?
> >>
> >> On Sun, 2 Sep 2007, Mike Cole wrote:
> >>
> >>> I prefer to think of it as early in the month, Jay.
> >>> Lots of good sugggestions there, some of which I am already
> considering
> >> or
> >>> have decided upon.(olson, where is your review?)
> >>> My mind this morning is going to burke and dramatism, ritual, etc.
> >>>
> >>> On a slightly different topic I attach John Shotter's interesting
> review
> >> of
> >>> herb clark on joint, mediated, activity, as the unity of analaysis in
> >> the
> >>> study
> >>> of language/communication. The review lays out a really principled
> >>> difference in the directions used for adopting this unit of analysis.
> >>>
> >>> I am undecided between raw bakhtin and a mixture of short originals
> and
> >>> explications by clark and holquist on chronotopes and dialogism.
> >>>
> >>> Remember, I am teaching in a comm dept, not an ed department: both
> >> easier
> >>> and harder.
> >>> mike
> >>>
> >>> On 9/1/07, Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Mike,
> >>>>
> >>>> Maybe getting a bit late in the week for these suggestions, but I
> >>>> certainly find computer games, and much of the related new-media
> >> culture to
> >>>> have interesting implications for how different media afford us
> >> different
> >>>> "minds".
> >>>>
> >>>> Very interesting to me is the work of Henry Jenkins, see essays in
> his
> >> (1)
> >>>> Convergence Culture, and (2) Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers. Also useful
> of
> >>>> course is Jim Gee's _What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning
> &
> >>>> Literacy_. There are interesting pieces by Constance Steinkuehler
> (now
> >>>> faculty at Wisconsin, former student of Gee's) on games and learning,
> >> and by
> >>>> Mimi (Mizuko) Ito (Annenberg School, USC) on mobile phone culture in
> >> the US
> >>>> and Japan. These are all more 'communication & society' oriented than
> >>>> education oriented, though of course "learning" is a pivot term twixt
> >> the
> >>>> two.
> >>>>
> >>>> Ricki Goldman (NYU, ex MIT Media Lab) has been thinking and writing
> >> about
> >>>> how video, particularly the making of amateur video, is a
> >> tool-for-thought.
> >>>> She has an essay on this, and I have something related, in the new
> >> _Handbook
> >>>> of Video Research in the Learning Sciences_, edited by Goldman, Roy
> >> Pea, et
> >>>> al., just published.
> >>>>
> >>>> The new McLuhan, in some respects, is Lev Manovich, and he does have
> >>>> interesting things to say along these lines about new media in _The
> >> Language
> >>>> of New Media_. I think he even pays homage to Marshall.
> >>>>
> >>>> There are some useful citations at:
> >>>> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke/courses/NewMediaSyllabus.htm
> <
> >> http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke/courses/NewMediaSyllabus.htm>
> >>>>
> >>>> and
> >>>>
> >>>>
> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke/courses/737-video/737video.htm
> >> <
> http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke/courses/737-video/737video.htm>
> >>>>
> >>>> though these do not have the more complete bibliographies which are
> on
> >>>> intranet sites on our campus. If you like, I can send or post them.
> >>>>
> >>>> JAY.
> >>>>
> >>>> PS. your idea of using Turkle and Wisdom of Crowds is creative,
> though
> >> the
> >>>> latter disappointed a bit. And then there's always David Olson's _The
> >> World
> >>>> on Paper_ (and my review of it!), if you want to really get your
> >> students
> >>>> embroiled in the debates about writing as tool-for-thought!
> >>>>
> >>>> BTW, Michael Halliday has written an extremely sophisticated essay
> >>>> critiquing the narrowness of traditional cognitive science views of
> >> mind,
> >>>> based on his general theory of meaning, which largely says that mind
> >> _is_
> >>>> the process of construing/constructing meaning with symbolic
> resources,
> >>>> particularly those of language and its implicit categories/relations.
> >> The
> >>>> critique mainly says that cogsci does not understand the linguistic
> >> basis of
> >>>> our culture's own folk theories of mind well enough to achieve its
> aim
> >> of
> >>>> getting beyond them to something more "scientific". It can also be
> read
> >> as a
> >>>> meta-theory of language as a tool-for-thought, and as an analysis of
> >> how
> >>>> language is used differently to think 'scientifically' vs. in other
> >> ways. I
> >>>> think it is beyond most grad students, however, and it requires a
> >> reasonable
> >>>> background in the concepts of functional semantics and grammar. It's
> >>>> published as chapter 14 in _Construing Experience through Meaning_,
> >> Halliday
> >>>> & Matthiessen, 2000.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> At 06:12 PM 8/29/2007, you wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Dear Xmca-ites---
> >>>>
> >>>> Toward the end of the month I will begin teaching a grad course on
> >>>> mediational theories of mind.
> >>>> I would love suggestions for interesting readings.
> >>>> We will be looking in a sort of "mcLuhanesque" way at the affordances
> >> of
> >>>> different kinds of mediators
> >>>> in human action/activity/mind.
> >>>>
> >>>> So, language and thought
> >>>> writing
> >>>> film
> >>>> music
> >>>> tv
> >>>> rituals
> >>>> games
> >>>> .........
> >>>>
> >>>> Starting with early 20th century writers of general familiarity to
> >> members
> >>>> of this list, I have been thinking about including
> >>>> such works as Cszikentmihalyi, "meaning of things," Turkle's recent
> >>>> "evocative objects," and perhaps something on mediated
> >>>> behavior in large groups such as "the wisdom of crowds."
> >>>>
> >>>> Any and all suggestions warmly welcomed. So much going on its hard to
> >> even
> >>>> think about how to begin to think about this
> >>>> upcoming fall!!
> >>>>
> >>>> mike
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> xmca mailing list
> >>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Jay Lemke
> >>>> Professor
> >>>> University of Michigan
> >>>> School of Education
> >>>> 610 East University
> >>>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> >>>>
> >>>> Tel. 734-763-9276
> >>>> Email. JayLemke@UMich.edu
> >>>> Website. www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
> >>>> <http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke%A0>
> >>>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> xmca mailing list
> >>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>
> >>
> >> Tony Whitson
> >> UD School of Education
> >> NEWARK DE 19716
> >>
> >> twhitson@udel.edu
> >> _______________________________
> >>
> >> "those who fail to reread
> >> are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
> >> -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
> >>
> >
>
> Tony Whitson
> UD School of Education
> NEWARK DE 19716
>
> twhitson@udel.edu
> _______________________________
>
> "those who fail to reread
> are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
> -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
>
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
Received on Tue Sep 4 20:25 PDT 2007