Re: [xmca] More on Martin: Consciousness vs knowledge?

Mike,

On 3/8/08 4:22 PM, "Mike Cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
 
> Martin argues that we should consider LSV's developmemtal theory as a the
> development, NOT the development
> of knowledge or tool use. I think this might be better approached from and
> AND/BOTH, not an either/or position.
This paragraph got mangled. Do you mean 'development of conciousness, NOT
the development of knowledge or tool use'? If so, I'm not opposed to
treating this as an and/both, except that I think that V was extending the
Hegelian opposition to the assumption that knowledge is mental
representation. If I'm right, then V was not offering a social kind of
genetic epistemology. Piaget was wrong to follow Kant and view knowledge as
mental structures. Knowledge is itself a transformation of consciousness.

> ... It is precisely the structure which combines all separate processes,
> which are the component parts of the cultural habit of behavior, which
> transforms this
> habit into a psychological function, and which fulfills its task with
> respect to the behavior as a whole.

V's position seems to be that consciousness is a structuring of behavior.
(And if consciousness itself develops, then the structure changes and
develops too.) In your example, it seems to me, we have two natural
'material' processes which are combined and structured and thereby
transformed into a *cultural* habit, and which presumably transforms the
form of consciousness too.
>
> So if consciousness is emergent from our interactions with our environments,
> and if those interactions form a complex whole, the precise structure of
> which changes to specifics of goal and means, then studying the genesis of
> mediated interaction = studying the genesis of consciousness.

I think so, yes.

Martin

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Received on Sun Mar 9 10:36 PDT 2008