Re: [xmca] Passages from Chapter 5 of LSV

["Mike Cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

I find myself, not for the first time, way behind the discussion.
I pick up only one thread. David wrote, late last year,  :--)),

For some problems (which we can call, somewhat misleadingly, psychological
problems), LSV III's unit of analysis is consciousness and his explanatory
principle is the social situation of proximal development (the classroom,
the playground, etc.), which is in turn composed of two mutually defining
elements: imitation and generalization.

David, Andy, and I have been working, without any notable success, on
a paper on LSV, Gestalt Psychology, and ...... the social situation of
development (among other imbricated concepts). Part of the reason for
our difficulty in finishing this project is my inability to understand the
meaning(s) of the "social situation of development."

I am personally very inclined toward david's (classroom, playground, etc.)
way of indexing the referent(s) of this concept. But in our discussions, and
our readings of others (Seth Chaiklin was a key initiator of this effort), I
lost my  way. Sometimes it seems as if the SSD refers to the child and every
"situation" s/he participates in, and, indirectly of course, the exosystem
(there is some good data on how that exosystem influences more proximal
environments of
development, to use another slippery word). In particular, I got lost in
trying to figure out the relation between neoformations and the
circumstances (another slippery word) that provided the gestalt (another
slippery word!!) for development.

Leontiev gives the example of a child going to school who, by virtue of his
(sic?) new social status now participates in a different home "situation of
development" when his parents excuse him from other chores because how
he must spend time studying at school.

Help!! I am trying to drag Boris Gurievitch into this discussion, but he is
shy
about his English.
mike
PS-- I am very sympathetic to both the palimpset notion of word meaning,
David, and the idea that different lines of development intersect. My own
attempts to express that idea (very inadequately!) are in *Cultural
Psychology*, where I try to make it clear that this idea was shared by such
diverse scholars
as Birdwhistle (kinesheologist -sp?), barker (ecological psychologist) and
William James (whose statement of the idea i did not include because my
source for it was untrackable, unlike the Summerian "classroom" that Peter
has kindly tracked down to its uncertain provenance).

A belated happy new year and wishes for a less violent 2009.

mike


But as Bronfenbrenner points out, some of the most important problems the
child experiences are in the "exo-system", a set of relationships (e.g.
parental employment) in which the child has no actual role and cannot take
part. Where does that fit?

David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education



--- On Wed, 12/31/08, Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Passages from Chapter 5 of LSV
To: packer@duq.edu, "xmc a xmx" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 12:51 AM
- Show quoted text -

Martin,

I'm really struck by your question as to whether David finds your
counter-proposal (i.e., LSV developing (e.g., cultivating, growing) his
ideas
dialectically (e.g., seed, sprout, vegetative, florescent))  reasonable, (I
am
supposing)  in contrast to David's interrpretation that " ...he was
constantly throwing everything away and starting over from the beginning.
".

 Insofar as every question presupposes a range of answers (a domain), what
is
the domain over which you expect a response?

 Do you imagine a willow might become an oak upon reflection?  Are you
casting flies?

I'm curious.

Paul

--- On Tue, 12/30/08, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Passages from Chapter 5 of LSV
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 1:24 PM

David,

For a while - at least ever since reading Norris Minick's Introduction
(which is insightful in many ways) - I've been thinking that Vygotsky
didn't
so much change his mind as develop in his thinking dialectically. I know
that's in danger of sounding cliched, but I think I have found places in
his
texts where his earlier concepts are not simply abandoned or erased, but
truly aufgehoben (it's that grammatically correct) - maintained and
replaced
at the same time.

I haven't had the time to pursue this point systematically, and right now I
can't even offer an example (though if I were try to find one it would one
where reflexes show up again in his late writings). But does the suggestion
strike you as resonable?

Martin


On 12/30/08 12:14 PM, "David Kellogg"
<vaughndogblack@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Second the motion! I think that one of the reasons why LSV is SO impatient
> with Stern (and also Werner) is that he really can't understand
thinkers who
> never change their minds. LSV had only ten years to work (and thought he
had
> less). Yet he was constantly throwing everything away and starting over
from
> the beginning. That's courage.
>
> But of course that means that almost everything we read of Vygotsky's
has to
> be read dendrochronologically, the way we look at tree rings. This is
> particularly true of Thinking and Speech, parts of which data from 1929
> (Chapter Four) and parts from 1931 (Chapter Five) and parts from his
deathbed
> (Chapter Six and Seven).
>
> LSV is always going on about geological strata (Kretschmer). But perhaps
> the best metaphor for reading somebody who scribbles over everything
he's ever
> done every three or four years would be archaeological, or better yet,
> textological: a palimpsest.
>
> So far the most useful guide to the Vygotskyan palimpsest I've read on
this to
> date is Minick's intro to Thinking and Speech, now reprinted as the
very first
> chapter in Daniels' mistitled "Introduction (sic) to
Vygotsky", 2005,
> Routledge.
>
> Minick's palimpsestization (?) corresponds very well to most other
> periodizations, including Veresov (though Veresov adds a pre-Marxist
Vygotsky
> from before 1924 which for rather tendentious reasons he finds very
> important). It will be VERY interesting to see if the work Jonna mentions
> confirms it.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
> --- On Tue, 12/30/08, Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Passages from Chapter 5 of LSV
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Cc: "Jussi Silvonen" <jussi.silvonen@joensuu.fi>
> Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 8:58 AM
>
> We would welcome Jussi's input, thanks Jonna. We almost have a
"history
> of
> psych" group here on
> xmca at presentl. Perhaps a strength we should find a way to use better.
> mike
>
>> a
>>
>>
>> Mike Cole kirjoitti 29.12.2008 kello 2.55:
>>
>>
>>  Ooops, forgot to cc boris on my reply to david. He is author of,
among
>>> other
>>> interesting articles, the article on "LSV's
terminology"
> in the Daniels et
>>> al
>>> Cambridge companion to vygotsky.
>>>
>>> I forwarded the message to him.
>>> mike
>>>
>>> On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 4:52 PM, Mike Cole
<lchcmike@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>>
>>>  Thanks for these observations and inferences, David.
>>>> The task of reconstructing the chronology of LSV's
thinking is
> a
>>>> formidable
>>>> one. I wonder if anyone anywhere has published such a
chronology.
> I will
>>>> cc boris meshcheryakov who will know, if anybody does.
>>>>
>>>> mike
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 10:42 PM, David Kellogg <
>>>> vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On p. 131 of Chapter Five, LSV already has the concept of
the
>>>>> psychological system, that is, the linkage of disparate
> functions into a
>>>>> single Gestalt, e.g. attention, association, judgement,
> representation,
>>>>> and
>>>>> motivation in activity.
>>>>>
>>>>> But he denies that this linkage of disparate functions has
any
> effect on
>>>>> the functions themselves. The relations between functions
> change. But
>>>>> the
>>>>> functions themselves do not change.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now, what causes the relationships between these functions
to
> change?
>>>>> That
>>>>> is not clear. One possible answer is "activity",
and
> that is the answer
>>>>> that
>>>>> activity theorists give. But we can see that LSV is not
> entirely
>>>>> satisfied
>>>>> with this answer.
>>>>>
>>>>> There are two problems. The first is that as Mike pointed
out
> LSV is
>>>>> using
>>>>> "activity" in a non-technical sense, it is
really
> just the task plus the
>>>>> contraints. (Note that Prout actually translates
> "task" as "problem").
>>>>> In
>>>>> other words, an "activity" is just a subject, an
> object, and a tool.
>>>>> That
>>>>> brings us back to the old stimulus-response unit with
> mediating
>>>>> artefact!
>>>>>
>>>>> The second is that Vygotsky suspects that when the
relations
> between
>>>>> functions change, the functions DO change internally as
well.
> We know,
>>>>> for
>>>>> example, that when role play is reconstrued as rule based
> games, the
>>>>> "roles"
>>>>> of rule based games are quite different, more abstract. So
is
> the goal,
>>>>> which is not to make an imaginary situation but to win a
real
> prize.
>>>>>
>>>>> So why does Vygotsky stress in this passage that the basic
> processes of
>>>>> attention, association, judgment, representation, and
mindset
> do not
>>>>> actually change? I think there are two reasons.
>>>>>
>>>>> First of all, he is trying to critically appropriate the
work
> of people
>>>>> like Buhler who deny that there is anything fundamentally
new
> in the
>>>>> transitional age. His way of doing this is to say that
they
> are correct,
>>>>> but
>>>>> they are ignoring the way in which the familiar old
functions
> are united
>>>>> in
>>>>> a new Gestalt.
>>>>>
>>>>> Secondly, this is old work, first carried out in 1929 and
> written up
>>>>> some
>>>>> time in 1931. LSV has not yet conceptualized the actual
> mechanism by
>>>>> which
>>>>> differentiation takes place WITHIN functions and not just
> BETWEEN them.
>>>>> That
>>>>> does not happen until 1932, when he formulates the zone of
> proximal
>>>>> development, and he does not write about it until Chapter
Six.
>>>>>
>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>> Seoul National University of Education
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  _______________________________________________
>>> xmca mailing list
>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>
>>>
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On Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 3:40 PM, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:

>
> Thanks, Martin. Actually, I need some help with PRECISELY this point right
> now.
>
> I'm writing an article on "word meaning as palimpsest". I want to use the
> seventy-fifth anniversary of Thinking and Speech as a kind of platform from
> which to attack mainstream applied linguistics, for whom language exists as
> a hypostatized formal system and has always done, well, at least since
> Saussure.
>
> The mainstreamers like to say that we wild-eyed Vygotskyans are very nice
> people and do interesting work but the problem is that we've got no theory
> of language as a formal system (so says Mitchell and Myles, 1998: 161) and
> we can't make the kinds of neat predictions about the rate of learning and
> the route which learning takes which they can't make either (ditto, p. 162).
>
> Of course the answer (my answer, anyway) is that language is NOT a formal
> system and can't be theorized that way, and that the "rate of learning" and
> the "route which learning takes" doesn't tell us what we want to know, but
> the rate of DEVELOPMENT and the route that takes just might.
>
> And part of the argument goes like this. We Vygotskyans are really not
> socioculturalists. We're not even cultural-historicists. We're
> just phylo-socio-onto-microgeneticists. For that matter, we're not really
> Vygotskyans. We're Darwinian-Marxian-Vygotskyan-Integrationists.
>
> One of the reasons why Vygotsky didn't like to go around shouting about
> Marxian psychology was that if we start appending names to what we think on
> every scale of semio-history at which we think about it then our discipline
> will end up with more principal investigators than an astrophysics paper.
>
> Another reason is (I think) Vygotsky really rejected supra-theories, and
> for good reason. If you look at Mescheryakov's wonderful little chart in the
> Cambridge Companion, he gives us four "genetic laws", which he renders
> something like this, where "^" means something like "is differentiated into"
> and "-->" means something like "is reorganized into".
>
> NATURAL-->CULTURAL
>                        ^
>                   SOCIAL-->INDIVIDUAL
>                                         ^
>                                        EXTRAMENTAL-->INTRAMENTAL
>
> ^
>
> SPONTANEOUS-->SCIENTIFIC
>
> Of course, it's very tempting to see this as a neat little palimpsest of
> human culture: the first law, in which natural functions are reorganized
> into cultural ones, represents phylogeny, the second represents cultural
> historical progress, the third ontogenesis, and the fourth represents
> microgenesis.
>
> But the more I think about this, the fishier it looks. A natural "law" has
> no exceptions whatsoever. A socio-cultural law has infractions that are
> legally sanctionable, during ontogenesis, we learn laws (which we really
> need to start calling rules at this point) precisely by flouting them, and
> at the level of microgenesis, we hardly even know the rules are there unless
> we break them. Is there any non-metaphorical sense in which ALL of these
> semio-historical timescales can be said to be "lawful" or "rule-governed" or
> even "patterned"?
>
> Sure enough, when we read Vygotsky (p. 114 of Chapter Four) he's a lot more
> modest. The four laws are all there, but only in the context of ontogenesis.
> Here's the Hanfmann and Vakar version:
>
>
> "Our investigations show that speech development follows the same course
> and obeys the same laws as the development of all the other mental
> operations involving the use of signs, such as counting or mnemonic
> memorizing. We found that these operations generally develop in four stages.
> The first is the primitive or natural stage, corresponding to
> preintellectual speech and preverbal thought, when these operations appear
> in their original form, as they were evolved at the primitive level of
> behavior."
>
> "Next comes the stage which we might call "naive psychology", by analogy
> with what is called "naive physics" – the child's experience with the
> physical properties of his own body and of the objects around him, and the
> application of this experience to the use of tools: the first exercise of
> the child's budding practical intelligence."
>
> "This phase is very clearly defined in the speech development of the child.
> It is manifested by the correct use of grammatical forms and structures
> before the child has understood the logical operations for which they stand.
> The child may operate with subordinate clauses, with words like because, if,
> when, and but, long before he really grasps causal, conditional, or temporal
> relations. He masters syntax of speech before syntax of thought.
> Piaget's studies proved that grammar develops before logic and that the
> child learns relatively late the mental operations corresponding to the
> verbal forms he has been using for a long time."
>
> "With the gradual accumulation of naive psychological experience, the child
> enters a third stage, distinguished by external signs, external operations
> that are used as aids in the solution of internal problems. That is the
> stage when the child counts on his fingers, resorts to mnemonic aids, and so
> on. In speech development it is characterized by egocentric speech."
>
> "The fourth stage we call the "ingrowth" stage. The external operation
> turns inward and undergoes a profound change in the process. The child
> begins to count in his head, to use "logical memory," that is, to operate
> with inherent relationships and inner signs. In speech development this is
> the final stage of inner, soundless speech. There remains a constant
> interaction between outer and inner operations, one form effortlessly and
> frequently changing into the other and back again. Inner speech may come
> very close in form to external speech or even become exactly like it when it
> serves as preparation for external speech – for instance, in thinking over a
> lecture to be given. There is no sharp division between inner and external
> behavior, and each influences the other."
>
> Sure, we can see that the first "stage" is a kind of residue laid down by
> phylogenetic evolution, just as the second one is an archaeological remnant
> of sociocultural progress, and the third represents the remains of the
> ontogenetic mastery of tools and signs and self.
>
> But we can also see that to the extent that we can really talk about
> "laws", we cannot talk about microgenesis, and to the extent we want to talk
> about "rules" we cannot talk about phylogenesis.
>
> I think it's even stretching it to call microgenesis rule-bound; "norms" is
> probably more suitable, and even then what we are really interested in is
> precisely the nonnormative. It's not just that at each stage some things
> recede into the background and others get foregrounded. It's that the scale
> of development itself has to develop.
>
> On some level, phylogenesis, cultural-historical progress, ontogenesis, and
> microgenesis are all one thing--namely time and the changes wrought thereby.
> But the changes and above all the means by which they are wrought are
> qualitatively different.
>
> The laws of phylogenesis are really not useful in describing the norms of
> microgenesis; the connection is of such generality that referring to it as a
> system of laws really has to be a violation of Marx's eleventh thesis on
> Feuerbach.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- On Thu, 1/1/09, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
>
> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Passages from Chapter 5 of LSV
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Thursday, January 1, 2009, 12:22 PM
>
> It's another occasion when access to the Russian original for
> "discarded"
> would be helpful. After all, Vygotsky wrote of sublation as both
> destruction
> and preservation. My sense when reading Minnick was that when he wrote of
> Vygotsky trying out and rejecting a series of candidates for unit of
> analysis, one might instead see Vygotsky as exploring a complex totality,
> bringing first one aspect and then another to the fore. He wrote that
> "When
> the word sublation is used in relation to some organic feature, this does
> not mean that this feature is eliminated. Instead, the feature is sublated
> and preserved, embedded somewhere within; it recedes into the background,
> yielding to those regular features which arose at later stages.² This seems
> to me true *in* V's account of development (where reflexes are not
> eliminated but embedded) and *of* V's account of development, where a unit
> of analysis isn't abandoned but moves into the background as another moves
> to the foreground.
>
> Martin
>
> On 12/31/08 10:52 AM, "David Kellogg"
> <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Oh, I don't think that an oak is a sublated willow. And I do think
> that LSV
> > II, the Vygotsky of the psychological system and the criss-crossing lines
> of
> > development, is a sublation of LSV I, the Vygotsky of the instrumental
> act.
> >
> > Vygotsky himself says this, though, and the end of the beginning of
> Thinking
> > and Speech:
> >
> > "This book is the product of nearly ten years work. Many of the
> questions that
> > emerged in the investigation were not apparent to us when we began.
> We were
> > frequently forced to reconsider our positions during the investigation.
> > Consequently, the results of a great deal of hard work had to be
> discarded.
> > Much of the remainder had to be redone, restructured, or
> rewritten." (p. 40).
> >
> > I take it this is Vygotsky's last word, both because of the phrase
> "ten years
> > work", which covers Vygotsky's entire career in psychology and
> because it's
> > the preface to his posthumously published work (which originally did not
> even
> > have a Chapter One; internal evidence suggests that in the first draft
> the
> > Piaget chapter was the first one).
> >
> > So it's LSV III speaking to us from his deathbed, inviting us to
> consider
> > carefully what exactly was discarded, what was redone, and what was
> gained
> > thereby.
> >
> > And here we are, seventy-five years later, doing exactly that. For
> example, a
> > lot of our discussions seem to revolve around the question of whether (as
> > neo-Vygotskyans believe) the fixation on object-oriented activity is the
> work
> > of a mature, continuing LSVIII or whether it was simply a discarded part
> of
> > LSV I (as I believe).
> >
> > My problems with Chapter Five (discussed in this thread) are similar.
> They
> > have to do with whether lines of development themselves become
> functionally
> > differentiated. LSV II says no, but LSV III (as I read him) says yes.
> >
> > Finally, one of the most enduring threads of xmca has to be the zone of
> > proximal development. It seems to me that this was the way in which LSV
> III
> > sublated the problems with LSV II: the idea of the psychological system
> was
> > reformulated to include a social situation of development, but this meant
> > discarded the idea that lines of development do not functionally
> > differentiate.
> >
> > For some problems (which we can call, somewhat misleadingly,
> psychological
> > problems), LSV III's unit of analysis is consciousness and his
> explanatory
> > principle is the social situation of proximal development (the classroom,
> the
> > playground, etc.), which is in turn composed of two mutually defining
> > elements: imitation and generalization.
> >
> > But as Bronfenbrenner points out, some of the most important problems the
> > child experiences are in the "exo-system", a set of
> relationships (e.g.
> > parental employment) in which the child has no actual role and cannot
> take
> > part. Where does that fit?
> >
> > David Kellogg
> > Seoul National University of Education
> >
> >
> >
> > --- On Wed, 12/31/08, Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > From: Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] Passages from Chapter 5 of LSV
> > To: packer@duq.edu, "xmc a xmx" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Date: Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 12:51 AM
> >
> > Martin,
> >
> > I'm really struck by your question as to whether David finds your
> > counter-proposal (i.e., LSV developing (e.g., cultivating, growing) his
> ideas
> > dialectically (e.g., seed, sprout, vegetative, florescent))  reasonable,
> (I am
> > supposing)  in contrast to David's interrpretation that " ...he
> was
> > constantly throwing everything away and starting over from the beginning.
> > ".
> >
> >  Insofar as every question presupposes a range of answers (a domain),
> what is
> > the domain over which you expect a response?
> >
> >  Do you imagine a willow might become an oak upon reflection?  Are you
> > casting flies?
> >
> > I'm curious.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > --- On Tue, 12/30/08, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
> > From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] Passages from Chapter 5 of LSV
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 1:24 PM
> >
> > David,
> >
> > For a while - at least ever since reading Norris Minick's Introduction
> > (which is insightful in many ways) - I've been thinking that Vygotsky
> > didn't
> > so much change his mind as develop in his thinking dialectically. I know
> > that's in danger of sounding cliched, but I think I have found places
> in
> > his
> > texts where his earlier concepts are not simply abandoned or erased, but
> > truly aufgehoben (it's that grammatically correct) - maintained and
> > replaced
> > at the same time.
> >
> > I haven't had the time to pursue this point systematically, and right
> now I
> > can't even offer an example (though if I were try to find one it would
> one
> > where reflexes show up again in his late writings). But does the
> suggestion
> > strike you as resonable?
> >
> > Martin
> >
> >
> > On 12/30/08 12:14 PM, "David Kellogg"
> > <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Second the motion! I think that one of the reasons why LSV is SO
> impatient
> >> with Stern (and also Werner) is that he really can't understand
> > thinkers who
> >> never change their minds. LSV had only ten years to work (and thought
> he
> > had
> >> less). Yet he was constantly throwing everything away and starting
> over
> > from
> >> the beginning. That's courage.
> >>
> >> But of course that means that almost everything we read of
> Vygotsky's
> > has to
> >> be read dendrochronologically, the way we look at tree rings. This is
> >> particularly true of Thinking and Speech, parts of which data from
> 1929
> >> (Chapter Four) and parts from 1931 (Chapter Five) and parts from his
> > deathbed
> >> (Chapter Six and Seven).
> >>
> >> LSV is always going on about geological strata (Kretschmer). But
> perhaps
> >> the best metaphor for reading somebody who scribbles over everything
> > he's ever
> >> done every three or four years would be archaeological, or better yet,
> >> textological: a palimpsest.
> >>
> >> So far the most useful guide to the Vygotskyan palimpsest I've
> read on
> > this to
> >> date is Minick's intro to Thinking and Speech, now reprinted as
> the
> > very first
> >> chapter in Daniels' mistitled "Introduction (sic) to
> > Vygotsky", 2005,
> >> Routledge.
> >>
> >> Minick's palimpsestization (?) corresponds very well to most
> other
> >> periodizations, including Veresov (though Veresov adds a pre-Marxist
> > Vygotsky
> >> from before 1924 which for rather tendentious reasons he finds very
> >> important). It will be VERY interesting to see if the work Jonna
> mentions
> >> confirms it.
> >>
> >> David Kellogg
> >> Seoul National University of Education
> >>
> >> --- On Tue, 12/30/08, Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> From: Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> >> Subject: Re: [xmca] Passages from Chapter 5 of LSV
> >> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> > <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >> Cc: "Jussi Silvonen" <jussi.silvonen@joensuu.fi>
> >> Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 8:58 AM
> >>
> >> We would welcome Jussi's input, thanks Jonna. We almost have a
> > "history
> >> of
> >> psych" group here on
> >> xmca at presentl. Perhaps a strength we should find a way to use
> better.
> >> mike
> >>
> >>> a
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Mike Cole kirjoitti 29.12.2008 kello 2.55:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>  Ooops, forgot to cc boris on my reply to david. He is author of,
> > among
> >>>> other
> >>>> interesting articles, the article on "LSV's
> > terminology"
> >> in the Daniels et
> >>>> al
> >>>> Cambridge companion to vygotsky.
> >>>>
> >>>> I forwarded the message to him.
> >>>> mike
> >>>>
> >>>> On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 4:52 PM, Mike Cole
> > <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>  Thanks for these observations and inferences, David.
> >>>>> The task of reconstructing the chronology of LSV's
> > thinking is
> >> a
> >>>>> formidable
> >>>>> one. I wonder if anyone anywhere has published such a
> > chronology.
> >> I will
> >>>>> cc boris meshcheryakov who will know, if anybody does.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> mike
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 10:42 PM, David Kellogg <
> >>>>> vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> On p. 131 of Chapter Five, LSV already has the concept
> of
> > the
> >>>>>> psychological system, that is, the linkage of
> disparate
> >> functions into a
> >>>>>> single Gestalt, e.g. attention, association,
> judgement,
> >> representation,
> >>>>>> and
> >>>>>> motivation in activity.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> But he denies that this linkage of disparate functions
> has
> > any
> >> effect on
> >>>>>> the functions themselves. The relations between
> functions
> >> change. But
> >>>>>> the
> >>>>>> functions themselves do not change.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Now, what causes the relationships between these
> functions
> > to
> >> change?
> >>>>>> That
> >>>>>> is not clear. One possible answer is
> "activity",
> > and
> >> that is the answer
> >>>>>> that
> >>>>>> activity theorists give. But we can see that LSV is
> not
> >> entirely
> >>>>>> satisfied
> >>>>>> with this answer.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> There are two problems. The first is that as Mike
> pointed
> > out
> >> LSV is
> >>>>>> using
> >>>>>> "activity" in a non-technical sense, it is
> > really
> >> just the task plus the
> >>>>>> contraints. (Note that Prout actually translates
> >> "task" as "problem").
> >>>>>> In
> >>>>>> other words, an "activity" is just a
> subject, an
> >> object, and a tool.
> >>>>>> That
> >>>>>> brings us back to the old stimulus-response unit with
> >> mediating
> >>>>>> artefact!
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> The second is that Vygotsky suspects that when the
> > relations
> >> between
> >>>>>> functions change, the functions DO change internally
> as
> > well.
> >> We know,
> >>>>>> for
> >>>>>> example, that when role play is reconstrued as rule
> based
> >> games, the
> >>>>>> "roles"
> >>>>>> of rule based games are quite different, more
> abstract. So
> > is
> >> the goal,
> >>>>>> which is not to make an imaginary situation but to win
> a
> > real
> >> prize.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> So why does Vygotsky stress in this passage that the
> basic
> >> processes of
> >>>>>> attention, association, judgment, representation, and
> > mindset
> >> do not
> >>>>>> actually change? I think there are two reasons.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> First of all, he is trying to critically appropriate
> the
> > work
> >> of people
> >>>>>> like Buhler who deny that there is anything
> fundamentally
> > new
> >> in the
> >>>>>> transitional age. His way of doing this is to say that
> > they
> >> are correct,
> >>>>>> but
> >>>>>> they are ignoring the way in which the familiar old
> > functions
> >> are united
> >>>>>> in
> >>>>>> a new Gestalt.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Secondly, this is old work, first carried out in 1929
> and
> >> written up
> >>>>>> some
> >>>>>> time in 1931. LSV has not yet conceptualized the
> actual
> >> mechanism by
> >>>>>> which
> >>>>>> differentiation takes place WITHIN functions and not
> just
> >> BETWEEN them.
> >>>>>> That
> >>>>>> does not happen until 1932, when he formulates the
> zone of
> >> proximal
> >>>>>> development, and he does not write about it until
> Chapter
> > Six.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> David Kellogg
> >>>>>> Seoul National University of Education
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> xmca mailing list
> >>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>  _______________________________________________
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> >>>>
> >>>>
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