Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation

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

The idea that always occurs to me about reflections is that in mirrors, left
and right are reversed.

Sad? Or a reason to pause to think?
Quien Sabe?

mike

On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Why sad?
>
>
> Martin Packer wrote:
>
>> I know, but it would be sad to discover that Vygotsky was drawing so
>> heavily
>> from Lenin.
>>
>>
>> On 1/4/09 9:42 PM, "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>>
>>  I might say as an aside, that "reflection" whatever it is in
>>> Russian, has a strong place in Russian Marxism. This is
>>> because Lenin made such a powerful attack on his
>>> philosophical enemies in "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism"
>>> written in 1908. Ilyenkov still defends this books in the
>>> mid-1970s, though almost all non-Russian Marxists would say
>>> that it is a terrible book and was written before Lenin had
>>> studied Hegel, etc. In M&EC Lenin makes reflection a central
>>> category, a universal property of matter, etc., and bitterly
>>> attacks the use of semiotics of any kind.
>>>
>>> I have an ambiguous attitude to M&EC myself. Apart from
>>> "sins of omission" perhaps, Lenin is right, but did he
>>> really have to shout it that loud? Well, in the historical
>>> context of the wake of the defeat of the 1905 Revolution,
>>> probably he did. Did all Russian Marxists for the next 100
>>> years have to follow his lead? Probably not.
>>>
>>> I note that in Dot Robbins' book on Vygotsky and Leontyev's
>>> Semiotics etc., Dot defends the notion of reflection. The
>>> situation, as I see it, is that "reflection" has a strong
>>> advantage and an equally strong disadvantage in conveying a
>>> materialist conception of sensuous perception.
>>>
>>> On one side it emphasises the objectivity of the
>>> image-making - there is nothing in the mirror, or if there
>>> is, it is an imperfectionit which distorts the image. On the
>>> other side, mirror-imaging is an entirely passive process, a
>>> property of even non-living matter.
>>>
>>> Personally, I think "reflection" belongs to Feuerbachian
>>> materialism, not Marxism, but in historical context, the
>>> position of many Russians who use the concept, is
>>> understandable.
>>>
>>> That's how I see it anyway,
>>>
>>> Andy
>>>
>>> Ed Wall wrote:
>>>
>>>> Martin
>>>>
>>>>       It appears the root is more or less
>>>>
>>>>                        отрaжáть (отрaзить)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> and, at least according to my dictionary, has the sense of  reflecting
>>>> or having an effect. However, my qualifications are dated.
>>>>
>>>> Ed
>>>>
>>>> On Jan 4, 2009, at 7:01 PM, Martin Packer wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  At the end of last year several of us were trying to figure out whether
>>>>> 'reflection' is a good term to translate the way Vygotsky and leontiev
>>>>> wrote
>>>>> about 'mental' activity. Michael Roth pointed out that the German word
>>>>> that
>>>>> Marx used was Widerspiegeln rather than Reflektion (see below). I don't
>>>>> think anyone identified the Russian word that was used. I still haven't
>>>>> found time to trace the word in Vygotsky's texts, English and Russian.
>>>>> But
>>>>> an article by Charles Tolman suggests that the Russian term was
>>>>> 'otrazhenie.'  Online translators don't like this word: can any Russian
>>>>> speakers suggest how it might be translated?
>>>>>
>>>>> Reflection (German: Widerspiegelung; Russian: otrazhenie)
>>>>>
>>>>> Tolman, C.W. (1988). The basic vocabulary of Activity Theory. Activity
>>>>> Theory, 1, 14-20.
>>>>>
>>>>> Martin
>>>>>
>>>>> On 10/25/08 12:40 PM, "Wolff-Michael Roth" <mroth@uvic.ca> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>  Hi Martin,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Marx does indeed use the term "widerspiegeln" in the sentence you
>>>>>> cite.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Das Gehirn der
>>>>>> Privatproduzenten spiegelt diesen doppelten gesellschaftlichen
>>>>>> Charakter ihrer Privatarbeiten nur wider in den Formen, welche im
>>>>>> praktischen Verkehr, im Produktenaustausch erscheinen - den
>>>>>> gesellschaftlich
>>>>>> nützlichen Charakter ihrer Privatarbeiten also in
>>>>>> der Form, daß das Arbeitsprodukt nützlich sein muß, und zwar für
>>>>>> andre - den gesellschaftlichen Charakter der Gleichheit der
>>>>>> verschiedenartigen
>>>>>> Arbeiten in der Form des gemeinsamen Wertcharakters
>>>>>> dieser materiell verschiednen Dinge, der Arbeitsprodukte.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But the Duden, the reference work of German language says that there
>>>>>> are 2 different senses. One is reflection as in a mirror, the other
>>>>>> one that something brings to expression. In this context, I do not
>>>>>> see Marx draw on the mirror idea.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For those who have trouble, perhaps the analogy with mathematical
>>>>>> functions. In German, what a mathematical function does is
>>>>>> "abbilden," which is, provide a projection of, or reflection, or
>>>>>> whatever. You have the word Bild, image, picture in the verb. But
>>>>>> when you look at functions, only y = f(x) = x, or -x gives you what
>>>>>> you would get in the mirror analogy. You get very different things
>>>>>> when you use different functions, log functions, etc. Then the
>>>>>> relationship between the points on a line no longer is the same in
>>>>>> the "image", that is, the target domain.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We sometimes see the word "refraction" in the works of Russian
>>>>>> psychologists, which may be better than reflection. It allows you to
>>>>>> think of looking at the world through a kaleidoscope, and you get all
>>>>>> sorts of things, none of which look like "the real thing."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Michael
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 25-Oct-08, at 9:01 AM, Martin Packer wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Michael,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Here's one example from Marx, and several from Leontiev, if we can
>>>>>> get into
>>>>>> the Russian too.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "The twofold social character of the labour of the individual appears
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> him, when *reflected* in his brain, only under those forms which are
>>>>>> impressed upon that labour in every-day practice by the exchange of
>>>>>> products." Marx, Capital, Chapter 1, section 4.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> " Activity is a non-additive unit of the corporeal, material life of
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> material subject. In the narrower sense, i.e., on the psychological
>>>>>> plane,
>>>>>> it is a unit of life, mediated by mental *reflection*, by an *image,*
>>>>>> whose
>>>>>> real function is to orientate the subject in the objective world."
>>>>>> Leontiev,
>>>>>> Activity & Consciousness.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> " The circular nature of the processes effecting the interaction of
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> organism with the environment has been generally acknowledged. But
>>>>>> the main
>>>>>> thing is not this circular structure as such, but the fact that the
>>>>>> mental
>>>>>> *reflection* of the objective world is not directly generated by the
>>>>>> external influences themselves, but by the processes through which the
>>>>>> subject comes into practical contact with the objective world, and
>>>>>> which
>>>>>> therefore necessarily obey its independent properties, connections,
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> relations." ibid
>>>>>>
>>>>>> " Thus, individual consciousness as a specifically human form of the
>>>>>> subjective *reflection* of objective reality may be understood only
>>>>>> as the
>>>>>> product of those relations and mediacies that arise in the course of
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> establishment and development of society." ibid
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Martin
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> --
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