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Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation
Andy,
Two questions :
Do you give any weight to *ideality* ?
If you do , what is it in definition -- just once more ?
Mike recently had this to say :
***Along with others, thanks for your thoughtful summarizing and commentary
on Sasha's long note, Steve. To me, the basic idea behind chat as a
framework (sometimes elevated in particular work to the status of a
theoretical
heuristic, perhaps even a theory) is captured by the following statement in
Steve's note which, I believe, reflects the views of Peter and Anna as well..
These two lines of thinking about tools and signs could be seen [[as two sides
of the same coin]] , [[the same essential process]] , [[which may be better understood
now that we have the theory of [ideality/materiality] to work with, (which, as
I mentioned, I believe is an advance over the older "sign/tool" framework
Vygotsky employed).]] The discovery by Ilyenkov that all cultural artifacts,
including internal psychological processes, "contain" (metaphorically
speaking) both ideality and materiality offers new ways to assess earlier
efforts to describe and explain mediation.***
mikr
Best
Haydi
--- On Mon, 1/5/09, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, January 5, 2009, 2:42 AM
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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-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 Skype andy.blunden
Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm
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