Martin,
Just one quote :
[[Mind arises at a certain stage of the evolution of life not
by chance out of necessity.i.e. naturally . But in what does
the necessity of its origin consist? Clearly, if mind is not
simply a purely subjective phenomenon, and not just an
'epiphenomenon' of objective processes, [but a property that
has real importance in life] , the necessity of its origin
is governed by the evolution of life itself . More complex
conditions of life require an organism to have the capacity,
to reflect objective reality in the form of the simplest sensa-
tions. The psyche is not simply 'added' to the vital functions
of organisms, but arises in the course of their development
and provides the basis for a qualitatively new, higher form
of life-life linked with mind, with a capacity to reflect real-
ity.
This implies that in order to disclose the transition from
living matter that still has no psyche to living matter that
has one, we have to proceed not from internal subjective states
by themselves, separated from the subject's vital activity,
or from behaviour taken in isolation from mind, or
merely as that through which mental states and processes
are studied, but from the real unity of the subject's mind
and activity, and to study their internal reciprocal connections
and transformations.]]
Here we read there was a time when the organism faced
*undifferentiated* flat
environmet ; in his A,C,P , Leontiev also alludes to the idea of
environment
once having been *objectless* for the organism , then at a higher
stage having
faced *object-based differentiated* environment .
If I'm right in my reading , first the rustling in the environment
triggers
the frog to be led then to the food direct (insect) . This is when
Leontiev
says need is not sufficient clue to activity ; it must hit an object .
The other problem with your *dualism* vs *monism* is explained as
follows :
Leontiev says at one time in evolution , it's not been the case that the
organism has been able to see the thing once ; the image of that
thing twice
. He has seen just one . Here we face the idea of the extension of
matter . In
his book Lenin says quite clearly extension , time , place ,
causality are
intrinsic to the Matter . Monism says the superhuman existence is the
extension of **matter** . These are not two but one and and the same
thing .
Decartes , Hume , you well know had a different problem in view . They
believed in so-called one SOULED-body . Soul having been incarnated
, as Andy
says , in the Air and detachable capable of leading independent life
This is
Dualism . But when you believe in *Mind* being just a *property* of
matter ,
then philosophical dualism is eliminated . And here is again where I
could say
when you initiate with *culture* as one agental transformative , we
object as
you placing yourselves just midway ignoring *continuity*
disconnecting culture
from its whereabout/origin .
Best
Haydi
--- On Mon, 1/5/09, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, January 5, 2009, 2:51 PM
'Sad' because my sense is that if one wants to avoid dualism - crucial
for
Vygotsky - Lenin's writing about 'reflection' isn't the way to
go. I don't
know the details well, but from what I have read Lenin assumed a simple
dualism in which mental representations 'reflect' the real world. The
'image' may be reversed, but still it is in a realm quite different
from the
real. (Bakhurst discusses Lenin's philosophy in *Consciousness and
Revolution* if I remember correctly.)
I recently read through *Problems of the Development of Mind*, which
Michael
and Andy generously made available (it fell down my chimney early one
morning) and was disappointed to discover how little Leontiev seems
to have
avoided dualistic ways of thinking/writing. Here too the relation of
psyche
to world is expressed in terms of 'reflection,' for example:
"The transition to existence in the conditions of a complex
environment formed as things is therefore expressed in or-
ganisms' adaptation to it taking on a qualitatively new form
associated with reflection of the properties of a material,
objective reality of things" (44)
The sense of reflection is not very clear in this excerpt, but the
term is
used repeatedly in ways that generally suggest Leontiev sees the psyche
forming subjective representations of an objective reality. Perhaps
this can
be saved by drawing on Marx's use of 'widerspiegeln,' which as
Michael
points out avoids the connotations of mirroring. But at least it invites
readings of CHAT which don't challenge the dualism in contemporary
western
social science.
By the way, although the repeated presentations of the same notions in
Leontiev's book made me suspicious along the way, it wasn't until the
very
end that I discovered (from an endnote) that it is a compilation of
articles
from very different dates. I'd recommend reading it in chronological
order
to get a clearer sense of how his ideas developed. For instance, I
need to
go back to see how his relative emphasis shifted between the child's
encounter with objects, and adult guidance of this encounter. At
times the
latter is not mentioned, at others it is added on ("by the way..."),
and at
times it is highlighted. But since the chapters are out of order, I
don't
yet have a clear sense of the chronology of these shifts.
Martin
On 1/4/09 11:50 PM, "Mike Cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
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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