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

[Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com>]

mike and all in this intriguing thread about reflection,

reading the exchanges to this point (5 days ago) reminded me of the the notion of reflection in the Chan-Zen buddhist traditions of north east asia and  Japan . . . (and I have no idea what this word is in Korean, Chinese or Japanese).  The following story is classic:

Story of Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch

One day, Hong Ren (Hung-jen), the fifth patriarch, called his disciples together
and instructed them: "Each of you write a verse and bring it to me. I will 
read your verses, and if there is one who is awakened to the cardinal
meaning, I will give him the robe and the Dhama and make him the
Sixth Patriarch. Hurry, Hurry!"

The disciples returned to their cells, overwhelmed by the master's
request. They agreed to let the first among them, Shen Xiu (Shen-hsiu), take on
the task of composing a verse. 
Though well-instructed in the sutras, Shen Xiu was still far
from enlightenment and the master's instructions threw him into a deep
anxiety. At length he produced his verses and at midnight wrote on
    the middle wall of the south hall:
    The body is the Bondhi tree,

    The mind is like a clear mirror.

    At all times we must strive to polish it.

    And must not let the dust collect.

Master Hong Ren was the first to see the verses the next morning.
Assembling of the monks, he burned incense before the inscription on the
wall. The disciples were filled with wonder and consider the question
of succession settled.
The master, however, called Shen Xiu aside. Having confirmed his
suspicion that Shen Xiu had written the verses, the master said to
him: "The verse you wrote shows that you still have not reached
true understanding. You have merely arrived at the front of the
gate but have yet to be able to enter it." As the verses make evident, 
practice can help ordinary persons, but it cannot bring  them to
perfect enlightenment. "You must enter the gate and see your own
original nature..."

He left Shen Xiu to compose further verses. Days passes, but the first monk
of the community could not produce a sign of his enlightenment.

Hui Neng, a young monk, heard about the verse and immediately realized
that it did not express enlightenment. He formulated a new verse 
and have it posted on the wall of the west hall:

    Originally there is no tree of enlightnment,

    Nor is there a stand with a clear mirror.

    From the beginning not one thing exists;

    Where, then, is a grain of dust to cling?

At midnight, Hong Ren summoned Hui Neng and conferred on him the Dharma
of Sudden Enlightenment and the patriarchal robe with the words:
"I make you the Sixth Patriarch."


>From "Zen Buddhism: A History vol.1" by Heinrich Dumoulin, 1994


Maybe the second poem's conclusion about the nature of reflection as presented in the first poem,  emphazing the emptiness of the mirror itself, ,can eliminate one of mike's concerns. Mental "reflection" has absolutely nothing at all to do with the analogical physical mirror metaphor,    that comparison  really confuses things, obscures the dialectical interpenetration of "I" and "me"  (the subject and object of experience, the active, the passive), original distinctions of experience, in themselves have no independent existence.  That's also true of left and right. 


Paul  


--- On Sun, 1/4/09, Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation
To: ablunden@mira.net, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Sunday, January 4, 2009, 8:50 PM

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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> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/
<http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>+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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