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Re: [xmca] Influence (heyerdahl aside)
Andy,
One of my favorite books as a boy. I remember that very well, in particular because heyerdahl and crew weren't themselves totally sure the balsa logs wouldn't saturate. Do you think social theorists, whose balsa is often waterlogged, have the same doubt, or even any way to ffind out? Heyerdahl just needed his pocket knife to determine that the saturation reached a certain point an no deeper into the logs. p.s. Kon is the name of one of the most famous andean deities, and in the form: Kon Ticsi Wiracocha, a world creator.
Paul
--- On Sat, 8/8/09, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Influence
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Saturday, August 8, 2009, 6:51 PM
Yes but ... David referred to this. As far as I can see all the biographers of Vygotsky get this idea from the same source, Semyon Dobkin's interview in Karl Levitin's book. We have to go there and make our own mind up about what it means. And the only other evidence is reading what Vygotsky says in his published writings.
In my opinion, neither of these sources lad one to believe that he actually read Hegel.
Did anyone ever read Thor Hayerdal's "Kontiki" about how everyone insisted that balsa wood sank in water. He tried it. It didn't sink. Turned out that one writer had said but this without trying it, and everyone repeated what that one author had said, and it became an established fact.
Andy
Martin Packer wrote:
> This is my favorite:
>
> "[Vygotsky] presided over local Jewish history study circle (where he met Hegel)"
>
> From "Time line of Lev Vygotsky's Life":
>
> <http://inst.usu.edu/~mimi/courses/6260/theorists/Vygotsky/vygotime.html>
>
> I've often wondered what Hegel was doing during the early 20th century. Apparently he was studying history in Russia! I wonder what he and LSV talked about.
>
> Martin
>
>
> On Aug 8, 2009, at 11:05 AM, Martin Packer wrote:
>
>> "Both Mead and Vygotsky studied Hegel's writings intensively"
>>
>> Van der Veer, R. (1987). The relation between Vygotsky and Mead reconsidered. A comment on Glock.
>> Studies in East European Thought. 34, Numbers 1-2 / July, 1987
>>
>>> Do people have any opinions on this?
>>>
>>> I suspect that the concept of "influence" is more widely applied than can be justified. When is a "source" an "influence"?
>>>
>>> For example, Google gave me the following quotes:
>>>
>>> ---------------
>>>
>>> "Vygotsky was influenced by Marxist theorists" (wik.ed.uiuc.edu)
>>>
>>> "Vygotsky was influenced by Dewey" (Cambridge Companion)
>>>
>>> "Vygotsky was influenced by his contemporaries" (Peter Lloyd, Charles Fernyhough)
>>>
>>> "Vygotsky was influenced by thinkers like Spinoza, Freud, Marx and Piaget" (www.oise.utoronto.ca)
>>>
>>> "Vygotsky was influenced by the writings of Marx, Engels, and Hegel. He was also influenced by Piaget, Blonskii, and Werner" (Moll)
>>>
>>> "Vygotsky was influenced by Janet's ideas on ..." (Grigorenko)
>>>
>>> "Vygotsky was influenced by and influenced many theorists. Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, Albert Bandura, Etienne Wenger, and Dewey are just a few." (jonliu.com)
>>>
>>> ---------------
>>>
>>> I think the first three are tenable, but the rest are not. We are "influenced" by people we interact with and those answering to the same times and problems as us. But what can I make of a claim that Vygotsky was "influenced" by Spinoza, who lived about 250 years before him? Everyone contributes to an intellectual situation and we respond to that situation, but does that amount to "influence"? "Influence" belongs to a behaviorist's lexicon I think, as it discounts any agency on the one being "influenced."
>>>
>>> I'm sure I'm not the first person to raise this. Is there a distinction which is usually brought to bear here?
>>>
>>> Andy
>>>
>>>
>>> -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Andy Blunden (Erythrós Press and Media) http://www.erythrospress.com/
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>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
> Martin Packer, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor
> Psychology Department
> Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA 15282
> (412) 396-4852
>
> www.mathcs.duq.edu/~packer/
>
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>
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden (Erythrós Press and Media) http://www.erythrospress.com/
Orders: http://www.erythrospress.com/store/main.html#books
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