"Broken tools" is not the central idea, it's just the lead example.
Heidegger would say we can use tools zuhanden-ly without (in the
context of this thread) being "conscious" of them in the same way as
when we think about them as vorhanden -- like a scientist engaged
not in using it, but in theorizing about it. When a tool stops
working, then we shift attitude from using it in its Zuhandenheit to
attending to it consciously in its Vorhandenheit. The broken tool is
just the classic example in H, but I think the concepts might apply
also to the Zuhandenheit of the printed words when reading for the
meaning, versus the Vorhandenheit of the printed text when it, for
whatever reason, becomes the focus of conscious attention.
I don't want to say more about this since others on this list are so
much more knowledgeable than I am about Heidegger.
I don't know much about reading instruction, but I do know
absolutely how it was in my Chinese classes. It was in the third
year class that we could read texts in Chinese characters aloud at a
reasonable pace. When others were reading aloud, I could follow the
text with understanding. When I was the one reading aloud, I was one
of the more proficient lectors in the class; but when I reached the
end of my reading I could say nothing about what I had just read.
On Tue, 18 Aug 2009, Mike Cole wrote:
Sorry this came to me via gmail in two disparate threads.
So Andy IS talking about operations-actions.
Tony asks about broken tools, which, in a way, typos are.
To put a tiny bit more flesh on my questions about consciousness. A
standard
procedure in my college classes when issues of
reading instruction come up is to ask a student to read a passage
from the
assigned readings out loud. Sans typos, the standard
reaction, even with text that student can discuss pretty well, is
that the
person who reads out loud cannot say anything about the
content of the paragraph read.
What does this mean for the discussion of consciousness?
Why is reading aloud a standard practice in reading instruction
classrooms?
mike
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