Re: [xmca] concept

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

Eric,

Ultimately, a concept is a word associated with some system 
of actions and known to some individual(s). The word is a 
sign for the concept, and a concept is the basic unit of the 
life of some system of practice.

A concept must be distinguished from the properties or 
attributes of a thing. The list of something's attributes is 
not a concept of the thing. A true concept is independent of 
the attributes of any thing and indicates some innovation in 
a system of practice to overcome some problem which arose in 
the development of the relevant social formation.

But thinking in concepts requires both sensuous perception 
of the attibutes of things and the (true) concepts of the 
things. Perception of the attributes of things is called a 
"pseudoconcept" in the CHAT tradition. Real, genuinely 
conscious human activity is the unity of a true concept and 
a pseudoconcept.

Andy

ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
> Hello all:
>
> Recent discussions have caused me to ponder the "concept of concept".  It 
> is not merely a property that something posseses; for water certainly 
> contains hydrogen and oxygen regardless of whether it is labeled as such. 
> However; if I am learning about water than I am provided the opportunity 
> to observe and experiment with the properties water exhibits/contains.  At 
> zero degrees celsius the water freezes, at one hundred degrees celsius it 
> boils.  Again these are properties but as I am learning about them do they 
> become concepts?  That liquids freeze and boil.  Is answering these 
> questions on a science quiz enough to claim a student can conceptualize 
> boiling and freezing?  I believe LSV would answer no.  So then back to the 
> blocks experiment and what precisely was LSV proposing about the 
> development of concepts?
>
> eric
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--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov, 
Ilyenkov $20 ea

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