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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