What EXACTLY is the relationship between these three terms? Attached is an essay-lette by Paula which tries to address this question on the basis of Chapter Five which she has kindly allowed me to distribute.
Paula argues, suitably, that there are really THREE different processes here.
a) The child's ability to GENERALIZE, to impose SIMILARITIES on top of differences. Vygotsky calls this the ability to create generalized representations and notes that the result may look like a concept, act like a concept, but it is structurally not a concept (because it lacks voluntary abstraction)
b) The child's ability to ISOLATE and ABSTRACT AWAY traits such as color, weight, size from other traits. Vygotsky sees this as as the very opposite tendency from generalization, because it involves focussing on how one trait is different from another (and consequently allows the child to differentiate traits within the object itself and not simply between them.
c) The child's ability to FREE him/herself from the visual field. Vygotsky sees this as one of the key byproducts of play, and it seems to me that this more than anything else is what divides him from Piaget, for whom all play is a form of assimilation rather than a liberation from the perceptual field.
Do these three different processes correspond to three different terminologies? That is, does the pseudoconcept correspond to the product of generalization, the preconcept to the process of abstraction, and the potential concept to that of liberatoin from the visual field?
Paula doesn't think so. Paula says that the pseudoconcept, the preconcept, and the potential concept are three alternative terms for the same thing: a elusive rope bridge connecting the complexive formations and the true concept that must necessarily include three strands.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
Attachment:
The essay-lette on the question of potential concepts and apparent contradictions.docx
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