RE: [xmca] Layers versus stages

[Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>]

I have never been happy with the construction site model of development which buries the foundations and sees all development in terms of 'upward' expansion, stage on stage. I prefer to think of development more in terms of heaping - as sand forms a heap, getting higher but also spreading at the base as our 'primary' or foundational capabilities continue to affect and  be affected by our later experiences (not just rumbling and festering in the basement!). One problem with the heap analogy is that the sand is arriving from above and gravity ensures that the only movement is down but then every model has to have its limitations!

All the best,

Rod
________________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole [lchcmike@gmail.com]
Sent: 18 June 2010 22:15
To: eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity
Subject: [xmca] Layers versus stages

Larry and others interested in attending to early infancy as part of a
discussion about development --

Attached are a few pages early from Dan Stern's book to which Larry has
pointed us. I am curious about people's thought on the "layers vs. stages"
antinomy/contrast. A couple of questions:

1. Layering appears on the surface at least to deny any process of
sublation. Is this a reasonable interpretation?

2. Layering is specifically associated with the interpersonal sphere and
ideas about the primacy of sociality from the get go and seems contrasted
with the (non-human) object sphere; sort of like
relations and modes of production. So maybe the social sphere is layered and
the object sphere undergoes stage-like transformations?

But, the two are co-constituitive in human life, so would this mean that
ontogenetic change would have features of each?

What think you?
mike
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