That clarifies, thanks Eric.
David
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-
bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 10:10 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Fw: [xmca] Rom Harre quote on acts and activity(tolman
article)
----- Forwarded by ERIC RAMBERG/spps on 07/29/2010 10:09 AM -----
From: ERIC RAMBERG/spps
To: "David H Kirshner" <dkirsh@lsu.edu>
Date: 07/29/2010 09:51 AM
Subject: RE: [xmca] Rom Harre quote on acts and activity(tolman
article)
Hey David:
In the Tolman piece he uses the example of measuring students
success when the variable of teacher 'leniency/strictness' is
controlled and points out that controlling one action variable does
nothing to impact the outcome of the entire activity and therefore
to conclude lenient teachers result in unsuccessful students is an
assumption resulting from a false premise.
Does that clarify or not?
I apologize for my passive writing, it is something that has plagued
me my entire life.
eric
From: "David H Kirshner" <dkirsh@lsu.edu>
To: <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>
Date: 07/29/2010 08:37 AM
Subject: RE: [xmca] Rom Harre quote on acts and activity(tolman
article)
Eric,
Is the false premise that "measuring change based on variables
doesn't really measure much at all," or that "measuring change based
on variables does measure much?"
David
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-
bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 8:06 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Rom Harre quote on acts and activity(tolman
article)
From a methodological standpoint I really appreciated the Tolman
piece. It provided great insight into the false premise that
measuring change based on variables doesn't really measure much at
all. Rather it only parcels out actions when what really needs to
be analyzed is the activity as a whole. I also appreciate the
emphasis on appropriation of societal traditions as being the crux
of individual development. Thank you for sharing mike, I am hoping
that Charles (chuck, chaz, charlie?) could provide some words of
wisdom that perhaps he has gleaned in the couple decades since
publishing this article.
eric
From: Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
To: lchcmike@gmail.com, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: 07/28/2010 09:58 PM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Rom Harre quote on acts and activity
Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
Mike
I agree about the ideal of "both/and" approaches. However, when I
see an account such as Rom Harre wrote that explores the historical
roots of a particular movement such as "biolgical determinism" or
"radical individualism" it helps me to situate particular discourse
traditions and locate the historical evolution of the concepts
within particular sociocultural traditions.
This is also why I wanted to read "The Sociocultural Turn in
Psychology"
so
I could differentiate historically the "discursive", dialogical",
hermeneutical"', and "activity" approches as particular historical
traditions. By comparing and contrasting the various accounts [and
seeing similarities and contrasts] I'm able to attempt to coordinate
multiple perspectives, and ideally be able to imaginally construct
linkages between the various historical traditions and thereby
develop a deeper appreciation of the common themes within the
various traditions.
Mike, your response, and your bringing Tolman into the
conversation is exactly the spirit in which I post these either/or
reflections. I see them as steps in a process of differentiation of
ideas as a first step towards a new synthesis. I also want to
emphasize that on CHAT I recognize discursive, dialogical, and
hermeneutical themes being engaged in lively debate with activity
theory. However, I am often confused as I try to differentiate
between the approaches and therefore I appreciate articles which
explicitly compare and contrast alternative perspectives on a common
theme.
I plan on reading the Tolman article in the next few days in the
same spirit of inquiry as conversation.
Larry
On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 4:40 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
Interesting, Larry-
It would be interesting to gather up all the various attempts to
explicate the relationship between cultural-historical, activity
centered
theories and socio-cultural studies theories. There have been a lot!
My personal preference is to work out the intricacies of an
approach
in
which the attempt is to understand the AND/BOTH of the two positions
you/Harre outline, not the either or of them.
To pick up on just one point, which is discussed in the Tolman
article
I sent around: It is a tenet of AT that action and activity are of
different orders/levels of scale, and that actions could be parts of
other activities.
Here is how Tolman summarized the issues (this is only a fragments,
as
is
Larry's note); perhaps more fragments will emerge here.
So, Tolman writes:
[A human being’s] sense of action lies not in the action itself but
in
his
r
elation to other members of the group. As Leont'ev argues (in his
thought
experiment example of primal human hunting):
The separation of an action necessarily presupposes the possibility
of
the
active subject's
psychic reflection of the relation between the objective motive
[getting food] and the object
of the action [driving it away]. ... [T]he beater's action is
possible
*onl*
*y *on condition
of his reflecting the link between the expected result of the action
performed by him and
the end result of the hunt as a whole.... (1959/1981, p. 212)
The emergence of action as a coordinated part of social activity
performed
by an individual must be accompanied by a shared meaning of the
action that is reflected consciously by the actor. This is reflected
in
the
fact (among others) that the roles of beater and bagger in the hunt
are
in
principle interchangeable. The role of each participant must be
decided
beforehand. One participant may prove to be better in one role than
another
and the assigner of roles may come to appear fixed, but this does
not affect the underlying interchangeability. Although the situation
is
immensely more complicated in our own society by the dependence of
essential actions on training and education, the underlying principle
remains
the same.
Thus the necessary, conscious division of labor in human society is
the
most obvious indicator of the individual human's *s**o**ciet**a**l
*nature.
The
individual
is truly human *only *in society. Indeed, a still stronger conclusion
can be argued: that human individuality itself is achievable only in
society .
The *a**bstra**ct *individual of bourgeois individualism is a figment
of the ideological Imagination.
There are also lots of ways of approaching the notion of context, as
you note, Larry. What are some others that we ought to put in dialog
here?
The one Tolman is contrasting to the position above is America's
dominant
view of contextualism in development, Richard Lerner, and his
colleagues.
In particular, i wonder what sort of a contrasting notion of context
might
arise within the framework that Harre put in discussion with CHAT?
mike
On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 8:53 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
wrote:
Andy, this is a continuation of your thread on reading Kirschner and
Martin's edited book. Mike and Natalia Gajdamaschko elaborated a
particular account of the term "context".
My copy of the book "The Sociocultural Turn in Psychology" recently
arrived
in the mail and I've just read Rom Harre's article "Public Sources
of
the
Personal Mind" and his perspective on persons in context within
developmental psychology.
He suggests that historically there have been two distinct
movements within sociocultural accounts of developmental psychology.
1) A movement that could be called "psychologists against biological
determinism". The central question within this movement is "Whence
come
our
cognitive skills, emotional propensities, and repertoires of
personality
displays?" There are two kinds of constraints on the kinds of minds
that
Vygotskian processes can induce in a human being. The first
constraint
is
that the embodied human brain has an inherited architecture. The
other
limiting constraint is set by the history of sociocultural contexts.
These
constraints limit but do NOT determine the person.
2)There is another movement that Harre calls "Psychologists against
radical
individualism" The central question in this movement is "Are
cognitive
and
emotional phenomena ALL and ONLY attributes of individual persons?"
Harre
points out that the roots of this movement are different from that
of
the
Vygotskian developmentalist school. This 2nd movement is attempting
to
"identify a domain of psychological phenomena that are neither
patterns
of
large-scale collectivities, such as revolutionary movements, nor
attributes
of individuals such as disloyal thoughts kept to oneself". [Harre
references John Shotter as representative of this movement]
Harre points out developmental accounts should embrace values and
normative
explanations of persons in contexts. "This means that psychological
processes are to be interpreted largely as the result of the
management"
[and coordination] "of meanings in accordance with the rules and
conventions of the relevant practice". Intentionality (meaning) and
normativity (conformity to rules and conventions) not cause and
affect, need to be
the
FRAMEWORK concepts of psychological studies. This recognizes the
centrality
of the root metaphor of cognition AS CONVERSATION. [discursive]
Harre suggegsts persons form identities by following particular
normative
storylines. However Harre emphasizes that
"the SAME sequence of actions, for which certain criteria of
identity
can
be drawn on, may be the bearer of more than one psychological
REALITY.
...Actions and ACTS are not in one to one correspondence. If
meanings
-that
is, ACTS - are constitutive of social and psychological REALITY,
then
the
same action sequence may be the bearer of more than one ACT
SEQUENCE,
and
so
of more than one social and psychological REALITY".(p.36)
I think the above quote is central to Harre's account that
psychological
processes, though constrained and constituted within particular
situated
ACTIVITY, can generate MULTIPLE ACTS of intentionality [meaning]
The recognition of the interplay between TACIT first order
coordination of activity within traditions [which is not reflective
but still communicative] and EXPLICIT 2nd order meaningful ACTS as
REFLECTIVE and volitional suggests the "psychological reality" of
persons that emerge within normative sociocultural practices. The
emergence of this agentic
capacity
to reflectively ACT within activity [and not simply react to
activity]
is
a central developmental dynamic process forming the personal mind.
It is the formation of the psychological realm of 2nd order "acts"
as volitional, reflective and coordinated [and the perceived
relationship between 2nd order ACTS and 1st order tacit activity]
that seems to be a central topic of debate within sociocultural
accounts of psychology.
Do others agree with the way Rom Harre contrasts the two
historically separate traditions or movements within the emerging
discipline of sociocultural psychology? Reducing the person to
either biology or
radical
individualism is problematic and sociocultural accounts are
challenging
these reductive explanations.
Larry
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca