Re: [xmca] Vygotsky vs. Bakhtin (or, The Interpersonal Is Not the Sociocultural Redux)

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Ana
I appreciate the way you differentiated Vygotsky's and Bahktin's alternative
frames of reference.  I often find myself reflecting on these alternative
frameworks for "understanding" our place in the world.
The previous post on "learning" as a "human science" as opposed to a "design
science" also seems to carry this tension between conceptual development and
relational development within community.
I have been reading an article in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology
written by Roger Frie, from the Educational Faculty of SFU. Its title is
"The Existential and the Interpersonal: Ludwig Binswanger and Harry Stack
Sullivan.

Ludwig Binswanger was an "existentialist" who practised psychotherapy but
challenged Freud's notions of sexual motivation and developed a theory of
intersubjectivity and the growth of self within relationships.  Binswanger
was influenced by Martin Buber's notion of "I-Thou" relationships,
but rejected Buber's theological and religious foundations.

He was also influenced by Heiddeger's notion of always being situated "in
the world" but rejected Heiddeger's notion of the self as an isolated,
ENCAPSULATED ego, and articulated a position that we are always in relation
to other humans and the world around us.  Binswanger rejected the notion of
a subject-object dichotomy nor a division between subjective and objective
experience.
Binswanger's conception of a "matrix of relations" within which the person
discovers meaning was a key conceptual tool for understanding human
existence.
Binswanger enlarged Heidegger's conception of world to include THE HORIZON
in which human beings live and through which they understand themselves.
Binswanger recognized 3 SIMULTANEOUS modes of this horizon.

1) UMWELT: constituting the environment within which the person exists.
2) MITWELT: The world of social relations.
3) EIGENELT: The private world of the self.

Binswanger interprets Heiddeger as recognizing only the UMWELT [what
Binswanger termed the "They-self"] and the EIGENELT [the personal "I-self"]
Binswanger believes Heiddeger omitted the POSITIVE possibility of
"being-with-one-another".[MITWELT] That is the being-in-one-another of first
and SECOND person perspectives.  Binswanger' called the structure of
this MITWELT  mode of self relating the "we-self".  Self-realization for
Binswanger is achieved through ENGAGEMENT in a RECIPROCAL, MUTUAL relation
to others.

The 3 modes simultaneously CONSTITUTE a person's world-design and the
therapist's focus was to try to understand how persons RELATE to others and
the world.  Binswanger rejected interpreting experiences in terms of a
mental apparatus.  The person and world ARE ONE, and it is always a process
of understanding a person's relationship to others.  Binswanger asked "how
does the person STRUCTURE the world in which they live" and was NOT  focused
on building structures WITHIN THE PERSONALITY.  {Freud's approach}

In 1936 Binswanger wrote to Buber

"I not only follow in your every step, but see in you an ally, not only
against Kierkegaard, but also against Heiddegger.  Although I am
methodologically deeply indebted to Heidegger, [I take exception to].... his
conception of Dasein (as mine) it is very important [to me] that you want to
achieve a conceptualization of the PUBLIC which is NOT LIMITED to the
MULTITUDE and the THEY.

The problem of relation or DIALOGICAL life is central to Buber's and
Binswanger's entire philosophy and the person cannot be FULLY understood
apart from the "we-self" mode of relating.  To consider only one or the
other person in relation is a MIGHTY ABSTRACTION.  The individual is a FACT
of existence insofar as he steps into a living relation with another person.
The FUNDAMENTAL FACT of human existence is human being with human being.

The character of the relationship is always DETERMINED by which of the basic
WORDS is spoken. The I in the "I-Thou" relation is fundamentally different
from the I that speaks from the "I-IT" relation.  As Frie states in the
article,

"Dialogue, in this sense, is not only a mode of LINQUISTIC communication but
denotes the INTERHUMAN DIMENSION GENERALLY.
The German philosopher Michael Theunissen elaborates this point when he
states that

"While according to Heiddegger, the self can only come to ITSELF in a
VOLUNTARY SEPARATION [distanciation] of itself from the other self,
according to Buber [the self] has its being SOLELY in the relation....
Personal subjectivity does not possess its substantial fullness beyond the
relationship to the other.... its fullness is entirely encompassed by the
relation.

Binswanger brackets Buber's theistic dimension and understands the "we-self"
as existing only between human beings and is an "intersubjective" theory of
human interaction.  However, both Buber and Binswangerfor recognize
that there is always a tension between the "I-it"relationship  [they-self]
and the mutual "we-self" mode of relationship.

Andy
 Binswanger's theory is indebted to Hegel's dialectic of recognition, which
Binswanger calls a special form of love in which the UNITY of two
self-consciousnesses continue to  exist within a relationship where the
"I-self" of each for themselves also exists.  It is this dual mode of
existence that is definative of the I-Thou  relation. For Hegel, the nature
of this tension is paradoxical. Self-consciousness must not only win the
recognition of the other, but also acknowledge the other as existing for
himself or herself.  Each self consciousness must exist both for itself and
for the other.  Both self-consciousnesses recognize themselves as MUTUALLY
RECOGNIZING each other.  The idea of mutual recognition is implied in
Binswanger's "we-self" or we dimension of relationships.

Jessica Benjamin, in her book "The Bonds Of Love" writes from this
perspective that recognition  gives rise to a contradiction.  She writes,

"recognition is that response from the other which makes meaningful the
feelings, intentions, and actions of the self. IT ALLOWS THAT SELF TO
REALIZE ITS AGENCY [volition, will] AND AUTHORSHIP IN A TANGIBLE WAY. But
such recognition can ONLY COME from another whom we in turn, recognize as a
person in his or her own right."

In other words, recognition must always be accompanied by acknowledgement OF
DIFFERENCE.  Binswanger emphasizes that recognition of the singular and
particular, and the moment of existence AS WE is thoroughly dialectical and
paradoxical. Only thus can the "we" become a basis for self-recognition. It
is this "we" that makes possible myself and yourself.

Classical psychoanalysis stressed separation and autonomy from the other.
The emphasis in Binswanger's existential-interpersonal approach is on
DEEPENING OUR UNDERSTANDING of our continuing relationship to others in
mutual and direct "I-Thou" relationships.  Expanded awareness is generated
within MUTUAL interaction. In the "we-self" the sense of individual self is
NOT DISSOLVED, but ENHANCED through mutual interaction and the primacy of
relatedness.  From Binswanger's perspective, intrapsychic experiences are
secondary to the interpersonal field and individual experience as
subordinate to relational experience.

The young Hegel expresses this perspective when he stated "the raging of
love against individuality"

Binswanger, in his work, used a scale as a tool to reflect on relationships.
He distinqishes the "I-THOU" relation on the one end, and individualized
existence without relatedness to someone or something on the other end.  For
Binswanger, human nature finds its highest fullfillment in the I-Thou
relation or "we-self" as we experience the DUALITY of human nature.

Ana, this was an extended response from another "tradition" which also was
exploring the same themes as Bahktin.  I'm not sure how "existential"
frameworks are viewed by others, but I wanted to point out that there is a
tradition of exploring the "existential-interpersonal" that challenges
notions of "authentic" persons as having to distanciate from the "they-self"
in ordr to achieve self reflection.

Larry





10 at 11:52 AM, Ana Marjanovic-Shane <ana@zmajcenter.org> wrote:

> Dear David,
>
> The two quotes and stand points that you write about, the perspectives of
> Bakhtin  and Vygotsky do not have the same focus.  Bakhtin and Vygotsky, I
> would say, have two different frames of mind -- their concerns are
> different. It is not that they are not looking at the seemingly the same
> phenomenon, but they are looking at it with different concerns and for
> different reasons.
>
> It is ironical, that Vygotsky, who brought to our attention the social in
> the individual, was actually concerned with the birth, growth and the
> development of one's understanding and experiencing (perezhivanie) the world
> through personal transformation of concepts, attitudes and sensibilities
> ("transformation of water into wine") -- so he ultimately was concerned
> about the epistemological issues. What was remarkable is that he realized
> that the real life moment (social-cultural-historical - structural qualities
> of the environment) and the relationships with others -- represent
> simultaneously the substance of the developing individual and the shaping
> and formatting tools (mediation) of the developmental process. But still
> Vygotsky's main concern was the individual development (and through it the
> raise toward the absolute (god?)) toward more powerful forms of
> comprehension (not only cognitive, but in all its aspects).
>
> On the other hand, I see Bakhtin as being concerned with human
> relationships, their quality and their impact on the people who relate --
> their ontological substance in terms of life and death, power and
> subordination, love and hate, honoring and despising, leading and
> following... He was concerned about conditions for a person to grow in the
> relationships in which s/he is fair and just and is being treated fairly and
> justly. And he was concerned with various implications of these
> relationships, expectations, fears and hopes on how one perceives the world
> and her/himself. So I would say that for Bakhtin - the epistemological was
> in the service of the prevailing concern with human existence (ontological)
> and that the measure of development was not in the complexity of one's
> concepts, but in the complexity and morality of one's relationships and
> deeds (postupak) toward others.
>
> So if for Vygotsky it was important to study all that is part of the
> process by which one finds the Truth, for Bakhtin, truth is a means of
> creating your voice, which  can only be achieved by penetrating and being
> penetrated by the voices of the others -- i.e. entering into passionate and
> compassionate relationships and as he says finding yourself in them
> (returning to yourself).
>
> And in that light -- you can see that the concern with the ultimate
> enlightenment and the raise toward knowledge, and by implication toward the
> Truth -- can be "objectivized" (i.e. universal, decontextualized, and
> scientific) and stripped off of "value statements", i.e. made "godless".
> And, also one can see that the concern with with the deeply relational
> understanding of the other and the empathy in human interaction, can be
> motivated by a very religious drive to find human virtue (as a spiritual
> category) -- where knowledge and the clarity of concepts are measured not by
> their structural and systemic properties, but by their ethical value
> (Bakhtin's "postupok") in creating and shaping relationships.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Ana
>
>
>
> __________________________
> Dr. Ana Marjanovic-Shane
> Assistant Professor of Education
> Chestnut Hill College
> e-mails:  Marjanovic-ShaneA@chc.edu
>                 ana@zmajcenter.org
>                 anamshane@gmail.com
> Phone:    267-334-2905 (cell)
>
>
>
>
> On Sep 4, 2010, at 3:07 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
>
> > I've often puzzled over the paradox that the ostensible believer Bakhtin
> appears to deny the very possibility of the abstract absolute, while the
> ostensibly unbelieving Vygotsky clearly affirms it in his "measure of
> generality" and his work on concept formation, and above all in his
> "Psychology of Art" and on creativity.
> >
> > Bakhtin appears to think that existence is an endless but ultimately
> godless carnival, with the low and high constantly changing places. If God
> exists, it is largely thanks to the devil, to whom he must be very closely
> related, if not on intimate terms. On the other hand, the genuinely godless
> Jew Vygotsky thinks that Jacob's ladder was a great spiral staircase, and
> man is always headed for the Crown of Glory (that is, the concept) no matter
> how often he seems to turn in circles.
> >
> > It's almost as if Bakhtin believes that the mere impossiblity of God does
> nothing to lessen his reality in the Son of Man, while Vygotsky believes
> that the mere possibility of God in the mind of man suggests that he must be
> overthrown, abolished, and supplanted by the sons of men.
> >
> > See if you can figure out who this is:
> >
> > "The life situation of a suffering human being that is really experienced
> from within may prompt me to perform an ethical action, such as providing
> assistance, consolation or cognitive reflection. But in any event my
> projection of myself into him must be followed by a return into myself, a
> return to my own place outside the suffering person, for only form this
> place can the material derived from my projecting myself into the other be
> rendered meaningful ethically, cognitively, or esthetically. If this return
> into myself did not actually take place, the pathological phenomenon of
> experiencing another's suffering as one's own would result--an infection
> with another's suffering, and nothing more."
> >
> > And this?
> >
> > “Art would have a dull and ungrateful task if its only purpose were to
> infect one or many persons with feelings. If this were so, its significance
> would be very small, because there would be only a quantitative expansion
> and no qualitative expansion beyond an individual’s feeling The miracle of
> art would then by like the break miracle of the Gospel, when five barley
> loaves and two small fishes fed thousands of people, all of whom ate and
> were satisfied, and a dozen baskets were filled with the remaining food.
> This miracle is only quantitative: thousands were fed and were satisfied,
> but each of them ate only fish and bread. But was this not their daily diet
> at home, without any miracles? (…) The miracle of art reminds us much more
> of another miracle in the Gospel, the transformation of water into wine.
> Indeed, art’s true nature is that of transubstantiation, something that
> transcends ordinary feelings; for the fear, pain, or excitement caused by
> > art includes something above and beyond its normal, conventional
> content.”
> >
> > Both are attacking the Tolstoyan idea that art is a kind of disease,
> spreading emotion like a one of the plagues that Moses and Aaron visited
> upon the Pharoah. Both believe, as Brecht did, that art requires an
> objectifying move; that the tennis ball in play can never understand the
> laws of motion, and man in the grip of passion cannot really make sense of
> emotion either. (This, for me, was Spinoza's really great contribution,
> Andy!)
> >
> > But for one the going out and the coming back is quite enough; God goes
> out to man in the form of Christ and returns to himself in order to bestow
> perfect forgiveness. For the other, on the other hand, the whole thing must
> be turned on its head: instead of the sociocultural emerging from the sum
> total of the interpersonal, the interpersonal may only truly be made sense
> of as a microcosm of the sociocultural.
> >
> > David Kellogg
> > Seoul National University of Education
> >
> >
> >
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