At any time of day, I think it takes a
certain amount of courage to put an unrehearsed talk on a difficult
topic into the public domain. The talk was for educational purposes -
the kind of thing which normally never leaves the lecture theatre - and
needs to be viewed by aficienados with the generosity it deserves. I am
sure many, many students of Vygotsky will enjoy the good humour and
insight with which you contributed your observations, Peter. Hopefully
others will be prepared to take the same risk.
Andy
smago wrote:
> Just a brief note on the vimeo I did with Andy: Because of time
differences between Australia and EST USA, we scheduled it for 6 AM my
time, which is several hours before I customarily have any human
contact. I surely didn't mean to "complain a lot about how the essay
never really gets over James and Lange," since complaining about
anything is not my purpose in thinking about Vygotsky. The essay on
which the interview is based will appear in MCA at some point (it was
accepted over the summer) and I hope is more coherent in looking at
both P of A and texts from later in LSV's career. p
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
[mailto:
xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of David Kellogg
> Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 3:49 AM
> To: Culture ActivityeXtended Mind
> Subject: Re: [xmca] A matter of priorities in different models
>
> Dear Larry, Ana, and others:
> Vygotsky talks a lot about structure, but he is not a
structuralist. He also talks a lot about function, but he is not a
functionalist. He talks a lot about genetic explanation, but he is no
genetic epistemologist (and condemns Piaget for substituting the
genetic principle for causality).
> Sure, structure is terribly important to Vygotsky. In fact,
STRUCTURE is the key to understanding the gap between his idea of a
zone of proximal DEVELOPMENT as opposed to merely one of learning. New
structures (e.g. role play, rule based games, arithemetic, algebra,
complexes, the "measurement of generality" underlying concepts) allow
the re-_expression_ of learning in an infinite number of ways, quite
independent of their content. So structural change is almost a
touchstone of development vs. learning, the way in which we know that
"one pfennig of development has given us a hundred marks of learning.
Function is important too, and not just because form follows
function; mental structures are the way they are because they do what
they have to do. Function is important because mental functions, not
behavior, provide the content of consciousness. I guess that's why I
don't think that functions can really be said to be independent of
context. When I remember something, I remember a context, and I
remember in a context, in more or less the same way that when I
perceive something I perceive a background and I perceive it inside a
situation.
> A genetic account "explains" function in much the same way that
function has to explain structure. But Vygotsky does not really
describe his psychology as a genetic psychology, at least not in
Chapter One of Thinking and Speech. The term he uses is "causal
dynamic", and in Chapter Two he lays out exactly what that means in
philosophical terms: psychological phenomena are caused, and not simply
reversible functions of experience the way they appear in Piaget. The
arrow of development runs from communication to cognition and it is not
any more reversible than the arrow of time.
> We all know that the arrow of time ran out on Vygotsky. One of
the things we learn from reading the latest revelations from the
Vygotsky archive is that Thinking and Speech was really a Prolegomena
to a much larger work on the subject of consciousness. I had always
assumed that his great unfinished work was the textbook on Child
Development we see outlined in Chapter Five. But I see from Zavershneva
2010 that I was probably wrong.
> Vygotsky died with a gigantic three volume work on consciousness
itself on his mind. He wanted initially to co-author with Leontiev and
Luria, and only reluctantly took it upon himself when both of his dear
disciples proved unreliable. So I am quite willing to re-read the last
sentence of Vygotsky's hasty preface to Thinking and Speech ("This
investigation is broken off on the very threshold") in that dark light.
> What would the great three volume "Capital" of consciousness have
contained? Well, I think the very first volume would have had to
revisit his long essay on the emotions. In Peter Smagorinsky's vimeo
talk on "The Psychology of Art", he complains a lot about how the essay
never really gets over James and Lange. But I think that a lot of the
work that Professor Smagorinsky is really looking for really right
under his nose, in "The Psychology of Art".
> He's right, of course: this is EARLY Vygotsky, and I think that a
reworked "Psychology of Art" would have been much more precise about
the higher esthetic concepts that he thinks distinguish successful art
from the mere "social _expression_ of emotion". I think it would have
been every bit as precise as Chapter Five and Chapter Six of Thinking
and Speech and might even bear more than a passing resemblance to them.
I even think we would get a real sense of what artworks mediate these
higher emotions and how, just as we get a sense of how systematic
school instruction mediate science concepts in Chapter Six. Does that
mean "cold cognition" in art, that is, a system of abstract esthetic
concepts that have nothing to do with interpersonal contexts? I doubt
it. On the contrary. The RELATIONAL aspects of communication in
Tolstoy, for example, are large as life and twice as natural. David
Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
> .
> --- On Thu, 9/16/10, Larry Purss <
lpscholar2@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
>
> From: Larry Purss <
lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> Subject: [xmca] A matter of priorities in different models
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Thursday, September 16, 2010, 10:03 PM
>
>
> Ana Mike and David K
>
> The thread that recently discussed Bahktin's and Vygotsky's
alternative
> perspectives was thought provoking.
> Mike mentioned that we must bracket out some perspectives in order
to focus
> and elaborate other perspectives. He also mentioned that it's very
difficult
> to remain self conscious of our biases.
>
> I agree that whenever we bracket out and turn a searchlight on
phenomena, we
> are going to leave other aspects of the phenomena in darkness.
However, it
> is possible to try to become conscious that one is braceting out
phenomena
> for particular purposes and try to gain insight into the value's
implicit in
> what is bracketed out.
>
> I'm reposting one particular paragraph written by Ana that speaks
to this
> issue of bracketing and hoping for further comments by others.
>
>
> "Although Vygotsky criticized Gestalt Psychology for the lack of
the
> dynamic, developmental approach to the relationship between
language and
> thought, he himself looked at the change of the relationship
between
> language and thought as a change in structural and functional
aspects of
> language and thought -- as decontextualized - synchronic
categories. In
> addition, although Vygotsky insisted on the unity of the affective
and
> intellectual aspects of language-thought and on the "union of
generalization
> and communication", his analysis of communication stayed focussed
on
> transformations of conceptual categories (generalization) and did
not
> concern RELATIONAL aspects of communication. Was the relational
aspect of
> communication somehow there, but just backgrounded? I think it is
the matter
> of priorities -- not just research priorities, but the priorities
IN THE
> WHOLE MODEL and the analysis of development." [Ana]
>
> What do others think of Ana's suggestion that Bahktin's and
> Vygotsky's theoretical models focus on different priorities.
> A similar question was recently posted by Peter S recently when he
asked
>
> "what are the foundational concepts which inform the CHAT
perspective?"
> when he was opening debate on this month's article.
>
> I personally am attempting to deepen my understanding of the
"intersection"
> of these different priorities in a spirit that I believe was
reflected in
> Ana's thought provoking analysis.
>
> 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
>
>
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Home Page:
http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Videos:
http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
Book:
http://www.brill.nl/scss
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca