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Re: [xmca] The Problem of the environment
Andy
This is a fascinating topic.
You mention that we should be careful not to read into Vygotsky an
"intellectual" explanation for the child "understanding" the situation of
development.
However you are suggesting that Vygotsky IS articulating the fundamental
role that NEEDS play in relation to the child's environment. Also the
concept of CONSTITUTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS [dispositions] plays a PRIMARY
role in Vygotsky's theory of perezhivanie. Vygotsky wrote
"In one situation some of my constitutional characteristics play a primary
role, but in another, different ones may play this primary role which may
not even appear at all in the first case"
Andy, in CHAT perspectives can these constitutional characteristics be
generalized into a few categories or is every need unique, specific and
determined by the situation? If these needs can be categorized then how many
different constitutional characteristics are conceptualized in the theory.
Is it reasonable to consider the term "dispositions" as a synonym for
"constitutional characteristics" Mike's recent post suggests that
perezhivanie involves UNmediated experience which could include
dispositions.
The interplay of NEEDS [concrete or generalized] and DISPOSITIONS
[constitutional characteristics] needs further theorizing. There is another
tradition or Discourse which is also reflecting on dispositions, needs, and
constitutional characteristics, and how they are linked to the environment.
Ghent, Damasio, Lichtenberg, Edelman, and Daniel Stern are examples of
authors who have written on this topic of motivational systems within a
framework of dynamic systems theory. [I'm not sure how CHAT views Dynamic
systems theory?]
Just wondering
Larry
On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 8:25 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> I see. I think the way Vygotsky makes and illustrates his point is open to
> misinterpretation, and in my opinion, Lydia Bozhovich misinterprets it
> actually!
> In relation to what you say, I think it would be a mistake to conclude from
> Vygotsky's refusal to theorise a situation as objective, that we ought to
> theorize the subjective as well. The difficult point he is trying to make is
> that the situation is subjective/objective and there is no sense in talk of
> objective on one hand and subjective on the other. This is a problem of
> philosophy which goes back, in my view, to Fichte, who introduced the notion
> of activity specifically to overcome this problem.
>
> How to explain this? Not easy. Our thinking is so locked into subjective
> and objective as two distinct domains. Vygotsky tried to illustrate it by
> means of 3 siblings, not in the same situation, but maybe we could say
> apparently in the same situation, to the dichotomous observer so to speak.
> This does not mean that he thinks that subjective level of development is
> /another factor /to be taken into account; /au contraire/.
>
> Bozhovich, on the other hand, ascribes an “intellectualist” view to
> Vygotsky when she says that Vygotsky “felt that the nature of experience in
> the final analysis is determined by how children understand the
> circumstances affecting them, that is, by how developed their ability to
> generalize is.” Here I think Bozhovich take Vygotsky's example to be
> archetypes rather than exemplars.
>
> I have a little article on this here:
> http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/bozhovich.htm but other know far more
> than me, Larry.
>
> Andy
>
> Larry Purss wrote:
>
>> Andy
>>
>> reading Vygotsky's article on he environment focused on the
>> cultural-historical environment as being the "model" that mediates the
>> individuals emerging subjectivity. When Vygotsky describes 3 siblings as
>> developing in unique ways because each child was at a different subjective
>> level of development meant that each child was going through a unique
>> environment even though they were in the same social situation.
>> My question was attempting to explore or bracket the unique subjective
>> aspects of each child and how cultural-historical theory explores or
>> brackets the specific developmental level of each child. As I read Vygotsky
>> on the environment the centrality of subjectivity and emotion of each
>> child's unique developmental level seemed central interacting with
>> environment.
>> My question was how these subjective levels are theorized in CHAT and the
>> place of "subjective" motivation in the theory. Vygotsky, in this article
>> explained each child's position as unique from the other siblings because of
>> each child's level of development.
>> The question is how to understand subjective development as central to
>> CHAT
>> Larry
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 7:14 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net<mailto:
>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>>
>> I don't know if I entirely understand you, Larry. I have benefited
>> recently from reading this article, and reading this and a Lydia
>> Bozhovich article from JREEP, together with Marilyn Fleer and her
>> wonderful group of researchers at Monash Uni. (some of whom have
>> attended the Golden Keys School courses in Russia over the past 2
>> years) and watching Peter Smaogorinsky's talk about Vygotsky's
>> Psychology of Art, into which he trew some insights about
>> /perezhivanija/ culled from conversations with Dot Robbins. All
>> this has leant bucket loads of nuances to the word /perezhivanie/
>> for me.
>>
>> At the moment, I think we have to take a /perezhivanie/ to be an
>> emotion-laden experience, something which could be called a trauma
>> or catharsis, though I am not sure that the strong and
>> transformative associations of these words in English is
>> essential, *and* "social situation of development." SSD, to us
>> non-Russian speakers at least, has a strongly objectivist
>> connotation. But it is not really necessarily so, is it? A
>> situation is only a situation for you insofar as it impinges on
>> your vital needs, within the horizons of your consciousness of
>> those needs (a genetic diseaase you are unaware of may kill you
>> but it cannot drive your psychological development until you learn
>> of it). So a social situation is both subjective and objective. I
>> believe the same is true of /perezhivanie/, normally translated as
>> "lived experience" or "emotional experience." We non-Russian
>> speakers tend to take this concept as subjective. "Experience" is
>> subjective; it has almost always been taken that way in the
>> history of philosophy. But when you think about it, it is not a
>> different concept from "social situation." So I take
>> /perezhivanie/ as meaning both: it is a social situation insofar
>> as it exists within the horizon of your perception and impinges on
>> your needs (it's not a situation if it has no significance for you).
>>
>> So this is a discrete event, not something continuous, as is
>> implied in the words /catharsis /and /trauma/,
>>
>> So it functions as a unit of analysis ... and this is important
>> ... for *consciousness as a whole*. That is, for the entirety of a
>> person's relation to their environment, if we take, as we must,
>> that we mean "consciousness" in the Marxist sense, as "all
>> inclusive." The notion of social situation "connects up" with the
>> experience with the larger social context, from which it is quite
>> inseparable.
>>
>> So I just don't see the place for ideal models here. The concepts
>> above do not idealise in that sense.
>>
>> Does this go to your question, Larry?
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> Larry Purss wrote:
>>
>> Andy
>> Thanks for posting Vygotsky's article The Problem of the
>> Environment" first
>> published in "Foundations of Paedlogy" (1935)
>> I want to bracket on e paragraph for further reflection.
>>
>> ".... the ESSENTIALfactors which explain the influence of
>> environment on the
>> psychological development of children, and on the development
>> of their
>> conscious PERSONALITIES, are made up of their emotional
>> experiences
>> [petrezhivanija]. The emotional experience [perezhivane]
>> ARISING from any
>> situation or from any aspect of this environment, DETERMINES
>> what KIND of
>> influence this situation or this environment will have on the
>> child.
>> Therefore, it is not any of the factors IN THEMSELVES (if
>> taken without
>> reference to the child) which determines how they will
>> influence the
>>
>> future course of his development, but the SAME FACTORS
>> REFRACTED through the
>> PRISM OF THE CHILD"S EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE [perezhivanie]...."
>>
>> I recognize that perezhivanie and "ideal models" in the
>> environment cannot
>> be analyzed separately as "units of analysis" BUT for
>> heuristic reasons can
>> perezhivanie be braceted to elaborate the motivational
>> "systems" that
>> dynamically interact with the ideal models??
>> The question that I'm asking is if it is appropriate to
>> analyze the basic
>> primary emotions that interact with the ideal forms? A new book is
>> elaborating a "motivational systems theory" based on dynamic
>> systems theory
>> and the article just mentioned has me thinking.
>>
>> Larry
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>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *Andy Blunden*
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>>
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> *Andy Blunden*
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