Re: [xmca] Agency/Structure, Individual/Society, Subject/Object

[ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org]

Greg:

I think you have provided great insight into this topic.  Thank you.

eric



From:   Gregory Allan Thompson <gathomps@uchicago.edu>
To:     xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Date:   09/28/2010 05:47 PM
Subject:        [xmca] Agency/Structure, Individual/Society, 
Subject/Object
Sent by:        xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu



Eric,
Love Wittgenstein's poker, but not sure I have much to say about it.

Yes, I agree that individuals are changed as they travel down the assembly 
line of life. I prefer "transformed", but I think "produced" captures the 
sense very nicely as well. (Star Wars images are rushing to mind, 
something about humans and machines being intertwined in the figure of 
Annakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, but I'll hold back! But yes, 
produced/transformed).

Yes, I'm with you on the question of whether "a person's agency is more 
then a replay of that sociological/cultural impact?"

I do like Durkheim's answer to this which is that it is through "the 
social" that we become thinking individuals who are able to transcend the 
immediacty of our surroundings, whether physical or social [cf., Hegel's 
suggestion that the Notion of Spirit allows consciousness to transcend the 
"colourful show of the sensuous here and now" and and enter into the 
"spiritual daylight of the present"), Baillie translation para. 177]. As a 
philosophical problem of figuring out how something that develops out of 
"the social" ends up transcending "the social", I have two suggestions 
(the question could also be phrased: how does something "new" come from 
the reproduction of what was already there?). 

First was the suggestion in my initial post in which I was proposing that 
there can be tension between the historically formed subject and the 
presently mediated subject, a sort of conflict of contexts, such that one 
or the other will have to be overturned and something "new" introduced. I 
think Holland, Skinner, et. al have a nice example that articulates 
something close to this position (with the Indian woman who climbs the 
wall).

A second solution is reflexivity in language and thought. A system of 
thought emerges and then at some point is able to turn back on itself. (I 
take this to be another way of putting Hegel's and Durkheim's answer to 
the question).

Reflexivity (in the individual) also provides an interesting response to 
your question about the individual's free will. Our engagement with a 
given activity isn't simply a replay of the impact of "the social" upon us 
precisely because we can engage in reflexive thought of the sort "what am 
I doing here?" Fact is though, that most of our lives are spent acting and 
reacting without much of this reflexive thought (good thing too!). So if 
we are interested in understanding everyday behaviors, it will be 
important to understand the impact of contexts in micro-social time as 
well as ontogentic time. (and even when one is engaged in highly reflexive 
thought, even that thought is heavily mediated by "the social" and the 
ability to transcend it is derived from "the social"). 

Frankly I've got much smaller fish to fry. I'm just trying to work out how 
individual subjectivity is mediated (note, not "determined") by 
micro-social contexts. I think Hegel, Marx, Vygotsky, Durkheim, and others 
help to think through such a problem and to get around the dualism of AN 
INDIVIDUAL who is in A CONTEXT. As if the two were perfectly separable.

Once again I've said too much. So many thanks for the engagement. Love to 
hear your thoughts.

Best,
greg

Some random musings on the question of "free will":

I certainly would like to think so, but arguing over it won't make much 
difference to me. As James once said, it's best to act as if one has free 
will even if it is certainly not the case. 

As an intellectual matter (i.e. one to be studied rather than lived), note 
that positing "free will" introduces a potential dualism - where did that 
free will of the individual come from? The pineal gland? God? The quantum 
physical properties of microtubules? 

The question soon turns to a metaphysical problem that is of ultimate 
importance to each of us individually, but of little importance to us as 
researcher (and considering the scale of complexity of the human organism, 
I doubt that anyone could ever "prove" determinism; and the same can be 
said of free will). It's fun to talk about precisely because people get so 
worked up about it (Freud was great at this), and it is true that it has 
been a core sociological problem for a long time (as the "structure" vs. 
"agency" debate), but I guess I'm questioning whether it should have such 
a central place in the study of human behavior. Seems like there are much 
more interesting (and socially relevant) questions...


>Message: 10
>Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 08:45:40 -0500
>From: ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
>Subject: Re: [xmca] Agency/Structure, Individual/Society,
>                Subject/Object
>To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>Message-ID:
> <OFEE99C0C0.A281CB68-ON862577AC.004AF702-862577AC.004B97A4@spps.org>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
>Greg:
>
>This is quite in line with my recent post regarding Marx's fetishism of 
>commodity's production.  If the commodity qualitatively changes due to 
the 
>production does it not make sense that an individual qualitatively 
changes 
>due to that production as well?  The ideology of the individual does not 
>need to throw out sociological/cultural impacts upon the individual but 
>through goal directed activity in irreversible time does it not make 
sense 
>that a person's agency is more then a replay of that 
sociological/cultural 
>impact?
>
>Here is an example from the philosophy's colored history that I hope 
>illustrates my point:
>
>Wittgenstein's Poker  - - 
>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/may/12/artsandhumanities.highereducation

>
>
>
>
>
>From:   Gregory Allan Thompson <gathomps@uchicago.edu>
>To:     xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>Date:   09/27/2010 11:00 PM
>Subject:        [xmca] Agency/Structure, Individual/Society, 
>Subject/Object
>Sent by:        xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>
>
>
>Possibly following Andy's thinking on Structure and Agency and his radius 

>of subjectivity, I want to propose that the structure vs. agency problem 
>turns on the Subject/Object distinction that Hegel theorized away long 
>ago. Furthermore, when seen in this light, the Structure/Agency problem 
>turns into something quite different, in particular, the structure agency 

>tension might better be construed as a tension of timescales (following 
>Jay Lemke’s work on timescales). 
>
>Simply put, in the course of human interaction (typically 
"conversation"), 
>the habits, motivations, and intentions of the socially constituted 
>historical subject (now an “individualâ€・ as we like to call them) 
>potentially stand in tension with the subject that is emergently being 
>defined in the throes of the here and now of human social interaction. 
The 
>historically mediated social subject (cf. Holland, Lave et. al's "history 

>in person") is confronted by the presently mediated social subject (cf. 
>Goffman's "face") and the possibility for tensions arise (much as, in 
>laboring, the laborer is confronted (dominated) by the history of his 
>labor in the form of capital - esp. as the congealed form of capital 
known 
>as "the machine").
>
>Thus the tension of agency vs. structure is really a tension between the 
>(socially mediated) ontogentic subject and the (socially mediated) 
>micro-genetic subject.
>
>(okay, that was a little too quick and dirty, but I think there is 
>something there).
>
>The thoroughly social nature of the subject is precisely what Hegel and 
>Marx (and Vygotsky and Mead, and in a different tradition, Durkheim) were 

>arguing for. The individual attains her individuality THROUGH “the 
>social.â€・ Reconciling the opposition of subject and object, of 
individual 
>and society, of structure and agency seems to be exactly what Marx is 
>doing in his theorizing of capitalism. 
>
>In light of this, one can’t help but wonder why the structure/agency 
>problem has been such a persistent issue even among Marxist sociologists. 

>I can only assume that this is the result of a persistent ideology of 
>subjectivity as individualism that takes the individual as prior to the 
>social – logically or ontologically - ontogenetically (see Piaget) and 
>phylogenetically (see Smith, Rousseau, or any of Marx’s infamous 
>“Robinson-adesâ€・). 
>
>Here is an ideology with legs! Three hundred years and running…
>Anyone see any signs of tiring?
>-greg
>
>
>
>
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