Re: [xmca] concepts

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Crazy, Phil!! Thanks. Etymology to the rescue.
But
Today we translate back and forth across language/cultural traditions using
"synonyms" for this word. What Reason is there in that?!

mike

On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 6:36 PM, White, Phillip
<Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu>wrote:

> when i checked out the dictionary definition, Mike, the origins appear to
> be " to seize" in Latin.
>
> the English usage began about 1550-60.
>
> it's also related to "conceive"
>
> and homonyms are "idea" and "form".
>
> Jay's review that he just posted has references to Edelman and Bateson.
>
> and i went back Bateson's "Steps to an ecology of mind" and he most often
> referred to "forms" and of course as a systems theorist much had to do with
> the recursivity of patterns - and i do think of a concept as more like a
> pattern that connects to other patterns -
>
> though really, i'm more with Jay on this point that there is no such thing
> as a 'concept' -  i'm thinking that the practice of the word became, what?,
> let's say 'insitutionalized', or 'valorized' during the enlightenment
> project... that period which Foucault points to of ways of categorization
> and classifications that emerged as professional experts exercised for
> themselves the power to label, prescribe, diagnose, etc. etc., as in, for
> example, the separation of madness and reason.
>
> yeah ......
>
> another one of my half-baked ideas!
>
> phillip
>
>
>
>
> Phillip White, PhD
> University of Colorado Denver
> School of Education
> phillip.white@ucdenver.edu
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf
> Of mike cole [lchcmike@gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, April 11, 2011 4:07 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] concepts
>
> I agree, Monica. Its odd that we make such distinctions and then worry that
> we do not
> know what a key term in the discussion (in this case, concept) is supposed
> to mean (we all find a way to make sense of it for ourselves however!).
>
> Martin and other conceptual knowers. LSV and Luria insisted that words were
> generalizations. How is that idea of generalization related to the idea of
> a
> concept?
>
> A con-cept. With-cept? I have no conception!
> mike
>
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Monica Hansen <
> monica.hansen@vandals.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>
> > Martin,
> >
> > I have enjoyed reading your back and forth on this topic of concepts.
> > Examining the concept of concepts is indeed problematic, but it is the
> crux
> > of the whole issue. Social/individual, internal/external,
> > physiological/mental, concrete/abstract, etc.
> >
> > You ended with this:
> >
> > "But to sever completely the links between everyday discourse and
> > scientific
> > discourse would be to prevent the informing of the former by the latter
> > that
> > LSV found so important."
> >
> > I would just like to go one further: severing the links between everyday
> > discourse and scientific discourse would prevent the former(everyday)
> from
> > informing the latter(scientific). There can be no higher psychological
> > processes, no scientific concepts without everyday concepts because it is
> > the specific and local nature of experience that informs all the others
> > (and
> > is informed by the others as well). It is the dialogic nature of concepts
> > that makes them so fascinating and so powerful.
> >
> >
> > Monica
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On
> > Behalf Of Martin Packer
> > Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2011 11:33 AM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] concepts
> >
> >
> > On Apr 10, 2011, at 12:33 PM, Martin Packer wrote:
> >
> > >>> Maybe the notion of a "concept" might be a bit like that of a "gene"
> in
> > the sense that a gene is a sort of functional unit, but it has no simple
> > material reality in itself.
> >
> > Jay's opening sentence neatly illustrates the difficulty of eliminating
> > 'concept.' He writes of 'the notion' of a concept - which is to say, to
> > write about concepts he has to employ a concept, namely that of
> 'concept'!
> > (If that seems odd, try reading some Frege!)
> >
> > As the Stanford Encyclopedia article points out, no one has
> satisfactorily
> > defined a concept. But the seeming unavoidability of invoking something
> > like
> > 'concept' follows from the fact that we humans (and perhaps animals too;
> > another seemingly intractable debate) deal not so much with
> particularities
> > as with generalities. We talk and write not about this think and that
> > thing,
> > but this 'kind' of thing and that 'type' of thing. We write not about the
> > specific concept of 'rabbit,' but about 'the notion' of concept.
> >
> > As Henry James once wrote, "The intellectual life of man consists almost
> > wholly in his substitution of a conceptual order for the perceptual order
> > in
> > which his experience originally comes." One may disagree with the
> > separation
> > of the two order that James' words seems to suggest, but it seems
> > implausible to deny that there are *two* orders.
> >
> > Do this order of generalities involve complex interrelations or systems,
> as
> > Jay suggests? Are they specified in practice, in ways that depend on
> > context? Yes, of course. I am deep in the middle of chapter 6 of T&S, and
> > LSV wrote of all this, 70 years ago. We have already discussed here his
> > notion [!] of a system of generality, represented metaphorically by lines
> > of
> > longitude and latitude on a globe.  He conceived of this system as
> > operating
> > in acts of thought that actively grasp their objects. He saw both the
> > dependence of generalities on language, and their distinction.
> >
> > Should we avoid, as Jay recommends, claiming that "there are concepts as
> > such"?  I'm not sure what this claim would amount to. There are, and can
> > only be, "concepts for us." Should we avoid reifying concepts? Certainly!
> > Should we remove the term from all scientific discourse, leaving it only
> as
> > an "everyday locution"? That's a matter of taste, I suppose. But to sever
> > completely the links between everyday discourse and scientific discourse
> > would be to prevent the informing of the former by the latter that LSV
> > found
> > so important.
> >
> > Martin__________________________________________
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