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Re: [xmca] last on concepts



Martin:
 
At first my heart sank a little when I saw your quick reply last night; I was afraid that this was going to turn into one of those interminable dog-chasing-tail eddies that sometimes turns up in a very twisted thread, you know, where I say that the social and the psychological are both distinct and linked, and you say, aha, but you know they are linked as well as being distinct, and I reply but no, they are distinct as well as linked. And so on.
 
Not so. The case I wanted to make was that Vygotsky considers the social and the psychological to be linked, to be essentially two distinct forms of the same historico-cultural substance, related as are history and culture, body and mind. 
 
As you say, the proof is right there in Chapter Two:
 
Попытаемся теперь в кратких словах описать этот путь развития на интересующем нас отрезке. Схематически рассуждая можно сказать, что наша гипотеза обязывает нас представить весь ход развития в следующем виде. Первоначальной функцией речи является функция сообщения, социальной связи, воздействия на окружающих как со стороны взрослых, так и со стороны ребенка. Таким образом, первоначальная речь ребенка чисто социальная; социализированной ее было бы назвать неправильно, поскольку с этим словом связывается представление о
 чем-то изначально несоциальном и становящемся таковым лишь в процессе своего изменения и развития. 
 
(Let us attempt now to briefly describe the course of development over the interval which interests us (that is, the internalization of self-directed speech—DK). Speaking schematically, we may say that our hypothesis requires us to present the overall motion of development in the following manner (that is, in the opposite manner from Piaget, who really does portray the overall motion of development as from the psychological to the sociological—DK). The function of communication and social connection is the initial function of speech, and for the adult on the one hand and the child on the other this means action on the people in one’s environs (i.e. it is at first sociological pure and simple—DK). Thus the initial speech of the child is purely social; to call it socialized would be to name it incorrectly, since this term is connected with the idea that something is originally not social, becoming such only in the process of its change and
 development. (i.e. the child’s speech is social from the outset and the psychological is really, functionally and only then structurally, a subset of this social stuff--DK)” 
 
And of course nowhere do we see this so beautifully (if schematically) expressed as in the general genetic law, which uses “intermental” and “intramental” to show how there are only two modifications of the same substance (to use Spinoza’s terminology). 
 
Sakagawa and Moro argued that Spinoza’s rejection of separate mental faculties for pleasure and for moral right, his larger philosophical monism, and his “anthropological” concern for a political rather than a religious ethics are, taken together, the real, historical, and traceable origins of the general genetic law. 
 
I think that Vygotsky owes three other debts to Spinoza’s Ethics which are worth mentioning. The first is that will is essentially intellect; it is the voluntary transformation, the volitional selection, and free, active mastery of behavior. The second is that will cannot act directly upon behavior but must be mediated through the hierarchization of emotions; a child can no more direct his own behavior than a shadow can carry a stone. The third is that the only way to overcome a negative tendency in one’s behavior is with the free, voluntary use of a higher, stronger, positive one. 
 
In the guise of “catharsis”, this idea becomes the very centerpiece of Vygotsky’s early work on esthetics as well as Vygotsky’s ethics. Catharisis is the moment when two tendencies with a common genetic root and a same psychological substance (e.g. Hamlet kills the king and Hamlet does not kill the king) at least converge, and this merger is, of course, enabled by their common root.   
 
There’s a marvelous example of catharsis in John Adams’ crazy opera about Nixon’s trip to Peking. The Nixons are watching the ballet “The Red Detachment of Women”. The heroine Chinghua, brutally beaten, runs away from the family to which she is indentured and is discovered by red guerillas, who sing:
 
Flesh rebels
The body pulls
Those inflamed souls 
That mark its trials
Into the war! War! War! War!
 
Arm this soldier! 
Rise up in arms!
Arm this soldier!
Rise up in arms! Arms! Arms! Arms!
 
This reiteration of word meanings that are simultaneously physical and mental, and both psychological and social (“inflamed souls”, “war”, “arms”), is stood on its head in the plot. The Nixons are watching a ballet, but Pat Nixon confuses it with a real war, and she takes to the stage, followed by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, who apparently shoots two of the actors (maybe including Henry Kissinger, who is playing the villain). So this particular chorus, in addition to being beautifully sung, captures both the dualistic confusion of the body-mind problem, as well as its connection to the social-psychological problem and its monistic, yea, Spinozistic resolution. 
 
(It also references a very funny joke about Stanislavsky and Brecht which Chinese opera singers sometimes tell. But that is the stuff of another catharsis, or at least another cup of coffee.)
 
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education

--- On Mon, 5/9/11, Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com> wrote:


From: Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] last on concepts
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, May 9, 2011, 2:15 PM


Yes, Nancy, thanks for this.  I have also had similar thoughts to  
Colin's.

- Steve



On May 8, 2011, at 1:11 PM, C Barker wrote:

> Dear Nancy,
>
> I rather like your diagram.
>
> One thing that strikes me is that the top and the bottom planes are  
> where the thinking/ speaking person connects with their social  
> relations: most of our significant motives derive from our social  
> relations, and external speech is addressed (mostly) to others....
>
> Colin Barker
>
> ________________________________
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] on  
> behalf of Nancy Mack [nancy.mack@wright.edu]
> Sent: 08 May 2011 19:27
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] last on concepts
>
> Hi,
> I am not sure if this will come through.
> I have attached my diagram of Vygotsky's planes of inner speech.
> I imagine thoughts moving around like a pinball machine.
>
> Nancy
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com>
> Date: Saturday, May 7, 2011 12:09 am
> Subject: Re: [xmca] last on concepts
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>
>> Martin, David,
>>
>> My computer is in the shop for repairs - a bottle of water got
>> away from me - so I have not been able to participate or keep up
>> with this discussion, which has an interesting center question -
>> how did Vygotsky explain the relationship between word meaning,
>> concept, and generalization?
>>
>> Martin lists the five planes Vygotsky uses to describe the
>> complex transformations from word to thought (or thought to
>> word).  In Ch 7 sections 7.2 thorugh 7.5 (end) he analyzes the
>> five planes in the order from exterior toward the interior - (1)
>> the plane of the external aspects of speech, (2) the semantic
>> plane, (3) the plane of inner speech, (4) the plane of thought
>> itself, and (5) the plane of motivation.
>>
>> Vygotsky used a memorable metaphor at the end of Ch 7, which
>> fits into some of the points both Martin and David make -
>> Vygotsky likened thoughts (the fourth plane) to a cloud which
>> showers words, and motivation (the fifth plane) to the wind that
>> sets the cloud in motion.
>>
>> A question I've been pondering is: which of these five planes
>> correspond to the notions 'word meanings', 'concepts', and
>> 'generalizations'?  Martin brings this very question up.
>>
>> It seems reasonable to eliminate the first and last planes as
>> candidates for "planes" within that which the three notions
>> represent exist.
>>
>> Vygotsky makes it very clear that the first plane, the external
>> aspects of words, (such as sounds), are quite different from
>> word meanings.  Likewise, he differentiates the "first" plane
>> from all the "inner" planes of thinking and speech.  He explains
>> that the semantic plane is the first of the inner planes (making
>> it the second plane overall, going from out to in).
>>
>> And it also seems reasonable to eliminate the last or fifth
>> plane, motivation.  Vygotsky saw motivation as affect and
>> volition, and other processes that set the cloud of words into
>> motion.
>>
>> It does not appear that Vygotsky viewed word meaning, concept or
>> the generalization as existing on the first or fifth "planes."
>> Do others also see it this way?
>>
>> This leaves us the second, third and fourth planes (the semantic
>> plane, inner speech, thoughts themselves) to sort out how
>> Vygotsky conceived them in relationship to the three terms we've
>> been pondering - word meanings, concepts and generalizations.
>>
>> One possibility is that Vygotsky saw these three terms as not
>> corresponding to the same planes.  For example, perhaps his use
>> of the term 'word meanings' corresponded to processes that occur
>> in all three of these planes, but used the terms concepts and
>> generalizations to refer to only one or two of the planes.  If
>> this is so, we need to find places where he says something like
>> this.  This would be a strong argument in favor of
>> differentiating 'word meaning' from 'concept' and 'generalization'.
>>
>> Another possibility is that Vygotsky believed that all three
>> terms relate to processes found in all three planes, but do so
>> in qualitatively different ways.  If that is the case, we need
>> to find places where Vygotsky explains how concepts,
>> generalizations and word meanings refer to **different aspects**
>> of what he called the (2) semantic plane, (3) inner speech, and
>> (4) thoughts themselves.  This would provide an interesting
>> argument for differentiating the 'concept' from 'word meaning'.
>>
>> Still another possibility is that Vygotsky saw the relationships
>> between the planes and the processes these terms refer to
>> differently depending on the **direction** of the movement
>> between thought and word - from out to in (understanding) or
>> from in to out (speaking).  Again, evidence would need to be
>> found to support this.  If it is indeed found that it was
>> Vygotsky's intention, for example, to think of the concept,
>> generalization and word meaning as "synonymous" going from
>> thought to word, but **not** synonymous when going from word to
>> thought ... that would be an interesting twist, wouldn't it?
>>
>> There are undoubtedly other possible combinations.  I'll mention
>> one more - the most obvious, because Vygotsky explicitly says
>> this - that he saw the three terms as referring to essentially
>> the same process, going both directions, and therefore saw these
>> terms, insofar as they are referring to processes taking place
>> in "inner" planes (as psychological processes related to verbal
>> thinking), as "synonymous."  There is pretty solid evidence for
>> this interpretation, but that does not mean we should not
>> carefully consider other possibilities, such as the above or others.
>>
>> ********
>>
>> I think Martin's point about word meanings are progressively
>> "replaced" by sense needs to be closely examined.  Vygotsky
>> explains that sense is a particular form of word meaning.  It is
>> not the opposite of word meaning, it is not a process that
>> replaces word-meaning altogether.  It is an extremely important
>> aspect of meaning.  And he does emphasize that sense becomes
>> more predominant over external, social meanings as we go further
>> inside
>> But do we want to say that sense entirely **replaces** social
>> meaning in plane 3, inner speech, or thought, plane 4?
>>
>> Also, the idea that word-meanings altogether completely
>> disappear at the level of thought is not one I have so far seen
>> Vygotsky suggesting.  Please point me to what I am missing.  He
>> uses the example of observing a boy on a street  His point is to
>> compare how different his observation is within the third plane
>> (inner speech, with details) from the thought plane, which took
>> in the scene as a whole.  But is Vygotsky actually saying that
>> word meaning - and therefore verbal thinking - disappears
>> entirely in the fourth plane, the plane of thought, (or did not
>> yet appear in any way), that words are now altogether not at all
>> involved in the process of thinking?
>>
>> Sorry if this message is rambling - I've run out of time on this
>> store computer - no time to edit ... LOL
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Martin,
>>
>> On May 06, 2011, at 04:54 PM, David Kellogg
>> <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Vygotsky uses the word "moment" a lot, even when he is talking
>> about space or logic. For example, he says that there are three
>> "moments" in a particular data set in Tool and Sign, even though
>> they clearly overlap.
>>
>> Vygotsky also uses "stage" and "step" a lot, even when he is
>> talking about temporally overlapping processes. For example, he
>> differentiates the association, the collection, the chain, the
>> diffuse complex, and the pseudoconcept as stages of a particular
>> step, even though in many of his examples (e.g. his gloss of
>> Idelberger and the first words of Charles Darwin's grandson)
>> they are superimposed.
>>
>> In Chapter Seven, Vygotsky uses the rather obvious remark that
>> an expression like "the victor at Jena" means the same person as
>> "the vanquished of Waterloo" to point out that object reference
>> and meaning do not coincide. But what he means is exactly what
>> Halliday and Jay Lemke mean: they are in fact simultaneously.
>> But they are logically separate.
>>
>> Now, how does all this work out in PRACTICE? Of course, you are
>> right. It all takes time in the real world. I think that's why
>> Vygotsky is always distinguishing between the phasal aspects of
>> language (in which he includes lexicogrammar and even object
>> reference) and the semantic aspects (which are hierarchical and
>> choice driven rather than linear and time driven)
>>
>> David Kellogg
>> Seoul National University of Education
>> --- On Fri, 5/6/11, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
>> Subject: Re: [xmca] last on concepts
>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>> Date: Friday, May 6, 2011, 4:24 PM
>>
>>
>> That's an interesting proposal, David. How do you deal, though,
>> with the way LSV writes of "the complex flow from the first,
>> vaguest moment of the origins of a thought until its final
>> completion in a verbal formulation" (#27), and the "motion from
>> thought to word and vice versa, from the word to the thought.
>> This relation is represented in light of psychological analysis
>> as a developing process, which traverses a number of phases and
>> stages"; "This flow of thought is accomplished as internal
>> motion through a whole series of planes, the passage from
>> thoughts in words to words in thought" (#29)?
>>
>> This sounds to me like passage in time. When he insists that to
>> put a thought into words is to transform it, reorganize it, and
>> embody it - "In transforming itself into language, the thought
>> is reorganized and modified; the idea is not expressed, but
>> finalized in the word" (#32) - this sounds to me not merely a
>> logical realization, but a temporal process - a "motion from
>> thought to speech" (#41).
>>
>> Indeed, he emphasizes that speech itself necessarily unfolds in
>> time because thought has to mark the words of an utterance with
>> emphasis in order to make them comprehensible: " it is obvious
>> that the speech utterance cannot immediately emerge in its
>> entirety" (#45); "Thought impresses logical stress down on the
>> words of the phrase, marking in this way the psychological
>> predicate, without which any phrase becomes incomprehensible.
>> Speaking requires a passage from the internal plane to the
>> external, while understanding assumes reverse motion, from the
>> external plane of speech to the internal" (#52).
>>
>> Whereas a Chomskian grammar has all the words of an utterance
>> prepared simultaneously, and the fact that they are emitted in
>> sequence is merely an artifact of performance (if we had screens
>> instead of mouths one could imagine the whole grammatical
>> structure being displayed at once), in LSV's account of the
>> microgenesis of speaking from thinking the words need to unfold
>> in time in order that pacing and emphasis can distinguish what
>> he calls the "psychological structure" of the sentence from its
>> "grammatical structure" (#35).
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> On May 6, 2011, at 3:17 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
>>
>>> I think that the "five planes" are not modular in the Fodor
>> sense. I think they represent non-reducible options rather than
>> discrete moments of time or planes in space.
>>>
>>> When Halliday talks about the "stratification" of gesture into
>> language proper, he speaks of three planes: soundings (roughly,
>> phonology), wordings (roughly, lexicogrammar), and meanings
>> (pragmatics, semantics, thinking).
>>>
>>> I have some problems with collapsing semantics and pragmatics
>> like this. But I have no problem with Halliday's basic argument,
>> which is that the relationship between sounding, wording, and
>> meaning is not causality: it's REDUNDANCY.
>>>
>>> It's not the case that a sound 'causes" a word or that a word
>> 'causes" a meaning. Instead, the relationship of a sound and a
>> word is REALIZED in meaning; it REDOUNDS in an ideal form we
>> call meaning.
>>>
>>> Jay Lemke points out that there is no one to one
>> correspondence between any two planes, because if there was the
>> existence of that separate plane would be entirely unnecessary.
>> That means that a sounding does not correspond to a particular
>> wording which in turn corresponds to a specific meaning.
>>>
>>> What happens instead is that a sounding realizes a particular
>> correspondance of wording and meaning. Or, if you like, a
>> correspondence of sounding and wording realizes a particular meaning.
>>>
>>> I think that's why Vygotsky emphasizes, not the kind of "time"
>> or "space" dimension we would normally associate with his use of
>> planes, but instead that, for instance, a particular motive does
>> NOT correspond to a specific thought, but can be differently
>> realized in different thoughts, a particular thought does NOT
>> correspond to a particular inner speech form, but can be
>> differently realized in different inner speech forms, a
>> particular inner speech form does NOT correspond to a particular
>> word but can be differently realized by different words.
>>>
>>> It's not that the planes are really separated in either time
>> or space; it's that they they are LOGICALLY separated because
>> each plane involves some choice and because previous choices
>> enter into that plane as a done deal; the process of redundancy
>> is now realized in a product. Motive and thought are joined and
>> then realized in inner speech, and then motive, thought, and
>> inner speech are joined and realized as the word.
>>>
>>> That's how I understand it, anyway! And that's why it seems
>> right to me to see a concept as a historical extension of this
>> process. The invention of concepts is the sociocultural
>> continuation of the same process of psychological
>> stratification, abstraction, and selection that precipitates
>> "meaning" out of "sense",and the learning of concepts is the
>> reverse movement in psychology.
>>>
>>> David Kellogg
>>> Seoul National University of Education
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> A word does not stand for a meaning; instead, a meaning it
>> stands for "a wording standing for a meaning". A meaning is not
>> represented by a
>>>
>>> at ANY level, because if there was that  l in the A separate
>> comment on the five planes. I
>>>
>>> --- On Thu, 5/5/11, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] last on concepts
>>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>> Date: Thursday, May 5, 2011, 7:25 PM
>>>
>>>
>>> This whole concepts thing is still nagging at me, and making
>> me grumpy with my students!
>>>
>>> LSV describes the microgenesis of thinking in two places in
>> T&S: chapter 7, and sections 6 and 7 of chapter 6. And he does
>> so in apparently completely different ways! Chapter 7 is all
>> about movement among the five planes from thought to word or
>> vice versa, with concepts not mentioned even once, I believe.
>> Chapter 6 is about acts of thought, concepts in relations of
>> generality, and words are mentioned in only one or two
>> paragraphs, of such grammatical complexity that I am currently
>> looking for a native Russian speaker to disambiguate them for me.
>>>
>>> So what is the relationship between the two passages? The key,
>> I believe, is that in both chapters LSV makes the claim that
>> thinking is always relating two things (in chapter 7 he writes:
>> “all thinking tends to unite one thing and another”; in chapter
>> 6 it is: “every thought establishes a link between parts of
>> reality, represented [представленным] in some way in
>> consciousness”). In chapter 7 it's clear when he says this that
>> he's talking about the penultimate plane, that of "thought
>> itself." (The five planes are as follows: (1) outer form of the
>> word; (2) inner form of the word; (3) inner speech; (4) thought
>> itself; (5) motivation.) So it seems to me the way to interpret
>> the sections in chapter 6 is that they too are dealing with this
>> plane. And that means that concepts operate on the plane of
>> thought itself (or that thinking itself operates with concepts),
>> at a point where words have "disappeared" or "died," depending
>> on ones
>>> translation (or not yet been born, if one is moving in the
>> opposite direction, from thought to speech).
>>>
>>> This is more evidence, in my view, that concepts are not word-
>> meanings. Natalia asked me in a side message if I did not think
>> that words in inner speech have inner form. It's a good and a
>> tricky question, and on reviewing the text I would say that I
>> think LSV considered inner speech to contain 'inner form,' but
>> that this 'meaning' is progressively replaced by sense - which
>> can, he argued, become separated from words. By the time we get
>> to thought itself words are no longer involved in the processes
>> of thinking.
>>>
>>> Of course, that still leaves a lot of details to be worked out
>> about concepts and the relations of generality they form.
>>>
>>> Martin
>>>
>>> By the way, there are five difficult paragraphs that I would
>> welcome help on. Perhaps the most opaque to me is this one:
>>>
>>> 316. Если самое значение слова принадлежит к определенному
>> типу структуры, то только определенный круг операций становится
>> возможным в пределах данной структуры, а другой круг операций
>> становится возможным в пределах другой структуры. В развитии
>> мышления мы имеем дело с некоторыми очень сложными процессами
>> внутреннего характера, изменяющими внутреннюю структуру самой
>> ткани мысли. Есть две стороны, с которыми мы всегда сталкиваемся
>> в конкретном изучении мышления, и обе имеют первостепенное значение.
>>>
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