Re: [xmca] Re: Rey's call for a generative overflowing overlapping intertwining of the notion of "sense"

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Larry--

A while back Bruce Robinson wrote about using "Papers for Discussion" at
xmca.
I wrote back to say sure. Use it. So how about posting John's paper there?
If a category of linked papers appears, them too. We can evolve that archive
if people
find it useful.

I should add that members of xmca should send in papers for discussion. Of
course, no one may choose to comment, but so it goes. There are several
papers there that invite re-consideration.

Send proposed materials and I will get them posted. Or we can try to set up
a better system. For now, getting a writing/reading mentorship up and going
seems at the tippy tip far end of what we might be able to arrange! Some
folks are working on that at present.

mike





On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 10:58 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> I wanted to add a further note to my response to this month's article for
> discussion.  Mike casually [I think casually] suggested I contact John
> Shotter and invite him into our current multilogue.  On impulse [and an act
> of faith in the ethical orientation of this project of inquiry as
> dialogical] I did email John and also attached Fernando Rey's article and
> invited him to participate.  He reluctantly declined as he is swamped with
> commitments to writing articles. However in the spirit of dialogue and in
> response to Fernando's article John  sent me an unpublished article that I
> believe supports the direction that both John and Fernando are pursuing.  I
> sent a copy of John's article to Mike and he suggested that John's article
> may be appropriate for posting as part of a new category of papers
> located at XMCA.  I am going to quote a section of John's article to give a
> sense of the central focus of his paper.  In is in the context of a section
> of the paper titled "Speech as living human activity, as expression":
>
> "In other words, in what follows, I will be focussing centrally on our
> WORDS
> IN THEIR SPEAKING, rather than on the PATTERNS to be found in our ALREADY
> SPOKEN WORDS.  The task, then, is to work FROM WITHIN THE STILL ONGOING
> MOMENT OF SPEAKING, and to study the changing feeling of anticipation
> created as an utterance unfolds .... not to look back on already completed,
> past speech acts of speaking  for the 'logic' in what was said. This, in my
> estimation, opens up a vast new "terra incognita" that now awaits our
> further explorations.
>     Central to its study, then, .... is a focus both on the RESPONSIVITY of
> living and growing, embodied beings, both to each other and to the
> otherness
> in their surroundings, as well as a focus on their EXPRESSIONS on THEIR OWN
> unique ways of coming-into-Being.
>     Vygotsky (1986), I think, foreshadowed the importance of this kind of
> inquiry in setting out "the last step" in his analysis of inner "verbal
> thought" thus: "thought is not begotten by thought;" he said, "it is
> engendered by motivation, i.e., by our desires and needs, our interests and
> emotions" he said. "Behind every thought, there is an AFFECTIVE-VOLITIONAL
> TENDENCY, which holds the answer to the 'why' in the analysis of thinking"
> (p.252, John's emphasis). Bahktin (1993) also makes a similar comment: "...
> the word does not merely designate an object as a present-on-hand-entity,
> but also expresses by its intonation my valuative attitude towards the
> object, ... and, in so doing sets it in motion toward that which is
> yet-to-be-determined about it ... Everything that is actually experienced
> ... as something given AND AS something yet-to-be-determined, is intonated,
> has EMOTIONAL -VOLITIONAL TONE, and enters into an effective relationship
> to
> me within the unity of the ongoing event encompassing us" (pp.32-33, John's
> emphasis). In other words, .... not only is it possible to possess a
> TRANSITIONAL UNDERSTANDING of 'where' at any moment we are placed in
> relation to another person's expressions, but to possess also at that
> moment
> an ACTION GUIDING ANTICIPATION of the range of next 'moves' they may make"
> [2006 date]
>
> END OF QUOTE
>
> This extended quote is a way of introducing John Shotter's project that I
> believe overlaps with Fernando Rey's focus on Vygotsky's notion of "sense"
> which 'foreshadowed' an emerging line of inquiry within the sociocultural
> turn in psychology. Mike may want to add a comment on his reason for
> suggesting I introduce this paper to XMCA.  The terms "sense",
> "responsivity", and "expression", as master concepts point to what John
> refers to as "terra incognito".  Should we set sail? What provisions should
> we take along? What sort of compass will help mediate our journey as we try
> to find our way home?
>
> Larry
>
>  the title of John's article is "Vygotsky, Bahktin, Goethe: Consciousness
> as Con-scientia, as Witnessable Knowing Along With Others" John also
> mentioned that he has an article coming out soon in the journal "theory and
> Psychology"
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 19, 2 011 at 9:18 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I am not sure how other's will reflect on Rey's article but I certainly
> > felt at home while reading his expansion of Vygotsky's forgotten legacy.
> The
> > entire article I read as an example of chiasm or ECART
> > [separation-differentiation which is NOT opposition] Also the historical
> > movement [motivation] BETWEEN the subjective and objective moments,
> > reflective and generative moments, of his creativity/reflections is an
> > EXAMPLE of chiasm.  The reversibility of these different [but
> intertwining]
> > moments in Vygotsky's project that Rey so clearly articulates points to a
> > much vaster and overflowing perspective on "psyche" as both subjective
> and
> > objective.  Rey suggests Vygotsky's second moment, has become a reductive
> > reification of his much larger project of locating the psyche and world
> in
> > the realm of "sense"
> >
> > This larger more inclusive [and overflowing EXCESS] of "sense" as a
> radical
> > re-visioning of psychology [and all the human sciences] seems, from my
> > perspective, to share the same impulse of searching for a way to be at
> home
> > in the world that Merleau-Ponty was articulating.  Over this last couple
> of
> > years I have been trying to approach a "fusion of horizons" between
> > continental philosophy and cultural-historical theory [both traditions of
> > which I had a superficial background and still  I'm learning more]  Rey
> > mentions Leontiev and Zinchenko as authors who were trying to situate
> > Vygotsky's second moment in a larger con-figuration [context figuration]
> of
> > sense as interwining process and configuration as reversible chiasm. I
> would
> > add Anna Stetsenko to that list.
> >
> > I want to end with an example from M-P. He compared two marksmen with
> > rifles. The first is aiming at a static target and the goal [intention]
> is
> > to hit the static bullseye. The second marsman is "learning" how to hit a
> > bird in flight and his "knowledge" is an embodied knowledge which needs
> to
> > correct the aim "automatically" [in the same way as we automatically
> adjust
> > to a particular handshake] and the mind/body is intimately involved in
> > ORIENTING or COORDINATING this movement [motivation]  This for M-P was
> the
> > difference between "empirical explanations" [sedimented] and
> being/becoming
> > alive to moving birds in flight.  The patterns that connect for M-P are
> like
> > musical patterns and therefore his notion of "singing the world" rather
> than
> > "acting the world" or "discussing the world".   This WAY of seeing
> > [perspective] is pointing to "sense" as articulated in Rey's article.
> >
> > Not sure if this line [thread] of reflection is interweaving a fused
> > "fabric" or if I'm weaving my own subjective "fabric" but I personally am
> > excited about the direction of Rey's orienting or "witnessing" and his
> way
> > of honouring Vygotsky's legacy of cultural-historical theory. I want to
> > highlight once again M-P's turn away from the search for THE primary
> basic
> > [reductive] element or function and his coming to embrace empiricism and
> > phenomenology as intertwining modes of "expression"  I would like to
> suggest
> > that Vygotsky's notion of "sense" and M-P's notion of "expression are
> both
> > trying to articulate a radically new direction for psychology
> intertwining
> > the "visible and invisible" as ECART [separation-differentiation that is
> NOT
> > opposition]
> >
> > Larry
> >
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