[xmca] Re: An article by Kimiharu Sato exploring Fernando Rey's theme.

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

I'm going to continue circling around this topic of "sense" as a direction
Vygotsky was pointing.  Mike mentioned the tricky "predicament" {Andy :-)}
of moving between merely instrumental vs merely semiotic[ideal] explanations
within our circular descriptions.  I believe Kimiharu Sato and Fernando Rey
and John Shotter are also struggling with this predicament. So her goes my
reflections on my "conversation" [commognition] with Kimiharu. In other
words what do I link to when reading his article.

(p.39)  For Vygotsky, consciousness is a very complex, STRUCTURE of
behaviour. In particular it is, and in the historical development of  a
doubling of behaviour. Consciousness can be understood as a SYSTEM of the
various functions of mental action.  In 1930 [Fernando's 3rd period]
Vygotsky wrote "On Psychological Systems" in which he stated,
"In the process of development and in the historical development of
behaviour in particular, it is NOT so much the functions which change. What
IS changed and modified are rather the RELATIONSHIPS the LINKS BETWEEN the
functions. New constellations emerge which were unknown in the preceding
stage. That is why INTRA-functional change is often NOT ESSENTIAL in the
transition from one stage to the other. It is INTER-functional changes, the
changes of inter-functional CONNECTIONS and the inter-functional
STRUCTURE WHICH MATTER. The development of such NEW FLEXIBLE relationships
BETWEEN FUNCTIONS we will call a PSYCHOLOGICAL SYSTEM' (p. 92)

Kimiharu in providing THIS quote adds "This passage REVEALS that Vygotsky
considered the human mind to emerge FROM the INTER-relations of the various
mental functions and therefore human consciousness IS an active process
WITHIN a mental "network"[metaphor to picture INTER-relations BETWEEN
functions and not the intra-functional relations within an isolated
function].  From this linking to Vygotsky Kimiharu makes the "leap of
intuition" to state,
"It can be concluded that Vygotsky's theory of consciousness is
anti-substantialism, and he assumed consciousness is an attribution OF FORM
and a process of actualization"

I'm not sure if everyone would draw the same conclusion, but what I want to
focus on is Kimiharu focussing our attention on the inter-relations BETWEEN
functions that form a particular STRUCTURING and that these
inter-relational structurings change with development

Larry

On Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 11:14 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> This month's article by Fernando Rey must have had some impact on others,
> either positive, negative, or ambivalent.  For anyone who is quietly
> reflecting on this topic, I'm attaching another article by Kimiharu Sato
> from Hokkaido University.  Kimiharu also recommends reading E. Kamiya's
> unpublished doctoral desertation titled "Unfinished Vygotsky's Theory"
> (2008)  Does anyone have access to this thesis. It seems it may hold
> potential for exploring sense in Vygotsky's project.
>
> Larry
>
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