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Re: [xmca] Cultural memory dewey
Michael, you write:
> The second issue brough up by this quote, which I really struggle with, is
if the meaning of the symbol is so tied to the situation
> doesn't that mean that the meaning is going to change as the situation
changes. If there any such thing then as an artifact which
> maintains meaning across situaitons. If not, then isn't the concept of
mediation secondary to the concept of experience. A lot of \
> people argued with Dewey on this (Santayana comes to mind, and I wonder if
Vygotsky might have as well) - but it is a difficult
> conundrum.
A (neo)pragmatist response:
Consider a table (not necessarily Marx's "turning table" that I mentioned in
a previous post - although this one has a certain "movement" to it). When
you look at the submicroscopic scale, the "table" is not so much a thing as
it is a process (or consider the timescale of eons, over which the table as
a thing is barely a blip). At the submicroscopic scale, the table is a
constant flux of things (electrons, quarks, etc.) flying around in all
different directions. But these things (oftentimes conceptualized merely as
"fields" rather than matter as such) organize in ways that have some
consistency over time even though they are always in flux.
Biological organisms provide what may be a more straightforward example b.c.
there is also a constant replacement of the actual "stuff" of the organism
(maybe true for tables too?). At the atomic level, the atoms and
molecules that make up a person today are not the same atoms and
molecules that made them up 10 years ago - even though that person would be
perfectly recognizable as "the same" as before. The coherence has to do with
the continued relationship between the various things that make up the
whole.
As a metaphor (not to be taken too far!), this works well for understanding
the relational nature of meanings as processes. Thus meanings are indeed
remade with each new situation. But it is also true that in most cases, they
are remade in their own image. Okay maybe that is a little too cute, maybe
better to say that as long as the relations between things hold (e.g.,
between "meanings," "persons," "objects," "interests" - each of which are
also constantly being re-made), then the meanings themselves will appear
coherent across time. But when something starts to become re-aligned, as in
the example of a group of people whose interests suddenly shift, then
something "new" can grow - like a cancer (to continue in the vein of the
metaphor of the prior paragraph).
As the sociologist Andrew Abbott points out, from this perspective the thing
to explain is not so much how things change (as most social scientists seem
to think), but rather how they manage to stay the same. But, as Abbott
notes, this question is only interesting if one rejects the Aristotelian
notion of substance.
I'm not sure where people stand on this matter, but I'm pretty sure that
Dewey would reject the Aristotelian notion of substance. (I think Hegel
would too, but I'm not sure about Marx or Vygotsky - anyone else know more
about these folks?). I'd also be interested in the Santayana response to
Dewey.
-greg
On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 9:02 AM, Michael Glassman <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu>wrote:
> Hi Andy,
>
> This is a really illustrative quote from Dewey for sure. I see the quote
> actually having two emphases (which would fit into his whole transactional
> worldview). The first, which I think you latch on it, seems to be that is
> order for any idea to have meaning it must be attached to some symbol that
> in some way can be recognized by the observer. You can't go inside of the
> head of any individual, you can only see what is there in plain view. This
> I think was Dewey's attempt to overcome dualism by suggesting mind meets
> object in the situation itself, and that is the only thing we can
> comprehend, and it is dangerous to go further.
>
> The second issue brough up by this quote, which I really struggle with, is
> if the meaning of the symbol is so tied to the situation doesn't that mean
> that the meaning is going to change as the situation changes. If there any
> such thing then as an artifact which maintains meaning across situaitons.
> If not, then isn't the concept of mediation secondary to the concept of
> experience. A lot of people argued with Dewey on this (Santayana comes to
> mind, and I wonder if Vygotsky might have as well) - but it is a difficult
> conundrum.
>
> Michael
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Andy Blunden
> Sent: Thu 10/27/2011 10:12 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Cultural memory dewey
>
>
>
> At long last I am reading John Dewey seriously, and I am really
> entralled and bowled over.
>
> His conception of "experience" is wonderful. I need time to digest it
> before attempting to describe it, but this concept is the heart of the
> matter. It is truly a type of Activity Theory. Just now I am reading
> "The Pattern of Enquiry." For Dewey, knowledge is a part of the
> situation (not something outside the world, in the head. knowledge
> changes the world). He is talking about how ideas (concepts) originateHi
> from situations which become problems (and when known clearly become at
> first suggestions and then solutions). Get this:
>
> "Because suggestions and ideas are of that which is not present in
> given existence, the meanings which they involve must be embodied in
> some symbol. Without some kind of symbol no idea; a meaning that is
> completely disembodied can not be entertained or used. Since an
> existence (which /is/ an existence) is the support and vehicle of a
> meaning and is a symbol instead of a merely physical existence only
> in this respect, embodied meanings or ideas are capable of objective
> survey and development. To "look at an idea" is not a mere literary
> figure of speech."
>
> In the context of his conception of Experience this really rounds it off.
> And this guy is writing in the 1890s!
> Andy
>
> Tony Whitson wrote:
> > Andy,
> >
> > Song, as you describe, is indisputably material -- but it is not a
> > physical thing in the same sense as a flute or a song sheet. It seems
> > to me you make your position unnecessarily vulnerable by treating
> > materiality as more a matter of physicality than it needs to be (cf.
> > the baseball examples).
> >
> > The Talmud example brings to mind Plato's objections to recording &
> > transmission via writing (a bit ironic, no?, from the transcriber of
> > Socrates' dialogues), which I would never have attended to but for
> > Derrida, in D's treatment of the traditional prioritization of speech
> > over writing. D's argument for "grammatology" is that speech itself is
> > fundamentally a kind of "writing" first; but in a sense that I would
> > say is material, but not necessarily physical.
> >
>
>
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--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
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