Larry,
IMHO, you're hitting the heart of the matter with recognition and
agency - self-assertion vs. self-emptying seems a nice way to think
about the central problematic (and I agree with your preference for
the latter). If you are interested in developing a more more
self-emptying Kyoto-like notion of recognition, I've got a couple of
suggestions (and I'm sure I've made these suggestions in a different
context before, so apologies for redundancy).
First, I'd strongly encourage a read of Robert Williams' Ethics of
Recognition. In Williams' read of Hegel, you find an articulation of
recognition that is much more like the Kyoto understanding of
recognition and which is against the crass version you get from the
existentialists where recognition always about a fight or struggle for
recognition. As evidence of the cultural tendency toward
self-assertion, it is very telling that one small paragraph in Hegel's
oeuvre would get picked up as the thing that most people for most of
the 20th century would equate with Hegel's notion of "recognition."
But that approach is shortsighted and Williams really nails this
point. (although I am persuaded by Willaims' interpretation, I don't
have any skin in the game of whether or not this is a more or less
"authentic" interpretation of Hegel - I just happen to believe that
the position Williams articulates is far more productive than the
struggle-for-recognition model that has been on offer from the
existentialists).
Second, to provide some further support for this claim, I'd also
suggest checking out Johann Georg Hamann, who is said to have been a
significant influence on Hegel (but don't read Isaiah Berlin's stuff
on Hamann, he misses the point). Hamann didn't really publish much. He
was most noted for his letters to his friend, Immanuel Kant and in
which he repeatedly tells Kant that he's got it all wrong (and does it
in a style that makes the point through medium as well as, if not more
than, message - a point which itself speaks to one of his central
points about the importance of poetics). In these letters, Hamann has
a wonderful sense of the intractability of human life, and the
fundamental wrong-headedness of the desire for sovereign agency. I'd
be happy to share more if there is any interest.
Oh, and I forgot there is a third author of interest in this regard,
Patchen Markell's Bound by Recognition gives a compelling portrait of
what he calls "the impropriety of action" - the sense in which our
actions are not our property alone. Markell's book argues that tragedy
(and its twin, comedy) derives from this very human problem. Also
great stuff.
All three of these readings I suggest as a way of pointing out that
within Western traditions there is a trope that is closer to
self-emptying than self-asserting. Unfortunately it doesn't articulate
as well with Enlightenment perspectives because it is often, as with
Hamann, articulated through Christianity. This presents something of a
marketing problem since the Enlightenment put Christianity as a thing
of the past and as the kind of believing that small minded people do
(the kind that tote guns and don't believe in evolution), and thus a
not very appealing thing for most Westerner's "natural" (i.e.
"cultural") inclination to self-assertion. So I think that as a matter
of packaging, Buddhism, with its stripped down religious ideology,
probably has more appeal to most post-Enlightenment Western thinkers.
And I wanted to add that I feel like your posts are speaking directly
to me and maybe we can carry on this conversation in more detail
somewhere down the road (in a different thread, I suspect). So many
thanks for your words (even if they weren't "intended" for me - a
fortuitous impropriety to be sure!).
Anyway, hope all is well,
greg
On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm enjoying this line [circle? spiral?] of inquiry.
David, you wrote
The mind is a highly parsimonious thing; it is very tiring to believe one
thing and say another. Vygotsky's genetic law predicts that eventually it
is the former that shall cede to the latter.
I want to go out on a speculative limb that tries to weave together some
of
Wittgenstein's notions that are also expressed in John Shotter's
exploration of conversation.
The question of the relation and distinction between "taking a position"
and "developing dispositions" In David's quote above "believing" one
thing
[a position] and "saying" [practicing another] will over time eventually
lead to the practice winning out over the belief.
Their are a group of scholars in Japan referred to as "the kyoto school"
who are engaged in the project of having an indepth conversation between
Buddhism and German Continental philosophy.
A central difference the authors of the Kyoto school are articulating is
different notions [and values] of "intersubjectivity" as epressed in the
contrasting concepts
"self-assertion" and "self-emptying".
They suggest many Western notions of intersubjectivity and recognition
are
in pursuit of recognizing our assertoric stance or position towards
words,
self, other, & world. This assertive position can be expressed in
emancipatory notions of "finding one's VOICE" and overcoming being
"silenced". Anger and conflict leading to overcoming resistance from
within classes, races, genders. Through recognition [being seen and
listened to develops the capacity to move from a silenced "voice" to an
assertive "voice"] one stands up and speaks back to the dominating
constraints and the shame and humiliation that silences voices.
As Shotter [in Christine's quotes above shows] the assertoric position of
challenging dominant structures and power can be seen as expressing a
particular "attitude" or "style" or "posture".
This style or attitude valorizes "the assertoric stance" in the world"
which develops into an enduring "disposition" if we keep "saying" this
form
of recognition and emancipation.
However, the Kyoto School, in deep conversation with this assertoric
"position" and "disposition" suggests or gestures toward an "alternative"
[not truer, more real, but an alternative]
They suggest Buddhist practice and "saying" can guide or mediate another
in*formation of "self" that they express in the concept of "self-emptying
This is NOT a passive or resigned form of agency but rather an active
intentional positioning of self that attempts to foreground the
"fallibility" and "uncertainty" of ALL positioning and assertoric
stances.
This is a deeply intersubjective practice of valuing "emergence" and
"openning spaces" in which to INVITE the other to exist by the practice
of
mving our self from center stage. Finding one's "voice" from this
position
of ACTIVE INTENTIONAL self-emptying [and creating the openning space for
the other's "voice" to emerge] is a very different "attitude" or "stance"
or "posture" to take leading to a very different "disposition" from
within
a very different form of "saying" and "practice".
I "read" scholars such as Wittgenstein, Shotter, Gadamer, Buber, Levinas,
as exploring this alternative in*formation of "self" that is less
assertoric in finding one's "voice" and moving towards a posture of
self-emptying that embraces FALLIBILITY, UNCERTAINTY, AMBIVALENCE, NOT
KNOWING, at the heart of this particular way of becoming human.
I do believe this is an historically guided perspective that embraces
multiple perspectives and multiple practices.
Intersubjectivity and dialogical hermeneutical perspectives and the
multiple formations this conversation can take [expressing alternative
moral committments] is the concept at the center of this possible
inquiry.
I'm not sure how "possible" it is for persons in North America to
consider
such alternative moral compasses as explored by the Kyoto School. [it may
be beyond our horizon of understanding to envision as a possibility].
It is also difficult to grasp Wittgenstein's attempt to "see through"
theoretical positions as a practice and disposition.
Self-asserion is often viewed as the only path to intentional stances and
postures in finding one's voice to participate in GENERATIVE
conversations. Is there merit in engaging with another tradition
exploring
agentic ACTORS actively practising "self-emptying" motivated by the deep
disposition and committment to generative dialogical ways of practice.??
As I said in my opening remarks, this is going "out on a limb". Is
conflict
and anger the ONLY motivators that can be harnessed to transform the
world??
I'm also aware that my position as a "white male" with a secure job may
be
calling me to take a naive "utopian" perspective.
At the minimum I want to suggest that it is these types of
"conversations"
across "traditions" such as the Kyoto School scholars are engaged in
which
invite us into a world conversation which puts into play the monolithic
bias towards the assertoric stance in the world.
I'm preparing for "challenges" to this alternative "attitude" but am
putting it out there in a spirit of the holiday season to think outside
our
Western notions of "self-assertion" and finding one's voice.
Larry
On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 12:04 AM, David Kellogg <
vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:
Ivan:
At the beginning of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein
quotes
Augustine, who describes the indescribable experience of learning a
first
language in Latin, and remarks that his model of language (a big bag of
names) is OK, but only for a very restricted application; there are many
things we call language for which it is not appropriate. And thence to
his
famous discussion of complexes, in the form of games and language games.
I think what I said was that Wittgenstein's account of language is
pragmatic in a linguistic sense. Pragmatics is about the use of
language,
as opposed to its usage (which is more or less what Augustine is
describing, language as a dictionary written in some form of mentalese,
where every language is necessarily a foreign language).
And I think what Wittgenstein says about language applies to every
account
of language, even his own; it is appropriate, but ony for a very
restricted
application. In that way it is like a metaphor (as we see in the
language
games section, and the tool box section, it really IS a metaphor). So I
think we need to ask the question where it stops being appropriate.
As Andy points out, it doesn't describe conceptual thinking very well.
But
that is not because the pragmatic account of language is a subset of
some
larger conceptual account; I think that the relationship is quite the
other
way around: scientific concepts are a rarefied, specialized subset of
semantic meaning, and of course semantic meaning took many centuries of
billions of daily interactions to be precipitated from everyday
pragmatics.
Now it seems to me that on this scale of things, the cultural individual
really is quite unchanging and hidebound, rather like a bottle. We
rejoice
that Western women do not bind their feet--and instead mutilate their
chests with silicon implants. We rejoice in not stoning women for
adultery
and congratulate ourselves on no longer insisting on the male ownership
of
sexuality that this entails, but we so stigmatize child sexual abuse
that
children's lives, and not simply their putative purity, are now at risk
from pedophiles, and nobody reflects that what is really threatened
here is
the parental ownership of sexual access to their children.
This morning's New York Times, just for example, has a thoroughly silly
article on North Korea by one Nicolas Kristof. We are told that
apartments in Pyeongyang are all equipped with telescreens that
make propaganda announcements of, e.g., the leaders' golf scores. We
have a
similar telescreen in our apartment in Seoul, which announces municipal
elections and tells where to find the local leader of the anti-communist
militia. The difference is that when we do it is feels normal.
Kristof certainly does not feel hidebound; he is quite comfortable in
his
own skin. Nevertheless, he tells a wildly brainwashed account of the
way in
which North Korea developed nuclear weapons. He correctly remembers
that in
1994 an agreement was negotiated to build nuclear power plants in North
Korea (he carefully omits to say that these would be non-weaponizable
and built by South Korean companies). Now, according to Kristof, the
Clinton administration only did this because they fooishly assumed that
the
regime would collapse before the reactors were actually built! Wisely,
the
Bush administration caught the North Koreans "cheating", and tore up the
agreement.
What really happened, as anybody with a memory longer than the Bush
adminstration will tell you, was that the North Koreans asked for, and
got,
a codicil that would supply them with fuel oil for energy as a stopgap
measure (if you look at the widely circulated satellite picture of North
Korea at night you will see why they insisted on this). The Clinton
Administration always boasted that the fuel oil they supplied was
unusably
poor, but that was not enough for the Bush adminstration. They simply
reneged on the agreement. But the North did not renege: they had
promised
they would develop nuclear weapons if the deal fell through, and that is
what they did.
Why does Kristof tell this transparent lie? Doesn't it go against the
usual NYT ethos of telling the truth about checkable and trivial
matters so
as to be able to deceive with the necessary authority when it comes to
the
essentials? I think, alas, Mr. Kristof simply cannot control himself any
more (see his WILDLY improbable tale about a husband executing his own
wife
for writing a highly implausible letter to Kim Jeong-il himself). The
leather mask has become a face.
And I think that is probably what happened to poor Leontiev as well. The
mind is a highly parsimonious thing; it is very tiring to believe one
thing
and say another. Vygotsky's genetic law predicts that eventually it is
the
former that shall cede to the latter.
It is that sense in which what Mike says is true: Vygotsky's psychology,
as a scientific system, describes the development of institutionalized
lying just as accurately as it describes the development of higher
concepts. What I wanted to say was that his earlier sense that ideas are
always embodied, and some bodies are gifted with an extraordinary
foresight, is also true. I think Vygotsky knew that he would die, but he
also knew that his ideas, so long as they were true ones, would live.
David Kellogg
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
--- On Wed, 12/21/11, Ivan Rosero <irosero@ucsd.edu> wrote:
From: Ivan Rosero <irosero@ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Interpreting Leontiev: functionalism and Anglo
Finnish
Insufficiences
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Wednesday, December 21, 2011, 6:50 PM
David, if you agree with the summary Larry has presented, I remain
confused
by your analogy. I read Larry's presentation of Kitching/Pleasant as
saying that action cobbles together further sense within already-given
sense that is simultaneously ideal-material, and therefore subject to
culturally and historically specific constraints and possibilities. But
surely, this includes the bottle and the person too, both as moving
entities (the bottle, unless highly heated, a much more slowly moving
entity). I am not invested in any particular reading of Leontiev, but
your
analogy as presented suggests a kind of essential fixity to the person
which I want to believe you don't really mean.
To be fair, your emphasis is on the wine in the bottle. But, in this
case,
a slowly moving bottle is rather less interesting than a human being,
with
a rather less historically complex relationship to the liquid it gives
shape to.
Does what Andy refer to help here? What kind of concept-complex (is it
enough to call it Stalinism?) helps to explain the Leontiev at issue
here?
Or, if the critique was there from early on, what kind of
concept-complex
would help to explain his writings' wide acceptance?
Or, do we forgo all this and just grab Leontiev, as you say, "on a good
day"?
Ivan
On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 3:55 PM, David Kellogg <
vaughndogblack@yahoo.com
wrote:
Mike wrote that as he grows older, he becomes less attached to his
position (expressed in his editorial commentary to Luria's
autobiography,
"The Making of Mind") that ideas really are highly embodied things.
Mike
says that as he grows older, he becomes more and more attached to
Luria's
position that only ideas matter.
But as I grow older, I become more and more attached to Mike's
original
position that individuals really matter. Wine has no shape of its
own; it
really depends on what bottle we put it in, and the form of ideas
depends
very much on the character of the individuals wo carry them.
On paper, the theoretical positions of Vygotsky and Leontiev are not
that
far apart. So when Mike asks what presents Vygotsky's ideas from being
pressed into service by the Stalinist state, I think the answer has
to be
referred to the individual who carried this idea after all.
I think it is not accidental that one was amenable and the other was
not,
that one's ideas were deformed and degenerated, and the others still
amaze
by their freshness and color. Nor is it accidental that one lived and
one
died.
But of course death is simply the moment when our thinking and spoken
speech must come to an end, and our written speech, like a hermit
crab,
must find a new home in the minds and mouths of others. And by that
measure, it was Vygotsky who lived on, yea, even in the mind and the
mouth
of Leontiev. Well, Leontiev on a good day!
David Kellogg
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
PS; I think I am (once again) with Larry. I think that if we read
(late)
Wittgenstein as a linguistic (not a philosophical) pragmatist, that
is,
as
someone who believes that meaning in language comes from sense in
activity,
Wittgenstein is perfectly consistent with what Marx writes in the
German
Ideology (that language is practical consciousness, real for myself
because
real for others). Wittgenstein is Vygotsky-compatible in other ways,
too,
e.g. his argument about preconceptual "families" and his argument
about
the
tool like nature of signs.
dk
--- On Wed, 12/21/11, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Interpreting Leontiev: functionalism and Anglo
Finnish
Insufficiences
To: "Larry Purss" <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
Cc: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>, "Morten
Nissen" <Morten.Nissen@psy.ku.dk>
Date: Wednesday, December 21, 2011, 2:12 PM
Very helpful, Larry. Thanks.
As I read the Leontiev materials what was at issue in 1949 is whether
there
is any "third space" of the self in the "unity of consciousness and
activity." I take Stalinism
in these materials to refer to the way that idealism is joined with
belief
in some sort of "autonomous" realm of thought. Zinchenko's work on
micromovements of the eye and perceptual action seem to me now
significant
in exactly this respect: they point to a rapid simulation process
which
is
not mechanically connected to externalized action (as one example). If
you
know the future of history and what is good for everyone, all such
processes risk deviation from "the true path." The motives of the
"healthy"
individual are supposed to coincide with those of the "collective" (as
represented by the general secretary of the central committee of the
communist party). Functionalism as command and control statism.
If we accept THIS version of CHAT, seems to me that Phillip is
corrrect -
Use the ideas for something called communism, fascism, ANY form of
collective social project.
David says this is Leontiev's (AT) problem, not Vygotsky's (CH)
problem.
Larry points
to Wittgensteinian marxism that appears to provide a way to select
wheat
from chaff (or discover a different level of chaff!).
My guess is that German, Russian, and other thinkers have already
carried
this conversation pretty far.... Morten's citation of German work
points
to
this conclusion.
But how are we poor non_Russian, non_German reading unfortunates
wandering
in the woods to find our way?
mike
On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 12:08 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi Andy, Christine, Mike
I have been hibernating on Mayne Island, a small Island between
Vancouver
and Vancouver and Vancouver Island. [school break for the holidays]
No
internet except at the small library]
I was interested in this comment from Morten Nissen on Andy's book
Blunden, as it were, attacks it from the “opposite” side: the
functionalism
of Leontiev’s way of relating subject with society. This has to do
with
how
objects and motives appear to coincide in Leontiev’s idealized
image of
the
true society, that is, the society of original communism and that of
the
Soviet Union.
Andy, it is this notion of "coinciding" that I have difficulty with
when
reading about Activity Theory.
Leontiev's statements such as "Education is the decisive force which
forms
man intellectually. This intellectual development MUST CORRESPOND TO
THE
AIMS AND THE NEEDS OF THE ENTIRE SOCIETY. It must fully agree with
REAL
human needs"
I'm been browsing through an edited book by Gavin Kitching and
Nigel
Pleasant titled "Marx and Wittgenstein: Knowledge, Morality,
Politics."
These authors take an interesting perspective on materialism &
idealism
that gives idealism its place in our human being [in contrast to
how I
read
Leontiev}
These authors are exploring a Wittgensteinian Marxism that examines
Marx's
notion that "The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a
nightmare on the brain of the living" A Wittgensteinian Marxist
reading
[from the authors perspective] would make 3 points.
1] Tradition and circumstances cannot be understood in ABSTRACTION
FROM
the traditions and understandings that people have of these
circumstances.
2] WHATEVER such varied understandings may consist (class, culture,
gender etc) nonetheless some KINDS of actions by historical subjects
[agents, actors] will prove impossible IF these actions are entered
into
in
disregard to the traditions and circumstances directly GIVEN,
ENCOUNTERED
and transmitted from the past
3] A principle WAY in which the TRADITIONS OF THE DEAD GENERATIONS
weighs
like a nightmare on the brain of the living is that ANTECEDENT
historical
circumstances often make it IMPOSSIBLE TO THINK AND FEEL (and
therefore
act)in certain ways. Historically created material culture restricts
and
enables the making of PARTICULAR KINDS of history. People do not
try to
do
things and then for "material reasons" find they cannot do things. (
cannot
make history as THEY PLEASE ) Such traditions and circumstances
DEEPLY
FORM
what it is that present generations can DESIRE TO DO. and CONCEIVE
OF.
(as
well as what actions they can conceive of as being
possible/impossible,
feasible/unfeasible)
It is human action in and on the world that inextricably LINKS
THOUGHT
(and language) TO MATERIAL REALITY. Historical traditions and
circumstances
are the outcomes of previous generations actions [intended &
unintended]
which place constraints on present generations. Constraints on what
they
can think, feel, desire (and how they act)
By keeping these 3 points in mind the authors suggest we can avoid
falling
into the DEEP CONFUSIONS which have always attended the
material/ideal
distinction.
The most DIRECT and comprehensible way to SEE THROUGH this
material/ideal
distinction is to see that all action is simultaneously mental &
physical,
material & ideal. Neither material or ideal is an "epiphenomena" of
the
other.
In my reading of Leontiev in the chapter from the book posted I
don't
see
the nuances recognizing the depths of the "ideal" within Marx's
theory.
This edited book, by putting Marx into explicit conversation is
elaborating a Wittgensteinian Marxism or a Marxist Wittgenstein.
Larry
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 7:39 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
wrote:
Below are two quotations from Morten Nissen's review of Andy
Blunden's
book
on activity theory. Full review in
current issue of MCA.
After presenting the quotation, a comment.
mike
-------------------
Morten Nissen on Leontiev, functionalism, and Stalinism
….behind this terminological trouble lies a deep theoretical
problem
in
Leontiev’s social theory. This problem was identified in the German
and
Scandinavian reception (Axel & Nissen, 1993; Holzkamp, 1979;
Osterkamp,
1976) but almost completely ignored in the Anglo-Finnish (with
Miettinen,
2005, and Kaptelinin, 2005, as the noble exceptions to the
rule)—and
Blunden, as it were, attacks it from the “opposite” side: the
functionalism
of Leontiev’s way of relating subject with society. This has to do
with
how
objects and motives appear to coincide in Leontiev’s idealized
image
of
the
true society, that is, the society of original communism and that
of
the
Soviet Union.
>From the perspective of this functionalist utopia, a psychology
could
become relevant only in the face of the undeveloped and the
deviant:
as
in
fact, according to Leontiev (1978), children and disturbed provide
the
tasks of psychology in the institutions of the Soviet Union. To
paraphrase:
The child who puts down her book still has not grasped the harmony
of
society’s needs with the desire to learn that she *must*
develop—she has not yet developed those “higher cultural needs.”
Bourgeois
society is another matter, where sense and meaning are divided in
principle, but this matter—that of ideology and social
critique—Leontiev
sets aside and forgets. An elaborate critique of Leontiev’s
functionalism
was given already in 1980 (Haug, Nemitz,& Waldhubel, 1980), and the
background was explained by Osterkamp (1976) in her groundbreaking
work
on
the theory of motivation.
--------------------------------
Comment.
When I first read these passages as part of the attempted "swap of
ideas"
that Morten and I tried to organize around
our reviews of Andy's book in Outlines and MCA, I commented how
sad it
was
that the elaborate critique that goes back to
1980 is not in English and fully engaged by both European and
"Ango-Finns"
(although how poor Viktor got into that category
I do not know!).
Seems like real interchange around these issues is long overdue.
But
given
the progress of the last couple of years, I'll not be
holding my breath!
--------------------------
But thinking about the issues as well as my limited language (and
other)
capacities allow.
mike
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca