RE: [xmca] Reflective Meanings

["monica.hansen" <monica.hansen@vandals.uidaho.edu>]

Thanks, Mike. This just makes the further point that levels of meaning, literal and figurative, can overlap for individuals and between individuals, in both word and experience :).

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2012 9:27 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Reflective Meanings

Ooooh, that was a very interesting way of phrasing matters, Monica. I LOVE
re-
words, including all of yours. But given the topic of lung resection how could you keep yourself from writing re-membering??

:-)
mike

2012/3/18 monica.hansen <monica.hansen@vandals.uidaho.edu>

> Larry and David,
> The path from empathy to objectivity is not a directional task sequence.
> Consider the possibility that empathy and objectivity can occur in the 
> same instance, experienced simultaneously, like in the case of a 
> surgeon doing a lung resection on a patient, knowing he may have to 
> have a similar operation himself. And this re-cognition, the going 
> over of thoughts, the reconceptualization, the re-examination, the 
> re-analysis, the remembering of an event, might be affective or 
> intellectual, or both. It can be first person, it can be second 
> person, it can be third person on any of these occasions, or it might 
> be a combination of activated states triggered, one by another. Our 
> sense of self and consciousness are not constructed merely by rational 
> objective thought, but always and at the same time by implicit 
> processes in a dynamic system that works beneath the surface of what 
> we experience consciously. All modes of social interaction through the 
> life span. All with different levels of activation in different 
> individuals. It does make a qualitative difference in the narratives we can comprehend and the narratives we can imagine.
>
> Monica
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] 
> On Behalf Of Larry Purss
> Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2012 5:32 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Reflective Meanings
>
> David and Monica
>
> The central question is still how we get from empathy to objectivity;  
> from 2nd person to 3rd person perspectives.
>
> David, I will pause at the recognition that 2nd person lived 
> experience may be a basic form of experience and therefore a central 
> mode of interaction throughout the life span. That re-cognition is a 
> difference which may make a difference.
>
> David, you wrote
>
> "Neither unit is "activity" in the sense used by activity theorists; 
> neither has an outcome in production. Neither inheres in a purely "you-me"
> relationship which can be and often is carried out without any use of 
> word meaning or any self-reflection. But, as Rod points out, both are 
> inextricably bound up with the "activity" of using verbal meanings 
> upon yourself."
>
> The last sentence,
> "both are inextricably bound up with the activity of USING verbal 
> meaning upon yourself."
>
> seems to be a central point.
>
>  As I understand Wittgenstein he is making this exact point. Using 
> verbal meanings is "another form" of interaction [distinct from 2nd 
> person engagements] that also follow specific rules of engagement.  
> These 3rd person narrative genres are culturally and historically 
> situated and appeal to our current notions of "common" sense. The 
> "contents" used to compose these 3rd person narrative accounts that we 
> learn to "tell ourselves" use 2nd person lived experiences as basic phenomena to be explained.
> However, we come to confuse the 2nd person and 3rd person forms of 
> life which may actually evolve within different rules and patterns of 
> engagement. 2nd person and 3rd person perspectives may share a family 
> resemblance but not dentity.
>
> This in no way diminishes 1st person or 3rd person narratives. It is 
> merely an attempt to also draw attention to the basic ways 2nd person 
> lived experiences contribute to our compositions of forms of life. 
> [Not unity but  composition which implies aggregates] 1st, 2nd, and 
> 3rd person accounts may intertwine but not within a systematic 
> pre-determined sequence.  Each type of account may follow its own path 
> of development and whether 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person perspectives are 
> priviledged and legitimated may be culturally and historically constituted.
>
> Very tentative speculations on my part but it does at least introduce 
> some doubt about 2nd person lived experience as possibly continuing to 
> be a central form of life throughout the life span.
>
> Larry
>
> On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 4:42 PM, monica.hansen < 
> monica.hansen@vandals.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>
> > I like what you write, David, at the end of this post. It is more 
> > like a movie because multiple modes of perception and the experience 
> > of consciousness of self ARE more like a movie than a book. Images 
> > are multimodal, not just visual. They are direct links to our 
> > feelings and emotions. Words are just a subset of possible signs for meaning.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu 
> > [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> > On Behalf Of David Kellogg
> > Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2012 3:40 PM
> > To: Culture ActivityeXtended Mind
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] Reflective Meanings
> >
> > Larry:
> >
> > Three things I noticed in perusing the article:
> >
> > a) Like you, I noticed that the "you-me" relationship is "one 
> > possible perspective" on the development of reflected upon experience.
> >
> > b) But I also noticed, with faint annoyance, that the author seemed 
> > to be be claiming universality, despite clear evidence in her own data (e.g.
> > "Show mommy the potty, Nanny") that her conclusion might be very 
> > child specific.
> >
> > c) I noticed, with some relief, a minimum of 'theory of mind"
> > discussion. I guess we are finally getting it through our thick 
> > skulls that a theory of mind is going to develop as long as the mind 
> > that contemplates and the mind that is contemplated does so.
> >
> > Let's assume that Reddy is right, and that the "you-me" interaction 
> > is the essential source of all joint intersubjectivity in later life.
> > That still leaves us an essential problem--and for Brecht, and for 
> > Chinese opera, as well as for my ruminations on murders witnessed 
> > but not experienced, it is the essential problem--of how we get from 
> > empathy to objectivity, from the second to the third person.
> >
> > I think Rod is right. On the one hand, Vygotsky refers to word 
> > meaning as the microcosm of consciousness in the conclusion to 
> > "Thinking and
> Speech"
> > and on the other he clearly lists "perizhvanie" as the unit of child 
> > consciousness in "The Problem of the Environment" (p. 342 of the 
> > Vygotsky Reader).
> >
> > Neither unit is "activity" in the sense used by activity theorists; 
> > neither has an outcome in production. Neither inheres in a purely
> "you-me"
> > relationship which can be and often is carried out without any use 
> > of word meaning or any self-reflection. But, as Rod points out, both 
> > are inextricably bound up with the "activity" of using verbal 
> > meanings upon yourself.
> >
> > And that, to me, explains why when we observe some horrific incident 
> > and we immediately notice, whether with relief or with guilt, the 
> > unmistakeable fact of our own non-involvement, we often say "It was 
> > just
> like a movie"
> > but we never say "It was just like a book".
> >
> > David Kellogg
> > Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
> >
> >
> > --- On Sun, 3/18/12, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > From: Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] Reflective Meanings
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Date: Sunday, March 18, 2012, 6:23 AM
> >
> >
> > Rod, David, Peter
> >
> > The relationship between perezhivanie and reflecting on  *second 
> > hand* experience.  How does this relationship manifest?  What  
> > sequences unfold in this process.
> > Rod, a year ago you recommended a book by V. Reddy who was exploring 
> > the negotiation of feelings as well as understandings within what is 
> > referred to as primary intersubjectivity developing within  2nd 
> > person communicative expressions.
> >
> > I recently came across this 6 page summary of V. Reddy's *2nd 
> > person* perspective on lived experience as the basic process from 
> > which emerges the derived 3rd person perspectives which are 
> > *borrowing* the processes previously lived through within  2nd person engagements.
> > The article uses charts which clearly distinguish her perspective 
> > from more cognitively oriented accounts
> >
> > >From Reddy's perspective, these borrowed 2nd person processes are
> > profoundly transformed within language games [Wittgenstein's term] 
> > acquired as culturally informed skilled practices expressing the 
> > giving of reasons.  Reddy posits the skill of offering 
> > justifications in the 3rd person as derived from 2nd person *I-YOU* 
> > encounters previously lived through. Derived justifications  borrow 
> > the content from 2nd person lived through experiences and use this 
> > derived content within the activity of giving reasons.
> >
> > I also noticed she posits two *basic* movements within our emotional 
> > 2nd person engagements: *hiding* & *revealing* our selves. As I 
> > understand Reddy's position these basic intersubjective orientations 
> > continue to play out  within more complex cultural-historical  
> > informed
> engagements.
> > Reddy's 2nd person perspective offers one possible approach into the 
> > relationship between perhezivanie and activity.
> >
> > Larry
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 4:45 AM, Rod Parker-Rees < 
> > R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > Many thanks for this, David - a really valuable clarification of 
> > >the relationship between  perezhivanie and activity. I wonder what 
> > >you would  have to say about the extent to which your second  type 
> > >of reflection is
> > >  actually  a culturally mediated process of mediation. In other 
> > >words,
> > >  when we practise the activity of reflecting on a 'second-hand'
> > >experience,  in order to colour it with the  'body and vitality' of 
> > >our own spontaneous  concepts, are we 'borrowing' processes which 
> > >we have picked up, absorbed or  internalised from our  experiences 
> > >of engaging with others (and negotiating  the sharing of feelings 
> > >as well as understandings)?  When we reflect in  tranquility on 
> > >observed second hand (second body) experiences do we not  have to 
> > >draw on internalised
> > sociocultural processes to be able to do this?
> > >
> > > All the best,
> > >
> > > Rod
> > > ________________________________________
> > > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On 
> > > Behalf Of David Kellogg [vaughndogblack@yahoo.com]
> > > Sent: 18 March 2012 03:33
> > > To: xmca
> > > Subject: [xmca] Reflective Meanings
> > >
> > > We have been worrying about how to correctly render the word
> > "переживаний"
> > > in Korean, and above all how to link it to "activity" (because it 
> > > is clear to me that Vygotsky saw the one as a reflection upon the other).
> > > At the same time, I have been following the news from Syria, where 
> > > I witnessed, in the early nineteen eighties, a similar bloody 
> > > uprising against the current leader's father.
> > >
> > > It has been estimated that by the time a child is twelve or 
> > > thirteen years old the child has witnessed, on television, several 
> > > hundred, possibly many thousands, of simulated murders. We didn't 
> > > have a television when I was a kid, but when I first witnessed 
> > > real murders as a twenty-year-old I remember thinking that it was "like a movie".
> > >
> > > Of course, when you say that, what it means is that you are 
> > > undergoing the visual experience of observing something but that 
> > > the acutal переживаний, the lived experience or the feeling of 
> > > what is happening to you, is somehow missing. It means almost the 
> > > same thing as when you say that something is a dream (I still 
> > > dream a lot about Syria, and sometimes I dream things that are 
> > > very disturbing, but I know that the dreams feel very different 
> > > from the way the reality
> felt).
> > >
> > > Here, it seems to me, we have an almost complete contrast of the 
> > > two meanings of reflection. For on the one hand, the scene that 
> > > you see before your eyes is a clear reflection; when you say that 
> > > you feel like a particularly gruesome or traumatic scene is like a 
> > > movie or like a dream, you do not in any way have the sense of 
> > > watching a movie or dreaming. What you mean is that you are seeing 
> > > the sights but not feeling the feelings of what happens to you; 
> > > you are lacking the
> > переживаний.
> > >
> > > And it seems to me that there are two ways to interpret that lack 
> > > that corresond to the two meanings of the word "reflection". One 
> > > is to say that you are not feeling and thinking the experience 
> > > because you are too busy directly experiencing it, reflecting it 
> > > like a mirror or a TV screen or a flickering image on the back of 
> > > your
> dreaming eyelids.
> > >
> > > But the other is that you are not participating in the experience, 
> > > and that your first reaction is that you yourself are neither the 
> > > murderer nor the murdered one. In other words, it is an 
> > > experience, but it is not an activity. And an experience that is 
> > > not an activity is not a lived
> > > experience: it is like a movie or like a dream.
> > >
> > > It's that SECOND meaning of reflection, which I am almost sure 
> > > really is a type of activity, even though it involves no actions 
> > > and only indirectly involves verbal meanings, that converts an 
> > > experience which is not an activity, into переживаний, or what 
> > > Wordsworth would call emotion reflected upon in tranquility.
> > >
> > > David Kellogg
> > > Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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