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RE: [xmca] Culture & Rationality
Monica--
I concede that my choice of the terms
*nonverbal* vs *verbal* may not be the best way to characterize the point
I was trying
to make about the development of dialogical
speech and dialogical thinking. *Verbal* can indeed encompass activities
and psychological processes that are
not technically word-based. My excuse for choosing those particular terms
is my own
myopic interest in the development of
words as a means of communication.
The point I was aiming for is the relationship
between dialogical thinking, dialectical logic, and reasoning. Andy stimulated
my thinking about this by suggesting
that dialectical logic is at the root of reasoning, regardless of whether
the logic used
for reasoning is formal logic. If formal
logic can be subsumed within the category of dialectical logic, then the
basis for
reasoning that we Vygotskians should
be focused on is dialectical logic.
What I was hoping to bring to light
was the possibility that dialectical logic--hence, reasoning--could develop
in humans by
some means other than being explicitly
taught the procedures for how to produce scientific concepts and how to
reason
scientifically. If the only evidence
of the ability to reason is the existence of scientific concepts and methods,
then we face
an uncomfortable truth: nonliterate
and uneducated children and adults who have no access to science instruction
cannot
possibly reason. But that idea does
not sit right with most of us.
But if dialectical logic and reasoning
could develop without the need for explicit instruction--as I believe it
does in the process
of developing dialogical speaking skills
(through experience with interpersonal speech) and dialogical thinking
skills (through
experience with personal speech), then
nonliterate and uneducated adults would indeed possess the foundation and
tools
for reasoning (dialectically)--despite
the lack of formal training in science. That idea is far more satisfying,
and may be closer
to the truth.
Peter
Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D.
Associate Director of Institutional Research
Fordham University
Thebaud Hall-202
Bronx, NY 10458
Phone: (718) 817-2243
Fax: (718) 817-3203
e-mail: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu
From:
monica.hansen <monica.hansen@vandals.uidaho.edu>
To:
"eXtended Mind,
Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date:
06/28/2012 07:08 PM
Subject:
RE: [xmca] Culture
& Rationality
Sent by:
xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
Peter,
I agree with almost everything you post here except the dichotomy verbal
and nonverbal. I don't mean to by picky, but I think these term verbal
thinking does not encompass the full capacity of human memory, thinking
and reasoning that can be verbal but may also occur using "nonverbal"
symbols and gestures. It is not just the "words", oral or written
that give "speech" its meaning and significance. It is not the
lack of human speech that makes babies comparable to the baser creatures,
it is their capacity to develop language that makes them more than animals,
and it is this capability of babies to enter into a dialogical and dialectical
relationship that allows them to learn words and other symbols that are
meaningful in their culture.
In Vygotsky, I think I started to understand this not from his use of language
words directly ("speech", "language", "word"
because that can get murky from English translations, was probably murky
to begin with then and is still murky now), but through the discussion
of language as a tool and extending discussions of semiotic mediation.
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of Peter Feigenbaum
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 9:45 AM
To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Culture & Rationality
Martin, Andy, (and Jennifer, from a crossing email),
I think Andy is pointing us directly to the heart of the matter, which
I see as the divide between thinking nonverbally
(such as animals do) and thinking verbally. Verbal thinking is dialogical
and dialectical. Nonverbal thinking
lacks these qualities.
Vygotsky's theory about the development of thinking and speaking forces
us to wrestle with the question
of what causes a young child to transform from a nonverbal creature into
a verbal one. We are not born
thinking dialogically; this is a form of activity each of us must learn
in order to become competent speakers
of our native language. In practice, competent adults help young children
participate in conversations by
performing much of the dialogical work themselves, thereby creating the
illusion that young children are able
to *speak* dialogically on their own. But eventually young children must
learn how to *think* dialogically in
order to truly master the activity of speaking. That's where private speech
comes in.
In ontogeny, the development of learning to think dialogically is observable
in children's use of private speech
in relation to their practical activity. Early in the process, private
speech trails behind activity, giving voice to
children's thoughts but not appreciably altering the course of activity.
Vygotsky referred to this relationship by
using an analogy to music: activity is the melody and private speech is
the harmony. But gradually, the
relationship reverses: private speech becomes the melody and practical
activity becomes the harmony.
This moment of transition is recognizable to us as the moment that private
speech begins to show signs of
being *self-regulatory*, and thinking shows signs of being *self-reflective*.
In Kohlberg's system for classifying
private speech (I know this came up in another related thread--see table
below), this transition is marked by
the appearance of *Questions answered by the self*. Is there any better
illustration that a person has mastered
the logic of dialogue than their being able to take both sides in a conversational
exchange?
The relevance of this seeming digression has to do with Vygotsky's use
of *scientific* concepts as evidence
that children have developed dialectical, rational thinking. In so doing,
he also links rational thinking to
*schooling*, leading us to jump to the conclusion that *true* concepts
are the product of education. While I
cannot cite any evidence (yet), I see no reason to believe that typically
developing children have ever required
overt instruction in learning to think *dialogically*. Dialogical thinking
develops in private speech as a result
of a child's own activity, not through explicit training or instruction--unlike
scientific concepts.
If the developmental process of learning to master the activity of speaking
and thinking occurs without instruction,
then primitive peoples should be able to think dialogically, although they
may be unable to think *scientifically*.
This distinction might well be crucial to understanding the reasoning abilities
of uneducated people.
Peter
[cid:image003.jpg@01CD5545.BCA2C260]
Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D.
Associate Director of Institutional Research
Fordham University
Thebaud Hall-202
Bronx, NY 10458
Phone: (718) 817-2243
Fax: (718) 817-3203
e-mail: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu<mailto:pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu>
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
Date: 06/27/2012 09:09 PM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Culture & Rationality
Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
________________________________
OK, I see what you are getting at, Martin.
I think one issue may be a certain conception of "rationality"
or
thecapacity to reason. LSV makes it clear I believe that formal logic is
a barren conception of reasoning. Not just that it is an inferior
practice of reasoning than dialectical rationality, but a professional
misconception of what reasoning actually is.
In chapter 6 of T&S he reports research into what he claims is "true
concepts" which hinge around complelting causative and adversative
sentences: "Volya fell off his bicycle because ..." - will
the child
add "... he went to hospital" or "he was careless."
This may seem
strange. Doesn't this simply tell us about the child's concept of
causality? WHat has it to do with concepts?
The analytical philosopher at the University of Pittsburg , Robert
Brandom, who has never heard of Vygotsky (so far as I can tell) and
knows little about psychology, has made it his project to elucidate in
philosophical terms what a concept is. He says that a concept is two
things: (1) recognition of a situation, and (2) understanding of what is
meant by or what follows from that situation. He illustrates the idea
well by pointing to some "bad concepts" such as racist concepts
which by
their nature identify a certain appearance with a contemptible character.
So the acquisition of concepts means precisely the formation
situation-significance pairs, and it is these pairs which function as
the substance of life and rationality in any culture and the substance
of mind for any individual member of a culture.
So I think it is a mistake to identify rationality with the habitual use
of formal logical reasoning. That formal logic constitutes a standard of
rationality (rather than the rules of a very narrow specialist domain of
reasoning) is an illusion of one particular current of philosophical
thought, one which the LSV who wrote Thinking and Speech did not share,
Uzbekhistan notwithstanding.
Andy
Martin Packer wrote:
> Hi Peter,
>
> I am glad to see you join in the discussion, since I know you've done
interesting research on inner speech.
>
> I am certainly willing to grant that patterns of social interaction
will become patterns of self-regulation and thereby parts of patterns of
individual thinking. It also makes sense to me, and in my opinion LSV clearly
states the view, that the higher psychological processes are cultural processes.
I think he goes so far as to say that reasoning is cultural.
>
> But, importantly, that is not the same as saying that reasoning *varies*
across cultures. We *all* live in culture, and one can say that reasoning
is cultural and still maintain that reasoning is universal. Are we willing
to take another step, and suggest that in specific cultures the ways that
people reason will be different, because the specific conventions of each
culture are involved? That is a big step to take, because the rules of
logic, to pick what is usually taken to be one component of reasoning,
are usually considered to hold regardless of local conventions.
>
> One way to take this step, of course, is to say that people in cultures
reason in different ways but then to add an evaluative dimension. Those
people in that culture reason differently from the way we do, but that
is because their reasoning is less adequate than ours. They are more childlike,
more primitive. *This* move has often been made, and I can find many passages
in LSV's texts where he seems to be saying basically this. That's not a
move I find interesting or appealing, and it's not what I am proposing.
>
> On the contrary, it seems to me that much of LSV's writing can be
read as pointing to the conclusion that *standards* of rationality will
vary from one culture another. But I don't think he followed his own pointers,
and, as I've said above, it is a pretty radical conclusion to come to.
>
> Martin
>
> On Jun 27, 2012, at 9:33 AM, Peter Feigenbaum wrote:
>
>
>> Martin--
>>
>> If you grant that interpersonal speech communication is essentially
a cultural invention, and that private and inner speech--as derivatives
of interpersonal speech communication--are also cultural inventions, then
Vygotsky's assertions about inner speech as a tool that adults use voluntarily
to conduct and direct such crucial psychological activities as analyzing,
reflecting, conceptualizing, regulating, monitoring, simulating, rehearsing
(actually, some of these activities were not specifically asserted by Vygotsky,
but instead have been discovered in experiments with private speech) would
imply that these "higher mental processes" are themselves cultural
products. Even if the *contents* of inner speech thinking happen to bear
no discernible cultural imprint, the process of production nonetheless
does.
>>
>> Of course, you may not agree that interpersonal speech communication
is a cultural invention. But if you do go along with the idea that every
speech community follows (albeit implicitly) their own particular conventions
or customs for: assigning specific speech sounds to specific meanings (i.e.,
inventing words); organizing words into sequences (i.e., inventing grammar--Chomsky's
claims not withstanding); and sequencing utterances in conversation according
to rules of appropriateness (i.e., inventing rules that regulate "what
kinds of things to say, in what message forms, to what kinds of people,
in what kinds of situations", according to the cross-cultural work
of E. O. Frake), then reasoning based on the use of speech must be cultural
as well.
>>
>> My guess is that you are looking for evidence that cultures reason
differently. While there may be evidence for such a claim, I only want
to point out that the tools for reasoning are themselves manufactured by
human culture.
>>
>> Peter
>>
>> Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D.
>> Associate Director of Institutional Research
>> Fordham University
>> Thebaud Hall-202
>> Bronx, NY 10458
>>
>> Phone: (718) 817-2243
>> Fax: (718) 817-3203
>> e-mail: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu<mailto:pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu>
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu<mailto:packer@duq.edu>>
>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
>> Date: 06/26/2012 05:06 PM
>> Subject: [xmca] Culture & Rationality
>> Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you for the suggestions that people have made about evidence
that supports the claim that culture is constitutive of psychological functions.
Keep sending them in, please! Now I want to introduce a new, but related,
thread. A few days ago I gave Peter a hard time because he wrote that "higher
mental processes are those specific to a culture, and thus those that embody
cultural concepts so that they guide activity."
>>
>> I responded that I don't think that LSV ever wrote this - his
view seems to me to have been that it is scientific concepts that make
possible the higher psychological functions (through at time he seems to
suggest the opposite).
>>
>> My questions now are these:
>>
>> 1. Am I wrong? Did LSV suggest that higher mental processes are
specific to a culture and based on cultural concepts?
>>
>> 2. If LSV didn't suggest this, who has? Not counting Peter! :)
>>
>> 3. Do we have empirical evidence to support such a suggestion?
It seems to me to boil down, or add up, to the claim that human rationality,
human reasoning, varies culturally. (Except who knows what rationality
is? - it turns out that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy does not
have an entry for Rationality; apparently they are still making up their
minds.)
>>
>> that's all, folks
>>
>> Martin
>>
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--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
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