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Re: [xmca] Abstract to Concrete



Enjoy your Ilyenkov, Christine. If you come across any typos, please send them to me.
Yes, the third action is the formation of the "germ cell" - getting to 
the abstract heart of the problem - and is therefore exactly what 
Ilyenkov is talking about in the passage you cite. But whether the 
concept of double stimulation helps just here I don't know. And also, I 
personally think it is worth devoting some time to grasping the *whole 
process* of concept formation and this paragraph of Engestrom's is one 
of the few places where a writer attempts to do this and analyse it. So 
I would encourage people to work on that whole process, rather than 
picking out one action, important as that also is.
The ideal-typical line of development which Yrjo has presented here is 
proposed as ideal-typical of "concept formation in the wild," as that is 
the title he himself chose for the special issue. But it looks much more 
to me like the ideal-typical sequence of cognitive acts for an 
intervention. In general, I find the germ cell is *discovered* not 
"constructed" or "modelled." This moment, the "Aha! moment," has always 
been one of the most challenging ones for "logicians" to describe. It is 
a *leap*. In general I would say it is a sudden insight that more 
resembles a moment of discovery than a "construction."
One the other hand, I think the danger in presenting the concept of 
concept as an ideal-typical line of development (something which I also 
advocate) is that the reader may easily slip into the illusion that the 
given moment (here the discovery of the germ cell) or action, is a 
once-off moment. In fact, the germ-cell may be discovered in what turns 
out to be a misconception, but may nonetheless run the full gammet up to 
objectification and "a new stable form of practice" before falling into 
contradiction with itself and entering into conflict with a new germ 
cell, and being sublated into a new, deeper concept of the problem which 
figures in "action 1." This applies to all Yrjo's actions listed here.
But one of the great merits of Engestrom's writing is that his reseach 
reports are equally much teaching and learning instruments, and this 
neat seven-step program functions as an excellent guide to practice. But 
one should remember that a real concept is not an ideal-typical concept 
(NB readers of Vygotsky). Each of those steps (Hegel called them 
"grades" rather than "stages" sometimes) includes and sublates others in 
a kind of cascade. It is not a neat sequence of events, culminating in a 
"new stable form of practice" signalling the end of the intervention and 
time to settle up and go home. The process of concept development never 
stops.
Andy

Christine Schweighart wrote:
Hi Andy,
In the third action, developing an abstraction - Yryo's work uses a generic model in dual stimulation. This draws upon his historical development as argued in his research. Is it not also possible to explore this third action as an abstraction without that particular model structure, I ask because I'm reading this section of Chapter 1 of Ilyenkov: http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/abstract/abstra1d.htm "The task of logic as a science grows out of the real needs of the developing cognition of the phenomena of the surrounding world. The question with which a thinking man turns to logic as a science is not at all the question of how abstractions should be made in general, how one can learn to abstract the general from the sensually given facts. To do that, one need not at all ask the logicians’ advice, one merely has to have a command of one’s native language and the ability to concentrate one’s attention on the sensually given similarities and differences.
The question with which one turns to logic and which can only be 
answered by logic involves a much more complicated cognitive task: how 
is one to work out an abstraction which would express the objective 
essence of facts given in contemplation and notions? The manner in 
which processing a mass of empirically obvious facts yields a 
generalisation expressing the real nature of the object under study – 
that is the actual problem, whose solution is identical with that of 
the problem of the nature of concepts as distinct from abstract 
general notions."
and it strikes me that dual stimulation might be upon notions from 
'action 2' ...
 Christine.

On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 8:54 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
    Taylor & Francis allows xmca only discuss one article per issue,
    but I see no reason why we couldn't discuss this excerpt from
    Engestrom's paper. It concerns "rising from the abstract to the
    concrete," which we were recently discussing, but without resolution.

    --------------------------

    Ascending from the abstract to the concrete is achieved through
    specific epistemic or learning actions. Together these actions
    form an expansive cycle or spiral. An ideal-typical sequence of
    epistemic actions in ascending from the abstract to the concrete
    may be described as follows:

    •         The first action is that of questioning, criticizing, or
    rejecting some aspects of the accepted practice and existing
    wisdom. For the sake of simplicity, we will call this action
    questioning.

    •         The second action is that of analyzing the situation.
    Analysis involves mental, discursive or practical transformation
    of the situation in order to find out origins and explanatory
    mechanisms.

    •         The third action is that of modeling a new explanatory
    relationship in some publicly observable and transmittable medium.
    This means constructing an explicit, simplified model of the new
    idea, a germ cell, that explains the problematic situation and
    offers a perspective for resolving and transforming it.

    •         The fourth action is that of examining the model,
    running, operating, and experimenting on it in order to fully
    grasp its dynamics, potentials, and limitations.

    •         The fifth action is that of implementing the model,
    concretizing it by means of practical applications, enrichments,
    and conceptual extensions.

    •         The sixth and seventh actions are those of reflecting on
    and evaluating the process and consolidating its outcomes into a
    new stable form of practice.


    --------------------

    MCA 19(1) pp. 288-289.

    Andy


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