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Re: [xmca] Perezhivanie and Dewey's concept of experience
There is a rather unknown US philosopher (at least in some circles of
discussion) that dedicated all his life to these issues - Eugene Gendlin.
Talking with a Russian friend a few years ago - while we were both
studying Vygotsky in the context of professor Engeström’s activity theory in
Helsinki - about the similarity of Perezhivanie in Vygotsky and the
concept of "felt sense" or "felt meaning" or "felt experiencing" in Gendlin
he agreed that those two concepts have much in common.
Better than me I will quote Gendlin, both on his accounts on the subject,
and passages where he writes about Dewey's "experience":
"Besides the logical dimension and the operational dimension of knowledge,
there is also a directly felt, experiential dimension. *Meaning* is not only
*about things* and it is not only a certain *logical** *structure, but it
also involves *felt *experiencing. Any concept, thing, or behavior is
meaningful only as some noise, thing, or event interacts with felt
experiencing. Meanings are formed and had through an interaction between
experiencing and symbols or things.
In the past, meaning has been analyzed very largely in terms of things
(objective reference, sense perception) and in terms of logical structure.
Of course, meanings were viewed as concerning experience, but "experience"
was usually construed as a logical scheme that organizes sense perceptions
or as a logical construct that intervenes to relate and predict
observations of behavior.
Today, however, we can no longer construe "experience" so narrowly. Besides
logical schemes and sense perception we have come to recognize that there
is also a powerful *felt* dimension of experience that is prelogical, and
that functions importantly in what we think, what we perceive, and how we
behave."
Eugene T. Gendlin, Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning
"Dilthey provided another vital insight, one that is still not appreciated:
Dilthey said that experiencing (living) is itself an understanding, rather
than something that needs interpretation or understanding put on it. Most
current philosophers follow Kant in assuming that experience is only
derivative from pre-existing concepts.
Using Dilthey, we can turn Kant around: Living is inherently a kind of
understanding *not* because concepts are at work in it; rather concepts are
derived from how living makes sense. And there can be new living and new
sense-making.
Experiencing is itself a kind of understanding, and we can also hold the
converse: Understanding is never just an *about*; it is itself a kind of
experiencing, a new further living."
Gendlin, E.T. (1994). Response [Gendlin replies to four commentary articles
on his work, which are in the same issue of this journal]. *Human Studies,
17*(3), 381-400. From http://www.focusing.org/gendlin/docs/gol_2123.html
"Dilthey developed a general hermeneutic from its role in elucidating
texts, books, paintings, buildings—what he called an "expression." He says
that one begins without understanding the parts or the whole very well.
Only the whole gives the parts their roles and meanings. But of course we
arrive at an understanding of the whole only part by part. A better grasp
of any part can change the sense of the whole. So it should be asked how
hermeneutic can ever get started. The well known "hermeneutic circle" is
often the only way come to understand something, but how do we do it?
The meaning of the parts is not fixed; they must grow in meaning. With our
terms we can articulate this. A hermeneutic circle would be vicious and
impossible if we could think only with distinctions, parts, units, factors,
patterned facts, formed things. We could only combine the individuated
units that we already understand. Many theorists still assume that we can
understand another person only if we have the same experiences. What a dull
world that would be! With our new terms we can say: When experiences
function implicitly, they cross with every new event. Statements bring an
implicit mesh which grows even if the statement remains the same.
We understand a difficult text better after reading it many times. A
sentence which was a senseless jumble before, now it plainly says
something. We may later reinterpret it many times, but the sentence is
never again a jumble. It shows how earlier understandings continue
implicitly. But they cross; they do not limit our further steps.
Hermeneutic is a way of thinking which does not need unchangeable parts or
individuated units. The parts *neither* stay the same *nor* become
different. But this is not a contradiction; it is the relation we have
called "carrying forward." It cannot long seem strange—it is the most
ubiquitous kind of transition we find in thinking. We only lacked the terms
to talk about it, and to think deliberately with it.
Dilthey held that we never really have the same understanding as the author
had. If we understand a work at all, we understand it *better* than its
author did. We must create the author's process out of our own, thereby
augmenting both. In our terms we can say that they *cross*: Some of each
becomes *implicit* in the other. The author's statements do not change, but
*implicitly* they now contain our own experience as well. So they
constitute a "better" understanding than the author's. In the crossing our
own experiences are implicitly precisioned so that they can form the
author's *exact* meaning. We might render a point in other words and
examples, yet render it exactly. Conversely, someone might repeat the
author's words, and go on to a total misunderstanding. This use of the word
"exactly" functions like "truth" did for us. It is like grasping a
metaphor. "
The Responsive Order: A New Empiricism
E. T. Gendlin
On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 4:24 PM, Joao Martins <jbmartin@sercomtel.com.br>wrote:
> Andy, what is the reference?
>
> Joao
>
> -----Mensagem original-----
> De: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] Em
> nome
> de Andy Blunden
> Enviada em: terça-feira, 19 de fevereiro de 2013 12:23
> Para: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Assunto: Re: [xmca] Perezhivanie and Dewey's concept of experience
>
> What about this one Larry?
>
> ‘Experience’ is what James called a double-barreled word. Like
> its congeners, life and history, it includes /what/ men do and
> suffer, /what/ they strive for, love, believe and endure, and
> /how/ men act and are acted upon, the ways in which they do and
> suffer, desire and enjoy, see, believe, imagine – in short,
> processes of /experiencing/. ... It is ‘double-barreled’ in that
> it recognizes in its primary integrity no division between act
> and material, subject and object, but contains them both in an
> unanalyzed totality. ‘Thing’ and ‘thought’, as James says in the
> same connection, are single-barreled; they refer to products
> discriminated by reflection out of primary experience (1929 PJD:
> 256-7).
>
> Andy
>
> Larry Purss wrote:
> > Mike,
> >
> > On page 12 of the article on Dewey's notionotion of experience the
> > theme of experience AS "life overcomes and transforms factors of
> > opposition to achieve higher significance. Harmony and equilibrium are
> > the resullts not of mechanical processes but of RHYTHMIC resolution of
> > tension. The rhythmic ALTERNATION within the live creature BETWEEN
> > unity and disunity becomes CONSCIOUS in humans. Emotion signifies
> > BREAKS in experience which are then resolved through reflective
> > action"
> >
> > I thought this may be a way in to *start* the conversational dialogue
> > with perezhivanie.
> >
> > Larry
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 5:55 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Michael, Mike:
> >> One more fragment on the definition of sentipensante:
> >>
> >> Sentipensante pedagogy offers a transformative vision of education
> >> that emphasizes the harmonic, complementary relationship between the
> >> sentir of intuition and the pensar of intellect and scholarship;
> >> between teaching and learning; between formal knowledge and wisdom;
> >> and between Western and non-Western ways of knowing.
> >>
> >> Seems to have some family resemblance to this theme of experience
> >> Larry
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 5:37 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Mike,
> >>> Thanks for this.
> >>> Stanford Pub is a wonderful resource. I seem to download an author
> >>> approximately once a month. For $10 you support them and get the
> >>> articles sent in a PDF format.
> >>>
> >>> Michael , here is a link [in Spanish] to a youtube video of Orlando
> >>> Fals-Borda discussing his understanding of experience from the heart.
> >>> If you have any articles in English which you can share, this seems
> >>> to be exploring experience within "felt awareness".
> >>> Seems to be a fascinating expansion of the understanding of experience.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks, Michael and Mike
> >>>
> >>> Larry
> >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbJWqetRuMo
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 3:46 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Thanks Larry. Viva la differencia. Here is a quick summary of Dewey
> >>>> on experience. Note that his ideas are considered unusual by the
> author.
> >>>> That
> >>>> Stanford pub seems very useful.
> >>>> mike
> >>>>
> >>>> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey-aesthetics/#HavExp
> >>>>
> >>>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 3:08 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Michael,
> >>>>> I also found this site for Orlando Fals Borda.
> >>>>> http://comm-org.wisc.edu/si/falsborda.htm
> >>>>> If it is off topic please ignore. However, it is where my
> >>>>> curiosity was called or invited.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Larry
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Glassman, Michael <
> >>>>>
> >>>> glassman.13@osu.edu
> >>>>
> >>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Perhaps another avenue to explore might be Ortega y Gasset's
> >>>>>> ideas on experience (which is probably in some ways reflective of
> >>>>>> Dewey)
> >>>>>>
> >>>> which was
> >>>>
> >>>>>> appropriated by Orlando Fals Borda in the concept of vivencia -
> >>>>>>
> >>>> which is
> >>>>
> >>>>>> very compelling - and became an important part of Fals-Borda's
> >>>>>>
> >>>> conception
> >>>>
> >>>>>> of Participatory Action Research. This might then tie back to
> >>>>>> the
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> earlier
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> issue on PAR.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Michael
> >>>>>> ________________________________________
> >>>>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> >>>>>> on
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> behalf
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> of mike cole [lchcmike@gmail.com]
> >>>>>> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2013 2:28 PM
> >>>>>> To: Beth Ferholt
> >>>>>> Cc: Galina Zuckerman; John Shotter; Boris Meshcheryakov; eXtended
> >>>>>>
> >>>> Mind,
> >>>>
> >>>>>> Culture, Activity; James Wertsch; Alexander Asmolov
> >>>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Perezhivanie and Dewey's concept of
> >>>>>> experience
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Thanks Beth--
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I ask, firstly, because there appear quite clear overlaps as you
> >>>>>> and
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> Monica
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> have been exploring.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Secondly, we have two submissions to MCA on perezhivanie that are
> >>>>>>
> >>>> very
> >>>>
> >>>>>> focused on Russian authors. Over and above competing exegeses of
> >>>>>> the ideas of Vygotsky, Puyzerei, etc., it seems important
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> that
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> we figure out ways to explore different ways of thinking about
> >>>>>> the
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> general
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> category of "experience" that will be productive of new empirical
> >>>>>> and theoretical investigation.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> mike
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 9:42 AM, Beth Ferholt
> >>>>>> <bferholt@gmail.com>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>> Monica and I have just started using the two concepts in
> >>>>>>>
> >>>> conjunction,
> >>>>
> >>>>> as
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>> we write about the relation between play and learning and
> >>>>>>> Dewey's
> >>>>>>>
> >>>> ideas
> >>>>
> >>>>>> on
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> the relation between art and science in Art and Experience. I
> >>>>>>> am
> >>>>>>>
> >>>> very
> >>>>
> >>>>>>> interested in any ref. you find as I have found none yet. Can I
> >>>>>>>
> >>>> ask why
> >>>>
> >>>>>> you
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> ask now? Beth
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 6:09 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>>>>> Has anyone written on uses of the term perezhivanie as used in
> >>>>>>>> the cultural historical tradition and Dewey's concept of
> >>>>>>>> experience?
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>> references?
> >>>>
> >>>>>>>> mike
> >>>>>>>> __________________________________________
> >>>>>>>> _____
> >>>>>>>> xmca mailing list
> >>>>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>>>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> --
> >>>>>>> Beth Ferholt
> >>>>>>> Assistant Professor
> >>>>>>> School of Education
> >>>>>>> Brooklyn College, City University of New York
> >>>>>>> 2900 Bedford Avenue
> >>>>>>> Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
> >>>>>>> Phone: (718) 951-5205
> >>>>>>> Fax: (718) 951-4816
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> __________________________________________
> >>>>>> _____
> >>>>>> 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
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
> http://ucsd.academia.edu/AndyBlunden
>
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