Re: [xmca] Re: Using the term institution in a very broad sense

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Call it group think or collective intelligence, Martin. Or perhaps,
serendipity, which, after all, is an important life principle.
mike

On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 9:46 AM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:

> Mike,
>
> The quotation from David McNeil at the start of Sinha's chapter expresses
> perfectly what I was struggling to articulate:
>
> "Grammars ... refer to real structures, though not to psychologically real
> structures in the processing sense ... a grammar is a description of our
> knowledge of a social institution—the language—and because of this basis in
> social or institutional reality, rather than in cognitive functioning,
> grammars and psychological processes have no more than the loose
> relationships they appear, in fact, to have. The role of grammar during
> speech programming is analogous to the role of other social institutions
> during individual behaviour. This role is to define and evaluate the
> behaviour of individuals. It is not to cause the behaviour" (McNeill 1979:
> 293).
>
> Martin
>
> On Jun 19, 2011, at 10:17 AM, mike cole wrote:
>
> > I first encountered the idea of language as social institution in
> Durkheim,
> > Larry. I found this piece by Chris Sinha who is always instructive to
> read.
> > mike
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 11:02 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> The other thread on the meaning of words and word meaning is
> fascinating.
> >> Trying to keep separate what Vygotsky said and meant from  other's
> >> perspectives on this topic seems to become intertwined Therefore I'm
> >> starting a new thread.
> >>
> >> I was interested in Andy's comment that there may be alternative
> "readings"
> >> of this topic which are using similar words but have different word
> >> meanings. Then Tony wrote the comment,
> >>
> >> I am comfortable calling a language an institution, although that
> requires
> >> using "institution" in a very broad sense.
> >> For some purposes, it could be necessary to differentiate among social
> >> institutions, legal institutions, cultural institutions, etc. But I am
> >> completely comfortable recognizing all of these as institutions.
> >>
> >> Tony bringing in the term "institution" leaves me wondering if
> >> "institutions" is being used to express similar a concept  to Dewey's
> >> "systems of meanings" or Gadamer's "frameworks" or"horizons of
> >> understanding" or Merleau-Ponty's notion of "sedimentation" or
> >> Wittgenstein's notion of "fly-bottles". [notice how these concepts are
> all
> >> metaphors or images but that's another thread] These metaphors point to
> the
> >> IMPLICIT background cultural-historical objectively real assumptions
> which
> >> become expressed [made sense of] as persons learn to participate within
> >> these institutional formations. [ thrown into the always already
> existing
> >> real institutions].  The relational intersubjective dialogical learning
> of
> >> these historically constituted institutional formations [in
> >> modernity] constitute particular situated  psychological formations of
> >> personal subjectivity which emerge as the person RESPONDS to being
> >> recognized as participating in the institutionally structured learning
> >> processes.  In the process of learning these institutional forms of
> >> coordination and regulation particular modes of "seeing" and "knowing"
> as a
> >> gestalt perspective  [with no gap between seeing and knowing] constitute
> >> particular KINDS of identity formation. These kinds of identity are
> >> instituted [but not determined].  The person at birthhas entered the
> >> hermeneutic circle of learning and the person's subjectivity or identity
> as
> >> figure or sense is a PART of this system of objective
> cultural-historical
> >> "system of meanings."
> >>
> >> The sociocultural turn in psycholgy is the developing awareness
> >> [consciousness?] or sense of these backgrounds or common grounds that
> >> intersubjectively mediate our development as particular KINDS of
> persons.
> >>
> >> I started a new thread to draw attention to the
> >> "fly-bottles" [institutional frameworks] at the center of learning [as
> >> enculturation].
> >>
> >> Martin, your article reflecting on learning as ontological and not
> merely
> >> epistemological is central to my reflections. Also your reflections that
> the
> >> constructivist notion of development and the interactional notion of
> >> development both lack an historical [institutional?] perspective are
> central
> >> to my reflections on "systems of meaning" as the objective phenomena
> from
> >> which sense emerges as consciousness.
> >>
> >> Andy, reading your reflections on this same topic, from my perspective,
> >> seems to  share much common ground with Martin's position.  Different
> >> emphasis maybe, but the common ground seems to be much greater than the
> >> distinctions.
> >>
> >> Of course, I may be off base completely in my interpretation of how
> others
> >> are using the word"institution" and its possible word meanings but I'm
> >> wondering if "institution" is linked to the notion of "systems of
> meaning"
> >>
> >> Larry
> >>
> >> PS
> >> I may be mixing up various discourses and my thoughts may lack precision
> or
> >> coherence, [eclectic and unsystematic] but this RESPONSE to the other
> >> threads discussed on the list serve  is my struggle to make sense of
> systems
> >> of meaning.
> >>
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