Re: [xmca] Fyodor Vasilyuk "The Psychology of Experiencing"

[Haydi Zulfei <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com>]

Dear Larry 

Again thanks for your consistency ! 

Thanks also Peter for the introduction of the "Guided Mind" , a sociogenetic approach to personality . 

You know , Larry , Sign CAN replace object but CANNOT remove or destroy it and ontologically speaking , it CANNOT even take on the RANK of priority , originality , precedence , firstness . This is the KNOT , I suppose , lies beneath all discussion . Yes , true , this tiny thing amounts to a matter of 'reform' or 'revolution' . History has not proved everything yet . Here I'm so willing to thank Andy because a while ago , he declared : "I use psychology for a social change" . In Vygotsky , such an idea has been observed . 


As to your example of MUSIC , see if I commit a mistake : The artist cannot tolerate the bitter 'reality' . He wills to transform it . He has to take shelter in 'imagination' (using images,signs,symbols,metaphors,etc.)--towards actuality--goes higher and higher still upperwards until an ethereal acme is reached . Are you to stop here ? Is it enough for the terrestrial man ? 


This could be considered as Vasilyuk's re-orientation in a spot in the future after the 'activity' of 'experiencing' is done and over . The 'impossible' gives way to 'possible' . Agony replaces joy and refreshment . Life goes on .  

I say the acme reached is not enough and yet it is personal and not a code for survival . You're no angel , no superstructure , no superman . There's a MUST for a return . Towards a transformation of the known bitter reality of the material world . As yet , you've been in the world of the 'ideal' activity . No Kantian transcendence which leads to 'agnostics' . This is where Christine warned me against my former site of flight not to be regained futile . But a transformed SITE WITHIN THE WORLD OF REALITY . Our  poet says : I mortified the corporeal / I became a growing thing ; I deadened that growing thing/from its ashes I arose animate ; once again I will leave this firmament , flying/ I will become that which could not be deluded . Some scholar calls him : The Hegel of the Orient . 


As I know you're a fast reader , I send you three attachments . I suppose , you can have a good comparison because they deliver a CONTRAST , as you say . 


Best 


Haydi





________________________________
 From: Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> 
Sent: Friday, 13 January 2012, 22:23:24
Subject: [xmca] Fyodor Vasilyuk "The Psychology of Experiencing"
 

Andy, Thanks for sending out Chapter ll of Vasilyuk's book.

On page 87, I appreciated how he articulated the "ontology of the isolated

individual." I quote:


For the latter [ontology of the isolated individual], the situation taken

as primary for subsequent theoretical development is one where you have, on

the one hand, a separate being isolated from the world, and, on the other

hand, objects, or more precisely things, existing "in themselves".  The

SPACE BETWEEN, empty and contentless, only keeps them APART from one

another. Subject and object are both thought of as existing from the

BEGINNING and as INTRINSICALLY definite, PRIOR TO and independently of any

practical connection between them; they are independent natural ENTITIES.

Activity, which brings about a practical connection between subject and

object is STILL IN THE FUTURE; in order [for activity] to commence, it must

be sanctioned while the PRIMARY situation OF SEPARATION between subject and

object still prevails."


This is the classical psychological understanding of the source of activity

as DERIVED and IN THE FUTURE. In the ontolology of the isolated

individual's  most highly rationalized FORM can be REDUCED to a view that

activity is BASED on a cognitive calculation thesis.  Reflection PRECEDES

the activity within the subject's mind and only after does the activity

take place.


Andy, I wanted to highlight this passage as a way to document what may be a

shared understanding of what we are moving away from.  However, what we are

moving towards in our conceptions of "character" "personality", &

"disposition" as more or less "free" and more or less "assertive"  can be

multiple and express very different values of the KIND of persons which

develop within the alternative "ontology of the LIVED world"

For example  the Kyoto School's notion of "self-emptying" is a notion which

can find a place in  the "ontology of the LIVED world".


I want to bring in Kenichi Uchiyama's notion of a "lived world"

as analogous to playing music [Merleau-Ponty's singing the world]  Kenichi

says,

In order to continue to play music, we have to listen to the music as a

whole, which includes sounds we created in the past, sounds we are

creating, and sounds we expect to create in the future. We HEAR [not see]

the music as a whole. But where do we hear that music? It is not in the

REAL space, the sounds we created THERE in the past have disappeared. Thus

the PLACE where the music sounds as a whole is the ABSTRACT place beyond

time and space. It resides, as it were, BETWEEN us and REAL space. In other

words, we HEAR the music as an auto-affection of appearing to us without

any medium. We do not HEAR the music through our ears in REALITY, but HEAR

the music in ACTUALITY through Aristotelian "common sense" meaning the

common sense BETWEEN the five senses. [Merleau-Ponty makes a similar point]

The music players share not only the OBJECT [the sounds in reality] but the

music as a whole within a "lived world"  Kimura, who Kenichi references,

calls this place of shared music as a whole the "between". Kimura argues if

we focus on the reality of the sounds we loose the "actuality" and maintain

the "reality" because we perceive the reality of the sounds AS AN OBJECT.

To restore the "feeling" of reality one must experience actuality  which

Kimura [and Kenichi] believe is THE crucial characteristic of human affairs.


Kenichi contrasts his work with Checkland and Giddens who both focused on

"practice" and "action" within the ontology of the isolated individual.

In contrast, within an ontology of "living world", Kenichi emphasizes

action as "actuality", which builds on the derivation of "actual" from the

Latin "actio" as a phenomenological term as the VITAL contact with reality.

For Kimura and Kenichi "reality" [res=things] is something EXPERIENCED.

(noematic) and "actuality" as something EXPERIENCING (noetic)


Andy, I am not arguing for Kenichi's approach as being more coherent or

"true". I merely wanted to point out that we can all refute the ontology of

the isolated individual and agree on the ontology of the "living world" BUT

there is still room to explore notions such as Kimura's notion of

"betweeness" which may contrast with Leontiev's Activity theory.  The

question I would propose is,  What KIND of personality or disposition or

character is formed within these contrasting perspectives when viewed as a

sequence of activities forming personality and dispositions?


Larry


Larry

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Attachment: JAAN HOW AUTODIALOGUE WORKS.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

Attachment: MIKE COLE REVIEW OF DEVELOP PSH IN THE S.U.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

Attachment: PERSONALITY CULTURE LANGUAGE A.A.L..pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

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