Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

David-- It had never occurred to me that sciences are by definition closed.
Bounded perhaps? With leaky borders and a commitment to falsification?

mike

On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 8:08 AM, David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu> wrote:

> So, Nektarios, CHAT is just chat!
> More seriously, thinking of CHAT as a methodology--a set of
> practices--accommodates what seems to be its irrevocably "open,"
> non-absolute in character.
> But what does this do to the aspirations of sociocultural psychology to be
> taken seriously as a "science?" Aren't sciences, by definition, closed
> systems of thought?
> --Has sociocultural psychology renounced those ambitions?
> --Are theorists divided on the question of whether sociocultural theory
> strives for closure?
> --Are theorists ambivalent about this issue, unsure about how to frame
> these aspirations?
> --Or, perhaps, in a poststructural frame, are the aspirations of
> sociocultural theory indexed to particular discourses, in some of which
> sociocultural theory is clearly scientific, and others clearly not?
> --None of the above?
> David
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of Nektarios Alexi
> Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 9:25 AM
> To: ablunden@mira.net
> Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: RE: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?
>
>
> What an interesting genealogy!!
>
> So the father of CHAT was Aristotle?:) Is ike the Abraham of Bible?:)
>
> But i think in terms of dialectical materialism CHAT it is all them
> interrelating to each other,and one theorists complementing each other and
> very often the fruit of it is a qualitavely different theory than the other
> but neverthless the fruit of the previous theories.. So it means that CHAT
> it is not a close system, it is not an absolute theory, it is more like a
> method that because of its not teleological morphology it always create the
> appropriate space to integrate anything relevant that helps us to
> understand us (humans) in relation to society and culture and vice versa?
>
>
>
> Nektarios
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andy Blunden [mailto:ablunden@mira.net]
> Sent: Thu 11/8/2012 12:36 AM
> To: Nektarios Alexi
> Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?
>
> Others can probably enlighten us more than I can, Nektarios, but I think
> he was a very erudite person. Clearly from a young age he was hungry for
> knowledge and read widely in many languages. But specifically, he was
> coming of age in Russia right in the midst of the Russian Revolution. This
> revolution threw literally millions of people into all kinds of "social
> criticism" (Luria describes the tumultuous scene in his University at the
> time, in his Autobiography). New movements in Art, literature, Linguistics,
> natural science, social theory, philosophy, technology, social
> organisation,... sprung up spontaneously on all sides. Vygotsky was a part
> of that. That is the main thing. But for geopolitical reasons it was a
> short-lived "Spring."
>
> In particular, I think, Vygotsky came from Art Criticism (in a milieu
> where drama theory, linguistics and aesthetic theory were making world
> historic advances in Vygotsky's immediate social circle. Then his
> intellectual disposition (as exhibited in his Psychology of Art) took him
> into education and scientific psychology. At that time, prior to and
> independently of the Revolution, Russia was already  in the forefront of
> Behaviourist research in Psychology. Vygotsky was in an ideal position to
> bring the social criticism he learnt as a student into the scientific
> establishment around Pavlov, Bekhterev, etc. Add to that his close study of
> Marx's Capital, Lenin's philosophical works, and Engels' popularisation, is
> the broth which produced Vygotsky.
>
> See http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/chat/Genealogy-CHAT.htm
>
> Andy
>
> Nektarios Alexi wrote:
>
>
>         Hi Andy,
>
>         My question is how Vygotsky could tackle such subtle problems in
> the theories of Piaget but also others in his book Thought and Language?
> What kind of intellectual or theoretical backgorund did Vygotsky had that
> allowed him to see the human nature in such a depth and not just that but
> also find the precise language to describe it, but not just describe it but
> describe it in scientific terms and also with evidence? Can we say that it
> was his comprehensive knowledge on arts and especially of classic
> literature that helped him to see that deep and notice such subtle details
> and errors in so many other important psychological theories of his time?
> Just saying..
>
>         Nektarios
>
>         -----Original Message-----
>         From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Larry Purss
>         Sent: Thu 11/8/2012 12:02 AM
>         To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>         Subject: Re: [xmca] ISCAR Newsletter?
>
>         Andy
>         I just finished reading your article in the newsletter.
>         It is a clear statement of ways to expand the conversation.
>         I have recently re-read the 1st chapter of Raymond Williams book
> *Marxism
>         and Literature* on the concept of *culture*. It is a wonderful
> history on
>         the shifting flowing transforming meanings  of various uses of the
> concept
>         *culture*
>
>         I noticed at the beginning of the article you are affiliated with
> a group
>         with the title *continental philosophy*
>         I often wonder if this umbrella term could be more explicitly
> brought into
>         the conversation to illuminate the multiple streams of
> sociocultural theory
>         and how CHAT is situated within this umbrella term.
>         It would possibly assist in engaging deeply with philosophy as you
> advocate.
>
>         I would like to bring in a distinction that Charles Taylor uses
> between
>         what he refers to as *strict* dialectics and *interpretive*
> dialectics.
>
>         Strict dialectics assumes each side of the dialectic [for example
>         individual and social] are interactive but the essence of the
> objects
>         interacting is determined. Interpretive dialectics in contrast
> puts in play
>         the interpretive nature of the objects which are then joined in
> interaction.
>
>         I am attaching the first two chapters of Raymond Williams book
> *Marxism and
>         Literature* which I believe is an example of *interpretive*
> dialectics as
>         described by Charles Taylor.
>
>         The contrast between the notions *strict* and *interpretive* may
> be helpful
>         in illuminating different notions of *interaction* and *activity*
> within
>         mediated worlds.
>
>         Andy, I hope others read the ISCAR newletter and join with us in a
> friendly
>         CHAT.
>         Larry
>
>
>
>
>
>         On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 5:42 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>  wrote:
>
>         > Strangely enough, Ron, my first contacts with Vygotskyan theory
> was with
>         > academic colleagues at the University of Melbourne, with whom I
> was
>         > interacting in the project of creating collaborative learning
> spaces. I
>         > knew about social constructionism, which I took to be Berger and
>         > post-modern critical theory (having only the vaguest knowledge
> of these
>         > things) but then from my colleagues, who were van der Veer and
> Valsiner
>         > types, I was surprised to find out that Vygotsky (whose name I
> knew from
>         > Ilyenkov) was also a constructivist (I have never properly
> separated the
>         > way those two words are used). So I then got a book out of the
> library on
>         > constructivist epistemology which said that there were dozens of
> varieties
>         > of constructivism, but that Vygotsky was a constructivist who
> took the
>         > collaboration of carer-child dyads as the basis for the social
> construction
>         > of knowledge, rather than the wider culture .... took me quite a
> while to
>         > find my bearings in all that mess.
>         >
>         > I just think that we always have to allow a lot of latitude in
>         > understanding what people actually mean when they use a word in
> a given
>         > context. A word meaning is not a concept.
>         >
>         > Andy
>         >
>         >
>         > Ron Lubensky wrote:
>         >
>         >> Hi Andy,
>         >>
>         >> I too thought the ISCAR newsletter interview article was very
> good. I
>         >> especially liked your comparison of CHAT to interactionist
> approaches,
>         >> which you and I have discussed before. One area that continues
> to be messy,
>         >> as you suggest, is the relationship of CHAT to social
> constructIVism and
>         >> social constructIONism.
>         >>
>         >> Since CHAT's first home is developmental psychology, it is out
> of the
>         >> work of Piaget and Papert that these terms are usually defined,
> and so
>         >> closely that they are often conflated. While these theories
> acknowledge the
>         >> social and perhaps cultural influences on learning and
> interpretation, they
>         >> centre on a cognitivist, mental model view of knowledge. There
> is also the
>         >> normative aspect of giving control to the learner to construct
> his or her
>         >> individual world-view.
>         >>
>         >> The other social constructIONism comes out of communications and
>         >> sociology (e.g. Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of
> Reality,
>         >> 1966), that challenges the inevitability of categorisations
> that are taken
>         >> for granted in common discourse, and which form the bases for
> many
>         >> institutions. This post-modern constructIONism generally places
> knowledge
>         >> in discourse and interaction, but in more recent scholarship
> focuses on the
>         >> cultural situation of the individual. This isn't a learning
> theory but
>         >> rather a critical, meta-theoretical stance. To complicate
> matters, there
>         >> are different strands with various accounts of what should be
> treated as
>         >> real, true, essential, scientific, etc. and how communication
> should relate
>         >> to action. It also challenges academic research standards with
> advocacy for
>         >> interventionist approaches to practice. For an
> interdisciplinary expansion
>         >> of CHAT, I think this constructIONism offers a rich field for
> comparison.
>         >>
>         >> --
>         >> Ron Lubensky
>         >> http://www.deliberations.com.**au/ <
> http://www.deliberations.com.au/>
>         >> 0411 412 626
>         >> Melbourne Australia
>         >>
>         >
>         > --
>         > ------------------------------**------------------------------**
>         > ------------
>         > *Andy Blunden*
>         > Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <
> http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
>         > Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
>         > http://ucsd.academia.edu/**AndyBlunden<
> http://ucsd.academia.edu/AndyBlunden>
>         >
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>
>
> --
>
> ________________________________
>
> *Andy Blunden*
> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
> http://ucsd.academia.edu/AndyBlunden
>
>
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