Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation

[Haydi Zulfei <haydizulfei@yahoo.com>]

Andy,
Excuse me for the delay . Just I meant *the subjective reflection of objective reality* which I'm quite sure you know all about it . 
Haydi

--- On Mon, 1/5/09, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, January 5, 2009, 10:24 PM

As Mike suggets, Haydi, I think that Ilyenkov has had the 
last word on ideality. I would not pretend to be able to 
improve on 
http://marx.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/ideal/ideal.htm

Andy
Haydi Zulfei wrote:
> 
> Andy,
> Two questions :
> Do you give any weight to *ideality* ?
> If you do , what is it in definition -- just once more ? 
> Mike recently had this to say :
> ***Along with others, thanks for your thoughtful summarizing and
commentary
> on Sasha's long note, Steve. To me, the basic idea behind chat as a
> framework (sometimes elevated in particular work to the status of a
> theoretical
> heuristic, perhaps even a theory) is captured by the following statement
in
> Steve's note which, I believe, reflects the views of Peter and Anna as
well..
> 
> These two lines of thinking about tools and signs could be seen [[as two
sides
> of the same coin]] , [[the same essential process]] , [[which may be
better understood
> now that we have the theory of [ideality/materiality] to work with,
(which, as
> I mentioned, I believe is an advance over the older "sign/tool"
framework
> Vygotsky employed).]]  The discovery by Ilyenkov that all cultural
artifacts,
> including internal psychological processes, "contain"
(metaphorically
> speaking) both ideality and materiality offers new ways to assess earlier
> efforts to describe and explain mediation.***
> mikr
> 
> Best
> Haydi
> 
> 
> --- On Mon, 1/5/09, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> 
> From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Monday, January 5, 2009, 2:42 AM
> 
> I might say as an aside, that "reflection" whatever it is in
Russian,
> has a strong place in Russian Marxism. This is because Lenin made such a
> powerful attack on his philosophical enemies in "Materialism and
> Empirio-Criticism" written in 1908. Ilyenkov still defends this books
in
> the mid-1970s, though almost all non-Russian Marxists would say that it is
a
> terrible book and was written before Lenin had studied Hegel, etc. In
M&EC
> Lenin makes reflection a central category, a universal property of matter,
etc.,
> and bitterly attacks the use of semiotics of any kind.
> 
> I have an ambiguous attitude to M&EC myself. Apart from "sins of
> omission" perhaps, Lenin is right, but did he really have to shout it
that
> loud? Well, in the historical context of the wake of the defeat of the
1905
> Revolution, probably he did. Did all Russian Marxists for the next 100
years
> have to follow his lead? Probably not.
> 
> I note that in Dot Robbins' book on Vygotsky and Leontyev's
Semiotics
> etc., Dot defends the notion of reflection. The situation, as I see it, is
that
> "reflection" has a strong advantage and an equally strong
disadvantage
> in conveying a materialist conception of sensuous perception.
> 
> On one side it emphasises the objectivity of the image-making - there is
> nothing in the mirror, or if there is, it is an imperfectionit which
distorts
> the image. On the other side, mirror-imaging is an entirely passive
process, a
> property of even non-living matter.
> 
> Personally, I think "reflection" belongs to Feuerbachian
materialism,
> not Marxism, but in historical context, the position of many Russians who
use
> the concept, is understandable.
> 
> That's how I see it anyway,
> 
> Andy
> 
> Ed Wall wrote:
>> Martin
>>
>>        It appears the root is more or less
>>
>>                         отрaжáть (отрaзить)
>>
>>
>> and, at least according to my dictionary, has the sense of  reflecting
or
> having an effect. However, my qualifications are dated.
>> Ed
>>
>> On Jan 4, 2009, at 7:01 PM, Martin Packer wrote:
>>
>>> At the end of last year several of us were trying to figure out
> whether
>>> 'reflection' is a good term to translate the way Vygotsky
and
> leontiev wrote
>>> about 'mental' activity. Michael Roth pointed out that the
> German word that
>>> Marx used was Widerspiegeln rather than Reflektion (see below). I
> don't
>>> think anyone identified the Russian word that was used. I still
> haven't
>>> found time to trace the word in Vygotsky's texts, English and
> Russian. But
>>> an article by Charles Tolman suggests that the Russian term was
>>> 'otrazhenie.'  Online translators don't like this
word:
> can any Russian
>>> speakers suggest how it might be translated?
>>>
>>> Reflection (German: Widerspiegelung; Russian: otrazhenie)
>>>
>>> Tolman, C.W. (1988). The basic vocabulary of Activity Theory.
Activity
>>> Theory, 1, 14-20.
>>>
>>> Martin
>>>
>>> On 10/25/08 12:40 PM, "Wolff-Michael Roth"
> <mroth@uvic.ca> wrote:
>>>> Hi Martin,
>>>>
>>>> Marx does indeed use the term "widerspiegeln" in the
> sentence you cite.
>>>> Das Gehirn der
>>>> Privatproduzenten spiegelt diesen doppelten gesellschaftlichen
>>>> Charakter ihrer Privatarbeiten nur wider in den Formen, welche
im
>>>> praktischen Verkehr, im Produktenaustausch erscheinen - den
>>>> gesellschaftlich
>>>> nützlichen Charakter ihrer Privatarbeiten also in
>>>> der Form, daß das Arbeitsprodukt nützlich sein muß, und
zwar
> für
>>>> andre - den gesellschaftlichen Charakter der Gleichheit der
>>>> verschiedenartigen
>>>> Arbeiten in der Form des gemeinsamen Wertcharakters
>>>> dieser materiell verschiednen Dinge, der Arbeitsprodukte.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> But the Duden, the reference work of German language says that
> there
>>>> are 2 different senses. One is reflection as in a mirror, the
> other
>>>> one that something brings to expression. In this context, I do
not
>>>> see Marx draw on the mirror idea.
>>>>
>>>> For those who have trouble, perhaps the analogy with
mathematical
>>>> functions. In German, what a mathematical function does is
>>>> "abbilden," which is, provide a projection of, or
> reflection, or
>>>> whatever. You have the word Bild, image, picture in the verb.
But
>>>> when you look at functions, only y = f(x) = x, or -x gives you
> what
>>>> you would get in the mirror analogy. You get very different
things
>>>> when you use different functions, log functions, etc. Then the
>>>> relationship between the points on a line no longer is the
same in
>>>> the "image", that is, the target domain.
>>>>
>>>> We sometimes see the word "refraction" in the works
of
> Russian
>>>> psychologists, which may be better than reflection. It allows
you
> to
>>>> think of looking at the world through a kaleidoscope, and you
get
> all
>>>> sorts of things, none of which look like "the real
> thing."
>>>> Michael
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 25-Oct-08, at 9:01 AM, Martin Packer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Michael,
>>>>
>>>> Here's one example from Marx, and several from Leontiev,
if we
> can
>>>> get into
>>>> the Russian too.
>>>>
>>>> "The twofold social character of the labour of the
individual
> appears to
>>>> him, when *reflected* in his brain, only under those forms
which
> are
>>>> impressed upon that labour in every-day practice by the
exchange
> of
>>>> products." Marx, Capital, Chapter 1, section 4.
>>>>
>>>> " Activity is a non-additive unit of the corporeal,
material
> life of the
>>>> material subject. In the narrower sense, i.e., on the
> psychological
>>>> plane,
>>>> it is a unit of life, mediated by mental *reflection*, by an
> *image,*
>>>> whose
>>>> real function is to orientate the subject in the objective
> world."
>>>> Leontiev,
>>>> Activity & Consciousness.
>>>>
>>>> " The circular nature of the processes effecting the
> interaction of the
>>>> organism with the environment has been generally acknowledged.
But
>>>> the main
>>>> thing is not this circular structure as such, but the fact
that
> the
>>>> mental
>>>> *reflection* of the objective world is not directly generated
by
> the
>>>> external influences themselves, but by the processes through
which
> the
>>>> subject comes into practical contact with the objective world,
and
> which
>>>> therefore necessarily obey its independent properties,
> connections, and
>>>> relations." ibid
>>>>
>>>> " Thus, individual consciousness as a specifically human
form
> of the
>>>> subjective *reflection* of objective reality may be understood
> only
>>>> as the
>>>> product of those relations and mediacies that arise in the
course
> of the
>>>> establishment and development of society." ibid
>>>>
>>>> Martin
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> 
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