Re: [xmca] Layers versus stages

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

I am unsure how to answer your question, Larry. LSV appears to use different
metaphors/lenses at different times. I'll cc Boris Meshcheryakov
on this note/exchange because he has spent so much time and thought trying
to makes sense of LSV's conceptual system(s).

Several years back, Eugene Subbotsky, a student of Luria's at one time, and
I, wrote about stage ideas in a way that may still be useful, if only for
contrast and some classic metaphors where stages and layers co-exist. I'll
cc him also in case he is interested.

http://lchc.ucsd.edu/People/MCole/Scweizerische.pdf

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 10:08 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> A quote by Jerome Bruner in an article he wrote for an edited book by
> Leonard Cirillo & Seymour Wapner, "Value Presuppositions in Theories of
> Human Development" (1986) captures the relationship between developmental
> theories and cultural imaginaries:
>
> "Culturally congruent phenomena unearthed or constructed by modern theories
> of human development come to be canonized as desirable realities if they
> conform to values already independently in being within the culture.  Where
> theories of human development become classic... is when they unearth or
> discern a previously undiscovered grouping of processes that extend or
> elaborate a cultural value that was previously implicit and is now made
> explicit."[Bruner]
>
> When I reflect on this quote I wonder if Stern's developmental idea of
> "layers" and Vygotsky's developmental idea of the expanding globe are
> examples of an emerging cultural recognition of the sociocultural turn in
> psychology.  This turn has the potential of "imagining" institutional
> structures [including theories of development] which are more open
> ended and validate a more expanded range of expression. Dialogical theory
> supports Stern's emphasis on the dynamic fluidity of development as
> layers while hermeneutical accounts remind us of our historical
> embeddedness
> in cultural traditions that constrain this fluidity. However, discursive,
> hermeneutical, dialogical, and activity accounts all share the
> sociocultural
> value that we can change the kinds of persons we are becoming.  Stern's
> developmental notion of layering embraces this more open view of our
> possibilities of being at home in the world.
>  Is this wishful thinking on my part or is it one example of shifting value
> presuppositions in our cultural imaginary?
>
> Larry
> On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 6:01 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Mike
> > The image of the globe and COORDINATING perspectives and the emerging
> > capacity to FLEXIBLY move between the coordinates [North, south, east or
> > west] [generality, abstraction, concrete phenomenology] has an intuitive
> > sense.
> > This topic also must include reflections on the cultural imaginaries
> > [hermeneutic traditions] that "sediments this flexible coordinating
> capacity
> > into institutional structural forms of development.
> > The question becomes which LENSES [horizon of understanding as cultural
> > imaginaries] are constraining and constituiting our emerging accounts of
> > development.  When I as a person "move"  navigate and position [and am
> > positioned] within traditions  [as coordinates on the globe] the question
> of
> > "agency" as the capacity to "reflectively act to "take" a position rather
> > than reactively being placed in a position becomes a central  question of
> > development.
> > Stern's metaphor of layering supports this metaphor of the globe as an
> > expanding horizon of understanding which includes the previous ways of
> > coordinating sociality and the social situation of  development MAY
> support
> > the person in developing the flexibility in coordinating positions on the
> > globe IF the cultural imaginary facilitates this emerging capacity  to be
> > flexible in moving north, south, east, or west.
> > When our cultural imaginary constrains our notions of development into an
> > account of a journey to increasing individuation, differentiation,
> > reflective capacity, self mastery of "instinctual" emotions, cognitive
> > representations transcending undifferentiated symbiosis, and other
> notions
> > of "higher" stages" as increasing separation and "self-contained agency"
> it
> > limits our flexibility to move in ALL directions on the globe. Stern's
> > metaphor of layers of development shares the same bias as the metaphor of
> > the globe that all the previous ways of coordinating [negotiating]
> positions
> > continue to be viable ways to coordinate concrete phenomenology,
> cognitive
> > abstraction, and systems of generality.
> > It is the cultural imaginaries that place rigid constraints  [limit our
> > horizon of understandings] on what is "acceptable" or how we "should"
> > develop towards self mastery and abstraction.  I want to emphasize that
> the
> > capacity to reflect, make rational decisions, take the perspective of
> > others, coordinate and negotiate ruptures in communication are all
> > developing expansions of the globe [adding further layers].  However, the
> > notion of stages, where the earlier stages are "less developed" [more
> > immature and more undifferentiated and DEPENDENT, less individuated] may
> be
> > reflecting a particular cultural imaginary that imposes limits on
> accessing
> > these earlier ways we learned to coordinate positions on the coordinates.
> > I'm biased to see develop as the emerging capacity to BE AT HOME with
> > previous as well as new ways of coordinating positions on the globe. The
> > cultural surround resists this flexibility and asks us to limit our
> movement
> > on the globe. Agency [as the capacity to flexibly coordinate a variety
> > of positions including subjective phenomenology,  intersubjective
> > experience, and institutional structures, is a compatabilist notion that
> > sees development as moving from being determined to limited agentic self
> > determination.
> > This self determination includes the capacity to remain open to
> > experiencing the world as layered or as an expanding globe that the
> person
> > becomes more flexible in negotiating and coordinating. The person's lived
> > experience embraces comfortably moving north, south, east, or west.[
> within
> > the limits of the cultural imaginary or traditions]
> >
> > Larry
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 1:56 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> >
> >> I like Peirce's "The Mind is a concentrated group."
> >> a
> >>
> >>
> >> David Kellogg wrote:
> >>
> >>> Rod--
> >>>  Very true. My own private model of a mind is neither stage nor layer.
> >>> It's not a construction site or a heap of sand, and it's not exactly
> >>> substitutional nor precisely sublative. My own private model of a mind
> is a
> >>> semiotic object, or rather a semiotic process that leaves a number of
> traces
> >>> apparently one on top of the other though in reality side by side. My
> own
> >>> private model of a mind is a palimpsest.  It's a text that has been
> written
> >>> and overwritten and over-overwritten so that some of the old text is
> visible
> >>> and in some cases the earlier text can be reconstructed while in other
> cases
> >>> it is lost. So too the child's mature language, and the language making
> mind
> >>> too, is based on the signifying function overwrites the indicative
> language
> >>> based on concrete reference, which in turn overwrites ostension.  There
> are
> >>> (at least) two problems with this model. The first is that it assumes
> that
> >>> foot is the footprint. A real dialogue by real people is really NOT a
> text;
> >>> it's a discourse. A text is an interlacing double trail of footprints
> on a
> >>> wet beach. The footprints obscure each other, and the waves wash one,
> and
> >>> then the other, and finally both of them away.  But while they last we
> see
> >>> the footprints and we can follow them; we can imagine the walkers, and
> can
> >>> see them running and wading and splashing. We can even catch up to them
> and
> >>> take them by the hand. Yet the disembodied, imprinted, fleeting
> meanings we
> >>> find in text are never quite the embodied, ephemeral, corporeal sense
> we
> >>> find in discourse itself; the process of reconstruing the process from
> the
> >>> product is never quite the same as the process of producing it in the
> first
> >>> place.
> >>>  The second problem is that it assumes that the dance remains even when
> >>> the dancer stops dancing.  David Kellogg
> >>> Seoul National University of Education
> >>>
> >>> --- On Sat, 6/19/10, Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> From: Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
> >>> Subject: RE: [xmca] Layers versus stages
> >>> To: "lchcmike@gmail.com" <lchcmike@gmail.com>, "eXtended Mind,
> Culture,
> >>> Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >>> Date: Saturday, June 19, 2010, 1:22 AM
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I have never been happy with the construction site model of development
> >>> which buries the foundations and sees all development in terms of
> 'upward'
> >>> expansion, stage on stage. I prefer to think of development more in
> terms of
> >>> heaping - as sand forms a heap, getting higher but also spreading at
> the
> >>> base as our 'primary' or foundational capabilities continue to affect
> and
> >>>  be affected by our later experiences (not just rumbling and festering
> in
> >>> the basement!). One problem with the heap analogy is that the sand is
> >>> arriving from above and gravity ensures that the only movement is down
> but
> >>> then every model has to have its limitations!
> >>>
> >>> All the best,
> >>>
> >>> Rod
> >>> ________________________________________
> >>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> >>> Behalf Of mike cole [lchcmike@gmail.com]
> >>> Sent: 18 June 2010 22:15
> >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity
> >>> Subject: [xmca] Layers versus stages
> >>>
> >>> Larry and others interested in attending to early infancy as part of a
> >>> discussion about development --
> >>>
> >>> Attached are a few pages early from Dan Stern's book to which Larry has
> >>> pointed us. I am curious about people's thought on the "layers vs.
> >>> stages"
> >>> antinomy/contrast. A couple of questions:
> >>>
> >>> 1. Layering appears on the surface at least to deny any process of
> >>> sublation. Is this a reasonable interpretation?
> >>>
> >>> 2. Layering is specifically associated with the interpersonal sphere
> and
> >>> ideas about the primacy of sociality from the get go and seems
> contrasted
> >>> with the (non-human) object sphere; sort of like
> >>> relations and modes of production. So maybe the social sphere is
> layered
> >>> and
> >>> the object sphere undergoes stage-like transformations?
> >>>
> >>> But, the two are co-constituitive in human life, so would this mean
> that
> >>> ontogenetic change would have features of each?
> >>>
> >>> What think you?
> >>> mike
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> xmca mailing list
> >>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>      _______________________________________________
> >>> xmca mailing list
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> >>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >> --
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> *Andy Blunden*
> >> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
> >> Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
> >> Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
> >
> >
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