Re: [xmca] Perezhivanie and Dewey's concept of experience

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Great addition to the exploration, Ivo. That is a book I have to get my
hands on!!
mike

On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Ivo Banaco <ibanaco@gmail.com> wrote:

> There is a rather unknown US philosopher (at least in some circles of
> discussion) that dedicated all his life to these issues - Eugene Gendlin.
> Talking with a Russian friend a few years ago  - while we were both
> studying Vygotsky in the context of professor Engeström’s activity theory
> in
> Helsinki  - about the similarity of Perezhivanie in Vygotsky and the
> concept of "felt sense" or "felt meaning" or "felt experiencing" in Gendlin
> he agreed that those two concepts have much in common.
>
> Better than me I will quote Gendlin, both on his accounts on the subject,
> and passages where he writes about Dewey's "experience":
>
> "Besides the logical dimension and the operational dimension of knowledge,
> there is also a directly felt, experiential dimension. *Meaning* is not
> only
>  *about things* and it is not only a certain *logical** *structure, but it
> also involves *felt *experiencing. Any concept, thing, or behavior is
> meaningful only as some noise, thing, or event interacts with felt
> experiencing. Meanings are formed and had through an interaction between
> experiencing and symbols or things.
>
> In the past, meaning has been analyzed very largely in terms of things
> (objective reference, sense perception) and in terms of logical structure.
> Of course, meanings were viewed as concerning experience, but "experience"
> was usually construed as a logical scheme that organizes sense perceptions
> or as a logical construct that intervenes to relate and predict
> observations of behavior.
>
> Today, however, we can no longer construe "experience" so narrowly. Besides
> logical schemes and sense perception we have come to recognize that there
> is also a powerful *felt* dimension of experience that is prelogical, and
> that functions importantly in what we think, what we perceive, and how we
> behave."
> Eugene T. Gendlin, Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning
>
>
> "Dilthey provided another vital insight, one that is still not appreciated:
> Dilthey said that experiencing (living) is itself an understanding, rather
> than something that needs interpretation or understanding put on it. Most
> current philosophers follow Kant in assuming that experience is only
> derivative from pre-existing concepts.
>
> Using Dilthey, we can turn Kant around: Living is inherently a kind of
> understanding *not* because concepts are at work in it; rather concepts are
> derived from how living makes sense. And there can be new living and new
> sense-making.
>
> Experiencing is itself a kind of understanding, and we can also hold the
> converse: Understanding is never just an *about*; it is itself a kind of
> experiencing, a new further living."
> Gendlin, E.T. (1994). Response [Gendlin replies to four commentary articles
> on his work, which are in the same issue of this journal]. *Human Studies,
> 17*(3), 381-400. From http://www.focusing.org/gendlin/docs/gol_2123.html
>
>
> "Dilthey developed a general hermeneutic from its role in elucidating
> texts, books, paintings, buildings—what he called an "expression." He says
> that one begins without understanding the parts or the whole very well.
> Only the whole gives the parts their roles and meanings. But of course we
> arrive at an understanding of the whole only part by part. A better grasp
> of any part can change the sense of the whole. So it should be asked how
> hermeneutic can ever get started. The well known "hermeneutic circle" is
> often the only way come to understand something, but how do we do it?
>
> The meaning of the parts is not fixed; they must grow in meaning. With our
> terms we can articulate this. A hermeneutic circle would be vicious and
> impossible if we could think only with distinctions, parts, units, factors,
> patterned facts, formed things. We could only combine the individuated
> units that we already understand. Many theorists still assume that we can
> understand another person only if we have the same experiences. What a dull
> world that would be! With our new terms we can say: When experiences
> function implicitly, they cross with every new event. Statements bring an
> implicit mesh which grows even if the statement remains the same.
>
> We understand a difficult text better after reading it many times. A
> sentence which was a senseless jumble before, now it plainly says
> something. We may later reinterpret it many times, but the sentence is
> never again a jumble. It shows how earlier understandings continue
> implicitly. But they cross; they do not limit our further steps.
>
> Hermeneutic is a way of thinking which does not need unchangeable parts or
> individuated units. The parts *neither* stay the same *nor* become
> different. But this is not a contradiction; it is the relation we have
> called "carrying forward." It cannot long seem strange—it is the most
> ubiquitous kind of transition we find in thinking. We only lacked the terms
> to talk about it, and to think deliberately with it.
>
> Dilthey held that we never really have the same understanding as the author
> had. If we understand a work at all, we understand it *better* than its
> author did. We must create the author's process out of our own, thereby
> augmenting both. In our terms we can say that they *cross*: Some of each
> becomes *implicit* in the other. The author's statements do not change, but
> *implicitly* they now contain our own experience as well. So they
> constitute a "better" understanding than the author's. In the crossing our
> own experiences are implicitly precisioned so that they can form the
> author's *exact* meaning. We might render a point in other words and
> examples, yet render it exactly. Conversely, someone might repeat the
> author's words, and go on to a total misunderstanding. This use of the word
> "exactly" functions like "truth" did for us. It is like grasping a
> metaphor. "
> The Responsive Order: A New Empiricism
> E. T. Gendlin
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 4:24 PM, Joao Martins <jbmartin@sercomtel.com.br
> >wrote:
>
> > Andy, what is the reference?
> >
> > Joao
> >
> > -----Mensagem original-----
> > De: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] Em
> > nome
> > de Andy Blunden
> > Enviada em: terça-feira, 19 de fevereiro de 2013 12:23
> > Para: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Assunto: Re: [xmca] Perezhivanie and Dewey's concept of experience
> >
> > What about this one Larry?
> >
> >         ‘Experience’ is what James called a double-barreled word. Like
> >         its congeners, life and history, it includes /what/ men do and
> >         suffer, /what/ they strive for, love, believe and endure, and
> >         /how/ men act and are acted upon, the ways in which they do and
> >         suffer, desire and enjoy, see, believe, imagine – in short,
> >         processes of /experiencing/. ... It is ‘double-barreled’ in that
> >         it recognizes in its primary integrity no division between act
> >         and material, subject and object, but contains them both in an
> >         unanalyzed totality. ‘Thing’ and ‘thought’, as James says in the
> >         same connection, are single-barreled; they refer to products
> >         discriminated by reflection out of primary experience (1929 PJD:
> >         256-7).
> >
> > Andy
> >
> > Larry Purss wrote:
> > > Mike,
> > >
> > > On page 12 of the  article on Dewey's notionotion of experience the
> > > theme of experience AS "life overcomes and transforms factors of
> > > opposition to achieve higher significance. Harmony and equilibrium are
> > > the resullts not of mechanical processes but of RHYTHMIC resolution of
> > > tension.  The rhythmic ALTERNATION within the live creature BETWEEN
> > > unity and disunity becomes CONSCIOUS in humans.  Emotion signifies
> > > BREAKS in experience which are then resolved through reflective
> > > action"
> > >
> > > I thought this may be a way in to *start* the conversational dialogue
> > > with perezhivanie.
> > >
> > > Larry
> > >
> > > On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 5:55 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >> Michael, Mike:
> > >> One more fragment on the  definition of sentipensante:
> > >>
> > >> Sentipensante pedagogy offers a transformative vision of education
> > >> that emphasizes the harmonic, complementary relationship between the
> > >> sentir of intuition and the pensar of intellect and scholarship;
> > >> between teaching and learning; between formal knowledge and wisdom;
> > >> and between Western and non-Western ways of knowing.
> > >>
> > >> Seems to have some family resemblance to this theme of experience
> > >> Larry
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 5:37 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>> Mike,
> > >>> Thanks for this.
> > >>> Stanford Pub is a wonderful resource.  I seem to download an author
> > >>> approximately once a month. For $10 you support them and get the
> > >>> articles sent in a PDF format.
> > >>>
> > >>> Michael , here is a link [in Spanish] to a youtube video of Orlando
> > >>> Fals-Borda discussing his understanding of experience from the heart.
> > >>> If you have any articles in English which you can share, this seems
> > >>> to be exploring experience within "felt awareness".
> > >>> Seems to be a fascinating expansion of the understanding of
> experience.
> > >>>
> > >>> Thanks, Michael and Mike
> > >>>
> > >>> Larry
> > >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbJWqetRuMo
> > >>>
> > >>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 3:46 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>> Thanks Larry. Viva la differencia. Here is a quick summary of Dewey
> > >>>> on experience. Note that his ideas are considered unusual by the
> > author.
> > >>>> That
> > >>>> Stanford pub seems very useful.
> > >>>> mike
> > >>>>
> > >>>> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey-aesthetics/#HavExp
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 3:08 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> > >>>> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> Michael,
> > >>>>> I also found this site for Orlando Fals Borda.
> > >>>>> http://comm-org.wisc.edu/si/falsborda.htm
> > >>>>> If it is off topic please ignore. However, it is where my
> > >>>>> curiosity was called or invited.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Larry
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Glassman, Michael <
> > >>>>>
> > >>>> glassman.13@osu.edu
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>> wrote:
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Perhaps another avenue to explore might be Ortega y Gasset's
> > >>>>>> ideas on experience (which is probably in some ways reflective of
> > >>>>>> Dewey)
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>> which was
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>> appropriated by Orlando Fals Borda in the concept of vivencia -
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>> which is
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>> very compelling - and became an important part of Fals-Borda's
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>> conception
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>> of Participatory Action Research.  This might then tie back to
> > >>>>>> the
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>> earlier
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>> issue on PAR.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Michael
> > >>>>>> ________________________________________
> > >>>>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> > >>>>>> on
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>> behalf
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>> of mike cole [lchcmike@gmail.com]
> > >>>>>> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2013 2:28 PM
> > >>>>>> To: Beth Ferholt
> > >>>>>> Cc: Galina Zuckerman; John Shotter; Boris Meshcheryakov; eXtended
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>> Mind,
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>> Culture, Activity; James Wertsch; Alexander Asmolov
> > >>>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Perezhivanie and Dewey's concept of
> > >>>>>> experience
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Thanks Beth--
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> I ask, firstly, because there appear quite clear overlaps as you
> > >>>>>> and
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>> Monica
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>> have been exploring.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Secondly, we have two submissions to MCA on perezhivanie that are
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>> very
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>> focused on Russian authors. Over and above competing exegeses of
> > >>>>>> the ideas of Vygotsky, Puyzerei, etc., it seems important
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>> that
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>> we figure out ways to explore different ways of thinking about
> > >>>>>> the
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>> general
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>> category of "experience" that will be productive of new empirical
> > >>>>>> and theoretical investigation.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> mike
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 9:42 AM, Beth Ferholt
> > >>>>>> <bferholt@gmail.com>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>> wrote:
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Monica and I have just started using the two concepts in
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>> conjunction,
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> as
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>>> we write about the relation between play and learning and
> > >>>>>>> Dewey's
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>> ideas
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>> on
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> the relation between art and science in Art and Experience.  I
> > >>>>>>> am
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>> very
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>>> interested in any ref. you find as I have found none yet. Can I
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>> ask why
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>> you
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> ask now? Beth
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 6:09 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>>>> Has anyone written on uses of the term perezhivanie as used in
> > >>>>>>>> the cultural historical tradition and Dewey's concept of
> > >>>>>>>> experience?
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>> references?
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>>>> mike
> > >>>>>>>> __________________________________________
> > >>>>>>>> _____
> > >>>>>>>> xmca mailing list
> > >>>>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>>>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> --
> > >>>>>>> Beth Ferholt
> > >>>>>>> Assistant Professor
> > >>>>>>> School of Education
> > >>>>>>> Brooklyn College, City University of New York
> > >>>>>>> 2900 Bedford Avenue
> > >>>>>>> Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
> > >>>>>>> Phone: (718) 951-5205
> > >>>>>>> Fax: (718) 951-4816
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>> __________________________________________
> > >>>>>> _____
> > >>>>>> xmca mailing list
> > >>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> __________________________________________
> > >>>>>> _____
> > >>>>>> xmca mailing list
> > >>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>> __________________________________________
> > >>>>> _____
> > >>>>> xmca mailing list
> > >>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>> __________________________________________
> > >>>> _____
> > >>>> xmca mailing list
> > >>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>
> > > __________________________________________
> > > _____
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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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