Posted by finelinebob on August 31, 2006, at 20:59:55
In reply to Re: Biopsychosocial vs Biological Reductionism » finelinebob, posted by Estella on August 31, 2006, at 19:04:30
> > Is there any other kind?
>
> Well... There is subjective reality, inter-subjective reality, objective reality.But from a sociocultural viewpoint, any notion of "subjective" is replaced early by intersubjectve. "Meaning" becomes internalized as we are introduced into a subculture, yet the thought "sign" the meaning is hooked to remains intact or even enriched. For example, I have an "inner speech" sign of what work is, and that "inner speech" is nothing really like how I would describe it in outer thought. Expressing what "work" means, however, depends on a cultural context -- am I at my job, doing gardening, or studying mechanics in physics? Vygotsky, unlike Whorf, accepts the existence of an "objective" reality but that reality can only be given meaning within a culture and its modes of expression. Again, the notion of "mind" is not so much "groupthink" as is it a development of an intersubjective meaning-space that helps define that subculture from other subcultures. The book "Thought and Language", in fact, is often referred to as an unfortunate misinterpretation -- a more accurate one being "Thinking and Speech". So, Vygotsky can be seen as similar to Whorf as being subscribing to a liguistic relativity, but there are key differences in the base assumptions as well as the "units of measurements": lignuistic phrases for Whorf, and units of meaning for Vygotsky.
Toss into that Bakhtin and his students' developments of the functions of language, and things can get rather interesting. Too put things simply, a speaker makes speech act bound within a sociocultural context and the listener receives that -- pure simple social transmission, and not very satisfying. But introduce two functions of speech: the "univocal" and "multivocal" functions. Univocal is kinda "my way or the highway". Multivocal accounts for the listeners possibly having different understandings. And this applies not just to the speaker, because a speech act always involves both the speaker and the listener. A listener can understand a speech act as either function as well. It becomes interesting to consider when purposes are crossed between the two actors. Also interesting is the possibility that even in the case of both actors accepting a univocal relationship, that the listener misconstrues what is meant by the speaker. In a way, it's a linguistic mutation, which allows for movement beyond a purely social transmission argument. In fact, meaning can pe problematized by the intentional "mutation" of the speaker's meaning by that of the listener.
> Hard to study objective reality though...Thus the quote: "The world may not be as real as we think it is."
Scientists work on models. Models aren't the real think, but scientific progress means modfication of a model or its replacement by a model with greater explanatory power. All the same, what scientists use to explain reality may actually look nothing at all like "real reality". That is the basis of one of the fundamental postulates of science: any (or all) theory underdetermines reality.
The top and bottom quarks aren't also referred to as "truth" and "beauty" purely as a jest. Science goes beyond Occam's razor to look not just for simplicity for "truth", but it also looks to beauty. Theories that are simple and beautiful present the verisimilitude of Truth. Even for those who stubbornly cling to objectivism, metaphysics and mysticism still play a role in modern science. Thus the confluence of epistomology (knowing) and ontology (being). Pragmatism is not enough of a justification for melding these two schools into one.
> > My own understanding comes from the psychologist Lev Vygotsky ("Mind in Society" and "Thought and Language") and the semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin (sorry, haven't read any original work, but this is a good one "Dialogism").
>
> Hrm. I haven't heard of either of those.If you're not a developmental, educational or cultural psychologist, or for Bakhtin marxist literary theory or semiotics, then that's likely the case.
> A guess... It is a model of communication.Again, more than that. It's a theoretical basis for the differential development of meaning based in one's culture in order to communicate (the shared mind) while retaining an independence of thought from speech.
poster:finelinebob
thread:680731
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060825/msgs/681875.html