LISTSERV mailing list manager LISTSERV 16.0

Help for CASLL-L Archives


CASLL-L Archives

CASLL-L Archives


CASLL-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Proportional Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

CASLL-L Home

CASLL-L Home

CASLL-L  July 1998

CASLL-L July 1998

Subject:

Re: The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools . . . -Reply

From:

Sandra Dueck <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

CASLL/Inkshed <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Tue, 14 Jul 1998 16:51:45 -0700

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (232 lines)

----------
> From: Jamie MacKinnon <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: The Educated Mind:  How Cognitive Tools . . . -Reply
> Date: July 9, 1998 8:54 AM
>
> Hi Sandra,
>
> Good to hear from you.  I've ordered Teaching as Story Telling.  Thanks
> for the recommendation.
>
> Part of what appeals to me in the little I know of Egan is the AND
implied
> in the model.  As opposed to "ironic" *replacing* (say) mythic, it's
added
> on.  I guess many Piagetians look for "reconciliation" of different modes
> of thought, but I'm more interested in thinking from different
> (unreconciled, un-synthesizable) perspectives.
>

If by AND you mean "separate but equal," Kieran's book might disappoint
you. It's true his title plays off of Howard Gardener's _Unschooled
Mind_and it's true that like Gardener he's working with cognitive theories.
But he uses them quite differently. Gardener's  is an egalitarian model,
where different incommensurate modes co-exist.

 Kieran is very firm that his is a hierarchical model. Each of the
successive stages of understanding he discusses do entail acquisition of
new skills and access to new knowledge, and this can be seen as
supplementary, but there is a concomittant dimming or eclipsing of previous
stages--when people become literate, they lose some of the capacity or
understanding they had at an earlier stage. He is regretful about this, but
firm.


> You:  "This is counter to the prevailing view in many literature courses,
> where relativism rules, and orality and literacy are often seen as
> separate but equal, or maybe with orality given a slight edge."
>
> Have you seen Kevin Porter's "Methods, Truths, Reasons" in the April 98
> College English?  I liked it:  tightly argued, highly nuanced, employing
> relevant threads of analytic philosophy (particularly Donald Davidson) to
> "rehabilitate" truth and reason in language studies.  Relativists have
got
> away with too much for too long!  Up with truth!
>
> The article follows an earlier (Sept. 95) CE article by Dasenbrock that
> argued that anti-objectivist arguments tend to be totalizing, because
they
> never accept the ground on which a critic might stand.  Relativists and
> anti-objectivists are therefore solipsists.  Psychoanalysts, New
> Historicists and some anti-objectivist feminists (for example) "absorb"
> counterevidence in such a way that it always ends up supporting their
> theories.
>
> Re:  Steven Pinker.  I have little time for any student of cognition who
> talks of "excess cognitive capacity," that is who seems to have a sense
> that the computer is the explanatory metaphor for the brain.

One of Kieran's models for the stages of understanding was taken from
Merlin Donald's _Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution
of Culture and Cognition_ (Harvard UP, 1991). You might like this version
of cognitive theory, so I've summarised it at too-great length below

. Donald is a neuropsychologist at Queen's University, and his theory of
cognitive evolution posits 4 (not 3 as his title says) stages based on
physiological, archaeological, and cognitive psychological data. And just
as in Kieran's model, each of the successive stages retain but encompass
the previous gains in skill and knowledge. As follows:

1)      Australopithecine: diverged from other primates in the ability to form
stronger group ties. Social stability aided by monogamy (to reduce
comptetition between males), food sharing, and shared child-rearing.

        Primary mode of cognitive representation was episodic memory--the ability
to perceive events and recall them; but no capacity for representing them
to others. Donald speculates that while Australopithecines shared this
capacity with other primates, and indeed all mammals, in them it was
developed to an exceptional degree required by larger social groups, and
the need to recall and service more relationships.

2)      Homo erectus: tool use, fire, better organized social groups.

        Primary mode of representation Donald calls "mimetic"--pre-linguistic but
with the capacity to reflect on, and re-present simple episodes to others
and to self. Self reflection allows for tool-making, representation allows
for pedagogy, ritual, and games.

        He speculates that mimetic culture relied heavily on the representation of
emotion for communication and social control. Although pre-linguistic,
mimetic culture employed prosody (controlled vocalization) and proto-music,
primitive ritual, and a growing awareness of, and ability to represent the
interests of the collective. This stage lasted for 2 million years (about).
It was remarkably stable and changed little over that time. Because of its
duration, it can be assumed that the cognitive processes developed at that
time remain deeply embedded in modern minds.

3)      Homo sapiens: development of language enabled rapid cultural change.
Donald calls the early language stage "mythic" (although there is overlap
of terms with Kieran's stages of understanding, they describe different
categories).

        Primary mode of representation was speech in the form of narratives about
the tribe, rituals. For Donald, mythic cultures arose out of the need for
more efficient ways of representing the stories of the group than were
possible in mimetic culture.

4)      The "hybrid" modern mind and visuographic culture: this stage follows
close on the heels of the mythic, and both of these stages continue to be
entwined up to the present. However, Donald argues that the ability to
externalize the products of cognition, and to store them in cultural
archives marks a qualitative break from mythic (i.e. narrative) culture.

Primary mode of representation is visual and graphic symbols. Humans have
continued to evolve, but the locus of memory and thus of identity is no
longer in the individual biological mind, but externally in the "storage
systems" of  the culture, the technology, and increasingly in cyberspace
(you can hear echoes of McLuhan and Havelock, as well as Eric Auerbach in
this theory). Although we do have written narrative forms, some of them
only possible because of writing, they are not in the same category as the
production of theory and analysis enabled by external representation. They
simply represent an archaic holdover from an earlier stage.

The major cognitive product of visuographic culture is the production of
theory, or metalinguistic processing. The thought habits made possible by
theoretic culture are learned only from extensive education, and Donald
says the major cognitive changes of the last two millenia can be tracked by
tracing the history of western education over that period. Starting with
rhetoric:

"Thus from the start, rhetoric emphasized the large-scale, on-line
structuring of linguistic thought products. This fits the definition of a
very high-level metalinguistic skill and was already a considerable step
away from simple, linear narratives and unconstrained imaginative myth. The
art of discovering the metalinguistic structure of ideas gradually became
the focus of training. The logic of argumentation was also starting to
emerge as a _trainable_ skill. In effect, the early growth of rhetoric
reflected the refinement and formalization of thought strategies and
criteria for evaluating and crafting an effective argument" (348).

I like this book, although toward the end he's just a tad too ecstatic
about the benefits of technology. Still, this is cognitive science for
humanists. True, he subordinates the narrative tradition, but he respects
it, and above all, he explains the powerful non-linguistic systems of
communication which form the underpinnings of art, music, and basically of
most social interaction, lucidly and rationally.

Unfortunately he's a bit eccentric as a cognitive  scientist so he doesn't
get as wide a reading as more mainstream writers like Steven Pinker and
Daniel Dennett. While he subscribes to the computational theory of mind
(which is a good theory up to a point--why don't you like it?) he does not
buy in to the transcendantly silly notion that it explains human
consciousness, let alone that it will lead to a genuine artificial
intelligence any time soon. But he also doesn't think that consciousness is
an inexplicable metaphycial phenomenon either. He sees it as socially
situated from the outset. You could call him a social constructionist
except that his theory is more rigorously delimited by physiological
processes than any social constructionist (or anti-objectivist if you
prefer) notions dream of being.

When in
> comes to consciousness, I'll take Nabokov's metaphysical (and physical)
> musings any day over most current cognitive approaches.
>

Nabokov is all very well, but he's dead and who will take his place? A
while ago I went to see a new play by Guillermo Verdecchia, winner of the
G.G. Award several years back for _Fronteras Americanas_. I can't remember
the name of this new play, and anyway it doesn't matter--it didn't contain
a single idea worth remembering. It was a monologue delivered by a male
actor, consisting of two themes:

1) ruminations about his love life, whether he was a good feminist, and why
girls don't like him.
2) a nod to the cultural context of creeping corporatism through the lense
of the quasi-Marxist polemics that pass for political insight, taking the
form of tirades against Starbucks.

Verdecchia is not stupid or lacking imagination. The problem is, he is
unable to address the issues of his time because he appears not to
understand what they are, or how they might be framed so they have
relevance to a wider audience than the small group of die-hard theatre
goers who trekked out to see his play.

As long as it is acceptable intellectual practice to view art and science
as separate but equal domains, for artists and intellectuals to turn their
backs on the acutal dominant forms of representation in their culture, they
inevitably leave the field of cultural critique open to narrowly
specialised researchers like Steven Pinker, who has an excellent command of
Chomskian linguistics, a pretty good sense of humour and a really good
publicist, and who successfully targets a mainstream audience with his
work, but who lacks maturity, wisdom, insight and vision when it comes to
larger cultural issues.

If they turn their backs on the issues which shape their culture and their
lives, how can artists, intellectuals and humanist academics identify and
promote those theories which support a more balanced social vision such as
the one outlined by Donald, for example, is my question, I guess.


>
> Me:  I'm always on the lookout for good stuff on the role of narrative /
> story in learning, thinking, communications.  Thinking of your Business
> Communication course, I sometimes like to ask people, following a
> consultation session, to distill what they're thinking into a little
story:
> what you'd tell a good friend in 3 to 15 sentences  that would make
> sense of it all.

how do they react when you make this request? It seems to me many people
are resistant to the idea of telling stories. Too often it's a private
discourse, or one reserved for children.

> I've asked for the text you use on ILL.  I don't know it.
>

I don't use Rodman's text, though I wish I did. It's a good one.

> Thanks for the flattering comments.  If *methodolgy* is one of the
> reasons you use my Spilka article, you might want to look at the thesis
> version, which you can borrow from Carleton, or I'll fax you the relevant
> pages.
>
I will look for your thesis, I'd be interested to see what data you used.

> All the best to you.
>
> Jamie

Take care

Sandra

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

Advanced Options


Options

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password


Search Archives

Search Archives


Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe


Archives

May 2023
February 2023
December 2022
November 2022
March 2022
September 2021
September 2020
August 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
September 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011, Week 1
January 2011
December 2010
October 2010
April 2010
February 2010
January 2010
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
August 2001
July 2001
June 2001
May 2001
April 2001
March 2001
February 2001
January 2001
December 2000
November 2000
October 2000
September 2000
August 2000
July 2000
June 2000
May 2000
April 2000
March 2000
February 2000
January 2000
December 1999
November 1999
October 1999
September 1999
August 1999
July 1999
June 1999
May 1999
April 1999
March 1999
February 1999
January 1999
December 1998
November 1998
October 1998
September 1998
August 1998
July 1998
June 1998
May 1998
April 1998
March 1998
February 1998
January 1998
December 1997
November 1997
October 1997
September 1997
August 1997
July 1997
June 1997
May 1997
April 1997
March 1997
February 1997
January 1997
December 1996
November 1996
October 1996
September 1996
August 1996
July 1996
June 1996
May 1996
April 1996
March 1996
February 1996
January 1996
December 1995
November 1995
October 1995
September 1995
August 1995
July 1995
June 1995
May 1995
April 1995
March 1995
February 1995
January 1995

ATOM RSS1 RSS2



LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA

CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager