Blogging Chapter Five: Section Seventeen

[kellogg]

In the last section, the grads got a big surprise: the formation of complexes (that is, generalized representations of objects, just as we saw in the Sakharov-Vygotsky blocks experiments and in the data we've looked at on continents) is only ONE of the two "genetic roots" of concept formation. That root consists of being able to DISPLACE a trait from one object to another, to add on an object, to generalize.

But there's another root as well. That root consists of being able to CONDENSE the similarities between objects into some abstract trait, such as color, size, diameter, height, weight, "fruitiness", "whiteness", "after school activities", "geotectonic plates", "fruit", and so on.

Now, the last section presented this root as a completely new phase, after the phase of the pseudoconcept. That was big surprise, because we thought the pseudoconcept was the last stop before the concept. But in this section we get an even bigger surprise. It turns out that this new root, which Vygotsky refers to as the phase of potential concepts, is not new at all. It was ALWAYS there--it was there even in animals!

Here's what the midterm says:

In Section SEVENTEEN, Vygotsky suddenly introduces ANOTHER stage of concept formation: the potential concept. What is the “potential concept” in this data? Is it a potential concept for the teacher or for the students?

Handyman: Hey! This looks easy! It looks like all we have to do is find out what the teacher means and see if it is the same as what the children mean. And that's what we've got right here:

T	We can say this family as a large family.(Making a big circle with hands in the air). Large family.
Ss	Large family.
T	(Drawing a circle around father, mother, sister and me)How about this?
Ss	......(silent)
T	Grandfather and grandmother are one generation. father and mother are one generation. sister and me are one generation. The family Containing grandparents is three generations family. One, two, three.
S	Two generation?
T	Right. Two generations family. Ok, let's survey, again. Who have a two generations family? Hands up, please.
Ss	(Some students hand up)
T	Who have a three generations family?
Ss	(Some students hand up)
T	Na-yeon, What kind of family do you have?
S	Two ... family.
T	Two generations family?
S	Ah! Two generations family.
T	We can say a two generations family as a nuclear family.
Ss	nuclear?
T	Yes. Nuclear. Do you know nuclear?
Ss	Yes
T	What does it mean?
Ss	핵. [Teran.
T	Ah, from Starcraft you learned it.
S	nuclear (xx)
T	When do you say the word in the game?
S	uh...
T	You can use Korean.
S	스타크래프트에서 테란이요 (xx)
T	Ok. Nuclear is used in Chemistry. In Social Stuies, nuclear family is basement for making family. So two generations family is a nuclear family. Nuclear family is smaller than three generations family. Can you understand?
Ss	Yes

Superman: I don't know. It's not clear that the children really DO understand! 

K-Dragon: Right! Groos says that the "potential" concept exists WHENEVER there is some kind of habitual action. So for example when Groos' chickens keep going for a piece of DARK paper because they know that's where the grain is, there is a potential concept.

Sunny: Really? That seems behaviorist to me.

K-Dragon: Not quite. You see, Groos uses a dark grey paper and a light grey paper. The corn is under the dark grey, and the chicken finds it. Then Groos uses a dark grey and a BLACK paper. If it were JUST a habit, the chicken would go for the dark grey. But the chicken goes for the black paper, and it gets the corn. So there is a potential concept there.

Ha-ha Smile: That sounds too much like one of Leontiev's catfish!

K-Dragon: Yes, you are right. The catfish goes in a diagonal line instead of zigzagging to find the meat because the catfish has a kind of potential concept, a "map" of the tank. So maybe potential concepts do exist in animals?

Hongkong: Yes, that's what this section says. And that means that potential concepts are not really intellectual. Maybe that tells us something about why potential concepts don't give us concepts until they are united with pseudoconceptual generalizations.

K-Dragon: I think you're right! Look! In paragraph TEN, Vygotsky says that when the monkey doesn't have a stick to get a banana, the monkey can use a straw hat, slippers, a wire, a towel, almost anything. So the monkey is really free of the visual field; the monkey has a potential concept, not a general representation based on seeing. But the monkey's cannot create a true concept because although the monkey is able to ABSTRACT away the shape of the stick and use all these different substitutes for the stick, the monkey is NOT able to generalize. So there's no concept.

Red Cherry: So let's sum up. The “phase” of the “potential concept” is clearly not a specific phase in the same sense that, say, chain complexes are.

K-Dragon: Right. It predates speech itself and even occurs in animals.

Cherry: And Vygotsky says that in the blocks experiment children in the phase of “potential concepts” behaved much like those who were making pseudoconceptual generalizations on the one hand those who had true concepts at their disposition on the other. So under experimental conditions, at any rate, the potential concept and the pseudoconcept are RELATED.

K-Dragon: Yes. Nevertheless, Vygotsky says, they are ESSENTIALLY different. For one thing, the potential concept is a lot older. Vygotsky agrees with Groos that the ability to seize upon similarities is something that children develop with their first daily routines. It is, therefore, a pre-intellectual phenomenon, and can even be found in the “thinking” of chickens.

Mirror: But child potential concepts are different from ape potential concepts, aren't they?

K-Dragon. I think so. I think that the ape who uses a hat brim or piece of wire, or a towel as a “stick” to push or pull fruit near the bars of his cage can be said to be using “abstraction”, because the ape is differentiating between materials that can act as a tool and those which cannot. He can still do this on the basis of what he sees. 

La Belle: So how are child potential concepts different?

K-Dragon: I think the child's potential concepts are based on FUNCTIONS and not on PERCEPTUAL similarities. they are based on child activities. The child can abstract away the differences to create schemata such as “getting dressed”, “having breakfast”, “going out”, “coming home” and “going to bed”.

Ha-ha: So the activities are different. Of course!

K-Dragon: But differences between functional and “experiential” potential concepts must not be exaggerated. Vygotsky points out that when we ask children to define their potential concepts they often give FUNCTIONAL definitions, e.g. “Reason is when it is very hot and one doesn’t drink water anyway because one might get sick.” That's not a concept. It's only a potential concept.

Hongkong: Why isn't it a true concept?

Handyman: It's not abstract. "Reason" doesn't exist outside of this example. It's too concrete.

K-Dragon: Right. Of course, complexes too involve selecting some traits over others, e.g. when the child creates an associative complex the child may select traits that resemble the model over those that do not, when the child creates a collection complex, the child selects functional application over other traits (and also, more abstractly, dissimilarities over similarities), when the child creates a chain complex, the child selects similarity to the last item in the chain, and when the child creates a diffuse complex there is unbounded variation but there is still some kernel set of traits at the origins of the diffuse complex. But all of these traits are concrete physical features, and none of them require the IDEALIZATION of a particular feature. Therefore, although there is selection there is no permanent privileging of a feature. That explains the shiftiness of the complex compared to the potential concept. 

Handyman: It also explains why sociogenetically, many words in a language begin by privileging a particular aspect of a phenomenon (e.g. “물고기”, “korova”, the horned one, for cows, “水果” for fruit).

Red Cherry: So how does the child create true concepts?

K-Dragon: I think that the child can see how a single feature is selected and permanently privileged over other features, e.g. the “물고기” is meat which lives in the water, the cow has horns, and the fruit, for the Chinese child, is full of water). By mastering this ability to select a feature and PERMANENTLY privilege it over others, the child is able to create the ideal categories we call concepts.

Superman: I'm confused. Vygotsky refers to this ability to permanently privilege certain features as “the fourth and last phase” in the development of thinking. But I'm sure he said there were only three.

K-Dragon. I'm confused too, Superman. But maybe he will come and straighten it out for us in the next section.