> Paul, thanks for this.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Henry Rosenberg <rad at gte.net>
>
> >Now, how does all this relate to form and content, and
> >a non-cartestian way of presenting reason? Well:
> >
> >(1) Form is very much a function of our evolved nervous system,
> >derived via the backdoor of experience, while content is very
> >much the result of experience in the normal sense. Of course
> >this is a rough formulation, it's obvious that one can treat
> >formal constructs as content for meta-level formal operations,
> >for example, but in terms of where things get started, it makes
> >good sense.
>
> is this a distinction between form and content or presumptions/history
> and experience/present? or, why is it form the thing that is
> embodied, and not contents also?
Taking your last question first, BOTH are embodied in the sense that our nervous systems, evolved over time, determine the content of what we CAN see as well as the formal structures of how we CAN think. But content changes depending on what's right in front of our eyes. Regardless of the content, our nervous system has some degree of built-in structure (structure, as in form) that asserts itself, though not necessarily inflexibly. This is what Chomsky's generative grammar is all about, for example.
>From a pragmatist point of view, what counts as form or content is
ALWAYS a matter of context -- and thus my comment about meta-level
formal operations, for example. But the the relationship between form
and content holds, even as the levels shifts.
As to your first question, there's a profound difference between evolutionary history, that shapes our biology, including our nervous systems (our hardware and firmware, to use the computer metaphor for purposes of this comparison only) and cultural/political/personal history that shapes our ideology, symbology, etc. (our software to complete the comparison).
Being able to recognize the differences between these two is part of the process of being able to recognize their similarities as well, but it's unquestionable that biology goes deeper.
One manifestation of this is that experience can lead us to revise our understanding of history. The point of generative grammar is that experience can effect our evolutionary heritage as well, but only in terms of pre-determined options, and only one time in the developmental process. Of course it is possible to learn more than one language, in which the choices are made different ways, but there's a very limited window of time in which language learning is automatic. It's part of a developmental moment. After that, language acquisition is much more difficult, it requires conscious effort, and certainly involves different mental processess. These qualifications are VERY important, of course, but they serve to refine the distinction, not erase it.
> >LAKOFF
>
> >Lakoff argues that both liberals and conservatives derive
> >their politics from family values -- only from quite different
> >versions, what he calls "Strict Father" vs. "Nurturant Parent."
> >Lakoff argues that these models of family values, roles and
> >dynamics serve as the source domains that are mapped onto the
> >target domains of political issues in general.
>
> does lakoff have a take on Freud? or what would you think the
> comparisons might be?
Lakoff doesn't say anything about Freud.
He's drawing on attachment theory (John Bowlby & Mary Ainsworth are the pioneers here), and socialization research (Diana Baumrind is the central theorist he cites here), as well as studies of family violence and comparisons of mainstream (Spock, Brazelton, etc.) vs. fundamentalist (Dobson, etc.) childrearing.
Freud just doesn't seem to have much direct relevance to Lakoff's concerns, though I do think that Winnicott, for example, does, and in fact appears in the references, though I don't remember if he's mentioned in the text.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"