(S1,Ep2) What Comes Before Thinking? -- Andy Blunden on Pre-Concepts

2012 interview with Andy Blunden on the real preconditions for independent thinking! (The sound quality is old.) In this video, Andy discusses "pre-conceptual" processes of psychological development, including syncretic, complexive, and pseudoconceptual thinking, as well as pre- and potential concepts. (Originally published December 29, 2019 at Chats about CHT http://tiny.cc/kmylsz)

Highlights include:

0:15 - Syncretic thought-forms (the view from a speeding train in a foreign country)

3:35 - Complexes (different types of shaky beginnings of synthesis, via associations, and abstraction)

12:29 - Collection complexes (fork, knife, cup - functional associations by everyday situations)

14:55 - Pseudconcepts (learner uses an adult word, but not in the same way) 19:31 - Potential concepts (animals can form potential concepts; e.g., trained pigeon habituated to red button)

23:27 - Pre-concepts and more

30:00 - Andy nicely summarizes the psychological functions that correlate with preconceptual thinking

Andy Blunden is the author of Concepts, A Critical Approach (available here: brill.nl/concepts). This is the first of two interviews on Vygotsky's theory of concepts (Part 2 is here: https://youtu.be/7UsQRLCpdiw, or here: vimeo.com/35819238).

Great quote: this chat is about "the development of psychological functions which are preconditions to operating as an independent person out there in the social world: dealing with ideology, professional responsibilities, raising your own family, and so on. You need certain psychological functions s before you can even make a beginning on that. . . . When you go into the big wide world...you begin to learn a different much broader type of thinking which entails inheriting and making use of the knowledge of all the past generations."