1. Bruner wrote on page 131, 'the achievement of knowledge was always "situated," dependent on materials, task, and how the learner understood things.' Do you agree with this quote? Why or why not?
I do agree that the "achievement" of knowledge is situated and that it (knowledge) is acquired in different ways, according to a learner's resources and their particular history or narrative. I think that one our tasks, as educators, is to help students construct their narrative in order to relate the distant subject matter to their background or the situation from which they come. If we were a homogenous society, instead of democratic and multicultural, I think Brunner's book, or at least the chapters concerning narrative might serve merely reading for speculative sport.
While reading through chapter seven, I asked myself, “why is Brunner still stressing narrative?” I think my question was answered, though, at the end of the chapter, on page 149, wherein he states, “...we live most of our lives according to the rules and devices of narrative.” In previous chapters, I agreed with Brunner that teaching should involve a narrative, include a story, and be dynamic. I can appreciate chapter seven, though, as more than just a tribute to narrative. I see it as an explanation of why we would do well to include the narrative dynamic in our teaching. Further, it seems that Brunner, through his explanation of nine universals of narrative realities, wants to appeal to the learners use of metacognition. Brunner himself states that the dissecting of narrative realities is difficult (which made me feel not so bad), but one statement that helps me encapsulate at least some of his message is found on page 147: “It is not that we lack competence in creating our narrative accounts of reality...Our problem, rather, is achieving consciousness of...the ancient problem of prise de conscience.” This statement ties in to what I would call one of the major themes of the entirety of The Culture of Education, which, for me, is achieving awareness about why we conduct education as we do.
Reginald, I like your comment at the end of your first paragraph..."If we were a homogenous society...... the chapters concerning narrative might serve merely reading for speculative sport," is such an interesting but true take on the message that Bruner is trying to get across. I completely agree that as educators we should be helping students construct their knowledge by helping them pool their resources. I know that after reading through both Bruner and Davis that I will be much more aware of the students narrative and how vital this is to the learning process. Before I think I would either have not known or just not paid attention to the individuals narrative and how much learning that student and other students can gain by exploring everything the student has to bring to the educational table. I see this as a representation of Vygotsky's zone of proximal development or as a scaffolding process for learning. Not all students are at the same "developmental level" even when talking about adults. Some are lower and other higher within small objectives of the material being taught. Since I am math I can relate to this as many students say, "I am bad at math, I don't get math, etc." But when talking to the student I may find out they are a loan officer but feel like they don't get or understand anything in math. However, when they begin taking about what they do and how they complete their daily work they are able to describe in detail what numbers mean, how to turn a percent to a decimal, what percent debt someone can have to what they make. Other students who have no schema for this sort of math are typically eager to ask questions and the "student who knew no math" can answer correctly. To me this is a narrative example of the zone of proximal development. Whether knowing it or not the loan officer is working at her developmental level but this level is the achievable level of some other students in the class. However the loan office may possibly be terrible with fractions and be at her developmental level while someone else in the class may be at the loan officers achievable level for fractions. I know this is a "mathy" example but do you see the same type of scaffolding of learning taking place in the science or foreign languages classrooms? If so how? Is it similar to what I described or completely different?
I have certainly experienced students with a range of skills as well as deficiencies. Sometimes the fit my expectation of what I think will be the outcome of the exam for certain individuals. At other times I am at a loss as to why a student had difficulty in a specific area.
I do agree with you chicos, but most importantly we have to make our classroom a place where students can express themselves while they learning. I really like Bruners quote in this same page "Learning to be a scientist is not the same as "learning science": it is learning a culture, with all attendant "non-rational" meaning making that goes with it".
2. In chapter 8 Bruner discusses, "knowing as doing." He mentions Vygotsky and provides examples of how the cultural context shapes knowledge. Does this imply that knowing as doing, is determined by cultural context? Why or why not?
I would say that Brunner's "Knowing as Doing" chapter does imply that much of what we know is determined by cultural context and that it is tacit.
Having an understanding of the term ‘tacit’, I believe, is important, especially before reading chapter eight, Knowing as Doing. I won’t pretend to completely understand what it took Brunner years to put into his own words, but I think that the message here is that, like James Paul Gee and Lev Vygotsky would agree, that mind is not simply biological but social as well. On the surface, I interpret Scribner's’ theory as doing what we know, but not necessarily knowing what we do.
Scribner’s assertion brings to my memory a certain phrase that, during the last 20 years or so, has become popular in hip-hop culture communities. That phrase is “Do what you do.” I occasionally use the phrase just as I heard it being used, which is as a substitute for “Don’t worry about it. You’re best effort will be good enough.” The speaker’s goal here is to provoke the listener to rely on skill or an already established way of doing, one that does not require a knowledge of a set of rules. Whenever I found myself indecisive or nervous about a matter, my old roommate would often say to me, “Do what you do.” It bothered me initially, because, like Bruner with his friend in the Alpine foothills, I did not understand the conventionalization. For my understanding, I’m going to call conventionalization “culturally encoded gesturing”.
Concerning Brunner’s usage of the term distribution, I was reminded of Davis’ explanation of interobjectivity, and complexity science in particular. Brunner states, “he sharing embedded us in a world of practice that went beyond each individual, practice whose very operation depends upon being distributed communally”. I desperately want to parallel Davis’ use of the term “discourse” or “system” with Brunner’s use of the term “rebus”. Did anyone else have that inclination?
Reginald, I agree with you in that Bruner would say "knowing" is somewhat tacit. It seems this is particularly true in his reference to what is "learned" in society or how a child can interpret what their mother's feelings are based soley off of her facial expressions. I also agree that mind is not all biological but also driven by culture. Bruner said, "Frequently, indeed, we know how to do those things long before we can explain conceptually what we are doing or normatively why we should be doing them" (pg. 151). I feel that Bruner is backing up our thought of knowing being tacit. I was also interested in Bruner's use of conventionalization and distribution. Conventionalization and distribution again force the thought that not all knowing and learning is "taught" in a formal classroom setting, but in general is taught within the "culture" surrounding the individual. Bruner state that , "conventionaliztion refers to the facto that our ways of doing things skillfully reflect implicit forms of affiliating with a culture that often go beyond what we "know" in an explicit form" (pg. 153) And then for distribution Bruner said, "it exists as well not only in your particular environment of books, dictionaries, and notes, but also in the heads and habity of the friends with whom you interact, even in what socially you have come to take as given" (p. 154).
I can see the link between distribution and interobjectivity. Once again knowlege is all around but doesn't have to be "taught" to be "learned." As far as a parallel between rebus and discourse, I did not pick up on that. I believe they could be similar but in discourse I see everything having 2 sides. Like two different opposite ideas fighting for first place. However, rebus I see as just different ideas out ther but they are not necessarily in opposition of each other. What do you think... Is this what you meant by them being parallel?
I like Reginald's explanation of tacit knowledge and the expression "Do what you do." It does seem it is important to have confidence that the tacit knowledge is within one's intuition.
I think much of what we learn culturally is tacit, and we just assume this is how it is done without questioning why. I find in society that aspects of it have prejudice built such as the class system in the U.S. and racism such as how people of color sometimes are not treated equally compared to white people such as the quality of the school in a diverse neighborhood compared to a school in a primarily white neighborhood. Once I have the tacit realization that perhaps I should live my life in a different way than what I had just assumed is the right way then I can change my behavior. Certainly bringing tacit knowledge to a conscious awareness is vital to teaching and learning. In order for social change, people need to become more aware of themselves and others whether in school or daily living.
Alana, as far as rebus goes I think usually there is more than one perspective (side) to an issue. I think some issues do have more than two sides.
Alana, that makes sense - that discourses present opposing views, competing against one another. So, I've been wrestling with Gee's "The Social Mind" all weekend (I'm losing, I think), and a key component of his theory is that the mind is built upon social connections, beyond mere biology. The Discourses that rise out of certain groupings of these connections is what I was trying to match with Brunner's "rebus". I may be stretching it a bit (Gee on the brain/mind). Sorry to bring Gee in to Brunner's space.
I do wonder, though, if these Discourses could be comprised, in part, of "rebuses", along side verbal languages, gestures, etc.
One quote that I found interesting in this chapter is what Bruners said what Bacon and Vygotsky were traying to say "skill is a way o dealing with things, not a derivation from a theory" (p. 152) And that is how we do a lot of common things, even in our jobs. We do not need a theory to do the regular things we do as a members of a culture, we learn those ways of doing things in our group. So, I think that "knowing as doing" is a 100% driven from our cultural context.
3. Bruner argued on p. 178 about his theory of mind that, "Piaget's widely known classic work had made it seem as if the growing child achieved her knowledge of the world by direct hands on contact with it, rather than, as was ordinarily the case by learning about it through others." I just wonder what everyone thinks about this statement.
Concerning Brunner’s complaint about Piaget’s work, I would initially disagree with Brunner, citing, from mere “unscientific” observation, that children tend to bring things to their mouth for approval or disapproval. However, when Brunner brings the biological side of the mind into play, I side more so with Brunner. Based on Brunner’s citing of Chandler’s demonstration that, “young children who fail the False Belief Test do try to trick each other in spontaneous play”, and that the child is employing hypothetical thought, I would say that there must be some level of non-physical achievement of knowledge by the child. I would also hypothesize that that level of achievement is lower in infants and higher in elementary school aged children.
This particular area of the chapter is interesting to me because it demonstrates Brunner’s assertion that both the biological mind and the social mind ought to be jointly considered as we endeavor to better our education practices. The “kick”, though, is that he uses biological research, that of Broca, to bring into balance the more sociocultural Piagetian findings. I have a question: I was not so bothered by the use of the terms “retarded” and “retardation” on page 177 - I understand the usage of these terms to be a sign of the 1990s-and-earlier times, but I was disturbed by the lack of quotation marks on the word “normal” in the first sentence in the Theory of mind section on page 178. I imagine that Brunner has to distinguish between those children with autism and those without, but I wonder - was this intentional by the author, by the editor? Was it a typo? I hope it was merely a typo, because it seems a bit anti-Brunner / anti-Davis (and I imagine anti-Freire). Does anyone else agree or disagree?
In the last chapter, Bruner reflects on what he calls "psychology's next chapter." He says, "If psychology is to get ahead in understand human nature and the human condition, it must learn to understand the subtle interplay of biology and culture." (p.184) He explains that the next frontier in psychology is about "intersubjectivity" — how people come to know what others have in mind and how they adjust accordingly." (p. 161) Human functioning is always situated in a context. It involves the shared symbols of a community, its traditions and tool-kit, passed on from generation to generation and constituting the larger culture. So, it is important to realize that traditional psychology has downplayed the role of culture, focusing instead on the causal principles of human biology and human evolution. The field has tended to view culture as an adjunct to mind, or as somehow interfering with the mind's elemental process. This "reductionist, add-on approach" has been driven to a large extent by theoretical preconceptions, in Bruner’s view. "Pure memory, pure thought, pure perception, simple reaction time — these are fictions, occasionally useful, but fictions nonetheless." (p. 168) "Rather than thinking of culture as being "added" to mind, psychology would do better to think of culture as in mind". (p. 170) Knowledge and action are always local, always situated in a network of particulars. Psychology must therefore attend not only to the principles of biology but also to the interpretive processes involved in meaning-making. What its your input in this chapter?
Maru, I like your explanation of the last chapter. I was intrigued by Bruner's use of biologically primary and biologically secondary. It seems to me that the primary is what occurs naturally within ones culture of learning but then the secondary is what "society" feels should be learned. It seems that the secondary in non-natural and is a more one size fits all approach. It is not so much what the individual learns from the culture they are in but instead what the "culture" feels should be cultivated and taught to the masses. I especially like Bruner's quote, "There is nothing any more or less "natural" about this conception of school,... schools don't exist in nature" (p. 172-173). Did anyone else pick up on this?
I think Bruner ending on a chapter that deals with intersubjectivity is appropriate, because within the whole text I feel there is an intersubjective underlining. Bruner focuses many of his chapters on the understanding of what others know/feel without being told by that individual. This ties back to what Reginald and Steve were saying about the tacit knowledge and how important that is in understanding and learning. I absolutely with Bruner when as you state Maru that the field of psychological development should not see culture as an added feature of learning but instead culture as in mind.
I agree that concerning a group of people, that biology and culture are inseparable as one does not exist without the other. In the last paragraph on page 184 Bruner states, "To brush aside the biological constraints on human functioning is to commit hubris." In the previous pages Bruner stated the accomplishments of people such as tool making (p. 168). I was wondering that if human accomplishments were glorified too much that people could be in danger of ignoring biological limitations such failing to live sustainably. Our culture is dependent on our biological environment. Any thoughts?
1. Bruner wrote on page 131, 'the achievement of knowledge was always "situated," dependent on materials, task, and how the learner understood things.' Do you agree with this quote? Why or why not?
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the "achievement" of knowledge is situated and that it (knowledge) is acquired in different ways, according to a learner's resources and their particular history or narrative. I think that one our tasks, as educators, is to help students construct their narrative in order to relate the distant subject matter to their background or the situation from which they come. If we were a homogenous society, instead of democratic and multicultural, I think Brunner's book, or at least the chapters concerning narrative might serve merely reading for speculative sport.
DeleteWhile reading through chapter seven, I asked myself, “why is Brunner still stressing narrative?” I think my question was answered, though, at the end of the chapter, on page 149, wherein he states, “...we live most of our lives according to the rules and devices of narrative.” In previous chapters, I agreed with Brunner that teaching should involve a narrative, include a story, and be dynamic. I can appreciate chapter seven, though, as more than just a tribute to narrative. I see it as an explanation of why we would do well to include the narrative dynamic in our teaching. Further, it seems that Brunner, through his explanation of nine universals of narrative realities, wants to appeal to the learners use of metacognition. Brunner himself states that the dissecting of narrative realities is difficult (which made me feel not so bad), but one statement that helps me encapsulate at least some of his message is found on page 147: “It is not that we lack competence in creating our narrative accounts of reality...Our problem, rather, is achieving consciousness of...the ancient problem of prise de conscience.” This statement ties in to what I would call one of the major themes of the entirety of The Culture of Education, which, for me, is achieving awareness about why we conduct education as we do.
Reginald,
DeleteI like your comment at the end of your first paragraph..."If we were a homogenous society...... the chapters concerning narrative might serve merely reading for speculative sport," is such an interesting but true take on the message that Bruner is trying to get across. I completely agree that as educators we should be helping students construct their knowledge by helping them pool their resources. I know that after reading through both Bruner and Davis that I will be much more aware of the students narrative and how vital this is to the learning process. Before I think I would either have not known or just not paid attention to the individuals narrative and how much learning that student and other students can gain by exploring everything the student has to bring to the educational table. I see this as a representation of Vygotsky's zone of proximal development or as a scaffolding process for learning. Not all students are at the same "developmental level" even when talking about adults. Some are lower and other higher within small objectives of the material being taught. Since I am math I can relate to this as many students say, "I am bad at math, I don't get math, etc." But when talking to the student I may find out they are a loan officer but feel like they don't get or understand anything in math. However, when they begin taking about what they do and how they complete their daily work they are able to describe in detail what numbers mean, how to turn a percent to a decimal, what percent debt someone can have to what they make. Other students who have no schema for this sort of math are typically eager to ask questions and the "student who knew no math" can answer correctly. To me this is a narrative example of the zone of proximal development. Whether knowing it or not the loan officer is working at her developmental level but this level is the achievable level of some other students in the class. However the loan office may possibly be terrible with fractions and be at her developmental level while someone else in the class may be at the loan officers achievable level for fractions. I know this is a "mathy" example but do you see the same type of scaffolding of learning taking place in the science or foreign languages classrooms? If so how? Is it similar to what I described or completely different?
I have certainly experienced students with a range of skills as well as deficiencies. Sometimes the fit my expectation of what I think will be the outcome of the exam for certain individuals. At other times I am at a loss as to why a student had difficulty in a specific area.
DeleteI do agree with you chicos, but most importantly we have to make our classroom a place where students can express themselves while they learning. I really like Bruners quote in this same page "Learning to be a scientist is not the same as "learning science": it is learning a culture, with all attendant "non-rational" meaning making that goes with it".
Delete2. In chapter 8 Bruner discusses, "knowing as doing." He mentions Vygotsky and provides examples of how the cultural context shapes knowledge. Does this imply that knowing as doing, is determined by cultural context? Why or why not?
ReplyDeleteI would say that Brunner's "Knowing as Doing" chapter does imply that much of what we know is determined by cultural context and that it is tacit.
DeleteHaving an understanding of the term ‘tacit’, I believe, is important, especially before reading chapter eight, Knowing as Doing. I won’t pretend to completely understand what it took Brunner years to put into his own words, but I think that the message here is that, like James Paul Gee and Lev Vygotsky would agree, that mind is not simply biological but social as well. On the surface, I interpret Scribner's’ theory as doing what we know, but not necessarily knowing what we do.
Scribner’s assertion brings to my memory a certain phrase that, during the last 20 years or so, has become popular in hip-hop culture communities. That phrase is “Do what you do.” I occasionally use the phrase just as I heard it being used, which is as a substitute for “Don’t worry about it. You’re best effort will be good enough.” The speaker’s goal here is to provoke the listener to rely on skill or an already established way of doing, one that does not require a knowledge of a set of rules. Whenever I found myself indecisive or nervous about a matter, my old roommate would often say to me, “Do what you do.” It bothered me initially, because, like Bruner with his friend in the Alpine foothills, I did not understand the conventionalization. For my understanding, I’m going to call conventionalization “culturally encoded gesturing”.
Concerning Brunner’s usage of the term distribution, I was reminded of Davis’ explanation of interobjectivity, and complexity science in particular. Brunner states, “he sharing embedded us in a world of practice that went beyond each individual, practice whose very operation depends upon being distributed communally”. I desperately want to parallel Davis’ use of the term “discourse” or “system” with Brunner’s use of the term “rebus”. Did anyone else have that inclination?
Reginald,
DeleteI agree with you in that Bruner would say "knowing" is somewhat tacit. It seems this is particularly true in his reference to what is "learned" in society or how a child can interpret what their mother's feelings are based soley off of her facial expressions. I also agree that mind is not all biological but also driven by culture. Bruner said, "Frequently, indeed, we know how to do those things long before we can explain conceptually what we are doing or normatively why we should be doing them" (pg. 151). I feel that Bruner is backing up our thought of knowing being tacit. I was also interested in Bruner's use of conventionalization and distribution. Conventionalization and distribution again force the thought that not all knowing and learning is "taught" in a formal classroom setting, but in general is taught within the "culture" surrounding the individual. Bruner state that , "conventionaliztion refers to the facto that our ways of doing things skillfully reflect implicit forms of affiliating with a culture that often go beyond what we "know" in an explicit form" (pg. 153) And then for distribution Bruner said, "it exists as well not only in your particular environment of books, dictionaries, and notes, but also in the heads and habity of the friends with whom you interact, even in what socially you have come to take as given" (p. 154).
I can see the link between distribution and interobjectivity. Once again knowlege is all around but doesn't have to be "taught" to be "learned." As far as a parallel between rebus and discourse, I did not pick up on that. I believe they could be similar but in discourse I see everything having 2 sides. Like two different opposite ideas fighting for first place. However, rebus I see as just different ideas out ther but they are not necessarily in opposition of each other. What do you think... Is this what you meant by them being parallel?
I like Reginald's explanation of tacit knowledge and the expression "Do what you do." It does seem it is important to have confidence that the tacit knowledge is within one's intuition.
DeleteI think much of what we learn culturally is tacit, and we just assume this is how it is done without questioning why. I find in society that aspects of it have prejudice built such as the class system in the U.S. and racism such as how people of color sometimes are not treated equally compared to white people such as the quality of the school in a diverse neighborhood compared to a school in a primarily white neighborhood. Once I have the tacit realization that perhaps I should live my life in a different way than what I had just assumed is the right way then I can change my behavior. Certainly bringing tacit knowledge to a conscious awareness is vital to teaching and learning. In order for social change, people need to become more aware of themselves and others whether in school or daily living.
Alana, as far as rebus goes I think usually there is more than one perspective (side) to an issue. I think some issues do have more than two sides.
Alana, that makes sense - that discourses present opposing views, competing against one another. So, I've been wrestling with Gee's "The Social Mind" all weekend (I'm losing, I think), and a key component of his theory is that the mind is built upon social connections, beyond mere biology. The Discourses that rise out of certain groupings of these connections is what I was trying to match with Brunner's "rebus". I may be stretching it a bit (Gee on the brain/mind). Sorry to bring Gee in to Brunner's space.
DeleteI do wonder, though, if these Discourses could be comprised, in part, of "rebuses", along side verbal languages, gestures, etc.
One quote that I found interesting in this chapter is what Bruners said what Bacon and Vygotsky were traying to say "skill is a way o dealing with things, not a derivation from a theory" (p. 152) And that is how we do a lot of common things, even in our jobs. We do not need a theory to do the regular things we do as a members of a culture, we learn those ways of doing things in our group. So, I think that "knowing as doing" is a 100% driven from our cultural context.
Delete3. Bruner argued on p. 178 about his theory of mind that, "Piaget's widely known classic work had made it seem as if the growing child achieved her knowledge of the world by direct hands on contact with it, rather than, as was ordinarily the case by learning about it through others." I just wonder what everyone thinks about this statement.
ReplyDeleteConcerning Brunner’s complaint about Piaget’s work, I would initially disagree with Brunner, citing, from mere “unscientific” observation, that children tend to bring things to their mouth for approval or disapproval. However, when Brunner brings the biological side of the mind into play, I side more so with Brunner. Based on Brunner’s citing of Chandler’s demonstration that, “young children who fail the False Belief Test do try to trick each other in spontaneous play”, and that the child is employing hypothetical thought, I would say that there must be some level of non-physical achievement of knowledge by the child. I would also hypothesize that that level of achievement is lower in infants and higher in elementary school aged children.
ReplyDeleteThis particular area of the chapter is interesting to me because it demonstrates Brunner’s assertion that both the biological mind and the social mind ought to be jointly considered as we endeavor to better our education practices. The “kick”, though, is that he uses biological research, that of Broca, to bring into balance the more sociocultural Piagetian findings.
I have a question: I was not so bothered by the use of the terms “retarded” and “retardation” on page 177 - I understand the usage of these terms to be a sign of the 1990s-and-earlier times, but I was disturbed by the lack of quotation marks on the word “normal” in the first sentence in the Theory of mind section on page 178. I imagine that Brunner has to distinguish between those children with autism and those without, but I wonder - was this intentional by the author, by the editor? Was it a typo? I hope it was merely a typo, because it seems a bit anti-Brunner / anti-Davis (and I imagine anti-Freire). Does anyone else agree or disagree?
In the last chapter, Bruner reflects on what he calls "psychology's next chapter." He says, "If psychology is to get ahead in understand human nature and the human condition, it must learn to understand the subtle interplay of biology and culture." (p.184) He explains that the next frontier in psychology is about "intersubjectivity" — how people come to know what others have in mind and how they adjust accordingly." (p. 161) Human functioning is always situated in a context. It involves the shared symbols of a community, its traditions and tool-kit, passed on from generation to generation and constituting the larger culture. So, it is important to realize that traditional psychology has downplayed the role of culture, focusing instead on the causal principles of human biology and human evolution. The field has tended to view culture as an adjunct to mind, or as somehow interfering with the mind's elemental process. This "reductionist, add-on approach" has been driven to a large extent by theoretical preconceptions, in Bruner’s view. "Pure memory, pure thought, pure perception, simple reaction time — these are fictions, occasionally useful, but fictions nonetheless." (p. 168) "Rather than thinking of culture as being "added" to mind, psychology would do better to think of culture as in mind". (p. 170) Knowledge and action are always local, always situated in a network of particulars. Psychology must therefore attend not only to the principles of biology but also to the interpretive processes involved in meaning-making. What its your input in this chapter?
ReplyDeleteMaru,
ReplyDeleteI like your explanation of the last chapter. I was intrigued by Bruner's use of biologically primary and biologically secondary. It seems to me that the primary is what occurs naturally within ones culture of learning but then the secondary is what "society" feels should be learned. It seems that the secondary in non-natural and is a more one size fits all approach. It is not so much what the individual learns from the culture they are in but instead what the "culture" feels should be cultivated and taught to the masses. I especially like Bruner's quote, "There is nothing any more or less "natural" about this conception of school,... schools don't exist in nature" (p. 172-173). Did anyone else pick up on this?
I think Bruner ending on a chapter that deals with intersubjectivity is appropriate, because within the whole text I feel there is an intersubjective underlining. Bruner focuses many of his chapters on the understanding of what others know/feel without being told by that individual. This ties back to what Reginald and Steve were saying about the tacit knowledge and how important that is in understanding and learning. I absolutely with Bruner when as you state Maru that the field of psychological development should not see culture as an added feature of learning but instead culture as in mind.
I agree that concerning a group of people, that biology and culture are inseparable as one does not exist without the other. In the last paragraph on page 184 Bruner states, "To brush aside the biological constraints on human functioning is to commit hubris." In the previous pages Bruner stated the accomplishments of people such as tool making (p. 168). I was wondering that if human accomplishments were glorified too much that people could be in danger of ignoring biological limitations such failing to live sustainably. Our culture is dependent on our biological environment. Any thoughts?
Delete