Comments on Chris Sinha’s Essay (2018) "Praxis, Symbol and Language"

By Razie Mah

Chris Sinha, at Hunan University, publishes an article in Interaction Studies (volume 19(1-2), 2018, pages 239-255). The full title is "Praxis, symbol and language: developmental, ecological and linguistic issues".
Sinha has been working on these questions for a very long time, picking up specialized terminology along the way. He is one of the signature authors for a project called "The Road Map", which outlines a path for research into how the brain got language, using comparative neuroprimatology, among other approaches (Interaction Studies, 19:1-2 (2018), 370-387).
Sinha is one of the few to offers an alternate approach, focused on the concept that symbols are precursors to language. In this article, he intends to translate his idea into a modular EvoDevoSocio, which represents the evolution (evo-, or phylogenesis) of developmental processes (devo- or ontogenesis) adapted to social interactions (socio-, as if it is an ecological process). The modules expand to include ecology (eco-, as distinct from socio-), depending on the topic.
To me, EcoEvoDevoSocio sounds like sloganeering, rather than skeptical inquiry. So does the name of the road, "How the Brain Got Language". After all, I have never heard a brain express itself in language, until, of course, that IBM Deep Blue character that decimated all challengers on the televised game show, "Jeopardy".
Fortunately, the category-based nested form comes to the rescue with diagrams that work through Sinha's terminology-laden argument and recast Sinha's two foundational figures. Sinha's program appears to describe the evolution of hand talk within team activities (in early Homo erectus) followed by the generalization of hand talk after the domestication of fire (corresponding to later Homo erectus).
Notable, the two-level interscopes developed in these comments cohere to Gregory Sandstrom's project of Extension and Intension, as postmodern versions of the disciplines of Sociology and Psychology, although the correspondence is not exact. Sinha's work delineates adaptations in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
Complementary comments appear in mid-May 2021.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Razie Mah
• Release date: Apr 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781942824992

Razie Mah

See website for bio.

Book preview

Comments on Chris Sinha's Essay (2018) Praxis, Symbol and Language

By Razie Mah

Published for Smashwords.com

2021

Notes on Text

This work comments on an article by Chris Sinha appearing in Interaction Studies (19(1-2), 2018, 239-255). The full title is Praxis, symbol and language: developmental, ecological and linguistic issues. My goal is to comment on this work using the category-based nested form and other relational models within the tradition of Charles Peirce.

‘Words that belong together’ are denoted by single quotes or italics.

Prerequisites: A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction

Recommended: The Human Niche (with attendant commentaries), Comments on Sasha Newell's Article (2018) The Affectiveness of Symbols

Table of Contents

Zero Abstract

One Introduction

Two Functional Representation

Three Symbol To Language

Four The Human Niche Deconstructed

Five Senses

Six, What Can We See?

Zero Abstract

0001 Chris Sinha starts with two questions.

First, can an inquirer interweave constructive praxis with communication in ontogenesis?

Second, can an inquirer take that fabric and blend it with phylogenetics, using the notion of biocultural niche construction within an EvoDevoSocio framework?

Or, do I mean EcoEvoDevo framework?

If evo is shorthand for evolution, devo is ontogenetic development, socio is social interaction, then does not eco wrap around to encompass -socio in the process of passing from an Umwelt to a Lebenswelt?

So, how about EcoEvoDevoSocio as a wrap-around framework?

0002 Oh, the terminology in the abstract of Sinha's article overwhelms.

So, let me delicately sort out the abstraction offered by Chris Sinha, writing from Hunan University, who has labored for decades in this shape-shifting discipline.

0003 The first