Grasping the Concept (book, v1, Table of Contents)

The Territory of Concepts and Concept Dynamics

The phrase “Grasping the Concept” was inspired by Andy Blunden who is the author of Concepts: A Critical Approach. In Nov 2020, we had a short thematic conversation about concepts via Gmail. He used “… grasped with two different concepts…” to review two different views of Activity Theory.

I realized that “Grasping the Concept” was the essential thing of the Concept-related practice.

That was a significant insight.

Now I want to use it to name a book.

There is no single theory or framework in the possible book. What you will see is a dynamic network of knowledge frameworks. In order words, this is an evolving concept system.

I’d like to use this book to present an evolving concept system about evolving concept systems.

The book is divided into six parts corresponding to the above six projects. Some numbers about the possible book:

• 6 parts
• 66 articles
• Total 947 min read
• Total 250,955 words (about 502 single-spaced pages)

Part 1: Territory of Concepts

Part 1 offers the background of the “Territory of Concepts” project.

In this part, I introduce the Landscape of “Theme (Concept)” as a primary model of the ecological approach to concept science.

Following the model, I present a case study about the concept of “Mindset” in the field of psychological knowledge engagement.

Based on the case study about “Mindset”, I use the Four Types of Thematic Spaces of Knowledge Discovery Canvas to define the “Territory” of Concepts of Knowledge Engagement.

Chapter 1: The Territory of Concepts Project

• Part 1: Themes in the Field: Self, Agency, and Activity (Part III) — (11 min)
• Part 2: A Possible Theme called “Spontaneous Concept System” — (18 min)
• Part 3: The Territory of Concepts — (11 min)

Chapter 2: The Landscape of “Theme (Concept)”

• Part 1: A Universal Reference for Knowledge Engagement — (13 min)
• Part 2: Themes of Practice: Concept, Activity, and Cognition — (29 min)

Chapter 3: A Case Study of the Concept of Mindset

• Part 1: The Concept of Mindset and Theoretical Integration — (48 min)
• Part 2: The Concept of Mindset and Empirical Psychologists — (27 min)
• Part 3: The Concept of Mindset and Intervenors — (28 min)
• Part 4: The Concept of Mindset and Actors — (39 min)
• Part 5: Four Mindsets of Knowledge Engagement and “AAI as Mental Tuning” — (17 min)

Chapter 4: Thematic Spaces as Territory of Concepts

• Part 1: Psychological Knowledge Engagement and Robert Kegan’s Knowledge Enterprise — (59 min)
• Part 2: Psychological Knowledge Engagement as Social Moves — (3 min)
• Part 3: The Grasping the Concept Model — (10 min)

Part 2: Concept Dynamics

Part 2 presents the Affordance Analysis project and its primary outcome: the Concept Dynamics Framework.

Some articles about the Concept Dynamics framework are collected in this part too.

Chapter 5: The Affordance Analysis Project

• Part 1: The Notion of Affordance Analysis — (14 min)
• Part 2: Hammer, Hammering, and Affordance — (33 min)
• Part 3: Physical Space Affordances and Graphic Space Affordances — (16 min)
• Part 4: Digital Space Affordances and the Opportunity of Objectification — (14 min)
• Part 5: Graphic Space Affordances, Thematic Space, and Possible Paths — (24 min)

Chapter 6: The Concept Dynamics Framework

• Part 1: The Concept Dynamics Framework — (15 min)
• Part 2: Concepts, Notions, and the Concept Dynamics Framework — (14 min)
• Part 3: AAI: Cross-boundary Knowledge Curation — (16 min)
• Part 4: Against Conceptual Heterogeneity: A Case Study of Academic Knowledge Curation — (20 min)
• Part 5: Concepts, Themes, and Culture — (6 min)

Part 3: Theme (Concept)

Part 3 reviews the historical development of the ecological approach to concept science and the interdisciplinary study of themes. It covers the following theoretical approaches:

• Andy Blunden’s approach to Activity Theory: Activity as Formation of Concept (2010, 2012, 2014)
• Ferdinand de Saussure’s General Linguistics
• Ping-keung Lui’s term “Social Territory” and his Subjectivist Structuralism
• My approach: the Themes of Practice approach

The notion of “Theme(Concept)” connects Themes and Concepts. Based on this notion, we can apply the Landscape of “Theme (Concept)” to some concepts and themes. For example:

• Life (Self)
• Context (Mind)
• Project (Activity)
• Platformba(Platform)
• Proximal Mind (Proximal Mind)
• Social Moves (Mental Moves)
• Value Circle (Value Chain)

Chapter 7: Activity as Formation of Concept

• Part 1: Andy Blunden’s Vision of Activity Theory — (7 min)
• Part 2: Case Study: Collaborative Learning Space — (7 min)
• Part 3: Case Study: TEDx as “Formation of Concept” — (8 min)

Chapter 8: Langue, Parole, and World of Activity

• Part 1: Kinds of Actors — (12 min)
• Part 2: The World of Activity — (14 min)
• Part 3: A Linguistic Perspective on Product Engagement — (14 min)

Chapter 9: The Themes of Practice Approach

• Part 1: Themes of Practice (2019–2021) — (13 min)
• Part 2: A Journey of Engaging with the Theme of “Themes” (2017–2023) — (7 min)
• Part 3: The Echoes of A Thematic Dialogue — (13 min)

Chapter 10: Theme (Concept) as Unit of Analysis

• Part 1: Life (Self) — (14 min)
• Part 2: Context (Mind) — (15 min)
• Part 3: Project (Activity) — (15 min)
• Part 4: Platformba(Platform) — (17 min)
• Part 5: Proximal Mind (Proximal Mind) — (6 min)
• Part 6: Social Moves (Mental Moves) — (9 min)
• Part 7: Value Circle (Value Chain) — (7 min)

Part 4: Social Cognition

Part 4 focuses on the development of the concept of “Thematic Space”.

I also pay attention to a related notion: Social Cognition = Social Moves (Mental Moves).

Chapter 11: Moving between Thematic Spaces

• Part 1: What’s “Thematic Space”? — (11 min)
• Part 2: The Development of the concept of “Thematic Spaces” — (18 min)
• Part 3: Life, History, and Multiverse — (16 min)

Chapter 12: Social Territory and Social Moves

• Part 1: The Creative Course Framework and Social Territory — (7 min)
• Part 2: Mental Moves between Knowledge Centers — (12 min)
• Part 3: A possible theme called “Social Moves” — (9 min)
• Part 4: From “ARCH” to “Activity Circle” — (20 min)

Part 5: Platform Genidentity

Part 5 moves to the Platform Ecology project and discusses the evolving concept system.

In this part, we can see the development of the Platform Genidentity framework and its newest version: The Landscape of Evolving Concept System.

The new model uses “Spontaneous Concept System/Defined Concept System/Scientific Concept System” to explain three parts of an Evolving Concept System.

Chapter 13: The Platform Ecology Project

• Part 1: A Configurational Theory of “Platform Ecology” — (21 min)
• Part 2: The Concept of Developmental Platform — (23 min)
• Part 3: Platform Genidentity: The Movements of Unfolding Uniqueness — (18 min)

Chapter 14: The Evolving Thematic Network

• Part 1: Possible Configurations of A Theme Network — (15 min)
• Part 2: Subjectification, Objectification, and Crystallize Thematically (15 min)
• Part 3: Mapping Thematic Landscape (Curativity, 2019–2022) — (27 min)

Chapter 15: The Evolving Concept System

• Part 1: Platform Innovation as Concept-fit — (49 min)
• Part 2: A Possible Theme called “Concept Choices” — (10 min)
• Part 3: Mental Platform: The Evolving Concept System — (13 min)

Part 6: Slow Cognition

In the past several years, I developed several theoretical concepts for my knowledge frameworks.

Part 6 collects some articles about the development of these concepts.

Chapter 16: The Slow Cognition Project

• Part 1: The Slow Cognition Project and related methods — (8 min)
• Part 2: Significant Insights Analysis: A case study of the historical-cognitive approach — (11min)
• Part 3: Mapping Networks of Enterprise — (9 min)

Chapter 17: Stories of Developing Concepts

• Part 1: The Development of the concept of “Thematic Spaces” — (18 min)
• Part 2: The Concept of Attachance (A list of articles) — (10 min)
• Part 3: The Supportance of Platform (Oct 27, 2020) — (7 min)
• Part 4: The Concept of Supportance — (38 min)
• Part 5: A Possible Theme called “Knowledge Center” — (14 min)
• Part 7: Situational Note-taking: The idea of “Meaning Matrix” — (3 min)
• Part 8: Lifesystem: Modeling Ice Skating and Other Social Practices — (28 min)

Related books (Drafts)

• Creative Life Theory: Building A Knowledge Enterprise
• Thematic Exploration: The Early Discovery of Knowledge Engagement (book, v1)
• Mental Moves: The Attachance Approach to Ecological Creative Cognition
• Knowledge Discovery: Developing Tacit Knowledge with Thematic Space Canvas
• Knowledge Curation: Turning Pieces into A Meaningful Whole
• Life Discovery: Biography, Journey, Program
• Perspectives on Product Engagement
• Diagramming as Practice
• Diagram Blending: Building Diagram Networks
• Creative Life Curation: Discover Thematic Spaces of Creative Life