[Xmca-l] Re: CHAT Discourse

[Andy Blunden]

I am sure that in this long thread, *someone* must have already said 
that philosophy (i.e., critique of concepts) and psychology (critique of 
data) both stimulate and challenge one another. Two independent 
processes which interact with one another, surely? Some currents of 
psychology remain content with the concepts of common sense and focus on 
observation, others are eternally dissatisfied with the concepts they 
use. But essentially it's the same process.

What has driven me along the road to developing my approach to Activity 
Theory are both the (to me) obvious degradation of  Vygotsky's concepts 
in the move to Activity Theory, *and* pressing problems like two halves 
of the country which seem to believe in mutually exclusive sets of  
facts about the world, like the fact that so many well-educated people 
believe the world was created 10,000 years ago by a Christian God, why 
countries which were well on the way to modernity 50 years ago have now 
confined their womenfolk indoors and behind veils, why priests abuse the 
children in their care and are protected by the hierarchy, why asbestos 
workers would not believe that the stuff was killing them even when half 
the town was dying of it, etc. - These kinds of situation are *data* for 
social theorists and it seemed to me that Vygotsky's ideas were the best 
thing going, but they had not been satisfactorily developed by Activity 
Theorists for social theory. The facts I am concerned with are pretty 
well, if not universally, recognised, but probably half the world has 
noticed. The problem is mainly the *concepts*. Some successful projects 
which have changed minds on a mass scale are the only way of getting 
more data, but even then the situation is not qualitatively different 
because the kind of projects I am interested in are real, not isolated 
in a laboratory, so as much open to contested interpretation as any of 
the facts I mentioned above and are not the kind of thing one 
experiments with.

Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/


mike cole wrote:
> If others agree, Andy, then it provides a context within which to make 
> judgments about the kind of enterprise CHAT has become, in its various
> instantations, which are certainly multiple!
>
> On the other hand, maybe I am just being dull, the problems have been 
> solved. 
> mike
>
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 9:14 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net 
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
>     I think Vygotsky spoke optimistically about resolving the crisis
>     in Psychology because he was writing in the wake of the successful
>     Russian Revolution. Alas it was not to be so. But as a Marxist he
>     would know that without the resolution of the crisis of humanity
>     there could be no resolution in the crisis of any of the special
>     sciences. Which is all the more reason to tackle the disciplinary
>     boundaries inhibiting the development of both psychology and
>     social theory.
>     Andy
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *Andy Blunden*
>     http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>     <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
>
>     mike cole wrote:
>
>         ​Complicated discussion about CHAT and whether its a science
>         or not.
>
>         One thing to keep in mind, perhaps:  Vygotsky said he was
>         seeking  to
>         resolve the crisis in psychology as he diagnosed it a century
>         ago. In my
>         view, he did not resolve it. I made the argument at the end of
>         Cultural
>         Psychology and can post a draft of the chapter here if it
>         needs rehearsing.
>         I believe, to the extent that it can be solved, it requires
>         one to take
>         seriously the fusion of theory and practice. Seems like
>         Vygotsky said
>         something along these same lines, too, about practice being
>         the crucible of
>         theory.
>
>         The question of what can be learned from an analysis of
>         projects such as
>         those present in Andy's collection seems an important one. I
>         am biased. I
>         would hate to think that i learned nothing from the past 30+
>         years of
>         involvement in the 5th Dimension!
>
>         mike
>
>          ​
>
>