Re: reason was the subject?

From: Paul H. Dillon (illonph@pacbell.net)
Date: Tue May 23 2000 - 18:13:54 PDT


mike,

I don't know about leading anybody -- i was looking forward to some
discussions/comments from those who have been working with activity theory
for decades, not a few years like me. I do think that my familiarity with
Hegel, Marx and many other marxist theorists has made provided a good
groundwork for understanding Vygotsky and Leont'ev (at least the little I've
read) from the perspective they claim to have been working in but other than
that I'm pretty much in the same boat as those who haven't read Leont'ev
before.

As to the object beyond, I don't think that is a compatible ontology for
actitivty theory. That would be to confuse the object and the motive,
wouldn't it? In that sense, reading Rubenshtein sounds intriguing and
worthwhile but it would be sad to see that lead away from actually doing the
Leont'ev. Where can one find Rubenshstein's work? How much is translated?
Into what languages?

Paul

----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 5:42 PM
Subject: reason was the subject?

>
> Hi Paul-- Still dabbling.
>
> 1) If we are going to read Leontiev, lets be respectful to our Russian
> colleagues. Lets read, at least Payne on Rubensthein. And if you can
> lead us, lets read Rubenshtein. There are parts in the translation
> journal.
>
> After all, A.V. Brushlinsky, the head of the Institute of Psychology,
> criticizes *Cultural Psychology* for not recognizing that Rubenshtein
> was, i quote, the Einstein of activity theory. In his view, Leontive
> had it all wrong.
>
> 2. The common point in our Steven's induced meditations: the motive
> is imagined/over the horizon. This is the point of contact with Kant
> that i saw.
>
> mike
>



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 01 2000 - 01:01:32 PDT