Re: Leontiev

From: Judith Diamondstone (diamonju@rci.rutgers.edu)
Date: Fri Sep 29 2000 - 10:07:57 PDT


I think there's a definitional problem here, in assertions about Marxism
and social practices - semiosis is presupposed to be as Marx said, only
ideality (word?) -- whereas in my understanding of semiotics, it is very
definitely a material process -- not restricted to purposive behavior but
affecting purposes, objects, as well as lives. To foreground the means is
not to delete what remains in the background of immediate attention, as
contextual data for understanding the processes.

I haven't been following email closely this week, so if I'm out of the ball
park, that's my excuse.

Judy

mediated by artifacts," or as "mediated means" (which is a rein dant phrase,
>isn't it?), or even as "semiotically organized" does not capture the
>concrete social organization of activities. IN Marx's and Leontiev's view
>(at least as expressed in chap. 1) they are abstract since they are divorced
>from the concrete social context in which they exist.



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