Tools

HDCS6 who-is-at jetson.uh.edu
Mon, 09 Oct 1995 13:43:02 -0500 (CDT)

This conversation is moving much too fast, and there have been some really
interesting things said. I especially want time to think about what
Alfred Lange and Jaques Haennan said. I do want to respond, at least
in a basic way, to the issues raised by Mike, Peter, and possibly Gordon.
Mike, I don't think I was saying that there is no mediation in the process
(sorry, that's really awkward). I don't think though, that you have to have
the concept of tools to talk about the concept of mediation. I am reminded
of Leontiev's example of mediation in a spider (the vibrations caused by
a vibrating spider in its web is a form of mediation). I am just saying
that is it possible that we take the issue of mediation way across the spectrum
in the other direction when we are talking about thinking of the human in
the technological society. Our thinking evolves through history. We don't
enter a new, changed environment, as the next generation, but an ongoing
environment. The social organization defines our immediate motives, and
our immediate activities, in a way that goes beyond the immediacy of tools.
This is my argument, I think, that when we rely on tools we our too tied
to the here and now, and not aware enough of activity as an ongoing
phenomenon. This is an idea that Gordon Wells drew out really well in
an earlier message.

It seems to me that what cultural/social historical has brought to
the table is combining of individual (psychological) and social
(sociological) in the concept of activity. I think you get more out
of this looking at it from an evolutionary perspective (the interaction
of organism and environment in a single evolutionary process) than from
a Cartersian or anti-Cartesian perspective. We carry ways of doing things
with us, as the result of our activity in our community, that goes beyond
tools. The issue of tools is an artifact. I was just reading an example
by Yrjo Engestrom. Mendeleev, when he was working on the periodic table,
struggled for fifteen years. All of a sudden, one day while playing a game
of solitaire, it came to him to use the game as an organizing technique.
Now you can say that the game of solitaire became the tool used to
mediate the problem. I worry then that you are missing the really big
picture. That is, what convinced Mendeleev to work for something so
abstract as a periodic table for fifteen years of his life. What
happened in his life up to the point of that game of solitaire that
allowed him to switch the motive of the "game" from entertainment to
determining the periodic table. What were the mediating forces in
the life of the individual in interaction with his social ecology
that caused him to have certain motives, and frame his purpose with
certain goals, and that suddenly caused a change in his motive and
goal in the card game. When the questions are asked this way, think
that the tool itself (the game of solitaire) becomes only an artifact.
Only we can't ask the questions this way, because we haven't found a
way to talk about them...we don't have the technology. Do we keep
talking about tools, or do we try to develop this new technology?

In terms of activity driving thinking. Yes thinking does sometimes
drive activity. The case of Mendeleev is a good example. But only
on the micro level. And if you forget it happens only on the micro leve,
and that thinking was originally driven by activity some time back in
history, then I think you lose the thread.

Michael Glassman
University of Houston