Eva and others,
I recently reread the 1995 x-practice discussion of signs and the
differentiation seems to go beyond just a differentiation between post
soviet and western perspectives. Jim talked about the differentiation
between production and consumption which may not be very far off from the
differentiation of cultural historical and Activity Theory. Arne creates
some very interesting triangles that attempts to merge these two
perspectives.
http://cite.ped.gu.se/araei/signs.html
While as Davydov aknowledges (Perspectives on Activity Theory) there is a
possible historical uniqueness in approaching activity in relation to
certain processes such as perception and creativity which Davydov sees as
unnecessary. I think both Engestrom and Davydov bring forth certain
tensions in both cultural historical and activity theory perspectives. The
commonality of course being mediation as Engestrom argues, and as Arne's
schemes attempted to do was create an undualistic model.
The differentiation I think was best described by Jay as follows,
"So a sign is a kind of tool, with all the properties of other tools, and
more besides. And a Subject is a kind of Object, with all the properties of
other objects, and more besides. A Subject can fill all the semantic, and
actional, roles of an Object, both in material and semiotic processes
(which is why there exists the danger of trying to degrade a Subject into a
mere Object), but not vice-versa: there are specific roles, both material
and semiotic, that can be filled only by Subjects. Critical among these are
the Agentive roles in material processes with instrumental roles filled by
Tools and 'target' roles filled by Objects (or Subjects downclassed as
Objects), and 'Meaner' roles in semiotic processes with 'meant' roles
filled with signs and 'addressee' roles filled by other, Semiotic-Subjects
(or Objects metaphorically or mythically upclassed)."
The differentiation of cultural historical and activity theory in the
Russian program the *Golden Key* was along similar lines in that Activity
Theory makes the subject the object of activity rather than the subject.
Engestrom argues that Jim in *Mind as Action* moves away from the Leontiev
notion of approriation that he earlier relied on in favor of the Burke
pendad. Jay seems to question if two (sign and tool) can be integrated
unproblematically. This of course goes back to Jim's reference of
production and consumption.
Cultural historical is an interesting term because as I understand Mike's
message he sees it as part of the larger category of emphasis on
understanding humans in context. However, both Versov and the *Golden Key*
tend to use it closer to Wertch's emphasis on consumption which may not
give to an emphasis on macro-micro that Mike discusses. I think a
revisiting of *Mind as Action* and *Cultural Psychology* would be
interesting in revisiting the tension that sill seems to be with us in
reference to CHAT.
Nate
Nate Schmolze
http://www.geocities.com/~nschmolze/
schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu
People with great passions, people who accomplish great deeds,
People who possess strong feelings even people with great minds
and a strong personality, rarely come out of good little boys and girls
L.S. Vygotsky
> ...which made me wonder when history stopped, so to speak: to me the
> production of new theoretical integrations do not necessarily proceed by
> way of most-correct interpretation of a tradition. I do spot a
> (historically anchored) difference in approach here between the
post-Soviet
> and the US-Western scenes. I could say something off the top of my head
> here (intuition without conception) but will refrain because I expect to
be
> offline til Monday.
>
> Meanwhile, I'll make Mike the subject of another FWD from the past -- and
> save him the trouble of restating it. (He HAS encouraged my foraging, in
> sidebars, but NOT the choice of this particular item.)
>
> These issues were on the agenda back in 1991, too, as you can see:
>
> ****************************************************************
> Date: Mon, 11 Mar 91 17:14:16 PST
> From: cole who-is-at casbs.Stanford.EDU (Michael Cole)
> Subject: pragmatism/activity
> To: xact who-is-at ucsd.edu
> Cc: abelyaev who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu, shw%harvpcna@harvisr.harvard.edu
>
> Dear Colleagues- Xact seems to be working. My apologies in advance if
this
> already got through to you.
> mike
> -----
>
> A couple of contributions to the discussion thread of agre-engestrom-
> raeithel on this topic.
>
> 1) In the writings of both vygotsky and luria one sees direct references
to
> american pragmaticism of a generally approving sort. I take this fact to
> indicate that the cultural-historical school and the pragmatists were
> responding to some common historical/intellectual challenges, most
> prominently the splitting of psychology into experimental and non-
> experimental branches and that they were coming up with some common
> solutions, including the centrality of grounding analysis in actual
> activity and the centrality of cultural mediation as the defining
> characteristic of humanity. That Mead worked with Dilthey and was
concerned
> with time in the unit of analysis I take to be an index of communality
also
> (see Luria, Nature of Human Conflicts, for his experimental resolution
> putting time back into the psychological unit).
>
> 2) I do no know whether Leontiev fully shared this interest, or
> Rubenshtein. In so far as they, not LSV or ARL are considered the
> progenitors of activity theory (which I believe many in this discussion
> think is the case) the links I see may be considered irrelevant.
>
> 3) With respect to local activity and social/institutional/cultural
context
> (which I believe relevant to remarks by Agre/Engestrom/Raeithel) it has
> long impressed me that while activity theorists should, in principle, be
> interested in "micro-macro" links, these links have not been investigate
> very much by Soviet psychologists (one exception is the work of
> Shedrovitsky/Davydov and others on group game/simulations--perhaps our
> Soviet colleagues will suggest others). I have always assumed that this
> circumstance arose fro political constraints of the same kind that
limited
> the degree to which really critical theory and practice were feasible in
> the USSR as discussed in previous messages.
> Whatever the cause, an interesting outcome has been the lack of
> interdisciplinary work involving sociologists, psychologists, and
> anthropologists in the USSR (once again, SO FAR AS I KNOW). My own
> understanding of the cultural-historical approach to activity has always
> impressed upon me the inadequacy of standard psychological approaches and
> the need to study behavior in context--which means learning from and with
> anthropologists, sociologists, and linguists. My impression is that my
> colleagues in the USSR sometimes find this a strange approach. One
leading
> psychologist whom I have known for a long time and whose work I admired
> declared that my thinking about these matters was simply confused and
> mistaken. However, since American colleagues who are sympathetic to
> interdisciplinary work have also been known to think my ideas confused
and
> mistaken, it may simply be that I have an inadequate grasp of how local
> activity is to be related to the socio-economic-cultural order which it
> constitutes and is constituted by! :-)
> Perhaps it would be helpful to have a list of "positive examples" of
> research that have the properties that Phil Agre is calling for. If we
had
> an agreed-upon set we could attempt to identify necessary attributes.
>
> mike
> **********************************************
>
>
nununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununun
unu
> Eva Ekeblad, PhD
> Goteborg University
> Dept. of Education & Educational Research
> Box 300, SE 405 30 Goteborg, SWEDEN
> eva.ekeblad who-is-at ped.gu.se
> http://cite.ped.gu.se/Eklanda/texter/eva.html
> Tel: (Int +46 31) 773 22 75 Fax: (Int +46 31) 773 24 62
>
nununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununun
unu
>