[Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading
Andy Blunden
ablunden@mira.net
Sat Aug 19 17:59:01 PDT 2017
Greg, I apologise if I express irritation rather than joy in
responding to your questions. I must be fulfilling my
destiny to be a grumpy old man. But I think a good scholar
is often well advised to ignore what comes into their
peripheral vision and keep focused on their task ...
especially if they are struggling to complete their PhD.
But as to your questions. "Child development" I take to be
the passage through that series of culturally-specific
identities (or roles) through which a new born child makes
its way to becoming an adult citizen of the community in the
given cultural formation. Vygotsky deals with it in the
articles collected in v. 5 of his CW like "The Problem of
Age." Vygotsky's work on "Personality development" is known
to English speakers through the lecture "The problem of the
Environment" and is concerned with the unique way in which
an individual person deals with the world around them.
Actually, Chapter 5 of A N Leontyev's "Activity,
Consciousness and Personality" rather imperfectly continues
this work. It is self-evident that these two domains of
research overlap and the two units mentioned are likewise
closely interlocked. The concepts dealt with in "child
development" cease to be relevant as the person reaches
adulthood, whereas personality development (thank goodness)
goes on throughout life. There is no requirement that
different "germ cells" mark out mutually exclusive domains
of research.
As to your second message, on list, The "germ" in "germ
cell" seems to have entered discourse with the Activity
Theorists; I'm not sure whether it was Davydov or Engestrom,
maybe someone else can tell us. But it is "germ" as in
"germinate", simply emphasising the biological origins of
this concept, anticipated by Goethe prior to the "cell"
being discovered by the use of powerful microscopes in 1839
- that simple piece from which the whole organism can
re-grow itself. Marx used the expression: "economic
cell-form" for example.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
On 20/08/2017 5:31 AM, Greg Thompson wrote:
> Andy,
>
> I know my questions tend to irritate you more than
> accomplishing much, but might you be willing to expand on
> what is meant by "personality development"? "Child
> development" is something I can understand, but I'm not
> quite sure what "personality development" means.
>
> Yes, I apologize that I am being such a bear, but this
> isn't on my agenda right now and so I don't have time to
> dig through what you and others have written on it to
> figure out what parts I might find most useful (and yes, I
> know that as a good scholar and intellectual I should
> recognize that everything on this listserve is useful -
> its just don't have time for everything - I barely have
> time for my wife and (4!) kids...).
>
> Feel free to respond on or off list.
>
> -greg
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 19, 2017 at 7:37 AM, Andy Blunden
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> Word meanings for the study of (verbal) intellect
> Artefact-mediated actions for the more general study
> of the development of activity
> Perezhivaniya for the study of personality development
> (Defect-Compensation) for the study of disability or
> whatever
> Social Situations of Development for the study of
> child development
>
> See page 9 on https://www.academia.edu/11387923/
> <https://www.academia.edu/11387923/>
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
>
> On 19/08/2017 10:47 PM, Martin John Packer wrote:
>
> What are the five, Andy?
>
> Martin
>
> On Aug 18, 2017, at 9:07 PM, Andy Blunden
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>
> wrote:
>
> Amazon have it for $38.21:
> https://www.amazon.com/Vygotsky-Marx-Toward-Marxist-Psychology/dp/1138244813
> <https://www.amazon.com/Vygotsky-Marx-Toward-Marxist-Psychology/dp/1138244813>
> which is not too bad.
>
> My chapter is available at
> https://www.academia.edu/11387923/
> <https://www.academia.edu/11387923/> but so
> far as I can see other authors have not posted
> theirs on academia.edu <http://academia.edu> -
> maybe elsewhere?
>
> Thank you, Alfredo, for highlighting how I
> have pointed to 5 different domains in which
> Vygotsky demonstrated the "method of analysis
> by units." To me, it seems useless to identify
> a writer's methodological innovations unless
> you can transport that methodology to a
> different context, and pointing to five
> applications by Vygotsky himself seemed a good
> way of showing how portable the method is.
> More recently, I used this method in an
> approach to political science, taking a group
> of people in the room trying to decide on what
> they are going to do together as a unit of
> analysis. Personally, I think this method has
> proved very fruitful and original. How lucky
> we are to be inheritors of Vygotsky's
> brilliant insights, still generally so unknown
> to the general scientific audience. What a
> gift LSV has given us!
>
> But legacies are always problematic. Alfredo,
> I think you would be a very good candidate to
> review this book. Beth?
>
> Andy
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy
> <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
> On 18/08/2017 10:16 PM, mike cole wrote:
>
> Peter, Alfredo Et al -
>
> It seems that the readers of MCA would
> appreciate a good overview review of
> the LSV and Marx book, but so far as I
> know, no one has proposed the idea
> to Beth, the book review editor. (You seem
> to have a jump on the task,
> Alfredo!).
>
> Also, given the cost of the book, it would
> be nice if authors could follow
> Andy's lead and make a draft available.
> Andy's article on units of analysis
> is on Academia, a click away. That way the
> many readers of XMCA around the
> world would not be excluded from the
> discussion.
>
> Mike
> Happy travels summer readers. :-)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
> <http://greg.a.thompson.byu.edu>
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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