[Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky,Marx, & summer reading

[Andy Blunden]

I think it's more a case that the Kellogg Test#c fails the 
Activity Theory test, just as the Kellogg Test#a fails 
Marx's Capital.

The whole is greater than the part (if it is a genuine 
whole) not because there are some additional parts you 
forgot to add up but precisely because it is a whole despite 
being not made up of anything other than the parts.

I am reminded of A N Leontyev's "accusation" that taking 
/perezhivniya /a units of personality set up a logical 
circle: "... / perezhivanie/, as the specific form through 
which the whole personality manifests itself, now occupies 
the place that formerly belonged to the whole personality of 
the child,” that is, determining the child’s 
/ perezhivanie/“... a logical vicious circle." Leontyev 
seems to think that teh only genuine form of science is 
reductionism.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making 

On 22/08/2017 11:48 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
> What other than commodities are the units of capital 
> composed of? That's easy. Commodities are human relations 
> in a congealed form. Ergo, units of capital are made of 
> human relations in an uncongealed form. You are not a 
> fetishist, are you?
>
> My point about actions and activities was precisely that 
> activities are NOT made up of anything more than actions; 
> that's why activity fails the third test.
>
> I think that Engestrom tries to show some of the abstract 
> rules, the community relations and the division of labor 
> that subtends all this activity, but the distinctions 
> between (e.g.) rules and division of labor, or division of 
> labor and community, are not too clear. As you say, 
> blurring is a problem, if our goal is analysis, and an 
> analysis that shows the heterogeneity (the 
> distinctiveness) of parts.
>
> dk
>
> David Kellogg
> Macquarie University
>
> Recent Article: Vygotsky, Halliday, and Hasan: Towards 
> Conceptual Complementarity
>
> Free E-print Downloadable at:
>
> http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/W7EDsmNSEwnpIKFRG8Up/full
>
> On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 9:37 AM, Andy Blunden 
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
>     Wow! That's a radical claim, David! What other things
>     (or events) are activities composed of??
>
>     And while you're at it, what other than commodities
>     are units of capital composed of?
>
>     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 22/08/2017 6:21 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
>
>         Helena:
>
>         Yes, the idea that activity is made up of actions,
>         and that if we take away
>         actions from activity nothing remains (Leontiev).
>         To me, this is an
>         admission that the whole is merely a sum of parts.
>         Compare Vygotsky's
>         thought experiment of structuring a game in such a
>         way that we take away
>         all the roles and we see that abstract rules
>         remain (Chapter Seven in* "Mind
>         in Society")*.
>
>
>
>