[Xmca-l] Re: Отв: Re: Object oriented activity and communication

[Andy Blunden]

The Progress Publishers English translation of "Activity and
Consciousness" in /Philosophy in the USSR, Problems of
Dialectical Materialism/, 1977 has the following:

    Activity is a non-additive unit of the corporeal,
    material life of the material subject. In the narrower
    sense, i.e., on the psychological plane, it is a unit of
    life, mediated by mental reflection, by
    an /image,/ whose real function is to orientate the
    subject in the objective world.

In the "Problem of the Origin of Sensation" in "The
Development of Mind" we have:

Thus, the principal ‘unit’ of a vital process is an
organism’s activity; the different activities that realise
its diverse vital relations with the surrounding reality are
essentially determined by their object; we shall therefore
differentiate between separate [i.e., qualitatively
different] types of activity according to the difference in
their objects.

By calling "activity" a "unit," the first quote uses
"activity" as if it were a countable noun. The effect has
been that the meaning of "unit" has been mystified for
English-speakers. It has generally been taken to mean simply
"category." The second does the same, but in addition makes
it evident that the plural does not refer to different
activities, but to *types* of activity. This blocks the
possibility of forming a true concept of activity altogether.

With reference to your paragraph, Sasha, if your claim is
simply that "such an initial *category* can only be
object-oriented activity" I have no objection, supposing
that you do not aim to utilise Vygotsky's method of units,
even in the half-hearted way AN Leontyev did.

Andy
------------------------------------------------------------


Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 13/10/2017 11:57 PM, Alexander Surmava wrote:
> Dear Andy!
> I am glad that our communication was resumed after many
> years. The other day I was reviewing old letters and files
> and found that the problem of "object oriented activity OR
> communication" we discussed in the summer of 2006 before
> our meeting in Melbourne. Well, the problem is serious and
> it deserves to return to it today.
> Last year I was close to being silent forever.
> Fortunately, fate and well-chosen chemotherapy postponed
> this case for an indefinite period. Therefore, I had the
> opportunity and the time to try to sum up some of my
> theoretical studies without entrusting this matter to my
> descendants :-).
> I will begin with honest recognition that I do not
> understand your question. What means the distinction
> between singular and plural number in your remark? Could
> you give an example of the "wrong" translation of the
> Leontief theoretical texts you mentioned? Although my
> concept and the concept of AN Leontiev do not coincide,
> moreover, I formulated the "Principles of the theory of
> reflexive activity" (that is the title of my dissertation
> work) in direct controversy with AN Leontiev's "Theory of
> Activity", we coincide with him in method. Therefore,
> having understood the theoretic meaning of your claims to
> AN Leontiev or his translators, I can more easily
> understand the essence of your objections to me.
> In the meantime, I can say that both AN Leontiev and I
> view "activity" as a theoretical category, and not as a
> particular empirical case of its manifestation. Therefore,
> object-oriented ACTIVITY there can be only one. Just like
> Matter, Nature, or Substance.
> Of course, with the Substance as totality, we come across
> only in theory. Empirically, we are dealing with its
> innumerable Modes. However, to draw from this the
> conclusion that Substance is just a fiction of old
> philosophers and that only the numerous individual "atomic
> facts" of Wittgenstein with their plural number really
> exist, it means to leave Spinoza and Marx for vulgar
> positivism and empiricism.
> However, all of this may not apply to your position ...
> I will be glad to hear your explanations on this issue.
> Best wishes
> Sasha
>
>
>
> воскресенье, 8 октября 2017 16:15 Andy Blunden
> <ablunden@mira.net> писал(а):
>
>
> I'll ask Sasha a question.
>
> Sasha, when you say "activity" as in "such an initial
> category can only be object-oriented activity" as it stands,
> in English, this is clearly wrong, though it may be that you
> are translating it from a Russian statement that is correct.
> Surely you mean "object-oriented activities", as in when I
> say "every activity has an object."  But in your expression
> above "activity" is not a word which has a plural and unless
> you are a religious person is not something which can have a
> specific object. All English translations of A N Leontyev
> make this mistake which has caused no end of confusion among
> English-speakers.
>
> Am I right? You meant "activities" not "activity," just as
> you wouldn't say "water is a unit of water."
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 9/10/2017 12:03 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote:
> > Dear Sasha, all,
> >
> >
> > thanks for this brilliant, though also demanding
> response. I think you are right in your assertion that we
> are discussing some of the most fundamental problems of
> CHAT, ​and therefore it may be worth the try. However, one
> can see in the lack of response by other members​​ that
> not everyone has the privilege of the time it requires to
> go through all of it. In any case, I continue believing
> that this is a valuable resource for xmca to produce and I
> hope it is/will be appreciated as such.
> >
> >
> > If I may summarise ​​the core of your argument, I quote
> from your response:
> >
> >
> > "If we want to make our choice of the initial category,
> without looking back at the academic fashion, then for us
> as for the materialists the choice is obvious. We will
> choose the one of the two categories from which one can
> derive the entire diversity of human life, including
> another, the opposite category. And it is obvious that
> such an initial category can only be object-oriented
> activity, for it is easy to deduce communication from the
> latter, which is an attribute property of life. But from
> communication, addressness, love, empathy and other such
> spiritually uplifting plots, we will not get life or
> object oriented activity with the greatest diligence"
> >
> >
> > If we stay within the boundaries of the framework
> according to which we are looking of the most original
> germ cell, the one from which all others can be
> developed​​, then object-oriented activity is primary. I
> think it is possible, or perhaps necessary, to agree on that.
> >
> >
> > But ​​once we are back to the development of a concrete
> Psychology, we still have to deal with the fact that, for
> any child to participate in human forms of object-oriented
> activity, and not just the forms of object-oriented
> activity that also characterise any other multi-cellular
> organism, this child needs to somehow socialise into those
> forms of activity. So, while I assume that any category
> devised to account for human psyche needs to agree with
> the initial germ cell of reflexivity that you describe, is
> this germ cell initial to human concrete psychology, or is
> it a pre-requisite and not yet Psychology's one?
> >
> >
> > As moderator, I should stop there and let others answer
> (which I hope some do).
> >
> > As a participant, I'd like to give the question a try:
> >
> >
> > Object-Oriented activity can be found to be primary in
> ontogenetic development too. Even in the case of teaching
> deaf-blind children, as the classical studies show, this
> is only possible through *involvement* in collective
> activity. So, yes, object-oriented activity is primary
> over, for example, the teaching of a language (which is
> only possible in and through object-oriented activity).
> But then, is not the teaching, the instructional aspect of
> the relation between adult and child, inherently tied to
> this collective object-oriented activity? Is not this
> object-oriented activity already ​characterised by all
> those attributes that you just called 'spiritually
> uplifting' in the very moment in which we describe such
> activity as human? Addressivity, empathy, how do you get
> collective activity without them? On this, and precisely
> in an edited volume titled "The Practical Essence of Man",
> Vladislav Lektorsky (2015) writes, 'it is evident in that
> case that communication is included in activity and is its
> essential component: without relation to another
> person(s), activity is impossible'  (144). Although I not
> always share all of the ideas with Lektorsky, here I can't
> see how he can be wrong.
> >
> >
> > So, let me summarise that I agree that the idea of
> reflexivity that you discuss and, in that sense, the
> category of object-oriented activity, is most primary. Let
> me also note that ​there are other authors who have
> developed similar ideas to that of reflexivity that you
> discuss, including Michel Henry, who himself built on
> French philosopher Maine de Biran, and for whom
> affectivity is the concrete 'essence of auto-affection' (
> https://www.amazon.com/Incarnation-Philosophy-Studies-Phenomenology-Existential/dp/0810131269
> )
> >
> >
> > As we work towards a concrete human psychology, I wonder
> whether ​we should be forced to choose between activity
> and communication. Is not the distinction just an artefact
> of a partial understanding of what it means activity and
> what it means communicating. I still feel that
> communication, in the sense of addressivity that Mikhailov
> describes, is not a synonym for verbal activity, or for
> semiotics. If the question is whether practical activity
> precedes verbal activity, the answer is clear. You don't
> get the latter outside of the former. But, in my perhaps
> naive view, we ought to have a notion of communication
> that would not reduce itself to 'verbal activity' (as in
> the opposition 'practical' vs 'verbal' activity), for I
> don't see how any practical activity can have any sense
> (and so be achieved) for any human outside addressivity.
> Unless this is a sense-less, human-less activity we are
> talking about; one machines could perform on their own
> without consciousness. ​
> >
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> > Alfredo
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Alexander Surmava <alexander.surmava@yahoo.com
> <mailto:alexander.surmava@yahoo.com>>
> > Sent: 30 September 2017 01:54
> > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>; Ivan Uemlianin; Alfredo
> Jornet Gil; ‪Haydi Zulfei‬ ‪‬; Mike Cole
> > Subject: Object oriented activity and communication
> >
> > Dear Alfredo, Ivan et al
> > The discussion really becomes more and more interesting,
> touching on the most fundamental categories. But before
> proceeding to the answers, a short replica aparté (replica
> aside) :-)
> > Theoretical discussion can be productive only if it is
> conducted in the context of a single theoretical approach,
> based on the general principles accepted in its framework
> and shared by the debaters. Here, on the XMCA, such a
> common, unifying conception are usually considered the
> theories of Vygotsky, Spinozism or even Marxism.
> Meanwhile, I am afraid that the course of our discussions
> reveals not just a difference, but a gap in the
> interpretation of these concepts.
> > For example, is semiotics compatible with the principle
> of activity, is Spinoza's materialistic monism compatible
> with the plurality of bases of the theory, that is, it is
> possible to consider both objective activity and
> communication as the "germ cell" of the theory. Or maybe
> for completeness of the theory it is necessary to add to
> these two principles something third, say - "subjectness"?
> > I am convinced that without answering these and similar
> fundamental questions at the very beginning of our inquiry
> and without answering them in the most general form, we
> are doomed to stumble on them at every next step. But this
> leads us to another difficulty. Over and over again,
> returning the conversation to the most basic theoretical
> grounds, we come across the inevitable reproach that
> instead of discussing a substantive psychological theory,
> based on which we can practically solve socially
> significant problems, let us say, create a consistently
> democratic education system, we draw everyone to the
> interesting only for us theoretical
> verbiage<https://www.multitran.ru/c/m.exe?t=188297_1_2&s1=%EF%F3%F1%F2%EE%F1%EB%EE%E2%E8%E5>
> about imposed on everyone in the teeth psychophysical
> problem, and the real or imaginary contradictions between
> Vygotsky and Leontiev.
> > Believe me, it would be much more interesting for me too
> to reflect on how to help find the path to education and
> culture for the children of poor migrants from Central
> Asia in Moscow or migrants from Mexico to San Diego.
> >
> > Agitprop
> >              sticks
> >                      in my teeth too,
> > and I’d rather
> >                    compose
> >                                romances for you -
> > more profit in it
> >                        and more charm.
> > But I
> >        subdued
> >                    myself,
> >                            setting my heel
> > on the throat
> >                  of my own song.
> >                                    Vladimir Mayakovski
> >
> > И мне
> >              Агитпроп
> >                      в зубах навяз,
> > и мне бы
> >                    строчить
> >                                романсы на вас —
> > доходней оно
> >                        и прелестней.
> > Но я
> >        себя
> >                    смирял,
> >                            становясь
> > на горло
> >                  собственной песне.
> >                          Владимир Маяковский
> >
> >
> > Among other things, such an over and over again forced
> return to the very foundation makes it difficult to
> understand even these very basics, for it forces us to
> return to the most abstract level all the time, literally
> stuck in abstractions, instead of moving from the abstract
> to the concrete.
> > Alfredo, you put in your post very interesting questions
> about how to understand the principle of interaction as
> such and about the relationship of object oriented
> activity to communication. With pleasure I will answer
> them. I will only note in brackets that the detailed
> answers to these questions have been formulated by me in
> my theoretic research almost thirty years ago ORIGIN OF
> LIFE, PSYCHE AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS.docx In Russian
> Принципы теории рефлексивной
> деятельности<https://www.academia.edu/34223109/ORIGIN_OF_LIFE_PSYCHE_AND_HUMAN_CONSCIOUSNESS.docx_In_Russian_%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BF%D1%8B_%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B8_%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%84%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%8F%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8>.
> Since 2006, an article with a brief outline of the
> principles of the "theory of reflexive activity" is
> available in English. It was even sent in published in
> English international journal... but for some strange
> reason was not published then or later.
> > So, it's easy for me to answer both of your questions,
> especially since I can answer by quoting my old text
> https://www.academia.edu/33954148/LIFE_PSYCHE_CONSCIOUSNESS.
> > But before I start to quote myself :-) I would like to
> repeat - I completely agree with you that the interaction
> of the subject and his object (predmet) should in no case
> be understood as a symmetrical interaction of two
> ready-made things. I'm not sure if such a false approach
> should be called a "dualism," the term dualism has in my
> opinion a fairly precise theoretical meaning that should
> not be expanded without special need, but it is obvious
> that such a logic of interaction is characteristic of the
> type of interaction that Hegel and Schelling called the
> mechanism and chemism. When it comes to the object
> oriented activity of a living organism, we are not dealing
> with the logic of abstract interaction, but with the logic
> of positing, positing of the object (логика полагания
> предмета), or "organic" type of interaction in the
> terminology of German classics. In other words, "positing"
> is also an interaction, but that is its highest,
> essentially different from the mechanism and the chemism
> type. Mechanism and chemism are symmetric, in the sense
> that one can not in principle separate out its active and
> passive side, on the contrary, in organic interaction, in
> the process of positing of an object one side is active,
> subjective, while the other is passive, objective. There
> are many interesting differences between them, but let us
> return to this somehow later.
> > In the meantime, the promised quote from my graduation
> work of 1988:
> > “Active or predmet directed (object oriented) relation
> can not be possibly comprehended as interaction of two
> objects external to each other. For example, the sun taken
> abstractly, out of touch with the process of life, is
> neither “predmet” for a plant, nor for astronomy. It
> receives a specific predmet quality exclusively due to
> spontaneous activity of a green plant (or astronomer)
> “selecting” the sun as its predmet and “scrupulously”
> imitating its celestial movement with that of the plant
> leaves (with his telescope).
> > That is to say that living, active or predmet relation
> as such is possible only between a living, spontaneously
> acting subject and a predmet positioned by its vital activity.
> > Something else again is a stimulating-reactive relation,
> or a relation of irritability. Firstly, it is not
> spontaneous on the side of a subject being stimulated.
> Secondly, it is not productive since the organism does not
> determine its predmet but has to satisfy itself with
> accidental and therefore indifferent external influence.
> Thirdly, the response of the organism (if only it is not
> just a mechanistic action of an external cause) can be
> conditioned only by abstract inner nature of the organism
> itself but in no way by the shape of the external thing
> indifferent to the organism incidentally coming into
> contact with its living subjectivity. To put it
> differently, we can find not the slightest trace of
> predmet directedness within a stimulating-reactive relation.”
> > Now about the object oriented activity and
> communication, and it does not matter whether in the
> verbal form, or in the form of a special Mikhailovsky's
> "addressing" to another person.
> > Which of these two categories should be considered
> primary and universal, in which of them we have to try to
> discern the notorious "germ cell" of human consciousness
> (psyche) is essentially the main problem that has been and
> remains the central problem of theoretical psychology
> associated with the names of Vygotsky, Leontyev and Ilyenkov.
> > To begin with, one preliminary consideration. If we want
> to build scientific psychology in accordance with the
> famous Marxist method of ascent from the abstract to the
> concrete, whereas all three mentioned above thinkers
> believed that the method of ascent, the method of
> "Capital", is the only scientifically correct method, to
> ignore which means to condemn one's own theoretical
> discipline on vulgarity, then you will have to choose one
> thing - either activity or communication. And at first
> glance, the answer for any person who wants to be a
> Marxist is obvious - of course, communication, of course
> sociality, for it is not for nothing that the classic
> coined his famous sixth thesis, stating that ".…the human
> essence is no abstraction inherent in each single
> individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the
> social relations.. "
> > And if the construction of a Marxist or, in Vygotsky's
> view, which we fully share, the construction of a purely
> scientific psychology consisted only in the need to
> reconcile the basic propositions of theoretical psychology
> with the "correct" ideological quotations from Marx, then
> the task ... Then we would again be in an extremely
> difficult situation, because the classics left us with
> different meanings on this topic and with which of them it
> is necessary to harmonize our theory in the first place,
> and with which in the second, it would still have to be
> solved by ourselves.
> > So in the 1970s soviet psychologists divided on this
> issue into two camps clustered around two «bosses». A
> group of Moscow-Kharkov psychologists, whose leader was AN
> Leontiev and to which Davydov and Ilyenkov undoubtedly
> belonged, was inclined to the primacy of object oriented
> activity, that is, to the formulation of the first, second
> and fifth thesis "Theses On Feuerbach", whereas a group of
> Leningrad psychologists, led by B.F. Lomov was inclined to
> formulations of the sixth thesis. In other words,
> "Muscovites" were for activity, whereas "Leningraders"
> were for communication.
> > Here, it is necessary, however, to clarify that our
> reference to Marx's Theses on Feuerbach is not a literal
> reproduction of a real theoretical discussion, but our
> current reconstruction of its logic. In reality, such a
> direct appeal to the texts and the authority of the
> classics of Marxism in the 1970s was considered something
> rather indecent.
> > The end of the discussion between supporters of
> "activity" and supporters of "communication" is also
> characteristic. Lomov won a purely bureaucratic victory,
> convincing the ideological authorities that, by organizing
> the international Vygotsky conference, Davydov was
> dragging through dangerous Zionist ideas. Davydov was
> expelled from the party and dismissed from the post of
> director of the Institute of Psychology, and the dean of
> Leontief's psychology department was appointed a
> well-known adherent of "communication" Leningrader
> Bodalev. Thus, "communication" with the useful people in
> the ideological department of the Central Committee of
> CPSU won a pure victory over the supporters of scientific
> "activity." This concludes all meaningful discussions in
> Soviet / Russian psychology. To the leadership of the
> Faculty of Psychology were no longer allowed  supporters
> of any kind of controversial scientific ideas. Davydov's
> short-term return to the Institute of Psychology of RAE
> could not reverse the situation too.
> > Let us return, however, to our sheep, that is, to
> "communication" and "activity."
> > If we want to make our choice of the initial category,
> without looking back at the academic fashion, then for us
> as for the materialists the choice is obvious. We will
> choose the one of the two categories from which one can
> derive the entire diversity of human life, including
> another, the opposite category. And it is obvious that
> such an initial category can only be object-oriented
> activity, for it is easy to deduce communication from the
> latter, which is an attribute property of life. But from
> communication, addressness, love, empathy and other such
> spiritually uplifting plots, we will not get life or
> object oriented activity with the greatest diligence.
> > And this is not an unsubstantiated assertion, but a fact
> realized in a theory called the "Theory of Reflexive
> Activity", which demonstrates how inner reflexivity and
> the entire affective sphere associated with it is first
> generated by objective activity at the most basic level,
> in the evolution of life itself. Then a complex dialectic
> of the relation of activity and reflexivity in the course
> of the evolution of multicellular organisms is traced.
> And, finally, it demonstrates how the external
> reflexivity, that is, the relations of individuals,
> together and practically producing their own lives,
> assumes a specifically human character, being a
> reflexivity, mediating the joint-tool activity of man.
> > We emphasize that in the "Theory of Reflexive Activity"
> communication and the affective side of life are taken not
> as initial and independent concepts, of the origin of
> which no materialist can say anything meaningful, but as
> necessarily inherent to object oriented activity it’s
> REFLEXIVE side.
> > The concept of reflexivity was introduced by me in my
> diploma thesis in 1988 and, it seems to me, it is a
> Marxist theoretical solution to the question of the
> relation of objective activity and "communication". In the
> same time, reflexive object oriented activity, that is,
> the active relation of the subject to the object and to
> itself, is the only possible "germ cell" of the human, as,
> indeed, any other, psychology.
> > Формат интернет чата не самое подходящее место для того,
> чтобы вводить столь фундаментальные понятия, потому тем,
> кто хочет разобраться в проблеме пресловутой «клеточки»,
> следует заглянуть в не слишком большой английский текст
> https://www.academia.edu/33954148/LIFE_PSYCHE_CONSCIOUSNESS
> и прочитать его дальше первых нескольких страниц.
> > The format of the Internet chat is not the most suitable
> place for introducing such fundamental concepts,
> therefore, those who want to understand the problem of the
> notorious "germ cell" should look into not too large
> English text
> https://www.academia.edu/33954148/LIFE_PSYCHE_CONSCIOUSNESS
> and read it to the end :-).
> > Полный текст на русском ORIGIN OF LIFE, PSYCHE AND HUMAN
> CONSCIOUSNESS.docx In Russian Принципы теории рефлексивной
> деятельности<https://www.academia.edu/34223109/ORIGIN_OF_LIFE_PSYCHE_AND_HUMAN_CONSCIOUSNESS.docx_In_Russian_%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BF%D1%8B_%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B8_%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%84%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%8F%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8>
> > Наконец, краткий текст на русском, соответствующий
> английскому переводу
> https://www.avramus.com/app/download/5446025763/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%86+%D0%BF%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%85%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9+%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%8B.doc?t=1486819527
> .
> > Dear Alfredo, Ivan et al
> > The discussion really becomes more and more interesting,
> touching on the most fundamental categories. But before
> proceeding to the answers, a short replica aparté (replica
> aside) :-)
> > Theoretical discussion can be productive only if it is
> conducted in the context of a single theoretical approach,
> based on the general principles accepted in its framework
> and shared by the debaters. Here, on the XMCA, such a
> common, unifying conception are usually considered the
> theories of Vygotsky, Spinozism or even Marxism.
> Meanwhile, I am afraid that the course of our discussions
> reveals not just a difference, but a gap in the
> interpretation of these concepts.
> > For example, is semiotics compatible with the principle
> of activity, is Spinoza's materialistic monism compatible
> with the plurality of bases of the theory, that is, it is
> possible to consider both objective activity and
> communication as the "germ cell" of the theory. Or maybe
> for completeness of the theory it is necessary to add to
> these two principles something third, say - "subjectness"?
> > I am convinced that without answering these and similar
> fundamental questions at the very beginning of our inquiry
> and without answering them in the most general form, we
> are doomed to stumble on them at every next step. But this
> leads us to another difficulty. Over and over again,
> returning the conversation to the most basic theoretical
> grounds, we come across the inevitable reproach that
> instead of discussing a substantive psychological theory,
> based on which we can practically solve socially
> significant problems, let us say, create a consistently
> democratic education system, we draw everyone to the
> interesting only for us theoretical
> verbiage<https://www.multitran.ru/c/m.exe?t=188297_1_2&s1=%EF%F3%F1%F2%EE%F1%EB%EE%E2%E8%E5>
> about imposed on everyone in the teeth psychophysical
> problem, and the real or imaginary contradictions between
> Vygotsky and Leontiev.
> > Believe me, it would be much more interesting for me too
> to reflect on how to help find the path to education and
> culture for the children of poor migrants from Central
> Asia in Moscow or migrants from Mexico to San Diego.
> >
> > Agitprop
> >              sticks
> >                      in my teeth too,
> > and I’d rather
> >                    compose
> >                                romances for you -
> > more profit in it
> >                        and more charm.
> > But I
> >        subdued
> >                    myself,
> >                            setting my heel
> > on the throat
> >                  of my own song.
> >                                    Vladimir Mayakovski
> >
> > И мне
> >              Агитпроп
> >                      в зубах навяз,
> > и мне бы
> >                    строчить
> >                                романсы на вас —
> > доходней оно
> >                        и прелестней.
> > Но я
> >        себя
> >                    смирял,
> >                            становясь
> > на горло
> >                  собственной песне.
> >                          Владимир Маяковский
> >
> >
> > Among other things, such an over and over again forced
> return to the very foundation makes it difficult to
> understand even these very basics, for it forces us to
> return to the most abstract level all the time, literally
> stuck in abstractions, instead of moving from the abstract
> to the concrete.
> > Alfredo, you put in your post very interesting questions
> about how to understand the principle of interaction as
> such and about the relationship of object oriented
> activity to communication. With pleasure I will answer
> them. I will only note in brackets that the detailed
> answers to these questions have been formulated by me in
> my theoretic research almost thirty years ago ORIGIN OF
> LIFE, PSYCHE AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS.docx In Russian
> Принципы теории рефлексивной
> деятельности<https://www.academia.edu/34223109/ORIGIN_OF_LIFE_PSYCHE_AND_HUMAN_CONSCIOUSNESS.docx_In_Russian_%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BF%D1%8B_%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B8_%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%84%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%8F%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8>.
> Since 2006, an article with a brief outline of the
> principles of the "theory of reflexive activity" is
> available in English. It was even sent in published in
> English international journal... but for some strange
> reason was not published then or later.
> > So, it's easy for me to answer both of your questions,
> especially since I can answer by quoting my old text
> https://www.academia.edu/33954148/LIFE_PSYCHE_CONSCIOUSNESS.
> > But before I start to quote myself :-) I would like to
> repeat - I completely agree with you that the interaction
> of the subject and his object (predmet) should in no case
> be understood as a symmetrical interaction of two
> ready-made things. I'm not sure if such a false approach
> should be called a "dualism," the term dualism has in my
> opinion a fairly precise theoretical meaning that should
> not be expanded without special need, but it is obvious
> that such a logic of interaction is characteristic of the
> type of interaction that Hegel and Schelling called the
> mechanism and chemism. When it comes to the object
> oriented activity of a living organism, we are not dealing
> with the logic of abstract interaction, but with the logic
> of positing, positing of the object (логика полагания
> предмета), or "organic" type of interaction in the
> terminology of German classics. In other words, "positing"
> is also an interaction, but that is its highest,
> essentially different from the mechanism and the chemism
> type. Mechanism and chemism are symmetric, in the sense
> that one can not in principle separate out its active and
> passive side, on the contrary, in organic interaction, in
> the process of positing of an object one side is active,
> subjective, while the other is passive, objective. There
> are many interesting differences between them, but let us
> return to this somehow later.
> > In the meantime, the promised quote from my graduation
> work of 1988:
> > “Active or predmet directed (object oriented) relation
> can not be possibly comprehended as interaction of two
> objects external to each other. For example, the sun taken
> abstractly, out of touch with the process of life, is
> neither “predmet” for a plant, nor for astronomy. It
> receives a specific predmet quality exclusively due to
> spontaneous activity of a green plant (or astronomer)
> “selecting” the sun as its predmet and “scrupulously”
> imitating its celestial movement with that of the plant
> leaves (with his telescope).
> > That is to say that living, active or predmet relation
> as such is possible only between a living, spontaneously
> acting subject and a predmet positioned by its vital activity.
> > Something else again is a stimulating-reactive relation,
> or a relation of irritability. Firstly, it is not
> spontaneous on the side of a subject being stimulated.
> Secondly, it is not productive since the organism does not
> determine its predmet but has to satisfy itself with
> accidental and therefore indifferent external influence.
> Thirdly, the response of the organism (if only it is not
> just a mechanistic action of an external cause) can be
> conditioned only by abstract inner nature of the organism
> itself but in no way by the shape of the external thing
> indifferent to the organism incidentally coming into
> contact with its living subjectivity. To put it
> differently, we can find not the slightest trace of
> predmet directedness within a stimulating-reactive relation.”
> > Now about the object oriented activity and
> communication, and it does not matter whether in the
> verbal form, or in the form of a special Mikhailovsky's
> "addressing" to another person.
> > Which of these two categories should be considered
> primary and universal, in which of them we have to try to
> discern the notorious "germ cell" of human consciousness
> (psyche) is essentially the main problem that has been and
> remains the central problem of theoretical psychology
> associated with the names of Vygotsky, Leontyev and Ilyenkov.
> > To begin with, one preliminary consideration. If we want
> to build scientific psychology in accordance with the
> famous Marxist method of ascent from the abstract to the
> concrete, whereas all three mentioned above thinkers
> believed that the method of ascent, the method of
> "Capital", is the only scientifically correct method, to
> ignore which means to condemn one's own theoretical
> discipline on vulgarity, then you will have to choose one
> thing - either activity or communication. And at first
> glance, the answer for any person who wants to be a
> Marxist is obvious - of course, communication, of course
> sociality, for it is not for nothing that the classic
> coined his famous sixth thesis, stating that ".…the human
> essence is no abstraction inherent in each single
> individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the
> social relations.. "
> > And if the construction of a Marxist or, in Vygotsky's
> view, which we fully share, the construction of a purely
> scientific psychology consisted only in the need to
> reconcile the basic propositions of theoretical psychology
> with the "correct" ideological quotations from Marx, then
> the task ... Then we would again be in an extremely
> difficult situation, because the classics left us with
> different meanings on this topic and with which of them it
> is necessary to harmonize our theory in the first place,
> and with which in the second, it would still have to be
> solved by ourselves.
> >
> > So in the 1970s soviet psychologists divided on this
> issue into two camps clustered around two «bosses». A
> group of Moscow-Kharkov psychologists, whose leader was
> Leontiev and to which Davydov and Ilyenkov undoubtedly
> belonged, was inclined to the primacy of object oriented
> activity, that is, to the formulation of the first, second
> and fifth thesis of Marx's "Theses On Feuerbach", whereas
> a group of Leningrad psychologists, led by Lomov was
> inclined to formulations of the sixth thesis. In other
> words, "Moscovites" were for "activity", whereas
> "Leningraders" were for "communication".
> > Here, it is necessary, however, to clarify that our
> reference to Marx's "Theses on Feuerbach" is not a literal
> reproduction of a real theoretical discussion, but our
> current reconstruction of its logic. In reality, such a
> direct appeal to the texts and the authority of the
> classics of Marxism in the 1970s was considered something
> rather indecent.
> >
> > The end of the discussion between supporters of
> "activity" and supporters of "communication" is also
> characteristic. Lomov won a purely bureaucratic victory,
> convincing the ideological authorities that, by organizing
> the international Vygotsky conference, Davydov was
> dragging through dangerous Zionist ideas. Davydov was
> expelled from the party and dismissed from the post of
> director of the Institute of Psychology, and the dean of
> Leontief's psychology department was appointed a
> well-known adherent of "communication" Leningrader
> Bodalev. Thus, "communication" with the useful people in
> the ideological department of the Central Committee of
> CPSU won a pure victory over the supporters of scientific
> "activity." This concludes all meaningful discussions in
> Soviet / Russian psychology. To the leadership of the
> Faculty of Psychology were no longer allowed  supporters
> of any kind of controversial scientific ideas. Davydov's
> short-term return to the Institute of Psychology of RAE
> could not reverse the situation too.
> >
> > Let us return, however, to our sheep, that is, to
> "communication" and "activity."
> > If we want to make our choice of the initial category,
> without looking back at the academic fashion, then for us
> as for the materialists the choice is obvious. We will
> choose the one of the two categories from which one can
> derive the entire diversity of human life, including
> another, the opposite category. And it is obvious that
> such an initial category can only be object-oriented
> activity, for it is easy to deduce communication from the
> object oriented activity, which is an attribute property
> of life. But from communication, "addressness", love,
> empathy and other such spiritually uplifting plots, we
> will never get life or object oriented activity even with
> the greatest diligence.
> >
> > And this is not an unsubstantiated assertion, but a fact
> realized in a theory called the "Theory of Reflexive
> Activity", which demonstrates how inner reflexivity and
> the entire affective sphere associated with it is first
> generated by objective activity at the most basic level,
> in the evolution of life itself. Then a complex dialectic
> of the relation of activity and reflexivity in the course
> of the evolution of multicellular organisms is traced.
> > And, finally, it demonstrates how the external
> reflexivity, that is, the relations of individuals,
> together and practically producing their own lives,
> assumes a specifically human character, being a
> reflexivity, mediating the joint-tool activity of man.
> >
> > We emphasize that in the "Theory of Reflexive Activity"
> communication and the affective side of life are taken not
> as initial and independent concepts, of the origin of
> which no materialist can say anything meaningful, but as
> necessarily inherent to object oriented activity it’s
> REFLEXIVE side.
> >
> > The concept of reflexivity was introduced in my diploma
> thesis in 1988 and, it seems to me, it is a Marxist
> theoretical solution to the question of the relation of
> objective activity and "communication". In the same time,
> reflexive object oriented activity, that is, the active
> relation of the subject to the object and to itself, is
> the only possible "germ cell" of the human, as, indeed,
> any other, psychology.
> > The format of the Internet chat is not the most suitable
> place for introducing such fundamental concepts,
> therefore, those who want to understand the problem of the
> notorious "germ cell" should look into not too large
> English text
> https://www.academia.edu/33954148/LIFE_PSYCHE_CONSCIOUSNESS
> and read it to the end :-).
> >
> > The full Russian text: ORIGIN OF LIFE, PSYCHE AND HUMAN
> CONSCIOUSNESS.docx In Russian Принципы теории рефлексивной
> деятельности<https://www.academia.edu/34223109/ORIGIN_OF_LIFE_PSYCHE_AND_HUMAN_CONSCIOUSNESS.docx_In_Russian_%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BF%D1%8B_%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B8_%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%84%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%8F%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8>
> >
> > Finally short Russian text which corresponds to short
> English one
> https://www.avramus.com/app/download/5446025763/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%86+%D0%BF%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%85%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9+%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%8B.doc?t=1486819527.
> >
> > Sasha
> >
> >
> >
>
>