[Xmca-l] Re: Hegelian sources of CHAT
Andy Blunden
andyb@marxists.org
Sat Sep 21 18:42:28 PDT 2019
Certainly is worth the effort, Peter.
There are a couple of things I can say on this list which I
would not want to say "in public," so to speak.
Hegel's explanation of "unit of analysis" I discovered only
a few weeks ago, I knew about his use of it, because it is
all over his writings, but I only found Hegel's own
explanation of it last month. With my book out of the way I
decided to roll up my sleeves and find it. I emailed Paul
Redding, the foremost Hegelian in Australia and asked his
advice. He didn't know, but from my explanation of what I
was looking for (NB!) he suggested the German word
/Einzelheit/. A search through the German version of the
Science of Logic led me to the passage. Paul was as
surprised as anyone could be by what this passage said. The
thing is /where/ it was, one wouldn't expect such an
important observation on page 800 of the Science of Logic!
So you see, everyone read Hegel and failed to see this.
Vygotsky understood it by understanding what Marx did with
political economy, and Vygotsky is quite explicit about
that. Marx on the other hand never tells us whether he got
this from Hegel or not. Who knows?
Hegel's explanation of "artefact mediated action" I only
discovered a couple of years ago when I also "rolled up my
sleeves" to find what I knew had to be there somewhere in
Hegel's writing after, on this occasion, giving a talk to
the Australian Hegel Society on artefact mediation in Hegel
which was overwhelmingly disbelieved by my audience,
including Paul Redding despite an extended email
conversation on the matter. This time I found the passage
when Martin Packer shared his interpretation of the passage
where Vygotsky quotes Marx quoting Hegel on "the cunning of
reason" and in the course of justifying my reading of this
passage of Hegel, I realised it was part on explanation of
artefact mediation. Again, I had known and written about
this as early as 2003, but only a few years ago did I find
the passage where Hegel actually explains it. All Hegelians
ignore the passage.
Hegel's explanation of the action/activity distinction is in
the Philosophy of Right. I knew it only from Leontyev and it
was part of my connecting Leontyev with Hegel only because
it was needed to justify my claim that "spirit is human
activity." I discovered the passage (which is actually very
famous) while preparing for my Sunday Hegel Reading Group.
I have studied all the very many expositions of Hegel's
theory of action, and no-one sees it. My paper on the topic
has been waiting in peer review with the Hegel Society of
Great Britain for more than 4 months now.
Hegel's distinction between concept and pseudoconcept
everyone knows, if you've read Hegel. It's Hegel 101. But
Vygotsky didn't know about it when you wrote his chapters
for "Ape, Primitive Man and Child" in 1929, but he cites
Hegel in his connection on several occasions from 1930 on.
So you see, even though I /have /read Hegel, I know three of
these Hegelian ideas only thanks to CHAT. I am sure there
are people on XMCA who can tell us something about writing
and reading which we see in this story.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Hegel for Social Movements <https://brill.com/view/title/54574>
Home Page <https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm>
On 22/09/2019 7:22 am, Peter Feigenbaum wrote:
> Andy,
>
> You have raised four truly excellent questions for
> discussion by CHAT members. Each will be a significant
> challenge, but well worth the effort.
>
> Peter F
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 21, 2019 at 7:29 AM Carol Macdonald
> <carolmacdon@gmail.com <mailto:carolmacdon@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Well you can definitely count me in but probably
> something of an observer.
>
> On Sat, 21 Sep 2019, 07:37 Andy Blunden,
> <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>
> I'd dearly like to get some discussion going on this:
>
> It will be shown that at least four
> foundational concepts of Cultural Historical
> Activity Theory were previously formulated by
> Hegel, viz., (1) the unit of analysis as a key
> concept for analytic-synthetic cognition, (2)
> the centrality of artifact-mediated actions,
> (3) the definitive distinction between goal
> and motive in activities, and (4) the
> distinction between a true concept and a
> pseudoconcept.
>
> https://www.academia.edu/s/7d70db6eb3/the-hegelian-sources-of-cultural-historical-activity-theory
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.academia.edu_s_7d70db6eb3_the-2Dhegelian-2Dsources-2Dof-2Dcultural-2Dhistorical-2Dactivity-2Dtheory&d=DwMFaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURkcqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m=vDFwyKGgEf7eFoYWTrK6zFxttCocQ33HK63G5-JAgss&s=l0Rq4uzrNELUyhAfo1svIH9pfIihzqiHhIql5QGyI30&e=>
>
> Andy
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> Hegel for Social Movements
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__brill.com_view_title_54574&d=DwMFaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURkcqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m=vDFwyKGgEf7eFoYWTrK6zFxttCocQ33HK63G5-JAgss&s=1ON5BrG-gyMV6NfucCZytnldYUuctDPFzAM2UT58zxA&e=>
> Home Page
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ethicalpolitics.org_ablunden_index.htm&d=DwMFaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURkcqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m=vDFwyKGgEf7eFoYWTrK6zFxttCocQ33HK63G5-JAgss&s=5lCL5_nPk7GLyhrRUfcpKUb5dQ-3OsRemzlWiwqa-TU&e=>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D.
> Director,
> Office of Institutional Research
> <https://www.fordham.edu/info/24303/institutional_research>
> Fordham University
> Thebaud Hall-202
> Bronx, NY 10458
>
> Phone: (718) 817-2243
> Fax: (718) 817-3817
> email: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu
> <mailto:pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu>
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