Vera
On
Fri, 3 May 1996, Arne Raeithel wrote:
> Bill, I found your remark intriguing:
>
> >... The last section on epistemological implications of
> >the five attributes is very interesting reading. The reader gets
> >a different "feeling" about activity theory. I suppose this
> >comes from Arne's schooling in the early German influence.
>
> For me it is very hard to see what you mean by re-reading this
> old text, of course. I would be happy to learn where you found
> contrasts to other presentations of the CHAT ideas, because this
> would perhaps help me to understand the "different feeling" that
> I have when I read North American texts...
>
> In re-reading the text I hit upon this part of a paragraph:
>
> >... a renaissance of the Vygotskian approach to the social
> >formation of mind (Wertsch 1985) is well on its way. The
> >development of an interdisciplinary and scientific theory of
> >the formation and development of social, collective knowledge
> >seems now possible, if the many valuable contributions to such
> >an end that have been produced by scholars of other backgrounds
> >(e.g. Mead 1934, Elias 1987, Bourdieu 1977) are taken into
> >account. In my view, the Marxian approach to societal and
> >cultural development will be able to fulfill this task - just
> >because it is going through a *healthy crisis* presently.
>
> This was written in 1990, and I would not write it again today.
> In going back to the roots, to Hegel and other German Idealists,
> and comparing how those same sources were taken up in the early
> American pragmatist philosophy, and later educational and
> cultural politics (Dewey, New Deal, ...) my then already weak
> conviction has evaporated. A Marxian approach as such is presently
> non-existing, and whether there will be a renaissance or some
> new synthesis in the next century, I simply cannot say, and,
> what's more, I don't even care...
>
> My present reckoning is that the conceptual net, and the
> methodological procedures, of CHAT can stand on their own, there
> being no need anymore to anchor them in a definite reconstruction
> of their history.
>
> Arne.
>
>
>
>
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Vera P. John-Steiner
Department of Linguistics
Humanities Bldg. 526
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
(505) 277-6353 or 277-4324
Internet: vygotsky who-is-at triton.unm.edu
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