Peter, It was apparently Ilyenkov not you -- here's the passage from your paper:
>From this point of view, not all forms of mental or linguistic activity
manifest the action of categories:
>
> "For the adult, the primary significance of categories is that they
express the totality of means
> with which he may work out a correct consciousness of the thing, a
consciousness verified by
> the practice of contemporary society. They are forms of thinking,
forms without which
> thinking itself is impossible. And if there are only words in
someone's head but no categories,
> there is no thinking but only the verbal expression of sensuously
perceived phenomena"
> (Ilyenkov, 1997: 64-65).
>
judy
At 12:03 PM 6/8/00 +0100, you wrote:
>8 june 2000
>from peter jones
>many many thanks to all for responses in what is becoming a fantastic
>discussion. so now i am going to crawl off into my little corner temporarily to
>read, ponder and respond to comments by judy, paul, nate, elisa, diane. but one
>or two instant comments:
>1) to judy: thanks for these comments but did i really say 'a consciousness
>verified by the practice of contemporary society' which sounds absolutely
>ghastly and utterly positivist??!! i can't pin the quote down in the paper -
>have you got the page ref for it?
>2)Ilyenkov's 'the concept of the ideal' is in a collectively edited volume
>published in 1977 by Progress called 'Philosophy in the USSR: Problems of
>Dialectical Materialism'. But i would also recommend in the strongest terms
>Chapter 8 of his book 'Dialectical Logic' (Progress again, 1977) which has one
>of the best, if not the best, discussions of Marxist philosophy of language (in
>relation to the concept of the ideal) you can find. David Bakhurst's discussion
>of the ideal in his book on ilyenkov is excellent although i have taken issue
>with some aspects of his interpretation. at the risk of sounding immodest there
>is a chapter by me on the ideal ('the ideal and cultural historical activity
>theory: issues and perspectives') in the forthcoming volume of papers from
>aarhus iscrat conference, edited by seth chaiklin. under seth's extremely
>patient guidance this piece has been written as a kind of introduction to the
>thing. but interpretations of this stuff differ and mine may be as wonky as
>hell.
>all the best, folks!
>P
>
>
Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jul 01 2000 - 01:00:30 PDT