Thanks for your thoughtful commentary, Anna.
Yrjo Engestrom
> From: "Stetsenko, Anna" <AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu>
> Reply-To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 13:31:04 -0500
> To: "'xmca@weber.ucsd.edu'" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: Leont'ev versus Vygotsly?
> Resent-From: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Resent-Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 10:33:37 -0800 (PST)
>
> Dot, thank you for your thoughts. There is such a wonderful and natural
> personal flavor to them. There is also this amazing congruence in what you
> write about and how you write about it. I feel that your thoughts come as a
> reflection of some very wholistic experiences and hence they are also truly
> 'wholistic' - a feature that you seem to value and espouse in so many ways.
> Yet, at the same time, it also makes it so much more difficult to answer...
> because so many issues are raised AT ONCE.
>
> Let me at least try to address some of your thoughts. I know I will only
> touch upon some peripheral ones, but they constitute the context without
> which it is hard, I believe, to get to more substantive issues.
>
> I might be completely wrong, and please correct me, but it appears to me
> that Dot's perception of AT entails the idea that it has to be taken in
> contradistinction to Vygotsky's theory. These two theories seem to be
> thought of not only as different but as opposite ones. Just as an example,
> what I wrote in my attempt to spell out few things about how to understand
> understanding as an activity (I'll come back to this later), Dot perceived
> as related ONLY and exclusively to AT, and in her perception of my logic,
> consequently NOT to Vygotsky. As if saying something about Leont'ev
> automatically has to become opposite if applied to Vygotsky. My point was
> general about theories and concepts (I took example of L simply because we
> are in the discussion of AT right now) and yet was perceived as me drawing
> an opposition between Vyg. and Leont'ev.
>
> However, from all I know as someone who studied and worked at the Moscow
> University - the hotbead of AT - from mid-1970-ties and into early
> 1990-ties, there has been hardly anyone who would put AT and Vygotsky into
> opposition. The general discourse in these years was about THE CONCEPTION OF
> VYGOTSKY-LEONT'EV-LURIA in this specific sequence. This is how things were
> presented to the students and in hundreds of publications by Leont'ev and
> Luria (thank you, Vera, for reminding of his importance) and by many many
> other immediate followers and colleagues, importantly, by Galperin and
> Davydov - perhaps the two most brilliant of them. There has never been a
> wall placed between Vygotsky and Leontjev and the emphasis was on general
> premises and assumptions of this school of thought. Volumes have been
> written on what are these premises and assumptions. This does not mean that
> no distinctions have been made, they were, and this is reflected, again, in
> so many works...(I don't want to bombard you with names). The bulk of these
> works has been written in 60-ties, 70-and early 80-ties. So called rounds of
> discussions (all published) on AT have taken place in these years reflecting
> real arguments and disagreements among the Vygotsky's followers who
> nevertheless saw themselves as representatives of the same school...
>
> Interesting in this respect is that Brushlinskij, Lomov and others from
> outside this school criticized Vygotsky AND Leontjev AND Luria (and the
> whole school) for much the same things, primarily, for too much emphases on
> social to the neglect of internal (in their terminology) individual
> processes (see Peter Jone's eloquent message on Rubinstein and Leont'ev. By
> the way, there was one typo in that message, Peter: Point 6 about 'analyses
> through synthesis' relates to R, not L).
>
> Why bothering about all this? Because the context is important, as we all
> agree. And also because this illustrates yet another issue: did people
> 'lived AT' like catholics, without challenging or criticizing it? Dot,
> please excuse me, but this is a misunderstanding, as this is in such a
> contradiction with so many published discussions and critiques and
> conferences (not to mention my own personal experiences) that reflected real
> struggle and fights and disagreements WITHIN AT. If some in Moscow say that
> 'they lived with AT' - or rather 'V-L-L approach' - there are so many
> meanings in here. You took this to mean that there was a blind, un-reflected
> acceptance of AT on their parts (hence the analogy with catholics, I
> guess?). Yet another meaning is that yes, indeed, AT was an important part
> of their lives in the sense of engagement but also challenge. AT was taken
> very seriously (but not uncritically) as most people believed they were
> engaged in developing foundations for a NEW (objective or marxist or
> materialist) psychology and many devoted their whole lives to this goal.
> Hence emotions were so high and fights were so common. And criticism so
> stinging - like example you gave citing Radzikhovskij and I could give many
> many more.
>
> So, what was it on the whole? I think, the life and dynamics of
> Vygotsky-Leontjev-Luria school of thought were quite representative of what
> a development of any school in science might be - the life full of struggle
> and contradictions, mutual respect and disagreements, devotion and doubts
> (perhaps even betrayals), conflicts and challenges, leaps forward and
> periods of stagnation. Isn't this the only way any development can possibly
> take place?
>
> Anna Stetsenko
>
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Dec 01 2000 - 01:00:47 PST