Anna,
First, thank you for the nice summary.
Second, could you elaborate on post-modernism and L&V. Beth Graue has a
book titled Children in Context where Vygotsky, Luria, Leontev (and Mike
Cole) are very much linked to the post-modern perspective. Most of this is
because there is a relationship between concrete practice and an emphasis on
the social which is assumed changeable.
My impression from what Dot mentioned I think is that activity theory
addresses the need for stability and structure in a more dynamic way. My
take though is much of this relationship is its mediation in the American
context. For example, Luria reference to romantic science and Mike's
"culture as weaving". I guess what I am wondering is if the same
connections can be made with the author's (V,L,L) work as compared to its
american appropriation.
Nate
-----Original Message-----
From: Stetsenko, Anna [mailto:AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu]
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2000 3:46 PM
To: 'xmca@weber.ucsd.edu'
Subject: Epistemology as activity: Drawing parallels
Dear all, dear Dot,
what I wrote about understanding understanding (and knowledge) as an
activity has been recently very nicely illustrated by several people in the
discussion. Even if the same words were not used, I kind of noticed an
emerging trend of paying more attention to this perspective. Maybe exactly
in a spirit of an emerging property of all of us participating
collaboratively in this activity of discussing L's book. Here how I can
summarize and draw parellels, maybe this will answer some of Dot's
questions.
I wrote about externalization/internalization:
" This dichotomy is nothing but an instrument that can help in thinking
about certain issues and achieving some specific goals, an instrument that
makes sense in some concrete contexts but not others".
I gave an example for this borrowing from Dot's notes: "analyzing dualisms
is a prerequisite for finding unity". So, a dichotomy can be an instrument
or means by which to achieve unity in understanding of the very categories
that had been split up at some initial stages of analysis. For example, to
draw a line between internal and external perhaps can help highlight the
otherwise hidden dimensions and characteristics of the 'two' so that these
'two' then, consequently, can be shown to be 'one'. This is congruent with
Peter Jones's recent message about how nuanced the ext/intern distinction is
in L and V's works and how it raises, although not always without
contradictions and leaps backwards, above the mechanical juxtaposition of
these 'two' that are ultimately 'one'.
(Dot, by the way, because I used you quite GENERAL example about reaching
unity, I thought it was clear that 'concrete' was not used by me as smth
simply boiling down to isolated empirical cases, nor as smth a-general,
a-theoretical, but rather as 'defined and specified' that can equally be
general or concrete in the terminology that the word 'concrete' evoked in
you).
A brilliant illustration came later from Bill Barrowy and I quote:
"(the concepts, terms, dichotomies etc)... are our cultural heritages. So it
is tempting to reject, scientifically, any of these terms based upon their
failings, yet they serve practical functions everyday and scientifically,
even if only for a "bootstrapping" process, as stepping stones. So it goes,
also with 'ideal' and 'real', and 'scientific' and 'everyday'. ... So
perhaps we can think of these things as components of a whole, that we may
index in order to comprehend in our limited ways what is otherwise
incomprehensible -- the totality of human existence"
2. The same quote from Bill also speaks to what I wrote about epistemology
as activity (quote from my previous message):
"Why should we, in the postmodern world, have to take some ideas as
statements of absolute principles that exist out there on their own, rather
that just being elements in our (or somebody else’s) broader activities in
the real world, activities that exclusively are able to impart meaning on
isolated concepts and dichotomies."
Note that I used the term "broader activities in the real world" where Bill
uses " totality of human existence" - but exactly in the same sense. This is
an amazing congruency for me, as in both cases we clearly speak to the same
issue...Actually, I think the term 'activity' has advantages over 'human
existence' - but this is a separate issue.
3. My third, but not unrelated point was that
"There is no way to understand AT from ‘nowhere’, but only from within an
activity context (which means in the context of wanting to change
something)".
A brilliant illustration for this point came from Andy, I quote:
"We, who are interested in AT and the work of the Vygotsky School, are
interested in it (I think) because it is a theory which allows us to reflect
on and understand the kind of activity we are struggling for changing social
and cultural conditions through critical engagement with other people (as
equals), changing people's psyche while seeing other people to be as fully
human as ourselves (not soulless objects), knowing the answer is not
something to be propagated or even to be discovered but something to be
*created* by the people whose lives need to change, Understanding CHAT is,
to me, getting better at a particular kind of activity (changing people,
changing yourself, changing the world) - but from time to time we all have
to do different kinds of activity"
I feel I don't need to add much to this, this is so much to the point that I
had expressed in perhaps very condensed, but I tend to think, clear form.
4. Finally, I suggested in that same message that we look at L's theory
through the prism of what he was trying to achieve, from within his context
of activity, which presumes analyses of his goals. This clearly can take the
form of asking ourselves as to what was the main question (not necessarily
just one, perhaps several) for L that he purported to answer.
Here again, something emerged in the discussion that follows this route,
namely, coming from Helena, a very pointed account of what this actually
could be. Helena posted the words by Evald Ilyenkov (quoted from Bakhurst)
about the old problem of how to conceive of the mind and other psychological
processes in an OBJECTIVE way, going beyond the stimulus-response or
phenomenological (intorspectionist) reductionism. I don't believe this is
the full answer, but it is clear to me that both V and L were trying to
answer the same central question - about how to make psychology into an
objective science.
A related theme is that (also quoting from Helena's message):
"I think Leont'ev is actually trying to get to a place where he can describe
therapy -- psychology not just as the system that studies consciousness, but
a way to change or help people".
Indeed, this would be an important description of what distinguishes L and V
versions of psychological science from other - still dominant even today -
versions of it: the desire to make psychology go out of the ivory tower of
observation into the real life context of doing things for people and with
people. This is exactly a description of the activity context, defined here
through its goal of changing real things in real life, that both L and V, I
believe, were devoted to (although not always consequentially). This is an
extremely important point and I have written about this before on multiple
occasions (e.g., MCA paper together with Arievitch, where we draw a line
between discourse-oriented constructivism which believes in changing reality
through changing the discourse and activity-oriented, Vygotskian,
constructivism that puts practice at the foundation of psychology as a
scientific discipline).
I believe also, that it is this orientation that makes Vygotsky and Leont’ev
post-modern scientists. I am sure this last statement can also provoke
questions and I'd be happy to elaborate... i WOULD ALSO BE HAPPY TO HEAR
BACK FROM THE PEOPLE WHOSE IDEAS I QUOTED (UPPER CASE UNINTENDED).
Anna Stetsenko
-----Original Message-----
From: Dot Robbins [mailto:drobbins@socket.net]
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2000 10:12 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Leontiev vs Vygotsky
Dear Anna and others,
Thank you so much for your note. It was appreciated, as are all of the
comments. My interest was/is in finding out the similarities and
dissimilarities of Leontiev and Vygotsky, not in trying to divide the two.
In various books and articles I have come across so many phrases and
statements that are truly confusing. It is clear that there was a personal
and professional break that Leontiev caused with Vygotsky (in 1933, I
think). However, the details are not clear. And Vygotsky was then banned (we
hear that it had much to do with pedology), and then his works were
completely banned until 1956. And until the early 1950s (1953?) Stalin was
in power. We know that Luria left psychoanalysis, and that Leontiev lost
some of his positions and moved to Kharkov because of the political climate.
A.N. Leontiev won the Lenin prize in 1963 that allowed him a great voice.
One statement that I will quote is from Kozulin in H. Daniels, 1996, An
Introduction to Vygotsky: "It was not difficult for Leontiev, under those
circumstances [Lenin prize], to gain the status of official interpretor of
Vygotsky, and his interpretation enjoyed a wider circulation than the
original texts" (p. 117). I have also heard various stories regarding this
aspect various authors, even from Vygotsky's daughter. My interest is simply
in finding out what happened historically and objectively. I am not trying
to defend VYgotsky, nor Leontiev, but am interested in a part of the puzzle
that does not seem to be totally clear and precise. In various books I keep
reading about the differences between A.N. Leontiev and Vygotsky, and I am
interested in that, not to try and separate V and L, but to simply
understand what really happened historically, and how it affected A.N.
Leontiev and his writings, who then affected Activity Theory so much. A. A.
Leontiev has alluded to these differences, and others have as well. I have
received e-mail messages about this problem from one well-known author, and
A. Kozulin talks about this in H. Daniels' book, and I realize the problems
with Kozulin not being a Marxist and other things for some people on xmca.
It states in various books that even without the official banning of V.,
Leontiev had challenged many of the core ideas of Vygotsky. One key
statement in that context was on page 108 from Kozulin in Daniels: "For
Vygotsky the major problem was not that of socialization but rather of
individualization of the originally communicative speech-for-others." Even
Mike is quoted in that article mentioning the distance taken from Vygotsky
by his students and followers. I am just interested in better understanding
that distance (objectively), and the core aspects not taken over by A. N.
Leontiev, the political positioning between A.N. Leontiev and S.L
Rubenshtein. The basic problem is stated on page 116, and in many other
texts:
"Psychologically, activity has no constituent elements other than actions.
'If the actions that constitute activity are mentally subtracted from it,
then absolutely nothing will be left of activity' (Leontiev, 1978, p. 64).
And yet activity is not an additive phenomenon: it is realized in actions,
but ts overall social meaning cannot be derived from the individual actions.
At this point, Leontiev's concept of activity ran into serious theoretical
trouble, which did not escape the attention of his opponents, Sergei
Rubinstein and his students." Vygotsky's overall interest from what I have
read was aesthetics first, and language/semiotics second (using
consciousness as an explanatory principle, and word meaning as a unit of
analysis to better understand human activity). Now, Kozulin states on p.
116 "Rejecting semiotic mediation and insisting on the dominant role of
practical actions, the Kharkovites obliged themselves to elaborate the
connection between the philosophical categories of production and
objectivation and the psychological category of action." Together, this is
simply what I am trying to better understand. I would assume that discussing
internalized semiotics at that point in time would have been labeled
"bourgeois" within the political limitations. So, did A. N. Leontiev reject
some of Vygotsky's theories because of personal distaste, or because of the
political climate? This is what I am trying to understand. And everything
leads to Luria for me. Luria carried out research on language, and continued
with Vygotsky's thoughts closely in many respects. That is a different
story, but it is the goal that I have in simply better understanding the
connections/disconnections of A.N. Leontiev and Vygotsky. Like some of you,
I really hope the discussion will also focus on Luria later. That is all.
So, the questions I asked of Anna, I will ask again to anyone:
1) What distinguishes A. N. Leontiev's activity theory beyond actions? What
were the other theories of psychology at that time in Russia (beyond the
Vygotskian paradigm), not including Rubenshtein?
2) What exact tenets from Vygotsky were carried into A.N. Leontiev's A. T.
and which aspects were not continued, and why?
3) How do activity theorists (directly following the line of A.N. Leontiev)
transcend dualisms via the dialectic to arrive at a sense of wholeness that
is more specific than just focusing on concrete situations, or staying at
the level of dialectical movement?
4) This was in reference to Anna: what is "activity as epistemological
principle"?
Thank you, any of you, for help with this aspect. It is not an attempt to
divide Leontiev from Vygotsky, but to understand the history objectively.
With best wishes,
Dot
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