Dale,
Thank you, Dale, your comments were most helpful. This morning I had a
chance to study the recent posts by Harry Daniels, Jay Lemke and Victor
(Ben Reshef family <victor) and want to continue this discussion on Kirsten
Foot's paper on Pursuing the Object. Lots of important ideas to sort
through! Jay nailed several of the questions that are on my mind, and I
want to touch on some points he brings up that I find very illuminating.
Victor's take is very interesting - his quotes from Peter Jones bring me
back to a really interesting discussion on Ilyenkov's article The Concept
of the Ideal - along with articles by Bakhurst and Wartofsky - that we had
on that xmcacourse that just finished up. Victor is aiming at the heart at
this problem of the object - and a deepgoing debate I believe is going on
under the surface about the nature of the material and the ideal, the
subject and the object, etc - in going to these writings and ideas. Time
is limited so it may take me a day or two to write something cohesive - and
concise - tying these ideas together, or at least sorting some of them out
for myself. I agree with Vygotsky's idea that the overall struggle is
between idealism and materialism, and these explorations into the nature of
the object of human activity Kirsten's paper guides us towards is part of
this larger historic process.
- Steve
At 12:53 AM 6/20/03 -0600, you wrote:
>Steve,
>I think this is a very important distinction, and yes, I think the
>article was much more about conceptions and perceptions *of* the
>object than about the activity-directing qualities of the object
>itself. Conceptions of the object are an important part of the big
>picture, of course, but I think it's important to recognize that there
>should be a great deal more to say about the EAWARN system and about
>the way the activity created and was created by the multifaceted and
>dynamically changing object (which is dynamically changing at least in
>part as a consequence of the conceptions, which are changing as a
>consequence of the changes in the object, which is ......)
>
>One limitation of this article is, of course, its interview method.
>That will always introduce the filter of "conceptions and perceptions
>of" the object. An important addition to that has to be a study of
>the activity system itself. Has Foote written anything along those
>lines? I did feel like this article alone was only a teaser.
>
>dale
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