RE: EVI's Concept of the Ideal - mirrors

From: Eugene Matusov (ematusov@udel.edu)
Date: Sat May 15 2004 - 18:07:38 PDT


Dear Mike--

In my view, there is nothing to "mediate" unless you are talking about
models (models in their symbolic plans do mediate the world of our physical
actions). Tools mediate. Signs mediate. Ideality does not mediate the
material world. Socio-cultural-historical ideality IS the material world as
we know it. By this, I mean that the question of how good our ideality is
not a question of how well our ideality "mediates" the material world but
rather how well it serves us in the activity for achieving our
socio-cultural-historical-political-economical-... goals. (If John St.
Julien reads this posting, I hear him exclaiming, "Eugene, you are a
pragmatist!" :-) For me, mediation implies "a bridge between two shores" (a
visual metaphor for mediation). I can't see "shores" there. We are
materially-ideal or ideally-material in our activities. We are what we do.
Purposeful activities are our existence. There are no "shores" to mediate.

So, you can probably call my position as
"socio-cultural-historical-political-economical-material... realism".

What do you think?

Eugene

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Cole [mailto:mcole@weber.ucsd.edu]
> Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 8:40 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: RE: EVI's Concept of the Ideal - mirrors
>
> So what might one call your position, Eugene, cultural-historically
> mediated
> realism?
> mike



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