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Re: [xmca] Re: ye

Andy,
I think you are applying these notions (and such is the treacherousness of what we're playing at: that "application" has an elaborated menaing in Gadamer, while "notions" has an elaborated meaning in Hegel, and we can't talk about any of these issues without using the terminolgy that is determined within the Discourses or theoretical Activities that we are trying to talk about) ... but, I think your are applying these notions to the theorized, while I was applying them to the theorizing. It hadn't occured to me to think about this difference. So I was suggesting that instead of suggesting that Discourse Theory and Activity Theory "assimilate" each other's gains, that we think in terms of a potential fusion of the horizon of DT with that of AT. Your response suggests that my suggestion may be presuming both theorizings to be "situated" within one of the theorizeds. That would be provocative of thought, were it not too late now in the New York time zone for that kind of thinking. 

thanks.

On Thu, 7 Jul 2011, Andy Blunden wrote:


Tony, I tend to read Gadamer with an already-fused concept of discourse/activity, but so far as I can see his notion of "horizon" and "situation" is different than
what is entailed in the distinction between Discourse and Activity, that is, Discourse abstracted from the "long-duration Activity" or Project of which it is a
part, and Activity abstracted from the language-games through which it is enacted and constituted. I think we are speaking of two fusions. Am I right in thinking
that "horizon" is linked to "situation" in Gadamer? If so, we also have different concepts of Situation and Horizon, even though his concepts are very useful and
well-worth assimilating. :)

Andy

Tony Whitson wrote:
      Well said, Andy; but for this, instead of "assimilation," this might be a perfect occasion for invoking Gadamer's idea of a "fusion of horizons."

      On Thu, 7 Jul 2011, Andy Blunden wrote:

            Yes, that's exactly it, Monica. I didn't realise you weren't a native speaker.

            Just a warning/qualification on what I have said. I am not claiming that the concepts of Activity and Discourse ought to be identified;
            clearly they indicate different traditions of scientific analysis which pick out different objects from the flow of human life. I think I
            am suggesting though that both sciences ought to expand their self-concept so as to assimilate the gains of the other, creating a single,
            nuanced concept of Discursive Activity. This of course has nothing to do with assimilating practical actions with word meaning. But the
            distinction between practical intelligence and verbal thinking/action is developmentally overcome, ontologically, but also historically, I
            think.

            Andy




--

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g932564744
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
MIA: http://www.marxists.org




Tony Whitson
UD School of Education
NEWARK  DE  19716

twhitson@udel.edu
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"those who fail to reread
 are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
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