[xmca] Concepts. A Crtitical Approach

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

My new book is now pubished. Unfortunately too expensive for an 
individual reader, but maybe your library could buy it. Cheap paperback 
edition in 12 months' time:
http://www.brill.nl/concepts
Andy Blunden presents a critical review of theories of Concepts in 
cognitive psychology, analytical philosophy, linguistics, conceptual 
change theory and other disciplines. The problems in these disciplines 
has led many to abandon the idea of Concepts altogether, particularly 
those taking an interactionist approach. Blunden responds with an 
historical review focussing on the idealist philosophy of Hegel, its 
reception and transformation in the development of positive science and 
finally the cultural psychology of Lev Vygotsky. He then proposes an 
approach to Concepts which draws on Activity Theory. Concepts are 
equally subjective and objective, units of consciousness and of the 
cultural formation of which one is a part. This continues the author’s 
earlier work in /An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity/ (Brill 2010).
*Table of contents*
Part I. Contemporary Theory

   1. The Psychology of Concepts
   2. Narratives and Metaphors
   3. Conceptual Change and Linguistics
   4. Robert Brandom on Concepts
   5. Where we are Now with Concepts

Part II. Hegel

   6. The Story of the Concept
   7. Hegel’s Logic
   8. The Genesis of the Concept
   9. The Realisation of the Concept
   10. Hegel’s Psychology

Part III. From Philosophy to the Human Sciences

   11. The Critical Appropriation of Hegel
   12. Sources of Cultural Psychology

Part IV. Vygotsky

   13. Concepts in Childhood
   14. Vygotsky on ‘True Concepts’
   15. Concepts and Activity

Part V. Conclusion.
Acknowledgements:

   I would like to thank Mike Cole for the advice and encouragement
   over a number of years, as well as all the correspondents on the
   listserv, xmca. In particular, I thank Mike Arnold, Lois Holzman,
   David Kirschner, Jay Lemke, Carol Macdonald, Anna Sfard and Tony
   Whitson for invaluable discussions, and Lynn Beaton, Arturo
   Escandon, Helen Grimmett, Ron Lubensky, Rob Parsons, Deborah
   Rockstroh, Julian Williams and Roger Woock, who each read parts of
   the manuscript and gave me invaluable feedback. And I would like to
   thank my editor David Fasenfest for his support.



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