... Within your theoretical effort, you seem to be of two minds about science in relation to other activity systems. On the one hand, you acknowledge that CHAT is unlike science: "Activity Theory is inherently interdisciplinary, but science as a whole, in this world, is not." On the other hand, you want to homogenize science into a broader frame that includes CHAT: "the world is made up of an array of distinct activities (projects) but all these projects interact with one another, both cooperatively and in conflict." It seems to me the effort to decompose and recompose CHAT as separate sciences, but in intercourse with one another, only is accomplished by ignoring the bounded character of scientific discourse (though perhaps you can mount a more compelling case). I disagree that "being a self-enclosed, independent, self-consistent theory it is /dead /as a science, and science is only alive to the extent that it struggles at its boundaries." The dynamic struggle at the boundaries is characteristic of scientific revolution, not the everyday business of normal science. In characteristic sociological mode, I wonder if the motive for maintaining a connection between CHAT and science isn't tied to the very real and material advantage to be gained by having CHAT remain part of the scientific enterprise.
Finally, turning to your third paragraph, I don't see the unlikelihood of psychology ever actually achieving paradigmatic consensus as relevant to its preparadigmatic status. The important question is how do the branches of psychology interact with one another? If, as I've suggested, the relationship is characterized by encroachment and competition, then we have a preparadigmatic science. Now, I do think the weak prospects for achieving paradigmatic status are relevant to education's relationship to psychology. Psychologists within the dominant paradigm are always talking about how we're just on the verge of putting into place the comprehensive picture of learning that educators need to do their work effectively. The behaviorists did it, the cognitivists are doing it now, and I have little doubt that if sociocultural psychology were to emerge as the dominant paradigm in psychology, we'd be doing it too. This is NOT dishonesty; psychologists in the dominant branch generally really do believe they are about to unify all of psychology under their own tent. They almost need to believe it, because promulgating one's paradigm as comprehensive is a necessary competitive strategy within a competitive process that is inherently sociological, involving as it does incommensurable framings of the field. So, if I really believed the hype, I'd be waiting, along with the rest of education, for Nirvana, instead of pushing for a genres approach that takes the fragmented state of learning theory as its starting point.
David
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