said Jacques Lacan in "The four fundamental concepts of Psyho-analysis" (p.17)
To me the problem of attributing a completely sociocentric view
of agency is that one can then no longer account for individuality and
uniqueness. Nature has surely been overdone, but factoring it out somehow
doesn't sound fine to me. Two people in the same situation don't experience
phenomena in the same way. Eugene put it this way "Can two people ever
experience the same sourness of a lemon?" In Vygotsky's terms its is
what appears the second time on the psychological plane that to me contains
"nature" and the individual. I think that Wertsch et. al's moderate
(in contrast to radical sociocentrism) approach to agency is designed to
shift the emphasis away from the individual (i.e.; to take into account
the idnividual acting with mediational means be they language or tools)
without doing away with the differences between agents (i.e.; what goes
on intrA-mentally).
With all due respect though Stanton as your review really made me think.
Francoise
Francoise Herrmann
fherrmann who-is-at igc.org