Perhaps a central question about reification (which I take to be
most interestingly the kinds of errors we make, having talked of
a process as a thing, when we analyze it in thing-terms rather
than process-terms, whatever the local-historical-structural
origins of our dispositions to do so) might be for the case of
_activity_ as a notion.
What might our _notions_ of 'activities' have in common with our
paradigms for 'things' that deserve some critique, re-wording,
and re-linking? JAY.
PS. For example, that they can be counted and enumerated, or are
transportable unchanged across time and space? that they have
boundaries in time and space, or inherent attributes and
properties? that they can be products of human artifice, affected
by Causers or Causes, tokens that can be exchanged between
entities (communities?). Are our notions of activity less reified
than our notions of genre? or text? Books are things in a sense
that texts are not ...
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JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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