...which made me wonder when history stopped, so to speak: to me the
production of new theoretical integrations do not necessarily proceed by
way of most-correct interpretation of a tradition. I do spot a
(historically anchored) difference in approach here between the post-Soviet
and the US-Western scenes. I could say something off the top of my head
here (intuition without conception) but will refrain because I expect to be
offline til Monday.
Meanwhile, I'll make Mike the subject of another FWD from the past -- and
save him the trouble of restating it. (He HAS encouraged my foraging, in
sidebars, but NOT the choice of this particular item.)
These issues were on the agenda back in 1991, too, as you can see:
****************************************************************
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 91 17:14:16 PST
From: cole who-is-at casbs.Stanford.EDU (Michael Cole)
Subject: pragmatism/activity
To: xact who-is-at ucsd.edu
Cc: abelyaev who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu, shw%harvpcna@harvisr.harvard.edu
Dear Colleagues- Xact seems to be working. My apologies in advance if this
already got through to you.
mike
-----
A couple of contributions to the discussion thread of agre-engestrom-
raeithel on this topic.
1) In the writings of both vygotsky and luria one sees direct references to
american pragmaticism of a generally approving sort. I take this fact to
indicate that the cultural-historical school and the pragmatists were
responding to some common historical/intellectual challenges, most
prominently the splitting of psychology into experimental and non-
experimental branches and that they were coming up with some common
solutions, including the centrality of grounding analysis in actual
activity and the centrality of cultural mediation as the defining
characteristic of humanity. That Mead worked with Dilthey and was concerned
with time in the unit of analysis I take to be an index of communality also
(see Luria, Nature of Human Conflicts, for his experimental resolution
putting time back into the psychological unit).
2) I do no know whether Leontiev fully shared this interest, or
Rubenshtein. In so far as they, not LSV or ARL are considered the
progenitors of activity theory (which I believe many in this discussion
think is the case) the links I see may be considered irrelevant.
3) With respect to local activity and social/institutional/cultural context
(which I believe relevant to remarks by Agre/Engestrom/Raeithel) it has
long impressed me that while activity theorists should, in principle, be
interested in "micro-macro" links, these links have not been investigate
very much by Soviet psychologists (one exception is the work of
Shedrovitsky/Davydov and others on group game/simulations--perhaps our
Soviet colleagues will suggest others). I have always assumed that this
circumstance arose fro political constraints of the same kind that limited
the degree to which really critical theory and practice were feasible in
the USSR as discussed in previous messages.
Whatever the cause, an interesting outcome has been the lack of
interdisciplinary work involving sociologists, psychologists, and
anthropologists in the USSR (once again, SO FAR AS I KNOW). My own
understanding of the cultural-historical approach to activity has always
impressed upon me the inadequacy of standard psychological approaches and
the need to study behavior in context--which means learning from and with
anthropologists, sociologists, and linguists. My impression is that my
colleagues in the USSR sometimes find this a strange approach. One leading
psychologist whom I have known for a long time and whose work I admired
declared that my thinking about these matters was simply confused and
mistaken. However, since American colleagues who are sympathetic to
interdisciplinary work have also been known to think my ideas confused and
mistaken, it may simply be that I have an inadequate grasp of how local
activity is to be related to the socio-economic-cultural order which it
constitutes and is constituted by! :-)
Perhaps it would be helpful to have a list of "positive examples" of
research that have the properties that Phil Agre is calling for. If we had
an agreed-upon set we could attempt to identify necessary attributes.
mike
**********************************************
nununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununu
Eva Ekeblad, PhD
Goteborg University
Dept. of Education & Educational Research
Box 300, SE 405 30 Goteborg, SWEDEN
eva.ekeblad who-is-at ped.gu.se
http://cite.ped.gu.se/Eklanda/texter/eva.html
Tel: (Int +46 31) 773 22 75 Fax: (Int +46 31) 773 24 62
nununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununununu