Maybe it is just schematic because you lost me. All the particulars I
could not disagree with, but had a difficult time how it supported your
argument. If we are arguing against a notion of reality or truth in which
partial truths are just substituting individual idealism-constructivism for
individuals (social constructivism) I would agree. But, while there is
the universal, activity etc. it is dynamic, transformable not static.
> Of course, the only way to see the fullness of the
> movement of the contradictions, the only way to get to the dialectical
unity
> of the objects and motives of the activity system is through attending to
> the "partial voices".
First, I am a tad bit confused of talking about object and motive as a
unity because are not they the same. We are motivated as a community by
the object or purpose of the activity. Three breaks occurring in
evolutionary history; tool use, divisions of labor, and the collective.
Since the subjects goals diverge somewhat from the motive we need to keep a
special focus on the activity, context etc. because if we only focus on the
goal it makes no sense. It makes no sense to talk about meaning making,
constructing, partial truths outside of a particular activity. Personally,
I think there are many contradictions not a major or central one such as
use-exchange value. Engestrom in *Perspectives in Activity Theory* seems
to point towards several and which ones get emphasized depend on the
particular activity, I imagine. The contradiction could be between
subject-subject, subject-tool, or even activity-activity. Yes, the
activity or the community, or universal gets a privileging, but that is
because goals make no sense outside of "real activity".
Nate
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Dillon <dillonph who-is-at northcoast.com>
To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
Cc: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Sunday, August 08, 1999 10:13 AM
Subject: Re: Re(2): xmca discussions
> Nate, Judy, and Kathie find two major issues problematic in my assertion
> that relativism cannot provide a basis for furthering the understanding
of
> the relationships between culture, activity, and history.
>
> One is methodological or more properly, simply logical: why isn't
partial
> truth ok? what's wrong with admitting congeries of partial truths?
Kathie
> wrote, "i don't understand how partial truth (or perspective) becomes
> incorrect (which seems to mean wrong, or false, in this context.)" Nate
> wrote, "Your reference to partials is correct I think, which is why
> fostering a diversity of approaches or meaning making is such an
important
> excersize." and Judy wrote, "I see the partial truth of difference to be
> useful for the difficult
> work of forging common ground. Two (or more) individuals "inundated" by
the
> proliferating differences of the post-modern world need in their
> communication some way of marking the partiality of the understandings
and
> the biases of their positions. "
>
> I think everyone has in mind a notion of "partial truth"
characterized
> by the "normal interpretation" of what nate briefly refers to as the
"blind
> men and the elephant." In that interpretation each of the characters is
> grasping a part of something real and existent in the world that would
> provide the unifying basis for all their apparently contradictory
> descriptions. There is a subtle fallacy in the "normal interpretation" of
> this fable that points directly to the falseness of partial perspectives:
> that is the fallacy of presupposing that the blind men are in fact all
> perceiving an elephant. The object of their perception has been posited
in
> advance by the narrative voice. This voice maintains that there is some
> common object in the world called "elephant" that guides and orients the
> perceptions of the individuals to a common basis for unifying there
partial
> perceptions. This common object, the standard interpretation would hold,
> exists independently of the consciousness and activity of the perceiving
> individuals. Traditional solutions to the elephant fable could be either
> idealist or materialist.
>
> This is clearly not the position of the epistemological ground upon
which
> activity theory is erected. The very first paragraph of the web page to
> which nate referred me discusses Marx's ( ) Thesis on Feuerbach which
> criticizes the idealist/materialist antinomy and states that the world
that
> is known is the product of human activity. Activity theory is described
as
> a development of this central insight in the work of vygotsky and his
> colleagues and later cole and engstrom. In various places, Engstrom
points
> to Ilyenkov as providing the philosophical ground for third generation
> activity theory. Ilyenkov's Dialectic of the Concrete and the Abstract
is
> pretty advanced for readers not already fully conversant with Marx but
his
> Essays (available at http://www.werple.net.au/~andy/essayint.htm ), while
> deep, provide a sound introduction to the dialectical materialist theory
> upon which activity theory rests. He expresses the dialectical
materialist
> conception of thought as follows:
>
> "All general images, however, without exception, neither sprang from
> universal schemas of the work of thought [idealism] nor arose from an act
of
> passive contemplation of nature unsullied by man [materialism], but took
> shape in the course of its practical, objective transformation by man, by
> society. They arose and functioned as forms of the social-man
determination
> of the purposive will of the individual, i.e., as forms of real
activity."
>
> Note: "the social-man determination of the purposive will of the
> individual" is highlighted in the original but I have not used rich text
> format since many email browsers produce junk upon receiving that format.
>
> Thus the posing of the issue of partial truths in terms of the "elephant
> fable" misses the theoretical framework of the relation between thought
and
> reality (truth) upon which activity theory.
>
> I can see how a next step in the defense of relativism might be to state
> that each of the different activity systems produces its own world, and
> moving one step farther, as nate does when he quotes Wardekker's
article,
> that each individual in each activity system produces his or her own
world.
> Here we move into the realm of a hermeneutic (a la Gadamer) notion of
truth.
> That's really important to deal with but way beyond the scope of these
> comments. I'd just like to point out to nate that Wardekker doesn't
> understand Habermas very well. Habermas' "ideal speech situation", which
> could also be called "institutionally unbound speech acts" following
Thomas
> McCarthy, is the basis for the possibility of a critique of ideology. It
> isn't a "regulative societal ideal" for Habermas as Wardekker claims.
> Actually, the possibility of "institutionally unbound speech acts" would
be
> essential for unifying the congeries of plurality that nate, Judy, and
> Kathie seem to want to allow since they all agree that some kind of truth
> exists (partial ones) and the conditions for the evaluation of these
within
> the particular activity systems (although not necessarily between them)
> would need to be stated in any event.
>
> But the unity of "the elephant" in activity theory is found elsewhere.
The
> second paper on the CHAT website to which nate referred me contains the
> structure within which this unity is to be sought. Three fundamental
> propositions contained in that paper point the way (notes in brackets are
> mine):
>
> 1. "Collective activity is connected to object and motive [community
> level], of which the individual subjects are often not consciously aware.
> Individual action is connected to a more or less conscious goal . . .
The
> object [community level] determines the horizon of possible goals and
> actions [individual level]."
>
> 2. "The activity system is constantly working through contradictions
> within and between its elements." .
>
> 3. "The primary contradiction of all activities in capitalist
> socio-economic formations is that between the exchange value and the use
> value."
>
> In other words, the horizon of possible goals and actions for any
> individual is already given in the objects and motives that develop
through
> the working out of the contradiction between use value and exchange
value.
> Personally, I think the primary contradiction is between capital and
labor
> but that's a discussion within the general theory, not one that
challenges
> it.
>
> Note that this is a unifying ground for understanding all partial
> perspectives (pluralities of voices). The truth of the "partial voice"
that
> expresses an individual's "more or less conscious goal" is to be found in
> its relation to the contradictions that determine the objects and motives
of
> the activity system. Of course, the only way to see the fullness of the
> movement of the contradictions, the only way to get to the dialectical
unity
> of the objects and motives of the activity system is through attending to
> the "partial voices". But that doesn't mean that they are fully
understood
> through any kind of assignation of an equivalent "truth value" to each of
> them. In fact, the partial voices turn out to be contradictory and
won't
> admit of such a bestowal of equivalent, abstract truth. As the author of
> the paper (Engstrom?) wrote, " . . . the essential task is always to
grasp
> the systemic whole, not just separate connections."
>
> Paul H. Dillon
>
>
> This response to nate, Judy, and Kathie is schematic. Perhaps the
mistake
> was mine from the beginning when I used the term "partial truth"
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>