As Phil White pointed out, the original thread here has gone through a
number of "recontextualizations". Personally I'm beginning to feel as
though I'm standing in the foothills below the San Gorgonio mountains in
southern California looking out into the Sonoran desert watching the
mountain streams flow down into the sands.
I really tried to respond to the specific questions that were put to me when
the topic shifted into the issue of relativism, specifically your post dated
8/7 in which you pointed to "the shortcomings of modernist universals" and
also directed me to the Wardekker article and the Engstrom web pages as
examples that led to a third generation of activity theory that is more open
to the admission of diverse voices. You raised the example of the "elephant
parable", parenthetically, which I developed to point out a lurking fallacy
and question the relation of the underlying epistemology to the theoretical
grounds of activity theory.
If my post lost you, I must likewise claim the same. In fact, I don't even
understand the base meaning of the sentence "If we are arguing against a
notion of reality or truth in which partial truths are just substituting
individual ideals-constructivism for individuals (social constructivism) I
would agree." I guess it might have something to do with a supposed primacy
of the social???
But the central issue I suppose, the one that might provide what I perceive
to be the dialectical materialist response to relativism (and thereby that
of activity theory as developed in the works of vygotsky, luria, leontief,
and engstrom), is the centrality of the the fundamental contradiction of
commodification in capitalist societies; i.e., all societies in the world
today in one form or another. The object of all activity systems in
capitalist societies can be analyzed as a commodity with exchange value and
use value. The tension between these two aspects of the commodity
generates the direction of movement throughout the society. This is true
Not only in the theorist's analyses, but also in the actions of the
individuals who shape their goals in relation to the object of any specific
activity system within capitalist society. As stated in one of the web
pages you referred me to: "In this constructed, need-related capacity, the
object gains motivating force that gives shape and direction to activity.
The object determines the horizon of possible goals and actions." The
contradictions between exchange value and use value shape all of the other
contradictions, which the same web page article discusses as subordinate
ones: secondary, tertiary, and quaternary. The motives (motivating force
gained by the object?) shape and direct activity. I see this is as a
dialectical unity providing a common theoretical ground throughout the full
diversity of voices which as such takes nothing away from their specific
objectivity.
But the mountains streams seem to have become lost in the mojave sands,
although, turning my head I see fresh waters coming down from the mountains.
Paul