Victor Kaptilinin sent a couple of message for the Leontiev
discussion which were diverted by cosmic forces of some unexplained
kind. I am forwarding for him while our counter cosmic force forces
repair the mucked up channels.
mike
-------
>From vklinin@informatik.umu.se Mon Oct 2 02:18:41 2000
>>At 10.42 -0600 00-09-22, Phillip White scrobe:
>>> nate, could someone give a contextual over-view that was done for the
>>>earlier article? the author's audience? movitation in writing? political
>>>contexts? degree of marginalization, etc.?
>>
>>...and to please tell us who are these "Varangians" some voices are heard
>>openly calling to rule psychology.
>>
>>Eva
>
>Dear colleagues,
>
>In 1975, when the book was published, I was a freshman at the Faculty of
>Psychology, Moscow State University (MGU). So, my understanding of the
>underlying politics and motivations was rather limited. Moreover, memories
>could have been distorted over the last 25 years. However, I would like to
>share them with you anyway. If I am mistaken other Russians on the list
>will hopefully correct me.
>
>As far as I can understand, when writing the book Leontiev had three
>(main) audiences in mind. First of all, there was a clear need at that
>time for a systematic presentation of the basic concepts and principles of
>activity theory to those who were actually using this approach. Activity
>theory was the official conceptual framework at the Faculty of Psychology,
>and the lack of a structured description of the approach caused numerous
>problems. In his lectures Leontiev was more interested in developing new
>ideas than in sorting out what had already been accomplished. Our
>instructors made an impressive effort to put together pieces from various
>works by Leontiev, mostly from the "Problems of the Development of Mind",
>to create a coherent picture but still had a hard time when answering
>questions about how these pieces fitted together. Therefore, the first
>audience was the part of psychological community of the USSR belonging to
>the so-called "Moscow School in Psychology" (a.k.a. Vygotsky's school) or
>influenced by that school, who wanted to have a canonical account of the
>approach and a common frame of reference. (By the way, most of those
>people, especially younger generation, were rather skeptical about
>Marxism, and I believe Leontiev was very well aware of that.) It was "us".
>
>However, there were also "them". A couple of years before the book was
>published Leontiev lost an important political battle. The Academy of
>Sciences of the USSR, a network of elite research centers with a powerful
>central structure, set up its first (and still the only) psychological
>research center, the Institute of Psychology of the Academy of Sciences
>(IPAN). Contrary to expectations, Leontiev and other prominent proponents
>of the Moscow school were effectively barred from playing any part in the
>new Institute. As the rumor has it, everything was directly orchestrated
>by people from the "TsK" (Communist Party's Central Committee), who wanted
>to create a counterbalance to Leontiev. The confrontation between the IPAN
>and the Faculty of Psychology, MGU (with its ally, Davydov's Institute of
>General and Educational Psychology) was one of the most distinct features
>of Soviet psychology in the 70s (in the 80s and especially in the 90s this
>confrontation, for a variety of reasons, practically disappeared). The
>leaders of the IPAN used every opportunity to fiercely criticize activity
>theory, emphasizing its focus on "subject-object" interaction and alleged
>inability to deal with "subject-subject" interaction. Instead they
>proposed to consider human mind a system and just extend a systems
>approach to psychology. These criticisms were, by and large, ignored.
>
>Some the IPAN leading figures were invited to Moscow from St. Petersburg,
>and that is why it was not unusual to refer to them as to "Varangians". In
>my view, when Leontiev mentioned the Varangians in Chapter 1, he meant
>first of all the proponents of the interdisciplinary "systems approach in
>psychology" and indirectly replied to their criticisms. However, it was
>definitely not only IPAN. Some 25 years before the book was published many
>leading Russian psychologists were forced to publicly repent and claim
>they made a terrible mistake when deviated from the only true
>materialistic theory of human mind, that is, the Pavlovian
>neurophysiology. Finally, I believe Leontiev also meant some philosophers,
>who claimed that psychology did not need its own theory because all the
>answers about the basic nature of human mind had been already provided by
>Marx, Engels, and Lenin.
>
>So, I think "Varangians" in Chapter 1 are not Western psychologists, but
>theoreticians from without psychology who think psychologists should
>borrow their approach instead of trying to develop their own theory.
>
>Finally, Leontiev might also have in mind ideology watchdogs, who could
>close down research projects and whole institutions if they wanted to.
>Therefore, Leontiev had to be cautious and clearly show that Marxism
>played a central role in his approach (which was true) and was used
>properly.
>
>In my view, Leontiev did an excellent job, given the circumstances. The
>ritual Marxist rhetoric had minimal negative impact on the book. In most
>cases Marxist terminology and references are justified and do not violate
>the logic underlying the book (for some reason, Marxist terminology looks
>much more obtrusive in the English version than in the original Russian
>text=8A). And, what is more important, I believe Leontiev succeeded in
>bringing the issue of a general framework for psychological research
>beyond the scope of Marxist discourse and put it into the context of the
>most fundamental problems of psychology as a discipline. Otherwise the
>book would not make such an impact across countries, cultures, and
>research domains, right?
>
>Best,
>Victor Kaptelinin
>
>PS. It appears Leontiev himself never called his approach "activity
>theory"=8A Am I wrong?
>
>
>
>
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