Nate,
Of course reflection is an active process -- but what does that mean?
Everything I've read in Leont'ev seems to indicate that it's not an active
process of the individual although the individual is a necessary element in
the process. As soon as you say, "a child may reflect on a "natural" tree,
but s/he also transforms it into a creative piece that may not look like the
original. " one must ask what the "original" is. That original, as I
understand this, can only exist as something already "reflected" not as
something given "as it is out there in the real world". Here the mirror
metaphor might be useful since it allows the visualization of the infinite
reflections as in places where there are mirrors on opposing walls or the
Quaker Oats man holding the Quaker Oats box. One knows that one doesn't find
the original of the reflections in either of the mirrors and that there is
no "last Quaker Oats man" as one approaches the visual assymptote.
The problem of reflection remains unsolveable, as far as I can see, if the
solution is sought at the level of the individual and I think I've provided
enough evidence to show that this is Leont'ev's position. Thus the active
element must be sought in the social relationships. Leont'ev clearly
recognized this as he repeatedly tried to show that psychology from this
perspective wasn't simply being dissolved into sociology but was most
certainly being subordinated within a system in which the individual psyche,
though necessary, was insufficient to account for the problems of
consciousness and the mind. A real social subject is necessary, a subject
for whom concrete motives exist that individuals make their own, for
example, historically given class consciousness. Problems of individual
psychology must taken into account in the first place in the social
relationships in which the individual's life unfolds; these relationships
are "the original" and as living social relationships don't exist as
something in the past but nevertheless are not arbitrary--that other
meaning of subjective.
Also, it's important to remember that adaptation is not simply passively
being poured into a mold since life is dynamic and also requires invention
and creativity. Archaeology's description of human evolution is one of
adaptation -- though it was pretty minimal for quite a long time. Social
historical adaptation has always unfolded at the level of changes in social
relationships to which individuals modify themselves, not changes in
individual behavior that are added together to produce changed social
relationships. (Here Sartre's descriptions of the transition between
seriality and group are sadly neglected). During the processes in which
these social changes occur collectivities are most obviously the "active
subjects " For the individual adaptation/assimilation requires the
internalization of ideals that have been forged in these processes but this
can take the form of simply learning the ropes, or as Wittgenstein would
say, "how to go along" even when it appears that there is some. One could
say that "assimilation" is a two way street: like Mongols invading China.
The Mongols (the individual) became Chinese by the act of invading and
taking possession of China. Who was the active subject?
Paul H. Dillon
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