Victor,
This is something of an aside.
My reaction to the question of the translation is multiple. On one hand I
think of the hookah-smoking caterpillar explaining to Alice that words mean
whatever he wants them to mean (puff, puff). In this case it seems that it
seems that the concern is simply that of fitting the word to the
interpretation we want to give to the usage. Too bad we couldn't just ask
Leont'ev himself but what a shock it would be if he had told us that he
meant "activity existing independently apart from the subject" which also
makes perfect sense in the framework of dialectical materialism and is
totally concordant with what Leont'ev wrote in Chapter 2..
I have been asking myself, if activity is "object-related", how can it be
that Leont'ev constantly says that "object relatedness" is inseparable from
the very concept of activity itself? Doesn't this force us to conclude that
Leont'ev felt the need to be redundant as though he though his readers would
forget what he had previously and repeatedly stated.
"The cloudless sky is blue blue." "The fire is hot hot.". This seems odd
to me.
Also there's the question of how the objects come to exist so that there can
be an activity that is related to them. How do particulars come to be given
for us in just the way that they are? I think Leont'ev's discussion of the
two kinds of needs in Ch. 3 attempts to answer these problems pointing again
to the fact that the objects of activity are the products of prior
activities themselves taken as objectively existing (that is as not being
the product of activity but as given independently of the subject who
created them). In any event, this seemed to me to be the position he
sustained in Chapter 2.
On the other hand, the possibility of an "object-related world" reminded me
of a passage from G. Spencer Brown's book "Laws of Form" that I'll reproduce
here.
"Let us consider, for a moment, the world as described by the phsyicist. It
consists of a number of fundamental particles which, if shot through their
own space, appear as waves, and are thus (as in Chapter 11), of the same
laminated structure as pearls or onions, and other wave forms called
electromeagnetic which it is convenient, by Occam's razor, to consider as
travelling through space with a standard velocity. All these appear bound
by certain natural laws which indicate the form of their relationship.
"Now the physicist himself, who describes all this, is in his own account,
himself constructed of it. He is, in short, made of a conglomeration of the
very particulars he describes, no more, no less, bound together by and
obeying such general laws as he himself has managed to find and to record.
"Thus we cannot escape the fact that ther world we know is constructed in
order (and thus in fact in such a way as to be able) to see itself.
"This indeed is amazing."
To me this has never sounded to far astray from the basic dialectical
materialist interpretation that consciousness is a higher form of the
organization of matter itself.
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Victor Kaptelinin <vklinin@informatik.umu.se>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 9:21 AM
Subject: Re: translation issues
Paul,
You are right, it is odd. But isn't this the case with many adjectives and
adjective equivalents? Sometimes they change their meanings, depending on
the context, in very odd ways. Usually we do not notice these oddities
because we have got used to them, but they are there all the same. Take,
for instance, "expert systems". What does "expert" in this expression
actually mean? Something like "imitating expert decision making", I guess.
Ok, but then what does "expert" mean in "expert decision making". Is
"expert decision making" a decision making that imitates expert decision
making? Very odd.
In my view, something like this takes place in the case of "objective
world" and "objective activity". The same Russian adjective "predmetnyj/
predmetnaja" has two different meanings in these two expressions (roughly,
"consisting of predmets" and "oriented towards predmets"). I never thought
it was odd, but now I think maybe it isS :)
Best wishes,
Victor
>Victor,
>
>Thanks. But if what you say is the case then it seems very odd to
translate
>the word as many have been suggesting, or at least it requires a radical
>interpretation. I say this because the notion of an "object-related world"
>could only be interpreted as a world that refers to itself.
>
>Quite odd.
>
>Paul H. Dillon
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Victor Kaptelinin <vklinin@informatik.umu.se>
>To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 4:18 AM
>Subject: Re: translation issues
>
>
>> Paul,
>>
>> I do work with a Russian text.
>>
>> Generally, "objective" in the English version may correspond to either
>> "objectivnyj" or "predmetnyj" in the Russian version.
>>
>> However, "objective world" is always "predmetnyj mir" and "objective
>> activity" is always "predmetnaja dejatelnost" (at least, in Chapter 3).
>> Therefore, "objective" in both "objective activity" and "objective world"
>> is a translation of the same Russian word. (On one occasions, the "object
>> world" is used instead of "objective world", but in Russian version there
>> is no difference between these expressions).
>>
>> Hope it is not too confusing :)
>>
>> Folks, please, do not hesitate to let me know if you think my Russian
copy
>> of the book can be of any help.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Victor.
>>
>>
>> >I'm wondering if anyone involved in the Leont'ev reading is actually
>working
>> >directly with a Russian text. In particular I'm curious as to whether
>the
>> >term translated as "objective" in "objective activity" is the same as
the
>> >word translated as "objective" in the other uses; e.g., "objective
>world."
>> >
>> >Paul H. Dillon
>>
>>
>>
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