Dear Alfred,
you might be suprised but your thoughts in this last message are very
congruent with Activity Theory, especially if taken not only in the context
of one particular publication of Leontjev (as the book is) but in a broader
context of this approach represented by several generations of psychologists
(in the first place, Iljenkov, Dadydov, Galperin). EXCEPT that they
preferred to speak not about merely "epistemic subject" but about "acting,
doing and knowing collective cultural-historical subject". The rest is very
similar.
By the way, this gives me a chance to address one of the many myths that I
have encountered while surfing through the materials of this discussion. The
book "Activity, Consciousness, Personality" has not been conceived as a
SUMMARY OR OVERVIEW of anything, much less so of the cultural-historical
approach. It was written based on three publications by Leontjev for
"Philosophical Issues" (Voprosi Filosofii) that was solicited by the
editorial board of this journal. As such, the book addressed mostly
philosophers and philosophically-minded psychologists (this was my own
general knowledge but I got it confirmed in conversation with L's son,
Alexej Alexeevich, October this year). Certainly, this book is more about
general foundations for a marxist psychology than about any specific
research. It is also more directed into the future than it addresses the
past (hence it contains so little historical analyses, e.g., Vygotsky).
Anna Stetsenko
e-mail: astetsenko@gc.cuny.edu
PS. For Alfred: please get in touch. I am so glad you are back to this
discussions...
-----Original Message-----
From: Alfred Lang [mailto:alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch]
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 2:49 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: translation issues
Victor wrote:
>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).
Paul wrote:
>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.
As Victor suspected this indeed appears confusing, but only when we
think a given word should be translated with the same term in
whatever connection it occurs. This would certainly not be advisable
in many instances when word use is to follow use of a word in its own
language; and such a case seems to be the present one. In addition,
nobody as far as I can see has suggested the phrase object-related
world; the discussion so far only pertained to activity, and here
indeed the best translation seems to be "object-related activity".
On the other hand I sort of feel similary hurt (as Paul with
"object-related world") in my terminological esthetics and logic when
somebody speaks of the "objective world" and means the world as it
exists as such, independent of any one point of view. In chapter 2
Leontiev used the phrase "existing, objective reality" and this seems
a tautology; "existing" adds nothing to "objective". For the world
"objective" is a triadic relational term as is "subjective", the
latter meaning the world as it exists for this or that particular
observer, thinker etc., the former as it exists independent of any
particular subject. But "independent of any particular subject"
cannot mean "independent" of any particular way of looking at it.
Because there is simply no world if not seen or thought from a point
of view; and in different perspectives and in different media it
might look different. And there is nothing to see or to think of if
not from a point of view. Taken all possible points of view together
can only give to-hu-wa-bo-hu. Formerly one used to speak of the
"epistemic subject", a philosophical construction not without its
problems. Piaget was one of the last to used it, often implicitly, in
his understanding of of the genesis of cognition. So "objective" can
only mean: "as it exists for the epistemic, i.e. the generalized
subject". Now this, of course, is another question.
Alfred
-- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland --- alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch Website: http://www.psy.unibe.ch/ukp/langpapers/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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