This is starting to get interesting. I think Leont'ev is actually trying
to get to a place where he can describe therapy -- psychology not just as
the system that studies consciousness, but a way to change or help people.
Here's what I see in Chapter 5 (the first part): The problem of
personality: what is it? Why do we seem to agree that we can recognize and
describe "personality"? Here the question of internal/external becomes
primary. We have explained that we must think of a person in the world as
engaging with it through activity, shaping it and himself through
activity. So we will not slip into the fallacy of the current two-factor
explanation -- heredity vs envornment, arguing which has the greater
influence. Instead (page 6) we say that the personality of a man is in no
sense pre-existing in relation to his activity; just as with his
consciousness, activity gives rise to personality. The personality is
produced by the social relationship man enters into through activity.
However, it is possible to have one activity mask another, in the sense
that the apparent motive for the masking activity is actually the
displacement of a motive for the masked activity. And so we move to a
discussion of motives....
OK?
Helena
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