In a message dated 11/17/2002 4:06:10 PM Central Standard Time,
mcole@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
> Eric-- I have not directly commented on Alex Kozulin's ideas. In fact, my
> copy of his book is missing and I am on a hunt for it. I am perfectly open
> to such a discussion, but I would need Alex's text and would want to invite
> him to participate.
>
> In another message your wrote: You appear very
> resilent to giving up the strength of activity as the unit and push hard
> for
> qualitative understanding of all degrees of activity.
>
> I simply don't understand what you are saying here. As you know from
> reading
> *Cultural Psychology* I came to the concept of activity note from Soviet
> psychology but from my earliest, amateur field work in Liberia. It was not,
> for me, an abstract category, but a common sense place to start trying to
> figure out about people engaged in actions we might call mathematical as a
> way to get a handle on schooling difficulties. Perhaps as a result, I
> continue to struggle with concepts like object which seems to float too
> freely in what I read by many of my contemporaries. Yrjo appears to be able
> to
> use the term consistently, but I often get woozy when trying to figure out
> whether people are confusion action/goal and activity/object-motive.
>
>
Mike;
As always when discussing activity theory with you I have unfairly
contributed ideas to you that better stay ethereal. I forget about your
criticisms of AT and focus on your defense of the theory as a whole.
As for the Kozulin comment I was referring to a past post from:
My concern
is to claim the primal unity in human life of the material and
ideal in human culture/mind. Vygotsky divided mediators into two
kinds depending upon their orientation. Kozulin has his interpretation.
I know that this is not a direct critique of Kozulin but knowing your
thoughts on quantitative measures I can read between the lines enough to know
that this is the usual caution you provide when theorists want to quantify
behaviors. Have I overstepped my bounds once again Mike?
eric
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