Shifting to Hegel ...
Victor, just to provoke some discussion - I would love it if you and Andy
would share more of your insights on relating Hegel to activity theory,
cultural psychology and the levels of social analysis we have been
discussing - may I comment (ever so slightly provocatively) that from my
limited reading of Hegel, and from just thumbing through my copies of
Hegel's "shorter Logic" and "longer Logic" (I learned these shorthand terms
from reading some of Andy's extensive and marvelous work on Hegel, a study
project I plan to return to) - perhaps it can also be said that Hegel,
insofar as he was formulating a social psychology, was not only
"contextualizing logic in social relations," he was also contextualizing
social relations in logic. One of the key themes Hegel analyzes in the
sections on the Doctrine of Notion, for example, is the syllogism. As for
your intriguing comment about micro and macro levels of social analysis,
how do you see Hegel's logic as providing the link between them?
Andy - if you would be so kind as to share some of your thoughts on this -
what details do you see in Hegel's Doctrine of the Notion that you believe
show "how social formations mediate the relations between individual
consciousness and universal consciousness"? And did Leontiev specifically
evoke Hegel's writing in his work?
Best,
- Steve
At 04:59 PM 10/26/03 +0200, you wrote:
>Andy,
>Right on. By contextualizing logic in social relations Hegel is actually
>formulating a social psychology - and, in doing so, provides the link
>between micro and macro levels of social analysis.
>Victor
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>Andy Blunden
>To: <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 3:11 PM
>Subject: Re: timescale question
>
>The way I see it, remembering all the time that internalisation is a
>creative process of appropriation, which never *simply* copies or
>reproduces the external, all our concepts are internalisations *of* social
>relations. I think Leontyev did a great job of explaining this idea, for
>me, in his Activity, Consciousness, and Personality
>http://www.marxists.org/archive/leontev/works/1978/index.htm. Activity,
>tools, language, social institutions, scientific works, laws, art, etc.,
>etc., mediate between individual forms of consciousness and social
>formations. There are millions upon millions of examples so it's hardly
>worth starting. Hegel's Doctrine of the Notion shows in detail how social
>formations mediate the relations between individual consciousness and
>universal consciousness, albeit in an almost incomprehensible form. "All
>mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in
>human practice and in the comprehension of this practice"
>
>
>Andy
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