Victor,
Thank you for such an illuminating autobiography!
Ana M-S
Victor wrote:
> Anna,
>
> PART I:
>
> Sorry about my assumptions of your views on Holzkamp's work. We
> much more common ground than I thought. The link between the
> inanimate, the animate and within the animate domain, the conscious,
> is a necessity for a practically significant CHAT.
>
>
>
> Regarding the "chicken and egg" issue (which came first,
> subjectivity or objectivity) I reread your discussion in the article
> and see that this was a product of the discussion rather than the
> original formulation. So here too we have a common ground. This is
> also true for the bit about being a "Hegelian man" who must realize
> spirit in the object.
>
>
>
> I see we also agree on the issue of the refusal of the authors of
> CHAT to consider the implications of cognition for the play of
> subjectivity in the formation of knowledge.
>
>
>
> While reviewing the route whereby I "discovered" the "gambit" a
> previous discoverer came to light. (Also relevant to Peter M's
> question on whether all CHAT theoreticians ignored the importance of
> subjectivity as the "motor" for social change)
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Section Three: Idea. Chapter I Life
>
> The question of Life does not belong to "logic as it is commonly
> imagined". If, however, the subject-matter of logic is truth, and
> "truth as such essentially is in cognition", then cognition has to be
> dealt with - in connection with cognition it is already necessary to
> speak of life.
>
> Sometimes so-called "pure logic" is followed by "applied" logic, but
> then ...
> «.» every science is applied logic
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> The idea of including Life in logic is comprehensible - and brilliant
> - from the standpoint of the process of the reflection of the
> objective world in the (at first individual) consciousness of man and
> of the testing of this consciousness (reflection) through practice - see:
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> «.» Life = individual subject separates itself from the objective
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Shorter Logic:§ 216: Only in their connection are the individual limbs
> of the body what they are. A hand, separated from the body, is a hand
> only in name (Aristotle).
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Shorter Logic:§ 219:
> Invert it = pure materialism. Excellent, profound, correct!! And also
> NB: shows how extremely correct and apt are the terms "in-itself" and
> "for-itself!!!
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> If one considers the relation of subject to object in logic, one must
> take into account also the general premises of Being of the concrete
> subject (= life of man) in the objective surroundings.
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Section Three: Idea. Chapter II The Idea of Cognition
>
> Subdivisions:
> 1) Life, as "the living individual" - § A.
> 2) "The Life-process"
> 3) "The Process of Kind", reproduction of man, transition to cognition.
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> (1) "subjective totality" and "indifferent" "objectivity".
> (2) The unity of subject and object
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> ... "This objectivity of the Living Entity is Organism; the
> objectivity is the means and instrument of the End ..."
> Hegel and the play with "organic Notions"
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Further, the "subsumption" under logical categories of "sensibility",
> "irritability" - this is said to be the particular in contrast to the
> universal!! - and "reproduction" is an idle game. Forgotten is the
> nodal line, the transition into a different plane of natural phenomena.
> And so on. Pain is "actual existence" of contradiction" in the living
> individual. !!
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This is from Lenin's Conspectus of Hegel, the first part of his notes
> on the idea of Cognition. It's somewhat strange that EVI didn't
> incorporate these observations of Lenin in his own system.
> Apparently, by the 1960's and 70's some of Lenin's more important
> ideas were regarded as counter-revolutionary (which is another way of
> saying, too revolutionary) by the Soviet establishment!
>
>
>
> I must thank you for presenting your article and the subsequent
> discussion. The collaboration they instigated helped to clarify for me
> a number of important issues. I started quite a while ago to write up
> an article to clear up the much confusion concerning EVI's concepts of
> the real and ideal produced by Bakhurst's representation of EVI's work
> and by extension of Lenin's ideas. After several rewritings the
> article has burgeoned into a book! I'm currently doing the last
> draft. Your article and the discussion first suggested that I'd have
> to change a chapter or two, and now that a whole section must be
> revised. Nothing could be better than that!
>
>
>
> And a word to Mike: I complete concur with AB's evaluation of CHAT as
> the most serious and useful forum on its kind in the web. By the
> way, I perused with great interest Eva Ekeblad's article, "The
> emergence and decay of multilogue on a scholarly mailing list".
> http://hyperion.math.upatras.gr/commorg/ekeblad/multdyn.html Could be
> a most practical tool for regular review of the activities in the
> forum and for helping all of the participants to collaborate in
> shaping forum practice.
>
>
>
> PART II:
>
> I'm not sure what would help and how much, so forgive me if my
> description is unsatisfactory.
>
> Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, is said to have
> remarked 'Give me the child until he is seven, and I will show you the
> man'. My own experience appears to confirm this. I was what they call
> in the US a "red diaper baby", the offspring of communist activists.
> My mother managed the Refugee Aid to Spain during the Civil War and
> the CPUSA office in Schenectady and my father was UE council member at
> the GE Schenectady Plant before McCarthy's HUAC broke up the Union and
> the factory was "deconstructed" and distributed throughout the
> American South. Grew up in an environment replete with heroes of the
> Spanish Civil War, Black activist of the Civil-rights movement in the
> 1950's, and labour activists of all sorts. A family of working-class
> intellectuals, we had a complete library of Marx and Lenin among
> others and the books were read! I think I first read Marx's 14 of
> Brumaire at the age of 10 as casual reading! Dinner table discussion
> (and, naturally , frequent arguments) were concerned mostly with
> labour politics and Marxist-Leninist theory.
>
> From High School through College and University I was more or less
> continuously engaged in various political campaigns; separation of
> Church and State, Civil Rights, Student Rights, and of course
> Vietnam. Never joined an organization (experiencing the trauma of the
> Khrushchev exposures of Stalinism at the age of 12 permanently cured
> me becoming the "soldier" of any and all movements). In general my
> activist role was, naturally, one of independent theoretician and
> tactician and occasionally as prosecutor of operations. Meanwhile got
> 1st degrees in Anthropology and Sociology, and then a 2nd degree in
> Anthropology specialising in Theory, Economics, and General Systems.
>
> In 1970 I emigrated from the US to Canada where I finished my
> thesis and helped the Montreal office of the organization for settling
> American refugees from the Vietnam War in their operations. From
> there I went in 1971 to "visit" Israel, and in the course of the visit
> became a member of a kibbutz. Acquired there plenty of experience of
> orchard growing, orchard management and of the decline and fall of the
> kibbutz system, the latter occurring only a trifle slower than similar
> developments in the People's Democracies of Central and Eastern
> Europe. Similar developments indeed, it is striking how the
> progressive deterioration of kibbutz society resembles in microcosm;
> the much broader processes at work in the Social Democracies.
>
> With the decline of Kibbutz agriculture, among other things, I
> found myself with a good deal of time on my hands and no way to fill
> it satisfactorily through the jobs available to me. A perusal of the
> massive amounts of research on the kibbutz and its history as well as
> considerable discussion with Russian émigrés here I came to the
> conclusion that there is no really adequate scientific theory on the
> socialist experiment of the last century (most of it is the work of
> neo-liberal apologists - particularly here in Israel). With 30 years
> of active experience in one such experiment and access to all the
> necessary data, I decided to carry out my own analysis. It was in the
> course of planning out the research program that I came to the
> conclusion that my knowledge of theory was inadequate for the task and
> the precondition for any such research necessitated a review and
> modification of the relevant material. And here we are!
>
> I hope that will do.
>
> Highest regards,
>
> Victor Friedlander-Rakocz
> victor@kfar-hanassi.org.il
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stetsenko, Anna"
> <AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Friday, November 11, 2005 0:11
> Subject: Spam: RE: [xmca] Fwd: could you please post this for me on
> xmca? thanks.
>
>
> Victor, I particularly like your formulation:
>
>>> EVI's theory of the ideal in particular brings us to the brink of
>>> understanding of the essentially revolutionary implications of
>>> subjectivity, and then bypasses it going straight to the
>>> post-revolutionary state in which subjectivity is reintegrated with
>>> objective sociality and the world is once again at peace with itself.>>
>>
>
> I goes well with my argument and is a better expression of it. As I
> said before to you, in a different context, in my view you have a
> great grasp of dialectics. Could you reveal your background a little
> bit, if you don't mind - simply as a context for understanding. And
> also because ideas really come out of life, I believe and can be
> understood in the context oflife, you do agree, right? If not, this is
> also fine.
>
> Your other detailed and also quite important comments (and especially
> in that you focus much more on contradictions) would take much more
> time to deal with (and I will have to see if I can do that).
>
> Perhaps just few remarks:
> 1. you wrote
>
>>> While you argue that subjectivity, i.e. reasonable
>>
> activity, as the source for human conditions and life activity, I see
> subjectivity as emergent out of and in contradiction to objectivity.>>
>
> I argued about the source specifically in this response to you - to
> highlight one aspect, while answering to you point, rather than
> reiterating all of my position. This inevitably somewhat skewed the
> meaning - given the addressivity in the dialogue. My position
> transpires more in the paper, where I think it is more nuanced (in
> terms of source and outcome, and using the point of emergence of
> subjectivity out of material practice, although I never said 'in
> contradiction' to it - which is your important point, I agree). I
> believe that the issue of timing and sequence versus simultaneity is
> the most difficult one, at least for me.
>
>
> 2. you wrote: <<Along with the rest of Hegel's mankind I've
> considerable difficulty in
> conceiving of spirit, i.e. rational activity (or subjectivity), in the
> absence of the object>>
>
> I agree and just do not think that I argued against this in the paper
> (perhaps in my response to you? when responses start piling up, there
> is a huge transformation inevitably inherent in this very process).
> Certainly something I share.
>
> 3. you say <<refused by the founders of CHAT, but that is integral to
> the current CHAT model>>.
>
> I mostly argued vis-a-vis the founders, as I know you noticed. And
> also mentioned much of implicitness, I believe.
>
> This is all I can do and I reiterate that I see much agreement on many
> points -- plus, your points have been helpful to me (don't know about
> mine). Look, I can criticize my paper now myself (I really mean it,
> without any irony, it has been about 3 years since I wrote it and we
> all move on, don't we?), e.g., it is too short, many things are
> skipped over and not addressed at all, or even skewed etc. I do find
> it important that we agree on ANL and EVI though - as in your message
> of today, really good to see that, this was an important argument for
> me to work out. And you had mentioned some positive things before
> which I apprecaited. Thanks,
>
> AS
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Victor
> Sent: Thu 11/10/2005 8:41 AM
> To: mcole@weber.ucsd.edu; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Fwd: could you please post this for me on xmca?
> thanks.
>
>
>
> Anna,
>
> Sorry about the lateness of my reply, but I wasn't exactly sure
> how to
> respond to your message. The waiting was productive since the subsequent
> discussion brought up the importance of the ideals of Holzkamp for your
> formulation, and a discussion of his approach is critical here.
>
>
>
> We do indeed agree on many points, including on the refusal, and I do
> believe it was a refusal based on political considerations, by ANL,
> EVI and
> other AT theorists to come to the logical deduction that cognition,
> i.e. the
> concept, is a gambit that is in fact a subjective challenge to objective
> social practice (the idea is Hegelian though Hegel as an idealist had
> a much
> more restricted concept of the negating effect of the concept than that
> implicit in Marxian dialectics). EVI's theory of the ideal in particular
> brings us to the brink of understanding of the essentially revolutionary
> implications of subjectivity, and then bypasses it going straight to the
> post-revolutionary state in which subjectivity is reintegrated with
> objective sociality and the world is once again at peace with itself.
>
>
>
> I cite your view as you presented it in your message of Nov 5, 2005:
>
> Proposition 1 "However, my central claim was that the concomitant idea
> -- of
> subjectivity, ideal, intersubjectivity being not ONLY THE OUTCOME but
> also
> the SOURCE for human condition and life - was either downplayed or
> neglected
> by ANL, EVI and other AT theorists. Or, in other words, that they did not
> consistently pursue the flexible and dialectical relations within this
> system taken in its totality".
>
> Proposition 2 "Therefore, I argued, the manifold relationship among
> material
> production, subjectivity (psychological processes) and intersubjectivity
> (culture, politics, ideality etc.) needs to be emphasized, re-instated
> (if
> not introduced anew) into AT and CHAT for us to move ahead".
>
> Proposition 3 "Thus reinstating both the materialist ontology of human
> subjectivity and the humanist ontology of material practice -
> together, at
> once, and not one instead of the other."
>
> Note: I've segregated and numbered your propositions to make the
> discussion
> easier.
>
>
>
> In comparing the two views, yours and mine, we can detect some basic
> differences:
>
> 1. Proposition 1: While you argue that subjectivity, i.e. reasonable
> activity, as the source for human conditions and life activity, I see
> subjectivity as emergent out of and in contradiction to objectivity.
>
> 2. Proposition 2: While you contend that the whole AT- CHAT model must be
> overturned to introduce subjectivity as a critical, if not the critical,
> "subject" I argue that the subjective is implicit in the model and
> that what
> is necessary is the recovery of what is in essence a "stage" or moment in
> the dialectical process that was refused by the founders of CHAT, but
> that
> is integral to the current CHAT model.
>
> 3. Proposition 3: You seem (this is not clear to me at least) to take
> the
> position that subjectivity and objectivity are simultaneous. Does the
> simultaneity refer to timing or to logical relation? If the former
> then we
> are in agreement, if the latter you will have to help me further in
> understanding the logic of the idea.
>
>
>
> I will concentrate here on proposition 1. Proposition 2 is more or
> less dependent on its predecessor, while proposition 3 I do not
> understand
> well enough to discuss.
>
>
>
> Along with the rest of Hegel's mankind I've considerable
> difficulty in
> conceiving of spirit, i.e. rational activity (or subjectivity), in the
> absence of the object. I find it difficult to imagine spirit being
> manifest
> without an operator and being expressed, internally and externally, in
> the
> absence of some material form. It appears more reasonable to me to
> propose
> that the object is a necessary precondition for subjectivity, and that
> subjectivity while incorporating the object in the form of internal
> imagery
> and external modes of expression, that then negates the object as it
> is or
> was.
>
>
>
> The precedence of the object does not simply represent the
> ontology of
> cognition, after all dialectics and the theory of knowledge is one,
> but also
> the historical-prehistorical origins and development of cognition as a
> universal form. K. Holzkamp finds in Marx the idea that it is the
> individual drive to survive that is the basis for human sociality, and
> develops the ancient argument that individual subjectivity, albeit
> socialized subjectivity, is the touchstone of collective social life.
> Marx's
> concept is much more developed than this. Drawing from his discourses on
> the origins of human sociality from the German Ideology and Die
> Grundrisse,
> we find that Marx argues for a much more modern theory of basic human
> sociality than that of Holzkamp. For Marx it is the essence (the germ of
> the universal) of life forms to reproduce themselves, to project their
> existence into the future that is the basic form of reason and of all
> subsequent development of life forms, including of human society and of
> human instrumentality. Marx and Engels did not regard the study of
> man as
> limited to his social and inner life, quite the contrary; it was for
> them of
> the greatest importance that the development of human history be firmly
> anchored in the universal paradigm of natural science. Thus, despite the
> relatively primitive development of the natural sciences of their day,
> especially of the life sciences, it was of paramount importance to
> begin the
> dialectics of human history with the emergence of life, the category that
> includes all purpose-imbued matter, from the inanimate.
>
>
>
> Note that reproduction is not at all a strictly subjective activity,
> neither in its prosecution nor in its consequences, but as a phenomenon
> emergent from the absolute objectivity of non-life it incorporates
> (sublates) objectivity in its negation of the objectivity of inanimate
> nature. It is important to stress; that at the stage of the
> dialectics of
> the development human social life where men's conscious participation in
> collaborative programs for collective survival, subjectivity is very much
> predicated on objectivity. At this point in the analysis the problem
> is no
> longer a matter of which came first, but of how the complex dialectical
> relations between objectivity and subjectivity play themselves out in the
> formation and change of ideational, social and material forms.
>
> Victor Friedlander-Rakocz
> victor@kfar-hanassi.org.il
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mike Cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Cc: "Stetsenko, Anna" <AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 18:54
> Subject: [xmca] Fwd: could you please post this for me on xmca? thanks.
>
>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Stetsenko, Anna <AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu>
>> Date: Nov 5, 2005 8:51 AM
>> Subject: could you please post this for me on xmca? thanks.
>> To: mcole@weber.ucsd.edu
>> Cc: "Stetsenko, Anna" <AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu>
>>
>> I wrote my comment below yesterday morning but then my university's
>> server
>> was down for much of the day (right, Joe?) and I could not post it.
>> There
>> are many new things today but I still think my yesterday's response is
>> relevant. One addition only, because Mike and others again asked for
>> clarification of my central terms. It would be impossible to explain
>> what
>> I
>> meant by intersubjectivity and subjectivity (and I would also have to go
>> back to Greeks, Hegel etc and do some historical excavations) if not
>> that ...I
>> use them from within the CHAT tradition, i.e. works by Vygotsky and
>> Leontiev
>> who had done much of such historical excavations already (with some
>> variations due to the difficult task of finding a suitable translation,
>> because for example, 'psyche' in English is not the same as 'psihika' in
>> Russian; 'consciousness' is not 'soznanie', and on and on - just to say
>> that
>> translating is a highly theoretical work in itself).
>> To discuss all the details here would be a separate, tedious and lengthy
>> work. I suppose that one quote from Vygotsky should be helpful to
>> illustrate
>> the usage of terms:
>>
>> 'Any function in the child's cultural development appears twice, or
>> on two
>> planes. First it appears on the social plane, and then on the
>> psychological
>> plane. First it appears between people as an interpsychological
>> category,
>> and then within the child as an intrapsychological category... Social
>> relations or relations among people genetically underlie all higher
>> functions and their relationships.'
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Now, my comment from Nov 4, 2005.
>>
>> Mike has suggested that the discussion on xmca moves on to new topics. I
>> totally agree and now want to thank all the participants for their time
>> and
>> effort. I do need to make up on my promise to comment, not to start a
>> new
>> round of discussions but to highlight a couple of things. I start with a
>> response to Viktor - because this is a good way to sum up the main
>> points --
>> and then make a few more general comments.
>> Viktor: You presented a fascinating analysis of Ilyenkov and I find
>> myself
>> agreeing with the main thrust of your arguments. In fact, I think
>> there is
>> much more agreement between what you are saying and my paper than you
>> seem
>> to imply. Let me explain this, necessarily briefly.
>>
>> First. My treatment of Ilyenkov is very sketchy in my paper (as you
>> noticed)
>> whereas you presented a much more detailed and, already due to this, a
>> more
>> fair account of his views. However, all the sketchiness of my
>> treatment of
>> EVI notwithstanding, my main argument does not depart that strongly from
>> yours. Namely, I imply that it is a puzzle that EVI's dialectical - as I
>> directly say -- view is not consistently pushed through and that it is
>> often, de facto, does not say what needs to be said (your take) or is in
>> contradiction with his own passages on ideality as reified in objects
>> (my
>> take). I attribute this puzzle, and you do too, to the difficulty of
>> Ilyenkov's position in the sinister atmosphere of his society and the
>> related impasse of not being able to fully integrate creative agency of
>> individuals into the picture. Yes, you are right, because that would
>> have
>> threatened the status quo of the then established presumably perfect
>> social
>> order, which in reality was a stifling bureaucracy (I admit, you say it
>> more
>> openly than I did).
>> Secondly and more importantly, regarding your central claim:
>>
>> <<For Marx (and Ilyenkov), subjectivity, the object, and the ideal
>> develop
>> simultaneously as the outcome of the special conditions of human
>> sociality;
>> the voluntary (in the sense here of non-instinctive) collaboration of
>> mostly
>> if not entirely socialized individuals for the purpose of producing the
>> means for satisfaction of collective and individual needs. >>
>> What I did in my paper was to show that it is indeed this central
>> Marxist
>> idea (my formulation of it, also attributing it to Marx, differs from
>> yours
>> in phrasing only rather than in essence) that is at the foundation of
>> CHAT -
>> Vygotsky, Leontiev ... and Ilyenkov's works. We are much in agreement
>> here
>> again. In addition, I addressed how CHAT theorists differed in that they
>> placed more relative emphasis on some of the links within this system
>> but
>> not others (see details in paper; also note that some aspects are
>> explained
>> better in my Theory&Psychology paper - these two are really
>> complementary).
>> But all in all, this is the foundation and this foundation is indeed
>> good,
>> as I said many times in my paper. We agree here too, no doubt. I did not
>> take anything away from this foundation and from all the great CHAT
>> theorists, I believe, in my account.
>> However, my central claim was that the concomitant idea -- of
>> subjectivity,
>> ideal, intersubjectivity being not ONLY THE OUTCOME but also the SOURCE
>> for
>> human condition and life - was either downplayed or neglected by ANL,
>> EVI
>> and other AT theorists. Or, in other words, that they did not
>> consistently
>> pursue the flexible and dialectical relations within this system
>> taken in
>> its totality. Therefore, I argued, the manifold relationship among
>> material
>> production, subjectivity (psychological processes) and intersubjectivity
>> (culture, politics, ideality etc.) needs to be emphasized,
>> re-instated (if
>> not introduced anew) into AT and CHAT for us to move ahead.
>> Thus reinstating both the materialist ontology of human subjectivity and
>> the
>> humanist ontology of material practice - together, at once, and not one
>> instead of the other.
>> This is especially urgent given TODAY's context where postmodernist and
>> poststructuralist accounts with their rampant moral relativism (as
>> well as
>> the outright biologizing of human development a la evolutionary
>> psychology
>> and other brain-reductionist approaches) are winning, and winning big,
>> over
>> dialectical and consistently materialist views. ((though not directly
>> addressed in my MCA 2005 paper, critique of reductionist biologizing
>> views
>> is part of my works, as reflected e.g. in my recent talk at Penn State
>> where
>> some of xmca'ers where present)).
>> Incidentally, I also focus on the importance of not loosing a
>> developmental
>> stance (this has not been noticed in previous discussion of my paper on
>> xmca) - as when I speak of MATURE forms of practice that simultaneously
>> produce and are produced by subjectivity and intersubjectivity and
>> when I
>> say that this multi-fold relation gradually emerges in history of
>> humankind
>> and ontogeny.
>> This is the bare bone of my argument. Now, addressing the xmca community
>> more broadly. I realize that the paper, due to space constraints, does
>> sound
>> to many as too abstract (i.e., too few examples) and very dense. This is
>> indeed the case and I can only vindicate myself by saying two things.
>> One
>> is
>> that my argument has already found its way into interpreting some very
>> concrete research findings - in Rejo Miettinen paper in the same MCA
>> issue
>> (as Rejo gracefully acknowledges there). Two is that I am now working,
>> together with Arievitch on a book where many issues will be addressed in
>> much more detail (integrating also important contributions by
>> Galperin, so
>> far grossly misunderstood).
>> Are there lessons to be learned from the discussion in general? Clearly
>> there is one for me - I see better where I need to elaborate more on my
>> arguments to avoid misunderstandings. There is also one more general
>> lesson,
>> I believe. As it transpired in the discussion, the very foundations
>> of AT
>> and CHAT are in need of more work (e.g., we can't quickly make general
>> claims such as that mediation or activity or culture is important or
>> something like this and think that all issues are resolved to then
>> simply
>> move to concrete investigations). This work on the foundations of
>> CHAT is
>> a
>> difficult one but it is necessary. As bb (I use the initials only
>> because
>> this is how I know the author, not having seen the full name - is it
>> Bill
>> Barrow?) pointedly stated, this kind of work is inherently difficult
>> because
>> it requires 'taking in' all the previous theorizing and then moving from
>> there.
>> Also, this work needs to be collaborative, not confrontational, as
>> happens
>> too often, leaving activity theorists in limbo due to incessant
>> arguments
>> among themselves and thus letting really opposite views take over in
>> mainstream science and popular consciousness. Collaboration does not
>> exclude
>> contradiction and challenge (which is good and necessary) - it only
>> excludes
>> flat out dismissals based in misunderstandings and biased perceptions
>> (including those that are gender biased - to use the mildest of
>> expressions), or the combination of the two. Collaboration is not easy
>> because it entails leaving aside our personal ambitions and becoming
>> more
>> open minded and generous - not an easy task by any count. I want to
>> thank
>> many of you and especially Mary Bryson and Vera John-Steiner for being
>> exactly this - open minded and very generous.
>> As to gender biases, since this has been in the focus, here is one
>> comment.
>> It is a well established finding that they are still alive and well in
>> academia (e.g., see discussions around Larry Summers' 'remarkable' talk;
>> MIT
>> study by Hopkins and also research that shows that ONE AND THE SAME
>> PAPER
>> is
>> perceived starkly differently if presented as authored by an apparently
>> male
>> or female scholar). This is the case everywhere in the world, though
>> more
>> in
>> some places than others, with for example Russia now developing
>> egregious
>> forms of sexism. A great topic to be discussed in any account of what is
>> going on in that country (I have written on this and have done some
>> research; this is another area that I feel strongly about).
>> I still think, and want to emphasize it again, that LSV and ANL and
>> EVI is
>> a great foundation, at least I do not see a better one, and I have
>> invited
>> the CHAT community, having made one step in my paper, to re-examine and
>> critically evaluate the very core of their work, expanding and
>> strengthening
>> it, so that we can move ahead, taking these very theorists with us, into
>> today's context with its really formidable challenges.
>>
>> Thanks again to all,
>> Anna Stetsenko
>> PS. To Lois Holzman: Lois, thank you for your comment. I would need to
>> explain more but don't want to take too much space here - we sure will
>> meet
>> some time soon, our paths seem to cross very often. For a position close
>> to
>> mine (in one important part), I refer you and others with similar
>> questions
>> to your recent discussion with Ian Parker in Theory & Psychology and my
>> paper with IA in Critical Psychology). One quote from my paper:
>> "Since the
>> ...purpose of and meaning of science are seen as grounded in its role
>> and
>> ability to contribute to inevitably determinate pursuits undertaken in a
>> certain direction and with certain GOALS OF CREATING CHANGES in the
>> world,
>> knowledge too turns out to be determinate and directional. This is
>> NOT the
>> old-fashioned, positivist-type, ahistorical determinacy of science...
>> Neither
>> is it a complete indeterminacy and uncertainty of constructivist
>> accounts.
>> Instead, it is a kind of a historically and culturally foregrounded
>> determinacy of science that has to do with it being practical,
>> goal-oriented, and therefore, transformative and value-laden pursuits of
>> always determinate versions of the world".
>> So, no disagreement that science is about changing the world. Our
>> disagreement appears to be that I think changing the world entails
>> having
>> goals - i.e., direction, knowledge of where one wants to get that is
>> value-laden -- whereas you seem to avoid talking about this kind of
>> knowledge (goals, orientation, directionality).
>> And just one more thing. Many views and issues from 19th century are
>> indeed
>> still prevalent today as well as... those from 17th and even earlier
>> ones. I
>> respect your efforts to develop what you call a tool-and-result
>> approach.
>> Indeed, the answers can't be found by putting together few quotes from
>> Marx
>> or anybody else, I would think, but by developing one's own system of
>> ideas
>> to address major issues that are not going away any time soon - those of
>> knowledge, mind, human development, learning, teaching, human condition
>> and
>> so on.
>>
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