[xmca] Why don't we determine the boundaries of Freedom and Necessity?

Andy
  You know I usually follow the latest of the discussions . However , friends go too wayward in their discussions . It seems there's no check on the limits . Maybe I'm the prisoner of my own limitations . It's no easy task always to establish a relationship between what is at hand in the discusion and what was supposed to be the mainstream of the discussion , that is , the article voted for , in this case , yours . I told you I'm still reading your thoughtful paper .
  First , let's take the following quote :
   
  "The identity of the individual with vast and powerful social movements can no longer be taken for granted. In fact, it no longer exists. And this is the problem."
   
  You're talking about the Postmodernists' standpoints , their either pathological narcissism or their feeling themselves alien , alone , face to face with societal or collectivistic gatherings , etc. ...
   
  I so understand that you , all along with the Postmodernists , accept the content of the above quote . There's no indication that you take it sarcastically on your part . You , in fact , give them the right to think this way .
  Then , if you confirm their problem is extant and the IDENTITY of the individual with vast ... ... no longer exists , what will be the resolution of our feeling conflict with the content of the following :
   
  "The observation that CHAT still lives within the ethos of progressive communitarianism neither casts doubt over the validity of its theory nor suggests that its ethos is outmoded."
   
  I do not understand if you mean "the identity of the individual with vast ... ... " is included within the progressive communitarianism which is being observed or not and if it is , is THAT the very defect you want to convey ? That is , if we are able to extract that "identity" from the Prog. Comm. , leaving the "individual" to himself , detaching him from the collectives , letting him mirror himself within his own "consciousness" , then satisfaction will be obtained ?
  How can we move towards the definition of the "individual" as "the ensemble of social relations" and simultaneously blessing him with the "agency" of "independent action" ?
   
  "But it does suggest a reason why CHAT is challenged by the way postmodern capitalism is unfolding. The fault is not however so much with how psychology conceives of the individual as how the social sciences conceive of culture and society and whether psychology appropriates concepts of these sciences uncritically."
   
  This latter I don't want to interpret now .
  Thinking about this problem I came across Dot Robbins in her new message and her timely quote from Davydov , Worthwhile repeating :
  
"zone of fusion"!So, feel free to hit the delete bottom here, as I do

 want to offer a longer theoretical quote. Peter Moxhay is a voice I

 respect very much. He has translated a book from V. V. Davydov (Problems

 of Developmental Instruction), and I sincerely feel that this book will

 help all of us in clarifying so many past points of discussions on

 xmca, and hopefully Peter’s translation (a real labor of dedication to

 Davydov) will be out in a few months….In the introduction, Davydov

 states: “A person’s social or collective life enables him, using the

 means of the ideal plane, to separate off his activity from himself and

 to represent it as a special object that can be transformed, even

 before this activity is realized in actuality. Then the person can see,

 evaluate and consider his own activity from the position of the other

 members of the collective. Within his own activity, the individual person

 creates an ideal representation of the positions of other people. The

 person’s reproduction of an ideal image of his activity, and of an

 ideal representation within it of the positions of other people, may be

 called consciousness. Consciousness cannot be studied in isolation from

 the ideal or from activity; these exist in an indissoluble unity, with

 activity predominating. However, each of these formations, and all of

 them together, can be understood only through the totality of social

 relations that is the essence of the human.”

Dorothy (Dot) Robbins

Professor of German

Russian Orphanage Vyschgorod

www.vygotsky-robbins.com
   Heidi
  heidizulfai@yahoo.com
   

       
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Received on Wed Feb 13 13:33 PST 2008