Re: [xmca] more questions about Sawchuk and Stetsenko article: whose sociology???

Dear Steve,
Days off the list , I didn't learn about your kind words . There are many points to discuss . I see you are one of the rarest who try to seek truth no matter where and from which side it comes from , Vygotksy , Leontiev , Luria , Uznadze , the Kharkov School , Engestrom , Van Der Veer , Valsiner , the once Soviet Times of the Heavy Hands , Orient , Occident , Marx , Trotsky , Lenin , Bourdieu , Parsons , whatever and wherever , Of course , truth seems to be a variable rather than a constant ; however , fanatically condeming anyone to be a dogmatist is itself a Dogma . I wouldn't like to ignore etiquette ; however , this filterization of the Plain Text of the xmca is my greatest obstacle when I want to quote from the read materials . Hence my deepest apologies for the attachment . It's in support of Leontiev being non-reductionist .  
Best
Haydi

--- On Fri, 12/12/08, Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com> wrote:

From: Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] more questions about Sawchuk and Stetsenko article: whose sociology???
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Friday, December 12, 2008, 1:31 AM

Followed you perfectly fine until the very end of your post, David. Three
questions. When you get a chance.

One, why do the blocks count as only one stimulus? The blocks have a number of
characteristics that could serve as the solution parameters. These multiple
possibilities are what make the blocks a puzzle and tricky even for an adult to
solve. (Although, in theory, a person who understands the solution principle
could, without looking at a single of the nonsense words, correctly divide the
blocks into the four solution, and then select one block in each group to
determine the corresponding name. In my opinion, this puzzle is an offbeat IQ
test-style puzzle that sort of measures how quickly a very specific school-style
kind of training required to solve the puzzle kicks in.)

Two, how are the definite geometric shapes, bright, clear colors, definite
relative sizes, and definite heights of the blocks (not to mention other
possible characteristics) not "signs"? We accept coloring, shape,
size etc. as sign-designations for many other kinds of objects (for example,
money, poker chips). Why not these blocks?

Three, why do you say Leontiev's approach in Problems of the Development of
Mind is "reductionist"? He very clearly does not reduce human
activity to animal activity, for example, in Part II. But I've only read
Part II, so I'm not in too good a position to defend Part I or Part III.
Perhaps you have seen a problem with reductionism in this volume that you could
share.

- Steve

On Dec 11, 2008, at 3:14 PM, David Kellogg wrote:

> Thinking and Speech Chapter Five, which Paula and I have been re-reading
and re-rereading with such enjoyment, is really the size of a small book, and
LSV organizes it that way. In his usual style, he tells us there are two ways to
study concepts, and neither one works.
>
> The first way is the use of definitions, something like this:
>
> Uncle David: What’s a cyborg?
> Luc (eleven years old): Well, it’s like the Terminator.
> Andre (thirteen): It’s like a man who is part machine.
> Uncle David: Oh, if I have an artificial heart and an artificial lung, am
I a cyborg?
> Andre: Well, it has to be like an arm or a leg or something like that.
> Uncle David: If I have an artificial toe am I a cyborg?
> Andre: Yes.
> Luc: No.
> Uncle David: What about an artificial tooth?
>
> (from a conversation I had last summer)
>
> The second way is the use of practical activity, the
"synthetic-genetic" method of Ach and Rimat. Here's some data from
a "model lesson" I just observed which I think illustrate this
approach pretty well:
>
> Teacher: Here’s a HOUSE. Here’s a FARM. What’s this?
> Ss: Dog!
> Teacher: Good. Shall we put it in the house or in the farm?
> Ss: House!
> (Teacher continues with pig, horse, goldfish, cat, chicken)
> Teacher: Now, why do these go in the house and those go in the farm?
> S1: These are clean and those are dirty.
> S2: These are cute and those are ugly.
> S3 (in Korean): These are money-eating animals and those are money-making
animals.
>
> Then, in his usual style, LSV presents what at first glance appears to be
a synthesis: the method of Ach (Nazi psychologist who thought that fealty to the
Fuhrer was intrinsic to the German mind).
>
> The method of Ach uses BOTH the word (the method of definition) AND
practical activity (the genetic-synthetic method). The subjects are taught
words, and then they use them in different tasks (I imagine these to be
something like those of Tomasello, e.g. "put the gatsun on top of the
fal")
>
> But remember, this is Vygotsky! He presents two wrong methods, then (drum
roll!) he produces a synthesis...and shows that we have merely combined the
weaknesses of BOTH methods!
>
> When I FIRST read this, I thought he was just saying that Ach had it (if
you'll pardon my Vygotskyism) ass backwards. Instead of beginning with the
word (at least, the sound of teh word if not the meaning) and ending with the
child handling sensuous material (well, blocks, actually), we need to begin with
the child handling blocks and end up with word meanings.
>
> But actually his criticism's a lot deeper than that. He sees that Ach
has just added practical activity in the form of various tasks onto a method
that is, at bottom, nothing more than the old method of definitions. AND he
takes Ach and Rimat to task for their use of "determining tendency" to
define an activity.
>
> Here LSV's criticism is identical to Andy's. To say that human
labor is reducible, without remainder, to the human desire to obtain objects is
an absurd simplification; it leaves out the whole way in which this process is
transformed by tools, signs, and other people until the original desires are
practically unrecognizeable.
>
> This makes MUCH more sense to me. First of all, it explains why LSV is not
satisfied with just turning Ach's method around, so that it resembles the
SECOND wrong method instead of resemblign the first. Secondly, it explains why,
right there in Chapter Five, LSV insists on something called the functional
method of double stimulation.
>
> Why functional? Because the whole experiment is determined not by any
imagined desire, but by the exercise of a particular function, the function of
discriminating, generalizing, conceptualizing. Why double? Because...there are
two types of "stimuli" and they are absolutely different.
>
> How different? Well, one is a sign (the words "cev",
"mur", "bik" and "lag") and one is a tool (the
blocks). This alone shows that there is a key difference, for Vygotsky, between
tool-based object related activity and sign-based signifying activity. This by
itself shows that Leontiev's reductionist approach in "Problems of the
Development of Mind" is a wrong turn.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
> --- On Thu, 12/11/08, Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com> wrote:
>
> From: Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] more questions about Sawchuk and Stetsenko article:
whose sociology???
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Thursday, December 11, 2008, 3:23 AM
>
> Andy, this is a good question you ask - what did ANL think was
"an"
> activity. I am not suggesting we keep up this inquiry into Leontiev for
now,
> but hopefully these questions about his work and what he meant will come
up on
> xmca again, and we can continue.
>
> In the meantime, the section linked below, "3.5. The General
Structure of
> Activity" of AC&P seems helpful toward grasping what ANL would
see as
> "an" activity. I quote one passage here, there are numerous
others.
> In this passage, ANL is saying that a given process can be viewed as
either an
> "activity" or as a "chain of actions," the former as
viewed
> in relation to motive, the second in relation to purpose. So, according
to ANL,
> "an" activity is, in part, a purposeful chain of events. The
whole
> section seems helpful.
>
> - Steve
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/leontev/works/1978/ch3.htm
> quote is from
> 3.5. The General Structure of Activity
>
> "Correspondingly, actions are not special “units” that are
included in
> the structure of activity. Human activity does not exist except in the
form of
> action or a chain of actions. For example, work activity exists in work
actions,
> school activity in school actions, social activity in actions (acts) of
society,
> etc. If the actions that constitute activity are mentally subtracted from
it,
> then absolutely nothing will be left of activity. This can be expressed in
> another way: When a concrete process is taking place before us, external
or
> internal, then from the point of view of its relation to motive, it
appears as
> human activity, but when it is subordinated to purpose, then it appears as
an
> action or accumulation of a chain of actions."
>
> <end>
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 11, 2008, at 2:05 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:
>
>> Steve, ANL never spells out what would be *an* activity, i.e., the
unit of
> analysis of activity, but this one from AC&P comes close:
>>
>> “A basic or, as is sometimes said, a constituting characteristic of
> activity is its objectivity. Properly, the concept of its object is
already
> implicitly contained in the very concept of activity. The expression
> ‘objectless activity’ is devoid of any meaning. Activity may seem
> objectless, but scientific investigation of activity necessarily requires
> discovering its object. Thus, the object of activity is twofold: first, in
its
> independent existence as subordinating to itself and transforming the
activity
> of the subject; second, as an image of the object, as a product of its
property
> of psychological reflection that is realized as an activity of the subject
and
> cannot exist otherwise.”
>>
>> As I understand it, ANL is using the word "subject" in the
> Kantian sense, i.e., an individual organism, so activities are objective
with
> respect to the individual. He seems to say that the activity has a double
> existence, both the objective existence in which it is *given* to the
> individual, and in the form of the image by which the individual organism
> orients its actions, i.e., as its motive.
>>
>> But prior to that, every activity has its object, the object is the
> defining characteristic of "an" activity. So if we want to know
about
> the Mafia, MiraMax, MacDonald's or the NBL we have to begin by asking
> "what's if for?" or "what is the object of this
> activity?"
>>
>> Now, this would make perfect since in the USSR of the Stalin era,
every
> branch of the administered society is "for" something. Perhaps
ANL did
> not mean for us to interpret "an activity" this way. He actually
never
> clarifies what "an" activity is, and specifically rejects the
idea of
> a "unit of analysis."
>>
>> For the purposes od psychology, I think this is al fine, but for
> sociology, ... if we put this approach alongside Parsons, I'd say they
are
> both varieties of Functionalism, but Parsons looks more sophisticated. Let
alone
> Foucault, or Giddens, Weber, Bourdieu, ... Engstrom of course deals with
this
> because of the process of repeated mediation produces activities which are
> connected only remotely with human needs.
>>
>> BTW, Hegel (1800s) and Thomas Carlyle (1830s) has both worked out the
idea
> of production of "tools" as the root of human culture, but these
> writers wrote before the publication of "Origins of Species"
(1859).
> Engels' "Ape to Man" (1876) was published a mere 17 years
after
> Darwin's book. Remarkable. But that was 100 years before ANL's
A,C&P
> (1878).
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> Steve Gabosch wrote:
>>> Andy wrote:
>>>> The idea of the individual simply chasing after the object of
> their desires and activities being a manifestation of a human need, is
laughably
> uncritical and simplistic. That's why I say it can't be taken
seriously
> by sociologists.
>>> Andy, as time goes on, if you run across any passages where
Leontiev
> actually argues along these lines, please point them out if you can.
>>> As for finding Leontiev in print, all that I have ever seen myself
is
> what is on MIA (some of which is copied on LCHC), plus a picture .pdf of
the
> middle part of Problems of the Development of Mind, about a 150 pages
worth,
> that we used in an xmca class a few years ago.
>>> Haydi has stressed that we need to get Problems of the Development
of
> Mind online, and I totally agree. All Leontiev should be in print, in
English,
> and on line. And maybe with new translations if possible.
>>> In my opinion, Problems of the Development of Mind, more than
anything
> else of Leontiev's that I have seen, is foundational for CHAT. It not
only
> offers an in depth analysis of the evolution of activity from its earliest
> animal origins, but it also deals at a high level on what is new and
different
> about human activity, which ushers in an entirely new dimension and new
kind of
> activity, social production. Activity becomes an entirely new entity that
is
> now no longer a product of biological evolution, but a product of social
> evolution. This transformation from biological activity to social
activity is
> rivaled, in my opinion, only by the transformation of the inorganic to the
> organic, the origin of life itself.
>>> The main point I am making here is that understanding the animal
> aspects, origins, and evolution of activity is necessary to fully
understand the
> human and social content of human activity, and how human activity itself
has
> evolved (which makes it an important question for sociology and not just
> psychology). Leontiev to my knowledge was the first to seriously explore
how
> the structure, function and evolution of activity in animals laid the
basis for
> human activity. As the passages I sent demonstrate, Leontiev's work
on
> activity doesn't make full sense without taking into account his
approach to
> theorizing animal activity - that activity itself is what all animals must
do
> to survive - and which humans do a very special and unique way.
>>> The main theme in Part II of PDM is his tracing of animal psychic
> evolution from the pre-psychic (simple stimulus and response,
irritability), to
> the sensory (detecting properties of objects, e.g. insects), the
perceptual
> (detecting objects, e.g. amphibians), the relational (detecting relations
> between objects, higher mammals) and the meaningful (detecting the social
> meanings of properties, objects and relations). I think his application
of the
> concept of **meaning** in this line of development is extremely important,
very
> Vygotskian, and possibly one of Leontiev's most important insights
into the
> nature of human activity.
>>> Losing sight his work on the evolutionary side of activity and its
> origins in animal biology could be a step toward losing sight of the
> specifically human aspects of human activity. That could be a consequence
of
> folding together and not distinguishing the biological from the social
side,
> thereby "compressing" the biological into the social.
>>> The distinction between animalness and humanness has always been a
> core issue in the materialist view of human evolution, and in social
science as
> a whole. A common mistake many make is to look only to biological
> characteristics (such as brain size, bipedalism, hand, language capacity)
for
> the answer. Leontiev's focus on activity adds new insight not only on
the
> essential difference between humans and animals (social production), but
also
> differences and similarities between animals themselves over the eons.
>>> The distinction Leontiev makes between upper mammals and humans,
the
> processing of the relations between objects on one hand, versus processing
the
> meanings of objects on the other, was made by Vygotsky in one of his
discussions
> about Kohler's work with apes. This concept, born in first generation
CHAT,
> became a cornerstone of one of the most important contributions of second
> generation CHAT.
>>> Who else besides Leontiev in CHAT has written on these matters
over
> the years? I don't actually know. It seems that this is a side of
CHAT
> that needs more development - more evaluation and critique of
Leontiev's
> work in this area, more expansion on how the evolution of animal activity
and
> psychic processes is foundational to and interwoven in human social
evolution
> and transformation, etc.
>>> ~ Steve
>>> On Dec 10, 2008, at 9:02 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
>>>> Steve Gabosch wrote:
>>>>> ...
>>>>> A central idea I think Leontiev is trying to get at here
is
> that needs do not just have a subjective content. ...
>>>>
>>>> Of course. I found ANL useful in getting my head around this
> topic, but I do find all I need about the objecvtivity of needs in the
Young
> Hegel and the Young Marx, without the problems I find in ANL. ANL did not
> discover that needs are objective after all!
>>>>
>>>>> ... Three, I always worry if scanned text posted on the
> internet is exactly correct
>>>>
>>>> Unfortuntely these texts on MIA are the only copies of ANL
that I
> have. His books are unavailable new or secondhand in Australia and even my
> University library does not stock him. Any help in proofreading his
writings on
> MIA would be appreciated. Seriously!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> A possible problem, by the way, of substituting the
concept of
> "project" for "activity" is this could sever the
> zoopsychological side of activity theory. Only humans have projects, but
both
> humans and animals engage in activity. Interestingly, the zoological
aspects of
> cultural-historical activity theory rarely get discussed in third
generation
> CHAT literature. ... compressing the biological up into the social is as
> erroneous as reducing the social to the biological.
>>>>
>>>> Well, for me that is the advantage not a problem. Operations
and
> actions, it seems to me, capture all that is necessary for non-human
psychology;
> it is the fact that human motives usually have their origin in
> cutlural-historical projects which is what needs to be understood.
>>>>
>>>> If we have an arrow coming from the outside world into the
> individual organism marked: "motive < -object- > need" or
> something, then that's fine, but we can't leave it like that. For
> example, as a trade union and party organiser I will tell you that the
motive
> for people joining in an activity (party, union, strike, campaign, ...)
may be
> very diverse and is usually not the "Aims" emblazoned on the
union or
> party banner. EG people join parties for reasons of friendship, join
unions for
> narrow self-interest or for party reasons as well as for solidarity. The
idea of
> the individual simply chasing after the object of their desires and
activities
> being a manifestation of a human need, is laughably uncritical and
simplistic.
> That's why I say it can't be taken seriously by sociologists.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 Skype
> andy.blunden
>> Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
>> http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm
>>
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