Now darn, I thought the "root model" was a paraphrase of the idea of
"genetically primary example" which I had (probably mistakenly!)
associated with the idea of urphenomenon, from, well, maybe, some once
upon a time German or other.
All of this may be related to the question of what the term, development,
refers to.
For myself, I have been wondering a lot about the relationship between
the terms learning and development in Yrjo's writing. Sometimes they
seem to be different, sometimes the same. By contrast, its difficult to
see how to make the distinction at all in a variety of approaches that
go under the banner of "socio-cultural".
Gets puzzlinger and puzzlinger, the further I go. Probably some vicious
circle, sans spiral, despite time in the unit of analysis.
:-(
mike
On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 6:25 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
Engestrom's original book is a great book. I really enjoyed the
critique of Mead, Popper and so on, and his stuff about mediation is
just like the pre-Phenomenology Hegel (1803-5). And this is no
accident because these triangles were passed down the line to us via
Marx and Vygotsky.
The difference comes when you get to the Concept. Engestrom abandons
"unit of analysis" in favour of "root model," though he certainly
doesn't make any big fanfare about this departure. But it is
faithfully recorded in "Expanding."
The Individual-Universal-Particular moments of a concept is a
completely different thing from (for example) Norms, Tools and
Division-of-Labour. Each of Norms, Tools and DoL can exist
separately. It is true of course that a tool is not a tool until it
is used in labour and there are many other such "mutual
constitutions" going on in Engestrom's "root model," but in the end
the root model is a collection of 11 different concepts. Hegel's is
just one concept, a.k.a. "Unit of analysis." It is just impossible
to think a concept without a word or artefact of some kind which is
the focal point of the thought, instantiated in an individual and
involved in some social practice (eg speaking and hearing, or
reading and writing). This is more than "mutual constitution."
Andy
mike cole wrote:
Hell, Andy, I know nothing, so to speak of Hegel. But after
Michael helps us focus
in on what he finds valuable in Heidegger, we will be better
educated. Note, re
"triangles within triangles"
You have to consider the expanded triangle, "genetically" in
terms of its origins,
and as a mutually constituted whole. Sounds a lot like your
characterization of
Hegel!
mike
On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
<mailto:ablunden@mira.net> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net
<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>> wrote:
Although many others played a role, it was Hegel who taught
us how
to finally overcome dichotomies and conceive things as a
whole. In
his anatomy of Mind, Hegel has two cross-cutting triangles,
not just
the usual series of triangles-within-triangles that are more
widely
known.
(1) Hegel makes the concept the unit of a social formation,
not the
individual person, and expends a lot of heat and lots of
triads-within-triads tracing how the forms of practice and their
representation emerge, independently of the will and awareness of
individuals. First create your concept, then people can think it.
(2) The subject itself (still not an individual mind) has three
"moments" Individual, Universal and Particular. The Universal is
what we call "artefact" (well not necessarily a token, but
what it
is that makes the artefact what it is, the whole class of
things).
The Particular are the social practices (forms of practice,
institutions and their instantiation) in which the Universal
is (as
Michael says) *constituted*. The Individual is an actual existent
thing or person which implements the actvity. As CEOs like to say
"an organisation is only as good as it people."
Hegel knew, like everyone else knows, that only individual human
beings, with skulls, think. There is no such thing (except
metaphorically) as "collective consciousness" - only shared
artefacts and social practices/activities and a lot of
individuals
thinking and acting in concert.
So I make no apology for talking about individuals, or asserting
that without individual people and material tokens of
artefacts and
practices, there would be no mind.
Andy
PS. I know nothing of Heidegger.
Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
Hi Mike,
the issue I want to highlight is the mutual constitution. It
makes no sense to talk about tools as if they could be
isolated
and talked about independent of the concrete practical
object/motive oriented activity. You cannot talk about
subjectivity/identity independent of activity, and yet
people do
it all of the time. Take, for example, all those scholars who
use interviews to get at "identity," and do not make thematic
the fact that the interview is the activity, and its
object/motive is the production of the interview/text.
Whether
the text has anything to do with the activity of a teacher at
school, or a student at school, never (hardly every) is
asked.
The same, we observe scholars who are looking for and writing
about the tools, as if the nature of the tool could be
identified independent of the activity---
This is precisely the point Heidegger makes, and – sorry
Andy,
you are NOT right on this point in your commentary –
Heidegger
says precisely in many instances what Leont'ev also says, and
Heidegger did it a few years before Leont'ev.
((And again, sorry Andy, Heidegger works out precisely
the issue
of consciousness in activity, and the relation of the
subject to
the tool, which is at the heart of Leont'ev))
Mike, what we are getting to, then, is cognition separate
from
life, cognition that makes no sense because it is not
connected
to the senses in sensual practical activity.
Precisely when we substantialize the things that are part
of the
activity --- for Leont'ev, only those things are relevant
that
are relevant to the subject, and this point is brought out by
Klaus Holzkamp ---- not the kind of stuff outside researchers
bring to the situation when they take the triangle as the
grid
through which they look at situations, at activities. For the
subject it is totally irrelevant what the researcher sees and
thinks, and this is another form of breaking things out of an
integrated and dynamic whole.
Cheers,
Michael
On 2010-03-07, at 8:28 AM, mike cole wrote:
Thanks Andy, and Michael for the section ref to Leontiev.
Could I repeat a second part of my question which appears to
have gotten
lost in the multiple threads?
Michael wrote: "you have been breaking out individual
(constitutive) moments
of activity and treated them as elements, much like
others take
the YE
triangle and then break out the object, the subject, the
division of labor,
the tools..."
I asked about how one talks about how one breaks out
"moments of
activity"
(that is how I phrase the matter when I am thoughtful
enough to
do so), and,
having highlighted them, given the impression that they are
elements in a static sense. What sort of language does
one use
to be able,
for example, to talk about a particular division of labor,
without at least
deep backgrounding, say, the tools being used or the web of
social rules
that are recruited in this instance?
Even to say that "everything is connected to everything else"
implies some
notion of "things/processes" that are connected. How to avoid
misunderstanding and distinguish it from disagreement?
mike
On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 2:50 AM, Andy Blunden
<ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
<mailto:ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>> wrote:
If anyone is interested in exploring the German
Idealists,
and the roots of
Activity Theory and Cultural Psychology in their
writings, I
have put
together a page :
http://www.marxists.org/subject/philosophy/german.htm
where you can browse as you wish ...
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Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov,
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov,
Ilyenkov $20 ea
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