Andy,
I think you are applying these notions (and such is the
treacherousness of what we're playing at: that "application" has an
elaborated menaing in Gadamer, while "notions" has an elaborated
meaning in Hegel, and we can't talk about any of these issues without
using the terminolgy that is determined within the Discourses or
theoretical Activities that we are trying to talk about) ... but, I
think your are applying these notions to the theorized, while I was
applying them to the theorizing. It hadn't occured to me to think
about this difference.
So I was suggesting that instead of suggesting that Discourse Theory
and Activity Theory "assimilate" each other's gains, that we think in
terms of a potential fusion of the horizon of DT with that of AT.
Your response suggests that my suggestion may be presuming both
theorizings to be "situated" within one of the theorizeds.
That would be provocative of thought, were it not too late now in
the New York time zone for that kind of thinking.
thanks.
On Thu, 7 Jul 2011, Andy Blunden wrote:
Tony, I tend to read Gadamer with an already-fused concept of
discourse/activity, but so far as I can see his notion of "horizon"
and "situation" is different than
what is entailed in the distinction between Discourse and Activity,
that is, Discourse abstracted from the "long-duration Activity" or
Project of which it is a
part, and Activity abstracted from the language-games through which
it is enacted and constituted. I think we are speaking of two
fusions. Am I right in thinking
that "horizon" is linked to "situation" in Gadamer? If so, we also
have different concepts of Situation and Horizon, even though his
concepts are very useful and
well-worth assimilating. :)
Andy
Tony Whitson wrote:
Well said, Andy; but for this, instead of "assimilation," this
might be a perfect occasion for invoking Gadamer's idea of a "fusion
of horizons."
On Thu, 7 Jul 2011, Andy Blunden wrote:
Yes, that's exactly it, Monica. I didn't realise you
weren't a native speaker.
Just a warning/qualification on what I have said. I am
not claiming that the concepts of Activity and Discourse ought to be
identified;
clearly they indicate different traditions of scientific
analysis which pick out different objects from the flow of human
life. I think I
am suggesting though that both sciences ought to expand
their self-concept so as to assimilate the gains of the other,
creating a single,
nuanced concept of Discursive Activity. This of course
has nothing to do with assimilating practical actions with word
meaning. But the
distinction between practical intelligence and verbal
thinking/action is developmentally overcome, ontologically, but also
historically, I
think.
Andy
--
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g932564744
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
MIA: http://www.marxists.org
Tony Whitson
UD School of Education
NEWARK DE 19716
twhitson@udel.edu
_______________________________
"those who fail to reread
are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
-- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)