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Re: [xmca] Interpreting Leontiev: functionalism and Anglo Finnish Insufficiences
- To: ablunden@mira.net, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
- Subject: Re: [xmca] Interpreting Leontiev: functionalism and Anglo Finnish Insufficiences
- From: Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
- Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2011 23:51:05 -0800
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Yes, Andy, your quote from Hegel makes clear that Hegel is tracing out
subjective spirit as it emerges through recognition in phylogenetic
history. But this is not to say that the process of recognition is all
said and done once human social life has developed past this state.
What does follow from this historical transformation, imho, is that
recognition will take on a new quality with the emergence of civil
society and the State - recognition becomes mediated in a whole new
way; recognition becomes mediated through culture. This is not your
father's recognition. It is not about struggle and battle, but it is
about gaining rich individuality through the complex macrosocial array
of identities that are on offer in society (and which are realized
with respect to the complex metapragmatics of exhibiting and,
critically, being recognized as having had exhibited, the signs and
symbols of having had been such and such type of person in a given
moment). To put it in a slightly different idiom, identity is like a
right - it exists consequentially only through the recognition of
others (writ large, i.e. recognition via thirdness (Peirce) or, if you
prefer, a generalized other (Mead), in short, through recognition
through culture). And just as property creates possibilities for
agentive action, e.g. raising cattle or raising capital, so too do
various identities create possibilities for agentive action (something
that the con-man is well aware of, but which most of the rest of us
seem too stuck in our "own" skin to realize).
I also happen to think that this importance of culture to mediation
comes through in both Markell's and Williams' readings of Hegel,
although I think it is more clearly articulated in the former than in
the latter (though I do have some issues with both). And I will need
to go back through my notes and through your writings on Williams,
Andy, to see where I think that you've got Williams wrong (but I'm not
about to make a similar claim about your reading of Hegel - you're way
out of my league in that regard!).
But that will have to wait as there are more pressing matters right
now (presents to wrap and cookies to eat and notes to leave!).
And a very merry Christmas to you Andy.
And to all a good night.
-greg
p.s., to mike I'm not sure at all how to connect this to Leontiev.
Have much work to do in that connection... Motivation maybe?
On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 6:24 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> To let Hegel speak for himself. In The Subjective Spirit, after the
> "master-servant" narrative, he says:
>
> "To prevent any possible misunderstandings with regard to the
> standpoint just outlined, we must here remark that the fight for
> recognition pushed to the extreme here indicated can only occur in
> the natural state, where men exist only as single, separate
> individuals; but it is absent in civil society and the State because
> here the recognition for which the combatants fight already exists.
> For although the State may originate in violence, it does not rest
> on it" (1830/1971 §432n).
>
> Andy
>
> Andy Blunden wrote:
>>
>> I have written/spoken eslewhere and at length on R R Williams (as well as
>> Robert Brandom, Axel Honneth and others) and I regard their postmodern
>> interpretation of recognition-without-culture. I regard it as the main
>> barrier to an understanding of CHAT or Hegel of our times.
>>
>> Functionalism is interesting in the way you mentioned, in that it
>> prefigured more contemporary currents which also do away with any centre of
>> power but cast power as flowing through "capillaries" - a more radical
>> conception of power-wthout-a-centre actually.
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> mike cole wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks for providing a link back to the Leontiev/functionalism
>>> discussion, Andy.
>>>
>>> The links appear to go right through your home hegelian territory and
>>> link us up
>>> to current discussions of "recognition." They also link up with ideas
>>> linked to
>>> Zygmund Bauman's "Liquid Modernity." And to the many other people whose
>>> work
>>> I know too little of.
>>>
>>> With respect to functionalism, casting national aspersions aside :-))
>>> , it never occurred to me during my years getting trained to be a learning
>>> theorist in the
>>> Skinnerian tradition, to consider the question of "where does the
>>> function come from" or "who is exerting power here?" We starved the rats
>>> and they ran or died. Or coerced sophomores using grades as "part of their
>>> education."
>>>
>>> Then I went to Moscow. Where the caste of characters under discussion
>>> were my hosts. Like I said. I am a slow learner on all these complicated
>>> matters. At the rate I am going I am never going to figure it all out!
>>>
>>> :-)
>>> mike
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 9:05 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
>>> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>> In my view, Mike, there were some basic questions asked and
>>> answered by A N Leontyev in launching the enquiry we know as
>>> "Activity Theory" are uneliminable, that is, he took a step which
>>> has to be valued and continued. But it was a step at an extremely
>>> fundamental level. It absolutely left open Stalinist-functionalist
>>> directions and well as emancipatory directions. Personally, I
>>> think the impact of the "planned economy" and the "leadership"
>>> which understood "the laws of history" and the state which
>>> represented a "higher stage of society" and so on, left a mark on
>>> the whole current. But its basics, its fundamentals remain intact.
>>> It only remains to agree on what those were.
>>>
>>> By-the-by, the home of "functionalism" is the USA.
>>>
>>> By-the-by again, in the early 80s I was a member of a Trotskyist
>>> party which put Ilyenkov on a pedastal, and published new
>>> translations of his work in English, which also came very close to
>>> endorsing Lamarkism. It debated it, but the Party perished before
>>> the debate was resolved.
>>>
>>> Andy
>>>
>>> mike cole wrote:
>>>
>>> I am being very slow here. How does this discussion resolve
>>> or help me to
>>> think more clearly about the issues in the subject line? the
>>> issues over
>>> different interpretations of Leontiev, their relation to
>>> functionalism,
>>> stalinism, fascism, etc?
>>> mike
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 3:34 PM, Greg Thompson
>>> <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
>>> <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>>wrote:
>>>
>>> Larry,
>>> IMHO, you're hitting the heart of the matter with
>>> recognition and
>>> agency - self-assertion vs. self-emptying seems a nice way
>>> to think
>>> about the central problematic (and I agree with your
>>> preference for
>>> the latter). If you are interested in developing a more more
>>> self-emptying Kyoto-like notion of recognition, I've got a
>>> couple of
>>> suggestions (and I'm sure I've made these suggestions in a
>>> different
>>> context before, so apologies for redundancy).
>>>
>>> First, I'd strongly encourage a read of Robert Williams'
>>> Ethics of
>>> Recognition. In Williams' read of Hegel, you find an
>>> articulation of
>>> recognition that is much more like the Kyoto understanding of
>>> recognition and which is against the crass version you get
>>> from the
>>> existentialists where recognition always about a fight or
>>> struggle for
>>> recognition. As evidence of the cultural tendency toward
>>> self-assertion, it is very telling that one small
>>> paragraph in Hegel's
>>> oeuvre would get picked up as the thing that most people
>>> for most of
>>> the 20th century would equate with Hegel's notion of
>>> "recognition."
>>> But that approach is shortsighted and Williams really
>>> nails this
>>> point. (although I am persuaded by Willaims'
>>> interpretation, I don't
>>> have any skin in the game of whether or not this is a more
>>> or less
>>> "authentic" interpretation of Hegel - I just happen to
>>> believe that
>>> the position Williams articulates is far more productive
>>> than the
>>> struggle-for-recognition model that has been on offer from the
>>> existentialists).
>>>
>>> Second, to provide some further support for this claim,
>>> I'd also
>>> suggest checking out Johann Georg Hamann, who is said to
>>> have been a
>>> significant influence on Hegel (but don't read Isaiah
>>> Berlin's stuff
>>> on Hamann, he misses the point). Hamann didn't really
>>> publish much. He
>>> was most noted for his letters to his friend, Immanuel
>>> Kant and in
>>> which he repeatedly tells Kant that he's got it all wrong
>>> (and does it
>>> in a style that makes the point through medium as well as,
>>> if not more
>>> than, message - a point which itself speaks to one of his
>>> central
>>> points about the importance of poetics). In these letters,
>>> Hamann has
>>> a wonderful sense of the intractability of human life, and the
>>> fundamental wrong-headedness of the desire for sovereign
>>> agency. I'd
>>> be happy to share more if there is any interest.
>>>
>>> Oh, and I forgot there is a third author of interest in
>>> this regard,
>>> Patchen Markell's Bound by Recognition gives a compelling
>>> portrait of
>>> what he calls "the impropriety of action" - the sense in
>>> which our
>>> actions are not our property alone. Markell's book argues
>>> that tragedy
>>> (and its twin, comedy) derives from this very human
>>> problem. Also
>>> great stuff.
>>>
>>> All three of these readings I suggest as a way of pointing
>>> out that
>>> within Western traditions there is a trope that is closer to
>>> self-emptying than self-asserting. Unfortunately it
>>> doesn't articulate
>>> as well with Enlightenment perspectives because it is
>>> often, as with
>>> Hamann, articulated through Christianity. This presents
>>> something of a
>>> marketing problem since the Enlightenment put Christianity
>>> as a thing
>>> of the past and as the kind of believing that small minded
>>> people do
>>> (the kind that tote guns and don't believe in evolution),
>>> and thus a
>>> not very appealing thing for most Westerner's "natural" (i.e.
>>> "cultural") inclination to self-assertion. So I think that
>>> as a matter
>>> of packaging, Buddhism, with its stripped down religious
>>> ideology,
>>> probably has more appeal to most post-Enlightenment
>>> Western thinkers.
>>>
>>> And I wanted to add that I feel like your posts are
>>> speaking directly
>>> to me and maybe we can carry on this conversation in more
>>> detail
>>> somewhere down the road (in a different thread, I
>>> suspect). So many
>>> thanks for your words (even if they weren't "intended" for
>>> me - a
>>> fortuitous impropriety to be sure!).
>>>
>>> Anyway, hope all is well,
>>> greg
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Larry Purss
>>> <lpscholar2@gmail.com <mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> I'm enjoying this line [circle? spiral?] of
>>> inquiry.
>>>
>>> David, you wrote
>>>
>>>
>>> The mind is a highly parsimonious thing; it is very
>>> tiring to believe one
>>> thing and say another. Vygotsky's genetic law predicts
>>> that eventually it
>>> is the former that shall cede to the latter.
>>>
>>> I want to go out on a speculative limb that tries to
>>> weave together some
>>> of
>>> Wittgenstein's notions that are also
>>> expressed in John
>>> Shotter's
>>> exploration of conversation.
>>>
>>> The question of the relation and distinction between
>>> "taking a position"
>>> and "developing dispositions" In David's quote above
>>> "believing" one
>>> thing
>>> [a position] and "saying" [practicing
>>> another] will
>>> over time eventually
>>> lead to the practice winning out over the belief.
>>>
>>> Their are a group of scholars in Japan referred to as
>>> "the kyoto school"
>>> who are engaged in the project of having an indepth
>>> conversation between
>>> Buddhism and German Continental philosophy.
>>>
>>> A central difference the authors of the Kyoto school
>>> are articulating is
>>> different notions [and values] of "intersubjectivity"
>>> as epressed in the
>>> contrasting concepts
>>> "self-assertion" and "self-emptying".
>>>
>>> They suggest many Western notions of intersubjectivity
>>> and recognition
>>> are
>>> in pursuit of recognizing our assertoric
>>> stance or
>>> position towards
>>> words,
>>> self, other, & world. This assertive
>>> position can be
>>> expressed in
>>> emancipatory notions of "finding one's VOICE" and
>>> overcoming being
>>> "silenced". Anger and conflict leading to overcoming
>>> resistance from
>>> within classes, races, genders. Through recognition
>>> [being seen and
>>> listened to develops the capacity to move from a
>>> silenced "voice" to an
>>> assertive "voice"] one stands up and speaks back to
>>> the dominating
>>> constraints and the shame and humiliation that
>>> silences voices.
>>>
>>> As Shotter [in Christine's quotes above shows] the
>>> assertoric position of
>>> challenging dominant structures and power can be seen
>>> as expressing a
>>> particular "attitude" or "style" or "posture".
>>>
>>> This style or attitude valorizes "the assertoric
>>> stance" in the world"
>>> which develops into an enduring "disposition" if we
>>> keep "saying" this
>>> form
>>> of recognition and emancipation.
>>>
>>> However, the Kyoto School, in deep conversation with
>>> this assertoric
>>> "position" and "disposition" suggests or gestures
>>> toward an "alternative"
>>> [not truer, more real, but an alternative]
>>> They suggest Buddhist practice and "saying" can guide
>>> or mediate another
>>> in*formation of "self" that they express in the
>>> concept of "self-emptying
>>> This is NOT a passive or resigned form of agency but
>>> rather an active
>>> intentional positioning of self that attempts to
>>> foreground the
>>> "fallibility" and "uncertainty" of ALL positioning and
>>> assertoric
>>> stances.
>>> This is a deeply intersubjective practice of
>>> valuing
>>> "emergence" and
>>> "openning spaces" in which to INVITE the other to
>>> exist by the practice
>>> of
>>> mving our self from center stage. Finding
>>> one's
>>> "voice" from this
>>> position
>>> of ACTIVE INTENTIONAL self-emptying [and
>>> creating the
>>> openning space for
>>> the other's "voice" to emerge] is a very different
>>> "attitude" or "stance"
>>> or "posture" to take leading to a very different
>>> "disposition" from
>>> within
>>> a very different form of "saying" and
>>> "practice".
>>>
>>> I "read" scholars such as Wittgenstein, Shotter,
>>> Gadamer, Buber, Levinas,
>>> as exploring this alternative in*formation of "self"
>>> that is less
>>> assertoric in finding one's "voice" and moving towards
>>> a posture of
>>> self-emptying that embraces FALLIBILITY, UNCERTAINTY,
>>> AMBIVALENCE, NOT
>>> KNOWING, at the heart of this particular way of
>>> becoming human.
>>> I do believe this is an historically guided
>>> perspective that embraces
>>> multiple perspectives and multiple practices.
>>> Intersubjectivity and dialogical hermeneutical
>>> perspectives and the
>>> multiple formations this conversation can take
>>> [expressing alternative
>>> moral committments] is the concept at the center of
>>> this possible
>>> inquiry.
>>> I'm not sure how "possible" it is for
>>> persons in North
>>> America to
>>> consider
>>> such alternative moral compasses as explored
>>> by the
>>> Kyoto School. [it may
>>> be beyond our horizon of understanding to envision as
>>> a possibility].
>>> It is also difficult to grasp Wittgenstein's attempt
>>> to "see through"
>>> theoretical positions as a practice and disposition.
>>>
>>>
>>> Self-asserion is often viewed as the only path to
>>> intentional stances and
>>> postures in finding one's voice to participate in
>>> GENERATIVE
>>> conversations. Is there merit in engaging with
>>> another tradition
>>> exploring
>>> agentic ACTORS actively practising
>>> "self-emptying"
>>> motivated by the deep
>>> disposition and committment to generative dialogical
>>> ways of practice.??
>>> As I said in my opening remarks, this is going "out on
>>> a limb". Is
>>> conflict
>>> and anger the ONLY motivators that can be
>>> harnessed to
>>> transform the
>>> world??
>>> I'm also aware that my position as a "white male" with
>>> a secure job may
>>> be
>>> calling me to take a naive "utopian"
>>> perspective.
>>> At the minimum I want to suggest that it is these types of
>>> "conversations"
>>> across "traditions" such as the Kyoto School
>>> scholars
>>> are engaged in
>>> which
>>> invite us into a world conversation which
>>> puts into
>>> play the monolithic
>>> bias towards the assertoric stance in the world.
>>>
>>> I'm preparing for "challenges" to this alternative
>>> "attitude" but am
>>> putting it out there in a spirit of the holiday season
>>> to think outside
>>> our
>>> Western notions of "self-assertion" and
>>> finding one's
>>> voice.
>>>
>>> Larry
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 12:04 AM, David Kellogg <
>>> vaughndogblack@yahoo.com
>>> <mailto:vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>>wrote:
>>> Ivan:
>>>
>>> At the beginning of the Philosophical
>>> Investigations, Wittgenstein
>>> quotes
>>> Augustine, who describes the
>>> indescribable
>>> experience of learning a
>>> first
>>> language in Latin, and remarks that his
>>> model of
>>> language (a big bag of
>>> names) is OK, but only for a very restricted
>>> application; there are many
>>> things we call language for which it is not
>>> appropriate. And thence to
>>> his
>>> famous discussion of complexes, in the
>>> form of
>>> games and language games.
>>>
>>> I think what I said was that Wittgenstein's
>>> account of language is
>>> pragmatic in a linguistic sense. Pragmatics is
>>> about the use of
>>> language,
>>> as opposed to its usage (which is more
>>> or less
>>> what Augustine is
>>> describing, language as a dictionary written in
>>> some form of mentalese,
>>> where every language is necessarily a foreign
>>> language).
>>>
>>> And I think what Wittgenstein says about language
>>> applies to every
>>> account
>>> of language, even his own; it is
>>> appropriate, but
>>> ony for a very
>>> restricted
>>> application. In that way it is like a
>>> metaphor (as
>>> we see in the
>>> language
>>> games section, and the tool box section,
>>> it really
>>> IS a metaphor). So I
>>> think we need to ask the question where it stops
>>> being appropriate.
>>>
>>> As Andy points out, it doesn't describe conceptual
>>> thinking very well.
>>> But
>>> that is not because the pragmatic
>>> account of
>>> language is a subset of
>>> some
>>> larger conceptual account; I think that
>>> the
>>> relationship is quite the
>>> other
>>> way around: scientific concepts are a
>>> rarefied,
>>> specialized subset of
>>> semantic meaning, and of course semantic meaning
>>> took many centuries of
>>> billions of daily interactions to be precipitated
>>> from everyday
>>> pragmatics.
>>> Now it seems to me that on this scale of
>>> things,
>>> the cultural individual
>>> really is quite unchanging and hidebound, rather
>>> like a bottle. We
>>> rejoice
>>> that Western women do not bind their
>>> feet--and
>>> instead mutilate their
>>> chests with silicon implants. We rejoice in not
>>> stoning women for
>>> adultery
>>> and congratulate ourselves on no longer
>>> insisting
>>> on the male ownership
>>> of
>>> sexuality that this entails, but we so
>>> stigmatize
>>> child sexual abuse
>>> that
>>> children's lives, and not simply their
>>> putative
>>> purity, are now at risk
>>> from pedophiles, and nobody reflects that what is
>>> really threatened
>>> here is
>>> the parental ownership of sexual access
>>> to their
>>> children.
>>>
>>> This morning's New York Times, just for example,
>>> has a thoroughly silly
>>> article on North Korea by one Nicolas Kristof. We
>>> are told that
>>> apartments in Pyeongyang are all equipped with
>>> telescreens that
>>> make propaganda announcements of, e.g., the
>>> leaders' golf scores. We
>>> have a
>>> similar telescreen in our apartment in
>>> Seoul,
>>> which announces municipal
>>> elections and tells where to find the local leader
>>> of the anti-communist
>>> militia. The difference is that when we do it is
>>> feels normal.
>>>
>>> Kristof certainly does not feel hidebound; he is
>>> quite comfortable in
>>> his
>>> own skin. Nevertheless, he tells a
>>> wildly
>>> brainwashed account of the
>>> way in
>>> which North Korea developed nuclear
>>> weapons. He
>>> correctly remembers
>>> that in
>>> 1994 an agreement was negotiated to
>>> build nuclear
>>> power plants in North
>>> Korea (he carefully omits to say that these would
>>> be non-weaponizable
>>> and built by South Korean companies). Now,
>>> according to Kristof, the
>>> Clinton administration only did this because they
>>> fooishly assumed that
>>> the
>>> regime would collapse before the
>>> reactors were
>>> actually built! Wisely,
>>> the
>>> Bush administration caught the North
>>> Koreans
>>> "cheating", and tore up the
>>> agreement.
>>>
>>> What really happened, as anybody with a memory
>>> longer than the Bush
>>> adminstration will tell you, was that the North
>>> Koreans asked for, and
>>> got,
>>> a codicil that would supply them with
>>> fuel oil for
>>> energy as a stopgap
>>> measure (if you look at the widely circulated
>>> satellite picture of North
>>> Korea at night you will see why they insisted on
>>> this). The Clinton
>>> Administration always boasted that the fuel oil
>>> they supplied was
>>> unusably
>>> poor, but that was not enough for the
>>> Bush
>>> adminstration. They simply
>>> reneged on the agreement. But the North did not
>>> renege: they had
>>> promised
>>> they would develop nuclear weapons if
>>> the deal
>>> fell through, and that is
>>> what they did.
>>>
>>> Why does Kristof tell this transparent lie?
>>> Doesn't it go against the
>>> usual NYT ethos of telling the truth about
>>> checkable and trivial
>>> matters so
>>> as to be able to deceive with the
>>> necessary
>>> authority when it comes to
>>> the
>>> essentials? I think, alas, Mr. Kristof
>>> simply
>>> cannot control himself any
>>> more (see his WILDLY improbable tale about a
>>> husband executing his own
>>> wife
>>> for writing a highly implausible letter
>>> to Kim
>>> Jeong-il himself). The
>>> leather mask has become a face.
>>>
>>> And I think that is probably what happened to poor
>>> Leontiev as well. The
>>> mind is a highly parsimonious thing; it is very
>>> tiring to believe one
>>> thing
>>> and say another. Vygotsky's genetic law
>>> predicts
>>> that eventually it is
>>> the
>>> former that shall cede to the latter.
>>>
>>> It is that sense in which what Mike says is true:
>>> Vygotsky's psychology,
>>> as a scientific system, describes the development
>>> of institutionalized
>>> lying just as accurately as it describes the
>>> development of higher
>>> concepts. What I wanted to say was that his
>>> earlier sense that ideas are
>>> always embodied, and some bodies are gifted with
>>> an extraordinary
>>> foresight, is also true. I think Vygotsky knew
>>> that he would die, but he
>>> also knew that his ideas, so long as they were
>>> true ones, would live.
>>>
>>> David Kellogg
>>> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --- On Wed, 12/21/11, Ivan Rosero
>>> <irosero@ucsd.edu <mailto:irosero@ucsd.edu>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> From: Ivan Rosero <irosero@ucsd.edu
>>> <mailto:irosero@ucsd.edu>>
>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Interpreting Leontiev:
>>> functionalism and Anglo
>>> Finnish
>>> Insufficiences
>>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
>>> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
>>> Date: Wednesday, December 21, 2011, 6:50 PM
>>>
>>>
>>> David, if you agree with the summary Larry has
>>> presented, I remain
>>> confused
>>> by your analogy. I read Larry's
>>> presentation of
>>> Kitching/Pleasant as
>>> saying that action cobbles together further sense
>>> within already-given
>>> sense that is simultaneously ideal-material, and
>>> therefore subject to
>>> culturally and historically specific constraints
>>> and possibilities. But
>>> surely, this includes the bottle and the person
>>> too, both as moving
>>> entities (the bottle, unless highly heated, a much
>>> more slowly moving
>>> entity). I am not invested in any particular
>>> reading of Leontiev, but
>>> your
>>> analogy as presented suggests a kind of
>>> essential
>>> fixity to the person
>>> which I want to believe you don't really mean.
>>>
>>> To be fair, your emphasis is on the wine in the
>>> bottle. But, in this
>>> case,
>>> a slowly moving bottle is rather less
>>> interesting
>>> than a human being,
>>> with
>>> a rather less historically complex
>>> relationship to
>>> the liquid it gives
>>> shape to.
>>>
>>> Does what Andy refer to help here? What kind of
>>> concept-complex (is it
>>> enough to call it Stalinism?) helps to explain the
>>> Leontiev at issue
>>> here?
>>> Or, if the critique was there from early
>>> on, what
>>> kind of
>>> concept-complex
>>> would help to explain his writings' wide
>>> acceptance?
>>>
>>> Or, do we forgo all this and just grab Leontiev,
>>> as you say, "on a good
>>> day"?
>>>
>>> Ivan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 3:55 PM, David Kellogg <
>>> vaughndogblack@yahoo.com
>>> <mailto:vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> Mike wrote that as he grows older, he
>>> becomes less attached to his
>>> position (expressed in his editorial
>>> commentary to Luria's
>>> autobiography,
>>> "The Making of Mind") that ideas
>>> really are
>>> highly embodied things.
>>> Mike
>>> says that as he grows older, he
>>> becomes more
>>> and more attached to
>>> Luria's
>>> position that only ideas matter.
>>>
>>> But as I grow older, I become more and more
>>> attached to Mike's
>>> original
>>> position that individuals really
>>> matter. Wine
>>> has no shape of its
>>> own; it
>>> really depends on what bottle we put
>>> it in,
>>> and the form of ideas
>>> depends
>>> very much on the character of the
>>> individuals
>>> wo carry them.
>>>
>>> On paper, the theoretical positions of
>>> Vygotsky and Leontiev are not
>>> that
>>> far apart. So when Mike asks what
>>> presents
>>> Vygotsky's ideas from being
>>> pressed into service by the Stalinist state, I
>>> think the answer has
>>> to be
>>> referred to the individual who
>>> carried this
>>> idea after all.
>>>
>>> I think it is not accidental that one was
>>> amenable and the other was
>>> not,
>>> that one's ideas were deformed and
>>> degenerated, and the others still
>>> amaze
>>> by their freshness and
>>> color. Nor is it
>>> accidental that one lived and
>>> one
>>> died.
>>>
>>> But of course death is simply the moment when
>>> our thinking and spoken
>>> speech must come to an end, and our written
>>> speech, like a hermit
>>> crab,
>>> must find a new home in the minds
>>> and mouths
>>> of others. And by that
>>> measure, it was Vygotsky who lived on, yea,
>>> even in the mind and the
>>> mouth
>>> of Leontiev. Well,
>>> Leontiev on a good day!
>>>
>>> David Kellogg
>>> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>>>
>>> PS; I think I am (once again) with Larry. I
>>> think that if we read
>>> (late)
>>> Wittgenstein as a linguistic (not a
>>> philosophical) pragmatist, that
>>> is,
>>> as
>>> someone who believes
>>> that meaning in language
>>> comes from sense in
>>> activity,
>>> Wittgenstein is
>>> perfectly consistent with what
>>> Marx writes in the
>>> German
>>> Ideology (that language is practical
>>> consciousness, real for myself
>>> because
>>> real for others).
>>> Wittgenstein is
>>> Vygotsky-compatible in other ways,
>>> too,
>>> e.g. his argument about
>>> preconceptual
>>> "families" and his argument
>>> about
>>> the
>>> tool like nature of
>>> signs.
>>>
>>> dk
>>>
>>> --- On Wed, 12/21/11, mike cole
>>> <lchcmike@gmail.com
>>> <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com
>>> <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>>
>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Interpreting Leontiev:
>>> functionalism and Anglo
>>> Finnish
>>> Insufficiences
>>> To: "Larry Purss" <lpscholar2@gmail.com
>>> <mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com>>
>>> Cc: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
>>> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>> <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>, "Morten
>>> Nissen" <Morten.Nissen@psy.ku.dk
>>> <mailto:Morten.Nissen@psy.ku.dk>>
>>> Date: Wednesday, December 21, 2011, 2:12 PM
>>>
>>>
>>> Very helpful, Larry. Thanks.
>>>
>>> As I read the Leontiev materials what was at
>>> issue in 1949 is whether
>>> there
>>> is any "third space" of
>>> the self in the "unity
>>> of consciousness and
>>> activity." I take Stalinism
>>> in these materials to refer to the way that
>>> idealism is joined with
>>> belief
>>> in some sort of
>>> "autonomous" realm of thought.
>>> Zinchenko's work on
>>> micromovements of the eye and perceptual
>>> action seem to me now
>>> significant
>>> in exactly this respect:
>>> they point to a rapid
>>> simulation process
>>> which
>>> is
>>> not mechanically
>>> connected to externalized
>>> action (as one example). If
>>> you
>>> know the future of
>>> history and what is good
>>> for everyone, all such
>>> processes risk deviation from "the true path."
>>> The motives of the
>>> "healthy"
>>> individual are supposed
>>> to coincide with those
>>> of the "collective" (as
>>> represented by the general secretary of the
>>> central committee of the
>>> communist party). Functionalism as command and
>>> control statism.
>>>
>>> If we accept THIS version of CHAT, seems to me
>>> that Phillip is
>>> corrrect -
>>> Use the ideas for something called
>>> communism,
>>> fascism, ANY form of
>>> collective social project.
>>>
>>> David says this is Leontiev's (AT) problem,
>>> not Vygotsky's (CH)
>>> problem.
>>> Larry points
>>> to Wittgensteinian marxism that appears to
>>> provide a way to select
>>> wheat
>>> from chaff (or discover a different
>>> level of
>>> chaff!).
>>>
>>> My guess is that German, Russian, and other
>>> thinkers have already
>>> carried
>>> this conversation pretty far....
>>> Morten's
>>> citation of German work
>>> points
>>> to
>>> this conclusion.
>>>
>>> But how are we poor non_Russian, non_German
>>> reading unfortunates
>>> wandering
>>> in the woods to find our
>>> way?
>>>
>>> mike
>>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 12:08 PM, Larry Purss
>>> <lpscholar2@gmail.com
>>> <mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Andy,
>>> Christine, Mike
>>> I have been hibernating on Mayne Island, a
>>> small Island between
>>> Vancouver
>>> and Vancouver and
>>> Vancouver Island.
>>> [school break for the holidays]
>>> No
>>> internet except at the small
>>> library]
>>>
>>> I was interested in this comment from
>>> Morten Nissen on Andy's book
>>>
>>> Blunden, as it were, attacks it from the
>>> “opposite” side: the
>>>
>>> functionalism
>>> of Leontiev’s
>>> way of relating subject with
>>> society. This has to do
>>> with
>>> how
>>> objects and
>>> motives appear to coincide in
>>> Leontiev’s idealized
>>> image of
>>> the
>>> true society,
>>> that is, the society of
>>> original communism and that of
>>> the
>>> Soviet Union.
>>> Andy, it is this notion of "coinciding"
>>> that I have difficulty with
>>> when
>>> reading about
>>> Activity Theory.
>>>
>>> Leontiev's statements such as "Education
>>> is the decisive force which
>>> forms
>>> man
>>> intellectually. This intellectual
>>> development MUST CORRESPOND TO
>>> THE
>>> AIMS AND THE NEEDS
>>> OF THE ENTIRE SOCIETY.
>>> It must fully agree with
>>> REAL
>>> human needs"
>>>
>>> I'm been browsing through an edited book
>>> by Gavin Kitching and
>>> Nigel
>>> Pleasant titled "Marx and
>>> Wittgenstein:
>>> Knowledge, Morality,
>>> Politics."
>>> These authors take an
>>> interesting
>>> perspective on materialism &
>>> idealism
>>> that gives idealism its place in
>>> our human
>>> being [in contrast to
>>> how I
>>> read
>>> Leontiev}
>>> These authors are exploring a
>>> Wittgensteinian Marxism that examines
>>> Marx's
>>> notion that
>>> "The tradition of all the dead
>>> generations weighs like a
>>> nightmare on the brain of the living" A
>>> Wittgensteinian Marxist
>>> reading
>>> [from the authors perspective]
>>> would make
>>> 3 points.
>>>
>>> 1] Tradition and circumstances cannot be
>>> understood in ABSTRACTION
>>> FROM
>>> the traditions and
>>> understandings that
>>> people have of these
>>>
>>> circumstances.
>>> 2] WHATEVER
>>> such varied understandings
>>> may consist (class, culture,
>>> gender etc) nonetheless some KINDS of
>>> actions by historical subjects
>>> [agents, actors] will prove impossible IF
>>> these actions are entered
>>> into
>>> in
>>> disregard to
>>> the traditions and
>>> circumstances directly GIVEN,
>>> ENCOUNTERED
>>> and transmitted from
>>> the past
>>> 3] A principle WAY in which the TRADITIONS
>>> OF THE DEAD GENERATIONS
>>> weighs
>>> like a nightmare on
>>> the brain of the
>>> living is that ANTECEDENT
>>> historical
>>> circumstances often
>>> make it IMPOSSIBLE TO
>>> THINK AND FEEL (and
>>> therefore
>>> act)in certain ways.
>>> Historically created
>>> material culture restricts
>>> and
>>> enables the making
>>> of PARTICULAR KINDS of
>>> history. People do not
>>> try to
>>> do
>>> things and
>>> then for "material reasons"
>>> find they cannot do things. (
>>> cannot
>>> make history
>>> as THEY PLEASE ) Such
>>> traditions and circumstances
>>> DEEPLY
>>> FORM
>>> what it is
>>> that present generations can
>>> DESIRE TO DO. and CONCEIVE
>>> OF.
>>> (as
>>> well as what
>>> actions they can conceive of
>>> as being
>>> possible/impossible,
>>> feasible/unfeasible)
>>>
>>> It is human action in and on the world
>>> that inextricably LINKS
>>> THOUGHT
>>> (and language) TO MATERIAL
>>> REALITY.
>>> Historical traditions and
>>>
>>> circumstances
>>> are the
>>> outcomes of previous generations
>>> actions [intended &
>>> unintended]
>>> which place
>>> constraints on present
>>> generations. Constraints on what
>>> they
>>> can think, feel,
>>> desire (and how they act)
>>> By keeping these 3 points in mind the
>>> authors suggest we can avoid
>>> falling
>>> into the DEEP
>>> CONFUSIONS which have always
>>> attended the
>>> material/ideal
>>> distinction.
>>> The most DIRECT and comprehensible way to
>>> SEE THROUGH this
>>> material/ideal
>>> distinction is to
>>> see that all action is
>>> simultaneously mental &
>>> physical,
>>> material &
>>> ideal. Neither material or
>>> ideal is an "epiphenomena" of
>>> the
>>> other.
>>>
>>> In my reading of Leontiev in the chapter
>>> from the book posted I
>>> don't
>>> see
>>> the nuances
>>> recognizing the depths of the
>>> "ideal" within Marx's
>>> theory.
>>> This edited book, by putting
>>> Marx into
>>> explicit conversation is
>>> elaborating a Wittgensteinian Marxism or a
>>> Marxist Wittgenstein.
>>>
>>> Larry
>>>
>>> On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 7:39 PM, mike cole
>>> <lchcmike@gmail.com
>>> <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>>
>>> wrote:
>>> Below are two quotations
>>> from Morten
>>> Nissen's review of Andy
>>> Blunden's
>>> book
>>> on activity theory. Full review in
>>> current issue of MCA.
>>>
>>> After presenting the quotation, a comment.
>>> mike
>>> -------------------
>>>
>>> Morten Nissen on Leontiev,
>>> functionalism, and Stalinism
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ….behind this terminological trouble
>>> lies a deep theoretical
>>> problem
>>> in
>>> Leontiev’s
>>> social theory. This problem
>>> was identified in the German
>>> and
>>> Scandinavian
>>> reception (Axel & Nissen,
>>> 1993; Holzkamp, 1979;
>>> Osterkamp,
>>> 1976) but almost
>>> completely ignored in
>>> the Anglo-Finnish (with
>>>
>>> Miettinen,
>>> 2005, and
>>> Kaptelinin, 2005, as the
>>> noble exceptions to the
>>> rule)—and
>>> Blunden, as it were, attacks
>>> it from
>>> the “opposite” side: the
>>> functionalism
>>> of Leontiev’s way of relating subject
>>> with society. This has to do
>>> with
>>> how
>>> objects and motives appear to coincide
>>> in Leontiev’s idealized
>>> image
>>> of
>>> the
>>> true society, that is, the society of
>>> original communism and that
>>> of
>>> the
>>> Soviet Union.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> >From the perspective of this
>>> functionalist utopia, a psychology
>>> could
>>> become relevant only in the
>>> face of
>>> the undeveloped and the
>>> deviant:
>>> as
>>> in
>>> fact,
>>> according to Leontiev (1978),
>>> children and disturbed provide
>>> the
>>> tasks of psychology in the
>>> institutions of the Soviet Union. To
>>> paraphrase:
>>> The child who puts down her book still
>>> has not grasped the harmony
>>> of
>>> society’s needs with the
>>> desire to
>>> learn that she *must*
>>>
>>> develop—she has not yet developed
>>> those “higher cultural needs.”
>>>
>>> Bourgeois
>>> society is
>>> another matter, where sense
>>> and meaning are divided in
>>> principle, but this matter—that of
>>> ideology and social
>>>
>>> critique—Leontiev
>>> sets aside and
>>> forgets. An elaborate
>>> critique of Leontiev’s
>>>
>>> functionalism
>>> was given
>>> already in 1980 (Haug,
>>> Nemitz,& Waldhubel, 1980), and the
>>> background was explained by Osterkamp
>>> (1976) in her groundbreaking
>>> work
>>> on
>>> the theory
>>> of motivation.
>>>
>>> --------------------------------
>>>
>>> Comment.
>>>
>>>
>>> When I first read these passages as
>>> part of the attempted "swap of
>>> ideas"
>>> that
>>> Morten and I tried to organize
>>> around
>>>
>>> our reviews of Andy's book in Outlines
>>> and MCA, I commented how
>>> sad it
>>> was
>>> that the
>>> elaborate critique that goes
>>> back to
>>>
>>> 1980 is not in English and fully
>>> engaged by both European and
>>> "Ango-Finns"
>>> (although how poor Viktor got into
>>> that category
>>>
>>> I do not know!).
>>>
>>>
>>> Seems like real interchange around
>>> these issues is long overdue.
>>> But
>>> given
>>> the
>>> progress of the last couple of
>>> years, I'll not be
>>>
>>> holding my breath!
>>>
>>> --------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>> But thinking about the issues as well
>>> as my limited language (and
>>> other)
>>> capacities
>>> allow.
>>>
>>> mike
>>> __________________________________________
>>> _____
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>>>
>>> --
>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>>> Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
>>> Department of Communication
>>> University of California, San Diego
>>> __________________________________________
>>> _____
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>> Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
>>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
>>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
>>> <http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
>
> __________________________________________
> _____
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--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
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