Re: [xmca] Mike Cole on Instrumentalist understanding of mediation

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Thanks Andy. The first sentence is garbled/ It should read

do not reduce mediation to instrument.
mike

On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 5:17 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject:        Re: [xmca] further thoughts on the book "Vygotsky in
> Perspective"
> Date:   Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:40:36 -0700
> From:   mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> Reply-To:       lchcmike@gmail.com
> To:     ablunden@mira.net
>
>
>
> Hi Andy--
>
> Sorry to be slow. What i reported was a note in the margin of the paper by
> Latour on Morality and Technology:  do not reduced mediation reduced to
> instrument.
> In writing this I was thinking that instrumentalism seems to assume a
> pre-figured goal while mediation emphasizes the ongoing process in which
> the object of activity is always "just over the horizon." In such a
> process, goal formation becomes essential for action. With the goal
> specified, one can conduct an analysis of the means used to achieve that
> goal. But if the object, and correspondingly, the goal, are
> under-specified, if they require, let us say, a dollip of imagination,
> might change, opening up other possibilities for action.
> I relate this issue to the earlier discussion of Leontiev in his
> Stalinist/Lysenkoist mode. The object of activity is PRE-scribed.  The
> State sets the agenda.
>
> The issue of goal formation is something we worried a good deal about in
> /The Construction Zone/. What is unusual about that book in this context is
> that we took Leontiev's ideas very seriously in attempting to theorize our
> work. Yet a major conclusion was that in order for learning to generalize
> broadly, it is essential that goal formation be a part of teaching/learning
> process.
>
> Anyway, that was what I got to thinking about.
>
> mike
>
> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 9:47 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:
> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
>   What would a reduction to intrumentalism claim, Mike, and what (in
>   brief) is such a reduction omitting? Is there an examplar we can
>   read? ANd who was accusing who in relation to LSV and ANL?
>   Andy
>
>   mike cole wrote:
>
>       To me a central message, among many, Larry, was Do Not Reduce
>       Mediation to
>       Instrumentalism. Seems like a key issue in the presumed
>       development of LSV
>       thought from 1928-1934 and a key issue in LSV vs ANL.
>       mike
>
>
>
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