Hi Peter and everyboby,

You wrote:

> I think you're saying that the object of study/subject matter is

> always constituted as part of the activity?

Yes indeed, moreover I think that the object of perception both human and animal is always constituted ("polojen" - this Russian translation of Fichte's term  used EVI describing situation of meeting of subject with it's object - "predmet") as part of the activity. (Traditional psychology regards the perception a passive, "S-R" act.) Moreover I think that the side in relation which constitutes the life has to be "presumed" ("polojen") by living subject.

It's important to underline that the act of presumption ("akt polaganija") is by no means a mental act. That’s why I am not sure in term “presumption”.

Ana Marjanovic-Shane in her XMCA comments on the translation the term POLAGAT’ wrote: “It is an act of focusing one's attention to an object (predmet) - "to

put it down in front of one's mind's eye". Even the act of focusing

attention onto something, gives this something an "ideational" dimension

- a dimension of a relationship between a person who perceives it and

the object itself.” This “ideational” taste is just what  I am afraid of. A plant which presumes a Sun as it's subject  matter doesn't perform any mental or psychic act.

[The root of A.N.Leontiev's contradictions lays in uncritical definition of life which he put into the basis of his theory. This definition he took literally from old biology. He asserted: " As we can see the main feature of the process of interaction of living organisms with their environment is characterized in a peculiarity that any response (reaction) of organism to external influence is active process, i.e. it takes place at the expense of its own  energy." (Glavnaya osobennost' protsessa vzaimodeistviya zhivyh organizmov s okruzhayuschei ih sredoi zaklyuchaetsya kak my videli, v tom, chto vsyakii otvet (reaktsiya) organizma na vneshnee vozdeistvie yavlyaetsya aktivnym protsessom, t.e. sovershaetsya za schet energii samogo organizma.)] 

Otherwise we can see that A.N.Leontiev starting a process of  ascending to concrete psychological theory puts in the basis the wrong abstraction of external stimulus (“vneshnee vozdeistvie”) and specific reaction (“onvet (reaksiya”) organizma). The wrong character of those abstractions is obvious from EVI’s reflection: “A living rabbit may be analytically decomposed into chemical elements, into mechanical ‘particles’, etc. (into aggregate of stimuli and reactions – added by A.S.) But, having thus obtained an aggregate of analytically singled out elements, we shall not be able to perform a reverse operation, even after a most detailed consideration of these elements — we shall never understand why their combination before the analytical dismemberment existed as a live rabbit.”

We can’t reconstruct a living creature from such details as stimuli and reactions. After all attempts we will obtain a marionette or a robot. Starting from this abstraction we would be forced to add to our synthesis something additional, something which doesn’t derives from our initial principles. I mean – Cartesian soul.

> It's very helpful -- your pointing out that this was a source of the

> lack of consistency in Leontiev's theory of activity. I think on
> xmca you mentioned that Gal'perin made a similar error?

Surely. Gal’perin is extremely contradictory in this issue. From one hand he rather funnily reproached Descartes “for showing the exact characteristics of psychophysical dualism” and from other hand he entirely shares Cartesian opinion on animals as purely mechanic constructions.

> I would be very interested in your opinion:  Did Davydov also inherit

> this error regarding PREDMET from Leontiev and Gal'perin. Or did he

> go beyond it?

It’s difficult to give a single meaning answer. Davydov was a disciple both Gal’perin and Ilyenkov. Surely the latter have influenced him much profoundly than the former. But it’s difficult to say something definite concerning this question.

 I dare say if he were a participant of this conversation he should agree with us. His profound  knowledge of dialectical method gives us a right to surmise it.

As for my text with detailed exposition of critic of Leont’ev’s position Davidiv hadn’t read it. He proposed me to began this theoretic investigation, but we hadn’t  a possibility to discuss the results.

Cheers,

Sasha

P.S. By the way, Peter, are you going to Sevilla?

P.P.S. I’ve heard that you fluently know Russian. Is it correct?