Description
Book SynopsisFor the first time, this book presents to Western readers a current in the late Soviet philosophy of the 1960s and 1970s known as the 'activity approach'. It had to some degree a counterpart in so-called cultural-historical psychology, but whilst the work of Vygotsky and Leontyev was received in the West decades ago, its sibling in philosophy has remained virtually unnoticed. Started by Evald Ilyenkov in the early '60s, the activity approach soon became an intellectual mode, leading to several different interpretations of human activity and challenging Marx and Lenin.
Table of ContentsIntroduction Andrey Maidansky and Vesa Oittinen 1. Activity and the Search for True Materialism David Bakhurst 2. ‘Praxis’ as the Criterion of Truth? The Aporias of Soviet Marxism and the Activity-Approach Vesa Oittinen 3. Reality as Activity: The Concept of Praxis in Soviet Philosophy Andrey Maidansky 4. The Category of Activity in Soviet Philosophy Inna Titarenko 5. The Activity-Approach and Metaphysics Edward M. Swiderski 6. Abstract and Concrete Understanding of Activity: ‘Activity’ and ‘Labour’ in Soviet Philosophy Sergey Mareyev 7. The Kiev Philosophical School in the Light of the Marxist Theory of Activity Elena Mareyeva 8. The Evolution of Batishchev’s Views on the Nature of Objective Activity, and the Limits of the Activity-Approach Alexander Khamidov 9. The Activity-Approach in Soviet Philosophy and Contemporary Cognitive Studies Vladislav Lektorsky 10. The Concept of the Scheme in the Activity-Theories of Ilyenkov and Piaget Pentti Määttänen 11. The Ideal and the Dream-World: Evald Ilyenkov and Walter Benjamin on the Significance of Material Objects Alex Levant Bibliography Index
