Keith:
this issue of action versus activity is not only somewhat complicated
as Mike already wrote, but it gets still more complex by pulling Weber's
voice into the circle of disagreeing debaters. Being a psychologist,
I had not seen Weber as an action theorist to speak of, from sociology
only Habermas would come to my mind. So I cannot really comment on your
observation other than I do below -- which is quite oblique to your
original question, I fear.
=46or Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, the distinction of action and
activity is not one between two camps of schools of social theory,
rather it is an internal distinction, primarily as prescribing different
methods of research, dependent on whether you want to look at consciously
regulated behavior of individuals (action) or at the joint activeness
and (re)production of a community of practice (activity). So this might
be called an epistemological distinction. Another sense is ontological:
Activity and action are two different, autonomous process levels with
their own internal "laws" of development -- that is, activity theorists
like me regard social reality as if there were these two levels, and
more, both "below" and "above".
Therefore, whatever others say that still hold fast to the Marxist
roots of activity theory, I see no contrast to speak of between a
Weberian perspective and the more recent (and more encompassing)=20
framework of CHAT.=20
The category of "gegenst=E4ndliche T=E4tigkeit" was explicated in psychology
by A.N. Leont'ev and S.L. Rubinshtein, and they referred to Marx. But
it is older, a brain-child of German Idealism (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel,
and Feuerbach). Marx's sketch I meanwhile regard as a dangerously
one-sided productivist version, therefore the "third wave" (see Yrj=F6
Engestr=F6m's abstract for the AAA symposium) is very important and
urgent. In the past 5 years, I have studied American Pragmatism,=20
especially Peirce, and have found that there is another heir tradition=20
building on a critique of Hegel's obscurely visionary theory of
social mind.
Having written this, I am curious why the question is important for
you. What different consequences follow, if any ?
Arne.
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