Victor asks
>Then where does the distinction between collective activities and
>individual actions come from? ("We may well speak of the activity of the
>individual, but never of individual activity; only actions are
>individual.")
hi victor - i realize you didn't ask "me," but my understanding of this
distinction is that "activity" refers to the sociocultural context of
individual(s) - the activity is not specifically concerned with the
individual but with the larger social and cultural (historical) context -
actions, on the other hand, are what collectively or uniquely constitute
the activity - an action is the "unit" of a larger activity: individuals
are, to borrow a weary term, "actants" - an individual produces an action
that, in a larger sphere, constitutes an aspect of the activity - the
activity is social,
the action is individual:
i'd expect there to be overlapping, in that each individual is socially
interactive,
but ontologically speaking, the ideas of agency - as far as i understand -
still allow for individual difference.
the "activity of the individual" refers, in my understanding, to the
social context of the individual, but "individual activity" is a
contradiction, in that "activity" describes a social sphere,
and actions describe an individual's actions within that larger sphere.
in relation to Ricardo's statement:
>
> a subjective activity of a particular person is not individual, but
>social.
the idea of activity being a social context is maintained - subjectivity
is socially organized,
so subjective activity is a social referent;
whereas an individual action can have an element of subjectivity, which
refers to the 'social' spheres of influence, but not necessarily to the
individual's agency.
does that make sense?
diane
"The world is too much with us,
late and soon..."
Wordsworth.
*********************************
diane celia hodges
Diane_Hodges@ceo.cudenver.edu
hodgesdiane@hotmail.com
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