Re(2): Individual activity?

From: antonio rizzo (rizzo@media.unisi.it)
Date: Tue Apr 10 2001 - 06:38:55 PDT


>Thank you, Diane, for your message! I think we both (as well as most of the
>people on the list) agree that all activities (as well as actions and
>operations) are always social. What I fail to see is how it leads to the
>conclusion that activities are collective and actions are individual. On
>the one hand, actions (and even operations) can also be collective. On the
>other hand, claiming that individuals can only participate with their
>actions in collective activities basically means that individuals have no
>genuine motives. Perhaps, I am so resistant to this claim because it sounds
>familiar to me and reminds about the "good old" days of living in the USSR
>:)
>
>Of course, one can just define activities as something, which "is not
>specifically concerned with the individual but with the larger social and
>cultural (historical) context" and actions as individual. In this case it
>is important to keep in mind that this understanding of activities and
>actions is fundamentally different from other understandings existing
>within the cultural-historical tradition, for instance the one by Leontiev
>(which, of course, does not automatically make new understanding worse or
>better...).
>
>Best wishes,
>Victor
>
> >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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