[Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Missing something from your message, Mary.

Re Greg remark on motivation being distributed --

Might there be some affinity between the notions of distributed and shared
in this usage?
mike


On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 3:10 PM, Mary van der Riet <VanDerRiet@ukzn.ac.za>wrote:

>
> Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> Sender: <xmca-l-bounces+vanderriet=ukzn.ac.za@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 08:11:59
> To: Peg Griffin<peg.griffin@att.net>; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity<
> xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities
>
> Greg,
> Thanks for making the distinction between *qualia* [as to conceive
> *conceiving* AS felt relations between something else as a 1st order level]
> AND *abstract concepts* [relations between relations] at the 2nd level.
> You also bring in the notion of *moods* which we are often *captured by*
> which you contrast with intentionally planned activity.
> These *moods* as primordial and then after the mood flows through us [from
> within] we retrospectively [in our conversational realities including inner
> dialogue] compose understandings AS motivations.
>
> I hope qualia and moods as 1st order level understandings dynamically
> flowing through activities can become fore-grounded as this 1st level seems
> vital to Merleau-Ponty's existential phenomenology of actual experience
> within naïve *folk* psychology.
> Activities *capture us* within moods and this level of qualia as
> spontaneous may be primordial. Merleau-Ponty used the phrase *expressive
> cognition* to explore this realm of qualia. How it links up with concepts
> is an open question.
> Systems, and functional explanations seem to focus on knowing-how something
> functions with something else. This form of knowing seems to front load
> concepts.  Christine's exploring *valencia* [spelling?] I read as an
> approach to systems and structure that includes 1st order qualia.
>
> Larry
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 6:49 AM, Peg Griffin <peg.griffin@att.net> wrote:
>
> > I agree!  And that's what research on all the relevant kinds of genesis
> in
> > Field College types of places is all about -- seldom supported and
> > sustained enough for long enough but worth keeping the eye on that prize.
> >
> > By the way we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the March on
> > Washington this week and lots of new historical insight are being
> published.
> > Also lots of celebration including shouting and food and drink!  I'll
> > raise toasts when I can to distant friends, meaning folks like you and
> > otheres on XMCA.
> >
> >
> > Peg
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> >  From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 10:50 PM
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities
> >
> >
> > That's exactly right, Peg, but it is not enough to state that activities
> > are subject-objects and dynamic, unless we can explain exactly how their
> > dynamism is formed. Exactly *what* are the dynamics of activities? I
> agree
> > that diversity is a part of it though.
> >
> > Andy
> >
> > Peg Griffin wrote:
> > > I see it as dynamic ( ready meaning ready to grow) because I see
> > subjective-object and objective-subject  rather than objective or
> > subjective.
> > > As diverse "who" are the  obejctive-subjects the odds of changes in the
> > subjective-object motives go way up.  We might all change enough to
> survive
> > after all.  Working on diversity wasn't an accidental part of LCHC's
> > concern, nor was it for charity or to be nice. It's the dynamism and hope
> > bought by diversity that might separate me (and probably Mike) from the
> > Politburo :)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > *From:* Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> > > *To:* "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > > *Sent:* Tuesday, August 20, 2013 10:48 AM
> > > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities
> > >
> > > I think your example and your way of explaining is perfect, Peg, for
> the
> > purposes of psychology and education. The "socio-cultural motive/activity
> > is ready." It is just this objectivist stance in relation to the societal
> > activities which has always been my main problem with Leontyev. I know,
> of
> > course, that you and Mike and the others involved in 5thD designed
> > activities which were well aligned to widely held aims for the children's
> > development, but where did they come from? Speaking generally, what is
> the
> > dynamic of the activities we see around us? When surveying social and
> > cultural life in general it is obviously not sufficient to say "Mike and
> > Peg designed these activities" any more than it was sufficient to say
> that
> > the Politburo decided the targets for social production.
> > >
> > > So it seems to me that Greg's main problem remains unsolved in your
> > approach, Peg. What do we mean by the "motive" of the activity? *Whose*
> > motive?
> > >
> > > Andy
> > >
> > > Peg Griffin wrote:
> > > > I like the idea of a "well-motivated argument" as used in classical
> > and contemporary logic.  So I say stick to motivated.
> > > > It works so nicely with the distinction between "merely understood"
> > and "really effective" -- and the transition as merely understood motive
> > becomes really effective.  The subject may engage in the actions that are
> > motivated by two different activity systems with two different motives --
> > but say the second is merely understood by the subject and the first is
> > really effective for the subject.  When the human conflict-ing (Luria)
> > mash-up happens and the person lapses into a mosaically related but
> > contradictory action -- poof -- the merely understood is now the motive!
> > > > So the child you and Leontyev describe doing homework is first really
> > effectively motivated by play with adult rules of priority/timing etc.
> but
> > when that child scrunches up his homework paper and throws it in the
> waste
> > basket and starts all over -- poof-- the really effective motive/activity
> > falls apart and the merely understood socio-cultural motive/activity is
> > ready and willing and takes up the slack.  Having alluded to both Luria
> and
> > Leontyev, I now bring in the Beatles -- it's a long and winding road.
>  Not
> > a one-time enlightenment! But praxis makes possible.
> > > >
> > > > When we at LCHC, ages ago, were running the after-school school we
> > called "Field College" (pun and polysemy intended), a funding program
> > officer (Marge Martus) commented that she hadn't seen a single child off
> > task in two hours.  And believe me they were not school or adult governed
> > children!  It was because Field College was strewn with motives that
> > virtually begged for children to engage but also to transition from
> really
> > effective to merely understood and hence to "grow" into a new activity.
>  It
> > would be, I told Marge, like being in a rainstorm and trying to avoid the
> > raindrops if a child were off-all-the available operating tasks!
> > > > We had "center table" rituals and "fifth dimension" constitutions
> that
> > exposed the merely understood motives. And we had participant structures,
> > tasks, procedures, a lot of bells and whistles that fit in dual activity
> > systems/motives, some combonation of which elicited the child's voluntary
> > engagement in a really effective way.
> > > > Peg
> >
>
>