6 november 2000
from peter jones
dear colleagues
in response to an earlier message of mine judy commented:
>
>Peter J. contributed a complexifying :) discussion of 'the social' hoping to
>move beyond these terms. I find it useful to push semantic boundaries like
>this, but I think I might be landing on a different position (?). Peter
>wrote:"when I am active _scientifically_ ... my activity is SOCIAL...My OWN
>existence IS social activity, and therefore that which I make of myself, I
>make of myself for society and w/ the consciousness of myself as a social
>being..."
actually this is a quote from marx's early writings. marx's point at this stage
is not to prioritise scientific activity over any other kind of activity
(including play) but to emphasise that the 'private' ('inner') activity of an
individual (ie not directly interacting with anybody else) is, contrary perhaps
to appearances, social activity; when we act in this way our activity is
social.
>and later:
>"this "internal" activity in the head is part of any activity! if activity is
>truly conscious and purposeful (ie it has an object, motive...)"
>and "the plan is the thing" (that distinguishes the architect from the bee)
>The line between 'internal' and 'external' is removed; a line is drawn between
>'science' & 'play'? Maybe Peter can say more about what counts as "conscious"
>and what does not. The emphasis on conscious purpose and scientific production
>concerns me if it is taken as exclusive of the non-scientific, the
>quasi-conscious, the intuition, etc. I think Peter would agree, these
>distinctions are false. I certainly agree with him that to BE fully conscious
>one must "make of (oneself) for society and with the consciousness of
>(oneself) as a social being."
i don't think the distinctions between scientific/non scientific or
conscious/unconscious etc are generally false but i would agree with judy that
they cannot and should not be excluded from our overall view of activity (if we
have one!). i think my main point was that in many versions (or at least
formulations) of activity theory, the emphasis is placed on external,
practical-productive activity resulting in a real object as product to which i
made the objection: fine, but such activity is purposeful, ie it already
includes conscious (and unconscious) premises in the shape of the aim or 'end'
to which the (external) practical activity is directed. there is incidentally
an interesting discussion of the unconscious/conscious thing in felix
mikhailov's book (only in russian unfortunately) 'social consciousness and
individual selfconsciousness' (footnote 50, page 208, my rough translation:
" L S Rubinshtein remarked: 'The mental content of a human personality is not
exhausted by the motives of conscious activity. It also contains within itself
a multiplicity of unconscious tendencies - the impulses of his/her involuntary
activity'... But the whole point is that these impulses are formed within the
integral whole of the real process of people's lives, in their CONSCIOUS being,
and in accordance with the meaning-forming laws of this being, and not as some
separate reality, existing and acting in parallel with this whole, of purely
spontaneous mechanisms regulating involuntary actions".
>
>Let me spin the notion of the social individual out along the line of being
>aware of oneself as a social being. Since we are social beings and both
>affected by the actions of others and affecting them, then to understand
>ourselves as social beings presupposes at least partial (full isn't possible)
>awareness of the effects we have on others. And that presupposes that we
>necessarily READ the social -- societal structures and patterns -- in the ways
>in which we and others act and interact. Moreover, I would say that it is in
>the way we READ that we necessarily perform ourselves as social. Our reading
>is our DOING of the social as much as our production of artifacts.
I would agree with the last point but emphasise that 'we perform ourselves as
social' in everything we do (and don't do!). but i think judy, in all her
comments, is getting at the limitations of AT (also discussed by carl ratner
and mike): the generalities about 'external' 'practical' activity transforming
a real object etc are (at best) merely the beginning and not the end of the
analysis and understanding of human activity; it gives us the pre-conditions
for human acting (transformative and purposive) to some extent but does not
take us very far towards understanding that acting and its historically
differentiating, concrete forms. it places its emphasis on the 'genesis' of the
psyche, of the formation of conscious capacities to act (in general terms) but
it rarely (if ever?) looks at people acting purposefully and in particular
critically (theoretically and practically), ie consciously attempting to change
their own and others' thoughts, feelings, and practices. it sees the origins
and development (to a certain extent) of the human mind in and through
practical social doing but does not adequately (it seems to me) consider the
consequences to the whole system and dynamic of activity of activity becoming
conscious and purposeful- it does not concretely trace the dialectic of the
movement and development of purposeful activity itself. the 'laws' of the
development and movement of purposeful activity (of conscious practice) are not
the same laws as those of the emergence and development of mind from practical
action and interaction with things and other people. perhaps this is where
yrjo's studies come into their own, which show the all-sided, mutual and
reciprocal interaction and mediation of all aspects (means, ends, subjects,
objects, mediator and mediated etc) of the concrete historically developed
system of (purposive) activity??
best wishes to all
P
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