Individual activity?

From: Charles Nelson (c.nelson@mail.utexas.edu)
Date: Sun Apr 08 2001 - 12:18:06 PDT


 From Chapter 2:

"Human labor, the mother form of all human activity, is co-operative
from the very beginning. We may well speak of the activity of the
individual, but never of individual activity; only actions are
individual."

Furthermore, what distinguishes one activity from another is its
object. According to Leont'ev, the object of an activity is its true
motive. "

"These are the two essential prerequisites for the emergence of the
subject of learning activity. As indicated in Figure 2.12, this
subject is a transitional being, beginning in individual and
developing into collective subjectivity. Its first spontaneous
indications probably appear in the form of disturbing questions,
counter-arguments, attempts to break away, and the like."

Questions:

Given that the subject is transitional, it still begins as an
individual, so at the time of the first individual changing his/her
object, isn't there then an individual activity?

And if that individual is never joined by anyone but continues with
his/her object, why wouldn't that be considered an individual
activity?

How does cooperation negate individual activity? That is, if
different individuals in a particular "activity" have their own
motives, aren't there then individual activities being carried out
co-operatively?

Charles Nelson



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 01 2001 - 01:01:46 PDT