[Xmca-l] Fwd: Re: Leontyev's activities

[Huw Lloyd]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Date: 10 August 2013 15:51
Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities
To: Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>


Huw, Leontyev is quite specific that needs are the product of activity. One
of the distinctions he makes between human life and non-human life is that
human beings produce their own needs, historically, as a community, whereas
for an animal its needs are given. So we have a kind of duplicated world:
needs and the means of their satisfaction (labour). Like stimulus and
response: which comes first? or do we need a new concept which avoids this
duplication of the world.

There are different interpretations of Leontyev; as I read him, the motive
(let's use this word rather than "need") is objective for a person, that is
the motive of the activity, as opposed to the actions of an individual
person who participates in the activity, who may have other motives. Even
though the motive of the activity is produced culturally and historically,
it is in the world, objective. It has always been a problem for me what on
Earth can be an objective need (other than those elusive "vital" needs).
Like, you work in a gun factory; your motive is to earn a wage so as to
look after your family. But you know the motive of the work is to produce
guns. But why does the community need guns? Where did that come from? And
does the factory owner really care whether he is selling guns or toys, so
long as he makes a profit. Others may do better justice to Leontyev's
argument here, but I have trouble with this.

Peg: yes, Leontyev starts off with single-cell creatures and works his way
up. There *is* a big leap though, with tasks that are completed by multiple
actions, potentially by different individuals, and most imporantly, the
production of tools, means which become themselves needs. Tracing mind from
its origins in non-human life is OK, but I have trouble with ANL's concept
of "subject", which could be a microbe equally as a human.

Andy

Huw Lloyd wrote:

>
>
> On 10 August 2013 15:12, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:
> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
>     Well Huw, I didn't mean to introduce a diversion by taking
>     computers as an example. I could have taken a stone tool just as well.
>
>
> Yes.
>
>     It seems, Huw, that in responding to my challenge you have made a
>     start at developing a theory of human needs.
>
>
> 'fraid not.  Simply asking the question.
>
>     Viz., that there are certain "vital" needs, and all other "needs"
>     are merely means to meet these vital needs. I don't imagine that I
>     am going to be able to refute the claims for a theory of human
>     needs in a single message, it is after simply the claim for the
>     existence of human nature - a concept with a very long history!
>     (Aristotle built his theory of biology on the basis of a theory of
>     needs.) But "vital" human needs are very elastic and other than in
>     very general terms are quite indefinable. But as we change our
>     world, what you need to live in that world are very real and very
>     specific, and those needs arise directly out of participation in
>     that life-world. Which of the thousand different ways that there
>     are to meet the "vital" need of, say, nutrition, becomes a real
>     need for a person, is determined by the cultural context of a
>     person's life and their activity.
>
>
> But these "real needs" are known needs.  Which Leontyev calls motives,
> does he not?
>
>     So I prefer Activity Theory, in which needs are the product of
>     activity, while, as conceived in any given activity, they provide
>     the motive for that activity.
>
>
> So it seems that we do not know whether needs are produced, or whether
> they are exposed.   Did Leontyev make such a distinction?
>
> Best,
> Huw
>
>
>
>     Andy
>
>
>     Huw Lloyd wrote:
>
>         On 9 August 2013 14:57, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
>         <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
>
>             I don't have any doubt that needs are produced. 25 years
>             ago no-one needed
>             a computer. Now it seems that everyone needs them. I don't
>             see you r
>             objection to this, Huw?
>
>
>
>         Well, if you consider needs as primal (vital) such things as
>         computers and
>         the languages people speak are simply ways to meet such needs.
>
>         >From a Marxian social perspective computing is interesting in
>         this respect
>         in that the needs met by the first generation workers is
>         qualitatively
>         different to the management saturated situation we have now.
>          i.e. on the
>         cusp of technological practice workers are more free from the
>         tyranny of
>         alienation.
>
>
>
>
>
-- 
------------------------------**------------------------------**------------
*Andy Blunden*
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
http://marxists.academia.edu/**AndyBlunden<http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden>