[Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities

Wed Aug 21 21:13:01 PDT 2013

Apologies for empty message (either me or toddler inadvertently pressing phone buttons)
Mary

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
________________________________
From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 15:38:40 -0700
To: Mary van der Riet<VanDerRiet@ukzn.ac.za>; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity<xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
ReplyTo: <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities

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<mailto:VanDerRiet@ukzn.ac.za>> wrote:

Sent from my BlackBerry� wireless device

-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com<mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com>>
Sender: <xmca-l-bounces+vanderriet=ukzn.ac.za@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:ukzn.ac.za@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 08:11:59
To: Peg Griffin<peg.griffin@att.net<mailto:peg.griffin@att.net>>; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity<xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto: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 na�ve *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<mailto: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<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto: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<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>
> > *To:* "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto: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
>