[Xmca-l] Re: The notion activity

[Andy Blunden]

It is a difficult word to translate when meant in a 
philosophical context. There are several issues.

The English word "activity" is very ambiguous, but so are 
the German words that it translates to. I'll leave Russian 
aside because I am not familiar with Russian.

The sense in which "Activity" is used in CHAT is two-fold. 
It means both the general *substance *of human life 
(*everything *is activity) and in this sense it is used in 
the singular only and without an article. The philosophical 
usage is like the common usage when you say "There was a lot 
of activity in the City today." The other meaning is used in 
either singular and plural and may have articles (the, an, 
some, ...) and refers to specific aggregates of actions 
which share a common aim. Like "Every action I take while 
driving my car is part of the *activity* of driving my car, 
i.e. all directed towards the object of safely driving my 
car." Every activity has an object (the reason for driving, 
perhaps to get my drivers' licence) which differs from the 
aim of each individual action making up the activity. An 
activity may be composed of actions done by *different 
*people. Like the postal service is an activity, but 
requires the coordinated action of many different people who 
don't even know each other.

As it happens, Marx and Hegel use the opposite German words 
for the first and second of these meanings. So one can't be 
too picky about choice of word so long as your meaning is 
clear and consistent.

Another issue is that there is a tendency in Marxism which 
restricts the meaning of "Activity" to "labour." But I 
believe that this is a rhetorical gesture which is 
irrelevant for Psychology. For the purposes of Psychology 
all activity is a labour process and vice versa.

Then people argue about the difference in meaning between 
work and labour, to do with whether the labour is 
alienated,etc., but I think this distinction is unhelpful.

An activity is a "social practice." What word do you use in 
Swedish for a "practice"?

The Svesnka version of Theses on Feuerbach: 
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.marxists.org/svenska/marx/1845/03-d006.htm__;!!Mih3wA!Uj1AmD5Wx5LyFPLTJCCgWbzfzTLwzMI7nxUBSlmKQFnmwDeTzjkRNYxXDpBB97EzCZfFNg$  seems 
to use "verksamhet" for activity, but the meaning is 
essentially the same as "praxis."

But take care of the distinction between "an activity" which 
has "an object" and "activity" which is a whole mass of 
activities, the unit of which is one activity.

Hope that all helps.

Andy


------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Hegel for Social Movements <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!Uj1AmD5Wx5LyFPLTJCCgWbzfzTLwzMI7nxUBSlmKQFnmwDeTzjkRNYxXDpBB97ESyjHenQ$ >
Home Page <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!Uj1AmD5Wx5LyFPLTJCCgWbzfzTLwzMI7nxUBSlmKQFnmwDeTzjkRNYxXDpBB97GbzU6dUQ$ >
On 5/05/2020 11:24 pm, Hans Knutagård wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am struggling with the notion activity and how to explain that in a Swedish context. I find myself using a notion between work and activity but that is the word I would like to explain for the Swedish audience. In Sweden we use verksamhet but that word could also aim at organization. I found that the russian word is dejatelnost or деятельность but where could I find a good explanation for that? Even though it is not in Swedish.
>
> Thank you for all input
>
> Yours
>
> Hans Knutagård, Senior lecturer
> School of Social work
> Faculty of Social Sciences
> Lund University
> Sweden
>
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