A curious thing about the term "activity theory," and its grounding in
Marx... Probably it's just a coincidence, but "action theory" is
traditionally associated (in Germany, e.g. Frankfurt School) with Weber,
and is usually opposed to Marx-derived "structural theory." Weber's
"action theory" was often perceived by German neo-Marxists as the "bad
guy" that a Marxist theorist would oppose, because it didn't adequately
acknowledge the structural basis of society/philosophy/psychology.
Of course, this was Vygotsky's provenance, and perhaps in Russia Weber
was not an issue. I'll close with a question: Did the Russians (e.g.
Vygotsky) refer to what they were doing as "activity theory"? What is
the Russian word that gets translated this way? And what are that word's
connotations?
Keith Sawyer
Department of Psychology
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA 95064