Re: [xmca] Polls are closed: Manfred Holodynsk's article is choice

[Carol Macdonald <carolmacdon@gmail.com>]

I thought that what he said was avoiding it: back up your exclamation Martin
Carol

On 23 March 2013 16:48, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:

> I though you wanted to *avoid* metaphysics, Andy!
>
> Martin
>
> On Mar 22, 2013, at 8:17 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> > Thank you Manfred for that clear explanation, and for correcting my
> typing mistake! :(
> > This might be an occasion to mention how my own development of Activity
> Theory differs from yours and that of ANL.
> > I do not work with duality of "the publically assigned meaning and the
> personally felt sense". Rather I use Hegel's approach in which the
> Individual and Universal are mediated by the Particular. This is a relation
> which is applicable not just to motives, but any concept. It allows the
> meaning of the situation to be something which is *realised*. This word
> "realised" is what Wiulliam James would have described as a
> "double-barrelled word" (following Charles Dickens' "double barrelled
> compliment), in that it means both "realised" in the objective sense of
> "made real", as in "The plan was at last realised when the judge delivered
> his verdict," and subjective in the sense of "woke up to", as in "I
> realised that my efforts to reconcile with my wife were doomed to failure."
> I believe that this resolves certain problems which arise in Actvity
> Theory, but remaining within the Activity approach as outlined in your
> excellent paper.
> >
> > Andy
> >
> > Holodynski, Manfred wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear colleagues,
> >>
> >> thank you very much for all your valued comments on my article. There
> are a lot of aspects already discussed and I have some difficulties to
> follow all lines of argumentation. Therefore, I would like to answer to the
> following:
> >>
> >> 1. Emotions as psychological function within the macrostructure of
> activity.
> >>
> >> As Andy claims it I get my Activity Theory from AN Leont'ev and I
> focused especially on his concept of macrostructure of activity and its
> levels of activity that is related to motives, actions that are related to
> goals and operations that are related to the conditions under which an
> action is given. And Andy gets precisely to the heart of it when he stated
> that my article needs to be read with attention to motivation and how the
> macrostructure of an activity is related to the motives and goals of an
> individual. One activity can be realized by different actions, and one
> action can realize different activities.
> >>
> >> May I quote Andy's words:
> >>
> >> " Because motives are not given to immediate perception; they have to
> be inferred/learnt. Emotional expression and experience signal the success,
> failure, frustration, expectation, etc. of goals and motives for both
> participant/observers and the individual subject themself, emotion is tied
> up with motives and goals and therefore with the structure of an activity.
> One and the same action could be part of different “”actions activities (!)
> (MH)””. It is the emotions which signal (internally and externally) the
> success, etc., etc., that is, in an action's furthering an activity, and it
> is this which makes manifest and actual that connection between action and
> activity, for both the observer/participant and the individual subject.
> >>
> >> So there is no metaphysics here. No hypothetical "states of mind", or
> intelligent infants, etc."
> >>
> >> a) Take the example of the opening of the window. That's the behavior.
> What's the goal?
> >>
> >> b) Imagine the person is a leader and opens the window in order to
> greet his followers and to hold a speech. That's the goal. What is the
> activity?
> >>
> >> c) If one look at the circumstances one can derive that the speech is a
> part of a political activity in order to celebrate the election victory.
> So, if the leader also feels pride and enthusiasm about the victory there
> is coincidence between the publically assigned meaning and the personally
> felt sense of the situation. However, it may also be possible that he
> doesn't feel pride but a great burden and he personally feels to be
> overloaded with the duties and future expectations. Then the societal
> meaning assigned by the followers to this situation and the personal sense
> assigned by the leader himself are not congruent. The leader framed this
> situation under an achievement perspective whether he is able to fulfill
> the leadership.
> >>
> >> But, note when we talk about actions and activity, then we speak about
> an advanced level of activity e.g. in children or adults, but not in
> infants who start to have intentions but still not a mental image of a
> future state of affairs.
> >>
> >> 2. Differentiation between the basic level in infants and advanced
> level in older children:
> >>
> >> - A young infant has not already established a goal-driven level of
> actions. In the first weeks one can observe the acquisition of first
> operations and of first expectations what should happen. But these
> expectations are not yet represented as a mental image about the desired
> future states. This is the product of the acquisition of a sign system
> which enables the person to evoke and imagine a future state in the here
> and now and to start to strive for it. And for this starting point, not
> only to imagine different future states, but also to select one of them and
> to start to strive for it, emotional processes come into play that color
> one of the imagined future state e.g. in a state worth striving for and
> that mobilize the executive power to start striving for it.
> >>
> >> However, the ability to form such notions of goals and to transform
> them into actions is not something that occurs automatically. It emerges in
> a long-drawn ontogenetic learning process in which the attainment of goals
> through actions is tried, tested, and increasingly optimized. Older
> children are
> >>
> >> So, for an understanding of my emotion concept the macrostructure of an
> activity is very decisive because I embedded emotions as a specific
> psychological function within the macrostructure of an activity.
> >>
> >> Best
> >>
> >> Manfred
> >>
> >> Prof. Dr. Manfred Holodynski
> >>
> >> Institut für Psychologie in Bildung und Erziehung
> >>
> >> Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
> >>
> >> Fliednerstr. 21
> >>
> >> D-48149 Münster
> >>
> >> +49-(0)-251-83-34311
> >>
> >> +49-(0)-251-83-34310 (Sekretariat)
> >>
> >> +49-(0)-251-83-34314 (Fax)
> >>
> >> http://wwwpsy.uni-muenster.de/Psychologie.inst5/AEHolodynski/index.html
> >>
> >> manfred.holodynski@uni-muenster.de
> >>
> >> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> >> Von: Andy Blunden [mailto:ablunden@mira.net]
> >> Gesendet: Freitag, 22. März 2013 04:13
> >> An: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >> Cc: Holodynski, Manfred
> >> Betreff: Re: Polls are closed: Manfred Holodynsk's article is choice
> >>
> >> Mike, Manfred gets his Activity Theory from AN Leontyev, rather than
> Engestrom's "systems of activity."
> >>
> >> So actions and activities are defined by their goals and motives. So
> Manfred's article needs to be read with attention to motivation and how the
> structure of an activity is related to motives and goals. Because motives
> are not given to immediate perception; they have to be inferred/learnt.
> Emotional expression and experience signal the success, failure,
> frustration, expectation, etc. of goals and motives for both
> participant/observers and the individual subject themself, emotion is tied
> up with motives and goals and therefore with the structure of an activity.
> One and the same action could be part of different actions. It is the
> emotions which signal (internally and externally) the success, etc., etc.,
> that is, in an action's furthering an activity, and it is this which makes
> manifest and actual that connection between action and activity, for both
> the observer/participant and the individual subject.
> >>
> >> So there is no metaphysics here. No hypothetical "states of mind", or
> intelligent infants, etc.
> >>
> >> It's all in there.
> >>
> >> Andy
> >>
> >> mike cole wrote:
> >>
> >> > Hi Andy - and here I was wondering why operation/action/activity were
> >>
> >> > not prominent in Manfred's article. Where does he lay out the views in
> >>
> >> > this note? Am I reading too superficially as usual? Seems important
> >>
> >> > for me to get clear about!
> >>
> >> > Mike
> >>
> >> >
> >>
> >> > On Thursday, March 21, 2013, Andy Blunden wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >>
> >> > Think of your illustration,Martin, about whether, in opening the
> >>
> >> > window, you were acting as a technician or moral leader. I.e., the
> >>
> >> > meaning of the action lies in the activity of which it is a part,
> >>
> >> > which is not immediately given. Manfred does not refer this to
> >>
> >> > "intention" or "belief". Manfred is quite specific that the
> >>
> >> > signalising and self-perception of an action in relation to an
> >>
> >> > activity - i.e., an action's being of this and not that activity -
> >>
> >> > is a function played by emotion. Concepts like internal state and
> >>
> >> > intention are derivative from operation/action/activity, not
> >>
> >> > fundamental.
> >>
> >> >
> >>
> >> > Andy
> >>
> >> >
> >>
> >
> > --
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > *Andy Blunden*
> > Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> > Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
> > http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden
> >
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-- 
Carol A  Macdonald Ph D (Edin)
Developmental psycholinguist: EMBED
Academic, Researcher, Writer and Editor
Honorary Research Fellow: Department of Linguistics, Unisa
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