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

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

No pica!!


On Saturday, March 23, 2013, Martin Packer 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
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