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

[Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>]

Ay, señor!

On Mar 23, 2013, at 2:11 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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