Greg, perhaps we could try some alternative words to "motivation"?What about "ideal" or "concept"? The ideal or concept of a project defines the norms which characterise the activity, and give us the best go at making sense of the "motivation of an activity". I say "the best go" because "motivation" seems to me to be a word which is applicable only to individual persons. Leontyev used the word "motive" for what defined an activity in a way that is ambiguous. It can be, as in Manfred Holodynski's interpretation, the end which is being served by the immediate goals of the actions making up the activity, in the subjective sense that a person is going to the window (goal) because they want give a speech (motive), but also in the objective sense, for example, that an arms factory is producing guns because the community needs guns. In this latter sense, the motive of "producing guns for the community" is an "only understood motive," and what motivates the factory worker (sets her in motion) is the need to earn a wage to raise their family - that is the "really effective motive." But the concept of "arms production" does not rely on the questionable idea of "corporate motivation", just the norms of participation in "arms production".
Does that assist at all in your issue, Greg? Andy Greg Thompson wrote:
... p.s. ... I think Larry described nicely what I am trying to achieve - a notion of activity that does not have at its center a sovereign subject. My post questioning the merging of phenomenology with activity theory speaks to the central intellectual concern and the "for what" of what I'm hoping to do in my work.