Just time for a brief opinion -- and opinions being like belly buttons i have
one too -- I consider space and time to be cultural constructs, as are the
tools that make their meaning and measurement (clocks, rulers, etc.).
Consequently, Engestrom's CHAT need not be extended in principle, but only
more fully explicated with these and related constructs instantiating the
element of artifacts, in the manner of Wartofsky. Quick examples are how
special relativity and then general relativity systematically reconceptualize
space and time over cartesian constructs, how the Internet has broken down
space/time barriers to communications, and how print (now more generally
"information storage" has extended our memory.
But that is not the only element that is explanatory of space and time. In
Engestroms's CHAT the category of rules carries the routines, the "scripts"
in the Shank an Abelson sense, and, in part, the "synomorphs" in Barker's
sense, the contraints and affordances of Gibson (aka Norman) of how humans
access, move through, and exploit space and time. Schedules, driving/walking
on the right in the US or on the left in the UK, staying on the proper side
of the tennis net, and, my favorite example, is the breaking of spatial
scripts by skateboarders, who grind on a hand rail and ollie over curbs,
steps, and fences.
Anyway, apologies for such a compulsive post. But I do recommend highly using
Barker's work as a foil in this discussion.
bb
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