Re: [xmca] artefacts, tools and instruments?

Dima,

Others will have to tell you about some of these terms which have technical
meanings for people like Wartovsky, Engstrom, etc., which I am not too
familiar with. Let me say just a couple of things I feel qualified to say,
so as not to leave waiting in silence.

"Artefact" is an extremely general category - any thing insofar as it is a
product of conscious human activity. Paradigmatic (or archetypal) artefacts
are tools (incl domestic animals, land, machines, computers,...) and signs
(incl. words whether spoken or written, images, etc) and the human figure.

So "tool" is an instance of "artefact."

All artefacts are both physical and intellectual, in that all are physical
(what else can they be??) and all are products of conscious activity and
are invariably used in all conscious activity.

Ask someone else about "rules." I believe they play a special role in
Engstrom's theory. I am sure others can come to your aid here.

And if there is some difference between "instrument" and "tool" then it
resides in some technical usage of the words in someone's theory that I
don't know.

apologies for my imperfect answer
Andy

At 01:43 AM 10/03/2008 +0000, you wrote:

>Hello all, I apologise in advance if the answer to my query is
>commonsensical to many of you but I would truly appreciate your help here.
>I am trying to make sense of certain terms and I am still uncertain as to
>whether (/in what ways) an arefact differs from a tool. And if one is to
>accept that an artefact is both physical and intellectual (such as
>tertiary artefacts that are 'imaginative constructs'), then why are
>'rules' in the Third generation Activity Theory Triangle not referred to
>as (intellectual) tools? Can we use the terms 'instrument' and 'tool'
>interchangeably? I would also be immensely grateful for refrence to any
>articles that dicuss such notions in-depth, especially in relation to
>educational technologies. Many thanks in anticipation,
>Dima DayoubPhD candidate, University of Manchester,
>UK ---------------------------------> Looking for last minute shopping
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  Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435,
mobile 0409 358 651

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Received on Mon Mar 10 00:31 PDT 2008