By levels I meant levels of analysis. I don't see those levels as building blocks, since I established the connection between the individual action-goal (or action-motive, with especial attention to a plan to use concrete resources) and the object/motive of the activity. Thus, as Leontyev points out, sense or personal meaning is the relationship (I used the word 'distance') between motive and goal.
'Level' and 'unit' are examples of a bad choice of words, but Leontyev also faced the same problem. He is always writing about 'units' or 'components', always between quotation marks.
I believe that he is referring to a level of analysis, not that one can actually take an activity and action or an operation as not being present at once. AA Leontyev later clarified this and came up with the term 'formation'. But he kind of erased the view of the structure of activity that his father had advanced. Obviously an analytical tool was reified. That happens all the time when the use of certain instruments of analysis gets operationalised (I am thinking about the use of questionnaires and questionnaire analysis in social research for instance).
Well, activity is the Universal. It's abstract. So just replace 'level' by 'moment' of the Notion. Would that make it?
But it is not my fault Leontyev used the words 'unit', 'component', 'structure' and, yes, 'hierarchy' (a horrible word isn't it?, but Leontyev actually used it). Obviously the structure refers to moments of a single unit, not about a hierarchical structure such as a scaffold where you can't place level three without building levels 1 and 2.
Blunden (2010) uses 'anatomy' and 'taxonomy' in his comprehensive 'Interdisciplinary concept of activity'. He even uses the word hierarchy, but that does not mean he believes one is higher than the other. I believe he is seeing it in terms of what is external and internal, or the link there is between the subject and the object, but of course everything is happening at once.
In general, I miss the idea of activity systems within activity systems. As is the case with the notion of communities of practice, I see the enactment of pedagogical methods by instructors almost as activity systems in themselves (like systems operating embedded in other system-- a labour union within a given company, for instance).
It's like if groups of instructors belonged to a certain collective that carries with it certain modus operandi. Different alliances are created outside the activity system. When teaching a foreign language, teachers seem to activate certain ways of doing things which are not necessarily explained by the institutional object. But if you attend the conferences they attend you can clearly see that affiliations not necessarily pass through contractual schemes. They may be doing something contrary to the institution's object, yet they are part and parcel of the activity system (I remember a priest using his language class to proselytise). What is missing in activity theory is a theory of identity, especially in post-modern times. Times dominated by decentralised pedagogic identities, as Basil Bernstein would say.
About units, structure, components and hierarchy. Textual sources.
"Being, the life of each individual is made up of the sum-total or, to be more exact, a system, a hierarchy of successive activities. It is in activity that the transition or 'translation' of the reflected object into the subjective image, into the ideal, takes place; at the same time it is also in activity that the transition is achieved from the ideal into activity's objective results, its products, into the material". (p. 181)
Reference: Activity and consciousness: Leontyev, A.N. (1977) Activity and consciousness. In Philosophy in the USSR: Problems of dialectical materialism. Moscow: Progress Publishers
'The General Structure of Activity' (p. 58)
"The fact that the macrostructure of external, practical activity shares certain features with that of internal, theoretical activity allows us to make an initial analysis of activity without regard to the form in which it appears". (p.59)
"The basic 'components' of various human activities are the actions that translate them into reality". (p.59)
"The selection of goal-directed actions as the components of concrete activities naturally raises the question of how these components are internally connected. As we have already mentioned, activity is not an additive process. Likewise, actions are not the special 'parts' that constitute activity. Human activity exist only in the form of an action or a chain of actions". (p. 61)
"At the same time, an activity and an action are genuinely different realities, which therefore do not coincide". (p. 61)
"In connection with selecting the concept of an action as the most important 'component' of human activity, we must keep in mind that any kind of well-developed activity presupposes the attainment of a series of concrete goals, some of which are rigidly ordered. In this process it is characteristic that for higher levels of development, the overall goal functions to realize a conscious motive, which is converted into a motive-goal precisely because it is conscious". (p. 61)
"These 'units' of human activity from its macrostructure. An important feature of the analysis that leads to distinguishing these units is that it does not rely on separating living activity into elements. Rather, it reveals the inner relations that characterize activity". (p. 65)
"It is precisely analysis of the inner, systematic connections that is needed in the investigation of activity. Without this we cannot resolve even the simplest problems, such as deciding in a given case whether we have an action or an operation". (p.65)
"The mobility of the various 'units' of the system of activity is expressed by the fact that each of them can become more fractional or, conversely, can embrace units that formerly were relatively independent". (p. 65)
Reference: Leontiev, A.N. (1981) The problem of activity in psychology. In J.V. Wertsch (Ed.), The concept of activity in Soviet psychology. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe
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