Activity, its units, components, levels and structure

There has been some concern about the use of the term 'level' in the video on Agency and Vygotskyan theory that I uploaded a week ago (video). This concern is not new and doesn't involve only the term 'level' but the terms 'unit', 'component' and 'hierarchy'.

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

Agency and Vygotskyan Theory

Agency and Vygotskyan theory from Arturo Escandon on Vimeo.

How Chomsky got Saussure wrong

This is a remarkable paragraph contained in Roy Harris' book Saussure and his interpreters. One that can summarise precisely the difference between Chomsky's brand of structuralism and Saussure's one:

It is not in following the rules of chess that the players display any creativity: it is in using the rules to contrive situations on the board that open up opportunities for them and cause problems for their opponents--a quite different matter, and one of chess parole, not of chess langue. (Harris, 2001, p. 155)

Saussure: A Hegelian going stray

When I studied Saussurean linguistics, the commonly held view was that the Course laid the foundations of structuralism. Much emphasis was put onto the dualism langue-parole (language-utterance) and therefore, one seemed to ignore the fact that Saussure set the basis of his semiology on the triad langue-langage-parole. Of course, Saussure, at the beginning of the Course, is set to look for the subject matter of a science of language and the distinctions he makes among language, human speech and speaking are made in order to justify the chosen subject of linguistics, i.e. language. And the subject matter of linguistics is, for Saussure, the most stable part of the triad, the passive collection of the conventions adopted by society that enable individuals to exercise the faculty of speech. Thank you very much.


A closer and more careful examination of the triad makes me believe Saussure is establishing a Hegelian distinction among the universal (langue), the particular (langage) and the individual (parole). 'Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other' (p. 4). Furthermore, one cannot help but think on further Hegelian influence in Saussure. Let us have a look.

First, let us ponder Hegel's assertion that philosophy is distinguished from the other sciences in that it alone can presuppose neither its object nor is method. Philosophy, for Hegel, starts with a subjective presupposition. Philosophy, unlike other sciences, cannot make a clear start. Its quest for detaching from representations and dealing with notions that are severed from them is an impossible one because notions (unlike Kant's belief) are not a given, they are historically constructed (i.e. they are subjective). Philosophy, for Hegel, is circular. Now, let us have a look at the following reflection written by Saussure in the Course: 'Other sciences work with objects that are given in advance and that can then be considered from different viewpoints; but not linguistics. Someone pronounces the French word nu 'bare': a superficial observer would be tempted to call the word a concrete linguistic object; but a more careful examination would reveal successively three or four quite different things, depending on whether the word is considered as a sound, as the expression of an idea, as the equivalent of Latin nudum, etc. Far from it being the object that antedates the viewpoint, it would seem that it is the viewpoint that creates the object' (p. 8).

So what is the departing point that cuts up Hegel's approach toward philosophy from Saussure's approach toward a science of signs? The answer may lie on the chosen part of the triad. What Saussure does when he points out the universal is the subject of a science of the life of signs in society is severing from it the particular and the individual. For Hegel, in contrast, there cannot be universal without the individual instantiation.


It is all very well said, of course, but the task is horrifyingly difficult. The problem arises when one tries to keep the three moments of the notion (universal, particular, individual) together throughout research only to discover that the exercise has gone stray, becoming an unintended exercise in reification (the researcher is, after all, looking forward to achieving a higher level of generalisation) or it is so grounded that no generalisation is possible: The conclusions of research only apply to the individual case.

Aichi Triennale 2010, contemporary corporate circus?

Too much money in Aichi and so few venues where to show it off. This Japanese prefecture is home to car manufacture powerhouse Toyota Motor Corp and although the Japanese economy continues its programmed downfall, the prefecture has been growing steadily instead.

Well, prefecture officials have been busy formulating a plan to give culture depth to the prefecture's capital, Nagoya, sometimes dubbed Japan's Detroit. And Nagoya is a newly rich in the world's neighbourhood. Lots of money but no style. They organised the World Expo in 2005 but for all the money they spent--including building an international airport mostly with flights to international destinations like Tokyo--, they could not get a title of nobility. Nor the skyscrapers that populate the area near Nagoya Station can break away with the city's humble origin. Their bet this time: to gather artists from all over the world, especially from Asia and put together a Triennale. Besides, they could use art to educate the people of the prefecture by not only having them as public and somehow absorb knowledge but as producers of art.

They may have partially succeeded, if one is to judge the enterprise by the number of people cueing to get into the Triennale venue and all the projects the prefecture officials have organised at grass root community level, including primary and secondary school projects and the involvement of tertiary educational organisations engaged in arts education. But at the same time it was worrying to see that most of the public on Sunday--the second day of the Triennale--was on the streets of the city centre watching the typical Japanese end-of-summer parade, a waterdown carnival whose purpose seems to give the working class population of the city the opportunity to earn a few bucks by installing street stands and selling junk food, like in olden times. Besides, most of the participants march like a paramilitary army. No excesses are committed here. The parades work like Swiss wristwatches. Japan is not Rio de Janeiro.

Also worrying is the link established between artists and industry. Few Japanese artists enjoy wide recognition and celebrity status. One could expect a detached view of Japanese affairs from such an artist, especially when they can keep certain economic independence. It's troublesome that one of the few who does enjoy public recognition in Japan, Yayoi Kusama, designed together with Toyota the Polka-dot car. The artist, who defines herself as an 'avant-guard artist' in the welcoming message of the Aichi Triennale just made a joke of herself.

The question that rises here is precisely about this link between the corporate world and the arts at large. When the arts look more and more like the space where commodities are produced who are the artists who joined Kusama and made a joke of themselves? One would expect some sense of independence. At least a simile of independence (which would add value to the commodity by the way).

After a quick review of the exhibition entitled 'Arts and cities' one cannot help but start associating art with the awesome world of circus, the Roman entertainment designed to alienate the city population. Bread and circus, that was all what Romans cared about the city state of affairs. Few works from this exhibition actually have enough social depth to be instruments of reflection. It is not as if one would expect the artist and his or her work aligning with some sense of morality but what perspires here is the thought that many artists just made their works with a unique idea on mind: to entertain (and cheaply). True art reveals itself as well, no matter how well orchestrated is the intention to cast a screen of smoke in front of the public eye. But the uniformity of contemporary art grouped under the 'entertain or fail' motto is worrisome and profoundly boring (beautiful paradox). It's like seeing a thousand-time reproduction of the paycheck received by pop clown Andy Warhol reproduced thousand times.

Yet, art is measured by art's own measure. And there are a few sparks in Aichi Triennale 2010.

Japan's national catholicism

What can the interpretation of a text tell us about the society in which the process of interpretation takes place? That's seems to be the basic idea behind Heidegger's hermeneutic circle. What the hermeneutic circle can tell us of a society in which the original text is hidden from its members as it is the case with Japanese society?

Weber's comparison of the Protestant and Catholic faiths starts with the problem of interpreting "the text", the Bible, in this case. In the former, the text is interpreted directly by the members of the cult. In the latter, the text is mediated through the interpretation of the Church, especially through its Catechism. Thus, Weber correlates Protestant hermeneutics to a strong sense of entrepreneurship and pro-action condensed in the Protestant ethics; whereas Catholic hermeneutics has its correlate in a patriarchal situation where the member of the cult adopts a passive attitude towards the organisation of labour. Everything is received. Furthermore, everything is received in piecemeal fashion. There cannot be insightful appreciation of theoretical cohesiveness. The recipients of the readings cannot but have faith in the interpretation they are been given because the interpretation is fragmented.

These two ways of being have enormous implications in the concept of citizenship and organisation of civil society.

So let us take a quick look at Japan, where the school system systematically hides the original text. There is a complete lack of access to the manuscript, to the original work throughout the school experience. Pupils rarely face the original novel, work of History or essay. There is an abundance of cathechism and a lack of personal research and understanding. Texts are interpreted in textbooks in similar fashion to the interpretation of the Bible done by the Catholic Church in 18th and 19th Century Europe. A professor in a Japanese university told me once that it took a serious effort trying to bridge students' ability to read from the simple reading of second or third-hand interpretations to the ability to read a text in its original form.

If we look at the phenomenon from a Bernsteinian perspective, we can see that in the case where the original text is hidden, the possibilities for the recontextualisation of knowledge --a routine operation carried out by what Bernstein calls the pedagogic device-- are wider. However, in a society where the reading of the original text is virtue, the possibilities for recontextualisation are narrower. In the former case, the power lies with the mediational organisation (intrinsic power). In the latter, the power still lies with the mediational organisation but some power remains in the ideas offered in the original text (extrinsic power). The only way to check the mediators and their intentions is by having access to the original text. In a society where the original text is kept outside the public domain, it is impossible to check the accuracy and object of the mediation. You have to trust the mediation is sound. You ought to have faith in the authorities.

Social consciousness in Japan

A Japanese writer tells a story about her being racially profiled by the police for being tall and having dark skin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/opinion/08iht-edkumiko.html

She believes there is no word in Japanese for "racial profiling". Two days ago I spent 10 minutes explaining the term "affirmative action". One of the missions of the Japanese education system seems to be to avoid such terms. I remember the Ministry of Education skimming an English textbook lesson based on gender issues in the film "The whale rider" so as not having students discussing the gender issues contained in the film. What kind of consciousness does have a Japanese person who can read western newspapers and engage in civil rights issues?