What I have come to realise more recently however is that this definition is too restrictive both from the point of view of representing human life and from the point of view of the use of activity theory as a means for research. I have examined the contradictions in Leontyev’s theory at length in my article “ Leontyev’s Activity Theory and Social Theory"(2015), and I will only briefly review these contradictions here, insofar as they are relevant to all versions of Activity Theory, including Yrjö Engeström’s theory and modern European and American versions of Leontyev’s theory.
Yrjö Engeström calls the object a “problem space.”Īlthough this definition is intuitively compelling and remains the main foundation of Activity Theory to this day, it is rife with contradictions.
To use a Hegelian expression, the object differs from its concept in some way for example, it is a useful product which, having been consumed must be reproduced before it can be consumed again, or it is a person’s health which is defective and needs to be rectified by medical treatment. The object is also a societal product which exists independently of every person but which, generally in a socially mediated way, meets the needs of the individual (for example by providing an income). cit.), but not in an immediate way, as if by a stimulus→response reaction, but mediated by psychic reflection, which in turn has been shaped by prior participation of individuals in the life of their society. “Society produces the activity of the individuals forming it” ( op. Activity does not exist without a motive ‘non-motivated’ activity is not activity without a motive but activity with a subjectively and objectively hidden motive. Thus the concept of activity is necessarily connected with the concept of motive. For Leontyev, the object is the externally existing reality which orients the activity and provides its motive. Leontyev, is characterised by its object. Activity is more or less synonymous with “practice.”īut what is an activity? An activity, according to the Soviet-era founder of Activity Theory, A.N. “Activity” differs from “behaviour” because activity is understood to be inclusive of the consciousness with which the activity is done. What constitutes “an activity"? by Andy Blunden, January 2022 What constitutes “an activity"? Andy Blunden, January 2022Īctivity Theory is the science which takes social life to be an aggregate of activities, that is, it takes activities as “units of analysis.” This is an epoch-making innovation in the human sciences.
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