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Cultural-Historical Activity Theory in the Framework of the “Functional Paradigm” Dmitry A

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Cultural-Historical Activity Theory in the Framework of the “Functional Paradigm” Dmitry A Культурно-историческая психология Cultural-Historical Psychology 2020. Т. 16. № 2. С. 19—24 2020. Vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 19—24 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/chp.2020160203 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/chp.2020160203 ISSN: 1816-5435 (печатный) ISSN: 1816-5435 (print) ISSN: 2224-8935 (online) ISSN: 2224-8935 (online) Cultural-Historical Activity Theory in the Framework of the “Functional Paradigm” Dmitry A. Leontiev National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2252-9805, e-mail: [email protected] The aim of the paper is to highlight the peculiarity of the present state of the Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) in psychology, as compared to previous periods of its development in the general context of theory development in psychology. The author sees this peculiarity in that CHAT exemplifies an anti-Aristote- lian paradigm which suggests that the actual functioning of living systems cannot be fully deduced from a priori existing morphological and psychological structures. This emphasis unites CHAT with two other influential approaches to the explanation of human conduct, existentialism and the systems approach to autoregulating systems, which can be found from early cybernetics to synergetics and the theory of complexity of our own day. Although they each occupied marginal positions in human sciences in the middle of the last century, all three approaches now find themselves articulating the same message in different words; basic similarities between them allow us to speak of their confluence into what may be called the functional paradigm. The functional paradigm states the primacy of the process, actual functioning, activity, or existence, the absoluteness of un- certainty and changeability, and thus seems to be the most relevant paradigm for the challenges of our times. Keywords: Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), regulation, self-regulation, autoregulation, cyber- netics, existentialism, agency. Funding: The study was funded by the Russian Science Foundation (RSCF), project # 16-18-10439 “The Systemic and Dynamic Analysis of the Activity Regulation”. Acknowledgements: The author is grateful to Dr. Martin Lynch for helping in the language editing. For citation: Leontiev D.A. Cultural-Historical Activity Theory in the Framework of the “Functional Paradigm”. Кul'turno-istoricheskaya psikhologiya = Cultural-Historical Psychology, 2020. Vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 19—24. DOI: https://doi. org/10.17759/chp.2020160203 Introduction Since the late 1970s a new shift of emphasis became visible, a shift toward the relations between activity The conceptual foundations and thesaurus of the and personality, to the issues of activity regulation Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) have been and self-regulation and its ontogenetic development. rather stable for decades; nevertheless, the foci of theo- Mikhail Kotik [22] and Oleg Tikhomirov [37] were retical and empirical research shifted through its history among the first authors who introduced the ideas of from one to another problem and concept. regulation and self-regulation of object-related activ- Vygotsky’s emphasis in the late 1920s—1930s was ity, including the thinking activity, to the context of on the relation between individual mind and culture, on activity theory; both authors stressed the role of per - the issues of social and cultural mechanisms of shaping sonal meanings in regulatory processes. Somewhat the human mind, on the problems of social and genetic later, Vyacheslav Ivannikov [18] launched his studies psychology. Alexey N. Leontiev’s emphasis, during the of voluntary activity regulation and a large group of early stages of the construction of activity theory in the authors ([2; 4; 7; 35; 36; 38]) contributed to the de - late 1930s-1950s, was on the relation between activity velopment of the theory of regulatory function of per - and consciousness, on the issues of emerging conscious- sonal meanings and meaning formations (see [24; 25] ness and mind at large as a phenomenon of life, and on for details). the problems of genetic, comparative and educational Probably the first scholar to have noticed this last psychology. At the next stage, in the late 1950s—1970s, shift and to have given it a conceptual shape was Bluma the emphasis shifted to the relations between activity, Zeigarnik, who published a paper entitled “Mediation action, and operation, to the issues of activity structure and self-regulation in norm and pathology,” in which she and actual genesis, its executive mechanisms, to the characterized these two concepts as central ones for the problems of general and cognitive psychology. given period of the activity theory approach ([43]; see CC BY-NC 19 Leontiev D.A. Cultural-Historical Activity Theory... Леонтьев Д.А. Культурно-историческая психология... also [44]). Her understanding of mediation as the stable wrote about a hundred years ago that both human per- modus of behavior in the mature person and her analysis sonality and human activity emerge through overcom- of mediation distortions in different mental pathologies ing the logical law of identity, a being equal to itself [13, allowed her to proceed from activity regulation to self- p. 80]. That means that personality emerges at the point regulation. The latter was conceived as the functional at which a person stops being equal to themselves, stops capacity of the whole person as an active agent, possess- being predictable and manageable. ing multiple degrees of freedom regarding her activity. True, the challenge of the 20th century was making Since then, the issues of regulation and self-regu- sense of human psychological consistency, but the chal- lation have become and still remain one of the central lenge and demand of the 21st century is making sense of problem fields in CHAT. Specifically, this refers to cog- human psychological change. The essentialist paradigm nitive processes (Boris M.Velichkovsky, Tatyana Ko- is no longer satisfactory and this became clear even by rnilova, a.o.), motivation (Tamara Gordeeva, Ekaterina the middle of the last century. Gordon Allport [1] said Patyaeva, a.o.), personality (D.Leontiev, Vadim Petro- that “personality is less a finished product than a transi- vsky a.o.), developmental psychology (Elena Smirnova, tive ptocess” (p. 19). George Kelly [20] introduced the Katherine Polivanova a.o.), clinical psychology (Elena concept of ontological acceleration, meaning by this that T. Sokolova, Elena Rasskazova a.o.), etc. The aim of this a human being changes, and this refers not only to on- paper is to reveal the methodological status of the self- togenetic or functional development but what changes regulation approach as a part of what may be called the is rather the human being as the species; our theories functional paradigm in the psychology of the 21st cen- describe the human being of yesterday rather than the tury, and highlight the place and the meaning of CHAT human being of today. Erich Fromm [15], having ana- as an important part of this paradigm today. lyzed the problem of human nature, concluded that it consisted of the lack of any fixed nature. Recently Alex- ander Asmolov [2] stated that the target of psychology Two competing paradigms of our days is studying the changing person in the chang- in modern psychology ing world (p. 365). What can be the essence of this new paradigm, which Every meaning, including the meaning of a scientific is coming to replace the essentialist one? Jean-Paul Sar- theory, is defined by the context. Nowadays, the purity tre phrased it in terms of his famous statement, “exis- of a scientific school is not as important as it used to be tence precedes essence” [34]. This means that there are some 50 years ago; on the contrary, a broader integra- no stable essences which would help to explain what is tion and broader contexts are required to see the mean- actually going on in the course of our existence. Alexey ing of our work better. The leaders of CHAT refer to the N. Leontiev [23] expressed the same idea in a somewhat failure of essentialist thinking, focus on change, future- different way, saying that all mental structures emerge mindedness, probabilistic world, self-organization, and and take shape through intentional activity. This state- so on (e.g. [3]). ment had multiple empirical proofs. One more phrasing The classical psychology of the 20th century was of the same fundamental idea belongs to the prominent based on the idea that individuals maintain a stable iden- physiologist, Nikolai Bernstein [5], who summarized his tity and are equal to themselves. This essentialist natu- studies of human physiology, which he called the physi- ralistic explanatory paradigm proceeds from Aristotle, ology of activity, in this way: “the task gives birth to the who stated that all bodies behave in accord with their organ”. underlying inherent nature; the point is to ‘cognize’ this All three approaches remained rather marginal nature that would allow us to predict all its individual through the 20th century; however, they seem to be manifestations. most relevant for the new challenges of our century. James Bugental, prominent existential therapist, More than this, the underlying principle of all three ap- coined a metaphor of human life referring to a comic strip proaches is essentially the same, and it constitutes the published in a newspaper: in the cartoon a small child is most contemporary paradigm which may be called the asking his parents whether we are alive or on tape. This functional explanatory paradigm (see [26]). It says: an is the main question, are we alive or on tape, because our individual resides in a permanent stream of changing experiences accumulated through our lifetime are being relations to the world. These relations precede any sus- recorded on multiple tapes (today we would call them tainable mental structures of mind and personality and files or routines). Traits, drives, instincts are examples of explain their emergence and change.
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