Department of Psychology, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation.
Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russian Federation.
Integr Psychol Behav Sci. 2022 Dec;56(4):1055-1071. doi: 10.1007/s12124-020-09587-4. Epub 2020 Nov 17.
The present paper discusses perspectives of Activity Theory (AT) in the context of contemporary globalizing world, describing which we refer to the notion "De-structuralized modernity" (Sorokin and Froumin 2020). Radical changes in everyday life challenge social sciences and humanities. Approaches are in demand, which have the potential to comprehend the changing human étant and éntre. We argue that Activity Theory has the potential to face these challenges. Leontiev's AT grounds on the idea of qualitatively new mental features arising to deal with novel environmental challenges, which is much in line with J.M. Baldwin reasoning on evolution. AT also offers a method to prognosis the upcoming neoplasms. In the same time, applying classics of AT to the current reality, "De-structuralized modernity", entails the need for new theoretical elaborations of the latter, stemming from the radical transformation of the relations between individual and socio-cultural environments. A unique societal context emerges on the global level, which, on the one hand, requires individual to adapt constantly to changing socio-cultural reality, and, on the other hand, dramatically expands his/her potential for proactive actorhood transforming surrounding structures. We argue that the major and novel challenge for the individual is that maintaining the integrity and coherence of the a) Self-identity and b) system of links with the socio-cultural environment - in their dynamics and unity, has become a qualitatively different issue, much more complicated and problematic than ever before. The notion of "culture" has particular relevance and importance in this context because it allows grasping simultaneously two dimensions in their dynamic dialectical interrelations. First, the "internal" ("subjective", "in the minds") and "external" ("objective", material and institutional environment) realities. Second, individual ("micro") and societal ("macro") scales of human activities. Discussing the ways to understand these dynamics, we dispute the popular "constitutive view" on personality and refer to the concept of the "ontological shift" (Mironenko and Sorokin 2018). We also highlight how technological advancements change and "expand" human nature making it capable to deal with the outlined new tasks.
本文探讨了活动理论（AT）在当代全球化背景下的观点，我们称之为“去结构化现代性”（Sorokin 和 Froumin，2020）。日常生活中的根本性变化挑战着社会科学和人文学科。我们需要寻求具有理解不断变化的人类存在和相互关系的潜力的方法。我们认为，活动理论有潜力应对这些挑战。列昂捷夫的活动理论基于这样一种观点，即新的心理特征的出现是为了应对新的环境挑战，这与 J.M. 鲍德温关于进化的推理非常一致。活动理论还提供了一种预测即将出现的新生物的方法。与此同时，将活动理论的经典应用于当前的“去结构化现代性”现实，需要对后者进行新的理论阐述，这源于个体与社会文化环境之间关系的根本性转变。在全球层面上出现了一个独特的社会背景，一方面，它要求个人不断适应不断变化的社会文化现实，另一方面，它极大地扩展了他/她作为积极行动者改变周围结构的潜力。我们认为，个体面临的主要和新的挑战是，保持自我认同和与社会文化环境的联系系统的完整性和一致性——在它们的动态和统一中——已经成为一个截然不同的问题，比以往任何时候都更加复杂和有问题。在这种情况下，“文化”的概念具有特殊的相关性和重要性，因为它允许同时把握其动态辩证关系中的两个维度。首先，“内部”（“主观的”，“在头脑中”）和“外部”（“客观的”，物质和制度环境）现实。其次，个体（“微观”）和社会（“宏观”）规模的人类活动。在讨论理解这些动态的方法时，我们对流行的人格“构成观点”提出质疑，并提到“本体论转变”的概念（Mironenko 和 Sorokin，2018）。我们还强调了技术进步如何改变和“扩展”人性，使其能够应对所概述的新任务。
