Leontyev’s Activity Theory and Social Theory

Abstract

A. N. Leontyev, the younger of L. S. Vygotsky’s closest colleagues, is widely recognised as the founder of Activity Theory. Vygotsky had approached the cultural formation of the mind in terms of how artefacts, including language, which originate in a wider culture, are used by individuals to resolve situations, which are also the product of the wider culture. He did not, however, investigate how these situations and a person’s motivation, which is a key element in constituting a situation, originate in the social environment itself. This issue was taken up A. N. Leontyev. Vygotsky had recognised ‘activity’ (i.e., social practice) as the substance of psychology, its most fundamental, irreducible category. But his most important discovery was the (molecular) units of activity: artefact-mediated actions. But an artefact-mediated action cannot be understood in isolation. Actions make sense only in the context of the whole series of actions by an individual and the interrelated actions of other individuals. To extend the theory so as to understand the individual’s situation as part of a wider community and its motivation, it was necessary to determine a ‘molar’ unit of activity ‒ a meaningful aggregate of many artefact-mediated actions, whose internal unity would reveal the motivation for individual actions. The psychological investigation of activities was Leontyev’s project. Leontyev’s psychology led directly to an approach to social theory, and he did not shy from taking Activity Theory into that domain, but Leontyev always remained a psychologist and despite the great potential of the framework he provided, his contributions to social theory were fatuous.