On Activity Theories: a dialogue about what is their richness and their deficiency

Abstract

The participants of a dialogue are discussing the possibilities and limits of the Activity
Approach that has been elaborated in the Soviet philosophy and psychology. The authors are
demonstrating the fruitfulness of this Approach in the context of contemporary philosophy and
cognitive sciences. At the same time the dialogue is trying to show the necessity to make
certain important addition to those Activity ideas which was formulated by Russian scholars.
It concerns not only psychological theories of Activity by A. Leontiev and S. Rubinstein, but also
some principal philosophical theses of the Activity Approach in general. The authors consider
these problems as connected with the ways of the development of human sciences.