Glossar-English:Excursus: Actions

Excursus to: Bildrezeption als Kommunikationsprozess, Interaktion und Kommunikation

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Two concepts of action with different scopes Figure 1: Hierarchical embedding of the two concepts of action and their environment Actions are usually contrasted with mere behavior, whereby the difference to the latter lies in the consciously pursued goal, the purpose of the action recognized by the actor himself (cf., for example, [Weber 2005a]Weber, Max (2005): Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie. Zweitausendeins, Frankfurt/M. Notiz: (Orig.: 1921/22) Nicht angezeigt: Zwei Teile in einem Band; Hrsg. von Alexander Ulfig ). For some questions, however, this narrow concept of action should be accompanied by a broader concept. If the concept of action presupposes the conscious setting of goals and, thus, self-awareness, then attempts to explain self-awareness conceptually in terms of action theory must become circular. If, on the other hand, not all actions are already self-aware, there are opportunities to employ certain constellations of actions in the broader sense as a basis for actions in the narrow sense and, thus, for the introduction of the concept of “self-awareness”. Behavior, in general, and also the two action concepts are characterized by the presence of an activity carrier. A special form of behavior is that of biological activity carriers (see Fig. 1). While no purposes established by evolutionary processes are attributed to the behavior of inanimate activity carriers, for example, articulated with a sentence such as ‘the stone rolls into the valley’, this is certainly true for behavior in the narrower sense, namely of living beings, even if their activity carriers are far from consciously pursuing these purposes themselves: for example, ‘a plant blooms’ for the purpose of reproduction. Actions in the broad sense stand between such behavior (in the narrow sense) and actions in the narrow sense: if not self-awareness, at least consciousness can be attributed to the biological activity bearer – especially simple forms of cognitions and intentions. An observer interlinks the currently observable activity of the activity carrier with previous (especially in the case of cognitions) and future (especially in the case of intentions) activities, which are understood by the observer as a unit. Therefore, recognizing an action in the broad sense involves recognizing an action complex of the following form in an activity carrier: ‹doing something now because the activity carrier has previously done something related to it and wants to do something later that is also related to the current activity›. However, the activity carrier, as such, is not aware of this connection. As observers, we can attribute to a dog that we see running towards the food bowl that it has seen the bowl and knows that it usually finds food there (cognition, connection to past activities) and also wants to eat immediately (intention, future activity). However, this connection between the activities of different times still takes place entirely at the observer level; although the dog is conscious, it is always entirely in the here and now. Only when the observer concedes to the activity carrier that they can behave relative to the cognitive and intentional aspects of their own actions (initially in the broad sense, then also in the narrow sense) can we speak of »self-awareness« and, hence, of »actions in the narrow sense«. Ultimately, as observers ascribing self-awareness, we can only justify this attribution based on the corresponding behavior and actions of the activity carrier under consideration. However, in contrast to the actions in the broad sense, the attribution also depends on the fact that the activity carrier under consideration presents themselves to the observer as one who ascribes certain cognitions and intentions to themselves and, thus, takes into account the corresponding relationships to the (partial) actions that go beyond the current activity. Therefore, activity carriers of this type differ significantly from those that are considered to be involved in actions in the broad sense (or even in behavior). In his 2005 monograph on the matter-mind problem, Arno Ros takes up these distinctions and assigns the activity carrier type »living being« to behavior in the narrow sense, the activity carrier type »action subject« to action in the broad sense, and the activity carrier type »person« to action in the narrow sense (cf. [Ros 2005a]Ros, Arno (2005): Materie und Geist. Eine philosophische Untersuchung. Mentis, Paderborn. : Chapters IV, V and VI). The colloquial subdivision of the concepts for biological activity carriers – into plants (and plant-like lower animals), (higher) animals (and humans that do not behave like persons), and finally, persons – is underpinned here by a corresponding increase in the observable complexity of the behavior of corresponding activity carriers (including potential self-presentations). Action schema and action actualization Behaviour and actions – both in the narrow and broad sense – can be thematized in two important, interrelated forms: as an individual action actualization, i.e., as an instance, and as a general action schema, i.e., as a type. A concrete action – such as the action of reading this sentence at exactly this point in time in exactly this place by this individual action carrier – happens and is then unrepeatably over and finally past. An abstract action schema, on the other hand, such as the action of »reading«, is not situated in space and time and, thus, cannot pass. It can also be performed again (as an instance) any number of times. Depending on the context, an action expression can be used to express either of the two perspectives. As a type, the action expression then refers to everything that is common to all actions of this type – to the corresponding habit of differentiation or the associated concept. In fact, we can only ever approach an instance of action as an instance of a type of action. In the case of actions in the narrower sense, the two perspectives appear particularly as the execution or implementation aspect (token: concretely performing an action according to a schema) on the one hand and as the perception or description aspect (type: recognizing and representing an executed concrete action as the realization of a schema) on the other. Thus, a connection is drawn to the distinction between the observer level (or third-person level, s/he perspective) and the level of the activity carrier (or first-person level, I perspective) (cf., e.g., [Janich 2005a]Janich, Peter (2005): Medienphilosophie der Kommunikation. In: Sandbothe, M. & Nagel (Hg.), Systematische Medienphilosophie. Akademie, Berlin. ). Components of action schemata Action schemata generally determine the elements that occur in all corresponding action instances. As in a play, these include, on the one hand, the roles: the acting persons or action subjects, but also the "props" – all also characterized as types – as variable names, so to speak, for corresponding possible concrete assignments. Only in the concrete execution of the action, analogous to a concrete performance of the play, are these role variables assigned concrete instances of the appropriate object type. On the other hand, the temporally (more or less) ordered system of partial actions is part of the action schema. Here, too, the subplots that determine the plot of a play provide a good, albeit complex, example. There is also a close connection between the concept of partial action and that of the intention to act. Two kinds of action actualization failures With an action actualization, the subject of the action may or may not achieve the intended goal of the action: the action (actualization) is accordingly successful or not. On the other hand, an attempt at actualization can succeed or fail. In the latter case, it does not meet the standard set by the schema. Therefore, these two kinds of success are quite different aspects of the execution of an action, as the well-known original medical comment ‘Operation successful, patient dead’ makes clear, which is also used outside medicine to refer to the execution of an action that correctly instantiates the corresponding schema but has nevertheless failed to achieve its actual intention. The distinction between instantiation success and intention success is particularly important in actions with more than one subject, i.e., especially in interactions. Here, a distinction can be made between those action schemata whose actualization only successfully achieves the action intentions if several action subjects participate and those that can only successfully instantiated the schema if several action subjects participate. In the first case, we are dealing with an action of the joint action type, and in the second case, with participatory actions as they are called. A typical example of a joint action is carrying an object if it is so heavy that one person alone cannot manage it. No matter how hard they try and how correctly they update the schema for carrying objects, the object cannot be moved in this manner. An example of a participatory action is race: Here, one alone does not even succeed in actualizing the schema because the schema here necessarily provides for the role of a competitor of the object type »action subject«. With such a competitor, the schema may then be instantiated correctly, and the first actor may be successful in the race's intention by winning it. Auswirkungen auf Kommuni­kations- und Zeichen­(handlungs­)begrif­fe Offensichtlich sind alle Inter­akti­onen Betei­ligungs­handlun­gen, da Inter­aktions­schema­ta nur korrekt instan­tiiert werden können, wenn mehre­re Handlungs­träger­rollen belegt sind. Als spezi­elle Form der Inter­aktio­nen gilt das auch für Kommu­nika­tions- und Zeichen­handlun­gen. Bei Zeichen­handlun­gen ist es aller­dings durchaus legi­tim, dass diese beiden Rollen von dersel­ben Person einge­nommen werden – das ist eine Konse­quenz aus der Bestim­mung der Zeichen­handlun­gen als denje­nigen Kommu­nika­tionssche­mata, bei denen die Handlungs­träger den Zweck der Handlung selbst bewusst verfol­gen (und nicht bloß evo­lutio­när etab­lierte oder indi­vidual­geschicht­lich antrai­nierte Ausdrucks­bewe­gungen absol­vieren). Die Verwendung des weit gefass­ten Handlungs­begriffs ermög­licht es, auch die nicht von den Handlungs­trägern bewusst zum Zweck der Kommu­nika­tion einge­setzten kommu­nika­tiven Inter­aktio­nen als Kommu­nika­tionen im vollen Sinn zu betrach­ten. Das gilt etwa für Signa­le bei Tieren. Legt man nur den engen Handlungs­begriff zugrun­de, werden alle Kommu­nika­tionen notwen­dig zu Zeichen­handlun­gen, denn diese sind ja eben durch den bewuss­ten Einsatz zum Zweck der Kommu­nika­tion bestimmt, der dem engen Handlungs­begriff eignet.

Anmerkungen Literatur [Janich 2005a]Janich, Peter (2005): Medienphilosophie der Kommunikation. In: Sandbothe, M. & Nagel (Hg.), Systematische Medienphilosophie. Akademie, Berlin.[Plessner 1928a]Plessner, Helmuth (1928): Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. W. de Gruyter, Berlin.[Ros 1979a]Ros, Arno (1979): Objektkonstitution und elementare Sprachhandlungsbegriffe. Hain, Königstein/Ts.[Ros 1989/90a]Ros, Arno (1989): Begründung und Begriff. Wandlungen des Verständnisses begrifflicher Argumentationen. Meiner, Hamburg.[Ros 2005a]Ros, Arno (2005): Materie und Geist. Eine philosophische Untersuchung. Mentis, Paderborn.[Weber 2005a]Weber, Max (2005): Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie. Zweitausendeins, Frankfurt/M. Ausgabe 1: 2013 Verantwortlich: Schirra, Jörg R.J. Lektorat: Sachs-Hombach, Klaus Seitenbearbeitungen durch: Joerg R.J. Schirra und Marcel Lemmes — (Hinweis) Zitierhinweis: [Schirra 2013g-k]Schirra, Jörg R.J. (2013). Handlungen (Exkurs). (Ausg. 1). In: Schirra, J.R.J.; Halawa, M. & Liebsch, D. (Hg.), Glossar der Bildphilosophie. (2012-2026). [bildglossar.org/index.php?title=Exkurs:Handlungen]. Webadresse: bildglossar.org/index.php?title=Exkurs:Handlungen Schirra, Jörg R.J. (2013). Excursus: Actions. (Ausg. 1). In: Schirra, J.R.J.; Halawa, M. & Liebsch, D. (Hg.), Glossar der Bildphilosophie. (2012-2026). [bildglossar.org/index.php?title=Glossar-English:Excursus:_Actions].