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1 ACTE / Act

ACTE / ACTUM / Act

Adail Sobral

Modifi le September 16, 2005

TYMOLOGIE / Philology

Acte, a fem. subst., in French by 1338, from the Latin actus: "a doing" and

actum:"a thing done," past part. of the verb agere: Ato do, drive, urge, chase,

set in motion @ (Root *ag- : "to drive, draw out or forth, move", from the Gk.

agein : "to guide, lead, drive, carry off.";" Skt. ajati : "drives," ajirah : "moving,

active;" O.N. aka : "to drive;" M.Ir. ag "battle").

act in late middle English c.1384, through the French.

The theatrical (1520) and legislative (1458) senses of the word derive from its

Latin typical connotations.

To act: general sense first attested 1475 and in the theatrical performance, 1594

(v. article ACTE / ACTUS / Act).

Related to activity, which is attested from 1530, and actuality (see). See also

the article ACTION / Action.

TUDE SMANTIQUE / Definitions.

1. (Currently). The process of doing or performing something. Something done

or performed; a deed.

2 ACTE / Act 2. The product of a decision delivered by a legislative or a judicial body, such

as a statute, decree, or enactment.

A formal written record of proceedings or transactions.

3. One of the major divisions of a play or an opera.

A theatrical performance that forms part of a longer presentation.

4. (English act). A manifestation of intentional or unintentional insincerity; a

pose.

5. (Philosophy, Aristotle). Linked to potency, defined as a conception, the

process that brings it about.

6. (Psychology). Exercice of a power, a faculty.

acting out : reaction to a drive consisting in putting it into practice.

7. (Linguistics).

Act of reference; communicative act; face-threatening act (FTA); illocutionary

act; locutionary act; perlocutionary act; phatic act; phonetic act; propositional

act; rhetic act; verbal act.

8. (Austin and Searle) speech act/acte de parole ; -de langage: An assertive,

commissive, directive, exercitive, expositive, expressive1, performative,

representative, veridictive declaration.

9. (Theatre, from the Latin actus). Part of a play. V. article ACTE/Act

(Theater).

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3 ACTE / Act

(Psychanalyse). acte manqu :

V. article LAPSUS .

10. (French literature, Andr Gide) acte gratuit :

(Metaphysics). Acte pur/pure act : Aristotle's pure act is completely separate

from potency; and it is this latter that tends to Pure Act, although ignored by it.

In theology, St Thomas Aquinas= Pure Act proposes God as being alone Pure

Act.

CORRLATS / Collocations

ABRACTION/ABREAGIEREN/Abreaction,

ACTES/Acts,ACTE-DE-LANGAGE/Speech act, ACTEUR/Actor; Player;

Performer, ACTION/Action, Acting out, ACTIVIT/Activity,

ACTUALISATION/Actualization, ADJUVANT/Helper,

ADRESSIVIT/Addressivity, AGENT/Agent,

CATASTROPHE/Catastrophe, CAUSE/Cause,

CHANGEMENT/Change,CLIMAX(Greek),

COMMUNICATION/Communication, COMPLICATION/Complication,

CRATION/Creation, CRITIQUE/Criticism,

ENTRACTE/Intermission, PISODE/Episode, ESSENCE/Essence,

VNEMENT/Event, EXPOSITION/Exposition,

4 ACTE / Act Freytag

GESTE/Gesture,

ILLOCUTION/Illocution, ILLOCUTOIRE/Illocutary,

ILLOCUTIONNAIRE/Illocutionary act,

LANGUE/Language, LANGAGE/Language,

MONISME/Monism,

OPPOSANT/Opposer; Opponent,

PAROLE/Speech; Parole, PERFORMATIF/Performative, POSTUPOK,

PRAGMATISME/Pragmatism; Pragmaticism,

RPONSE/Answer; Response, REPRSENTATION/Representation,

RLE/Role,

SCNE/Picture, SOMMET/SPANNUNG/Summit,

Speech-act-theory, SUJET/Subject.

TABLEAU/Picture; Scene, THTRE/Drama,

TRANSGRESSION/Transgression.

NOMENCLATURES / Families of terms

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5 ACTE / Act ACTIONS/Operations, ARISTOTE/Aristotle,

BAKHTIN (Mihail),

COMMUNICATION/Communication,

NONCIATION/Expression,

LINGUISTIQUE/Language,

OPRATIONS/Acts,

PARTIES/Parts of texts,

PHNOMNOLOGIE/Phenomenology, PHILOSOPHIE/Philosophy.

PRAGMATIQUE/Pragmatics,

PRATIQUES/Praxis,

PSYCHOLOGIE/Psychology, PSYCHANALYSE/Psychanalysis,

STRUCTURES/Structuralism and Post-structuralism,

THTRE/Drama.

MOTS-CLS

Accompli, actantiel, Acteur, Action, Action dramatique, Actualit Agent, me,

Bien,

Communication, Critique,

Efficace, Entlchie, tre,

Facult, Fait,

Illocution, Illocutionnaire, Illocutoire, Impulsion,

Langage, Langue, Linguistique,

Opration,

Parole, Performatif, Phnomnologie, Philosophie,

Rsultat, Rle, Sujet.

6 ACTE / Act Volont.

Keywords

Action, Actor,

Communication, Criticism, Critique,

Deed,

Ethics,

Illocution, Illocutionary act, Impulse,

Karman,

Language,

Narrative,

Operations,

Parole, Performative, Performer, Phenomenology, Philosophy, Player,

Speech, Subject,

Thing done,

Wittgenstein (**), Word.

QUIVALENTS / Correspondences

Allemand / German : Akt ; Tat; Aktus.

Anglais / English : act.

Arabe / Arabic : , , , , , , ,

,

Chinois / Chinese : B3 s?;s?;Jr?;C;[??]BD;=i ; ? ?;

;$ll;?;??;?-'@-;l1(((r

Coren / Korean : (, (, (, (, ((((( ((, (,

( ((( ((( (( (, (

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7 ACTE / Act Danois / Danish : handling (act/action).

Espagnol /Spanish : acto.

Franais / French : acte.

Grec / Greek : praxis ; pragma ; ov ergon

(also * action + : ergasia).

Hongrois / Hungarian : aktus, cselekedet.

Italien / Italian : acto.

Hbreu / Hebrew : dabar.

Japonais / Japanese : $&(((((((()

Latin : factum. Also: acta (plur.) : ( writings, proceedings (, v. article

ACTES; actus : (part of a play(, v. article ACTE (Theatre). Cf. action :

(action(.

Nerlandais / Dutch : actie

Persan /

Farsi : ?????????>???????? >??????? >????????? >?

???????? >????

Polonais / Polish : czyn.

Portugais / Portuguese : ato, ao ; acto/aco.

Roumain / Romanian : act.

Russe / Russian : postupok ; akt.

Vitnamien / Vietnamese : hanh ng, vic lam,

c chi, hanh vi.

COMMENTAIRE / Analysis

The concept of act (linked to the one of activity) is

the object of a difficult critical discussion in the

field of philosophy, that goes back to Plato (fourth

8 ACTE / Act century B.C.), to Megarian philosophers (c. 400-c.330

B.C) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.).

Aristotle understands the act as the opposite of

potency, the latter being the conception the act brings

about or, actualizes, implying Atransformation@; his

ideas are still present in discussions about the act,

even though his exact definition is in a way almost

irreconcilable with the modern philosophy

understanding of the act. Act comes to be related to

action, sometimes understood as activity, and also as

actualization (the actualization of a possibility: the

act as the reality of being). Besides, act relates to

actuality (as opposed to potentiality), sometimes used

as synonyms.

Act plays an important role in Renaissance philosophy

and in several modern philosophical systems, not to

mention the idealist neo-Kantians= notion of the

Absolute and Baruch Spinoza=s philosophy (1632-1677),

the first author to propose a thoughtful and incisive

non-dualist system in which the act has preeminence.

For Spinoza=s monism, to every act of knowledge there

corresponds an act in the practical sphere, but there

is a constitutive relation between them.

Act and actual are important objects in Giovanni

Gentiles (1875-1944) actualism, which sees the act

as a concrete process; Alfred Whitehead (1861-1947),

considers actual entities as the building blocks of

the world; Louis Lavelle=s (1883-1951) envisions act

metaphysically but at the same time as the active

reality of being, linked to a agent; Edmund Husserl

distinguishes act (Akt) from the classical actus and

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9 ACTE / Act from action (Tat), and gives it a Aneutral@ character.

Husserl also distinguishes act from activity and sees

act linked to Aintentional life experiences@ whereas

activity has no intentional component.

Act and activity, understood as action, are present

both in the so-called Aaction philosophies@ (Henri

Bergson B 1859-1941 B for one) and other philosophical

trends, like Friedrich Schelling=s process philosophy,

the pragmatism of [Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914),

William James (1842-1910), James Mead (1863-1931) and

John Dewey (1859-1952], existentialism (mainly

Jean-Paul SartreB 1905-1980, who examines ethical

aspects of act), marxism (mainly as social acting to

bring a transformation of the world, this latter being

understood as the result of human actions (Marxist

authors prefer to talk of Apraxis") and analytical

philosophies (George Edward Moore [1852-1933] and

Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]) and post-analytic ones

(Ludwig Wittgenstein [1889-1951] and Willard Quine

[1908-2000) C these last having gone beyond the

scientist and positivist reductionism these

philosophies have known from the beginning.

It also had an important role on the neo-Kantian Marburg

School, founded in Germany in 1896 by Hermann Cohen.

The German school=s conception of the act, represented

e.g by Heinrich Rickert B a neo-Kantian B and Martin

Heidegger B a phenomenological existentialist who

Adialogues@ with Husserl C understands it on the basis

of two senses of history: history as Ato happen@ (from

which geschichtlich : historical in German), as a

10 ACTE / Act process, and history as Ahappened@, Aalready brought

about@ (historisch, also : historical, in German),

as a product. In this sense, act is both the process

of something happening and the product of this

happening.

The contribution of Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) to the

concept of act, a contribution that only now begins

to be acknowledged, makes a cogent effort do go beyond

many extant conceptions there are even today. The

concept of act has in Bakhtin not the sense of material

neutral processes, being understood as ethical act,

be it theoretical, practical or aesthetic (the Kantian

division of reason/acts) opposed to moral (that is,

formally and abstractly ethical) and purely material

ones (that is, acts who involve no intentional or

volitional component : ethical acts are concrete acts

of a situated agent, not acts based on an abstract

morality valid for all human beings nor an act exempt

from an agent urged by intentionality, that is, a purely

material act (ver Postupok).

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) proposed a well known and

influent division of reason in three categories:

theoretical reason, practical reason and aesthetic

judgment, all of them acts that he understood

cognitively: the object of reasoning seems to be the

factor accounting for the difference he sees among them.

The Kantian theoretical, practical and aesthetic acts

are reinterpreted procedurally by Bakhtin so as not

to be restricted to their product or to their

theoretical structure. Nevertheless, Bakhtin=s monist

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11 ACTE / Act understanding of act does not separates concretely

process and product, nor does it see them apart from

an agent (see Article POSTUPOK).

We can see in several accounts of act here given that

only one or the other component of acts (the process

or the product) are overemphasized, most of the time

the product, and in some cases only one of them is seen

as the act per se, even in some philosophies of life.

Schelling=s process philosophy seems thus to be more

complete that most, for it legitimately emphasizes

process without discarding the product: it is only from

the product we can derive the process producing it.

Mechanist psychologies like behaviorism also take act

as a unit or at least a factor of human behavior, but

they see only the material part of act and not its sense

for the subject. Construtivist theories like Jean

Piaget=s see act as biological act, for their

understanding of the human subject is also biological.

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) have of act an understanding

similar to Bakhtin=s, for there is a process, a product

and a subject as their producing agent in society and

history. Yves Clot has constructed a psychology of work

on the basis of a Vygotskyan perspective, and sees

acts/activities as something happening in collective

social-historical contexts. Not only does act/activity

involve process and product, and producing agents, but

these agents redefine continuously, in acts/activities

themselves, the manner of practicing these acts. This

unites cogently, from a psychological point of view,

12 ACTE / Act both Bakhtin=s and Vygotsky=s perspectives.

Unfortunately, there isn=t until now an effort to do

this in other fields. Although there are efforts to

do this in education, these only take this or that

aspect of the authors, but fail in offering a real

integration of the background understanding they have

of human beings, human acts, actions, activities, the

very being-in-the world of human subjects.

Adail Sobral

Bibliographie / References

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Physics, III.

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Revue de Psychanalyse, XXXI (1985), Les actes.

Bakhtin, Mikhail.B Toward a Philosophy of the Act. (1920-1924). Translated with notes

by Vadim Liapunov. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993.

Esttica da Criao Verbal. 4a ed. Translated Paulo Bezerra. So Paulo: Martins Fontes,

2003.

Questes de Literatura e de Esttica (Teoria do Romance). [1975] 3a ed. Translated

A. F. Bernadini et al. So Paulo: UNESP, 1993.

Brait, Beth (ed).B Bakhtin, dialogismo e construo do sentido. 20 reimpresso. Campinas:

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Emerson, caryl. Keeping the Self Intact During the Culture Wars B A Centennial Essay

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The Crisis Of European Sciences And The Transcendental Phenomenology. Translated

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