 Turning now to Brewer, we encounter a shift of key.  In the contrasts between full-fledged and lower-grade doings that we have reviewed so far, “action ” was used to designate the first-class version, and often “activity ” labeled its lesser relative.  In Brewer’s terminology, dialectical activity is the privileged category, and actions make up the inferior contrasting class.  Actions are merely structured to produce a “pre-envisioned state of affairs”.  But dialectical activity is marked out by two features.  First, coming to understand better what the activity is counts as an essential aspect of the activity itself.  And second, continually arriving at a deeper understanding of the good of the activity also is an essential aspect of such an activity (Brewer 2009, 55 and passim).  For instance, one might well think that part of what it is to be in a healthy and satisfactory friendship is to be developing a progressively deeper sense of what this particular friendship is about, of why and how it is rewarding, and of what challenges it poses and how to navigate them.  Moreover, it is also to be developing a gradually improving understanding of the demands, rewards, promise and significance of friendship generally.  (The view is positioned as recovering insights from older ethics, with pride of place to Aristotle, but as before, here we will not take up the historical question.) 