If I am reading Oudeyis correctly, he is saying that nature is determined
by human interaction with it; that nature is strictly a product of the
unity of human purposive activity and natural conditions; and that nature
is a function of human labour. If by "nature" we are only referring to
that portion of reality that humanity consciously observes and/or acts
upon, then Oudeyis successfully makes that point. But this conception of
reality restricts nature to human experience, which can only be a subset of
nature. Nature must also include that which is beyond the observed and
acted upon. The "unknown" - the not yet experienced - must also be taken
into account in the creation of a materialist ontology.
It is certainly true that humans only consciously experience that portion
of nature they observe and/or act on through the lens of culture and the
plethora of human activity, a key idea in Ilyenkov's concept of the
ideal. But how humanity, through its social relations, activities,
languages, etc. *subjectively* experiences nature (individually or
collectively) is a different question than the *objective* nature of nature
itself. I can see little room for doubt that all these Marxists insisted
upon making this fundamental distinction. They maintained that nature
exists prior to and independently of humankind, holding the ontological
view that nature also includes that which humankind has not yet - and may
never - experience. I am aware of no evidence to support Oudeyis's claim
that the conception of nature held by these classical Marxists was
restricted to only that which humans have interacted with and/or laboured on.
- Steve
At 07:09 AM 5/26/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote:
Marx and Engels adopted Hegel's activist determination of nature as
a product of the interaction of man with
nature (human purposive intervention in nature) , but revised it to include
that human intervention as a force of nature rather than just an exercise of
intellect. For Marx, Engels, and Lenin the objective, materialist
determination of the nature of nature must be regarded as strictly a
dialectical product of the unity of human practical activity with the
natural conditions that are the subject of that activity, i.e. as a function
of human labour.
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