Now back to the contradiction in “John is a man”. Put succinctly, John is both the same and different from Joe, Rosa, Charles or any other “man”, human. Their sameness is their humanity, their type. The difference is their particularity, individuality. The contradiction of the type with the individuality is implied in the sentence “John is a man”.
Ordinary English language uses the same word “is” for both identity and predication. In doing so, it conveys the sense of contradiction that Hegel (or Lenin in his philosophical notebook note) draws our attention to. When we say “John is human”, we identify him with the humanity in Joe, yet, there is more to John and Joe than there humanity. There are differences between John and Joe, which define their indivduality. For fun , on the equivocation of “is” : Is “is” “is” or is it not ? Or a la Fats Waller, Is “is” ain’t or is it is “is” ? _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
