Jim Devine wrote: > At 11:40 AM 8/26/99 -0700, Ajit Sinha wrote: > > my problem with > >your Marxism is that you make Marx too pedestrian for my taste. > > I find that pedestrianism is a good thing (especially in L.A.) Indeed, I > decided today that this semester I'd save money by parking in the free lot > on campus and then walking the 1/2 mile or so to my office, helping my > heart, lungs, and muscle tone. _______________ A word has several meanings, Jim. You can understand its meaning only in the context of its use. I think your decision to walk half a mile is extremely revolutionary. _______ > Jim: > But that's not what you mean, right? Is it that you find "my Marxism" to be > too empirically-oriented, too materialist, or too practice-oriented? I'd > admit to any of those, though I might quibble about the meaning of these > phrases. ____________ No! I just think that it is philosophically not very sophisticated. It creates a mumbo jumbo of Marxism, where Marx becomes a dialectician, a positivist, a materialist, an idealist, an atomist, a reductionist, a organicist, a wholist all at at the same time. ______ Jim: > I'm glad that you make it clear that your tastes are extremely important to > determining your views. I assume that your tastes are societally-determined. _________ My tastes are extremely important to me. I have a cultivated taste, and not a willed taste. _______ Ajit: > >As far as I see > >your basic problem, it seems that you think we are denying that human beings > >have a specific genetic configuration that gives them human capacities and > >capabilities. We are not denying this. This is as much true for humans as for > >rats, bacteria, or any living thing. All we are saying is that your > >consciousness of your individuality, of who you are, which makes you act one > >way or the other has no independent existence apart from the web of relations > >that explain your actions. It neither *determins* nor *limits* you, it is all > >there is to you as a human-social subject. Jim: > > > As I said in a message to someone else on pen-l, off-list, with some minor > editing: > > ... my point is not that the human individual (if I may use that word) is > simply biological. I would start with Rod's point about "The part has no > meaning in isolation from the whole. Therefore it does not exist" being > logically fallacious. ________Consult my response to Rod. ____ > Jim: > > I would then say that the human individual is not only a > historically-conditioned ensemble of social relations but _also_ a > biological critter. We have minds, societal conditioning, and bodies in an > inseparable whole (in a process of complex interaction). That we have -- or > rather, are -- bodies means that we can have instincts, such as the > survival instinct (or something very much like it). If we have instincts, > then it's reasonable to say we have wills. __________ Even bacterias have instinct, Jim. Do you think bacterias have will too? _____ Jim: > But of course the meaning of > this will in practice -- and it's really only practice that matters in the > end -- depends on the interconnected societal and natural situations we > find ourselves in, plus the societal and natural conditioning we encounter > throughout our lives. ____________I have not a clue of what anybody could mean by "the meaning of *this* will in practice depends on the ...". What kind of philosophy generates such sentences? Cheers, ajit sinha
