> peter writes
> >
> >The lack of an exhaustive theoretical systems (a total theory) is, I
> >believe, and I think you argued quite lucidly, the cornerstone of freedom.
> >As I think Angela said about sociology, it is interesting to read for
> >where it fails.
>
>
> except that everything you typed *is* a sociological theory.
yes, but not a total one. I have to theorise, but I should try and not be too surprised or shocked when my theory doesn't 'contain' reality, when my theory is inadaquate.
>
> i'm curious, did you really agree with rob that stealing i a natural instinct?
It seems to me that taking things is a natural tendency. 'Stealing' is a social concept, and can't exist without a certain set of social relations. Seperating out how much of my action is 'instinctual', and how much is 'social', when I grab a pie, is (as Yoshie's quote from Stephen Jay Gould says) a sterile (merely speculative) debate.
Arguing that our actions reflect our biological reality is, in my mind at least, not the same as arguing that our actions biologically determined.
Peter -- Peter van Heusden : pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk : PGP key available Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower. - Karl Marx
NOTE: I do not speak for the HGMP or the MRC.