> There is a tendency among people who want to think
> of themselves as "materialists" to dismiss issues of
> language, symbolization and thought with a big bat
> inscribed with the word "idealism" (i.e., to think
> Habermas is an "idealist" when the problems with his
> ethics really lie elsewhere). The "real" essence of
> the matter is "action," or "material reality", which
> "determines" consciousness (except, supposedly, the
> consciousness of the materialist). The relationship
> is never reversable (language and symbolization
> affect action).
I may have been too quick to take Carrol's post out of context, because I wasn't referring to yours. Of course language and symbolization motivate action. Where do I say otherwise?
Alec
> ---------- Original Message
> ----------------------------------
> From: Alec Ramsdell <aramsdell at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 08:34:11 -0700 (PDT)
>
> >Carrol Cox wrote:
> >
> >> In other words, Peter is saying that _either_
> mental
> >> events exist in a
> >> world of their own, prior to and independently of
> >> all physical activity,
> >> _or_ they are nothing. If we are not angels we
> are
> >> merely automatons. I
> >> think this is usually called dualism. Damasio
> points
> >> out that while
> >> Descartes's separation of "mind" and "brain" has
> >> been rejected by most,
> >> most still do cling to a crude separation of
> brain
> >> and body.
> >
> >This made me think of Baudelaire, and the dear
> >automatons in Lowell's translation, "The Voyage."
> As
> >a quintessential modernist, does Baudelaire
> represent
> >a historical shift in dualism, where the
> >purposelessness of the dandy/flaneur confirms the
> >modern individualist ethos (think of Baudelaire's
> >interest in shop fronts, or his "chimeras" as
> mental
> >events)? "There can be no progress (real, that is,
> >moral) except in the individual and by the
> individual
> >himself." (from Mon Coeur Mis À Nu, 1897)
> >
> >This is quite different from the so-called
> >metaphysical poets, where the body/mind dualism
> could
> >still be subsumed in a single moral sensibility and
> a
> >different social network. It was more a motif for
> a
> >fusion of thought and feeling--before the
> >"dissociation of sensibility" Eliot speaks of in
> >Milton and Dryden.
> >
> >As the change shows, "dualism" itself is subject to
> >history and not as simple a metaphysical
> >categorization as it seems.
> >
> >Alec
> >
> >
> >
> >
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