On Tue, 1 May 2001 20:39:29 -0700 "Ian Murray" <seamus2001 at home.com>
writes:
>
> >
> > Metaphors are tricky if you run them into the ground. See some of
> the
> > more clunky poetry of the 17th century. But anyhow, Marx very
> early had
> > a comment that seems relevant:
> >
> > The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances
> and
> > upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of other
> > circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who
> change
> > circumstances and that the educator himself needs educating.
> Hence, this
> > doctrine necessarily arrives at dividing society into two parts,
> of
> > which one is superior to society (in Robert Owen, for example).
> >
> > The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human
> activity
> > can be conceived and rationally understood only as
> _revolutionising
> > practice_.
> > Theses on Feuerbach, VI
> >
> > The relation of a boat to the sea is an external (non-dialectical)
> one.
> > Our relation to society is an internal relation. There's no
> drydock
> > anyplace. Society is not a boat and we are not sailors on that
> which is
> > other than us.
> >
> > Carrol
> =============
> Carroll,
>
> Good points; however Neurath's metaphor and it's re-working by Quine
> was that there
> is no drydock. Society is the boat and nature is the sea and we are
> engaged in an
> open ended learning process. As societies outlive the individuals
> that constitute
> their dynamics it's not too bad a metaphor for the dialectic of
> institutions and
> agency....
>
> Ian
>
Neurath it should be remembered considered himself to be a Marxist.
Jim F.
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