[lbo-talk] Chomsky on sociobiology

[Ted Winslow]

If ordinary language has a structure incompatible with what a more  
sophisticated inspection of our experience shows to be incompatible  
with the structure of reality, then we need to alter our language to  
incorporate this insight.  For instance, if its subject/predicate  
form implicitly entails the idea of the universe as consisting of  
"substances" in the senses of Aristotle and Descartes and our  
experience demonstrates that, in fact, there are no such substances,  
then we need to alter the ordinary meaning of language to take  
account of this insight.

Language is our creature.  The idea that it's not, that it's the  
creator and we're the creature ("structuralism"), or that it's the  
creature of a creator other than us (e.g. "of genetic programs"), is  
another example of what Marx means by "fetishism".  Attempting to  
defend the idea with argument is self-contradictory; it's attempting  
to persuade people that they aren't open to persuasion by argument.

"Materialists" of this kind (the kind criticized in Marx's third  
thesis on Feuerbach) arguing (usually vehemently) with each other  
about the degree to which we are creatures of our genetic structure  
versus our environment make an interesting subject for study.

Ted