> They would only be irrelevant if in fact "choice" and "purpose" had
> nothing to do with these phenomena. Asserting that they don't isn't
> an argument. The Catholic School ploy isn't an argument either.
Ted,
I am not making an argument. I am asking you to explain. (if you wish and if you have the time.)
I believe that choice and purpose matter to human beings, I just don't believe that there is any coherent way to explain them in a theoretically coherent way or even in a way that is not paradoxical.
(Perhaps this is what the novel form is for, helping us to understand these issues. At least that is what I get from "Anna Karenina.") If you will explain how we can discuss them I will certainly discuss them. I do not see how the very vague notions of choice and purpose necessarily brings us to "Marx's ontology". We can leave out Marx's ontology and still agree that "choice" and purpose in some way matter.
I don't see how bringing it in helps us one way or another in discussing Kropotkins critique of Huxley. That is part of the point I've been trying to bring out. (There is no "Catholic School Argument" here, I am just very tired of arguing over what "authorities" said one way or another, when we are actually trying to figure out whether Kropotkins critique of "social darwinism" from an ur-Sociobiological point of view is helpful to trying to understand the issues of surrounding evolutionary psychology or sociobiology.)
Now I am also willing to have you explain to me how we can talk about "choice" or self-determination in a way that helps toward understanding the issues at hand. For instance you never answered my question in a previous post. Do chimps have "choice?" If not, why not? I ask this question not to be funny but in order to understand what you mean by choice. I will understand if you just say "I don't know," because that is my main point in this thread, there is no use pretending that we know what choice is when we don't.
Forgive me but what I have been trying to do is have you state to me an argument that I can understand as relevant. So far (and this may be what Chris calls my stupidity) you have not told me why ontology matters, just that it has something to do with "self-determination" though I don't know what. I don't see that you are at alll talking about anything at all and I am pleading for you to put it in terms that I understand.
I don't think, as a matter of principle, it matters what Marx said in the 1844 manuscripts or what Hegel said in the 1820s on this or any other issue that impacts on evolutionary biology or any other scientific issue. I don't even see how the 1844 manuscripts matter even to basic notions of how societies are structured through human history. Why quote them to me as if they show me something besides what they show about intellectual history. If you can explain to me how it is relevant I would appreciate it.
Sorry.
I simply may be frustrating you. So once again let me say it would be a pleasure if you could explain to me how these "ontological" issues matter at all to "how the human species (and other species for that matter), live, "came about" in biological history, created their own ecological niches, "developed culture," and how they, in the course of history, built various complex societies with their own rules, institutions, etc."
Jerry
-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/