[lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in

Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
Wed Aug 5 10:01:32 PDT 2009


Taken in itself (not having read Snell), this is obviously a reading of the modern physicalist paradigm into Homer, with the gods substituting for physical forces.

Moreover, I don't see what this has to do with individualism, since capitalist ideology has never had a problem with the notion that human actions are the result of either external stimuli or divine planning(predestination), which was kind of a major point in Weber.

--- On Wed, 8/5/09, Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
>
> "According to his [Homer's] view—and there could be no
> other for him—a man's action or perception is determined
> by the divine forces operative in the world; it is a
> reaction of his physical organs to a stimulus, and this
> stimulus is itself grasped as a personal act. Any new
> situation is likely to be the result of stimuli, and the
> source of new stimuli in its turn."
>
> --Snell, The Discovery of Mind, p. 43.
>
> (The heroes of the Iliad are about as far from free-willed
> individuals who makes autonomous decisions as you can get!)
>
> Miles
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> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>



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