Aren't you referring to Aristotle's necessary and sufficient conditions or causes ?
The ape is a necessary precondition for humans , but it's not a sufficient condition or cause. But for the ape, no humans. Modus tolens
If p , then q ( modus ponens); not q, not p (modus tolens) p is sufficient condition of q; q is necessary condition of p.
Humans are a sufficient condition of apes; apes are a necessary condition of humans. If you see humans then there must have been apes. If you don't see any apes or there never were any , you won't see any humans.
Capitalist commdification of labor power (wage-labor) is a sufficient condition of ancient markets on the periphery of production in ancient society. Ancient markets were a necessary precondition of modern capitalist markets.
Modern anti-gay prejudice is a sufficient condition of old prejudice against trans-gender prejudice ( is it ?) Ancient trans-gender prejudice is a necessary condition of modern anti-gay prejudice (?)
Charles
^^^^^^^
Carrol Cox
Cbc] No, that is ahistorical. First you have to treat the PRESENT as history, and explain it in its own terms. Only then is exploring its origins history rather than mere anitquarianism. Philip Pilkington] Unless, of course, you have no interest in history generally and thus want to focus on the immediate present all the time. But that would be rather boring and stupid, wouldn't it? Cbc] You confuste thinking historically with indulgence in anitquarianism. I enjoy antiquarianis but I don't let it lead me into geneteic or historicist fallacies. How do you understand Marx's sentence, "The anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the ape." (And he means that The anatomy of the ape IS NOT (repeat NOT) a key to the anatomy of man.) That is, innumerable diffferent evolutionary 'lines' might have emerged from the ape, all of them but one NOT leading to the emergence of homo sapiens. We don't know all those other descendants of the apes because they don't exist. It would have been just as easy for us not to exist. Hence one cannot start with the ape and intuit homo sapiens, but one can start with homo sapiens and "doing history backwards" (Bertell Ollman's phrase) understand a potential in the ape that that would not have been knowwable had homo s. not evolved. Roughly speaking, this is the mistake such historians as Max Weber and Jim Blaut make in looking at capitalism: they see that some capitalist institutions (such as the market) existed in China or Greece and therefore assume that China or Greece were in some way embryonically capitalist. See Ellen Meiksins Wood, _ Origin of Capitalism: a longer view_ (Verso, 20020. One must first study capitalism as it NOW exists, and only then look for origins in the past. If you start with the past you will end up utterly unable to understand capitalism. If you start with the ape you will end up utterly unable to undestand homo s. Homosexuality and homophobia as they hae existed for a bit over a century can shed light on effeminacy as it existed prior to the 19th century, but the concept of effeminacy as it exists in the past cannot shed light on homophobia untless you first understand homophobia as an expression of 19th/20th-c cultures and social relations.