On Sep 2, 2009, at 4:34 PM, James Heartfield wrote:
> Shane says
> 'Why the dualism? What in "man," individually or collectively, is
> not also "nature?" And why should whatever human activity you
> choose to call "science" not be seen to be just as "natural" as
> activities like talking and killing?'
>
> >By labour, man abstracts himself from nature, making it his object.
> >Science takes nature as its object, but is not natural.
Abstraction is an intellectual process. "man" and "nature" and "science" here are all pure abstractions. "Man" can abstract himself from "nature" only *abstractly*. But *activity*, by humans and by all other creatures, is always the concrete activity of real individual social beings. How can there be "science" without scientific activity? It is absurd to claim that "science," alone among human activities, is "not natural."
Shane Mage
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos