CB,
Sorry for the delay.
Getting through a real tough passage in my rewrite on Ilyenkov.
No argument with you concerning the tool using activities of non- and
proto-human life forms. I would distinguish between their toolmaking and
that of men , as I understand you do, by the universal relevance of tool
making and using for all human life activity. All human activity is
instrumentally enhanced if not enabled.
While I agree that ideality is the essence of tradition, it appears to me
that primitive and particularistic manifestations of ideality precede its
universality in human social activity.
Oudeyis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx
andthe thinkers he inspired'" <marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 16:49
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst
Victor:
I'm not sure of it either.
However, it appears to me that we can distinguish social labour, direct
cooperation, from characteristically human labour, that is social labour
that is special since it involves the production and use of tools for
realization of material social goals. This distinction allows us to talk
about the simplest and most abstract kinds of ideality as being pre or
proto-human. It also appears to me that labour has to be social before it
can be instrumental, i.e. involve the development of social practices of
making and use of tools.
^^^
CB: If I might argue with you comradely here. I would say that though
toolmaking and use are famously characterized as uniquely human, there are
examples of chimps and other animals using tools. The qualitative aspect
of
instrumental action is not unique to humans. Humans are unique in the
scale
and complexity of their toolmaking and use, which is possible because
ideality allows a toolmaking _tradition_ to develop.
^^^^^^^
Of course once men make and use tools they expand their labour practice
and
thereby the inventory of objectified activities embodied in idealities,
and
thereby make culture a universal of human life activity
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