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[A-List] Necessity and Freedom: Why is written history a history of class struggles ? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [A-List] Necessity and Freedom: Why is written history a history of class struggles ? From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 11:46:01 -0400 Thread-index: AcZVCOndPvKTcx49T+G2XoHCqLNKgwACaK6mAFTwkrAAAUaBEA== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Idealist philosopher 1...but seeing every circumstance in which humans survive biologically as "natural" makes the term meaningless. * * * Idealist philosopher 2 :I was just about say something very similar to this. ________________________________ CB: Treats "natural" and "biological" synonymous - which they are. ^^^^^ Idealist philosopher 2: Are rocks biological? ^^^^^ CB: Our only natural interest in rocks is the extent to which they impact our physiology. Lets make Idealist philosopher 2's comment plainer. 2 is saying that the category "natural" is bigger than just the "biological". Nature also includes physics, not just biology, but geology, chemistry, physical earth science. But so what ? Surely human biological life always conforms to the laws of physics, geology , chemistry, etc. To say that human nature refers to human biology , especially, doesn't create a problem in the sense that, of course, in the levels of organization of the sciences, biology embeds the physical sciences as a premise. In the same way, human historical life embeds biology, exactly the point being made here. Biology is emergent from physics, but physics remains a necessary premise of biology. Human culture and history are emergent from biology, but biology remains a necessary premise of culture and history. (See _Culture and Practical Reason_ by Marshall Sahlins) Exactly implication in the formal logical sense. Culture implies nature or Culture ===> Nature or If culture, then nature. Nature is a necessary condition of culture. Culture is a sufficient condition of nature. Modus Tolens : Not nature, not culture. Nature is a NECESSARY condition of culture or history. Nature is a "without which not", a _sine qua non_, a "but for" condition or cause of history. Here "necessity" is a very precise usage. Meeting the requirements of physiology is a necessary condition for human history. It is not a sufficient condition. It cannot explain all of history. This is the usual idealist philosopher's correct point. History is not a simple reflex of meeting physiological requirments. True. However, interestingly, Marx and Engels root the determinism of historical materialism in the activities that _include_ meeting physiological requirments ( see the passage from _The German Ideology_) Production and exchange and productive classes are defined by activites some of which are all of the critical physiological-needs meeting activities. That's where the class arrangement of society gets its necessity or brings necessity to bare in human affairs. It is dogmatic , in Cornforth's sense of censoring questioning , to suppress discussion of the question "why is written history a history of class struggles ? " Of course, with Marxism necessity is discussed in the same category as freedom. Karl Marx Capital: Volume 3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Abstract from Ch. 48: The Trinity Formula ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Written: First Published: Full Text: This Abstract: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
