Interesting that Rosa should mention Lamarckianism in this context, as I have argued that culture and language give humans a Lamarckian-like adaptive mechanism. Culture and language , symboling, allow inheritance of acquired, extra-somatic , characteristics.
CB The 'Lamarckian' Origin Of Speech On a related topic, despite the fact that most of what Parrington and Holborow say undermines the role that language plays in communication -- reinforcing the view that language serves to 'represent' things to us in our heads (even if this process is filtered through our own idiosyncrasies, social situations, prevailing ideologies, etc., etc.) --, they appear to believe that human beings developed language because of a "need to communicate". This is how Holborow puts it: "The genesis of language is in human labour…. Communication is not therefore just one of the functions of language; on the contrary, language presupposes both logically and de facto the interaction among people. Language only arises from the need to communicate with other humans. It is quintessentially social." [Holborow (1999), p.20.] Parrington clearly concurs: "Crucially labour…developed within a co-operative and social context. It was this that led, through the need to communicate while engaging in co-operative labour, to the rise of the second specifically human attribute -- language." [Parrington (1997), p.122.]88 While I do not wish to question the role that co-operative labour has played in the development of language and thought (quite the opposite, in fact), several other aspects of the above quotations seem highly dubious, especially the idea that human beings invented language because of a "need to communicate". To be sure, we use language to communicate, but the claim that this arose because of a specific need to do so is highly questionable -- except, that is, for Lamarckians. Of course, the word "need" is ambiguous itself. We use it in a variety of different ways. Consider just a few of these: N1: That cake needs more sugar. N2: This strike needs widening. N3: Car owners need to put oil in their engines. N4: We need a pay rise. N5: The giraffe needs a long neck to browse tall trees. N6: That drunk needs to go home. N7: Plants need water. N8: The state needs to be smashed and the ruling class needs overthrowing. N9: Tony Blair and George W Bush need prosecuting as war criminals. N10: Comrades need to shout louder on paper sales.89 Precisely which of the above senses of "need" these two comrades were using is unclear -- several of them relate to what can only be called felt needs, or conscious needs (e.g., N4, and possibly N2), expressed perhaps as part of an agent's aims, goals or intentions. Others refer to the causal concomitants or prerequisites of a flourishing organism, successful revolution, strike, comeuppance for Bush and Blair, paper sales or well-run engines -- all of which are largely, if not totally, unfelt. Some of course, cannot be felt. Nevertheless, it is patently obvious that human beings could not have invented language as a result of a felt "need to communicate" (unless, that is, we assume they could think before they had developed language -- which would naturally imply that thought is not a social phenomenon, dependent on collective labour), since such a need would presuppose the very thing it was aimed at explaining. The idea that this type of necessity mothered that sort of invention would imply that the first human beings to talk had earlier formed the thought: "I/We need to communicate" (or something equivalent in their proto-language). Clearly, such a felt need to communicate could only be expressed if language already existed. On the other hand, if the thought (or its equivalent) that supposedly motivated the "need to communicate" was not in fact linguistic, then little content can be given to the notion that human beings once possessed such a need without being able to give voice to it. Indeed, how would it be possible to form the thought "We need to communicate" if the individual or individuals concerned had no idea (yet) what communication was. That would be like saying that we can (now) form the thought "We need to schmunicate" when none of has a clue what "schmunicate" means. [In fact, it is worse, since we are already sophisticated language users.] It could be objected to this that such a need could be a biological one (analogous to that expressed, say, in N5). However, there are two problems with this response. First, reference to the biological needs of organisms to explain the origin of adaptation is Lamarckian, not Darwinian. Secondly, and far worse, this alternative in fact completely undermines the view that language is a social phenomenon.89a _______________________________________________ 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
