[Marxism-Thaxis] Cornforth request
There's a fellow in Latvia who needs Maurice Cornforth's THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE to scan for his students. He will even send the book back when he's through with it. He cannot find a copy of the book for himself. Anyone care to help? ___ 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
[Marxism-Thaxis] Venezuelan President Proposes Socialist World Offensive
[Marxism] Venezuelan President Proposes Socialist World Offensive Walter Lippmann (He called for open debate, without prejudice about socialism, and to abandon the defensive attitude of revolutionary movements in recent years. Chavez means a battle of ideas here.) == Venezuelan President Proposes Socialist World Offensive http://www.plenglish.com/ http://makeashorterlink.com/?R1CE23C9B Caracas, Aug 14 (Prensa Latina) The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, called for world youth to initiate a socialist offensive, due to the urgency to save life on the planet. Chávez assured that there is nobody better than young people to achieve the resurgence of socialist ideas, in a speech Saturday before delegates of the XVI World Festival of Youth and the Students. The Venezuelan head of state recalled that after the fall of the Soviet Union many thought that was the end, but 14 years later socialism has revived. The ghost has returned to travel through the world and now, with new ideas, young faces being fed with the ideas of Indians, black people and the grass roots, in a deep offensive, he noted. In his opinion, the first five decades of this century are when the decision must be made between the socialist alternative or barbarism, and called on them to realise that life on the planet might end. There is no time to lose. In this and the next five decades the future will be decided, expressed Chávez before thousands of delegates of a hundred countries that participated in the youth meeting here between 8-15 August. He called for open debate, without prejudice about socialism, and to abandon the defensive attitude of revolutionary movements in recent years. Chávez announced likewise the initiation in his country of meetings of local community governments to make their own proposals, to establish genuine popular power. ln/ml/rc/jwp == A REMINDER TO STUDENTS OF HISTORY: Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The greatest terrorist attacks ever: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2005/agosto/mar2/32terrorb-i.html == GRANMA INTERNATIONAL Havana. August 12, 2005 Fidel receives Venezuelan military delegation BY RENÉ CASTAÑOGranma daily staff writer http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2005/agosto/vier12/34recibio.html CUBAN President Fidel Castro has received a delegation from the Venezuelan Air Force Higher Institute at the Palace of the Revolution, comprised of officers enrolled in that institutions 35th Air Command and General Staff Course, who have been visiting Cuba since Monday. Yesterday, the Venezuelan officers met with patients from their country who are being treated at the La Pradera International Health Center. A medical cooperation agreement signed between Cuba and Venezuela in 2000 by both countries presidents has enabled thousands of patients at that institution to be treated, as Doctor Pedro Francisco Llerena, the centers general director, told his visitors. Up until Wednesday of this week, he said, 9,864 patients and their 7,856 companions had been attended to at that center. Through this program, he explained, 739 operations had been performed on minors under 15, and 2,842 on adults. Of that total, 288 were cardiovascular-related operations and 153 were organ transplants; of the latter, 125 were for cornea, 12 for bone marrow, 11 for kidney and five for muscles. The officers on the aforementioned course, led by Division General Roger R. Cordero Lara, general commander of the Venezuelan Air Force, and accompanied by Brigadier General Tomás Valdés Hernández, director of the Military Technical Institute (ITM), and Colonel Josel Luis Vega Rodríguez, military, naval and air force attaché of the Venezuelan embassy in Cuba, toured areas of the Health Center. They spoke with patients and their companions about their diagnoses, treatment and the care received. The delegation subsequently visited the Air Museum, a facility that exhibits the historic traditions of Cubas Anti-aircraft Defense and the Revolutionary Air Force (DAAFAR), civil aviation and cosmonauts, according to its director, Arquímedes Martínez. After viewing three exhibition halls and 27 airplanes nearby, together with anti-aircraft artillery elements and troops, the officers from the South American nation received a broad outline of Cuban aviation history. They were told about the 1913 flights by Cuban aviation pioneers Agustín Parlá and Domingo Rosillo; the role played by Cuban pilots during the mercenary Bay of Pigs invasion; the terrorist attack on a Cubana Airlines passenger plane in 1976 by Posada Carriles and his followers, and Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, now a brigadier general, who talked of his experiences with the visitors. The delegation from the Venezuelan Air Force Higher Institute will remain in Cuba until August 15.
[Marxism-Thaxis] The Worst Mistake
Paddy Hackett Hi Charles Your last reply would suggest that you now share my view concerning the nature of humans. This view is that they form a constituent part of nature just as much as elephants, crows and chimps. This means that homo sapiens adds nothing qualitatively different to reality despite the enormous technology that he has produced. ^^ CB: I don't follow what you mean. Humans are a constituent part of nature, but they are qualitatively different than other species in that they have transgenerational connections, symbolic connections to dead ancestors of the species. What are you referring to in my last post ? ^ Indeed this technology is essentially no different to nature itself. It may not even be as complex as much of nature especially its life forms. Just recall that despite computer technology humans are still not able to produce a product of the complexity of a squirrel. ^^^ CB: What exactly do you mean that humans are not able to produce a product of the complexity of a squirrel ? Your meaning is not clear. ^^ Recognition of this fact is highly significant. It means that the human species can no longer be conceived as a being distinct from nature containing some key feature -mind or soul-- that renders it qualitatively different from the world of animals. ^ CB: See above. Humans have symbols and transgrenerational symbols. This creates a qualitative difference from other animal species. No longer is there any valid basis for religion or Cartesian philosophy. CB: What do you mean no longer ? Atheism and dialectical materialism are over 150 years old. This is not a new discovery on your part. ^^ Now all description of man must be grounded in nature. This makes sense. ^^ CB: Yea, it makes sense , but you are a bit late. This is not a new thought you are having. ^^ If we were to claim that the human species is larger than nature then we would be logically compelled to provide a source that transcends nature as an explanation for the existence of human nature. CB: Nobody here is saying the humans species is larger than nature. I think you have the wrong list. ^^ Now this is superfluous. For years either in the form of traditional religion, philosophy and other ideological forms we were always brainwashed with the notion that humans transcend nature. ^ CB: Humans don't transcend nature. But by learning the laws of nature , humans gain certain freedom. The mastery of nature allows freedom. ^ Consequently we experienced humans as special. This left open lots of room for religion, magic, superstition and mysticism. This rendered an accurate and reliable description of the human species much more difficult. Such conditions, in many ways, assisted capitalist conditions. Failure to grasp the real nature of the human species investing it with transcendental powers helped obscure the real nature of the capitalist social system. Indeed the way in which capital appears actually tends to reinforce this illusion and thereby perpetuate capitalism. Given that the only thing that exists is nature --matter and energy-- there is no basis for attributing properties to man that transcend matter and energy. To argue that the human species transcends matter and energy it is necessary to introduce a feature that transcends them and is even their opposite. However in the absence of any scientific support for such a hypothesis it can only rely on an idealism which then justifies religion, mysticism and superstition. To realise this is not tantamount to denying that the species is a social tool-making species that engages in praxis. Indeed the very fact that humanity is limited by nature and can never transcend it means that the only way progress is achievable by it is by virtue of its possessing the aforementioned attributes. Traditionally the tendency has been the deification or mystification of the human species because of its achievements in the light of its being fixed in nature. Past inability to correctly explain human development prompted idealist descriptions. Social relations among humans is not something that separates humans off from other species. ^^^ CB: It is in the sense that humans have qualitatively different social relations than other species. We have social relations with dead ancestors. The original of this is kinship systems, in which the living generation organizes its social relations based on relations to dead ancestors. No other species have this quality of social relations. ^^^ ^^^ Indeed some animals, such as chimps, engage in social life. ^^^ CB: So, to bees and ants and ALL animals , because all animals have sex, which is social relations. If they don't have sex, they will die out. ^^^ However it is true that homo sapiens takes social relations to a new complex height. But this does not necessarily generate a bifurcation between
[Marxism-Thaxis] Cornforth request
Ralph Dumain There's a fellow in Latvia who needs Maurice Cornforth's THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE to scan for his students. He will even send the book back when he's through with it. He cannot find a copy of the book for himself. Anyone care to help? ^^ CB: International Publishers probably has copies he can buy. http://www.intpubnyc.com/ ___ 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
[Marxism-Thaxis] Naletov on Popper
http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/naletov12.html The important conclusion that Popper makes reflects the socio-ethical and ideological thrust of his concept: the emergence of the self signifies the transition of nature to a socio-cultural level of development and the transformation of the laws of evolution and natural selection in accordance with the new environment. The main function of mind and of World 3, writes Popper, is that they make possible the application of the method of trial and the elimination of error without the violent elimination of ourselves... Thus in bringing about the emergence of mind, and World 3, natural selection transcends itself and its originally violent character... Non-violent cultural evolution is not just a Utopian dream; it is, rather, a possible result of the emergence of mind through natural selection. [20 http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/naletov12.html#20 ] ^ CB: Perhaps here Popper is indirectly discovering that human culture is a LaMarckian mechanism ? ___ 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
