From: Andrew Brown (Andrew@LUBS.LEEDS.AC.UK)
Date: Wed Jan 28 2004 - 04:56:49 EST
Hi Jerry, Many thanks for the reply. > > Species other than homo sapiens have 'mental capacities', > but I'll discuss only the mental capacities of our species > (although I think that we can learn much by observing and > studying other species. E.g. the reading of 'body language' > and 'expressions' is something that is an important social > communications and processing skill for other species besides > our own.) From my perspective, bodily activity is indeed central. What is expressed for the individual thinking body as changes in its thinking is, in general, expressed also in outward changes in their mode of spatial activity. Marx and the Engels' notion of 'labour' develops this basic (Spinozist, I think) view fundamentally, in ways in which we are familiar (i.e labour as transformation of labourer and nature). > > Scientists have long known that our species typically only > utilizes a small percentage of its mental capacity because of > the underutilization of the brain. I'll put that aside, though, > because our concern now should not be the abstract > potential of mental capacity (although it is an interesting > topic which could perhaps be discussed in relation to Marx's > ideas about communism and the end of the 'pre-history' > of humanity). Do many scientists have a clear grasp of the notion of 'mental capacity'? Science seems to have been slow in relating it to the social relations of production, to labour. > > With the above qualifications, human mental capacities are > a consequence of: > > -- genetics. > > -- the interaction of the individual with groups and social > institutions. Yes. Lewontin's 'triple helix' is constituted by the three aspects you mention: genome, individual organism, environment (social and natural). > > The state, class membership, education, the media, gender roles, and > the prevalence of the commodity-form all shape (and hence distort) > mental capacity within the context of the bourgeois mode of > production. Other social institutions (e.g. religious institutions) > can affect this process (by e.g. discouraging people from developing > certain capacities and by fostering perceptions of guilt and fear) and > the interactive experience among family members, peer groups, classes, > communities, and 'significant others' can help further, distort, > and/or inhibit this process. > > > >Would you agree they > > are 'emergent' from lower level process (including brain processes)? > > Would you agree that they are one side of the social relations of > > production? > > Yes and yes. I'm wary of taking at face value claims made by those scientists who do not agree with these propositions, hence cannot have a full grasp of the notion of 'mental ability'. Best wishes, Andy
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