From: Dogan Goecmen (Dogangoecmen@AOL.COM)
Date: Sat Nov 18 2006 - 11:16:29 EST
The complexity of these forms of transitions are well known, even to Marx. (See first parts of German Ideology) I probably do not this particular film. But I know these sorts of films. Even birds use tools. I konw this. But the question is this: do animals produce their tools they use or do they just take them from nature as they happen to be out there? Do they conserve and improve them as the process of production proceeds? Dogan In einer eMail vom 18.11.2006 16:43:06 Westeuropäische Normalzeit schreibt clyder@GN.APC.ORG: Quoting Dogan Goecmen <Dogangoecmen@AOL.COM>: > > Paul, your discusion is, then, just to remind us of these froms of > transitions. But this does not argue against Marx. It become, however, > problematic if > you reject to recognise the qualitative difference between animal and human > > labour. This is an old discussion. Some refer to the capacity of thinking, > others to language, other again to morality. But all these discussions end > up in > asking what makes the difference between other animals and human beings. > Marx says humans work consciously, that is to say that they plan before they > > work. These transitions are, I think, considerably more complex than one would guess if one was just going on what is in Capital, but then we have much much more biological knowledge available to us than Marx had. I am just pointing out that the distinction human/animal labour based on intentionality is now regarded as untenable by researchers into animal behaviour. Ian Wright's old tutor Aron Sloman, has a magnificent video of problem solving ability and tool use among caledonian crows. Once you have watched it, you will never again be so confident about human particularity. > Human labour according to Marx comprises, then, : thinking, it is a > conscious action; it comprises language, it is a communicative action; it > comprises > morality, it is an ethical action involving moral judgments, This is, of > course, not a God given capacity. It is a result of of a historical process > of > tousands and tousand of years. Now, tell me, is there any species of animals > > (apart from human beings) which plan the future, say, reproduction of > subsistence and the means of production in the next few years to come. This sort of planning though, is not specifically human, it is specifically agricultural. It only exists post the neolithic revolution. ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
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