Re: Engels on human evolution

[Adam Rose <adam@xxxxxxxx>]

> Adam: However, Engels did provide a better account than Darwin's in
> one respect without any concrete evidence : he says language
> developed "when men had something to say to each other" ie after they
> had started producing tools, whereas I have read that Darwin says
> humans had developed language while they were still in the trees.
>
> Lisa:  How does one tell which account is 'better'?  Why would people
> have nothing to say to each other until after making tools?  I don't
> agree with either position [I'm not familiar with that point from
> Darwin, but I know he made plenty of mistakes.]
>

Umm. I'm in slightly deep water here, because I have to define language
before I can really answer this.

Animals communicate in all sorts of ways, including making sounds.
Some apes use quite a variety of sounds in this way, and show some
degree of consciousness in the way that they use it.

[ It has been argued ( Leakey ? ) that when I think Baboons are attacked
from the air they sometimes give deliberately give the signal for
a ground attack, since they want the baboon they're signalling to
to run away without looking up, and if they gave the signal for
"air attack" , they'd look up and kop it ].

What humans do grew out of this sort of communication, but, in terms
of both language and consciousness, is a qualititive step higher ( to
deliberately use a loaded phrase ).

Now, if you accept in very  broad terms the argument ( surely
you do, don't you, Lisa ? ) :

"Hominids were apes that stood on two legs. This started a process
in which more manual dexterity, bigger brains, more "culture" ,
more ( in quality and quantity ) tool use etc created physical
and environmental conditions in which further development of these
characteristics could take place, at some point ending up as
"us". "

then the logical consequence of accepting this argument is to put
the development of language as one of the products of physical
development which enabled further devlopment, and NOT at the
beginning.

This argument, and the place of language in it, is a materialist
one [ no "god" in it to start it off , nor any "spark of humanity" ]
and dialectical [ skim reading Engels' essay again reminded me
just how deeply ingrained the dialectical materialism was ].

I think if you put language earlier in this development, there is
no real materialist explanation of why language developed BEFORE
the big brain and all the other physical differences which separate
us from apes. In effect, language is the idealist "spark of humanity"
which started the whole thing off.

>
> > I don't see Engels' priority [following the biologist
> > Haeckel] of the evolution of dextrous hands as any more sensible
> than the opposition's priority of brains.
> Adam: Well, it puts Labour at the centre of account of the
> development of  the human species.
>
> Lisa:  I guess this means that you place hands [and tool making] at
> the center of your definition of labor, as well as humanity.  On the
> other hand, Marx wrote that human labor is distinguished by the
> "imagination" of the product before it is produced.  I suppose that
> brings brain/mind into a definition of 'human labor'.  I, of course,
> disagree with both of these views.
>

Isn't there a sentence in Marx : "you may distinguish humans from the
animals by language , culture , or anything you please : humans
themselves distinguished themselves when they began to PRODUCE
their means of subsistence" , or something like that.

Actually, I personally would say that the central element of human
labour is that it is COLLECTIVE. The existence of tool producing
tools indicates that human beings were engaged in collective tool
production. [ You have rightly pointed out that I haven't really said
why one leads to the other - did you accept my "it's obvious" ? ]

I would define human beings as "collective tool producers".

I don't particularly mind which physical characteristic is seen as
the primary motor to get hominids to this point, provided it isn't
the brain, and provided it is thoroughly ( == dialectically )
materialist - but what is wrong with Engels' account ?

> > Also, please note that Engels' language throughout the essay on
> human> evolution is thoroughly Lamarckian.  This aspect of the work
> >is a historically understandable mistake.
> Adam: I'm only vaguely aware of Lamarck.  Could you say more about
> this ?
>
> Lamarck offered the main competition with Darwin over the mechanism
> of evolutionary change during the 19th c.  Darwin said that it was
> in-born variation that was acted upon by 'selective' reproduction and
> mortality rates, so that some variants became more frequent than
> others.  Lamarck said that adaptive variations were acquired during
> one's lifetime and then inherited by one's offspring.
>
> Darwin was right, more right than he could know at the time, but
> Engels speaks Lamarckian.  I can transform many of Engels' statements
> into a more Darwinian form, with a bit of twisting.

But whether characteristics take zero or one generation to get "selected"
is irrelevant to the argument. So I can't see why any translation is
neccessary - could you give an example ?

Adam.

PS

Does Chomsky argue that all human languages have a similar structure ? ie
they all have subjects, verbs, and objects ? And could it be argued that
this is because humans [subject] transform [verb] their surroundings[object] -
ie that our languages all have this structure precisely because we are all
human ?

I'm totally out of my depth here really.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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