Re: Sartre & God (was Re: the mature Marx?)

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> cbcox@xxxxxxxxx 12/26/00 10:37AM >>>


Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky wrote:

> I don't know if a
> truly working "philosophy of praxis" can be anything but genetic.

I'm thinking of the tendency to explain a 'thing' by its
origin, that if you understand the acorn, you understand
the oak. Marx places the emphasis precisely when he notes
that "The anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the
ape" and does *not* add that the anatomy of the ape is the
key to the anatomy of man. The latter would imply an
utterly mechanistic view of evolution. This theme runs
through the *Grundrisse* and *Capital*. It is also Gould's
central argument in *Wonderful Life*. Only because we
*are* homo sapiens, because we *know* the anatomy
(structure) of man can we know that it is implicit in
the ape. But there is no necessary reason that the ape
would have evolved into man; the same ape *also*,
for example, evolved into the Chimpanzee. Under other
conditions (or contingencies) that ape which is the common
ancestor of man and chimpanzee might have evolved into
neither but into primates which (in fact) never existed but
might have as easily as chimp & man.

(((((((((((

CB: When Marx read _The Origin of Species_ , to paraphrase, he told Engels that 
Darwin
had developed our method for natural science. So, Marxism is not disinterested 
nor a
denial of the importance of _origins_ in explanation. Marxism works in terms of 
the
dialectic of chance and necessity. It doesn't exclude necessity and resort to 
absolute
contingency.

In the first Chapter of Capital, Marx describes barter of commodities as a 
first stage
in the development toward commodity production dominating all of society in
capitalism. The idea is that there was a _seed_ of capitalism in the early 
barter of
commodities in non -capitalist society. There was a tendency toward capitalism 
before
capitalism. The kernel of capitalism was in precapitalist society. The 
occurrence of
capitalism was not an absolutely contingent or accidental event relative to 
earlier
stages of society.

Similarly, Marx and Engels call socialism "inevitable" given capitalism. This 
usage
contradicts Carrol's argument that Marxism is absolute contingencism. Marxism 
is not
the denial of any necessity or determinism in history. In fact , Engels praises 
Marx
for overcoming the notions of history as a hodgepodge of accidental and chance 
events.


(((((((((((


Similarly, a scholar who had a total knowledge of human
history from the beginning to (say) 1300 but no knowledge
of anything after that time could *never* discover in that
history its future in capitalism: there was no *necessary*
reason that capitalism should have developed. Many
contingencies lie between the acorn and the developed
oak. In the case of idenical twins their position in the womb
has an influence on their development, so that in fact there
is no such thing as "identical twins."


(((((((((((((

CB: If there were no necessary connection between the acorn and the oak, an 
acorn
might just as likely develop into an elm or a dog as an oak, "based on certain
contingencies arising ".


(((((((((((



There may, of course, be a purely verbal difference here --
that is, a difference in how we understand or use the
word "genetic."

Note: When Gary's post on Bhaskar & religion appeared,
there was no necessary reason that it should have led to
a discussion between you and me on an alleged "genetic
fallacy."  <g>

Carrol