[Xmca-l] Re: Laws of evolution and laws of history

[mike cole]

So perhaps its just my bad memory, Andy. the issues remain central.
THANKS for the appropriate links!
mike

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 4:51 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> There can only be two sources of this idea: Engels' "Part Played by Labour
> in the Transition from Ape to Man" (1876)
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-
> played-labour/index.htm
> and the Introduction to "Dialectics of Nature" (1883)
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch01.htm
>
> In the latter work, after explaining how freeing the hands by adopting an
> erect gait, led to the use of tools, meaning labour, and this led to the
> expansion of the brain, language and sundry other changes, and thus
> eventualy the emergence of human beings as a species. Then he says:
>
>    "With men we enter /history/."
>
> In the earlier document, he says: "Labour begins with the making of tools"
> which Engels claims happened before the formation of modern homo sapiens,
> contributing to that formation rather than being a product of the formation
> of modern humans, and he narrates a story which continues from this point
> up to socialist revolution as if it were one continuous story, blurring
> over the distinction between evolution of the species and historical
> development of culture.
> The nerest we come to your quote is: "the more that human beings become
> removed from animals in the narrower sense of the word, the more they make
> their own history consciously." The "narrower sense" I presume means
> biological differentiation. So this could count for what you are looking
> for, Mike.
>
> Andy
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>
>
>
> mike cole wrote:
>
>> Dear Colleagues--
>>
>> I seem to recall reading an idea, that I recall being attributed to
>> Engels,
>> that (rooughly) "more and more the laws of evolution are being replaced by
>> the laws of history."
>>
>> Can anyone enlighten me either as to the source of this "quotation" or as
>> to the source of my own confusion in this regard?
>>
>> mike
>>
>>
>>
>
>


-- 
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science as an object
that creates history. Ernst Boesch.