Andy wrote:
> But it *is* important that the human labour has
>objective content. ---- "Minor extent only" you say.
What I said is more precisely: "So human society does not, or to
minor extents only, reflect aspects of the natural world." Obviously,
this is relative. We could discuss at no end whether the glass is
half full or half empty. That is not my point. What I think is that
with industrialization humans have neutralized so much of nature.
Presently human made catastrophes are much more imminent and
dangerous than most of nature's risks. The medical endeavor has all
but removed selection pressures from human bioevolution and will
probably (want to) soon go on doing the variation business according
to plans as part of an engineering business. Most humans now are
reasonably aware of nature's normal behavior and can most of the time
deal with it whereas they are fully delivered to the arrogance and
the consequences of unpredictable decisions and acts of other humans
often far away and with nil chance of return influence nor even of
neutralizing such effects. Etc. etc.
But my major point was not this. No matter whether we judge it large
or small the fact remains that theses influences from other humans
are not governed by natural law, only restricted in the sense that
they cannot break law. What humans can do and much more what happens
on earth from mineral to biotic evolutions, large parts of animal and
human behavior and in particular cultural traditions fill vast spaces
not covered, not coverable by natural law. And this while scientists
promise self-assured they soon will understand and make everything.
And the social scientists themselves have accepted that their
business is to follow those sciences resulting in the elucidation of
natural law. In my view this is a strange misunderstanding, indeed,
in that natural only can explain what is possible under certain
circumstances, and not what really happened and happens in nature.
It is this kind of attitude that may be marked with terms of
"objectivism" and in addition to its complement of sort of deriding
and certainly neglecting, overcoming, if necessary overrunning claims
of importance for subjectivity which I feel is underlying Leontiev's
text.
You did not respond to this part of my message.
Alfred
-- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland --- alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch Website: http://www.psy.unibe.ch/ukp/langpapers/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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