The name rings a bell but I've never read him. The idea of developing
psychological concepts out of phylogenetic origins is unclear to me.
Doesn't "phylogenetic" refer to species differentiation? The processes I'm
indicating all are within the same species and definitely part of the
cultural-historical dimension. I don't think anyone who rigorously applies
Marx's ideas about the evolution of social formation could reduce psychology
to phylogenetic speciation.
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 11:03 AM
Subject: Re: agency and subject
> Paul, are you aware of the critical (Marxist) psychologist Klaus
> Holzkamp who, in true dialectical materialist manner, developed
> psychological concepts out of the phylogenetic origins of humans--he
> says everything else is a reification of folk psychology and its
> dominant (hegemonic) but unfounded categories, or something to that
> nature.
>
> Michael
>
>
>
> >1) The existence of languages in which the semantic core concept of
AGENCY
> >is not tied to the syntactic category of SUBJECT. It turns out that most
of
> >these languages are associated with groups who missed out on the
> >agricultural revolution entirely (Australian aborigines) or had come to
the
> >western hemisphere before the AG revolution and perhaps didn't
participate
> >in its independent New World development -- this latter being a
conjecture
> >at present since I'm not sure which new world languages have this
> >characteristic. .
> >
> >2) The transition to agriculture involved a fundamental change in the
> >tool-mediated relationship between human groups and the natural
environment.
> >In the paleolithic, according to the archaeological record, humans didn't
> >intervene in the natural processes that provide their means of living.
They
> >collected what "nature" provided. They were highly mobile, travelling
with
> >the seasons to areas where game was found or where specific plants were
> >providing fruits suitable for human consumption. With the neolithic,
the
> >emergence of agriculture involves a process whereby humans actively
> >intervene in the natural processes; ie, the long "history" of
controlling
> >nature to serve human needs begins.
> >
> >My conjecture is that the specific practical anchor that ties SUBJECT
> >(grammatical) and AGENT (semantical) comes about as a result of this
> >specific configuration of subject-tool-object where the subject is human
> >group, the tools are all the practices for clearing land, planting,
> >controlling competing plants and animals, irrigating (especially), and
the
> >object is nature as a productive force itself..
> >
> >The key change here (transition to agriculture) is that nature is no
longer
> >a provider, ie a subject that must be dealt with as any other subject,
but a
> >force that is subjected to human agency, a force that loses (gradually to
be
> >sure, like over the space of thousands of years--at least up until
> >Aristotle) its qualities of AGENCY and becomes a simple FORCE not unlike
> >gravity. This process also yields our specific historico-cultural
notions
> >of individual, subject, and agency.
> >
> >These are musings, eh?
> >
> >Paul H. Dillon
>
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Wolff-Michael Roth
> Lansdowne Professor
> Applied Cognitive Science
> MacLaurin Building A548 Tel: (250) 721-7885
> University of Victoria FAX: (250) 472-4616
> Victoria, BC, V8W 3N4 Email: mroth@uvic.ca
> http://www.educ.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
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