[Xmca-l] Re: The Anatomy of the Ape

[David Kellogg]

Thanks, Jussi. In the "History of the Crisis" Vygotsky uses this aphorism
to justify looking for the origins of Shakespeare in Bunin, for the origins
of La Fontaine in Shakespeare, etc. But in "Psychology of Art", he entirely
leaves out classical art; Aesop appears in his Renaissance and not his
Classical form. Classical art is really the whole point of the remark in
the Grundrisse.

Marx does seem to suggest that there is something especially special about
those Greeks. They were "normal children". Presumably he means the
chlidhood of our own art, compared to the "precocious" children of African
art or the "backward" children of Chinese art.

I guess this is a little like his "Asiatic mode of production", which is
really just a way of  warning us not to overgeneralize our own case through
time or space: feudalism is no more a "natural" or "universal" state of
affairs than capitalism.

David Kellogg

On Wed, Nov 22, 2017 at 8:01 PM, Jussi Silvonen <jussi.silvonen@uef.fi>
wrote:

> Hi David!
>
>
> The Introduction to Grundrisse was publishes already in 1903 in Die Neue
> Zeit, and reprinted in some collections in Russia in 20s or early 30s.
> Maybe in 'Marx Engels Archives'. You can find it as "Einleitung" in MEW 13.
>
>
> JusSi
>
> ________________________________
> Lähettäjä: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.
> edu> käyttäjän David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> puolesta
> Lähetetty: 22. marraskuuta 2017 1:08:27
> Vastaanottaja: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Aihe: [Xmca-l] The Anatomy of the Ape
>
> Vygotsky cites, in the Historical Meaning of the Crisis of Psychology,
> Marx's rather cryptic remark in the Grundrisse about human anatomy holding
> the key to the anatomy of the ape. He uses this elsewhere (in his
> discussions of psychotechnics and pedology) and obviously finds it an
> important remark. More, he is perfectly aware of its non-teleological
> character: he knows that saying that humans developed from apes is not the
> same thing as saying that apes are fated to become humans.
>
> But how did Vygotsky know this? As far as I can figure out, the Grundrisse
> wasn't published until 1939, five years after Vygotsky's death. Did
> Vygotsky have privileged access? Or is there some other place where Marx
> says this that I don't know about?
>
> David Kellogg
>