Yes Mike, I know and I regret and hope to improve. Presently I enjoy
the questions of the list members and so I go on. Thank you all. So I
can hope to regain my older writing habit. I shall be away from the
net on a meeting for two days.
Still, there is quite a number of English papers on my website. And
if you or anybody would ask me the question: what is a greater
delight, amusement, and more deeply helpful etc., to read a polished
book where everything about X is written down nicely or a group of
papers, all describing parts of X, with some duplication from
different perspectives and numbers of white spots and also good
perspectives? My answer without hesitation (;-)) is to the latter.
Because in the former case I may perhaps say: so what, whereas in the
latter it almost substitutes for my traveling because I have to
invent a lot myself to fill the gaps myself. Keeps me active (:-)).
And, yes, I have to pay in the form of effort. (In both cases,
naturally.)
Elective affinities -- yes, if understood as kind of elaboration of
existing affinities. The history of extending, enlarging, amending,
differentiating, etc. affinities by a variety of processes, mainly by
their use, is infinite during the life cycle of any ecosystem. If you
want to understand "elective" in a more specific sense as planned, on
purpose, it might come out differently than intended because the
existing affinities are co-players in the game. So "elective"
probably is kind of indirect, but can play a big role if it refers to
say the preferential selection of some place, setting, people,
activities etc. Eventually my contention is that it makes no
difference how the affinities have come about in their actual shape.
We cannot know them exactly except when they play. Testing them in
artificial situations may be as misleading as any psychological
testing.
On the other hand, speaking of humans and their particular affinity
condition, human individuals have obviously often available quite a
range of possibilities to influence in the long run their affinities
their own and those of their companions. Many of those influences are
prepared and elected by fellow humans such as parents, friends,
neighbors, media etc. It might be interesting to consider education
as way of influencing the specter of affinities both of the
individuals educated and of the larger group of people enjoying in
need of related education for a partially shared life. Being adult or
mature could mean taking responsibility for one's own set of
affinities. Understandably a well cultivated set of affinities,
whether by one's own or by other's arrangement is the best
preparation for all kinds of crucial and consequential decisions or
comportment in critical situations in general. I even suggest a
reasonable ethics of an individual or in a group has its ground
bestly in a well prepared affinity endowment. And I may suggest this
kind of perspective to replace the rational manner of moral
philosophers and related specialists to test comportment options
against general principles. The advantage of affinity cultivation
lies in the rich relationship with the realities of ordinary life.
By the way, it may interest philosophically minded readers that Kant
used the term "affinity" in the understanding of it being "the ground
of the possibility of association of the manifold [phenomena] in so
far as it lies in the object". He differentiates "empirical" (as
above) from "transcedental" affinity of which the former is a sequel
while the latter has its foundation in the"unity of
self-consciousness". (KrV A113f.) So this word use has a tradition
which appears quite general. All the while I clearly refute Kant's
metaphysical apparatus and the idea that transcendental affinity
should follow necessary and enduring law. Affinity can only in
anthropocentric and self-aggrandizing fiction be "a necessary effect
of a synthesis in the Einbildungskraft which is grounded a priori in
rules" (A123).
Rather, all affinities emerge evolutively from the sum total of the
transactions of a structure (including, in case, those of its
predecessors in its line of origin) with encountering structures; and
if at all something like association may be the least suitable way
they are formed. Affinities are relationals; they never lie in one
structure alone. Rather affinity means a kind of fitness of a
structure in its normal environment. I asked myself whether
evolutionary biologists would not do well to avoid their overall
functionalism and better conceive of fitness of organisms and of
environmental settings or parts thereof in terms of affinity.
With kind recommendations, Alfred
-- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland --- alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch Website: http://www.psy.unibe.ch/ukp/langpapers/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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