This is actually a pretty complex matter, since evolution itself
is only one aspect of the self-organization of the planetary
surface system as a whole over very long time scales. What is,
from one point of view, species or ecosystem evolution, is, from
another, a _developmental_ process of larger more inclusive
systems. In this view, however, one can at least say that
complexity is added by the creation through self-organization
processes of various new _intermediate_ levels between the total
system and its smallest constituent components. In this view,
'sociality' is primordial, and 'individuals', at least as we
usually imagine them to be, are the late development.
The precursor of human, _conspecific_ sociality is the ecological
_interspecific_ interaction among different species/elements.
There is always a 'division of labor' in ecosystems, they are
essentially heterogeneous, and this property is primordial to
their predecessor systems back almost _ab initio_. What our
culture recognizes as sociality has its phylogenetic origins at
least as far back as the origin of sexual (vs asexual)
reproduction -- a 'division of labor' among members of the same
species, heterogeneous roles in a common activity with a common
'goal', if you like. What is special with human ecosocial systems
is that the division of labor is now semiotically as well as
materially mediated (note to metaphysicians: semiotic processes
are a _kind of_ material process): thus the space of possible
meaningful differentiations in behavior in activity becomes much
greater.
What, presumably, theorists like Leontiev have in mind, however,
is the creation of a _historically specific_ notion of, and kind
of, social individual from the division of labor of a particular
social order. We know this argument today mainly from the case of
the gender division, and its role in the constitution of gendered
identities. Our modern notion of the individual, not simply as
organism, but as 'persona' is itself an essentially social notion
of the individual. Without the social semiotic 'division of
labor' (micro-differentiability of behavior in activity) it
simply would not be possible for each of us to seem to be as
different from one another as our notion of 'an individual'
requires. How behaviorally individual are ants (of the same
caste)? or electrons?
So it is perhaps best to say that social-individuals are always
evolving from prior social-individuals, or as new emergent
intermediate levels of organization _within_ prior social-
individuals. An ecosystem, or a society, is, after all, also an
individual. JAY.
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JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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