Randy,
You have raised a very practical problem. "One question that arises for me about Ilyenkov is to what degree
is the ideal universal or local?" The way I understand it, the ideal is to be understood as an aspect of objective existence much in the same way that hardness, heat/cold, color, and other qualities are aspects of objective existence. It is not a phenomena that exists in the specific neural patterns of our brains but is a quality of the real world. Its peculiarity consists in that it is a property of the real world that we as humans create through historical-practical activity. So in the broadest sense of the word, the ideal is both universal and local.
A confusion arises, however, when we ask about a specific form of the ideal as it pertains to our specific place in history and its corresponding cultural/material context. The notion of freedom is one such specific manifestation where this confusion tends to appear. As an ideological concept comparable say to the Maori concept of "mana" that Durkheim analyzes in "Elementary Forms of Religious Life"; it appears to us in a reified form that we attach to physical objects, in this case, the individuals of the species homo sapiens.
Although Ilyenkov might have written about this specific problem (i only know the work translated into English), Felix Mikhailov does provide an analysis of individual agency from this perspective that I consider the genetic root (as labor is the genetic root of value) of the concept that we encounter as "freedom". Fundamentally the question of agency is involved with two dimensions the individual homo-sapiens social existence: *needs* of various kinds (biological, psychological, etc.) and *purposes* which arise necessarily in the context of realizing social activity. (see http://www.marxists.org/archive/mikhailov/works/riddle/riddle2e.htm)
I'll quote two passages that I believe best adumbrate this position. The first establishes a framework for viewing individual agency and the second the nature of purpose as goal-oriented action:
"Human individuality is the inimitable originality of each individual Homo sapiens realising his life-activity as a subject of socio-historical development. The inimitability, the uniqueness of the individual is determined by the organic unity and integrality of the process of development of his needs and abilities, which are formed in active intercourse with living, inimitabler bearers of social culture. The essential media of this intercourse are the objective forms, ways and means of culture: the instruments and products of all forms of socio-historical activity (labour), language, knowledge, skills, abilities and so on." [ie, the ideal]
. . .
"Purposeful activity can be performed only by an individual capable of distinguishing himself from his own activity. Otherwise activity cannot be treated as a guided process, a process directed towards some aim. What is more the setting of the aim is a function of the indvidual's abilitity to view his activity from the side.
Activity directed toward an aim. The image of what should appear as a result of activity, but which is not yet and without this activity never will be, hovers in the mental vision of the acting individual. And it is this goal-oriented activity that Marx includes among the universal (simple and abstract from all their real historical social forms) elements of labour."
It would seem to me that the ideological concept of abstract "freedom" amplifies the "goal-oriented" aspect of individual activity without taking into consideration how the individual comes to view his or her activity "from the side". To answer this both Ilyenkov and Mikhailov propose that the entire history of human evolution (during which process even the very biological nature of homo sapiens is defined) forms the substance of individuality. As I interpret it, the ability to stand to the side, the pure negation of the given, is the fundamental characteristic of goal orientation, the difference between the worst human carpenter and the spider that Marx alluded to in his well known example.
I guess the question about the ideal as universal or particular is sort of like asking about color: yes color exists concretely (and this concreteness is definitely not given as specific wavelengths on the electromagnetic spectrum impacting optical neurons but a culturally and historically determined maniforld) but always as particular colors and furthermore always given in disappearing moments; ie, individuals.
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Randy Bomer <rbomer@indiana.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2000 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: freedom & responsibility
> Hi all.
>
> I'm assuming that the freedom/responsibility discussion does relate in some
> way to Ilyenkov, so I wanted to explore whether I could understand how. (I
> know it spun off, but still...) Might it be seen as a case study in the
> ways ideality operates in activity and social relations? There is this
> sign/concept "freedom" that exists independent of any of our thinking, that
> predates our existence, that has no material presence, and that carries with
> it (but represses, abbreviates, enfolds) a history of relations and
> activity. "Freedom" in the US and "Freiheit" in
> Germany surely aren't at all the same, as some have pointed out. And
> "freedom" in the US is not identical across contexts, either. So is
> Ilyenkov's notion of the ideal situated in particular contexts or is it
> something that transcends those contexts? I tend to think that ideality is
> really instantiated in very particular conversations and that the
> intersubjectvity necessary to sustain the Ideal has to be continually
> re-negotiated. Consequently, philosophical explorations of notions like
> "freedom" can only be partial, and we can only see their consequences if we
> are working to solve together some particular pragmatic problem, like, say,
> what side to take on legislation regarding abortion, or how to respond to
> the situation of Afghani women, or how to set up a classroom.
>
> Also, people invoke and employ terms that signify ideal concepts always and
> only in social action. Like people use "freedom" as they negotiate
> relationships along the lines of who gets to play the role of being right,
> who gets to correct whose discourse, who can claim a transcendent voice, who
> remains silent to signal their disinterest. I don't remember this point in
> Ilyenkov, but it seems like the ideal not only carries material history
> hidden behind it but also is always named in the new making of new social
> and material history. I imagine that was behind Helena's earlier question
> about whom Ilyenkov was writing for and what the conversation was like, to
> re-situate his signification of the ideality of "ideality" within social
> activity.
>
> That's what I'm thinking about...
>
> Randy
> ----------------------------
> Randy Bomer
> Language Education
> Indiana University
> 201 N. Rose Ave.
> Bloomington, IN 47405
> (812) 856-8293
>
>
>
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Oct 01 2000 - 01:00:51 PDT