Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 20:11:02 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Essentialism, Morality & Communism



Lew, my notion of human nature is a propensity or disposition we have to
behave a certain way in certain circumstances. Unless we are behaviorists,
we think that behavior is the result of something about us in virtue of
which we behave as we do, our nature, for short, as it is realized in
certain environmental circumstances.

Lew thinks that the proposition that das menschlicher Wesen . . . ist das
Ensemble der gesellschaftlichen Verhaeltnisse  is purely negative and
critical. I submit taht the text will not support that reading. Marx says
that das menschlicher Wesen ist kein dem einzelnen Individuum
innewohendes. That is, it;s not what F says it is. In seiner Wirklicheit,
in its own truth, it is the ensemble of social relations. That's a
psoitive thesis. It's a theory of human nature, or the human essence, if
you think there's an important difference. 

--jks

> According to the Ryazanskaya translation of the Theses on Feuerbach,
> Marx talks about the "human essence" being the ensemble of the social
> relations. This fits in better with Marx's critique of Feuerbach who
> "resolves the religious essence into the human essence." This is a
> criticism of Feuerbach's humanism, not a defence of what a human is. As
> I said before, if "human nature" was socially determined or conditioned,
> then what is really being talked about is human *behaviour*.
> 
> -- 
> Lew
> 
> 
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