Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 15:43:25 +0300 (EET DST)
Subject: Re: 'sociality' once agin


On Thu, 11 Apr 1996, Lisa Rogers wrote:

" Holy Mackerel!  I can make little or no sense of that,
except maybe the last bit, included above. "

Holy Spinoza! Who is Mackarel?

That all started when you asked "what explains sociality?" I
tried to say "nothing". There's no point to try to explain
it. That's what have been done ever since first priests.
God's the reason or cause. Nature's the reason or cause.
(And most basic, most fundamental cause has been understood
as substance, that which explains reality.) Social action
and practices have nearly always been considered as result
of something else, caused by something else. But not in
modern thought. We don't have try to explain human reality
away, as something secondary. We can use sociality as
"Explanans", as that by which we can make something else
understandable and meaningful.

Sorry, I had to look at older posts. When told that
'humanity is predicated on sociality' you asked "sociality
is predicated on ... what?" And I answered that it doesn't
predicate on anything. We could say, of course, that it
predicates on reproduction of species but then again in
order to be able to produce goods necessary to life we have
to learn that production which implies sociality. This way
we simply end into circular reasoning, I believe. Perhaps
Justin could help us out?

" To this biol/evol/anthro person, social behavior is what
happens whenever conspecifics interact with each other.
Each one's behavior may take into account the other's
behavior.  Social animals are those that generally live in
groups, including [at one end of a scale] an immediate
family. "

I do know that some people still talk about 'behavior' but
personally I don't know anyone. Should we call that cultural
difference? However, I'd say that 'social behavior' is
'interaction' but interaction isn't enough to define what
social/sociality is. Basically there are some sort of
'rules' for interaction. If you want you can make a
difference between 'rules' and 'structures', but basically
social = interaction + rules. Besides, other person isn't
necessary for social action. I mean, physical person. I
may go alone into some forest and still think about our
discussion. I might develop my argument there. Despite my
physical solitude my action is still social. Ok?

" The dichotomy between society/ nature appears useless and
imaginary to me.  Humans are as "natural" as everything
else. "

Yeah, in a sense. I didn't mean any strict dichotomy. And I
truly don't know what you people are really doing in biology
and evolutionary anthropology. I'm all ears.

Secondly, rest of nature isn't exactly human. There are
differences even between apes and humans. Or am I totally
wrong? I tend to believe that human sociality and animal
sociality are essentially different, despite the fact that
homo sapiens is 'natural' being. Marx said once that there
isn't a bit of natural stuff or matter in social phenomena.

" Thanks for the attempt, Jukka, but have you got any
sociology that is less, well, I don't know what to call
it... "

You're welcome. Call it as you will. I might have. Other
question is that linguistically simple theorybabble isn't
too hard for me. Kind of ordinary language use takes much
more time. English, after all, isn't my mother tongue.

Yours, Jukka



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