On Wed, 5 Jul 1995 Giovanni Arrighi wrote a thoughtful commentary on the
discussion to date, including this small bit addressed to myself:
> The result is an evolutionary theory of the capitalist world-economy that
> is neither teleological nor progressivist. Sanderson seems to agree with
> this assessment. Bruce McFarling says that he has not yet settled to his
> satisfaction whether the LTC meets the criteria of a non-teleological
> evolutionary theory. I would be interested to know what particular aspect
> of the LTC appears teleological to him.
This is not the dichotomy I set up, since I wasn't attempting to
set a dichotomy at all. There are three, not two, possibilities: it is an
evolutionary theory, in the precise sense of descent with modification,
and avoids teleology; it is an evolutionary theory in this sense, but
falls into the trap of teleology; or it is not an evolutionary theory at
all, at least not in this precise sense. Had I been clearer, I would
have laid these out, so that I could say I have not settled to my own
satisfaction whether it is or is not an evolutionary theory in the
precise sense of descent with modification -- that it is non-teleological
is granted.
The source of the confusion is of course with my post, where I say
something to the effect of being being able to say to my own satisfaction
whether it is or is not evolutionary 'in *this* non-teleological sense'
(emphasis added); it could be read as saying 'in this *non*-teleological
sense' (unintended emphasis). As I've said remarked more recently, even
if there is a coherent entity (which in remarks in the same post Giovanni
Arrighi clearly maintains; and if selection principles avoid a
teleological fallacy, which I grant for LTC, there still has to be
reproduction of systems to have descent with variation. Three
possibilities, for example, are (1) that a system persists, (2) that is
reproduces, or (3) that the system is regenerated by the interactions of its
member population. By this time, and especially with the help of
Giovanni Arrighi's remarks, (1) has been pinned down as a common WS
perspective, but not the perspective of LTC. I still must satisfy myself
as to (2) vs (3) ... not only in LTC but probably with greater difficulty
for myself, so even when I get LTC pinned down, I'll still have to figure
out if I agree or not ;)
Virtually,
Bruce McFarling, Knoxville
brmcf@utkux1.utk.edu