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Dear François,
Thanks for referring me to James K. Feibleman's "Mankind behaving: human
needs and material culture",
Thomas 1963, in response to my speculation to Terry about the origin of
needing or desiring to know. I had written:
The short answer is that I think it has to do with the early advantage of
being able to draw on accumulated knowledge in survival situations. The
cultural making path has its origins in actions for survival and then
evolves to emphasize life support and life enhancement actions, policies and
products as external threats to culture making diminish.
Iıve been using the Lakeoff and Johnson (1987) Source->Path->Goal image
schema to represent designing, and thus in the diagram:
Purpose & Motivation-> leading toward Cultural Actions, Policies and
Products. Whether true or not, I have represented the knowledge image
schema as a separate path or mental organization because it has its own
distinctive scientific goal of reliable theory and fact. I wrote desire to
know->knowledge. My additional point was to try to show how the second path
is related to and serves the first.
You suggested need was a better term, referring me to Feibleman. He writes
that human motivation can best be explained on the basis of animal needs and
drives when these are properly transformed and extended. He also says
that, ³There are no creative powers proper to the human individual, What is
referred to as creationı usually proves to be discovering, selecting or
sorting. But knowledge as such is the name for the content carried by the
intermediate processes which are characterized by a long delay between
stimulus and response.²
Iıll admit to both not knowing how knowledge is accumulated and not finding
this behavioral explanation enlightening or satisfying. Iıd like to think
we have managed after 50 years to come out from under the cloud of B.F.
Skinner, but some still stubbornly persist in this pigeon-pecking point of
view. Itıs hard to discuss a goal-oriented process without any connection to
human consciousness.
Re Purpose & Motivation: Need to know probably refers best to motivation and
animal evolutionary origins. Purpose, however, yields desire to know, a
product of human consciousness and culture, something beyond ³discovering,
selecting or sorting.²
Consciousness is ³the fruit of the evolutionary tree.² (Holms Rolston III)
³Man is the valuing animal.² (Nietzsche)
Best to all,
Jerry
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Jerry Diethelm
Architect - Landscape Architect
Planning & Urban Design Consultant
Prof. Emeritus of Landscape Architecture
and Community Service University of Oregon
2652 Agate St., Eugene, OR 97403
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
web: http://pages.uoregon.edu/diethelm/
541-686-0585 home/work 541-346-1441 UO
541-206-2947 work/cell
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