Antropogenesens problem

Abstract

The notion of dialectical development requires the notion of qualitative leaps, i.e. the sublation of one relation into another and qualitatively different relation. Engels in "Dialectics of Nature" makes this abundantly clear. In the same work Engels strangely enough offers a Darwinian antropogenesis devoid of any identifiable leap. The problem of antropogenesis
is thus the missing leap. Pointing to this problem and tentatively identifying the missing leap is the purpose of the article, which sets out from an identification of the fundamental relation in natural history and the fundamental - and adverse - relation in
human history. The first relation is the strict correspondence between individual activity and individual reproduction. The second is the broken correspondence between individual activity and individual reproduction. This second relation is expressed in the Marxian
term surplus-labour. Using C. O. Lovejoy and sociobiology as a lever, the article argues that the emerging of surplus-labour marks the human leap, and that the performer of this surplus-labour could only have been the female of the species.