Page 171 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

148 Communication and Evolution of Society

conditions lead to a new level of social development. I would
like to propose the following answer: the species learns not only
in the dimension of technically useful knowledge decisive for the
development of productive forces but also in the dimension of
moral-practical consciousness decisive for structures of interaction.
The rules of communicative action do develop in reaction to
changes in the domain of instrumental and strategic action; but
in doing so they follow thezr own logic.

IV
The historical-materialist concept of the history of the species
calls for reconstructing social development in terms of a develo p-
mental sequence of modes of production. I would like to indicate
a few advantages and difficulties that arise in applying this con-
cept and then put up for discussion a proposed resolution [of the
problem}.
1. The advantages can be seen through comparison with com-
peting attempts to find viewpoints from which the historical
material can be ordered in a developmental logic. Thus there are
proposals for periodization based on the principal materials being
worked (from stone, bronze, and iron, up to the synthetic prod-
ucts of today) or on the most important energy sources being
exploited (from fire, water, and wind, up to atomic and solar
energy). But the attempt to discover a developmental pattern in
these sequences soon leads to the techniques for making natural
resources accessible and for working them. There does, in fact,
seem to be a pattern of development to the history of technology.*®
At any rate, technological development accommodates itself to
being interpreted as 7f mankind had successively projected the
elementary components of the behavioral system of purposive-
rational action (which is attached in the first instance to the
human organism) onto the level of technical means, and relieved
itself of the corresponding functions—at first of the functions
of the motor apparatus (legs and hands), then of the functions
of the sensory apparatus (eyes, ears, skin) and of the brain.
We can, of course, go beyond the level of the history of
technology. In the ontogenetic dimension, Piaget has pointed out