Identity and Individuation – Maverick Philosopher

Do We Love the Person or Only Her Attributes?

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Gleanings from a passage from Pascal.

This supplements and deepens the recent discussion of subjective and objective views of death.

The Relative Unreality of Social Transactions

An excerpt from a journal entry dated 21 July 1985 followed by a comment.

There is often little or no personal reality in human relationships. They are often nothing more than formulaic transactions. When I saw C.T.K. on Friday I told him, sincerely, that he looked good, healthy. He felt obliged to return the compliment — he couldn't just graciously accept it; he had to interpret it as the opening move in a social transaction.

I would like to think that it is possible to instantiate social roles, playing them, as we must, but without being played by them, that is, without allowing oneself to succumb to the illusion of being identical to them.

It may be that some people are social-transactional, and thus pure social surface all the way down. In such people there appears to be no person beneath the personae, nothing below the masks, poses, roles, no spiritual substance. Social interaction has lifted them above the merely animalic, and so they count as human in one sense, but they have never glimpsed the possibility of a further step from the merely social to the truly individual.

The project of radical self-individuation is beyond their ken. I had a colleague like that, a man stuck at the level of ego-games and oneupsmanship. In a 'conversation' with him I never had the sense that any communication was taking place. So it came as no surprise when, in one of our 'conversations,' he asserted that a person is just the sum-total of his social roles. Nor was it a surprise when I learned that he was working toward a second Ph. D. in sociology!

On whether an individual is identical to its existence

This just over the transom:

Good day Dr. Vallicella,

I was reading your book on existence, and on page 71, there is this argument for the real distinction between an individual's essence and its existence:

"[I]f in a essence and existence are identical, then a's essence entails a's existence. But that is to say that a is a necessary being… [this] implies that every individual is a necessary being, which is absurd."

I've reconstructed this as follows, and it seems one can object to premise (2):

(1) If a's existence is identical to a's essence, then a's essence entails a's existence.

(2) If a's essence entails X, then a is necessarily X.

(3) Therefore, if a's existence = a's essence, then a necessarily exists.

(4) a is a contingent being.

(5) No contingent being can exist necessarily.

(6) Therefore, a's existence is not identical to a's essence.

(2) seems ambiguous. We can say that a can be necessarily X absolutely or conditionally. Put in terms of possible worlds, a is necessarily X absolutely if a is X in all possible worlds, while a is necessarily X conditionally if a is X only in all worlds where a exists.

BV: I accept your distinction, but I would couch it in different terms, terms in keeping with standard practice. Let the free variable 'x' range over individuals. To say that x is essentially F (where 'F' is a predicate that picks out a property) is to say that x is F in every possible world in which x exists. To say that x is accidentally F is to say that x is F in some, but not all, of the possible worlds in which x exists. To say that x is necessarily F is to say that (i) x is essentially F, and that (ii) x exists in every possible world.

If we read (2) in terms of absolute necessity, then (2) is false–just because a triangle's essence entails being three-sided, it doesn't follow that triangles exist in all possible worlds.

BV: If you are talking about particular material triangles, a triangular piece of metal for example, then it it is true that they do not exist in all worlds. And this despite the fact that every triangle is essentially three-sided. But what I mean by the essence of a concrete contingent individual such as a triangular piece of metal is the whatness or quiddity of that very individual minus its existence. Recall that I distinguish between wide and narrow senses of 'essence' on p. 68:

'Essence' is here employed in a wide sense to denote the conjunction of those properties that make up what a thing is, and not in the narrow sense according to which a thing's essential (as opposed to accidental) properties are those it cannot fail to possess. Thus in the wide sense of 'essence' being sunburned now is part of my essence, even though I might not have been sunburned now. Thus [both] narrowly essential and accidental properties (whether monadic or relational) are part of my wide essence.

So consider that triangular piece of metal. It exists, and it exists contingently, which is to say — avoiding possible worlds jargon — that it is possibly such that it does not exist. It might not have existed: there is no metaphysical necessity that it exist. But if the existence of x and the wide essence of x are one and the same — as the 'no difference theory' implies — then our triangular piece of metal exists just in virtue of its being what it is. That is equivalent to saying that its possibility entails its actuality, which is the definition of a necessary being. But that piece of metal is surely no necessary being. So I conclude that there is a real distinction between wide essence and existence in it and in every contingent being. What I argue in the book is that the metaphysical contingency of a contingent being is rooted in the real distinction.

If we read (2) in terms of conditional necessity, then (2) is true–a triangle is three-sided only in worlds where it exists–but this would render (6) false, since something can exist necessarily in a conditional sense and still be a contingent being.

It is certainly true — to put it my way — that a thing can have an essential property and "still be a contingent being." But this is not relevant to what I am saying.

You must bear in mind that I deny that existence is a property where P is a property =_df P is possibly such that it is instantiated. Your argument above seems to miss this important point. You seem to be assimilating existence to a property. We rightly distinguish essential and accidental properties, but existence is neither an essential nor an accidental property.

The existence of x is just too basic to be a property of x, but not so basic as to be identical to x!

Is this a fair reconstruction of your argument, and if so, how can the above objection be addressed?

I would say that you haven't grasped by argument. Comments are enabled in case you have a rejoinder.

Thank you for your time.

Best,

M. L. Pianist

Thank you for writing, M. L.

Lecturer on Personal Identity Denied Honorarium

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Why I Reject Individual Concepts

This entry was first posted on 24 July 2011. Time for a repost with minor modifications. I find that I still reject individual concepts. Surprise!

…………………………….

Consider the sentences 'Caissa is a cat' and 'Every cat is an animal.' Edward the Nominalist made two claims in an earlier comment thread that stuck in my Fregean craw:

1) The relation between 'Caissa' and 'cat' is the same as the relation between 'cat' and 'animal'.

2) The relation between *Caissa* and *cat* is the same as the relation between *cat* and *animal.*

Single quotes are being used in the usual way to draw attention to the expression enclosed within them. Asterisks are being used to draw attention to the concept expressed by the linguistic item enclosed within them. I take it that we agree that concepts are mental in nature in the sense that, were there no minds, there would be no concepts.

Affirming (2), Edward commits himself to individual or singular concepts. I deny that there are individual concepts and so I reject (2). Rejecting (2), I take the side of the Fregeans against the traditional formal logicians (TFL-ers) who think that singular propositions can be analyzed as general. Thus 'Caissa is a cat' gets analyzed by the TFL-ers as 'Every Caissa is a cat.'

To discuss this profitably we need to agree on the following definition of 'individual concept':

D1. C is an individual concept of x =_df x is an instance of C, and it is not possible that there be a y distinct from x such that y is an instance of C.

So if there is an individual concept of my cat Caissa, then Caissa instantiates this concept and nothing distinct from Caissa does or could instantiate it. We can therefore say that individual concepts, if there are any, 'capture' or 'grasp' or 'make present to the mind' the very haecceity (non-qualitative thisness) of the individuals of which they are the individual concepts.

We can also speak of individual concepts as singular concepts and contrast them with general concepts. *Cat* is a general concept. What makes it general is not that it has many instances, although it dos have many instances, but that it can have many (two or more) instances. General concepts are thus multiply instantiable.

The concept C1 expressed by 'the fattest cat that ever lived and ever will live' is also general. For, supposing that Oscar instantiates this concept, it is possible that some other feline instantiate it. Thus C1 does not capture the haecceity of Oscar or of any cat. C1 is general, not singular. C1 is multiply instantiable in the sense that it can have two or more instances, though not in the same possible world or at the same time.

And so from the fact that a concept applies to exactly one thing if it applies to anything, one cannot validly infer that it is an individual or singular concept. Such a concept must capture the very identity or non-qualitative thisness of the thing of which it is a concept. This is an important point. To push further I introduce a definition and a lemma.

D2. C is a pure concept =_df C involves no specific individual and can be grasped without reference to any specific individual.

Thus 'green,' 'green door,' 'bigger than a barn,' 'self-identical,' and 'married to someone' all express pure concepts. 'Taller than the Washington Monument,' 'married to Heidegger,' and 'identical to Heidegger' express impure concepts, if they express concepts at all.

Lemma 1: No individual concept is a pure concept.

Proof. By (D1), if C is an individual concept of x, then it is not possible that there be a y distinct from x such that y instantiates C. But every pure concept, no matter how specific, even unto maximal specificity, is possibly such as to have two or more instances. Therefore, no individual concept is a pure concept.

Consider the famous Max Black example of two iron spheres alike in all monadic and relational respects. A pure concept of either, no matter how specific, would also be a pure concept of the other. And so the non-qualitative haecceity of neither would be captured by that pure concept.

Lemma 2. No individual concept is an impure concept.

Proof. An individual concept is either pure or impure. If C is impure, then by (D2) it must involve an individual. And if C is an individual concept it must involve the very individual of which it is the individual concept. But individuum ineffabile est: no individual can be grasped precisely as an individual. But that is precisely what one would have to be able to do to have an impure concept of an individual. Therefore, no individual concept is an impure concept.

Putting the lemmata together, it follows that an individual concept cannot be either pure or impure. But it must be one or the other. So there are no individual concepts. Q. E. D.!

Our Knowledge of Sameness (2021 Version)

How ubiquitous, yet how strange, is sameness! The strangeness of the ordinary. Sameness is a structure of reality so pervasive and fundamental that a world that did not exhibit it would be inconceivable. There is synchronic and diachronic sameness. I will be discussing the latter.

How do I know that the tree I now see in my backyard is numerically the same as the one I saw there yesterday? Alvin Plantinga (Warrant and Proper Function, Oxford 1993, p. 124) says in a Reidian vein that one knows this "by induction." I take him to mean that the tree I now see resembles very closely the one I saw yesterday in the same place and that I therefore inductively infer that they are numerically the same. Thus the resemblance in respect of a very large number of properties provides overwhelming evidence of their identity.

But this answer is open to objection. First of all, there is something instantaneous and immediate about my judgment of identity in a case like this: I don't compare the tree-perceived-yesterday, or rather my memory of the tree-perceived-yesterday, with the tree-perceived-today, property for property, to see how close they resemble in order to hazard the inference that they are identical. There is no 'hazarding' at all. Phenomenologically, there is no comparison and no inference. I just see that they are the same. But this 'seeing' is of course not with the eyes. For sameness is not an empirically detectable property or relation. I am just immediately aware — not mediately via inference — that they are the same. Greenness is empirically detectable, but sameness is not.

What is the nature of this immediate awareness given that we do not come to it by inductive inference or by literally seeing (with the eyes) the numerical sameness of yesterday's tree and today's tree? And what exactly is the object of the awareness, identity itself?

A problem with Plantinga's answer is that it allows the possibility that the two objects are not strictly and numerically the same, but are merely exact duplicates or indiscernible twins. But I want to discuss this in terms of the problem of how we perceive or know or become aware of change. Change is linked to identity since for a thing to change is for one and the same thing to change.

Let's consider alterational (as opposed to existential) change. A thing alters if and only if it has incompatible properties at different times. Do we perceive alteration with the outer senses? A banana on my kitchen counter on Monday is yellow with a little green. On Wednesday the green is gone and the banana is wholly yellow. On Friday, a little brown is included in the color mix. We want to say that the banana, one and the same banana, has objectively changed in respect of color.

But what justifies our saying this? Do we literally see, see with the eyes, that the banana has changed in color? That literal seeing would seem to require that I literally see that it is the same thing that has altered property-wise over the time period. But how do I know that it is numerically the same banana present on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday? How do I know that someone hasn't arranged things so that there are three different bananas, indiscernible except for color, that I perceive on the three different days? On that extraordinary arrangement I could not be said to be perceiving alterational change. To perceive alterational change one must perceive identity over time. For there is change only if one and the same thing has different properties at different times. But I do not perceive the identity over time of the banana.

I perceive a banana on Monday and a banana on Wednesday; but I do not visually perceive that these are numerically the same banana. For it is consistent with what I perceive that there be two very similar bananas, call them the Monday banana and the Wednesday banana. I cannot tell from sense perception alone whether I am confronting numerically the same banana on two different occasions or two numerically different bananas on the two occasions. If you disagree with this, tell me what sameness looks like. Tell me how to empirically detect the property or relation of numerical sameness. Tell me what I have to look for. Sameness is like existence: neither are empirically detectable features of things.

Suppose I get wired up on methamphetamines and stare at the banana the whole week long. That still would not amount to the perception of alterational change. For it is consistent with what I sense-perceive that there be a series of momentary bananas coming in and out of existence so fast that I cannot tell that this is happening. (Think of what goes on when you go to the movies.) To perceive change, I must perceive diachronic identity, identity over time. I do not perceive the latter; so I do not perceive change. I don't know sameness by sense perception, and pace Plantinga I don't know it by induction. For no matter how close the resemblance between two objects, that is consistent with their being numerically distinct. And note that my judgment that the X I now perceive is the same as the X I perceived in the past has nothing tentative or shaky about it. I judge immediately and with assurance that it is the same tree, the same banana, the same car, the same woman. What then is the basis of this judgment? How do I know that this tree is the same as the one I saw in this spot yesterday? Or in the case of a moving object, how do I know that this girl who I now see on the street is the same as the one I saw a moment ago in the coffee house? Surely I don't know this by induction.

How then do I know it? I don't for a second doubt that it is the same tree, the same banana, the same girl. I am strongly inclined to say that I know that it is the same tree, etc. The question, however, is how I know it. How is it possible that I know such a thing given that transtemporal identity is not empirically detectable? My inability to explain how it is possible would seem to some to cast doubt on my claim that I do know that it is the same tree, etc. Others will demur and say that what is actual is possible whether or not one can explain how it is possible. One simply waxes dogmatic in the face of critical raisonnement.

If I cannot know diachronic identity empirically, do I impose the concept of such identity on what I literally see so as to enforce the numerical identity of the two trees, the two bananas, the two girls? Do I really want to say that identity is a transcendental concept to which nothing in the sensory manifold corresponds, a concept that I impose on the manifold?

A Most Remarkable Prophecy

The Question

Suppose there had been a prophet among the ancient Athenians who prophesied the birth among them of a most remarkable man, a man having the properties we associate with Socrates, including the property of being named 'Socrates.' Suppose this prophet, now exceedingly old, is asked after having followed Socrates' career and having witnessed his execution: Was that the man whom you prophesied?

Does this question make sense? Suppose the prophet had answered, "Yes, that very man, the one who just now drank the hemlock, is the very man whose birth I prophesied long ago before he was born!" Does this answer make sense?

An Assumption

To focus the question, let us assume that there is no pre-existence of the souls of creatures. Let us assume that Socrates, body and soul, came into existence at or near the time of his conception. For our problem is not whether we can name something that already exists, but whether we can name something that does not yet exist.

Thesis

I say that neither the question nor the answer make sense. (Of course they both make semantic sense; my claim is that they make no metaphysical or broadly logical sense.) What the prophet prophesied was the coming of some man or other with the properties that Socrates subsequently came to possess. What he could not have prophesied was the very man that subsequently came to possess the properties in question. This is equivalent to saying that there was no individual Socrates before he came into existence. Before he came into existence there was no merely possible Socrates.

What the prophet prophesied was general, not singular: he prophesied that a certain definite description would come to be satisfied by some man or other. Equivalently, what the prophet prophesied was that a certain conjunctive property would come in the fullness of time to be instantiated, a property among whose conjuncts are such properties as being snubnosed, being married to a shrewish woman, being a master dialectician, being accused of being a corrupter of youth, etc. Even if the prophet had been omniscient and had been operating with a complete description, a description such that only one person in the actual world satisfies it if anything satisfies it, the prophecy would still be general.

Why would the complete description, satisfied uniquely if satisfied at all, still be general? Because of the possibility that some other individual, call him 'Schmocrates,' satisfy the description. For such a complete description, uniquely satisfied if satisfied at all, could not capture the very haecceity and ipseity and identity of a concrete individual.

We can call this view I am espousing anti-haecceitist: the non-qualitative thisness of a concrete individual cannot antedate the individual's existence. Opposing this view is that of the haecceitist who holds that temporally prior to the coming into existence of a concrete individual such as Socrates, the non-qualitative thisness of the individual is already part of the furniture of the universe.

My terminology is perhaps not felicitous. I am not denying that concrete individuals possess haecceity. I grant that haecceity is a factor in an individual's ontological 'assay' or analysis. What I am denying is that the haecceity of an individual can exist apart from the individual whose haecceity it is. From this it follows that the haecceity of an individual cannot exist before the individual exists.

But how could the non-qualitative thisness of a concrete individual be thought to antedate the individual whose thisness it is? We might try transforming the non-qualitative thisness of a concrete individual into an abstract object, a property that exists in every possible world, and thus at every time in those worlds having time.

Consider the putative property, identity-with-Socrates. Call it Socrateity. Suppose our Athenian prophet has the power to 'grasp' (conceive, understand) this non-qualitative property long before it is instantiated. Suppose he can grasp it just as well as he can grasp the conjunctive property mentioned above. Then, in prophesying the coming of Socrates, the prophet would be prophesying the coming of Socrates himself. His prophecy would be singular, or, if you prefer, de re: it would involve Socrates himself.

What do I mean by "involve Socrates himself"? Before Socrates comes to be there is no Socrates. But there is, on the haecceitist view I reject, Socrateity. This property 'deputizes' for Socrates at times and in possible worlds at which our man does not exist. It cannot be instantiated without being instantiated by Socrates. And it cannot be instantiated by anything other than Socrates in the actual world or in any possible world. By conceiving of Socrateity before Socrates comes to be, the Athenian prophet is conceiving of Socrates before he comes to be, Socrates himself, not a mere instance of a conjunctive property or a mere satisfier of a description. Our Athenian prophet is mentally grabbing onto the very haecceity or thisness of Socrates which is unique to him and 'incommunicable' (as a Medieval philosopher might say) to any other in the actual world or in any possible world.

But what do I mean by "a mere instance" or a "mere satisfier"?

Let us say that the conjunctive property of Socrates mentioned above is a qualitative essence of Socrates if it entails every qualitative or pure property of Socrates whether essential, accidental, monadic, or relational. If Socrates has an indiscernible twin, Schmocrates, then both individuals instantiate the same qualitative essence. It follows that, qua instances of this qualitative essence, they are indistinguishable. This implies that, if the prophet thinks of Socrates in terms of his qualitative essence, then his prophetic thought does not reach Socrates himself, but only a mere instance of his qualitative essence.

My claim, then, is that one cannot conceive of an individual that has not yet come into existence. Not even God can do it. For until an individual comes into existence it is not a genuine individual. Before Socrates came into existence, there was no possibility that he, that very man, come into existence. (In general, there are no de re possibilities involving future, not-yet-existent, individuals.) At best there was the possibility that some man or other come into existence possessing the properties that Socrates subsequently came to possess. To conceive of some man or other is to think a general thought: it is not to think a singular thought that somehow reaches an individual in its individuality.

To conceive of a complete description's being satisfied uniquely by some individual or other it not to conceive of a particular individual that satisfies it. If this is right, then one cannot name an individual before it exists.

Existence, Unity, Possibility, and Actuality: Are There Merely Possible Individuals?

Steven Nemes by e-mail:

Here’s a question for you about existence, perhaps one you could discuss on the blog.

In your book, you argue that existence is ontological unity. I think that’s right. But a merely possible this-such is a unity as much as an actual this-such. What then distinguishes merely possible existence from actual existence?

To put it precisely, the existence of a contingent being is the contingent unity of its ontological constituents. Such a being is appropriately referred to as a this-such or as a concrete individual. I assume that existence and actuality are the same: to exist = to be actual. I also assume that existence and Being are the same: to exist = to be. Thus I reject the quasi-Meinongian thesis forwarded by Bertrand Russell in his 1903 Principles of Mathematics (449) according to which there ARE items that do not EXIST.

It follows from these two assumptions that there are no individuals that are merely possible. For if there were merely possible individuals, they would have Being, but not existence.

Objection. "This very table that I just finished building, was, before I built it, a merely possible table. One and the same table went from being merely possible to being actual. No temporal individual becomes actual unless it, that very individual, was previously possible. Now the table is actual; hence it, that very individual, had to have been previously a merely possible table. A merely possible table is a table, but one that does not exist."

Reply. "I deny that a merely possible table is a table. 'Merely possible' here functions as an alienans adjective like 'decoy' in 'decoy duck.' A decoy duck is not a duck, but a hunk of wood made to appear, to a duck, as a duck. A merely possible table is not a table, but the possibility that there come to exist a table that satisfies a certain description.

The possibility of there coming to exist a table of such-and-such a description could be understood as a set of properties, or as perhaps a big conjunctive property. Either way, the possibility would not be a possible individual.

I deny the presupposition of your question, Steven, namely, that "a merely possible this-such is a unity as much as an actual this-such." What you are assuming is that there are merely possible individuals. A merely possible individual is a nonexistent individual, and on the view I take in my existence book, there are no nonexistent individuals.

The next post — scroll up — will help you understand the subtlety of this problematic.

A Most Remarkable Prophecy

The Question

An Assumption

To focus the question, let us assume that there is no pre-existence of the souls of creatures. Let us assume that Socrates, body and soul, comes into existence at or near the time of his conception. For our problem is not whether we can name something that already exists, but whether we can name something that does not yet exist.

Thesis

But what do I mean by "a mere instance" or a "mere satisfier"?

The Puzzle of Dion and Theon

This puzzle, similar to Peter Geach's Tibbles the Cat in content, is unlike it in vintage. Its origin is attributed by Philo of Alexandria (30 B.C. – 45 A. D.) to Chrysippus the Stoic (c. 280 B.C. – c. 206 B. C.) What follows is my take on the puzzle. I draw heavily upon Michael B. Burke, "Dion and Theon: An Essentialist Solution to an Ancient Puzzle," The Journal of Philosophy, 1994, pp. 129-139.

Yesterday, Dion was a whole man, but today he had his left foot successfully amputated. Yesterday, 'Theon' was introduced as a name for that proper part of Dion that consisted of the whole of Dion except his left foot. (To keep the formulation of the puzzle simple, let us assume that dualism is false and that Dion is just a living human organism.) It is clear that yesterday Dion and Theon were numerically distinct individuals, the reason being that yesterday Theon was a proper part of Dion. (By definition of 'proper part,' if x is a proper part of y, then x is not identical to y. And if x and y are not identical, then x and y are distinct. Two items can be distinct without being wholly distinct.) Now the question is which of the following is true today, after the amputation:

A. Both Dion and Theon exist.
B. Neither Dion nor Theon exist.
C. Dion exists but Theon does not.
D. Theon exists but Dion does not.

The problem is to justify one of these answers. If none of the answers can be rationally justified, then we have a tetralemma which might be taken to suggest that there is something deeply problematic about our ordinary talk and thought about material particulars and their persistence. Given my conception of philosophy as at once both aporetic and revisionist, this would be a welcome result if I could support it.

Ad (A). Because Dion and Theon both existed yesterday, you might think they both exist today. There is, however, a reason to think that it cannot be true that both Dion and Theon exist today after the amputation. The reason is that it is impossible both that (i) Dion and Theon be numerically distinct and that (ii) Dion and Theon occupy exactly the same place and be composed of exactly the same matter arranged in exactly the same way, as is the case today after the amputation.

Could we say that Dion and Theon both survived the operation but are now one and the same? This is impossible given the Indiscernibility of Identicals. For today, after the operation, something is true of Dion which is not true of Theon, namely, that he, Dion, once had two feet. So Dion and Theon cannot be or have become identical.

Ad (B). This option is so counterintuitive that no one has maintained it.

Ad (C). It seem obvious that Dion survives the amputation. But what about Theon? Can we say that Theon ceases to exist after the amputation? Michael Burke (p. 134 ff.) thinks we can. He gives something like the following argument:

1. The concept of a person is maximal: the proper parts of persons are not themselves persons.
Therefore
2. Theon before the amputation was not a person.
3. Persons are essentially persons, and hence nonpersons are essentially nonpersons.
Therefore
4. Theon before the amputation was essentially a nonperson.
Therefore
5. Theon could not have survived a change that would have made it, if it survived, a person.
6. The amputation of Dion's left foot is a change that would have made Theon, if it survived, a person.
Therefore
7. Theon did not survive the amputation of Dion's left foot, and so does not exist after the amputation.

Ad (D). If one adopts mereological essentialism, then one can say that Theon survives but Dion does not. Mereological essentialism is the doctrine that wholes have their parts essentially. Accordingly, for any whole W and part x of W, if x is a part of W, then necessarily x is a part of W. This implies that no whole can survive the gain or loss of a part. If so, then Dion ceases to exist when he loses his left foot. But Theon continues to exist. Unfortunately, mereological essentialism applied to ordinary continuants such as cats and cabbages and cars is highly counterintuitive. My car does not cease to exist when the antenna is snapped off.

None of the solutions is satisfying as far as I can see. One might conclude that reason in us is weak and dialectical in Kant's sense.

Who am I? Personal Identity versus Identity Politics

Preliminary note: what has been exercising me lately is the question whether there is a deep common root to the political identitarianism of the Left and the Right, and if there is, what this root is. Nihilism, perhaps?

I wrote:

. . . my identity as a person trumps my identity as an animal. Part of what this means is that it would be a false self-identification were I to identify myself as a member of a racial or ethnic group or subgroup. For if a person identifies himself as a white male or a black female, then he reduces himself to what fundamentally he is not, namely, an animal, when what he fundamentally and most truly is is a person.

My right-wing identitarian sparring partner reasonably objects:

This is puzzling to me. If I 'identify' myself as a man, or a human being, I don't think I'm reducing myself to anything. I'm just stating an obvious fact about myself or, if you prefer, myself qua mammal or living organism or something of the kind. Is there some contradiction or tension between 'I am a human being' or 'I am an animal' and 'I am a person'?

Later on in his comments he says that "to defend an identitarian position in politics" it is not necessary to engage with the metaphysics of personhood. I am inclined to disagree.

No Escaping Metaphysics

As I see it, practical politics presupposes political philosophy which presupposes normative ethics which presupposes philosophical anthropology which is a discipline of special metaphysics. Philosophical anthropology, in turn, finds its place within general metaphysics. Rationally informed political action requires a theory of the human good that needs to be grounded in a theory of human nature which itself needs embedding in a comprehensive metaphysics. And if the political action is to be truly ameliorative, then the theory of human nature had better be correct. For example, the terrible scourge on humanity that Communism has proven to be flows from the Left's false understanding of human nature.

Concessions

But before getting in too deep, let me concede some points to my interlocutor. I concede that if he tells me he is a Caucasian male, then there is an innocuous sense of 'identify' according to which he has identified himself as Causasian and male, and that in so doing he needn't be 'reducing' himself to anything in any pejorative sense. He is simply giving me information about his sex and his ancestry. He is simply pointing out a couple of his attributes.

By the same token, he can identify himself as a citizen of this country or that, a member of this political party or that, an adherent of this religion or that, or an adherent of no religion at all. And so on for a long list of essential and accidental attributes: military veteran? blood type? Social Security number? Take larger and larger conjunctions of these attributes and you get closer and closer to zeroing in on the individuating identity of a particular human animal in society, that which distinguishes him from every other human animal.

Personalism and False Self-Identification

But what I am getting at is something different. Not WHAT I am objectively viewed in my animal and social features, but WHO I am as a person, as a unique conscious and self-conscious subject of experience and as a morally responsible free agent, as an I who can address a Thou and be addressed in turn by an I. (M. Buber) I am a subject for whom there is a world and not merely an object in the physical and social worlds.

The question concerns the 'true self,' WHO I am at the deepest level. Who am I? A mere token of a type? But that is all I would be if I were to identify myself in terms of my race. This is one example of what I am calling a false self-identification. A tribal black who identifies himself in his innermost ipseity as black has reduced himself to a mere token of a racial type, a mere instance of it, when being an interchangeable token cannot possibly be what makes him the unique person that he is. After all, there are many tokens of the type, black human being.

Not only does he reduce himself to a mere instance of one of his attributes, he reduces himself to a mere instance of one of his animal attributes. It is qua animal that he has a race, not qua person. But we are not mere animals; we are spiritual animals.

Such false self-identification is a form of spiritual self-degradation.

And the same goes for whites who seek their true identity in their racial 'identity.' That is a false self-identification because who I am as this unique individual cannot be reduced to being a repeatable and interchangeable token of a type. The reason, again, is that (i) there are indefinitely many tokens of the type, white human animal, but there is exactly one me, and (ii) a self-identification in terms of a bodily attribute pertains to my animality but not to my spirituality.

Suppose I address a black man or woman as a person. When I do that I am precisely not confronting an instance of black human animal with all the stereotypes that go with it. I am then attempting an I-Thou relation with the black man or woman and not an I-It relation with an instance of black human animal. I am showing respect for the person.

There are many types of false self-identification and I oppose them all. On the present occasion I come out against racial self-identification. You cannot be in your innermost ipseity (selfhood) white or black, and any such self-identification is false. Now what does this have to do with identity politics?

Connection with Identity Politics

First of all, what is identity politics? Logically prior question: What is politics? Politics is the art of achieving the common human good in the public sphere. Human flourishing is not possible apart from social interaction and when that interaction is public, as opposed to private, we are in the political sphere. Such interaction is both cooperative and conflictual. So perhaps we can say that politics aims at maximizing cooperation and minimizing conflict within a given society for the benefit of all involved.

Identity politics, however, is not concerned primarily with the promotion of the common human good within the public sphere but with the empowering of particular factions within it. An oppressed group will seek power to alleviate its oppression. Think of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA in the '50s and '60s. The identity politics of that movement was understandable and probably necessary for blacks to make the progress they did. Blacks exhorted each other to stand tall and take pride in being black. Some of us are old enough to remember the "Black is beautiful" bumperstickers of that era.

Before long the Civil Rights movement turned into a hustle with race-hustlers such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton leading the pack. Long story short, the instrumentally necessary identity politics of the Civil Rights movement came to displace politics in its proper sense which has to aim at comity and the common good and not at the appeasing of aggrieved parties. No surprise, then, at the rise of white resistance to the excesses and absurdities of Affirmative Action with its reverse discrimination, minority set-asides, and race-norming.

But tribalism is tribalism whether black or white. Our only hope is to get beyond tribalism. (I am not sanguine.) But when I pointed this out to my interlocutor and some of his fellow travellers a year or so ago in these pages, I was shocked, SHOCKED (well, not really) to find them disagreeing me. They apparently think that whites need their own tribalism, their own White Pride, their own consciousness-raising.

This makes no sense to me. How can you take legitimate pride in what is merely an element of your facticity (in Sartre's Being and Nothingness sense of 'facticity.') You had to be born somewhere, to some pair of parents or other, of some race or other, of some sex, and so on. You're stuck with that. If you need to feel pride, feel pride in what you have done with your facticity, with what you have made of yourself, with the free accomplishments of yourself as a person, as an individual.

Common Human Good?

I wrote, "Politics is the art of achieving the common human good in the public sphere." But can we agree on what the common human good is? Not if we are identity-political in our approach. Can we even agree that there is such a thing as the common human good? Not if we are identity-political.

If who I am at the deepest level of the self is a white man, if my race is constitutive of my very innermost ipseity, then I have nothing fundamentally in common with blacks. But then conflict can be avoided only by racial segregation.

It is worth noting that one could be a white -identitarian without being a white-supremacist. One could hold that one's innermist identity as a person is racially constituted without holding that white identity is any better than black identity.

I hope it is becoming clear that we cannot avoid in these discussions what my sparring partner calls "heavy-duty metaphysics." Whether you affirm or deny a common human good, you are doing metaphysics. And if metaphysics gets in, theology is sure to follow. Justin Dean Lee in his review of Mark Lilla writes,

. . . any serious — that is, internally coherent — movement away from identity politics and toward a robust discourse of the common good requires that we reintroduce metaphysics into our politics. This entails granting theology a privileged place in the public square at a time when most of the left and the far right are loath to grant it any place at all.

Nihilism as the Common Root of Left and Right Identity Politics

Rod Dreher:

So, to recap: Justin Dean Lee rightly says we cannot have a politics of the common good without substantive agreement on what the Good is, or how it might be known. Liberalism, in both its classical and progressivist forms, is agnostic on that question, or at most assumes things (“all men are created equal”) that cannot be sustained absent a shared commitment to a metaphysical ideal. Last week in Paris, talking about these things with Alain Finkielkraut, the philosopher said that he sees no exit for the French, because they have concluded as a society that there is no realm beyond the material. Most Americans would deny that they believe this, but that’s not the way we live, not even Christians. It is true that we Americans are not as far gone into atheism as the French are, so we still have time to recover. But to recover, you first have to recognize the problem. You first have to recognize that the way you are living as a Christian is not going to survive the prolonged encounter with liquid modernity.

Ta-Nehisi Coates and Richard Spencer are both atheists who have found a strong source of belief in their respective races. Spencer, a Nietzschean, has said that Christianity is a religion of the weak. They have drawn the line between good and evil not down the middle of every human heart, as that great Christian prophet Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did, but between their race and the Other. There is immense power in that kind of tribalism, and it lies in large part because it denies the fallenness of one’s own people. Where in contemporary American Christianity can we find the resources to resist falling prey to the malign power of racialism, in all its versions?

[. . .]

Only a strong Christianity can counter this nihilistic tribal religion. But this we do not have today.

Royce Revisited: Individuality and Immortality

This is a draft of a paper from years ago (early aughts) that it looks like I may never finish. But it is relevant to present concerns. So here it is.

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ROYCE REVISITED: INDIVIDUALITY AND IMMORTALITY

“What is it that makes any real being an individual?” Near the beginning of his 1899 Ingersoll lecture, The Conception of Immortality, Josiah Royce identifies this as the fundamental question whose answering must precede any serious discussion of the immortality question.ⁱ Since the latter concerns whether we survive bodily death as individuals, it is clear that the logically prior question is: What is it to be an individual?

This question, “formal and dreary” as it may seem, yet “pulsates with all the mystery of life.”ⁱⁱ I share Royce’s enthusiasm since I count it as one of his greatest insights that “the logical problem as to what constitutes an individual being” is identical to “the problem as to the worthy object of love.” (CI 32-33) This essay sets itself three tasks. The first is to expound the main features of Royce’s doctrine of individuality in a rigorous and contemporary manner. The second is to raise some critical objections to it. The third is to sketch an alternative which preserves Royce’s insights.

Continue reading “Royce Revisited: Individuality and Immortality”

Use, Mention, and Identity

Ed plausibly maintains that the following argument is invalid:

Hesperus is so-called because it appears in the evening
Hesperus = Phosphorus
————–
Phosphorus is so-called because it appears in the evening.

But then he asks: if the above is invalid why isn't the following argument also invalid?

'Hesperus’ designates Hesperus
Hesperus = Phosphorus
————-
‘Hesperus’ designates Phosphorus.

I say both arguments are valid. The second strikes me as obviously valid. As for the first, suppose we rewrite it by replacing 'so-called' with an equivalent expression. We get an argument I will call the REWRITE:

Hesperus is called 'Hesperus' because it appears in the evening
Hesperus = Phosphorus
————-
Phosphorus is called 'Hesperus' because it appears in the evening.

Now the conclusion of the REWRITE is admittedly strange. But it is true! Phosphorus is called 'Hesperus' when it appears in the evening, and it is called that because it appears in the evening. So the REWRITE is valid, whence it follows that the first argument, pace Ed, is valid.

So both arguments are valid.

UPDATE (9/12). My thesis is refuted in the combox. But as Chisholm once said after some point of his had been refuted, "Well, at least I said something clear enough to be refuted!" I am not suggesting, however, that Ed's suggestion that the second argument supra is invalid has any merit.

Do We Love the Person or Only Her Qualities?

The following ruminations belong among the metaphysical foundations of debates about tribalism, racism, and the differences between my brand of conservatism and the neo-reactionary variety. For example, I say things like, "We should aspire to treat individuals as individuals rather than reduce them to tokens of types or members of groups or instances of attributes." This of course gives rise to questions like, "What exactly is it to treat an individual as an individual, given that there are no individuals bereft of attributes?" And before you know it we are deep in the bowels of metaphysics, entangled, to shift metaphors, in conundra that may well be insoluble. Here are two theses I will just state on the present occasion:

T1. All the hot-button issues (abortion, immigration, capital punishment, etc.) are metaphysical at bottom.

T2. The insolubility of the underlying metaphysical problems, if they are insoluble, 'percolates up' into the popular debates and renders them insoluble as well.

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Here is a remarkable passage from Pascal's remarkable Pensées:

A man goes to the window to see the passers by. If I happen to pass by, can I say that he has gone there to see me? No; for he is not thinking of me in particular. But does he who loves someone for her beauty, really love her? No; for small-pox, destroying the beauty without destroying the person, will put an end to love. And if I am loved for my judgment, for my memory, am I loved? No; for I can lose these qualities without losing myself. Where then is this 'I,' if it resides neither in the body, nor the soul [mind]? And how love the body or the soul [mind] save for these qualities which do not make the 'me,' since they are doomed to perish? For can one love the soul [mind] of a person in the abstract, irrespective of its qualities? Impossible and wrong! So we never love anyone, but only qualities. (p. 337, tr. H. F. Stewart)

This passage raises the following question. When I love a person, is it the person in her particularity and uniqueness that I love, or merely the being-instantiated of certain lovable properties? Do I love Mary as Mary, or merely as an instance of helpfulness, friendliness, faithfulness, etc.? The issue is not whether I love Mary as Mary versus loving attributes in abstracto; the issue is whether I love Mary as Mary versus loving her as an instance of lovable attributes.

These are clearly different. If it is merely the being-instantiated of an ensemble of lovable properties that I love, then it would not matter if the love object were replaced by another with the same ensemble of properties. It would not matter if Mary were replaced by her indiscernible twin Sherry. Mary, Sherry, what's the difference? Either way you get a package of the very same delectable attributes.

But if it is the person in her uniqueness that I love, then it would matter if someone else with exactly the same ensemble of properties were substituted for the love object. It would matter to me, and it would matter even more to the one I love. Mary would complain bitterly if Sherry were to replace her in my affections. "I want to be loved for being ME, not for what I have in common with HER!"

Self Love

The point is subtle. It is perhaps more clearly made using the example of self-love. Suppose Phil is my indiscernible twin. Now it is a fact that I love myself. But if I love myself in virtue of my instantiation of a set of properties, then I should love Phil equally. For he instantiates exactly the same properties as I do. But if one of us has to be annihilated, then I prefer that it be Phil. Suppose God decides that one of us is more than enough, and that one of us has to go. I say, 'Let it be Phil!' and Phil says, 'Let it be Bill!' So I don't love Phil equally even though he has all the same properties that I have. I prefer myself and love myself just because I am myself.

This little thought-experiment suggests that there is more to self-love than love of the being-instantiated of an ensemble of properties. For Phil and I have the same properties, and yet each is willing to sacrifice the other. This would make no sense if the being of each of us were exhausted by our being instances of sets of properties. In other words, I do not love myself solely as an instance of properties but also as a unique existent individual who cannot be reduced to a mere instance of properties. I love myself as a unique individual. And the same goes for Phil: he loves himself as a unique individual. Each of us loves himself as a unique individual numerically distinct from his indiscernible twin.

We can take it a step further. If love is blind as folk wisdom has it, self-love is blind in excelsis. In some cases self-love is present even when the lover/beloved lacks any and all lovable attributes. If there are cases like this then there is love of self as a pure individual. I love me just because I am me and not because I instantiate lovable attributes. I love myself, not as an instance of attributes, but as a case of existence. Instances are interchangeable; cases of existence are not. I love myself in that I am in a sense of 'am' that cannot be identified with the being-instantiated of a set of properties. I love my very existing. If so, and if my love is a 'correct emotion' (Brentano), then my sheer existing must be good.

I take this to show that self-love cannot be identified with, or reduced to, love of an instance of lovable attributes qua instance of those attributes.

Other Love

Now it is a point of phenomenology that love intends to reach the very haecceity and ipseity of the beloved: in loving someone we mean to make contact with his or her unique thisness and selfhood. It is not a mere instance of lovable properties that love intends, but the very being of the beloved. It is also true that this intending or meaning is in some cases fulfilled: we actually do sometimes make conscious contact with the haecceity and ipseity of the beloved. In the case of self love we not only intend, but arrive at, the very being of the beloved, not merely at the co-instantiation of a set of multiply instantiable lovable properties. In the case of other love, there is the intention to reach the haecceity and ipseity of the beloved, but it is not clear how arriving at it is possible given Pascal's argument.

In the case of self love, my love 'reaches' the beloved because I am the beloved. In the case of other-love, my love intends the beloved, but it is not clear that it 'reaches' her.

The question underlying all of this is quite fundamental: Are there any genuine individuals? X is a genuine individual if and only if X is essentially unique. The Bill and Phil example suggests that selves are genuine individuals and not mere bundles of multiply instantiable properties. For each of the twins is acutely aware that he is not the other despite complete agreement in respect of pure properties.

Here are some of my metaphysical theses:

1. There exist genuine individuals.
2. Genuine individuals cannot be reduced to bundles of properties.
3. The Identity of Indiscernibles is false.
4. Numerical difference is numerical-existential difference: the existence of an individual is implicated in its very haecceity.
5. There are no nonexistent individuals.
6. There are no not-yet existent individuals.

Predication as Identity: Another Round

The Opponent is a patient man:

Trying again.

(1) Sam is poor at t1 iff Sam is identical with some poor person at t1
(2) Sam is poor at t1 iff Sam is self-identical at t1

(1) is self-evidently true. For it cannot be true that Sam is poor, but not identical with some poor person. Nor can it be false that Sam is poor, but true that he is identical with some poor person.

But (2) is false. Sam is necessarily self-identical, but not necessarily poor. Therefore (2) does not follow from (1), for a false statement cannot follow from a true one.

The fallacy is in assuming that being identical with some poor person is the same fact as being identical with oneself.

I plead innocent of the charge of having committed a logical mistake. I accept (1) but I reject (2) and for the very reason the Opponent supplies: "Sam is necessarily self-identical, but not necessarily poor." In fact, this is the very point I use against him. I claim that his theory cannot accommodate it.

The Issue

The issue is whether predication can be assimilated to identity. 'Sam is poor' is an example of a sentence which, on the face of it, features a predicative use of 'is' as opposed to an identitarian use. Connected with this is the fact that 'poor' is a predicate adjective, not a noun proper or common. So surface indications are that predication cannot be assimilated to identity, or vice versa, and that the 'is' of identity and the 'is' of predication are distinct and mutually irreducible.

When we say that Sam is poor we cannot possibly mean that Sam is identical to the property of being poor. Why not? First, if Sam is identical to a property, then he is a property — which is precisely what he isn't. Second, if Sam is poor and his father Dave is poor, and to be poor is to be identical to the property of being poor, then, by the Transitivity of Identity, Sam is identical to Dave, which is absurd.

On the other hand, 'Sam is poor' is equivalent to 'Sam is a poor man.' What we have done is replace the adjective with a (common) name. This lends sanction to the notion that our original sentence can be construed to express an identity between the denotatum of 'Sam' and exactly one of the denotata of 'poor man.' We can give this poor guy a (proper) name: 'Poboy.'

I now ask: what is the truth-maker of 'Sam is a poor man' given that the 'is' expresses numerical identity? What in the world makes-true 'Sam is a poor man'? (If the Opponent declares that there is no need for a truth-maker for this obviously contingent true sentence, then Game Over, and we have nothing more to discuss.) The answer has to be, on the theory under discussion: the numerical identity of Sam with Poboy. Since Sam and Poboy are one and the same, this amounts to saying that the truth-maker of 'Sam is a poor man' is Sam's being Sam.

The Problem

The difficult with this identity theory of predication ought to be obvious. It succumbs to two related objections as I said earlier:

Objection 1. Sam might not have been poor. But it is not the case that Sam might not have been Sam. So the manifestly contingent truth of 'Sam is poor' cannot be explained in terms of identity.

Objection 2. That was a modal objection; now for a temporal one. The poor have been known to become rich. Suppose Sam goes from poor to rich. The identity theory implies that Sam, who was identical to Poboy, ceases to be identical to Poboy and becomes identical to Richboy. But surely this is absurd inasmuch as it is equivalent to saying that Sam, who was numerically the same as himself, is now no longer numerically the same as himself.

This is absurd because, if Sam changes in respect of wealth, going from poor to rich, there has to be a self-same substrate of this change. Sam must remain numerically the same through the change. After all, the change is accidental, not substantial. The identity theory of predication, however, cannot accommodate these truisms. For if Sam is poor in virtue of being identical to one of the poor individuals, then he cannot become rich without ceasing to be himself.

An Alternative Which Avoids These Objections

Suppose we construe 'Sam is poor' to express the instantiation by Sam of the property of being poor. Then the objections can't get started. The Opponent, however, cannot avail himself of this way out since he is a nominalist, one who rejects properties. He may appreciate that man does not live by bread, or bed, alone, but he does not appreciate that the philosopher does not live by predicates alone — even if he turns them into names.

But I am not endorsing the alternative since it too has difficulties. Here is one. Sam's going from poor to rich or hot to cold or whatever is an intrinsic accidental change, a real change in Sam. It is not a relational change. But if Sam merely instantiates the property of being poor, and this property is a universal, and indeed a universal that is not a constituent of Sam, then it would seem that what is plainly an intrinsic change has been misconstrued as a relational change.