Andrew Cuomo was on Bill Maher last night. It turns out all that Me-Too stuff about him was rubbish. Has anyone apologized? Has the New York Times admitted its mistake? Of course not. It was all politics and hysteria, after all. This was quite obvious to the discerning person at the time, but people preferred to jump on the bandwagon. Vile.
Intentionality and the Ego
In The Transcendence of the Ego (1936) Sartre criticizes Husserl’s conception of consciousness. I intend to add to this critique. Husserl supposes that in addition to the usual objects of consciousness there exists a further object christened the “transcendental ego”: it is the reference of “I”, the source of the unity of consciousness, and a constituting agent with respect to the intentional objects of consciousness (e.g., the objects of perception). This implies that consciousness inherently possesses a dyadic structure, a bipolarity, a subject-object axis: I am aware of this. It has a kind of double reference—to the ego and to the objects the ego contemplates. Sartre contends that this is false: there is no ego embedded in consciousness per se, only the objects that consciousness apprehends outside itself. The ego enters, according to Sartre, only when consciousness acts reflectively, taking itself as object; it doesn’t enter at the basic level of intentional directedness—as when you see or think about things in general. Consciousness necessarily posits (Sartre’s term) the objects of its essential intentionality, but it only sporadically posits an ego, as when it turns back on itself. The ego is not part of the constitutive structure of consciousness. It might well be true that there has to be an ego (self, subject) in order for consciousness to do what it does, but this is not part of its essence quaphenomenological reality. There no doubt has to be a body and brain in order that consciousness should achieve its essential intentional directedness, but this is not part of its phenomenology. Consciousness is not as of an ego that transcends it (i.e., non-reflective consciousness). Now, I think Sartre is quite right in this contention, and that his case can be strengthened. Consider this analogy: if I say “New York is noisy” I refer to New York and its acoustic properties, but I don’t refer to myself. I am there in the background, a necessary condition of this particular act of speech, but there is no “I” in my sentence. I can go on to say “I just said that New York is noisy”, thus engaging in a self-reflective act, but I don’t typically do that. It is the same with consciousness: I can think about the world without thinking about myself in having that very thought. Speech is not invariably self-positing, and neither is thought (or perception, emotion, etc.). Moreover, if (first-level) consciousness did posit an ego alongside its other posits, it would be possible for it to exist without those other posits; but that is clearly impossible, because it would be empty of what gives it reality (by the principle of intentionality). It would be the mere apprehension of the solitary ego devoid of reference to anything outside of consciousness. But consciousness is necessarily about something distinct from itself, of something separate and alien. The idea of a consciousness containing only reference to the pure ego is not intelligible (Husserl would agree, given his allegiance to Brentano). The transcendent ego is not enough transcendence (“going beyond”) to sustain an act of consciousness. Secondly, if the ego were contained in consciousness as an intentional object (and how else is it to be contained?), there would have to be another ego to be the subject of that apprehension, unless we thought that it could be aware of itself. But intentionality is inherently irreflexiveby definition: this would be an inhabitant of consciousness being directed at itself, like a perception being a perception of itself. Not surprisingly, Husserl didn’t postulate that his transcendent ego occurred in consciousness by way of the intentional relation, but rather in some other way—as a “constituent”. But this violates the whole doctrine of intentionality, and is anyway obscure. The fact is that the way consciousness gives access to the ego is (or would be) quite different from the way it gives access to other objects, but this difference is never explained. Thirdly, if the ego has a nature, this nature would have to constitute part of the nature of consciousness itself; but consciousness has no nature apart from what its objects confer (the doctrine of intentionality again). If the ego is identical to the psychological subject (the “empirical ego”), then consciousness will be invaded by desires, personality traits, and so forth; but nothing like that is found within the precincts of consciousness as such (it is an “emptiness”, as Sartre says). The same goes for the ego considered as a body, a brain, an extensionless point, or an immaterial soul: none of this shows up in consciousness (unless it is explicitly about such things). But the ego can’t have no nature—it can’t be a nothing. The usual objects of consciousness do color the conscious act, constituting it as the act that it is, and that fits with the deliverances of phenomenology; but nothing analogous happens with the alleged transcendental ego—it makes no phenomenological difference. Fourthly, what are we to say of animal consciousness—does it too harbor a transcendental ego? That seems far too intellectualist: isn’t the animal simply aware of objects outside its consciousness, not of any supposed ego lurking within it? Why would its consciousness be directed at something on the inside as well as the outside? What would be the biological point of that? It seems superfluous, a kind of pointless luxury. Fifthly, what guarantees that the putative reference to an ego actually picks out anything real? Suppose we agree that such a directedness occurs: it doesn’t follow that it points to anything that really exists. So why should we believe in such a thing? It might an illusion; and wouldn’t an illusion do just as well as the real thing, phenomenologically speaking? As Sartre argues, we do better to regard consciousness in its basic form as unipolar—pointed solely at its objects, not as containing in addition some kind of reference to a self. Visual perception, say, represents objects in the environment without any accompaniment by a representation of some kind of ego (whose nature remains obscure). There is no positing of a self, analogous to the positing of physical objects in the environment. No doubt there has to be some kind of entity underlying the acts of consciousness—a person, an organism, a brain—but this entity doesn’t show up in the phenomenology of the act. Why should it? The being of consciousness qua consciousness is intentionality not constitution by a supposed inner ego. That idea is really the abandonment of the original insight (derived from Brentano) of the phenomenological movement. The phenomenological field should be kept ego-free.[1]
[1] Of course, thoughts about the self, one’s own or other people’s, contain reference to such things; but this is not a feature of all thoughts. Most of consciousness is quite innocent of self-directedness. Thus, there is no ego-as- subject in consciousness but only ego-as-object (in the special case of reflexive consciousness). There is no mention of the self in a typical conscious act; there is no “I think” accompanying every exercise of consciousness (pace Kant). Consciousnesses thus don’t differ with respect to the individual possessing them; they are “impersonal”, as Sartre puts it.
Contradictory Being
Non-being looks like it cannot be. Being is always positive, never negative. It never contains lacks or absences or negations. There are no “negative facts”: actualities with not-ness built into them. Negation belongs with language, mental acts, not with objective reality. There is no such thing as nothingness. Yet negation is real; it’s not like unicorns and phlogiston. It exists. So, it looks like it both exists and doesn’t exist, which is contradictory. It therefore poses a philosophical puzzle (Parmenides first raised this puzzle). Possibility is similar: possibilities apparently exist—we can talk about them, envisage them. But they also appear not be like other real things: they are merely possible, pure potentialities. They don’t belong to the world of actuality. They thus seem to exist and not to exist, which is contradictory. Some seek to avoid the contradiction by distinguishing existence and actuality, but this is a philosophical maneuver not a piece of common sense. Time has being, but it also lacks the usual marks of being: the past does not exist, nor does the future, and the present is just a duration-less point. The being of time is permeated by non-being. Space exists, but it lacks the substantiality of matter; it seems like an absence not a presence. Value seems to be, but not in the way non-value facts are: we can’t encounter it in the world. It is and it isn’t. Free will can seem solidly real and yet it vanishes upon logical examination. Colors are as real as anything, we think, but on reflection they don’t belong to objective reality; they disappear into the mind or the merely imaginary. The self indubitably exists and yet it can’t be found anywhere in the mind (or body). Causation is part of concrete reality, but we can’t have an impression of it. Meaning disappears under examination, but is part of commonsense belief. In all these cases, things seem to have a contradictory nature: to be and not to be.[1] Hence the threat of elimination, denial, reduction. At a pre-reflective level, we take their existence for granted, but we can be quickly led to doubt their existence. In some moods we might affirm their contradictory nature (as with Sartre’s view of consciousness, which “is what it is not and is not what it is”). These things are under existential threat. The verdict of non-existence hangs over them (“The court hereby finds you guilty of non-existence in the first degree”). They seem to straddle being and non-being, being both positively and negatively charged, as it were. Not surprisingly, then, they invite philosophical puzzlement, conceptual unease. They suffer from a kind of existential indeterminacy or uncertainty, as if they can’t make up their mind whether to belong to the realm of being or non-being. And this seems to be part of their philosophical make-up: they are under constant threat of non-existence (all have been denied existence at one time or another). What does not suffer from such a threat? Shapes and sense data don’t: these both have being without the simultaneous presence of non-being. Their being is wholly positive (according to traditional conceptions). They are not thought to have a foot in both camps. Fictional entities are straightforwardly non-existent, shapes and sense data straightforwardly exist, while the items listed hover uneasily between the two. The metaphysician happily appeals to shapes and sense data as a foundation, but is reluctant to go all in with non-being, possibility, value, the self, etc. Thus, we have materialism based on shapes (“extension”) and idealism based on sense data (or “thoughts”). These things unequivocally possess being, without any admixture of non-being, but the entities listed uncomfortably combine being with non-being. We don’t want to base our metaphysics on entities that court contradiction and flirt with non-existence. This seems characteristic of the philosophical landscape: the troubling entities are existentially ambivalent, while the untroubling ones are fully in the realm of being. On the face of it at least: someone might labor to convict shapes and sense data of existential delinquency, and acquit the listed items of their apparent crimes against logic and a robust sense of reality. But the overwhelming impression is that the former items are in good existential standing while the latter are manifestly uncertain of where they belong in the grand scheme of things. All the standard moves in philosophy can be seen as responsive to this dichotomy: ontological favoritism, elimination, reduction, defiant realism, etc. And there is good reason for this to be so, since it is genuinely perplexing how anything could both exist and not exist. Our concept of existence is stretched by these entities; it really is hard to make up our minds about whether they exist or not (Meinong is always a tempting option). In daily life their existence seems assured, but in the study, coolly viewed, they start to look tainted with non-existence (hence various kinds of fictionalism). Philosophy might be seen as a response to existential ambiguity or doubleness.[2]
[1] I haven’t tried to defend these claims or reply to objections; my aim is simply to list them so as to display a pattern. I think it is clear that there is an intuitive issue in each case. There is something that needs to be resolved, reconciled—a conceptual conflict, an ontological tension.
[2] Maybe not all of it, but large chunks of it. Does X exist or not or both? On What There Is, and Also Isn’t. Philosophy is a battle with non-existence, or its permanent possibility. Existence and non-existence are never self-evident. The concept itself lacks transparency. Does existence even exist (it isn’t an ordinary property)?
The Symbolic Gene
Everyone has heard of the genetic code. Here is a typical statement from Wikipedia: “The genetic code is the set of rules used by living cells to translate information encoded within genetic material (DNA or RNA sequences of nucleotide triplets, or codons) into proteins…The codons specify which amino acid will be added next during protein biosynthesis”. Notice the heavy use of semantic notions in this formulation: code, rules, translate, information, encoded, specify. Other formulations use the concept of language explicitly and speak of “instructions” that “tell a cell how to make a specific protein”. What are we to make of these formulations? Are we to suppose that DNA contains symbols with meaning and reference? Evidently, we are to suppose this; there is no hint of metaphor in these words—no suggestion that it is merely as if genes have semantic properties. Still, someone might protest that metaphor must be what is meant, because it would be anthropocentric to project our mastery of language onto mere molecules. DNA doesn’t utter words, communicate, or perform speech acts! That’s a specifically human ability. There is much that is wrong with this protest, which I won’t go into (what about whales and dolphins?), but I do want to make a more general point about the attribution of such concepts to non-human subjects. Consider the concept of the selfish gene: this is often regarded as a mere metaphor and must be meant as such, useful or not. But that is surely wrong: genes really do operate in ways that closely mirror ordinary human selfishness, thus deserving the appellation “selfish”. To be selfish is to favor one’s own interests over the interests of others, not taking those interests into consideration. A dog or cat will eat all the food put in front of it without regard for what another cat or dog might desire or need. It does not consider the interests of others. It is not always selfish, though, because it considers the interests of its offspring (its genetic relatives). Sometimes it exhibits selfish behavior and sometimes not. And the same is true of animal species in general, going right down the phylogenetic scale. Of course, there are differences between the different species (animals are not blameworthy for their self-centered behavior whereas humans are), but the common pattern justifies applying the concept in this extended way. This isn’t mere metaphor; it is rooted in the behavior and dispositions of the animal in question. Animals are literally selfish (sometimes), self-centered, self-interested, self-promoting—despite their differences from humans. In the same way genes are selfish, literally, non-metaphorically: they act in ways that favor their own survival at the expense of others. They don’t do so intentionally, consciously, with malice aforethought; but they still do it. They thus resemble consciously selfish agents in significant respects, and that is what grounds the ascription to them of the word “selfish”. Is it a metaphor that computers compute? It used to be that only humans were called “computers”, which seems quaint now, but when machine computers were invented their similarity to human computers warranted the extension of the term to them. This doesn’t require us to suppose that computers are conscious, only that their behavior resemble that of human computers. The same applies to the current use of “smart”—smart phones, smart TVS, smart cars. When someone writes a book called The Intelligent Eye,[1] we don’t immediately impute metaphor but recognize that eyes act with many of the attributes characteristic of human intelligence (The Intelligent Eyelash would not invite the same semantic tolerance). There isn’t some kind of fallacy involved in using words like this; it is entirely reasonable in the light of the facts. So, the title The Selfish Gene wasn’t simply a category mistake or fanciful trope; it was the literal truth given the facts expounded in the book. And everyone can see this (aside from captious critics). Similarly for the phrase “the symbolic gene”: the biological facts justify this coinage—as with whale and dolphin language. Compare “the language of thought”: you may or may not agree that such a thing exists, but it is not a category mistake to talk that way—it all depends on whether thought is sufficiently similar to speech. These are all natural biological kinds and have their extension fixed by the facts not by supposed paradigms. If that is so, we have an interesting question about symbolic genes: do they thereby have a mind? Isn’t a symbolizing entity necessarily a mental entity? It is supposed by some that we have a second mind located in our bowels,[2] given the neural activity at that locale; do we have a third mind located in our genes? The idea should not be dismissed out of hand; again, we must beware of linguistic parochialism. We don’t need to assume that genes are conscious in order to believe they are endowed with mind, so long as they have intentionality (just like the unconscious); and the usual way of talking encourages this supposition. The symbols in the genetic code stand for different amino acids, so there is intentionality built into the system—reference, representation. The genes instruct genetic mechanisms to assemble amino acids in certain places in a certain order, so they must contain the semantic machinery required for such instruction. Indeed, they must have a semantics: an assignment of entities from a domain and rules for determining conditions of satisfaction. The entities are amino acids and the rules fix conditions under which the instructions have been correctly carried out: “Put such and such an amino acid in such and such a place” is satisfied if and only if that acid is put in that place”, or some such thing. That is, the genetic code and its instructions have a semantic interpretation in the classical sense—if (but only if) it is right to attribute a language to the genes. But then, we have enough to warrant an ascription of mentality. Clearly this mind (like the gut mind) is very different from our head-centered mind, but it would be narrow-minded (!) to exclude such minds from the general category of mindedness. We have finally got used to ascribing minds to our fellow animals, despite their differences from our minds; it shouldn’t be too great a stretch to grant this license to sub-personal systems. And aren’t genes fully deserving of such largesse given their extraordinary generative powers? They can make whole complex organisms, which no brain-centered intelligence can do: they are clever, resourceful, sophisticated (what other words can we use?) Embryogenesis is a remarkable engineering feat of nature, requiring complex ingenious machinery; it seems petty and self-aggrandizing to deny them the honorific label “mind” (or “intelligent”, “clever”, “inventive”). True, they mimic the impressively intelligent Mr. Spock in their lack of affect, but no one has ever denied that he has a mind, in some ways superior to the affect-laden human mind. Minds come in many forms and we shouldn’t take ours to be the measure of all of them. The octopus, as we now know, has a mind suited to its anatomy and needs, and the same might be true of the molecule made of DNA. Also, can we really exclude the possibility of consciousness here? Our knowledge is limited, panpsychism might have some truth to it, and conscious minds can be very alien—so it is possible that genes have some sort of consciousness. But even if they don’t, that doesn’t preclude them having an unconscious mind. So, maybe mind appeared on earth a good deal earlier than it is commonly supposed, with the advent of DNA (itself a remarkable evolutionary product). We might think of it as the brain behind evolution by natural selection, its sine qua non. The selfish gene, the symbolic gene, the intelligent gene, the cerebral gene: DNA is more than just a chemical double helix.[3]
[1] R.L. Gregory (1970). The book deals with the perception of ambiguous figures and other sorts of visual interpretation. Nowadays it would not be out of place to speak of the “genius eye” given what we know of the eye’s feats of reconstruction from the retinal image.
[2] See Michael Gershon, The Second Brain (1998).
[3] The same is true of the brain: if you look at it from outside, or under a microscope, it looks like a mere collection of spindly cells, but it has many characteristics not so revealed—including selfishness, symbolism, intelligence, and consciousness. Why should the same not be true of the genes? They may have emergent properties not revealed by simple inspection. It all depends on what theory demands and reason recommends.
Bill Maher on Universities
Bill Maher unleashed a diatribe against American universities last night, especially elite ones, mainly prompted by recent events concerning Israel. He blamed various cultural influences and what now passes for scholarship. There is now a good deal of agreement with this (I certainly agree with it). I want to add that my own experiences over the last ten years have fully confirmed this bleak assessment: there has been a virtually complete intellectual and moral collapse on American campuses, which has spread to other English-speaking countries. There is now a vengeful, irrational, and hysterical mood abroad; and very few people have the guts to stand up to it. I regret to report that American academic feminists have played a major role in this collapse. I see no encouraging signs for the future as long as collaboration and cowardice reign. Decencies we once took for granted are now in retreat, and ideology and fear are all that’s left. Young people are among the worst offenders.
A Causal World
There are two ways to think about causation: either it is something that exists in addition to an antecedent reality of objects and properties or it is constitutive of reality. According to the first way, if you removed causation from the world, you would be left with constant conjunction, a real world of recognizable things; according to the second way, you would be left with nothing, since causation is what reality fundamentally is. The first way is dominant in our intellectual tradition, which is why some people contemplate doing without causation in our conception of the world. Causation is mere icing on the cake (a dubious icing according to some). Reality is not fundamentally and inherently causal reality. After all, we don’t see causation, or if we do it is not ubiquitous, not omnipresent. Empiricism militates against causal foundationalism. Yet there have been voices that champion causation-based metaphysics: Schopenhauer and Shoemaker, in particular (with their similar-sounding names). True, Schopenhauer preferred to speak of Will, but his general conception is causal in thrust; Shoemaker just comes right out with it—properties are causal powers.[1] I will explore this idea further. The metaphor I like compares causation to fungi: fungi are everywhere, they are basic to life, but underappreciated because of their general invisibility. They largely live underground, only peeping above ground for purposes of reproduction. They were there before plants and animals and allowed these parvenu life-forms to come into existence (on land anyway). They are root causes, so to speak. The general idea of causal metaphysics is that everything in the physical and psychological world is a cause—an active, generative producer—and that is all that reality is. There is nothing more to things than causes. Reality reduces to causation (“causal reductionism”). That was Shoemaker’s radical message: he was a functionalist about properties in general—properties are defined by their causal roles. A property like shape is a causal power. It isn’t something separate and distinct (he is an identity theorist about properties). An object, then, is a bundle of powers—a congeries of causes. Causation is not a part of (concrete) reality; it is the whole of it. Reality is composed of causes. It isn’t that causation coexists with non-causal inactive components of reality; it constitutes all of reality. Shapes are causes, and so are colors (possibly mental causes, if you are a subjectivist about color). Forces are obviously causes, but so are the things that forces act on—planets, for example. Causes cause other causes. It’s causation all the way down—pan-causalism, nothing but causes. This view is apt to seem hyperbolic, if not patently false: for that is not how we see the world, how it seems to us. It might be noumenally constituted by causes, but it isn’t phenomenally purely causal. The world seems innocent of causation for long stretches and short ones: inactive, unchanging, inert, stable. How then can it be constituted by causal interactions? Sometimes nothing moves, nothing happens—isn’t that because there is nothing causal going on? We are not observing any effects, so causation is taking a break from its usual exertions. However, this view is deeply mistaken, as science has shown: we are subject to illusions of inactivity. We are simply not witnessing the ever-present fact of causal activity. Take the motion of the earth: it seems to us that the earth is not moving and not under the influence of a force, but it is—we just don’t experience it. The earth is caused to move by the sun’s gravitational force—at every second and for all of its existence. Likewise, when objects on the earth’s surface are stationary (relative to the earth) they are held there by earth’s gravitational field; they are caused to stay still by a force we don’t see. Most strikingly, the coherence of physical objects is not the result of zero causal activity but of counterbalancing forces at the atomic level—the positive and negative charges of protons and electrons, respectively. Objects are caused not to fly apart; they don’t remain stable spontaneously. We are thus victims of a widespread illusion, making us think that nothing causal is going on, when in fact the world is pulsing with non-stop causation. It’s as if we could only see beehives from a distance and formed the idea that nothing is going on inside them, whereas in fact they are centers of buzzing activity. True, we don’t perceive the ceaseless causality of the world, but it is there nonetheless, under the surface. In fact, it is doubtful that we ever really see causality (as Hume pointed out), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the foundation of everything we do see (along with its characteristic type of necessity). We thus don’t appreciate the omnipresence of causality and miss its foundational status. But actually, as Shoemaker realized, it is impossible to sever the connection between properties and powers, no matter what the appearances may be. Causation is the fungus of the universe; its hidden driving force. Or better: all is fungus, when you get right down to it.[2] A.J. Ayer used to like to say that causation is just one damn thing after another; the truth is that things are just causation manifesting itself. The world is Will, Force, Activity, Necessary Connection, Influence, Push and Pull. Causation is in every nook and cranny.[3]
[1] See his Identity, Cause and Mind (1984).
[2] Of course, it is not true that all is fungus in botany, poetically apt as that might sound; but in metaphysics all might be causation (causal fungus). This is perfectly compatible with the Humean thesis that we don’t really know what causation ultimately consists in; in particular, we don’t know what causal necessity is (objectively, intrinsically).
[3] A few decades ago, it became fashionable to propose causal theories of many things: perception, knowledge, reference, action, memory. But no one ever proposed a causal theory of everything—the whole world. If causation is a notion in good order, however, it becomes attractive to consider the possibility that all properties, objects, and facts are causal in nature. Thus, causal metaphysics: causation is ontologically basic. (I’m not supposing ethical and mathematical facts are causal, if such there be; I’m discussing only concrete facts that enter into causal relations.) Hume described causation as the “cement of the universe”; according to causal metaphysics, it is the universe.
Identity Amid Difference
What is the most fundamental fact about reality? Is it that the world is the totality of facts (not things)? Is it that reality divides into particulars and universals? Is it the spatiotemporal manifold? The substance-accident distinction? Events and processes? The plurality of possible worlds? These are reasonable answers to a good question—a question of basic metaphysics. I am going to argue for a different answer, namely that the one-many distinction is fundamental. More exactly, I will defend the view that reality consists fundamentally in identity in the midst of difference—what I call the “identity-difference nexus”. Not just identity and difference but identity within difference. No doubt this sounds obscure, or even contradictory, but bear with me; I promise this will be sober analytical stuff. Intuitively, identity is always accompanied by difference, embedded in difference, dependent on it even. Identity and difference each presuppose the other. For example, the identity of material objects as they move through space presupposes differences within space, i.e., distinct places. Identity through time presupposes differences of times (moments, durations): to be identical over time is to exist at different times. The same object can present different appearances, have different modes of presentation,[1]be denoted by different names, belong to different groups of things. Identity of object is accompanied by differences in other respects. So, identity exists against a background of diversity; judgments of identity (identity facts) depend upon the existence of a multiplicity of other things. The material world consists of identities within differences—one thing in the context of many things. An object remains constant as it interacts with varying entities (for want of a better term): places, times, appearances, modes of presentation, names, groups. Each of these entities has its own identity, of course: each is self-identical. But the identity of a material object allows it to occupy or display different such entities—to exist alongside those entities. We experience the world as consisting of self-identical objects existing cheek by jowl with a realm of distinct and distinguishable things; and this is because that is the very structure of the world. Equally, a single word essentially occurs in different sentences, a number exists in a series of distinct numbers, a thought in a sequence of distinct thoughts, an event in a series of causally connected events. We could say: For every object x, there in an object y, such that xRy and x is not identical to y, where R is a relation of some sort (e.g., the relation of occupying in the case of material objects and places). Difference presupposes identity and identity presupposes difference. Everything is both self-identical and other-distinct (an object is not identical to its appearances, for example). There is no world consisting of only identity or only difference; they come as a package. For example, no world could consist of a single material object and nothing else, because an object needs space in which to exist and space is a multiplicity of different places (ditto events and time). In any case, the world as we have it consists of identity amid difference and difference amid identity (trivially, because distinct things are all self-identical). We have an interlocking duality. Identity and difference are polar opposites—they couldn’t be more different—but they each presuppose the other. And the distinction is as metaphysically basic as anything could be—the distinction between one and many, individual and multiple, singular and plural. Our conception of reality is a conception of objects retaining their identity against a backdrop of diversity: that stays the same while they vary. And this is because that is the basic structure of reality. It is more basic than the particular-universal distinction, because that distinction requires the idea that the same particular exemplifies different universals and the same universal is exemplified by different particulars. Space and time are built of distinct places and times (each being self-identical). And the same for events, matter, mind, and possible worlds: these are all predicated on notions of sameness and difference. If you want to build a world, you have to factor in this basic distinction. Even logic requires deployment of these concepts: subjects are different from predicates, a single subject can satisfy many predicates, a single predicate can apply to many subjects, there are many different propositions, recurrence of variables signifies identity of value, conjunction is different from disjunction, etc. There is really no thinking about anything without the identity-difference distinction (it’s not a dogma of anything). The actual world is self-identical and possible worlds are different from it. Mind is different from matter (or it is not). God is different from the observed universe (or not). Knowledge is the same as true justified belief, unless it isn’t. Etc. Thought itself is identity within difference. The identity-difference nexus thus has a strong claim to metaphysical fundamentality—as the basic structure of any world and any way of thinking. What is surprising is how closely the two concepts interlock; it’s hard to say which of them is basic. Quine used to say “No entity without identity”; we could also say “No entity without diversity”.[2]
[1] In Frege’s system every reference necessarily has many modes of presentation, i.e. senses, so that identity of reference is always accompanied by differences of sense. This is what makes informative identity statements possible. Our thought of identical objects is always permeated by differences of sense. This is a clear instance of the identity-difference nexus. It reflects the fact that objects always have many different aspects or properties. Thought and reality thus march in tandem. The One and the Many.
[2] A Pythagorean might add that this conception of the fundamental structure of reality makes number salient, because where there is identity and difference there must be counting—any world worthy of the name is a countable world. We can count the sheep in a meadow and count the number of places they occupy, and these will generally not be the same. That is basic to being able to describe the world. Mathematics lies at the root of reality; it’s not an optional extra. Hence, count nouns.
Political Evil and the Family
What is the psychology of political evil, including political violence? By “political evil” I mean evil directed towards groups, as opposed to specific individuals: races, nationalities, religions, party affiliation, educational attainment, style of dress, etc. This kind of evil has a distinctive intentionality: whereas individual-directed intentionality takes in a concrete individual, an object of perception, group-directed intentionality posits a generalized, abstract, stereotypical type, often an object of fantasy. It is a kind of reified meta-individual, created in the mind from disparate sources, seldom rooted in fact, cartoon-like. It is possible to entertain this curious object of thought without knowing any individual instance of its purported type. It is a sort of fiction, though masquerading as fact. It is depersonalized, dehumanized, a symbol more than an actual person (often animal imagery is invoked to accentuate it—pig, dog, rat, cockroach, etc.).[1] The nature of this intentionality allows people to perpetrate evil with less ambivalence, because it doesn’t present its object as a three-dimensional human being with specific characteristics. This may be the result of cognitive limitations: it is difficult for the human mind to represent a multitude of objects in all their specificity; it’s much easier to boil it all down to a few easily remembered features, especially if those features reflect prejudices and predilections. In any case, restraints on evil actions stemming from recognition of a common humanity are removed or reduced by such ways of thinking. This is the power of the stereotype, the meme, the caricature. Political evil thrives in such a psychological environment, especially when driven by external forces (fear-mongering, propaganda, indoctrination)). All this is familiar stuff, one aspect of evil’s notorious banalities; and it is sound psychology as far as it goes. But it doesn’t explain why people engage in evil to begin with: why this need (for that is what it appears to be) to select a group and persecute members of that group? What is the root cause of political evil? Why is the human psyche so prone to it? One naturally turns to the family: is there anything about family relations that could underlie the tendency towards political evil (animosity, violence, oppression)? Family dynamics often leave a mark on the adult psyche, scarring and shaping it—this is a platitude of developmental psychology. The first point to note—and I am not alone in observing it—is that the family is a proto-political system, a mini-society. It is a group of individuals, locked in a power structure, vying for dominance, or at least a piece of the pie. There is much rivalry and resentment, particularly in children. In some families, violence is the outcome, in others strict discipline, in others simple neglect. Families are not all harmony and light (surprise, surprise). There are asymmetries of power: parents beat children but not vice versa. There is a good deal of hatred swirling around the family unit (homicidal, according to Freud). But there is also love mingled with the bad stuff: you love the ones you also hate (resent, envy, dislike). This produces cognitive dissonance: the same object invites opposite feelings, thus giving rise to a sense of intolerable disharmony. The sufferer accordingly seeks dissonance reduction, possibly by denying the love or rejecting the hate, neither being easy. However, there is a third way: sublimation—direct the bad feelings elsewhere. At any rate, point some of the antipathy at someone else, as much as possible consistent with the reality principle. This could be a fantasy object—a bogeyman, a villain encountered in books or films or oral tradition, or some other tribe. Think of it as a negative-affect proxy-object—like a wall you hit when you can’t hit what you really want to. So: family dynamics, cognitive dissonance, sublimation, proxy objects. The psyche is searching for an object of resentment to substitute for the father (say) and it lights upon whatever serves that purpose; what better than an imaginary group that embodies features of the family hate-object? The group may symbolize power, strength, wealth, potency, authority, intellectual superiority, immovability—thus replicating the features of the father (or mother or older sibling). You can hate or attack this group as you cannot hate or attack your family members. The greater the oppression within your family the stronger will be your animosity towards the chosen group. So, it is not so much the broken family that fuels political evil as the intact family—not the dissolution of the family but its continuing stranglehold. When you can’t escape its clutches your need for a sublimated outlet will be at its strongest. Thus, we can predict that young people will be the most vulnerable to engaging in political evil, because they are the most enmeshed in family power dynamics; they are ripe for “radicalization”. And this will be accentuated according to the degree of control and oppression existing within the family. Hatred of out-groups will be higher in societies with oppressive family structures—in what we now think of as traditional families. For example, racism will be more prevalent (other things being equal) in societies that beat children for minor infringements (I’m thinking of eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain). The psychological mechanism is clear: family power dynamics, resentment, cognitive dissonance, sublimation, proxy objects, racism (or any -ism that comes to hand). The psyche will be only too happy to latch onto anything that will reduce the cognitive dissonance produced by the traditional family. But notice that there is no easy way out of this problem for the psyche, since families have to impose some sort of dominance hierarchy (just as in animal families). There is really no other way to bring children up; it’s built into the family unit. This explains the persistence of political evil: power asymmetry is a universal property of families, and cognitive dissonance is a psychological fact, so sublimation onto proxy objects will always be an attractive option (even a necessary one). Combine this with the depersonalizing peculiarities of group-directed intentionality and you get a potent psychological brew for breeding political animosity. People will readily hate the neighboring tribe as long as they have been subject to family oppression, but oppression within families comes with the territory (or at least felt oppression). Still, we can predict that minimizing the oppression, especially actual violence, will work to moderate political hatred, though it cannot eliminate it. Also, explaining the source of political hatred might help mitigate its hold over people, because it reveals its irrational roots; it isn’t that the hated group really warrants the hatred. Such hatred will be less contagious the better it is understood, because its true nature has been exposed.[2]
[1] Notice how common it is to describe the “enemy” as “animals”: this enables people to deny that they are targeting actual human beings. The tendency is well satirized by Monty Python in the Holy Grail film when John Cleese, as a Frenchman, taunts the British soldiers as “pig dogs”: this is puzzling to them because it has never occurred to them that they might be regarded as sub-human. The French meanwhile are regularly described by the English as “frogs”, because they actually eat such things! This is all grist for the manufacture of dehumanizing stereotypes, which are invaluable in licensing political evil. Such are the powers of human intentionality.
[2] This essay was prompted by recent events, but I have intentionally avoided discussing actual historical examples of political evil so as not to get distracted by complex and controversial factual and ethical questions. It should be obvious what kinds of events I have in mind. Of course, many factors enter into the causation of human actions situated in historical contexts; my purpose has been to identify the central psychological mechanisms. In a fuller account, behavioral contagion and other forms of conformity would also be added to the picture. It is undeniable that stereotypes spread with the greatest of ease. Why?
