NATIONAL IDENTITYAND FAMILY RESEMBLANCE

Boran BerčićDepartment of PhilosophyUniversity of Rijeka

1. Nation

• We think and talk about nations• We talk about Russians, Hungarians, Italians,

Germans, etc• We count nations. We can ask how many

nations there are in Europe? We can wander whether there really are 85 nations in Los Angeles.

• If we can count them it means that we have a criterion or criteria of identity for them.

Nation, People, Ethnia

• A nation is a group united by factors that include language, culture, history, or occupation of the same territory. Oxford English Dictionary

• English people• Persians of Darius I and Iranians of Mahmout

Ahmadinejad• Empires: Roman, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian

(“a thumb of nations”), ... , SSSR, USA, India, ...

The same nation

2. Pluralism about Identity?

• “In recent years, the concept of identity has had its corset removed and hangs loosely and precariously in the domain of culture and politics.”

• Akeel Bilgrami What is a Muslim? Fundamental Commitment and Cultural Identity, pg.1

Pluralism about Identity?

• Gender Identities, Black Identities, Class Identities, etc

• An oxymoron?• If it is identity it has to be only one.

Pluralism about Identity?

• “All my identities”• Forged passports? Multiple personality disorder?

• Who am I?• I am an F, I am an G, I am an H, ...• F, G, H, ... are my identities.

• The underlying metaphysics?• Leibniz’s individual essence, Porphyrian tree, ...

3. An Argument

• P1: Custom C is a part of our national identity.• P2: If we want to preserve our national

identity, we have to preserve custom C.• P3: We want to preserve our national identity.• C: We have to preserve custom C.

An Argument

• P1: Custom C is part of what we are.• C: We are not going to be ourselves if we

abandon custom C.

• A rhetorical effect: we will cease to exist if we stop doing C, we will die if we don’t do C, ...

Badnjak Log

4 speakers dialect

• Dictionary and grammar of a 4 speakers dialect in Istra.

• “Preservation of national identity”

Language and National Identity

• When in Great Britain some Welsh nationalists speak of the survival of the Welsh language as a condition of the survival of Welsh society, they manage sometimes to convey the impression that it is a condition of the survival of Welsh people, as though the forgetting of Welsh were literally lethal.

• Bernard Williams: Morality: An Introduction to Ethics, CUP, 1972, pg. 35

An Argument

• There are at least three logical mistakes in this argument:

• 1. Conflation of qualitative and numerical identity.

• 2. Conflation of epistemic and metaphysical identity.

• 3.Assumption that all properties are essential.

3.1 Qualitative and Numerical

• Right wing Germans: There are so many Turks, Arabs, Greeks and Italians in Germany today that Germans would not be Germans any more!

• Left wing Germans:No! Germans would would be Germans. Though, shorter and darker, but still Germans.

3.2 Epistemic and Metaphysical

• x wouldn’t be x if it wasn’t F.

• Cyrano de Bergerac and his nose• Zagreb and Radio 101• He wouldn’be he if he didn’t screw up

something.

RecognizabilityEpistemic Identity

RecognizabilityEpistemic Identity

Pink Floyd The Wall

Fritz Lang Metropolis

RecognizabilityEpistemic Identity

• Croatian ministry of tourism has a contest for the best souvenir.

• Ćevapćići and šljivovica.

RecognizabilityEpistemic Identity

RecognizabilityEpistemic Identity

RecognizabilityEpistemic Identity

• If he is Russian, he drinks votka.• If he is Mexican, he drinks tequila.• If he is Japanese, he drinks sake.• ...

x wouldn’t be x if it wasn’t F.

• My second-order desires are who I am, they determine my identity. (Harry Frankfurt)

• My values are who I am, they determine my identity. (Gary Watson)

• David Velleman: Self to Self, CUP, 2005.• A metaphor!!!• Dostoevsky

4. Numerical IdentityNations

Theories

• 1. Essentialism• (Sufficient and necessary conditions)• 2. Relevant conditions• (Neither sufficient nor necessary conditions)• 3. Constructivism• (No conditions)

Explication of the concept

• What is our concept of a nation?• What is a nation?

• For instance, Error theory.• Francisco Gil-White: Torgut Mongols and Kazakhs in

Mongolia. Our concept of nation is a concept of a natural kind.

• 1.tend to have similar behavior and look,• 2.tend to mate with each other,• 3.almost always descendants of other members

Explication of the concept• A concrete particular

• 1. Realistic / Antirealistic• (Turks and Armenians)• 2. Continuity• (Irish, Greeks)• 3. Has a beginning in space and time• (From the 7th century)• 4. Thisness• (French in Mongolia, Twin Earth Croats, Domovnica)• 5. Non-relational• (Hungarians)

Oton Iveković 1905.

Twin Earth Croats

5. Nations and Family resemblance

Nations and Family resemblance

individuation, principle of ... A principle of individuation for nations would tell whether a nation survives such things as shift of territory, of government, of origin of inhabitants, of language, and so on. A relaxed attitude is that we solve such cases as we go along, depending on the consequences of the different verdicts, and apparently doing without cast-iron principles.(Simon Blackburn: Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, OUP, 1994)

Nations and Family resemblance

Recognition of nations works not by discerning the “essence” of nationhood, but through what Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953) called a pattern of “family resemblance”. (Craig Calhoun: Nationalism, University of Minnesota Press, 1997. pg.5.)

Family resemblance

Board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all?—Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games' "—but look and see whether there is anything common to all.—For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that.(Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §66, Basil Blackwell, 1953/58.)

Family resemblance

I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than "family resemblances"; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way.— And I shall say: 'games' form a family.(Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §67, Basil Blackwell, 1953/58.)

Nation and Family resemblance

• a is ABC• b is BCD• c is CDE• d is DEF

• a and d belong to the same nation although they have no characteristic in common.

• Is this a plausible view or a reductio argument?

Nation and Family resemblance

• Remember, family resemblance is seen as an alternative to essentialism, the view that all and only members of nation N have a certain single characteristic C or a set of characteristics SC.

• C is supposed to explain why N’s are N’s: If they are N’s, then there must be something that makes them N’s.

• Italians are Italians because they have Italianhood, Germans are Germans because they have Germanhood, etc.

• Volksgeist, cultural identity, national identity,...

The Englishness of English Art

Nations and Family Resemblance

• 1. DiacronicThere is no characteristic C such that nation N has it at all times of its existence. 2. CounterfactualThere is no characteristic C such that nation N must have it at all times of its existence in order to be N.• 3. Syncronic 1There is no time t and characteristic C such that all members of nation N have C at t.• 4. Syncronic 2There is no single characteristic C such that C delineates N’s from their neighbours non-N’s.

Criteria

• Language• Religion• Territory• Genes• Name• Race

• None of these criteria is neither necessary nor sufficient condition of national identity.

5.3. Syncronic 1

• There is no time t and characteristic C such that all members of nation N have C at t.

• Can family resemblance do the job essence is supposed to do?• Can family resemblance delineate N’s from non N’s? (Syrians

from Iraqis, Bolivians from Peruans, ...)• Essence is supposed to explain what N’s makes N’s. The idea is

that there must be something that all N’s and only N’s have that makes them N’s.

• What an F makes an F?• E.J.Lowe: Meaningless and ill formulated question: an F just is

an F.

5.4. Syncronic 2 Delineation

Syncronic 2 Delineation

• East: Religion• North: Language• North West: River• South West: Choice

5.1. Diacronic Family Resemblance• 1. Language• Irish people abandoned Gaelic language and accepted English.

And they remained Irish, they did not become English.• Algerians would be Algerians even if they accepted French,

Ethiopians would be Ethiopians even if they accepted Italian, etc.

• In Latin America many nations speak the same language (Spanish) but they are different nations.

• In North Africa many countries speak the same language (Arabic) but they are different nations.

• South Slavs speak one language but are not one nation.

Diacronic Family Resemblance• 2. Religion• Persians abandoned Zoroastrianism and accepted Islam but have

remained Persians. Turks remained Turks after they accepted Islam. Romans have remained Romans when they accepted Christianity.

• Turks would be Turks even if they became Christians. Austrians would be Austrians even if they became Protestants.French people could have become Hugenotes.Jews would be Jews even if they collectively convert to Buddhism.

• In Latin America many nations have the same religion (Catholicism) but they are different nations.

• In North Africa many countries have the same religion (Islam) but they are different nations.

Diacronic Family Resemblance

• 3. Genes• Hungarians have 60% of Slavic genes but are not a Slavic

People.Romanians as well. Croats allegedly have 12% of Slavic genes but are Slavic people.

• English people are English although they are mostly not descendents of the old Angles.

• Turks are Turks although they have 20% of Turkish genes.Some people guessed that nowdays Greeks are 100% of Slavic origin. Even if that was true, Greeks would still be Greeks.

•

Genetic map of Europe

Haplogroup I2a1

Diacronic Family Resemblance

• 4. Name• Persians – Iranians• Burma - Myanmar

Diacronic Family Resemblance

• 5. Race• Lemba people

Lemba people

Diacronic Family Resemblance

• If other relevant criteria are fixed, a nation can change any criterion and remain the same nation.

• x in t1 is C1 ... C5

• y in t2 is C6 ... C10

Diacronic Family Resemblance

• N1 in t1 is C1 ... C5

• N2 in t2 is C2 ... C6

• ...

• N6 in t is C6 ... C10

• Although N1 and N6 have nothing in common, if there is a right kind of continuity between N1 and N6, N1 and N2 are identical, N6 is the same nation as N1.

Counting nations

• Simple view of nations: nations are like herds, packs, flocks, ...

• However, Earth is often continuously populated.

Language and Religion

L1 L2

R1 A B

R2 C D

L1 L2 R1 R2

• How many nations there are?

• Only one: ABCD• Four: A, B, C, D• Two: AB, CD, AC, BD, ...• Three: ABC, D; ABD, C; ....

Possible number of nations

• 1 nation: 1• 2+1+1 nations: 6• 2+2 nations: 3• 3+1 nations: 4• 4 nations: 1

• 15 possible answers

Latin America

• One religion, one language, one history, one ethnic origin, many nations!

Simon Bolivar

• A world with one language, one religion, one genetics, one ...

• How many nations? One? Two? Three?

• Max Black’s two balls• But can there be two nations?• YES NO