The Marist Undergraduate Philosophy Journal
Volume II (2015)
Published online 20 March 2015
Editor
Solomon Sloat
Editorial Board
Tyler Boalt
Taylor Cechini
Salvatore Danielle
Ryan Ellman
Brian Klink
Faculty Advisor
Dr. James G. Snyder
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
Marist College
Poughkeepsie, NY
Table of Contents
The 1.5 Generation: On Jus Nexi, Rootedness, and Citizenship
Joel Sati, The City College of New York
1
Identity Through Change in Aristotle: How Hylomorphism Solved
the Parmenidean Puzzle
Alejandro Naranjo, Cornell University
11
I’m Not Playing Games: Why Wittgenstein’s Language-Games
Fail to Defeat the Unity of Language
Cam Smith, Stanford University
24
The Equivocity of the Migrant: Limits of the Political Category
34
Interview
Catherine Wilson, CUNY Graduate Center/University of York
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The 1.5 Generation
On Jus Nexi, Rootedness, and Citizenship1
Joel Sati
The City College of New York College
Abstract
Citizenship debates pit the consensualism view against the jus soli view. Consensualism argues that citizen
consent overrules humanitarian obligations to outsiders and is is necessary for sovereignty. The strictness
of a state’s immigration policy is a marker of consent; if a people elect their legislators, there is a connection
between the electorate and the laws, which reflect a people’s ideals. Consensualists argue that jus soli – or
citizenship based on birthplace – violates a basic liberal principle that citizen consent determines
membership. In criticizing consensualism, I cite Robin Jacobson, who argues that consensualism allows for
racist policy as opposed to racially egalitarian jus soli. However, both views exclude the 1.5 generation,
who are not first-generation immigrants (they immigrated at a young age), and are not second generation
(they were not born in their new state). I argue for the jus nexi view, which allows for earned citizenship
upon genuine ties toward the political community. I utilize Ayelet Shachar’s work to argue this view, using
the 1.5 generation as an example for how jus nexi can complement current citizenship practices.
I.
Introduction
Conversations on citizenship base themselves on the consensualist/ jus soli dichotomy, a dichotomy I
consider false.2 However, an exposition of the two is important in arguing for alternate conceptions of
citizenship. In this essay, I will provide an overview of consensualism through Peter Schuck and Rogers
Smith, who argue that ‘consent of the governed’ is superior to any humanitarian obligations to outsiders.
More importantly, they argue that jus soli – or citizenship based on birthplace – violates a basic liberal
1
Scholar, Skadden, Arps Honors Program at The City College of New York. Fellow, City College Fellowship. I
would like to thank my City Fellows mentor Benjamin Vilhauer, whose philosophy of law class inspired the project
and whose mentorship is invaluable. I would also like to thank Professors Lynda G. Dodd, Vera Albrecht, Jennifer
Morton, and Richard B. Bernstein. Finally, I would like to thank David Jacobson, Carlos Andre Pazmino, and fellow
City Fellows Robert Dalva, Rene Cordero, Shaila Bora, and Joestin ‘Boo Boo’ Benjamin for their feedback on
earlier iterations of this paper.
2
Due to space constraints, I refrain from an analysis of jus sanguinis, another important type of citizenship
distribution.
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principle that membership in a society should be determined by the consent of the governed.3 In
criticizing consensualism, I draw on the work of Robin Jacobson, who argues that consensualism allows
for racially exclusive policy as opposed to jus soli citizenship, which is racially egalitarian. However,
both consensualism and jus soli leave out an important demographic – the 1.5 generation.4 The 1.5
generation are not first-generation immigrants in the sense that they immigrated at a young age and thus
could not choose to immigrate, and not second generation in that they were not born in the state they
reside in. To include them, I argue for a third option, jus nexi, which uses rootedness as a standard for
political membership. Jus nexi allows for earned citizenship upon the real, and genuine ties toward the
political community.5 I draw on the work of Ayelet Shachar to argue that consensualist arguments against
inclusion of the 1.5 generation base themselves on what I call the appeal to ‘original sin’. I counter this
appeal in analyzing how jus nexi is valuable to the formation of contemporary citizenship policy relative
to current jus soli and jus sanguinis practices.
II.
Consensualism and Jus Soli as Incomplete
A philosophical exposition of consensualism and jus soli is necessary, as I argue that the inadequacy of
these two frameworks is the backdrop for the normative argument for jus nexi citizenship. A citizen is a
member of a political community who enjoys the rights and duties of membership in a polity.6
Consensualism posits that the source of the nation-state’s legitimacy is the consent of the governed to
admit or deny citizenship to immigrants.7Consensualism draws on Locke’s ideas about the social
contract.8 Lockean consensualism is based on the relationship that children have with their parents and
with the government. In his Second Treatise on Civil Government he writes, “[a] child…is born a subject
of no Country and Government…till he come to Age of Discretion”9 Locke argues that a child cannot be
the government’s subject because being a subject is based on tacit or explicit consent that one can only
affirm when able to reason.10 Although consensualist citizenship stems from Lockean ideas, it expands on
it and argues that consent is necessary for the legitimacy of a nation-state. Consensualism encourages
genuine personal commitment and development and permits affirmation of one’s values through
voluntary and mutual affiliation with others. The assumption is that if citizens willfully join a body
Matthew Lister, “Citizenship, in the Immigration Context,” Maryland Law Review 70 (2010): 175-233
A term found in Shachar, 2010 (see below)
5
Ayelet Shachar, “Earned Citizenship: Property Lessons for Immigration Reform,” Yale Journal of Law & the
Humanities 42 (2010): 5.
6
“Citizenship,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Published Fri Oct 13, 2006.
7
This definition borrows from the one used by Peter Schuck and Rogers Smith
8
Although he does not use the term.
9
John Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government. (1689)
3
4
10
Peter Schuck, & Roger Smith, “Citizenship Without Consent,” The Social Contract (1996): 20.
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politic, they will be able to protect their interests, maintain harmony in their community, and achieve a
sense of shared values with fellow citizens. Thus, consensualism’s normative value is a nation-state in
which its members will be linked politically by bonds of mutual agreement.11
Consensualism raises the question – does the idea that we consent to a government that holds this
power over a citizenry imply that we can legitimately deny others admission to our social contract?
Political philosopher Michael Walzer argues yes. He holds that a community’s ability to shape its own
destiny through the inclusion or exclusion of new members is important in the protection of interests,
maintenance of harmony, and the achievement of a unifying set of values.12 Exclusion is important to the
social contract. However, the idea of consent conflicts with the liberal principle that a state ought to
secure the basic human rights of all people as fully as possible. In other words, is it possible to reject
admission to immigrants while still respecting their rights? Moreover, is respect for the immigrants’ rights
superior to a state’s sovereignty? Shuck and Smith answer in the negative by arguing that even if moral
obligations to those outside the contract are compelling, they do not imply jus soli.13 To Schuck and
Smith, humanitarian obligations are secondary to a people’s self-determination; government cannot have
the consent of the governed if obligations to immigrants are superior to current citizens. In other words,
granting full political membership to ‘outsiders’ without the consent of those already ‘inside’ means the
state is not acting in the interests of its people. Thus, consensualism is diametrically opposed to jus soli,
or citizenship by birthplace.
In its weak iteration, jus soli must grant citizenship to anyone who is born in and lives in the state
long enough to have ‘availed’ herself of the protection and benefits that the state provides.14 This is in
contrast to jus soli’s strong iteration, which grants automatic citizenship to every person born in the state
at the moment of birth.15 It is important to note that because members of the 1.5 generation immigrated to
the state, both weak and strong jus soli do not apply to them. Consensualists object to jus soli citizenship
on the grounds that it violates liberal citizenship16 in that it deprives both the community and the
individual gaining citizenship of the opportunity to come to reasoned conclusions about citizenship.17
Consensualists argue that jus soli citizenship removes from the subject the right to actively pledge his or
her allegiance to a nation-state. It also allows those who enter a community in violation of established
Peter Schuck, & Roger Smith, “Citizenship Without Consent,” 20.
Walzer, M. from Peter Schuck, & Roger Smith, “Citizenship Without Consent,” 20.
13
Peter Schuck, & Roger Smith, “Citizenship Without Consent,” 22.
14
Matthew Lister, “Citizenship, in the Immigration Context,” 207.
15
For an in-depth exposition, see Lister (2010)
16
Matthew Lister, “Citizenship, in the Immigration Context,” 212.
17
Elizabeth F. Cohen, “Carved from the Inside Out: Immigration and America’s Public Philosophy of Citizenship,”
in Debating Immigration, ed. Carol M. Swain (Cambridge University Press, 2007), 32-46. From Matthew Lister,
“Citizenship, in the Immigration Context,” 212.
11
12
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laws to use their citizen children to acquire citizenship against the wishes of citizens. For the purpose of
argument, suppose that a majority of the American electorate is against immigration, and there are strict
laws in America concerning immigration. A consensualist argument is that the majority of voting
Americans would not consent to immigrants, as elected legislators create and maintain legislation that
reflects a majority of said electorate’s view on immigration. Consensualism argues that it is morally
questionable to reward those who break the law by conferring citizenship on those who made the
conscious decision to immigrate illegally, i.e. the first generation. Moreover, since consensualists argue
that the society did not consent to irregular migrants, society also does not consent to their offspring.
(This includes both the 1.5 and second generation). Moreover, it is even more questionable to guarantee
jus soli in the contract.18 As former congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) stated,
Just government requires the unanimous consent of [the governed]. Not only must the individual
consent to being governed, but [the community as a whole must also accept him]. Granting
citizenship to all persons within the geographical boundaries…is conferring citizenship without
the consent of the whole people.19
Consensualists argue that jus soli citizenship undermines the electorate and its ability to affect policy
through legislation and unreasonably favors outsiders.
According to consensualists, unauthorized immigrants and their children are outsiders who,
through jus soli, force citizens to treat them as fellow citizens without their consent. Consensualists argue
that because these immigrants entered the country illegally, the act disqualifies these immigrants from
meeting the ‘good moral standing’ standard necessary for citizenship. This is consensualism’s appeal to
‘original sin’: because undocumented immigrants broke the law entering as they did, and because they are
using the welfare state and jus soli for their children, they must be ineligible for any path toward
citizenship.”20 Arguments similar to this question the immigrant’s loyalty and fitness for political
membership by asserting that by breaking the law, undocumented immigrants do not know what it means
to be part of a morally functioning society. I find this position confusing from a moral standpoint. One
could note that arguments similar to this are usually applied against the adults that bring the children here
and not the children themselves; these arguments thus have a negative effect on the 1.5 generation when
acted upon because this generation had no moral responsibility in the decision to enter the nation without
the consent of the citizens. This is an astute point, though I want to refine that further. The point here is
Robin Jacobson, “Characterizing Consent: Race, Citizenship, and the New Restrictionists,” Political Research
Quarterly 59 (2006) 645-653.
18
19
20
Mark Foley from Robin Jacobson, “Characterizing Consent: Race, Citizenship, and the New Restrictionists,” 648.
Ayelet Shachar, “Earned Citizenship: Property Lessons for Immigration Reform”
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that if citizens should not assign direct blame to the 1.5 generation for unauthorized entry because they do
not deserve such blame, they should see the seemingly inevitable negative consequences of assigning
such blame to their parents on the 1.5 generation as troubling at the very least because the 1.5 generation
does not deserve that either. Children of undocumented immigrants are, morally speaking, just like any
other child born in a particular state.21 The status of the parent is morally irrelevant to the status of the
child; to deny the protection of a state to a child based on a decision in which he or she had no part
represents unjust exclusion. Consensualism allows for unjust exclusion because it adversely affects the
relationship the children of undocumented immigrants have with their parents by placing them in a
subclass based on morally irrelevant criteria.22By ‘adversely affecting’, I mean that children of
undocumented immigrants may face an undue burden such as fear of family separation. Such fear is based
on morally irrelevant criteria.
To see the insufficiency of consensualism as a model, it is important to differentiate between (1)
racial exclusion as a necessary consequence of consensualism and (2) racial exclusion as a possible
consequence of consensualism under circumstances where the majority of existing citizens are racist.
Even if supposing (1) is unnecessary, the fact that consensualism allows for (2) makes it a dangerous,
unreliable paradigm for normative citizenship policy. Robin Jacobson argues, “ [Consensualist] versions
of citizenship have a long republican history supporting the idea of a community’s need for homogeneity
in order to maintain a functioning republic.”23 She then adds that consensualist arguments are combined
with a racialized view of immigration, leading to contemporary calls for restricting citizenship.24 In the
consensualist/jus soli dichotomy, jus soli seems the more egalitarian citizenship. However, that is a
fallacy.
Jus soli is itself an insufficient citizenship model for two reasons, one theoretical and the other
pragmatic. Jus soli, although racially egalitarian, does not solve the arbitrariness objection. Birthplace is
also arbitrary from a moral perspective. Race may be more sensitive and jus soli is a lesser of two evils,
but jus soli is no better than consensualism in surmounting the arbitrariness objection. Some may argue
that it is because it is arbitrary that jus soli is egalitarian with regard to race. However, racism is as
arbitrary as discrimination based on birthplace, so moral arbitrariness does not imply non-racism.
Pragmatically speaking, both consensualism and jus soli exclude a central demographic not only from
citizenship, but from conversations on citizenship. This demographic is ‘the 1.5 generation.’ The 1.5
generation are immigrants who either immigrated to a state at a young age illegally or through legal
Matthew Lister, “Citizenship, in the Immigration Context,” 214.
Matthew Lister, “Citizenship, in the Immigration Context,” 214.
23
Robin Jacobson, “Characterizing Consent: Race, Citizenship, and the New Restrictionists,” 646.
24
Robin Jacobson, “Characterizing Consent: Race, Citizenship, and the New Restrictionists,” 646.
21
22
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means that have since expired.25 More importantly, they have resided in that nation-state long enough for
their sense of self to be shaped by it – I expand on this later. Those in the 1.5 generation cannot fit in the
consensualist model because they could not have consented to immigration, thus they are not firstgeneration. They also cannot fit into jus soli because they were not born in the state of residence, thus
they are not second-generation. To create a normative citizenship policy that includes the 1.5 generation,
a jus nexi conception, based on the idea of rootedness, is important.
III.
Jus Nexi Includes the ‘1.5’ Generation
As I mentioned earlier, jus nexi allows for earned citizenship arising from the establishment of a real,
genuine, and effective link to the nation-state and its culture.26 It takes seriously the idea that inclusive,
democratic citizenship in a liberal state should reflect a nexus between rights and duties as well as
between membership and social attachment.27 Such an approach enables us to welcome those who have
already been social members based on presence and participation in the life and economy of the state.28 If
the person has been present in the nation-state and forms ties within it, the person can claim political
membership. Jus nexi holds normative appeal and contemporary relevance as it develops an equitable
standard of citizenship for those who either cannot benefit from existing citizenship and immigration
principles or remain barred from naturalization under current law.29 Shachar argues that this “rootedness
principle recognizes the social membership of long-term residents who, as a result of their involvement
and stake in the life of the polity, become part of the [community].”30 It is important to note that jus nexi
does not force membership upon anyone; it requires that a noncitizen display both intent and effort in the
development of these ‘real and effective links’ if they choose to join the society and go down the path of
earned citizenship. Jus nexi does not depend on physical presence; it also depends upon a concerted effort
on the part of the noncitizen to earn full political membership. Jus nexi citizenship adds dignity to
immigrants’ experience, as it serves as a source for agency in seeking and securing political membership
in addition to validating community involvement. This avenue to full political membership is grounded in
the ideas of actual membership, real and effective contribution, and social attachment. The question now
becomes, does jus nexi have pragmatic value?
25
I count myself among this group.
Ayelet Shachar, “Earned Citizenship: Property Lessons for Immigration Reform,” 5.
27
Ayelet Shachar, “Earned Citizenship: Property Lessons for Immigration Reform,” 27.
28
Ayelet Shachar, “Earned Citizenship: Property Lessons for Immigration Reform,” 19.
29
Ayelet Shachar, “Earned Citizenship: Property Lessons for Immigration Reform,” 8. See United States v. Wong
Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898). Shachar notes that the decision pronounces that there are “two sources of citizenship,
birth and naturalization.”
30
Ayelet Shachar, “Earned Citizenship: Property Lessons for Immigration Reform,” 20.
26
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Jus nexi has pragmatic value, especially with regard to the members of what Shachar and I call
the ‘1.5 generation’. The 1.5 generation are not first-generation immigrants in the sense that they
immigrated at a young age and thus could not choose to immigrate, and not second generation in that they
were not born in the state in which they reside. Jus nexi reconciles their legal realities to social
transformations and rights wrongs that are not of their making. 31 Jus nexi offers the most principled and
pragmatic approach in resolving the plight of the 1.5 generation. In fact, the United States has already
used jus nexi standards to grant deportation relief to the 1.5 generation with the implementation and
renewal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.32 Opening jus nexi to the 1.5 generation
will not encounter much opposition, even among consensualists, chiefly because 1.5 generation
immigrants did not ‘consent’ to break immigration law and thus should not be held responsible for their
status.
Up until now, I have argued that jus nexi allows for the inclusion of the 1.5 generation. However,
I have not argued for a reason why they ought to be included. The reason I posit I call the ‘sense of self’
argument. I define ‘sense of self’ to mean a collection of beliefs about oneself; however, I limit the
definition to the extent that these beliefs are contingent on the 1.5 generation immigrant’s presence in and
interaction with a nation-state and its culture. Members of the 1.5 generation have formed a connection
with that state such that their sense of self has been shaped by the state, i.e. these immigrants have met the
‘real and effective link standard’ that jus nexi requires. Meeting this standard happens through various
activities that include: attending school, consuming the culture of the society, and going through the
culture’s rites of passage.33 In this sense, there is no pragmatic or significant distinction between members
of the 1.5 generation and those of the 2nd generation. Moreover, it would be absurd to argue that the 1.5
generation’s investment in the society is disingenuous because it is the very culture of the nation-state that
molds the 1.5 generation immigrant’s sense of self. To deny citizenship to the 1.5 generation, whose sense
of self is inextricable from the state in which they reside, is morally unjust. This is because denial of
citizenship prevents the 1.5 generation from receiving the benefits and protections of political
membership to which their personal connection entitles them. Furthermore, to threaten deportation to
their former state with which they have no connection would render them stateless; all states have a moral
obligation to prevent statelessness.34 Thus, jus nexi grants citizenship in a way that respects the 1.5
Ayelet Shachar, “Earned Citizenship: Property Lessons for Immigration Reform,” 35.
“Differed Action,” Published November 16, 2012, dhs.gov/deferred-action.
33
Cultural rites of passage can involve interaction with the state. In American culture, obtaining a Drivers’ License
is one of these rites. However, depending on the state, this rite may be unavailable to the 1.5 generation.
34
Matthew Lister, “Citizenship, in the Immigration Context,” 202.
31
32
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generation as individuals who not only invest in the nation-state but consider themselves to be members
in a morally relevant way.
I’ll spend some time responding to a possible counterargument. One issue with the jus nexi view
is the very fact that it roots citizenship in the participation in civic life. However, many aspects of civic
life are open only to citizens. If all aspects of civic life are open even to non-citizens, one could argue that
citizenship is arbitrary as there are no longer any distinctions between citizens and non-citizens. This
point does compel me to make my view clearer. I am not arguing that every aspect of civic life should be
open to non-citizens; it would indeed make citizenship arbitrary. However, I argue that whatever aspects
of civic life are open to non-citizens should, through non-citizen participation in said aspects, lead to
citizenship and participation in aspects open only to citizens. As an exercise, let us take one aspect of
civic life such as voting. Suppose that non-citizens can vote in local and municipal elections, but not in
state and national elections. In my view, voting in local elections can be part of a non-citizen’s claim for
citizenship such that she can vote in state and national elections. However, these aspects of civic
participation open to non-citizens are not limited to the political process. Although those are too
numerous to list, the general rule of thumb can be that non-citizen participation in the social and cultural
life of the nation (even that of their own culture in the new state) can add to a claim for citizenship under
jus nexi.
IV.
Conclusion
Conversing on citizenship in purely consensualist/jus soli terms represents a false dichotomy. However,
an exposition of the two is important. Consensualist citizenship policy is built on the idea that being a
citizen includes a citizen’s tacit or express consent to be a member of a society and society’s right to
select who enters the society. Consensualism is built on the Lockean idea that people can only be subject
to a government after reaching the age of discretion and willfully consenting to citizenship. Smith (who
has now revised his position)35 and Schuck expand on this, arguing that citizens have not consented to
including undocumented immigrants and their children. Thus, exclusion is a core tenet of consensualism.
Jacobson replies that consensualism allows for morally arbitrary standards for exclusion – this includes
race-based standards. Jus soli aims to remedy this by being racially egalitarian; however, it is subject to
the same pitfalls as consensualism. From a theoretical standpoint, jus soli does not solve the arbitrariness
objection. Pragmatically speaking, both consensualism and jus soli leave an important demographic out –
the 1.5 generation. To include them, I argue for a third option, jus nexi, which uses the idea of rootedness
See Rodgers M. Smith, “Birthright Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 and 2008,” Journal of
Constitutional Law 11 (2009): 1329-1335.
35
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as a standard for political membership. Jus nexi relies on a ‘real and effective’ link between a person and
the community in which she has not only deeply invested, but to which she intends to pledge allegiance
to. I make a normative argument for jus nexi by positing the ‘sense of self’ argument, which recognizes
the nation-state’s role in the formation of a person’s identity as a morally relevant criterion for receiving
citizenship. This is important in developing an equitable standard of citizenship for those who either
cannot benefit from existing citizenship and immigration principles or remain barred from naturalization
under current law. Jus nexi is thus important to a normative definition of citizenship in the modern nationstate.
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Identity Through Change in Aristotle:
How Hylomorphism Solved the Parmenidean Puzzle
Alejandro Naranjo
Cornell University
Abstract
Influential commentators have argued that Aristotle’s discussions regarding change are
inconsistent. Against this thesis, the present paper looks at various discussions concerning
change in Aristotle’s texts in order to demonstrate that a feature that unifies them does in fact
exist. I argue that this unifying feature is that the accidental form of a substance changes while its
essential form and matter remain constant. Thus, I claim that this gives us reason to believe that
Aristotle always held a hylomorphic theory of substance, i.e., the theory that substances are a
complex of matter and form. Moreover, I contend that Aristotle uses this unifying feature to
solve the puzzle that Parmenides raised with his argument for the impossibility of change
without having to postulate the existence of Platonic Forms.
I.
Introduction
Throughout his texts, Aristotle gives several accounts of change that challenge the opinions of
previous philosophers such as Plato, Parmenides, and Heraclitus and his followers, to name a
few. Significantly, in Physics I he rejects Plato’s explanation of change through the Forms and
claims to have solved the puzzle that Parmenides posed with his argument regarding the
impossibility of change. However, there are many other passages in which Aristotle explicitly
analyses change in (at least) one of what he takes to be its four possible forms: alteration,
growth, locomotion, and coming-to-be or passing-away. It is far from clear that his views on
change remained the same through all of his discussions. In fact, many commentators charge
Aristotle with inconsistency in this matter. For example, Daniel Graham claims that Aristotle’s
ideas on substantiality change too radically from text to text to provide a unique Aristotelian
account of change.36 In the present essay, I argue contra these commentators that there is a
unique feature that all of these accounts of change share and that this feature is what constitutes
Aristotle’s main innovation with respect to the philosophers that preceded him. In particular, I
36
Daniel Graham, Aristotle’s Two Systems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).
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discuss several analyses that Aristotle presents concerning growth with the purpose of
confirming the presence of this unifying feature.
II.
Aristotle’s notion of substantiality: What Remains Constant Through Change.
First, we must introduce Aristotle’s views on substantiality since his innovations on change
depend on them. In the Categories, Aristotle defines substances37 in the following way: “a
substance … is that which is neither said of a subject nor in a subject” (2a11), where ‘P’ is said
of ‘x’ just in case ‘P’ is predicated of ‘x’ (e.g., the musical is said of man just in case he is
musical); and ‘y’ is in a subject ‘x’ just in case ‘y’ is not a part of ‘x’ but the existence of ‘y’
depends on the existence of ‘x’ (1a21).38 He then argues that all other things, in a broad sense of
the term that includes all other nine categories (quantity, relatives, etc.), are said of substances or
are in them as subjects (2a35). Since substances are fundamental with respect to predication, they
are the basic building blocks of reality on which everything supervenes. As he explains: if
“substances did not exist it would be impossible for any of the other things to exist” (2b5). In
particular, Aristotle claims that individual objects39 are substances, “e.g. the individual man or
the individual horse” (2a15).
Aristotle argues that any substance is able to receive contraries at different times while
preserving its numerical identity, e.g., the same individual man is said to be not-musical at one
time and musical at another time. Moreover, it is only substances that have this capacity: “in no
[case other than substance] could one bring forward anything, numerically one, which is able to
receive contraries” (4a10). Now, Aristotle understands change as receiving different predicates at
different times. This explains why he uses both notions interchangeably. E.g., “what has become
cold instead of hot, or dark instead of pale, or good instead of bad, has changed” (4a31). More
formally, an object changes if and only if at some time the set of predicates that are said of the
object is different from the set of predicates that are said of it at another time. Hence, we have
that only substances can be the subject of any change and be numerically one and the same
In this paper, ‘substance’ is short for ‘primary substance’, since we will not discuss Aristotle’s notion of
secondary substances.
38
All translations are taken from The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1984).
39
The notion of individuality at play is outside of the scope of this paper, but maybe logical independence will
suffice, i.e., a pack of wolves does not qualify as a substance, since its existence logically depends on the existence
of at least two of the individual wolves (unless one trivially counts a lonely wolf as a pack).
37
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through it. Here, by the subject of change I mean what undergoes change. I will use the term
agent of change to refer to the cause of the change.
However, we cannot say without qualification that only substances can be the subject of
change and remain numerically identical through it. Some will object that “statements and beliefs
are like this. For the same statement seems to be both true and false” (4a23), and we do not want
to count statements and beliefs as substances. With this, the opponent means that, e.g., the
statement ‘it is raining in Ithaca’ is the same throughout the year, but its truth-value changes. It is
true when it is in fact raining in Ithaca, and it is false otherwise. At this point, Aristotle argues
that substances remain identical through change by themselves, while statements do not. In our
example, the truth-value of our statement changes because the actual things the statement refers
to have changed. In contrast, the not-musical man becomes musical by performing an activity
himself—by playing an instrument, or learning how to play one. In Aristotle’s words, “in the
case of substances it is by themselves changing that they are able to receive contraries […].
Statements and beliefs, on the other hand, themselves remain completely unchangeable in every
way” (4a30). For short, I will say that a thing has changeability if and only if it is the subject of
any change through itself and it remains numerically identical through the change.
So far, Aristotle has shown that an object is a substance if and only if it has changeability.
Still, we may ask: what exactly in substances has changeability? It cannot be that the entire
substance has changeability since surely in a change in itself something must not remain one and
the same: otherwise no change would have occurred. Answering this question and tracing the
answer through Aristotle’s texts will occupy us the rest of this paper. A crucial piece to this
puzzle appears in On the Soul II.1. There, Aristotle states: “substance is a kind of what is, and
that in several senses: in the sense of matter or that which in itself is not a this, and in the sense
of form and essence, which is that precisely in virtue of which a thing is called a this, and thirdly
in the sense of that which is compounded of both” (412a6). With this statement, he means that
for an object to be a substance it must have form—an immaterial essence which is often the
purpose or final cause of the object—and matter that is suited to fulfill the form. E.g., for an
object to be an eye, it must have the power of sight (which is the essence of the eye), and it must
have matter that enables it to see. Accordingly, he claims that “when seeing is removed the eye is
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no longer an eye, except in name” (412b20). In the literature, Aristotle’s theory of the two-fold
nature of substances is called hylomorphism.
Now that we have established that substances have changeability and are hylomorphic, we
must ask: is it the form or the matter of a substance that has changeability? Or is it both? Already
in the previous quotation we see that a necessary condition of any change in which the substance
survives is that its essential form must survive as well, e.g., what makes the eye the thing it is
must necessarily remain fixed through the change. Hence the substance changes as a compound
of its matter and its accidental form. By accidental form I mean merely its account but not its
essence, i.e., the set of predicates that are said of the substance but that the substance could lose
without thereby ceasing to be the substance it is. For now I will state that this is a main feature
which is shared by all of Aristotle’s accounts of change, and, after discussing Plato as an
important target of this feature, I will prove that it is indeed present in several of the important
passages concerning change. For this paper, therefore, I will assume the following definition of
“Identity Through Change”: While the substance, as both its accidental form and its matter, is the
subject in every change in the substance, only its essential form remains one and the same
through the change.
III.
The Parmenidean Puzzle and Plato’s solution.
Historically, Aristotle’s immediate reason to uphold Identity Through Change was to solve a
puzzle that Parmenides had raised with his argument for the impossibility of change without
having to postulate the existence of Platonic Forms. In order to understand this statement, we
introduce Aristotle’s reconstruction of Parmenides’ argument: suppose that something comes to
be, i.e., changes. Then, it must do so either from what is or from what is not, both of which are
impossible. For what is cannot come to be (because it is already), and from what is not nothing
could have come to be (because something must be underlying) (191a29).40 Plato thought he
could solve this puzzle, as is evident from the fact that he devotes an entire dialogue—the
Parmenides—giving replies to the possible responses of the Parmenideans against his theory of
Forms. I proceed to present Plato’s account of change by the Forms in order to highlight the
reasons that Aristotle champions against it.
40
All translations of Plato are taken from Plato: The Complete Works, ed. John Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing Company, 1997).
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In Phaedo, Plato’s Socrates narrates how, during his youth, he defended explanations of
growth that depended on the addition of similars to similars. As he narrates, “I thought before
that it was obvious to anybody that men grew through eating and drinking, for food adds flesh to
flesh and bones to bones, and in the same way appropriate parts were added to all other parts of
the body” (96c5). However, Socrates became disenchanted with this theory and instead came to
prefer an explanation of growth in terms of his Forms, i.e., non-material, abstract and universal
entities such as the Beautiful, itself by itself, the Good and the Great, etc. (100b4). If an object
‘x’ is said to be ‘F’, where ‘F’ is a Form, it is because the ‘F’ is in ‘x’ or, in Plato’s own words,
“if there is anything beautiful besides the Beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no other reason than
that it shares in that Beautiful” (100c2). Accordingly, every man grows because the Tallness in
him advances and the Shortness in him recedes, and our saying that he is taller than another man
has to be causally explained by comparing their participation in Tallness (102c1). As Plato
explains,
Not only Tallness itself is never willing to be tall and short at the same time, but also that
the tallness in us will never admit the short or be overcome, but one of two things
happens: either it flees and retreats whenever its opposite, the short, approaches, or it is
destroyed [in us] by its approach. (102d5)
Two features of the theory of Forms are particularly relevant to our discussion. First, the
Forms in us do not admit contraries, as is already evident in the last quotation. In fact, it is not
only that each Form in us does not admit contraries, but also in its own independent existence:
“the opposite itself could never become opposite to itself, neither that in us nor that in nature”
(103b2). Thus, Plato’s solution to Parmenides’ argument is the existence of eternal immaterial
forms that do not come to be but whose advance or retreat from objects makes them come to be.
Second, Plato is also interested in identity through change. He reports that before Socrates
abandoned natural science, he held three views: that the man who grows is the subject of change;
that he is one and the same through the growth, and that the addition of similars to similars is the
agent of change. Thus he states: “the man grew from an earlier small bulk to a large bulk later,
and so a small man became big” (96d3). Later, he corrected this view. As we have seen, the
Forms in us are the agents of change: the man is said to have changed in virtue of his
participation in the Forms, but it is the advance or recession of them that causes the change.
However, the subject of change—the man—is still one and the same through the change
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according to Plato: “[Tallness] is not willing to endure and admit shortness and be other than it
was, whereas I admit and endure shortness and still remain the same person and am this short
man” (102e3).
In general, for Plato the essence of matter is to be the subject of change—i.e. to receive
contraries—precisely because matter maintains its numerical identity through the change. In the
Timaeus, he considers the example of a portion of gold that is molded in different shapes. He
argues that when asked what is the portion of gold—i.e., what is the subject of the change in
shape—one’s safest bet is to say that it is gold, since that is what remains constant through every
reshaping (50b1). Accordingly, he states that the nature of matter is “to be available for anything
to make its impression upon” and that matter is “modified, shaped, and reshaped by the things
that enter it” (50c1). This is in direct contradiction with Identity Through Change. Where Plato
says that the agent is the subject of change and what is constant through it, Aristotle says that the
subject is matter and accidental form and that what is constant is essential form. Hence, although
Aristotle also desires to solve the puzzle that Parmenides has posed, he disagrees with Plato
because his views on predication, substantiality, and causation are mistaken.
IV.
Observances of Identity Through Change in Aristotle’s texts.
We now turn to several of Aristotle’s discussions concerning change in order that it may become
clear both that Identity Through Change holds up through Aristotle’s intellectual development
and so that we can understand some of the main arguments that result from it. In On Generation
and Corruption I.4, Aristotle distinguishes between different types of change, including
alteration, growth and diminution, and coming-to-be and passing-away:
When the change from contrary to contrary is in quantity, it is growth and diminution; …
when it is in property, i.e., in quality, it is alteration; but when nothing persists of which
the resultant is a property … it is coming-to-be, and the converse is passing-away”
(319b32).
Here, we only discuss the case of growth41. In On Generation and Corruption I.5, Aristotle
argues that any account of growth must preserve three commonsense suppositions, namely that
41
A complete treatment of the subject would include alteration, locomotion and even, possibly, coming-to-be, since
in Physics I.8 Aristotle argues that even things that come-to-be simpliciter come-to-be from some underlying thing
(190b2). For considerations regarding space, these further topics are left undiscussed.
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“any and every part of the growing magnitude is made bigger … by the accession of something;
and thirdly in such a way that the growing thing is preserved and persists” (321a17)42. Thus,
Aristotle thinks that a satisfactory account of growth is one in which the subject of growth
remains one and the same through the change, at least in one sense. Note that this analysis of
growth is meant to count against Plato’s theory of growth via the Forms, since the Forms do not
conform to two of these three methodological requirements. For Plato, neither the parts of the
flesh nor of the Forms are made bigger; growth does not occur by the accession of anything.
Now, since the subject of growth is available to receive contraries in that at least each and
every one of its parts has grown in magnitude, then surely it is not exactly the same as it was
before the change. If the Forms are not the subject of growth, what that which grows? I.e., “Is it
that to which something is added? If, e.g., a man grows in his shin, is it the shin which is
greater—but not that whereby he grows, viz. not the food? Then why have not both grown?”
(321a30). Note that this is a direct response to Plato’s discussion in Phaedo. In particular, it
criticizes Plato’s assertion that natural science is unable to determine which thing has grown
when two things are put together (96e5). Aristotle’s solution to this puzzle is developed in two
steps: one for the non-homoeomerous parts of the object, and one for its homoeomerous parts.
For Aristotle, an object is homoeomerous if and only if any part of it is of the same type as the
whole. For instance, “any part of water is water” (328a11). Now, first, a non-homoeomerous
object grows because each of its homoeomerous parts (which necessarily exist) grows (321b18).
E.g., the hand, which is comprised of parts of flesh and parts of bone, grows precisely because
the parts of bone and flesh grow. In turn, these homoeomeries, which have “a twofold nature; for
the form as well as the matter is called flesh or bone” (321b20), grow in form. Matter cannot
account for their change since, according to Aristotle, growth in terms of matter is “like what
happens when a man measures water with the same measure; for what comes-to-be is always
different. And it is in this sense that the matter of the flesh grows, some flowing out and some
flowing in” (321b23). The idea in this passage is that when a material body grows, it not only
acquires matter but also disposes of it in what could (at least in principle) be a complete way.
Therefore, if one wants the object’s identity to be preserved thorough growth, it should not
42
Aristotle does not only postulate these three requirements: he has arguments for upholding them. While interesting
in our own right, for our purposes it suffices to state his results.
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depend on the integrity of its material constitution, e.g., the Ship of Theseus, whose parts are
exchanged at sea until its original constitution has been entirely replaced.
Now, using the three requirements of any account of growth that Aristotle has introduced,
he concludes that bodies grow because their homoeomerous parts grow in form. In particular, the
first and second requirements are crucial: “that every part should grow—and grow by the
accession of something—is possible in respect to form, but not in respect to matter” (321b22).
Possibly, that such parts grow in form means that one’s account of every homoeomerous part
acquires more predicates, and thus the body acquires more properties. As evidence for this
reading, note that Aristotle points out that a mixture of water and wine is said to be the growth of
wine (and not water) if the resulting mixture “acts as wine” (321a34)—i.e., certain predicates
said of the wine essentially are also said of the mixture, and hence the essential form of the wine
is preserved. Presumably, however, the mixture will acquire certain predicates that are said of
water: it will lose some of its redness, etc. Therefore the subject of growth is not only the matter
comprising the wine, but also its accidental form. Thus, this is a direct observance of our
principle of Identity Through Change.
Aristotle takes up the matter of growth again in On the Soul II.4, where he seeks a
definition of the nutritive soul, i.e., the soul responsible in natural beings for their reproduction
and growth. Here, Aristotle understands the soul of a body as the cause or source of the body in
three senses: “it is the source of movement, it is the end, it is [its] essence” (415b9). For him,
reproduction and growth are due to a psychic power instead of a mere physical interaction
between elements. Thus he criticizes those who say that “fire [is] the cause of nutrition and
growth” (416a11) on the grounds that such growth would be boundless, since it is the nature of
fire to burn as long as it is fueled. Rather, living beings have a natural size that is best suited for
the fulfillment of their essence whose existence can only be understood in the presence of a
psychical power. As Aristotle explains, “limit or ratio are marks of soul but not of fire, and
belong to the side of account rather than that of matter” (416a17).
Aristotle proceeds by criticizing the accounts of previous philosophers concerning
nutrition. He states: “one set of thinkers assert that like is fed, as well as increased in amount, by
like. Another set … maintains the reverse, viz. that what feeds and what is fed are contrary to
one another” (416a29). Aristotle dismisses these theories because they fail to make a distinction
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between digested and undigested matter. I.e., the food that a living being ingests is a contrary to
it, since it is not comprised of the same elements. However, in digestion, the body turns the food
into an aggregate of elements like those of its organs so it can be assimilated. As Aristotle
explains, “taking food in the sense of undigested matter, it is the contrary that is fed by it; taking
it as digested it is like what is fed by it” (416b6). Note that this is an attempt to understand the
growth of living beings by feeding, and thus Aristotle approaches this problem with the same
methodological approach as in On Generation and Corruption I.5. Accordingly, he points out
that in nutrition there must be a subject of growth that is constant through the change—that
which is fed—and that food has the power to increase the bulk of this subject in magnitude by
the accession of like to like.
Nonetheless, there is a further complication in the case of living beings. Aristotle states:
“nothing except what is alive can be fed” (416b10). By this, he means that food not only has the
power to increase the bulk of an object in magnitude (as in the case of growth in general), but
also to preserve the life of the being that feeds on it just in case it is living (416b14). This point is
particularly relevant to our discussion, since it helps us identify the living being—as both form
and matter—with the subject of nutrition: “what is fed is the besouled body and just because it
has soul in it” (416b10). Accordingly, Aristotle analyses the process of nutrition into three
factors: “what is fed, that wherewith it is fed, and what does the feeding” (416b20), or, in our
terminology, the subject of change, the agent of change, and what remains constant through the
change. Respectively, what feeds is the nutritive soul, what is fed is the besouled body, and that
wherewith it is fed is the food (416b23). Since the nutritive soul is part of the end and essence of
the living being, we have that what remains constant through nutrition is the essential form.
Similarly, the subject of change is the living being considered both in its form and its matter.
Hence, we have here another observance of Identity Through Change.
Relatedly, in Politics III.3, Aristotle discusses how pluralities remain constant through
change, by considering the specific example of the state, which is comprised of citizens. In his
words: “shall we say that while the race of inhabitants remains the same, the city is also the
same, although the citizens are always dying and being born, as we call rivers and fountains the
same, although the water is flowing away and more coming?” (1276a35). Note that in this
example not only the citizens have changed, but also the accidental form of the state, i.e., when
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describing the state we could include the fact that its citizens have changed in number and race,
etc. Nonetheless, Aristotle argues that the essential form of the state—its political organization as
it is legislated in a constitution—and not its material composition—how many and what race of
citizens are counted as part of the state—is constant through the change. This way, the
undesirable result that the state changes if all of its original inhabitants have died, even if every
inhabitant in the current state observes the same constitution and ideals, is avoided. Thus, “since
the state is a partnership, and is a partnership of citizens in a constitution, when the form of the
government changes, and becomes different, then it may be supposed that the state is no longer
the same” (1276a35) and, more generally “we speak of every union or composition of elements
as different when the form of their composition alters” (1276b6). This is similar to our findings
in On Generation and Corruption I.5, because the state, in its accidental form and material
composition, is the subject of the change, and its essential form is one and the same through the
change. Hence this is another case of Identity Through Change.
Some commentators such as Graham argue that Aristotle’s ideas of substantiality change
too drastically from his earlier texts to his latter ones to present any unifying theory of change.
Graham contends that in earlier texts Aristotle spouses a theory, S1, of atomic substantialism
according to which “the basic entities are indivisible substances which fall under natural kinds”
and later on a theory, S2, of hylomorphic substantialism according to which “substances are
complexes of form and matter” (Graham 1987). Furthermore, in Aristotle’s Two Systems he
argues S1 and S2 are incommensurable, i.e., both systems commit Aristotle to different
metaphysical ideas that cannot be simultaneously obtained. However, we have shown that the
principle Identity Through Change remains constant throughout Aristotle’s texts: from the
Categories to the Politics, which are widely recognized as early and later texts, respectively.
Aristotle’s unfaltering dedication to this principle—which depends on a hylomorphic theory of
substance—provides us with reasons to believe that Aristotle favored hylomorphism over
atomism. Moreover, as Michael J. Loux contends, Aristotle always held that a substance is a type
of “what is” that can bear properties and which has a telos or purpose.43 It seems unlikely that
Aristotle thought that atoms could be the bearers of complex properties such as being musical or
that atoms had the telos of seeing, but these are paradigmatic examples of what we want from an
Michael Loux, “Substances, Coincidentals and Aristotle’s Constituent Ontology,” in Oxford Handbook of
Aristotle, ed. Christopher Shields (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 372-399.
43
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Aristotelian substance. Thus, I argue that Graham is mistaken in believing that Aristotle held S1,
and thereby can claim that Aristotle’s discussions of change are consistent and based on a
hylomorphic theory of substances.
V.
Conclusion: How Identity Through Change solves the Parmenidean Puzzle.
I have presented the principle of Identity Through Change as a constant of Aristotle’s account of
growth. Similar analyses can be made concerning alternation and locomotion. However, we have
a more pressing issue at hand. I have claimed that Aristotle can solve Parmenides’ puzzle
without having to resort to using Platonic Forms. How then does Aristotle use Identity Through
Change to avoid the Parmenidean threat? The answer to this question can be found in Physics I,
where Aristotle introduces a more general account for change. In chapter 7, he argues that the
principles of change, i.e., the conditions necessary for change to happen, are not two contraries—
as in Plato’s account, which explained change in terms of a Form and its contrary—but rather,
two contraries plus an underlying subject of change (190b35). E.g., when the not-musical man
becomes musical, the musical and the unmusical are the two contraries, and the man is the
subject of change (190b31). Aristotle requires the third principle because “it is impossible for the
contraries to be acted on by each other” (190b32), e.g., the not-musical cannot act on the
musical, since by Plato’s own terms each Form recedes when its contrary approaches.
This way, by assuming that there is change, Aristotle proves that there must always be an
underlying subject (190b3)—the third principle. Schematically, this substance ‘x’, which is
numerically identical, is able to receive two contraries ‘F’ and ‘G’ at different times. Hence, its
account changes by the modification of its matter, in accordance with Identity Through Change.
As Aristotle explains,
The subject is one numerically, though it is two in form. (For there is the man, the gold—
in general, the countable matter; for it is more of the nature of a ‘this’, and what comes to
be does not come from it accidentally; the privation, one the other hand, and the
contrariety are accidental) (190b24).
By arguing for the existence of these bearers of predicates, Aristotle can explain how
they come to be “from what is not”. Namely, they come to be from what is not accidentally, i.e.,
from the negation of a predicate ‘F’, ‘F’ can come to be in a substance ‘x’, as in the non-musical
man that becomes musical. This is what he means when he states that “nothing can be said
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without qualification to come from what is not. But nevertheless we maintain that a thing may
come to be from what is not in a qualified sense, i.e., accidentally” (191b14).
Thus, Aristotle has succeeded in proving Parmenides wrong, without having to recur to
Plato’s solution. For Aristotle, the Forms, which cannot affect one another, cannot be the agents
of change. The subject of change cannot be only matter, since our account of the changing
substance has also been modified; nor need matter be constant through the change, as we have
seen in On Generation and Corruption. Most importantly, Plato fails to notice that what is
constant through the change is the essential account of substances: their end or purpose.
Aristotle’s ideas concerning predication and substantiality have survived to this day in many
ways. E.g., his arguments for the existence of fundamental substances on which predication and
truth inhere have motivated our logical notions of predicates and individual-constants. However,
I take it that what is most important for Aristotle concerning Identity Through Change is the
emphasis it places on the final essence of substances. For him, that things are capable of coming
to be is ultimately explained only by understanding nature teleologically.
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I’m Not Playing Games:
Why Wittgenstein’s Language-Games Fail to Defeat the Unity of Language
Cam Smith
Stanford University
Abstract
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) has earned considerable notoriety for his potent challenges to what
long stood as the most common and unproblematic of philosophical intuitions. For example, in his
Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein famously attempts to undermine our likely assumption that, at
least in principle, some unified account of what the word ‘language’ means must be available.
Wittgenstein insists rather that, if we assume that there must be some unitary general account of what
language is, then we are hindering our discovery of what language actually is. Wittgenstein tries to rectify
this common apparent misunderstanding by using the unusual mechanics of an extremely basic language
(or what he calls a “language-game”) to illustrate that some languages inevitably will frustrate all
attempts to unveil a unified account of what language is. In this paper, I side with Rush Rhees, who
denies that Wittgenstein’s language-games are effective in defeating the common view that a single
unified account of language is unattainable. I outline three criticisms Rhees levels against Wittgenstein’s
use of the notion of language-games. I then explain why I think that Rhees’ overall objection to
Wittgenstein is correct.
The general concept of the meaning of a word surrounds the working of language with a
haze which makes clear vision impossible. It disperses the fog if we study the
phenomena of language in primitive kinds of use in which one can clearly survey the
purpose and functioning of the words.44
I.
Introduction
In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein famously uses a very primitive language, or what he calls
a “language-game,”45 in his attempt to expose the daunting hidden problems facing any account of the
meaning of the word ‘language.’ As the above-cited quote suggests, Wittgenstein believes that so long as
we assume that there must be some unified general account to give about what language is—or what the
meaning of a word amounts to—we are clouding our understanding in an impenetrable fog that hinders our
44
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker, & Joachim Schulte,
(Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 7.
45
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 8.
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ability to see what language and meaning really are. Wittgenstein claims that this fog can be partly dispersed
by examining the mechanics of a very basic language, which he calls a “language-game.” He contends that
such language-games reveal why a unified account of language is unattainable, and thus pointless to seek.46
However, in “Wittgenstein’s Builders,”47 Rush Rhees denies that Wittgenstein uses his languagegames effectively to defeat the view that a single unified account of language is unattainable. Rhees does
not say that Wittgenstein’s faulty use of language games implies that a unified account of language is
attainable; he merely points out that Wittgenstein’s use of language-games fails to show that such an
account is unattainable. In this paper, I side with Rhees. I outline three criticisms that Rhees levels against
Wittgenstein’s use of language-games. I then explain why I believe that Rhees’ overall objection to
Wittgenstein is correct, even though I think that only two of Rhees’ three criticisms of Wittgenstein are
clearly successful. I conclude by pointing out that, if Rhees and I are correct, then it still may be profitable
to pursue a unified account of language.
II.
Outlining Wittgenstein’s Main Concern
In the Investigations, Wittgenstein is particularly concerned with illuminating the philosophical
difficulties of explaining what language is.48 He compares the task of defining the word ‘language’ with
the task of saying what ‘game’ means (which, presumably, is no easy task, given the myriad diverse
activities we call ‘games’).49 Wittgenstein points out that we naturally might gesture at the meaning of
‘game’ by describing examples of activities that we call ‘games,’ in the hopes of enabling our listener to
call to mind the concept of a game for herself. Yet, offering a bona fide definition of ‘game’ is likely to
seem beyond our reach. Each instance of a game will share common features with some of the other
instances, but we will be hard pressed to find any single feature that all games share in common.50
Wittgenstein suggests that this because there simply is no single unified definition of ‘game’ at all.
According to him, the word ‘game’ refers only to a set of activities with “family resemblances,”51 rather
than to a set of activities that all answer to some unified general description. “The various resemblances
between members of a family—build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, and so on and so
forth—overlap and criss-cross in the same way,” Wittgenstein explains. So, if Wittgenstein is right that
explaining ‘language’ is analogous to explaining ‘game,’ then the word ‘language’ indeed refers to a set
46
See, for instance, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 6, 25, 43.
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 60 (1959 1960): 171-186.
47
See the opening paragraph of Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 171.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 37.
50
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 36-38.
51
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 36.
48
49
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of things that are connected only by overlapping family resemblances, and are not connected by a
common explanatory thread that necessarily runs throughout every language.
Obviously, then, the force of Wittgenstein’s claim depends partly on the strength of the analogy
between explaining ‘language’ and explaining ‘game.’ To confirm the suitability of this analogy,
Wittgenstein calls to our attention the little training exercises that parents utilize in teaching their children
how to speak.52 Wittgenstein, I think fairly uncontroversially, calls these teaching exercises, “languagegames.”53 He also uses this term to refer to systems of communication nested within the various aspects
of life that seem to have a language use of their own (as where air traffic controllers use a particular lingo
with pilots, for example).54 Wittgenstein says, quite a bit more controversially, that these specialized little
systems of language use (these “language-games”) should be considered as complete languages in
themselves.55 This is no small claim, and as I will show presently, it is vital to Wittgenstein’s goal of
defeating unified accounts of meaning that his language-games be classifiable as complete, not
incomplete, languages.
Wittgenstein offers us a hypothetical language-game that he claims is classifiable as a “complete
language.” He has us conceive of an extremely primitive system of communication that is used by an
imaginary tribe of builders.56 This language consists only of a handful of words that relate to different
kinds of building stones, like ‘slab,’ ‘pillar,’ ‘beam,’ and ‘block.’57 Children in this tribe are taught how
to relate the words to the respective stones partly by ostention; that is, the elders speak each word aloud
as they point out a corresponding type of stone for the learning child. However, whenever this primitive
language is actually used as a language, these words always are used as calls (i.e. demands or orders),58
which are complete sentences in themselves. When a builder calls out to his assistant, “slab!” at a
particular point in the building process, the assistant thereby knows that he is to bring that type of stone
to the builder, or to wherever the builder gestures.
Wittgenstein is employing this conception of a language-game to illustrate a surprising way that
words can have meaning, namely, by being used only as complete sentences (or calls), and never in any
other way. This is partly intended to reveal how we might easily overlook some of the mechanisms by
which a language might endow a word with its meaning(s). In the case of the builders language, the
52
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 7-8.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 8.
54
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 8.
55
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 8, 11. See also Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 176.
56
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 6.
57
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 6. For ease of explanation, I am deliberately omitting
reference to the indexical words, ‘this,’ and ‘there,’ that Wittgenstein introduces two pages later.
58
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 11-12.
53
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building-stone words are not names for building stones (whereas this is virtually all they are in our
language, if they are not used elliptically).59 Rather, each of these words always and only means a whole
command in itself. In the builders language, the word, “slab” cannot mean what we call “slab” in our
language. In the builders language, “slab,” always means that you are to bring a slab.60 Thus, the builders
language appears to highlight a surprising way that a word can function to have meaning in a language.61
The builders language is part of Wittgenstein’s attempt to demonstrate the general parallel
between languages and games. It is for this reason that Wittgenstein explicitly (and perhaps
tendentiously) labels the builders language a ‘language-game.’ Wittgenstein seems to want us to think
that he has devised a scenario that could be described equally well by either the word ‘language’ or the
word ‘game.’ If these two words are equally suitable, then the explanations of both words indeed should
have important similarities. This would go a long way toward validating Wittgenstein’s claim that trying
to define ‘language’ is like trying to define ‘game’ (and that, hence, neither definition is possible).
III.
Rhees’ Inquiry: Does the Idea of Language-Games Achieve Wittgenstein’s Purpose?
Rhees correctly interprets Wittgenstein as employing language-games to illustrate that the words of one
language can get their respective meanings in that language by means of mechanisms that are completely
distinct from the mechanisms that operate in another language. If languages can give words their
meanings by such dissimilar mechanisms, then it will be difficult to explain what meaning itself is, if we
are not to settle for the merely disjunctive kind of explanation that leads to Wittgenstein’s notion of
family resemblances. This, in turn, makes it difficult to explain what language itself is without resorting
to the notion of family resemblances. Accordingly, Rhees’ analysis of Wittgenstein’s use of languagegames is concisely summarized in Rhees’ comment: “speaking is not one thing, and ‘having meaning’ is not
one thing either. This is perhaps the hardest thing to understand about language, and it is for this that [Wittgenstein]
refers to the language-games.”62 Rhees’ comment implies that, since meaning is central to the mechanics of
any language, Wittgenstein is providing the builders language thought experiment in order to expose
certain hidden difficulties involved in attempting any unified account of the meaning of the word
‘language.’
59
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 7-8.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 7.
61
Wittgenstein insightfully analogizes the way words function (and, thus, by extension, the way games are played)
with the way levers function on a locomotive. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 10. Yet, if
there still may be a unified account to give about how levers function, then Wittgenstein’s lever analogy will not be
sufficient to defeat the unity of language either.
62
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 175.
60
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According to Rhees, Wittgenstein is correct that defending a unified account of language is an
extremely daunting task. Rhees concedes to Wittgenstein that it is “so hard to clearly say what ‘a general
account of language’ would be.”63 However, in the opening paragraph of his article, Rhees immediately
calls into question the suitability of Wittgenstein’s analogy between languages and games. Rhees
complains that Wittgenstein “gives an analogy when he refers to the explanation of ‘game’, but it is never
more than an analogy, and at times we may feel unsure just how to take it.”64 Rhees simply does not
accept Wittgenstein’s employment of the analogy between, on the one side, the difficulty of explaining
what language is, and on the other side, the difficulty of explaining what games are.65 I will simply call
this the ‘language-game analogy.’ The remainder of Rhees’ article is devoted to revealing why the
language-game analogy is really a disanalogy.
IV.
Rhees’ Three Challenges to Wittgenstein’s Language-Game Analogy
To summarize where we are thus far, Rhees’ primary concern is not to argue against Wittgenstein’s view
that ‘language’ has no unified definition (he neither affirms nor denies this claim), but rather to
undermine the language-game analogy. As Rhees puts it, “If you did say that our trouble is in finding a
satisfactory account of the way the word ‘language’ is used, then I have tried to show that this trouble is
peculiar, and it cannot be dealt with in the way the trouble about the word ‘game’ might.”66 My paper, as I
said earlier, focuses on three criticisms Rhees deploys in his challenge to Wittgenstein’s language-game
analogy. All three challenges aim to show that a language-game, such as the builders language, should not
necessarily be classified as a language, or at least not as a complete language in itself. If Rhees’ challenge
is correct, then Wittgenstein’s builders language does not provide an example of a language that employs
an unusual mechanism for giving meanings to words, because Wittgenstein would be wrong that his
language-game is classifiable as a complete primitive language.67 This would mean that Wittgenstein has
mistakenly used the language-game analogy, which in turn would mean that explaining what ‘language’
means may not be as difficult as explaining what game’ means. If that is the case, then explaining
language may yet be an attainable aim.
Thus, the failure of the language-game analogy would provide us with at least a small reason for
more optimism about finding a single unified account of language, and of meaning. Personally, I would
rather not be denied this kind of optimism unnecessarily, even if explaining language is highly
problematic; I treasure the sappy ideal that someday we might actually know what we are doing when we
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 172.
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 171.
65
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 171.
66
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 174.
67
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 6.
63
64
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say something in a language, and when we mean something by what we say. Regardless of how sanguine
we may be about a unified account of language, the failure of the language-game analogy would reveal at
least that we need not view languages as being connected only by family resemblances, and this would
open doors to theories that unite languages under one explanation.
My examination of Rhees’ three criticisms of Wittgenstein begins with the one that Rhees refers
to as his “chief difficulty.”68 Rhees’ main objection to Wittgenstein’s use of the notion of language-games
runs roughly as follows:
It is a plain fact that we would not have language if conversation were not an integral part of
human association. Yet, Wittgenstein’s language-games do not allow for any distinction
between making sense to other people and behaving according to a set protocol for
employing the signals that are exchanged between people (in the way that conversation
presumably does). Therefore, language-games do not allow for conversation in the way they
must, if language-games are to be taken as complete languages in themselves. So, languagegames do not support Wittgenstein’s explanatory analogy between languages and games.69
In applying this criticism to Wittgenstein’s builders language specifically, Rhees says, “The trouble is to
imagine that they spoke the language only to give these special orders on this job and otherwise never
spoke at all. I do not think it would be speaking a language.”70 Rhees’ claim is simply that the builders
language, as given, should not be classified as a language at all. Rhees’ concern is that conversation could
not possibly have any part in the builders “language,” if that language were nothing more than a simple
one-way system of giving orders. Such a system really would have no need for the concept of making
sense. Either an order has been given, or it has not; either you are to retrieve a stone, or you are not to do
so. The builders “commands” need not have any more linguistic sense than a bolt of lightning or a clap of
thunder would have for a tribe who followed a particular routine in response to thunder or lightning. It is
of no great importance whether the signal to bring a slab comes from a conscious being who wished to
say something coherent—as is confirmed by Wittgenstein’s suggestion that to understand the meaning of
the call “slab!” it is sufficient that one merely react appropriately on the job.71 People of the tribe could
not use their “language” to tell each other anything about anything. There would be no way to describe
the steps of building process as a building process, for instance, or to describe anything else as anything
at all. Rhees worries that this makes the sentences of the builders language too similar to the sham
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 178.
This is my rephrasing of a paraphrase of Rhees provided by Prof. David Hills, in course materials provided for a
class devoted to Wittgenstein at Stanford University.
70
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 177.
71
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 7. See also: Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 177.
68
69
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sentences that we construct when learning foreign languages. In such learning exercises, we do not really
tell anyone anything; we merely rehearse sentences, and their corresponding routine responses. Such
language-learning games are a pretend kind of speaking; they are empty of the content that is central to
speaking. In Rhees’ view, this distinction between genuine speech and pretense ensures that speaking is
not like a game.72 Rhees adds, “In fact it seems as though Wittgenstein has described a game with building
stones, and not the sort of thing people would do if they were actually building a house.”73 That is, the builders
language is just a game, not a language.
This criticism seems like a solid challenge to Wittgenstein, but whether it is successful will
depend ultimately upon whether conversation ordinarily amounts to something more than the
performance of routines—or what I called, “behaving according to a set protocol for employing the
signals that are exchanged between people.” Yet, it would be incredibly difficult to make a decisive
argument on that point either way. There is so very much that counts as conversation, although, it is
always possible that human conversation involves extremely obscure levels of routine behavior that go
wholly unnoticed, but could fully explain conversation nonetheless. It does seem possible to me that
conversing might completely reduce to routines of behavior, but it seems more likely that making sense in
conversation should amount to more than just behaving according to protocol or routines.
I think Rhees is at least correct that speaking necessarily involves making sense, and I do not
think making sense could reduce to a matter of routine, if only because original speech acts seem to go
beyond the scope of routines. Of course, there may be routines that govern how to perform original
speech acts, but they will not govern just which original speech acts to perform and when, because at any
point in a given conversation, one always has the option of changing the subject to any subject. This
allows for original speech acts to be performed at any time, which refutes the claim that original speech
acts might be wholly governed by routines. Rhees appears to be right that, in the builders language, there
would never be the question of whether a given vocalization was a noise that ‘made sense.’ Instead, we
would only expect questions about whether a given vocalization was in fact a recognizable word in the
language. If not, then the vocalization would not be part of the language at all. Just as we can imagine the
tribe having questions about whether a given noise was in fact a clap of thunder, but not about whether a
given clap of thunder “made sense,” we can imagine the tribe wondering whether a given vocalization
was recognizable as a cue to fetch a stone, but not whether something nonsensical had been said.
In language, we can form propositions about non-actual conditions (e.g. “I own 89 pink
unicorns”). These untrue propositions still make sense, insofar as they still successfully conjure up
72
73
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 178.
Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 177-178.
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sensible notions in the mind of the listener (there is not necessarily anything insensible about the notion of
a pink unicorn, even though the creature is mythical). This might be analogous to saying, “slab!” in the
builders language, when there were no more slabs left to fetch. Yet, language differs from the normative
routines of a game, insofar as we also can use language to ‘express’ nonsense (e.g. “I own 89 pink”). I
agree with Rhees that a game is not like this, because when a behavior accords with the rules of the game,
then precisely for this reason, it is a sensible part of the game to anyone versed in that game—while
behaviors that go beyond the scope of the rules of the game are not any part of the game per se. If in the
final quarter, a football player caught a pass and then suddenly made a call on his cell phone from
midfield, would we say that his behavior was part of the game of football? Surely not. So, although we
can construct nonsense from within any language, there is no way to construct something analogous to
nonsense from within a game (and even if ‘construct nonsense’ were a feature of some game itself, the
very meaning of that phrase would have to be imported from outside the game, in order to be sensible
within the game in question).
Considerations like these weigh in favor of seeing Rhees’ “chief difficulty” as a promising
argument against Wittgenstein’s language-game analogy, although I cannot say that Rhees’ chief
criticism is conclusive. Since it is not conclusive, it is not enough in itself to overturn Wittgenstein’s
language-games analogy. Hence, to show that the language-games analogy is really a disanalogy, I will
turn to Rhees’ other two criticisms. Rhees’ second criticism of Wittgenstein can be paraphrased in the
following way:
Someone who has never played any games at all, and lacks the concept of a game, still can be
taught what ‘game’ means (i.e. what a game is) if we describe various games to her. But we
couldn’t teach someone who has never spoken, and lacks the concept of speaking, what
‘speaking’ means (i.e. what speaking is) by describing various cases of speaking to her.74
The above criticism encapsulates the reasoning in Rhees’ claim, “If we consider ‘speaking’, especially,
there are certain ways in which the analogy with an explanation of ‘game’ is hard to use.” I believe that
this is, in fact, Rhees’ strongest challenge to Wittgenstein’s language-game analogy. To me, this
challenge is decisive, if only for one simple reason: an explanation of ‘game’ does not itself have to
instantiate what it explains, whereas an explanation of ‘language,’ because it is necessarily given in a
language, must instantiate exactly what it purports to explain. And this seems to impose a unique burden
on the explanation of ‘language,’ a burden that few (if any) other explanations would appear to have.
74
This is my rephrasing of a paraphrase of Rhees given by Prof. David Hills, in course materials provided for a class
devoted to Wittgenstein at Stanford University. See: Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,” 172.
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There is, perhaps one illuminating exception: the burden just mentioned is not unlike the
difficulty of explaining what ‘speaking the truth’ means. The true explanation of what ‘speaking the truth’
means must itself be an example of ‘speaking the truth.’ That is, the definition of ‘speaking the truth’
must instantiate true speech. But then, it seems that any explanation of ‘speaking the truth’ must already
presume to make us of the argued meaning of ‘speaking the truth.’ Thus, to claim that one is speaking the
truth about the meaning of ‘speaking the truth’ may involve difficulties akin to trying to use a hammer to
pound a nail into the handle of that very same hammer.
Similarly, any attempt to give a definition or explanation of language necessarily presumes that
the explanation will be given in a language.75 That is, the very act of explaining ‘language’ itself is always
undertaken by a speaker who assumes that his act of explanation is to be classified as an instance of what
it purports to explain. The mechanics of language, which are precisely what needs to be explained, are
simply assumed to function in a way that makes an explanation of language possible. Again, this calls to
mind the puzzling hammer analogy above, and makes it appear that the task of explaining language
carries with it a burden that is not shared by the task of explaining games. In explaining what ‘game’
means, it is not necessary to presume that one’s explanation is itself a game. As a result, Rhees’ claim that
explaining ‘language’ is not analogous to explaining ‘game’ appears decisive in this case.
This brings us to Rhees’ third and final criticism of Wittgenstein’s language-game analogy, which
may be summarized as:
Knowing what playing a game is means that you know what people are doing when they play
games. But in order to know what speaking is, it is not enough merely to know what people do
when they speak.76
Rhees’ point here is that to know what speaking is, one must already know how to understand speech, at
least at a basic level. The vocalizations that people commonly make cannot count as ‘speaking’ to you
unless you know something more than merely that people produce these various sounds with their throats
because making these throat sounds satisfies some kind of goal of theirs (in the way that our actions in a
game aim at satisfying some kind of goal); you must understand that these sounds mean something, or
correspond to some idea, if the sounds are to count as speech in your view.
This is because the speaker must assume that she is attempting to give the explanation of ‘language’ through the
machinery of some language or other, at least if she is to have any hope of giving a correct explanation of
‘language’
76
This is my rephrasing of a paraphrase of Rhees provided by Prof. David Hills, in course materials provided for a
class devoted to Wittgenstein at Stanford University. See: Rush Rhees, “Wittgenstein’s Builders,”172.
75
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Yet, paralleling Rhees’ previous criticism, to discover that this term ‘speaking’ correctly applies
to various vocalizations would require that one already was familiar with some of the mechanics of
speech. Otherwise, it would not make sense to associate a vocalized sound (like the utterance, ‘apples’)
with something that should be taken as this sound’s referent (i.e. as taking the sound of the utterance,
‘apples’ as referring to those juicy red things that grow on certain trees). Without an understanding that
the sounds that are vocalized somehow correspond to something in the world, one could not know what
‘speaking’ is. But, to understand this feature of language is to know more than merely what people are
doing, or how they are behaving, when they speak. So, explanations of language always must provide an
extra dimension of explanation that explanations of game do not. Thus, Rhees’ third criticism of
Wittgenstein seems to be as decisive as his second. Explaining language is not like explaining games.
V.
Conclusion
I have now outlined three criticisms that Rhees levels against Wittgenstein’s use of the notion of
language-games, and I have explained why Rhees’ overall challenge appears correct. Although I
concluded that only two of Rhees’ three criticisms are clearly successful, the success of only one of
Rhees’ criticisms is sufficient to undermine Wittgenstein’s language-game analogy. It appears, then, that
Wittgenstein is wrong that trying to explain ‘language’ would be like trying to explain ‘game.’ Thus, for
the moment, Rhees has deflected Wittgenstein’s argument that languages, like games, are related only by
family resemblances. This, in turn, leaves open the possibility that we eventually may arrive at a unified
account of language and meaning. To my mind, this is cause for at least a modicum of relief. The world
just seems like a better place, if we can preserve some hope that we may someday be able to explain what
all our jabbering amounts to, and what it is doing for us when it means something.
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The Equivocity of the Migrant:
Limits of the Political Category
Samuel Allen
Vassar College
Abstract
This essay aims to theoretically diagnose and critique the unique political status of the migrant today.
Beginning with an examination of the 2009 massacre of migrants in Tamaulipas, Mexico, it argues that
statelessness is central to the political status of the migrant. More specifically, following the work of
Hannah Arendt and Giorgio Agamben, it posits that belonging to a nation state is the precondition for
international juridical recognition, which is particularly relevant in the context of human rights protection.
The stateless person is denied not only basic legal protections but political inclusion altogether. This
person, termed ‘bare life, ‘ shows the limit of political intelligibility. This essay understands her status as
the exclusion from a specific classificatory system, i.e. political ontology, and offers a critique of the
priority of this ontology using the work of Emmanuel Levinas. The essay suggests instead the primacy of
ethics and the inadequacy of such an ontology.
On August 24, 2010, a group of seventy-three migrants was travelling north towards Texas through the
dangerous, northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The group heralded mostly from Central and South
America, many having come from Ecuador, Brazil, El Salvador and Honduras. It is said that the group
was intercepted by a number of gunmen, later discovered to be members of the cartel in control of the
area, Los Zetas. The group of migrants were then led to a nearby ranch and instructed to pay the Zetas
members. The migrants had very little money, and the gunmen suggested that they could instead work as
Zetas assassins while in the United States, earning up to $2000 a month.77 When members of the group
refused, the gunmen fired on the crowd. The only survivor of the event, an unidentified Ecuadorian teen,
recounted this story. The teen was seriously injured in the event, sustaining bullet wounds to the face and
neck. He was only able to survive the altercation by feigning death until after the gunmen had fled the
scene. He then wandered to a nearby military checkpoint and alerted authorities.78 The responsibility for
Associated Press, “Migrants Killed for Refusing to Be Assassins, Teen Says,” NBC News, Aug. 26, 2010,
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38867434/ns/world_news-americas/t/migrants-killed-refusing-be-assassins-teensays/#.VOtyVfmjOG6.
78
Randal C. Archibald, “Victims of Massacre in Mexico Said to be Migrants,” New York Times, Aug. 25 th, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/world/americas/26mexico.html.
77
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the identification and legal documentation of the victims of the Tamaulipas massacre was equivocal at
best. It involved no fewer than six countries, each issuing separate statements concerning the victims,
establishing the extent of their involvement; usually these statements implored the Mexican government
to end the abuse of migrants at the hands of cartels.79
Though this incident was relatively well documented due to the number of victims, there are
thousands more kidnappings, extortions, rapes, and murders that happen in Mexico in nearly identical
circumstances that go unreported. The passage from South and Central America, through Mexico, to the
US has been called one of the most dangerous in the world.80 Perhaps the most tragic part of these
statistics is that, in many cases, these victims are invisible. In the case of the Tamaulipas massacre, many
of the victims were unable to be identified, and in other instances, migrants may disappear without a
trace.81 To render a person invisible is to deprive them of the protections afforded to the citizen, i.e., their
human rights and the active protection thereof.
It is my thesis that fundamental to the condition of invisibility of these victims is their political
status as migrants. The political subject must be recognized as such; it follows that the non-citizen, the
person outside of juridical recognition, is invisible. In transit, the migrant is of an ambiguous legal and
social identity. Though they are no longer permanent residents of the country from which they hail, the
migrant is also not a citizen of the country through which they might travel nor of their destination. The
migrant lies on the fringes of political legibility, and it is their peculiar status that I will here try to
theoretically diagnose and critique. I will begin by using the work of Hannah Arendt to understand how it
is that the stateless person is politically excluded and the implications this has with regards to the
protection of their human rights. I will then use the work of Giorgio Agamben to diagnose this form of
political exclusion and the problematics that accompany this status. Finally, the work of Emmanuel
Levinas informs a critique of the primacy of political, and ontological, integration, suggesting the
possibility of ethical encounters external to any given ontological framework.
We will first try to understand political legibility by way of its constitutive juridical formulations.
Hannah Arendt engages with the parameters of political legibility through her genealogy of the rightsbearing citizen. For Arendt, the chartering of the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1948 would become
See, for instance, “Guatemala Exige a México Esclarecer Matanza de 72 Migrantes En Tamaulipas,” CNN
Mexico, Mar. 23, 2011, http://mexico.cnn.com/nacional/2011/08/23/guatemala-exige-a-mexico-esclarecer-matanzade-72-migrantes-en-tamaulipas; and “Honduras Pide a México Esclarecer Matanza de Inmigrantes,”
Informador.MX, Aug. 26, 2010, http://www.informador.com.mx/mexico/2010/228789/6/honduras-pide-a-mexicoesclarecer-matanza-de-inmigrantes.html.
80
EFE, “Varias Organizaciones En EE.UU. Condenan Matanza de 72 Inmigrantes En México,” Aug. 26, 2010,
http://noticias.terra.com.ar/sociedad/varias-organizaciones-en-eeuu-condenan-matanza-de-72-inmigrantes-enmexico,16c1a3fa070ba210VgnVCM3000009af154d0RCRD.html.
81
“72 Bodies Found in Connection to Mexican Drug War,” Newshour, PBS, Aug. 25, 2010.
79
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a pivotal event in history. It was a novel articulation for a number of reasons. The law was ascribed a new
basis; no longer was religion sufficient grounds for one’s principles and their laws. Instead, the human
supplanted God. Humanity, not religion, granted freedoms and constructed laws. Furthermore, rights were
treated as something necessarily inalienable, a priori. Rights, as conceived, belonged to a normative
discourse. It is exactly by virtue of these most essential qualities that human rights, since its inception,
have proven fraught with inconsistencies and difficulties. As Arendt writes, “since the Rights of Man
were proclaimed to be ‘inalienable,’ irreducible to and undeducible from other rights of laws, no authority
was invoked for their establishment...No special law, moreover, was deemed necessary to protect them
because all laws were supposed to rest upon them.”82 If man, and by extension self-governance, were the
new order in which law was founded, the totality of a religious order had merely been replaced with the
human. The individual was still held validated in light of transcendental structure, only now it had
become an “‘abstract’ human being who seemed to live nowhere.”83 Human rights became a status of
development and national sovereignty, which embodied this development.84 However, as there was no
authority established to protect rights, human rights quickly became conjoined with national identity.
It becomes apparent how dispossessed peoples’ loss of national government protection results in
political exclusion, on both a domestic and international scope: “treaties of reciprocity and international
agreements have woven a web around the earth that makes it possible for the citizen of every country to
take his legal status with him no matter where he goes...Yet whoever is no longer caught in it finds
himself out of legality altogether.”85 The rights-bearing citizen then becomes synonymous with members
of the polis, the guaranteer of rights. This has negative significance as the loss of national rights becomes
identical with the loss of human ones.86
It is true that countries do offer protection to refugees and political asylum for persecuted peoples
in many cases. The types of persecuted peoples are numerous, though, and the set of legal procedures
established for the protection of these peoples are inadequate. Often, political relations and certain
presuppositions about the types of persecution faced by victims mediate the protection afforded them, and
refugee status may be unattainable. For instance, the United States adopted the Immigration Act of 1924
that established the quota for the number of immigrants accepted into the country at two percent of the
number currently living there. Famously, in 1939, this resulted in the denial of asylum to 938 Jewish
Germans travelling on board the transatlantic liner, the St. Louis. Many of the passengers aboard the St.
Louis were fleeing Germany due to religious persecution, but the immigrant quota for Germany and
82
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Meridian Books, 1958), 291.
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 291.
84
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 292.
85
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 294.
86
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 292.
83
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Austria had been filled for that year and even had a waitlist years in advance. The passengers of the St.
Louis were denied asylum because the US government recognized them not as refugees but as
immigrants.87 Not only were they denied asylum or material protection, but their persecution also went
unrecognized and was thereby invalidated. As immigrants, the protections that would have been afforded
to refugees were withheld, and their persons were laid bare, i.e., exposed to power they might not
otherwise have been.
The key point here is that the stateless person is driven back into the limits of law precisely by
being deprived of their legal status as citizen. By exclusion from this category, they are placed outside of
political legibility, denied not only supposedly inalienable rights but also their belonging to any political
community whatsoever. Arendt writes: “[Stateless peoples can see] that the abstract nakedness of being
nothing but human was their greatest danger…If a human being loses his political status, he should,
according to the implications of the inborn and inalienable rights of man, come under exactly the situation
for which the declarations of such general rights provided. Actually the opposite is the case. It seems that
a man who is nothing but a man has lost the very qualities which make it possible for other people to treat
him as a fellow-man.”88
Giorgio Agamben provides further theoretical resources to diagnose the condition of such a
person. Agamben has done work on a juridical concept found in Roman law: homo sacer (or sacred man).
Homo sacer is a juridical status reserved as punishment for the crimes of cancellation of borders, a son’s
violence against the parent, or a council swindling a client.89 Whoever was designated as homo sacer was
stripped of their citizenship in such a radical way as to banish them from society. Agamben ascribes
homo sacer to “a zone prior to the distinction between sacred and profane, religious and juridical.”90
Using Aristotle’s terminology, Agamben understands the rightlessness of homo sacer as synonymous
with bare, or strictly biological, life (zoé) contrasted with political, organized life (bios).91 This life, zoé,
stripped of all classificatory content and marked by juridical exclusion has been rendered naked and thus
nonlegal.
Bare life, for Agamben, is a fundamentally paradoxical status: bare life is delineated as such
through a ban, but this exclusion is executed by way of inclusion. In banning a subject from the normal
legal order, there is an obvious exclusion. However, as homo sacer embodies the subject who is neither
here nor there, so to speak, they are also paradoxically included, primarily as a figure on whom the
“Voyage of the St. Louis,” Holocaust Encyclopedia Online,
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005267 (accessed February 23, 2015).
88
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 300.
89
Agamben, Homo Sacer: sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1998), 85.
90
Agamben, Homo Sacer: sovereign Power and Bare Life, 74.
91
For more on the distinction between bios and zoé see, Agamben, Homo Sacer: sovereign Power and Bare Life, 1.
87
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exercise of power is no longer regulated.92 Consequently, homo sacer can be killed with impunity
(impune occidi).93 The non-legal subject exists, but they lie within an isolated and remote stratum. In a
sense, they belong to a realm that is invisible, outside of any broader legal or social framework. They are
able to exist only by and through their non-existence.
Both Arendt and Agamben reveal that membership to a nation-state is the true condition for the
bearing of rights. “The so-called sacred and inalienable human rights are revealed without any protection
precisely when it is no longer possible to conceive of them as rights of the citizens of a state.”94 It
becomes clear that the stateless, the dispossessed, and the illegal migrant are the manifestation of bare life
par excellence. We can see that the illegal migrant occupies a peculiar political zone. By their
statelessness, the migrant is pushed into an equivocal, subterranean zone, lying on the outskirts of
political legibility. This is not wholly exclusion; it functions simultaneously as a means of integration.
They are because they are not. We glimpse here the boundaries of political ontology and the ramifications
thereof. The invisibility of the migrant, and the devastating human consequences that result therefrom, are
inextricably tied to their paradoxical status as non-. Their political integration is fundamental to their
visibility, but in a juridical framework, they can only be apprehended, or “possessed” in the Levinasian
sense, by their exclusion, their negativity. The migrant is reduced, wholly, to their illegality.
On October 3, 2013 a fishing trawler carrying some 500 migrants was sailing from Misrata, Libya
towards Italy. These migrants were predominantly from Ghana, Eritrea, and Somalia.95 Around a quarter
of a mile off the coast off the Italian island of Lampedusa, the trawler’s engine began to stall. It was still
dark outside, though, and they had not yet been spotted from the shore. In an attempt at a signal for help,
someone on board set fire to a blanket and began waving it around in the air.96 The blanket then ignited
gasoline on board the vessel. In the ensuing panic, some of the migrants on board the ship dived
overboard while others gathered on one side of the vessel, away from the blaze. This caused the
dilapidated vessel to capsize.97 Of the 500 on board, including children, only 155 of the migrants
survived.98
In 2012, it is estimated that over 10,000 migrants crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Libya in
92
Agamben, Homo Sacer: sovereign Power and Bare Life, 77.
Agamben, Homo Sacer: sovereign Power and Bare Life, 72.
94
Agamben, Homo Sacer: sovereign Power and Bare Life, 126.
95
Jim Yardley and Elisabetta Povoledo, “Migrants Die as Burning Boat Capsizes Off Italy,” New York Times on the
Web, October 3, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/world/europe/scores-die-in-shipwreck-offsicily.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
96
Ibid.
97
Alan Johnston, “Hundreds Feared Dead from Italy Boat,” BBC News, October 3, 2013,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24380247 (accessed February 23, 2015).
98
“State Funeral for Italy Migrants,” BBC News, October 9, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe24456058.
93
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order to enter Italy by way of Lampedusa, Sicily, and other islands.99 Italy and Spain both are countries
with huge influxes of illegal migrants each year, heralding mostly from Africa and the Middle East. Often
facing persecution or unrest in their home countries, many migrants decide to enter Europe by sea.100 This
passage to Europe is exceedingly dangerous, though many migrants wittingly brave this route every year.
In the case of Italy-bound migrants, often in Turkey, Egypt, and Libya, migrants must often pay
thousands of dollars to traffickers in order to use their vessels. The traffickers will then load people onto a
large boat until they enter Italian waters where they are then put into smaller boats and left to float on the
current. Many of these smaller vessels are barely seaworthy.101
It is essential that migrants travelling by sea entrust themselves to traffickers in order to use their
vessels. However, migrants travelling through northern Africa often suffer from abuse, extortion, torture,
and rape at the hands of these traffickers. In the case of the migrants heading towards Lampedusa, the
testimony of dozens of survivors led to the arrest of one Somali man alleged to have been a trafficker. It is
alleged that he, along with other, unidentified Somalis and Libyans demanded €2000 from the migrants in
exchange for their freedom. Men who could not pay were subjected to various forms of torture, including
electrocution and bludgeoning by batons. Many women in the group were sexually assaulted and raped.
These sorts of crimes happen with increasing frequency in Libya, especially since the fall of Moamer
Kadhafi. However, when these crimes are brought to the attention of authorities, the allegations of these
migrants are rarely investigated.102 These migrants are within international jurisdiction, but deprived of a
national legal identity, they lack the visibility and efficacy that a national citizen would have. They are
vulnerable, bare, and susceptible to violence and exploitation because of their political exclusion.
The fundamental condition of the migrant is one inextricably linked to their political, juridical,
and social illegibility, i.e., the condition of their classification. It is precisely the classificatory compulsion
that Emmanuel Levinas engages with in his critique of ontology. Levinas famously postulates that in
order to comprehend a being as existing, it is necessary to know them as such, viz., to render them
intelligible.103 The intelligibility of being for Levinas is irreducibly tied to absolutes, which is a system of
classification: “an objective order from which there is no escape.”104 Levinas characterizes this objective,
“Mediterranean ‘a cemetery’ – Maltese PM,” BBC News, October 12, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/worldeurope-24502279.
100
“Mediterranean ‘a cemetery’ – Maltese PM,” BBC News.
101
Jim Yardley and Elisabetta Povoledo, “Migrants Die as Burning Boat Capsizes Off Italy.”
102
“Lampedusa Shipwreck Migrants ‘Raped by Traffickers.’,” Telegraph.co.uk, November 8, 2013,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10436645/Lampedusa-shipwreck-migrants-raped-bytraffickers.html.
103
Emmanuel Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings, eds. Adriaan T. Peperzak,Simon Critchley, and Robert
Bernascont. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 3.
104
Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969 ),
21.
99
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knowing order as “totality.” Levinas is quick to note the shortcomings of the presuppositions employed in
such an order, though. Levinas has special interest in the relationship of the subject to that which lies
“beyond” the realm of totality. He is particularly observant of the disposition of the subject towards that
which is non-immediate and absent. Levinas claims, for instance, that the condition of desire strives for
an absolute alterity. removedness, and absence: “no journey, no change of climate or of scenery could
satisfy the desire bent towards it…The metaphysical desire tends toward something else entirely, toward
the absolute other…[desire] implies relations with what is not given, of which there is no idea.”105 This
beyond-ness, or exteriority, is termed by Levinas as “infinity.” Levinas thinks totality implies a systemic
closedness predicated on a “recurrence” of being. In other words, if everything is encompassed within the
parameters of ontology, there could be nothing other than the Same. If entities are wholly reduced to their
ontological essence, “how can a jolt, an expulsion outside of the Same...occur?”106 Alternatively, Levinas
asks, how can being, or classification, exist without an exteriority, something removed which it then
responds to by integration?
Levinas’s critique of ontology then prompts him to posit that an exteriority prior to being. In fact,
this exteriority precedes classification and even allows for it. The usefulness of Levinas for our purposes
involves this idea. Classification and systemic integration are inadequate as they foreclose the possibility
of true ethics, insinuating that classification of a being is at once tied to the exercise of power over it:
“[comprehension of beings] does not invoke these beings but only names them, thus accomplishing a
violence and a negation...[Negation] denies the independence of a being: it belongs to me. Possession is
the mode whereby a being, while existing, is partially denied. It is not only a question of the fact that the
being is an instrument, a tool...It is an end also...It offers itself, gives itself, belongs to me.”107 Through
the reduction of the other to a classification, an abstraction, the subordination of or even the enactment of
violence on the other is allowed. “Ontology as first philosophy is a philosophy of power.”108 To allow a
being to exist independently of one’s possession of it, to establish a divide between the same and other is,
for Levinas, the practice of ethics. The encounter for Levinas becomes the primal experience, i.e., which
exists outside of and independently of classification.
In positing ethics, instead of ontology, as first philosophy, Levinas hopes to establish a possibility
of relating to the world without mediation through ideality and categories. This notion of the primacy of
ethics and the encounter, then, has direct bearing on the system by which migrants are rendered invisible.
We have diagnosed the condition of the migrant as one of a peculiar classification: inclusion by way of
exclusion. Even upon arrival at a destination, the migrant is preceded by their status as such. Regardless
105
Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 33.
Emmanuel Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings, 83.
107
Emmanuel Levinas, Basic Philosophcial Writings, 9.
108
Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 46.
106
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of their reasons for migration, their hardships, or their needs in many cases, they are held by discourse at
arm’s length, refused political integration and the benefits that accompany it. They remain silent,
necessarily. The equivocity of the migrant is one within “totality”; are they not “possessed” before they
even arrive, viz. as illegal, immigrant, etc? Their possession then renders them invisible; they are, within
totality, only insofar as they are not. To posit a being beyond legality is to suggest the inadequacy of the
political category, to hypothesize the possibility of interaction, and being, independently of the parameters
imposed upon the migrant. If the political-ontological realm is insufficient, the horizon of the other is
opened to us; the possibility of the encounter, the ethical experience, is awakened. We are speaking no
longer of a legal relation but of a human one, predicated on listening, interaction, reciprocity, and
dialogue. To posit the migrant as more than their non-being is to recognize an interlocutor. Is not the
human the one for whom rights are given?
Interview
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Catherine Wilson
CUNY Graduate Center and University of York
Catherine Wilson is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York
Graduate Center and the Anniversary Professor of Philosophy at the University of York. Wilson gave the
keynote address at the Fourth Mid-Hudson Valley Undergraduate Philosophy Conference held in April
2014 at Marist College. This interview was conducted over email in Fall 2014.
Marist Journal: Thank you for giving the keynote address at the Fourth Mid-Hudson Valley
Undergraduate Philosophy Conference. Some students are skeptical of the value of studying philosophy,
and instead pursue what they consider more practical majors. What do you consider the value of
philosophy?
Catherine Wilson: Well, if they are skeptical they should find a subject they enjoy more! The main
reason to do philosophy is you find it really interesting and find you have a knack for it. But what if your
situation is you love the subject but you are worried about how to support yourself after graduation, or
some well meaning older people are pressuring you about that?
I’ll start with the conventional (though true) view. There is good evidence that the skills in reading,
thinking abstractly, and explaining things clearly that philosophy majors develop can help them land
careers in related fields such as IT, law and public service, and that once they land a job, be it in
publishing or finance or some unrelated field, they tend to advance rapidly.
Scientifically speaking, though, it is hard to tell what is cause and what is effect: maybe bright people
who like to solve problems and think for themselves and write are attracted to philosophy, so they do well
later on. But if you find people think you are good at philosophy and tell you so—well then, you
probably have a fine future ahead of you whatever you end up doing in the world of work.
At the same time, I don’t like to think of an undergraduate degree mainly as an employment qualification.
The late teens and early twenties are the period of life when one’s creativity, memory, and imagination
are maybe at their zenith, regardless of how clueless about practical matters one is at that age. (At least I
was pretty clueless.) It is a good time to lay in a stock of ideas about knowledge, reality, morality,
aesthetics, the nature of the mind and the emotions, and other such topics that can be drawn on for years
to come. Having studied philosophy and the other liberal arts, you don’t have all the answers or maybe
even any, but you gain a perspective on the ups and downs of life, and you can read the newspaper, see
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movies, visit museums and exhibitions with more understanding and more pleasure than most people with
purely technical or business educations can.
MJ: What questions or problems especially interest you in ethics right now? What do you consider the
best approach to take to examining these problems or answering these questions?
CW: I’m currently interested in a major social issue: the problem of the irrationality of warfare as a means
of correcting wrongs, and the wrongness of warfare as a means of advancing even ‘rational’ national
interests e.g. the price of oil.
On the more individual level, I’m interested in exploring the conclusions that can and can’t be drawn
from a Darwinian account of the origins of the moral sentiments. Altruism and conscience are probably
natural to human beings, but we are also naturally liable to take advantage of others and to practice deceit
and exploitation, which culturally developed and enforced moral codes are mean to prevent or minimize.
So ‘formal’ morality seems to both enhance and curb human nature.
Then there’s metaethics—can moral beliefs be true? Well grounded? Are some people objectively
speaking better than others? Or is there only opinion and a spectrum of practices we or just “I” ‘like’ and
‘don’t like.’ This is a very fertile area for analysis.
MJ: Likewise, are there any historical figures or periods that you find particularly interesting? Do you
ever get bored of the big figures in the history of philosophy? If so, are there any philosophers that you
have been thinking about recently?
I never get bored of the big figures, except temporarily. Thus far, I’ve always been able to go back to
their texts and find something new to think about. I especially like the period you might call the ‘long’
Scientific Revolution extending from about 1620 to 1790, when Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz,
Locke, Hume, Rousseau and Kant were active. I believe its very important to know something of their
contexts and this means being aware of the so-called ‘minor figures’ who can be entertaining to read not
just studying the big names as though they were reacting only to the other big names. I think it is
important to admire what’s admirable but not to be too respectful, and not to confuse complicated prose
with profundity and ultimate truth. Kant for example is not the omega of philosophy—he’s just another
philosopher, with strengths and weaknesses.
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MJ: You wrote a book on Lucretius and modern philosophy. Are there aspects of Lucretius’ philosophy
that are attractive to you apart from the important influence he had on modern philosophy?
CW: The Epicureanism of Lucretius is very attractive. He has an implicit philosophy for life that is much
sounder than the Platonic or Aristotelian or Stoic or Kantian. It’s relatively egalitarian, it’s full of
compassion, it’s scientifically realistic and all expressed in beautiful verse embellished with images from
the natural world. I’ve tried to communicate this in my Very Short Introduction to Epicureanism that I
hope will be on the shelves next year—with lots of quotations from Lucretius.
MJ: In your chapter in Analytic Philosophy and the History of Philosophy you argue that philosophy
should take what we know about the world, put it into an intuitive framework, and draw out the moral
implications. Could you say more about this? Have your views changed at all since this article was
written?
CW: I’m an empiricist, so I tend to see new information as driving progress, including moral progress,
more than a priori reasoning. Philosophy should, in my view, take the very exciting results of the
sciences, including physics, biology, neuroscience, linguistics, anthropology, historical enquiry, and use
it to address, solve or discard philosophical problems, these being the problems delivered by the
discipline we call philosophy. This is how philosophers of my favorite period proceeded—Descartes and
Leibniz with physics, for example, Leibniz with microscopy, Kant with physics, cosmology,
anthropology,
I am not very sympathetic to analytic philosophy which just debates and discusses what the implications
of various concepts are. Even that brand, though, has a use in sharpening skills and seeing where to make
relevant distinctions that the scientists are often not making when they go for grand pronoucements. To
take a concrete example, the classic problem of free will is not going to be solved by trying to ‘analyze’
the concept and to lay down necessary and sufficient conditions. Rather, our understanding of agency and
its limitations will be affected as we get to understand phenomena like addiction, the use of ‘will-power,’
obsessive-compulsive disorder, and self-defeating behavior better. The philosopher can take on board
this new knowledge and ‘package’ it in theoretically appealing terms. A problem like this has
implications for whether and how we punish people and this needs informed discussion.
MJ: You have written on many different philosophical topics. Did you ever find this difficult on account of
the pressures to specialize in philosophy? Do you have any advice for young philosophers?
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CW: You are right to identify this as unusual in someone’s career, though the late Bernard Williams was
even broader than me, as he wrote on philosophy of language, ethics, ancient philosophy, Descartes, and
then epistemology.
It was definitely a problem when I was starting out, and one of those well meaning older persons once
told me I had to choose between aesthetics which I was writing on and history of philosophy which I was
also studying. I am pretty good at taking criticism—you have to be in this field—but really, somebody
telling me what to be interested in was pushing it too far! One of the joys of philosophy is that you can
take on different topics—it is more like math in that regard than say history. You say what you have to
say, then move on. But, the learning curve in each separate subject can be steep, and you really have to
‘occupy’ a topic to get noticed and have any influence.
Some of my colleagues focused very narrowly and as a result did extremely well at the start of their
careers as ‘the best young specialist in X’ but they then burned out or got repetitious. I recommend
having two foci you can switch between, regardless of what people tell you, just for your own sake.
My general advice? Read long and widely, take notes (with page numbers, so you can find that quote or
thought again some day) and file them forever in the Cloud. Find a topic or a philosopher whom you
really love, and when you write, don’t go in circles, be linear, and polish, polish. Nothing is ever
wasted—everything you learn is useful in some way. Trust me, you will use it some day.
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