NATIONAL IDENTITY
AND FAMILY RESEMBLANCE
Boran Berčić
Department of Philosophy
University of Rijeka
1. Nation
• We think and talk about nations
• We talk about Russians, Hungarians, Italians,
Germans, etc
• We count nations. We can ask how many nations
there are in Europe? We can wander whether
there really are 85 nations in Los Angeles.
• If we can count them it means that we have a
criterion or criteria of identity for them.
Nation, People, Ethnia
• A nation is a group united by factors that include
language, culture, history, or occupation of the
same territory. Oxford English Dictionary
• English people
• Persians of Darius I and Iranians of Mahmout
Ahmadinejad
• Empires: Roman, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian (“a
thumb of nations”), ... , SSSR, USA, India, ...
The same nation
2. Pluralism about Identity?
• “In recent years, the concept of identity has
had its corset removed and hangs loosely and
precariously in the domain of culture and
politics.”
• Akeel Bilgrami What is a Muslim?
Fundamental Commitment and Cultural
Identity, pg.1
Pluralism about Identity?
• Gender Identities, Black Identities, Class
Identities, etc
• An oxymoron?
• If it is identity it has to be only one.
Pluralism about Identity?
• “All my identities”
• Forged passports? Multiple personality disorder?
• Who am I?
• I am an F, I am an G, I am an H, ...
• F, G, H, ... are my identities.
• The underlying metaphysics?
• Leibniz’s individual essence, Porphyrian tree, ...
3. An Argument
• P1: Custom C is a part of our national identity.
• P2: If we want to preserve our national
identity, we have to preserve custom C.
• P3: We want to preserve our national identity.
• C: We have to preserve custom C.
An Argument
• P1: Custom C is part of what we are.
• C: We are not going to be ourselves if we
abandon custom C.
• A rhetorical effect: we will cease to exist if we
stop doing C, we will die if we don’t do C, ...
Badnjak Log
4 speakers dialect
• Dictionary and grammar of a 4 speakers
dialect in Istra.
• “Preservation of national identity”
Language and National Identity
• When in Great Britain some Welsh nationalists
speak of the survival of the Welsh language as
a condition of the survival of Welsh society,
they manage sometimes to convey the
impression that it is a condition of the survival
of Welsh people, as though the forgetting of
Welsh were literally lethal.
• Bernard Williams: Morality: An Introduction
to Ethics, CUP, 1972, pg. 35
An Argument
• There are at least three logical mistakes in this
argument:
• 1. Conflation of qualitative and numerical
identity.
• 2. Conflation of epistemic and metaphysical
identity.
• 3.Assumption that all properties are essential.
3.1 Qualitative and Numerical
• Right wing Germans: There are so many Turks,
Arabs, Greeks and Italians in Germany today
that Germans would not be Germans any
more!
• Left wing Germans:No! Germans would
would be Germans. Though, shorter and
darker, but still Germans.
3.2 Epistemic and Metaphysical
• x wouldn’t be x if it wasn’t F.
• Cyrano de Bergerac and his nose
• Zagreb and Radio 101
• He wouldn’be he if he didn’t screw up
something.
Recognizability
Epistemic Identity
Recognizability
Epistemic Identity
Pink Floyd The Wall
Fritz Lang Metropolis
Recognizability
Epistemic Identity
• Croatian ministry of tourism has a contest for
the best souvenir.
• Ćevapćići and šljivovica.
Recognizability
Epistemic Identity
Recognizability
Epistemic Identity
Recognizability
Epistemic Identity
•
•
•
•
If he is Russian, he drinks votka.
If he is Mexican, he drinks tequila.
If he is Japanese, he drinks sake.
...
x wouldn’t be x if it wasn’t F.
• My second-order desires are who I am, they
determine my identity. (Harry Frankfurt)
• My values are who I am, they determine my
identity. (Gary Watson)
• David Velleman: Self to Self, CUP, 2005.
• A metaphor!!!
• Dostoevsky
4. Numerical Identity
Nations
Theories
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•
•
•
•
•
1. Essentialism
(Sufficient and necessary conditions)
2. Relevant conditions
(Neither sufficient nor necessary conditions)
3. Constructivism
(No conditions)
Explication of the concept
• What is our concept of a nation?
• What is a nation?
• For instance, Error theory.
• Francisco Gil-White: Torgut Mongols and Kazakhs in
Mongolia. Our concept of nation is a concept of a
natural kind.
• 1.tend to have similar behavior and look,
• 2.tend to mate with each other,
• 3.almost always descendants of other members
Explication of the concept
• A concrete particular
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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1. Realistic / Antirealistic
(Turks and Armenians)
2. Continuity
(Irish, Greeks)
3. Has a beginning in space and time
(From the 7th century)
4. Thisness
(French in Mongolia, Twin Earth Croats, Domovnica)
5. Non-relational
(Hungarians)
Oton Iveković 1905.
Twin Earth Croats
5. Nations and Family resemblance
Nations and Family resemblance
individuation, principle of ... A principle of
individuation for nations would tell whether a
nation survives such things as shift of territory, of
government, of origin of inhabitants, of language,
and so on. A relaxed attitude is that we solve such
cases as we go along, depending on the
consequences of the different verdicts, and
apparently doing without cast-iron principles.
(Simon Blackburn: Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy,
OUP, 1994)
Nations and Family resemblance
Recognition of nations works not by discerning
the “essence” of nationhood, but through what
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953) called a pattern of
“family resemblance”.
(Craig Calhoun: Nationalism, University of
Minnesota Press, 1997. pg.5.)
Family resemblance
Board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic
games, and so on. What is common to them all?—
Don't say: "There must be something common, or
they would not be called 'games' "—but look and
see whether there is anything common to all.—For
if you look at them you will not see something that
is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and
a whole series of them at that.
(Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,
§66, Basil Blackwell, 1953/58.)
Family resemblance
I can think of no better expression to
characterize these similarities than "family
resemblances"; for the various resemblances
between members of a family: build, features,
colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc.
overlap and criss-cross in the same way.— And I
shall say: 'games' form a family.
(Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical
Investigations, §67, Basil Blackwell, 1953/58.)
Nation and Family resemblance
•
•
•
•
a is ABC
b is BCD
c is CDE
d is DEF
• a and d belong to the same nation although they have
no characteristic in common.
• Is this a plausible view or a reductio argument?
Nation and Family resemblance
• Remember, family resemblance is seen as an
alternative to essentialism, the view that all and only
members of nation N have a certain single
characteristic C or a set of characteristics SC.
• C is supposed to explain why N’s are N’s: If they are N’s,
then there must be something that makes them N’s.
• Italians are Italians because they have Italianhood,
Germans are Germans because they have
Germanhood, etc.
• Volksgeist, cultural identity, national identity,...
The Englishness of English Art
Nations and Family Resemblance
• 1. Diacronic
There is no characteristic C such that nation N has it at all times
of its existence.
2. Counterfactual
There is no characteristic C such that nation N must have it at all
times of its existence in order to be N.
• 3. Syncronic 1
There is no time t and characteristic C such that all members of
nation N have C at t.
• 4. Syncronic 2
There is no single characteristic C such that C delineates N’s from
their neighbours non-N’s.
Criteria
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•
•
•
•
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Language
Religion
Territory
Genes
Name
Race
• None of these criteria is neither necessary nor
sufficient condition of national identity.
5.3. Syncronic 1
• There is no time t and characteristic C such that all
members of nation N have C at t.
• Can family resemblance do the job essence is supposed to
do?
• Can family resemblance delineate N’s from non N’s?
(Syrians from Iraqis, Bolivians from Peruans, ...)
• Essence is supposed to explain what N’s makes N’s. The
idea is that there must be something that all N’s and only
N’s have that makes them N’s.
• What an F makes an F?
• E.J.Lowe: Meaningless and ill formulated question: an F just
is an F.
5.4. Syncronic 2 Delineation
Syncronic 2 Delineation
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•
•
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East: Religion
North: Language
North West: River
South West: Choice
5.1. Diacronic Family Resemblance
• 1. Language
• Irish people abandoned Gaelic language and accepted English. And
they remained Irish, they did not become English.
• Algerians would be Algerians even if they accepted French,
Ethiopians would be Ethiopians even if they accepted Italian, etc.
• In Latin America many nations speak the same language (Spanish)
but they are different nations.
• In North Africa many countries speak the same language (Arabic)
but they are different nations.
• South Slavs speak one language but are not one nation.
Diacronic Family Resemblance
• 2. Religion
• Persians abandoned Zoroastrianism and accepted Islam but have
remained Persians. Turks remained Turks after they accepted Islam.
Romans have remained Romans when they accepted Christianity.
• Turks would be Turks even if they became Christians. Austrians
would be Austrians even if they became Protestants.French people
could have become Hugenotes.Jews would be Jews even if they
collectively convert to Buddhism.
• In Latin America many nations have the same religion (Catholicism)
but they are different nations.
• In North Africa many countries have the same religion (Islam) but
they are different nations.
Diacronic Family Resemblance
• 3. Genes
• Hungarians have 60% of Slavic genes but are not a
Slavic People.Romanians as well. Croats allegedly have
12% of Slavic genes but are Slavic people.
• English people are English although they are mostly not
descendents of the old Angles.
• Turks are Turks although they have 20% of Turkish
genes.Some people guessed that nowdays Greeks are
100% of Slavic origin. Even if that was true, Greeks
would still be Greeks.
•
Genetic map of Europe
Haplogroup I2a1
Diacronic Family Resemblance
• 4. Name
• Persians – Iranians
• Burma - Myanmar
Diacronic Family Resemblance
• 5. Race
• Lemba people
Lemba people
Diacronic Family Resemblance
• If other relevant criteria are fixed, a nation can
change any criterion and remain the same
nation.
• x in t1 is C1 ... C5
• y in t2 is C6 ... C10
Diacronic Family Resemblance
• N1
• N2
• ...
• N6
in t1 is C1 ... C5
in t2 is C2 ... C6
in t is C6 ... C10
• Although N1 and N6 have nothing in common, if there is
a right kind of continuity between N1 and N6, N1 and
N2 are identical, N6 is the same nation as N1.
Counting nations
• Simple view of nations: nations are like herds,
packs, flocks, ...
• However, Earth is often continuously
populated.
Language and Religion
L1
L2
R1
A
B
R2
C
D
L1 L2 R1 R2
• How many nations there are?
•
•
•
•
Only one: ABCD
Four: A, B, C, D
Two: AB, CD, AC, BD, ...
Three: ABC, D; ABD, C; ....
Possible number of nations
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•
•
•
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1 nation: 1
2+1+1 nations: 6
2+2 nations: 3
3+1 nations: 4
4 nations: 1
• 15 possible answers
Latin America
• One religion, one language, one history, one
ethnic origin, many nations!
Simon Bolivar
• A world with one language, one religion, one
genetics, one ...
• How many nations? One? Two? Three?
• Max Black’s two balls
• But can there be two nations?
• YES NO