Proto Sociology Volume 20, 2004 - World-System Analysis

Vol. 20, 2004 World System Analysis: Contemporary Research and Directions P P P P 2 Autor © 2004 Gerhard Preyer Fran...

Author: Edited by Richard E. Lee and Gerhard Preyer

83 downloads 1154 Views 2MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

Vol. 20, 2004 World System Analysis: Contemporary Research and Directions P P P P

2

Autor

© 2004 Gerhard Preyer Frankfurt am Main http://www.protosociology.de [email protected] Erste Auflage / first published 2004 ISSN – 1611-1281 Bibliografische Information Der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http:// dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung der Zeitschirft und seines Herausgebers unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeisung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http:// dnb.ddb.de. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of ProtoSociology.

Titel

3

Proto Sociology An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research Volume 20, 2004 World-System Analysis: Contemporary Research and Directions Edited by Richard E. Lee and Gerhard Preyer Contents Introduction: Contemporary Directions and Research in WorldSystems Analysis ............................................................................ Richard E. Lee and Gerhard Preyer

6

New Directions in World-Systems Analysis Global Democracy: A World-Systems Perspective ......................................................... Christopher Chase-Dunn and Terry Boswell

15

Material Spatialities of Cities and States ........................................ Peter J. Taylor

30

Culture as a World System ............................................................ Göran Therborn

46

Contemporary Research in World-Systems Analysis A Note on Method with an Example – The “War on Terror” ....... Richard E. Lee

71

Path-Dependency, Stocks, Switching-Points, Flows: Reflections on Long-term Global Change and Local Opportunities .................... 85 Denis O’Hearn

4

Autor

Atlantic History and World Economy: Concepts and Constructions. ............................................................................... 102 Dale Tomich

Culture in the World-System Multi-Dimensionality, Mutual Constitution and the Nature of Systemness: The Importance of the Cultural Turn in the Study of Global Systems .............................................................................. 125 Barrie Axford Ethnicity and Religion: Structural and Cultural Aspects of Global Phenomena.................................................................................... 143 Mathias Bös Multiple Modernities and Globalization ....................................... 165 Gerard Delanty Diaspora History Construction and Slave Culture Formation on Small U.S. Plantations ................................................................... 186 Wilma A. Dunaway The Dialogue between Cultures or between Cultural Interpretations of Modernity – Multiple Modernities on the Contemporary Scene ..................................................................... 201 Shmuel N. Eisenstadt Culture and its Politics in the Global System ................................ 217 Jonathan Friedman National Identity and Globalization: Policy Paths and the Process of Reimagining Community ......................................................... 239 Frank J. Lechner

On Contemporary Philosophy Simulation Theory on Conceptual Grounds ................................. 261 Brie Gertler Unconventional Utterances? Davidson’s Rejection of Conventions in Language Use ............................................................................ 285 Mason Cash

Titel

5

Moral Realism, Supervenience, Externalism and the Limits of Conceptual Metaphor ................................................................... 320 Ron Wilburn Eine neue Theorie der Kooperation............................................... 374 Gerhard Preyer Development – Paradox, Paralysis and Praxis ................................ 390 Robert Kowalski Contributors.................................................................................. Imprint .......................................................................................... On ProtoSociology ........................................................................ Published Volumes ........................................................................ Bookpublications of the project .................................................... ProtoSociology: Digital volumes available ..................................... Cooperations / Announcements ....................................................

412 414 415 416 425 444 445

6

Richard E. Lee and Gerhard Preyer

Introduction: Contemporary Directions and Research in World-Systems Analysis Richard E. Lee and Gerhard Preyer

The emergence of world-systems analysis in the mid-1970s was, and continues to be, an instructive example of the politics of the structures of knowledge and illustrates how the processes reproducing the modern world in the economic and political arenas cannot be wholly understood without reference to the socio/cultural realm. Certainly, world-systems analysis was an intellectual project that repudiated the mutual exclusivity of the nomothetic and idiographic modes of constructing accounts of the human world inherited from the nineteenth century. At the same time however, it was also a political intervention that, along with the movements of 1968, challenged the structures of the modern world and its institutionalized inequalities. This two-pronged assault found scholarly focus in the critique of the modernization perspective and its ideological baggage. As the papers in this collection plainly show, world-systems analysis has not lost its polemical edge; as Immanuel Wallerstein has written, if it did, the concept of world-system “would be vitiated and would scarcely add any insights of value” (1993: 721). Drawing on experiences of the Second World War and the preoccupations of the Cold War, “modernization” theory expressed the realization by Western, especially U.S., social scientists of the increasing geopolitical importance of the non-West and the non-rich, but sought to understand these critical areas and peoples by simply extending, or universalizing, the historical trajectory and analytic frameworks of the West.1 The ideological aspect of the modernization project resulted from a preoccupation with political change and the social forces determining its direction. There was a real consideration for inequality on a world scale on the part of many social scientists; however, this was accompanied by the concern of Cold War policy planners for propagating an ethos and system of values that would offer an attractive alternative to communism. A second 1

See Lee (2001) for a detailed analysis of the link between the modernization perspective and the early development of world-systems analysis.

Introduction

7

consideration of post-1945 social scientists was the attainment of professional respectability through developments in theory and measurement applied to the quantitative study of cross-sectional relations. The comparative method in the social sciences, allied with a structural-functionalism involving some form of Talcott Parsons’s translation of Weberian “rationality” into sets of pattern variables, represented the analogue of the experimental method in the natural sciences, and the “systems” model of interdependent, interacting structures maintaining system equilibrium became increasingly common in social research and fundamental to the modernization perspective. Overwhelmingly however, whatever “system” these analysts studied, they were primarily concerned with outcomes at the level of the state. But empirical observations soon began to give the lie to the predictions on which modernization studies were predicated, and criticism of the descriptive suppositions of the modernization perspective accompanied demonstrations of its short-comings as theory. In this context, from the early 1970s, Immanuel Wallerstein began to argue for a single, singular and overarching unit of analysis for the study of long-term, large-scale social change in the modern world. Wallerstein directly linked his term “world-system” to Fernand Braudel’s concept “économie-monde”; Wallerstein’s “world-economy” referred first, “not to the world, but to a world” and second, not to the “economic relations among constituted political units inside that world, but to the economic processes within that world in its entirety” (Wallerstein 1993: 720). There followed a set of exhaustive and mutually exclusive typologies of historical social systems: small “autonomous subsistence economies” or minisystems, and two varieties of large “worlds,” “defined by the fact that their self-containment as an economic-material entity is based on extensive division of labor and that they contain within them a multiplicity of cultures.” These two varieties of world-systems are “world-empires,” “in which there is a single political system over most of the area” and “world-economies,” “in which such a political system does not exist over all, or virtually all of the space” (Wallerstein 1974: 348). Over the past three decades, this conceptualization has let to significant progress in developing modes of integrating the analytically distinct arenas of production and distribution, the economic, and decision-making and coercion, the political, in terms of long-term processes and medium-term fluctuations. The fecundity of the approach is apparent in the

8


fact that this analytic framework has given rise to such a wide range of intellectual projects, indeed some of which are still occasions for debate (for instance in terms of temporalities, as in Frank and Gills 1993). Christopher Chase-Dunn and Terry Boswell work within the comparative world-systems perspective to engage in the debates among counter-hegemonic critics of capitalist globalization and advance the argument for global democracy. The comparative world-systems perspective posits world-systems, when properly conceptualized and bounded, as the fundamental unit of analysis of social change. This makes possible comparisons, which can result in the study of both variant forms and transformations as well as likenesses and continuities with the eventual aim of tackling the real problems and possibilities of the contemporary world. Questioning the thesis that parliamentary democracy in individual states, even if that included most states, adds up to global democracy, Chase-Dunn and Boswell argue for the agency of the semiperiphery and a World Party. In a large-scale reconceptualization of the spatiality of the world-system, Peter J. Taylor contrasts the spatialities of cities, spaces of flows, to those of states, spaces of places. This revisionist world-systems analysis argues that spaces of places, in the form of states, represent the unexamined conception of spatiality embedded in the social sciences. This shift in thinking supplies an analytic base for the suggestion that a world-system of cities could provide an opening for the creation of a non-hierarchical, egalitarian world. One of the hallmarks of the depth and range of the influence of a particular analytic strategy is, of course, the degree to which it becomes established in the field but, as Göran Therborn insists, there is another relevant indicator and that is how it is taken as an inspiring challenge. This, in fact, is what has stimulated Therborn. He argues that culture is an underdeveloped arena in world-systems analysis and would address that state of affairs by positing a set of at least five major human world systems that, although interconnected and interacting, are not reducible to one another. The present work, then, focuses on the “world system of culture”, and especially the world-scale relationships between symbolic forms and institutional structures and traces the dynamics of their interaction noting that these may be attributed to either parametric change of contextual conditions (constituting or molding processes) or intra-contextual change (global flows, such as trade, capital, and people).

Introduction

9

The rhetorical construction of the contemporary events of the socalled “war on terror”, provide the analytic material for Richard E. Lee’s contribution. On the one hand, the argument is about method; Lee argues for a long-term, large-scale relational perspective that relies on analogies among instances of processes rather than the case-based approach represented in the literature. On the other hand, there are very real consequences of method in terms of differing prognostications of the future, dependent on the methodology employed; Lee suggests that the present period is analogous to the period of the Hundred Years’ War and thus that, if this is so, a systemic transformation is in the offing. Denis O’Hearn takes a careful look at Ireland’s recent economic development from the particular perspective of world-system processes of accumulation. Although the model has been highly promoted, O’Hearn argues that the striking disparity between GDP and GNP – evidencing the repatriation of profits – shows that even very high stocks of foreign investment, although resulting in “growth”, do not overcome the negative impacts of these stocks. Thus, the Irish model is partly an illusion, may not be sustainable, and cannot be replicated. Finally, he argues, it is not even desirable, having resulted in the degradation of Irish people and Irish life. Thus, the example makes clear the problems of conceptualizing development only in terms of growth. The specifically relational character of objects of analysis that is the hallmark of the world-systems approach as originally conceived grounds Dale Tomich’s work on the Atlantic as a historical region of the capitalist world-economy. His approach is part of an on-going struggle with the methodological dilemmas entailed in such work – that is, how does one go about constructing defensible historical accounts without relying on a set of independent, autonomous, and thus comparable, cases or simply connecting up a chronological succession of events. Here, with the focus shifted from agencies to the relationships that enable and constrain such agencies, the diverse units may be analyzed as the outcomes of world-historical processes at different spatial and temporal junctures. Indeed, it is the relating entity itself that is treated as the object of analysis. World-systems analysis not only identified a unique and unitary “world”, exhibiting both long-term regularities and constant change, the “world” that constitutes its unit of analysis, but recognized the phenomenological wholeness of human reality as well. Early on it was understood that an account of the social world was incomplete if this aspect were not

10


included. The problem was, and continues to be, that the categories we use in the analysis of the modern world-system are products of its development so consequently must “all … be analyzed as processes, rather than as categories” Wallerstein 1979: 357).2 Nonetheless, much progress has also been made in the study of the social or cultural sphere – the “third” arena as one of us has called it (see Lee 2003a). Barrie Axford seeks to operate a very therapeutic shift from an under-theorized cultural globalization to consider global systems as “enacted” in part through cultural processes. Axford would press the world-systems community to fully embrace “relationality” among the imbricated arenas of economics, politics, and culture and recognize and overcome the tendency to treat cultural variables as dependent in order to fully consider the meaningfulness of meaning to agents in their making and remaking of the world. Mathias Bös confronts the thorny and under-researched problem of the relationship between religion and ethnicity as concepts that emerged in their modern meanings part and parcel with the development of the Europe-centered world-system. He individuates two senses in which these concepts are generally used: as a structure of meanings shared among individuals or as functional to group definition and cohesion. Marshalling quantitative data on a global scale, Bös shows how if, on the one hand, most religions include many ethnic groups, on the other hand, most ethnic groups have primarily one religion, and this often leads to a local perception identifying an ethnic group with a single religion. Noting how ethnicity and religion have both particularizing and universalizing effects, this chapter underlines the importance of their study as enabling modes of “acting together” on the same scale as politics and the economy. In his wide-ranging contribution, Gerard Delanty treats modernity as a global phenomenon that while having emerged in western Europe, is now an expression of a world culture increasingly framing the local. His understanding of the term “multiple” modernities is not of a plurality of societal forms; nonetheless, he argues that modernity is not converging or coalescing into any homogenous form. He sees it rather as a mode of processing, or translating, culture. In her work on Appalachia, Wilma Dunaway shows how peripheral social formations develop within the 2 For an example of one author’s answer to this specific problem – that is, the conceptualization of developments in the cultural realm in secular terms of systemdefining structures and processes of reproduction and change – see Lee (2003b).

Introduction

11

capitalist world-economy as products of local conditions and global processes. She investigates how mountain slave communities, despite their low population densities, engaged in collective activities and operated as subcultures of resistance through noncooperation, sabotage, and the construction of counter-hegemonic culture and religion. These come across in hidden transcripts that express social condition, shared suffering, and domination understood as a power relation rejecting the myth of inferiority, thus creating a political connection to a global community defined by a shared diasporic memory. The notion of “multiple modernities” has been well argued previously by S. N. Eisenstadt in a series of publications. In his piece for the present collection, he gives us an overview of these arguments with particular emphasis on the changes and transformations in the discourse of modernity conceived as different interpretations or programs of modernity. Jonathan Friedman addresses directly the difficult problem of culture in global analysis. Beginning with a sketch of the evolution of the concept in American anthropology, he notes how the development of the concept has paralleled the history cultural politics in the real world and concludes that cultural interpretations in the contemporary world are indeed all forms of cultural politics. Finally, in a focused empirical study, Frank J. Lechner takes the development of policy initiatives (social, minority, media) shaping national identity in the Netherlands as an illustration of how local paradigms respond to challenges that are global in nature – the culture of the world-system – and lead to a reimagining of national community. He thus demonstrates how close analysis of single cases can show how the “enmeshment” of national cultures in a globalized world generates heterogeneity.

Works Cited Frank, A. G. and B. K. Gills, eds. 1993. The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand? London: Routledge. Lee, Richard E. 2001. “After History? The Last Frontier of Historical Capitalism.” Protosoziologie 15, 87-104. —. 2003a. “The ‚Third‘ Arena: Trends and Logistics in the Geoculture of the Modern World-System.” In Emerging Issues in the 21st Century World-System. Edited by Wilma A. Dunaway. Westport: Greenwood, 120-27. —. 2003b. Life and Times of Cultural Studies: The Politics and Transformation of

12


the Structures of Knowledge. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press. —. 1979. “Theoretical Implications: A Roundtable Discussion Between Giovanni Arrighi, John Higginson, Bernard Magubane, John Saul, and Immanuel Wallerstein.” Review III, 2, 355-360. —. 1993. “World-System.” In The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Social Thought. Edited by William Outhwaite and Tom Bottomore. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 720-21.

Global Democracy: A World-Systems Perspective

New Directions in World-Systems Analysis

13

14

Christopher Chase-Dunn and Terry Boswell


15

Global Democracy: A World-Systems Perspective Christopher Chase-Dunn and Terry Boswell

Abstract This essay is on the concept of global democracy. We discuss the historical development of the concept of democracy and the material bases for the possible emergence of a democratic and collectively rational global commonwealth in the future. We confront the problem of contested meanings of democracy, the roots of the modern concept in the European Enlightenment, the problem of Eurocentrism in the formulation of a global philosophy of democracy, the relationship between capitalist globalization and antisystemic movements and the need for globalization from below.

A useful conceptualization of global democracy requires both an astute political philosophy and a deep understanding of the historical and structural processes of institutional development. This paper addresses emerging debates among counter-hegemonic critics of capitalist globalization and presents an approach that is intended to be helpful to those who wish to construct a more democratic and egalitarian world society. The approach we develop employs the comparative world-systems perspective.1 For many modern citizens global democracy simply means the addition of more and more national democracies – parliamentary governments in which fair elections decide the political leadership of the state. This is the subject of most of the democratization literature. But we will argue that global democracy needs to mean much more than this if real progress is to be made. We contend that the peoples of the world live in a single social system, and that decisions about what will happen in that system are the relevant foci for understanding the meaning of global democracy. Democracy means that the majority of the people have a say over the decisions that affect their lives. When the problems are global, 1

For an introduction see Shannon (1996) and Hall (2000). This essay draws heavily from Boswell and Chase-Dunn (2000).

16


the democracy should be global, meaning that the majority of the people of the Earth should have a say. Our approach questions the idea that parliamentary democracy in single states, even when most of the states in the world-system have this kind of political system, adds up to global democracy. Some states are much more powerful than others, and their policies affect people all over the Earth. We call this the problem of global vs. single-state democracy. The second focus of our essay is on the issue of the contested nature of the idea of democracy. Here we will note that the definitions of democracy have themselves been issues of political struggle both within the discourse of the European Enlightenment and in the discourse about Eurocentrism. Our goal is to move toward the formulation of a global consensus about the meaning of the idea of popular democracy. This requires drawing on knowledge of this history of political struggles all over the Earth, and an understanding of the historical development of human societies over the last twelve thousand years. The democratization literature has mainly studied how and why some societies have been able to institutionalize parliamentary systems for the peaceful transition of power by means of popular elections. This is a very important literature and much has been learned about the conditions that are favorable for stable parliamentary regimes. The world-systems perspective points out that it has been successful core capitalism that has been the main support for institutionalizing parliamentary systems. The core countries of Europe, the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and India are the most successful cases. The rest of the world has had a difficult time institutionalizing parliamentary democracy, though there have been recurrent waves of democratization in the parliamentary sense (Markoff 1996). The main reason for this is that the hierarchical division of labor between the core and the periphery concentrates greater resources in the core, making alliances between potentially competing elites and cross class alliances more stable because there is a bigger pie to share. In peripheral countries the struggle to control the state apparatus is more often violent because it is the only game in town. To be sure there are exceptions, and trends. Many semiperipheral and peripheral national societies have been able to achieve at least the trappings of parliamentary democracy, especially in the latest wave. We do not wish to minimize the important differences between formally democratic regimes that operate according to the law versus lawless


17

and arbitrary authoritarian regimes. Achieving formal parliamentary democracy and the rule of law are huge gains for people who have not had them in the past. But we do wish to point out that formal parliamentary democracy, even in those societies in which is it most heavily institutionalized, is not necessarily the best of all possible worlds. Within the European Enlightenment discourse there has long been a contest between representative formal democracy and popular social democracy. Bill Robinson (1996) characterizes “polyarchy” as a contest managed by contending elites to legitimize regimes based on huge inequalities. The now-dominant definition of democracy in the West is a definition that separates political rights from economic rights and that legitimizes and sustains private property in the major means of production. More populist and direct versions of the idea of democracy challenge the radical separation between political and economic rights, and the exclusion of economic democracy from the realm of legitimate contentions. Thus the kind of democracy that has become hegemonic in the modern world-system is the kind that is most congruent with capitalism. It protects private owners of the major means of production from claims on their property and profits by narrowly defining the proper terrain of rights. Polyarchy undercuts social democracy and defines certain claims as outside the bounds of rational discourse based on a narrow political philosophy that has evolved from the conservative branch of the European Enlightenment discourse. The leftist versions – anarchism, socialism, and communism – have been vanquished and proclaimed dead in the celebration of the “end of history” and the victory of capitalistic democracy. The critique of Eurocentrism has also challenged the hegemony of the polyarchic definition of democracy. Many of the peoples of the colonial empires had indigenous forms of small-scale political regulation that allowed people in local communities to have input in decisions that were made in matters that affected their lives. In the contemporary popular resistance to globalizing corporate capitalism many voices are reasserting the authenticity and value of these traditional political institutions (e.g., Shiva 2002). However “backward” and inegalitarian these traditional political institutions may seem to the Western democracies, that they are resisting global corporate capitalism is making them newly popular with their dispossessed constituencies.

18


During the nineteenth century, movements that mobilized people around ideas of community self-reliance were often responses to the calamities of the integration of rural regions into the global market. In combination with droughts and famines, market integration produced huge and disastrous “late Victorian holocausts” during the great wave of capitalist globalization of the late nineteenth century (Davis 2001). These indigenous movements often employed millenarian ideologies in which the “good king” was to return or the powers of the universe were expected to intervene to destroy the invading railroads and the white devils that were held to be throwing the natural balances of the universe awry. Self-reliance movements in the Brazilian Northeast, the Philippines and the American West rediscovered local autarky as a protective mechanism from disruptive global market forces and threatening technologies far beyond their control. Much of the post-colonial critique of Eurocentrism has assumed that it was the ideology of the European Enlightenment that was a main tool in the colonial subjugation of the Third World by European states. And so the assertions of rights, the separation of church and state, and other elements of European thought have sometimes been rejected as so many relics of domination. But it was not liberal ideology that caused so much exploitation and domination. The Europeans were able to dominate and exploit because they had better gunships and other technologies of power that capitalism had enabled them to develop. The values of liberty and equality were fine values, but they were conveniently put aside as European imperialism expanded. Indeed, these very values have often proven to be useful tools for legitimating resistance in the hands of the subjects of European colonialism and neocolonialism. The first point to make is that democracy is not a European invention and neither has it been a European monopoly. The European civilizational claim that democracy was an invention of the classical Greek citystates is full of contradictions. The economies of most of the Greek citystates were based on slavery (Bollen and Paxton 1997), while the polities of nomadic foragers, which are everywhere on Earth the ancestors of all peoples, were egalitarian systems in which all adults participated in making the important collective decisions. Greek ideas and institutions are only part of the story of the struggle for autonomy and popular control.


19

Capitalist Globalization We understand the historical development of the modern world-system in terms of the evolution of institutions. These key institutions: commodity production, technology and techniques of power, have been shaped by tremendous struggles. These include conflict among contending powers and between the core and the periphery over the past six centuries as Europe rose to hegemony and capitalist globalization expanded in waves of commodification and integration. The story of how global orders have been restructured in order to facilitate capitalist accumulation must be told in deep temporal perspective in order for us to understand how the most recent wave of corporate globalization is similar or different from earlier waves of globalization. Of particular interest here is the phenomenon of world revolutions and increasingly transnational antisystemic movements. In order to comprehend the possibilities for the emergence of global democracy we need to understand the history of popular movements that have tried to democratize the world-system in the past. Of particular relevance here is the story of the nineteenth century and its tsunami of capitalist globalization under the auspices of British hegemony. Transnational antisystemic movements, especially the trade union movement and the feminist movement, emerged to contend with global capitalism. Workers and women consciously took the role of world citizens, organizing international movements to contend with the increasingly global organization of an emergent global capitalist class. Political and economic elites, especially finance capitalists, had already been consciously operating on a global stage for centuries, but the degree of international integration of these reached a very high level in the late nineteenth century.2 The British created the Concert of Europe after defeating Napoleon, an alliance of conservative dynasties and politicians who were dedicated to the prevention of any future French revolutions. The Royal Navy suppressed the slave trade and encouraged decolonization of the Spanish colonies. The English Anti-Corn Law League’s advocacy of international 2 The Institute for Research on World-Systems (IROWS) at the University of California, Riverside is carrying out a research project to compare the degree and contours of international integration of nineteenth-century and twentieth-century global elites (Chase-Dunn, Giem, Jorgenson, Lio, and Reifer 2002).

20


free trade (carried abroad by British diplomats and businessmen) was adopted by most European and American states in the middle of the century. The gold standard was an important support of a huge increase in international trade and investment (Chase-Dunn, Kawano, and Brewer 2000; O’Rourke and Williamson 1999). The expanding Atlantic economy, already firmly attached to the Indian Ocean, was accompanied by an expanding Pacific economy as Japan and China were more completely and directly brought into the trade and investment networks of Europe and North America. American Ginseng was harvested in the Middle Atlantic states as an important commodity that could be traded for Chinese manufactures rather than having to resort to payment in silver. The nineteenth-century wave of capitalist globalization was massively contested in a great globalization backlash. The decolonization of Latin America extended the formal aspects of state sovereignty to a large chunk of the periphery. Slave revolts, abolitionism and the further incorporation of Africa into the capitalist world-system eventually led to the abolition of slavery almost everywhere. Within Europe, socialist and democratic demands for political and economic rights of the non-propertied classes strongly emerged in the world revolution of 1848. An important aspect of our model of world-systems evolution is the idea of semiperipheral development (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997: Chapter 5). We note that institutional development in premodern world-systems occurred because innovations and implementations of new techniques and organizational forms have tended to occur in societies that have semiperipheral positions within larger core/periphery hierarchies. Semiperipheral marcher chiefdoms conquered adjacent core polities to create larger paramount chiefdoms. And semiperipheral marcher states conquered adjacent core states to create larger and larger core-wide empires (e.g., Chin, Akkad, Assyrian, Achaeminid Persians, Alexander, Rome, Abbasid Caliphate, etc.) And semiperipheral capitalist city-states (Dilmun, Phoenician Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage; Venice, Genoa, Malacca, etc.) expanded commercialized trade networks and encouraged commodity production within and between the tributary empires and peripheral regions, linking larger and larger regions together to eventually become the single global economy of today. The modern hegemons (the Dutch Republic of the seventeenth century, the United Kingdom of Great Britain in the nineteenth century, and the United States of America in the twentieth century) were all formerly


21

semiperipheral nation-states that rose to the position of hegemony by transforming the institutional bases of economic and political/military power in response to challenges from contenders for hegemony and challenges from popular movements contesting the injustices of capitalism and modern colonial imperialism. The modern world-system has experienced system-wide waves of democracy rather than separate and disconnected sequences of democratization within individual countries (Markoff 1996). These waves have tended to start in semiperipheral countries and the institutional inventions that have diffused from country to country have disproportionately been invented and implemented in semiperipheral countries first (Markoff 1999). Both the Russian and Chinese Communist challenges to capitalism emerged from the semiperiphery. The worker’s movement became increasingly organized on an international basis during the nineteenth century. Mass production made working conditions increasingly similar for industrial workers around the world. Labor organizers were able to make good use of cheap and rapid transportation as well as new modes of communication (the telegraph) in order to link struggles in distant locations. And the huge migration of workers from Europe to the New World spread the ideas and the strategies of the labor movement. Socialists, anarchists and communists challenged the rule of capital while they competed with each other for leadership of an increasingly global antisystemic movement that sought to democratize the world-system. The decline of British hegemony and the failure of efforts after World War I to erect an effective structure of global governance led to the collapse of capitalist globalization during the depression of the 1930’s, culminating in World War II. In our perspective, capitalist globalization is a cycle as well as a trend. The great wave of the nineteenth century was followed by a collapse in the early twentieth century and then a reemergence in the period after World War II. The global institutions of the post World War II order, now under the sponsorship of the hegemonic United States, were intended to resolve the problems that were perceived to have caused the military conflagrations and economic disasters of the early twentieth century. The United Nations was a stronger version of a global proto-state than the League of Nations had been, though still a long way from the “monopoly of legitimate violence” that is the effective center of a real state.

22


The Bretton Woods institutions – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – were originally intended to promote Keynesian national development rather than a globalized market of investment flows. Free trade was encouraged, but important efforts were made to track international investments and to encourage the efforts of national states to use fiscal policy as a tool of national development. The architects of the Bretton Woods institutions were chary about the effects of volatile waves of international capital flows on economic development and political stability because of what they perceived to have been the lessons of the 1920s. The restarting of the world economy after World War II under the aegis of the Bretton Woods institutions and U.S. support for relatively autonomous capitalism in Europe and Japan succeeded tremendously. But the growing power of unions within the core, and the perceived constraints on U.S. fiscal and financial interests imposed by the Bretton Woods currency regime, along with the oil crisis of the early 1970s, led the U.S. to abandon Bretton Woods in favor of a free world market of capital mobility. The “Washington Consensus” was basically ReaganismThatcherism on a global scale – deregulation, privatization, and reneging on the “social contract” with core labor unions and the welfare state. The IMF was turned into a tool for imposing these policies on countries all over the world. This U.S./British-led neo-liberal regime of global capitalism (Reaganism-Thatcherism) was a reaction to the successes of the Third World and the core labor movements, not in achieving true global democracy, but in getting a somewhat larger share of the profits of global capitalism. The attack on the institutions of Keynesian national development (labor unions and the welfare state), was also a delayed response to the world revolution of 1968 in which students, women, environmentalists, Third Worldists, indigenous peoples, democracy movements, and radical parts of the labor movement had critiqued and resisted the inadequacies of the welfare capitalism and business unionism from the Left. The New Right appropriated some of the ideology and many of the tactics of the 68ers – such as demonstrations, civil disobedience, guerilla armies, drug financing, and mobilization of subnations. These tactics have come back to haunt the powers that be. In the recent wave of “blowback,” organizations and ideologies formerly supported by the U.S. CIA as instruments against the Soviet Union (e.g., Al Qaeda) have turned against their former sponsors, employing dirty tricks to besmirch symbols of global po-


23

wer and to murder innocent bystanders in the heart of the core. We contend that the current historical moment is similar to the end of the nineteenth century. Like British hegemony, U.S. hegemony is declining. Contenders for global economic power have been emerging in German-led Europe and in Japan-led Asia. Popular movements and institutions have been under attack, especially since the rise to ideological hegemony of the neo-liberal “globalization project.” Anti-systemic movements are struggling to find new paths for dealing with capitalist globalization. New communications technologies such as the Internet provide possibilities for creating coordinated and integrated movements in favor of global democracy. The liberating potential of decentered and democratized communications is great. But cheap interactive and mass communications also facilitate increasing differentiation and specialization of political mobilization, which can undercut efforts to promote inter-movement coordination. We hold that the Internet will be, on balance, a liberating force, but the big gains in movement integration will probably come as a response to the economic, political, and ecological disasters that globalized capitalism is likely to produce in the not too distant future (Chase-Dunn 2001). We expect that the current resistance to global capitalism will in large part take the form of local self-reliance, the revitalization of diverse cultural forms and the rejection of the cultural and technological totems of corporate capitalism. Thus the characterization of the recently emergent protest movements (Seattle, Genoa, etc.) as “anti-globalization” movements is partially correct, but it is misleading. Self-reliance may take forms that are progressive or forms that promote divisions among the people based on ethnicity, nation, or race. We want to point out that selfreliance by itself is not an adequate strategy for transforming capitalism into a more humane and sustainable social system. Rather the building of self-reliant communities needs also to organize with a coordinated movement of “globalization from below” that will seek to reform, or create de novo, world institutions that will promote social justice and environmental sustainability.

24


Imagining Global Democracy This means imagining global democracy. What might global democracy look like? And how could we get from here to there? A consideration of global democracy must confront two main issues: huge and growing inequalities within and between countries; and the grave problems of environmental sustainability that capitalist (and Communist) industrialization has produced. Rather than drawing the blueprint of a global utopia and then arguing the fine points it makes more sense to learn from the heritages of earlier efforts to do what we are here proposing. Utopias may be useful for those who are unable to imagine any possible improvement over existing institutions. But they also function to delegitimize efforts to make social change because they usually appear to be unattainable. A more useful approach is to imagine an historically apt next step, one that the relevant constituencies can agree is a significant improvement and that is plausibly attainable. Global democracy means real economic, political and cultural rights and influence for the majority of the world’s people over the local and global institutions that affect their lives. Local and national democracy is part of the problem, but not the whole problem. Global democracy requires that local institutions and national states be democratic and democratic institutions of global governance. We basically support the proposals for radically reforming the United Nations and for establishing an institutional framework for global finance proposed by Camilleri, Malhotra and Tehranian (2000).3 Their principles and thoughtful step-by-step proposals for democratizing global governance address most of the issues quite well. We agree with the principle of subsidiarity, which decentralizes control to the local level over all issues that can be effectively resolved at that level (2000: 46). This principle is similarly applied to the national and international regional levels, so that global-level institutions deal with problems that can only find effective solutions at the global level. Camilleri, Malhotra and Tehranian also abjure the term “global government” and prefer terms such as “interlocking institutions” and “in3

Patomaki, Teivainen, and Ronkko (2002) provide a valuable review of proposals for globalizing global governance that includes the U.N., the Bretton Woods institutions, and the system of international courts.


25

ternational regimes” for describing global governance (2000: 25). We see the political sensitivities involved in this choice of terms, and we agree that it is important to use language wisely. There is a lot of resistance to the idea of an emerging world state because people understandably fear that such an institution might become an instrument of repression or exploitation. But we are concerned that careful rhetoric might obscure or paper over issues that need to be confronted explicitly. It is arguably true that the main reason that the United Nations has been largely ineffective at stopping interstate warfare is that it is not a state in the Weberian sense – a monopoly of legitimate violence. International law is not truly law according to Weber because it is not backed up by institutionalized sanctions. Our position is that the human species needs to establish a global government that is legitimate, effective and democratic. This does not require the centralization of everything. As stated above, we agree with the principle of subsidiarity in which everything that can effectively be left to local, national, and regional bodies should be. But inequality, environmental problems, population pressure, and peace are all global problems that can only be effectively solved by a democratic global government with the power to enforce the law. Thus, reforming the United Nations must move in the direction of the establishment of a democratic global government. This is in the interest of all the people of the Earth, but especially the dispossessed. The Westphalian interstate system has allowed powerful capitalists to repeatedly escape the institutional controls that have emerged from antisystemic movements that have sought to protect workers and communities from exploitation. Only a democratic world state can produce institutions that can guarantee social justice. We also support the establishment of new institutions to provide a framework for global financial relations that can support local and national development, and increased oversight of these by the United Nations (Patomaki, Teivainen, and Ronkko 2002). And we see a need to go beyond polyarchy at both the national and the global levels. As pointed out above, we are not satisfied with polyarchy (parliamentary democracy) at the national level. We contend that real democracy must address the issue of wealth and property, rather than defining these as beyond the bounds of political discourse. This said, we can also learn much from those failed experiments with collective property that were

26


carried out in the socialist and Communist states in the twentieth century. State ownership works well for infrastructure, such as health and education, but for the production of goods and services, even when the state is itself truly democratic, this creates grave economic problems because of the problem of “soft budget constraints.” This is because firms are usually bailed out by the state for their budget mistakes, and they respond to state rather than consumer demands. In order to achieve a modicum of efficiency large firms need to compete with one another in markets, but even more importantly they should compete for financing by showing that they can make a profit. We support John Roemer’s (1994) advocacy of a kind of market socialism in which ownership shares of large firms are distributed to all adult citizens, who then invest their shares in a stock market that is the main source of capital for large firms. All citizens receive a set number of shares at the age of majority and when they die their shares revert to the public weal. So there is no inheritance of corporate property, though personal property can be inherited. Firms, large and small, produce for markets and labor is rewarded in competitive labor markets. Small firms can be privately owned. This kind of market socialism equalizes income, though some inequalities due to skill differences will exist. The economy will still be a market economy, but the democratic state will provide security, due process, and oversee the redistribution of corporate shares across generations. This model of public market socialism incentivizes technological change and efficiency without producing increasing inequalities. It would probably work well, especially in the core countries for which Roemer has intended it. But when we think about the global economy there are certain problems that are not addressed in Roemer’s model. One of the main problems in the global economy is the huge difference in productivity between core and peripheral labor. This is why labor standards in international economic agreements are anathema to workers and unions in peripheral countries. A single worldwide minimum wage standard sounds good, but it would tend to function as a protectionist agreement for core workers, and undercut the ability of peripheral firms and workers to sell their products in core markets. Wage and other standards have to take into account local conditions, but their enforcement is the key to preventing the race to the bottom pursued by many transnational corporations. The real solution to this is to raise the level of productivity of peripheral labor. So global democracy needs to structure


27

institutions that can do this. Banning child labor worldwide while supporting the children’s families to speed the demographic transition would be a giant first step in this direction. This is why we need effective institutions of global governance. Antiglobalization cannot simply dismantle such institutions as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. They must either be reformed (democratized and empowered) or they must be replaced. Market socialism in the core will not be enough. A movement for economic democracy in the core needs also to mobilize for economic democracy at the global level. Support for both more democratic national regimes and global socialist institutions is likely to come from the semiperiphery. We expect that some of the most potent efforts to democratize global capitalism will come out of movements and democratic socialist regimes that emerge in semiperipheral countries. As in earlier epochs, semiperipheral countries have the “advantages of backwardness” – they are not already heavily invested in the existing organizational and political institutions and technologies – and so they have the maneuverability and the resources to invest in new institutions. Peripheral countries could also do this, but they are more completely dependent on the core and they are not able to mobilize sufficient resources to overcome this dependency. The semiperiphery, especially the large semiperipheral countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, India, Indonesia, and China, has opportunities that neither core nor peripheral countries have. If a democratic socialist regime is able to come to state power by legal means, and if this regime has the political will to mobilize the popular sectors in favor of democratic socialism, an experiment in one or another version of market socialism could be carried out. We expect that regimes of this type will in fact emerge in the near future as the options of kowtowing to the megacorps or demagoging the popular sectors (Chavez in Venezuela) become more obviously bankrupt. The smaller semiperipheral countries (South Korea, Taiwan, South Africa, Israel) may also opt for democratic socialism, but we expect that these will only be able to do so after earlier efforts have been made in the large semiperipheral countries. Much also depends on what happens in the contest for hegemony. Continued U.S. primacy will likely strengthen the resistance to democratizing global governance, while the rise of the European Union, which has stronger social democratic traditions, will

28


likely provide greater core support for democratizing global institutions and for emerging democratic socialist movements in the semiperiphery. The semiperipheral democratic socialist regimes will be the strongest organizational entities that can forge the links among the global antisystemic movements and produce a network for bringing forth the institutions of global socialism. Globalization from below and the formation of global socialist institutions will need to be facilitated by an organized network of world citizens. We have adopted the name given to such a confederation by Warren Wagar (1996) – the World Party. But this is not a party in the old sense of the Third International – a vanguard party of the world proletariat. Rather the World Party we propose would be a network of individuals and representatives of popular organizations from all over the world who agree to help create a democratic and collectively rational global commonwealth. The World Party4 will actively recruit people of all nations and religions and will seek to create the institutional bases for a culturally pluralistic and socially just and ecologically sustainable world society. This is what we mean by global democracy.

Works Cited Bollen, Kenneth A. and Pamela M. Paxton. 1997. “Democracy before Athens.” In Inequality, Democracy and Economic Development. Edited by Manus Midlarsky. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 13-44. Boswell, Terry and Christopher Chase-Dunn. 2000. The Spiral of Capitalism and Socialism: Toward Global Democracy. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Camilleri, Joseph A., Kamal Malhotra and Majid Tehranian. 2000. Reimagining the Future: Towards Democratic Global Governance. Bundoora, Australia: Department of Politics, LaTrobe University. Chase-Dunn, Christopher 2001 “Through the Sticky Wicket(s) and on to Global Socialism.” Paper presented at the Conference on the 25th Anniversary of the Fernand Braudel Center at Binghamton University, November 2-3, 2001. Chase-Dunn, Christopher, Rebecca Giem, John Gulick, Andrew Jorgenson, Shoon Lio and Thomas Reifer. 2002. “United States Hegemony in Comparative and Historical Perspective: Transnational Elite Integration in the 19th 4 http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/archive/praxis/wp/index.htm


29

and 20th Centuries.” Paper presented at the World Congress of Sociology, Brisbane, Australia, July 7-13, 2002. Chase-Dunn, Christopher and Thomas D. Hall. 1997. Rise and Demise: Comparing World-Systems. Boulder, CO.: Westview. Chase-Dunn, Christopher, Yukio Kawano and Benjamin Brewer. 2000. “Trade Globalization since 1795: Waves of Integration in the World-System.” American Sociological Review, 65, 1, February: 77-95. Davis, Mike. 2001. Late Victorian Holocausts. New York: Verso Hall, Thomas D., ed. 2000. A World-Systems Reader: New Perspectives on Gender, Urbanism, Cultures, Indigenous Peoples and Ecology. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Markoff, John. 1996. Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change. Thousand Oaks, CA.: Pine Forge Press. —. 1999. “From Center to Periphery and Back Again: Reflections on the Geography of Democratic Innovation.” In Extending Citizenship, Reconfiguring States. Edited by Michale Hanagan and Charles Tilly. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 229-46. O’Rourke, Keven H. and Jeffrey G. Williamson. 1999. Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth Century Atlantic Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Patomaki, Heikki, Teivo Teivainen, with Mike Ronkko. 2002. Global Democracy Initiatives: The Art of the Possible. Hakapaino, Finland: Network Institute for Global Democratization. Robinson, William I. 1996. Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention and Hegemony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roemer, John E. 1994. A Future for Socialism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shannon, Richard Thomas. 1996. An Introduction to the World-Systems Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview. Shiva, Vandana. 2002. Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution and Profit. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Wagar, W. Warren. 1996. “Toward a Praxis of World Integration,” Journal of World- Systems Research 2:1. Http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr.html

30

Peter J. Taylor

Material Spatialities of Cities and States Peter J. Taylor

Abstract The concept of spatiality is introduced as an analytical tool for studying the modern world-system. The spatialities of cities and states are contrasted as spaces of flows and spaces of places respectively. It is argued that the latter is embedded in the social sciences as an unexamined spatiality. Dis-embedding is achieved through constructing a revisionist world-systems analysis that focuses on cities. This world-systems analysis is then used to describe two world-spatialities, for the current situation and for a generation hence. The conclusion identifies a systemic bifurcation as an anarchist moment.

Social science was conceived and created within modernity and has continued, by and large, to be constituted of discourses that attempt to explain, interpret or understand the modern experience. It is a modern knowledge par excellence: its origin-myth is that the methods of the natural sciences can be used to understand and improve society. And two key trajectories of this modern society, not found in other societies, have been the extraordinary increasing powers of states, and the ever-increasing rise in urbanization that has recently made city dwellers a global demographic majority. Quite simply, modern states and modern cities are unprecedented in their political capacity and economic production respectively. In this paper I explore how cities and states relate to each other as social collectivities. It might be thought that this question would be a wellworn one within social science but surprisingly this is not the case. There are, of course, very large literatures on each collectivity but their relationship is under-researched. It seems that, post-founding fathers, social-science specialization into disciplines left cities and states located in separate intellectual camps: cities came under the purview of sociologists and geographer-planners, while states were the special subject of political scientists and economists. It has taken the current exigencies of globalization to bring my question to the fore again: today it is seriously asked

Material Spatialities of Cities and States

31

whether cities, viz global city-regions, are replacing states as the prime organizational nexus of social change (Scott 2001). I do not think that cities are replacing states but I do believe that the evidence for fundamentalwith changes in the relationships between the two has become overwhelming. This paper will attempt to justify this claim. To achieve this aim I take a particular perspective on both of my subjects by focusing on their spatialities. The concept of spatiality derives from the rejection of two traditional views on the role of “space” in social change: first, that it is merely an inert platform upon which social events take place, and second, that it is a simple context for events, an “active” locale that “influences” social action but is still divided from it. Spatiality is the concept of the alternative idea that the spatial and the social cannot be treated separately: we make our own geographies as well as our own histories. Thus spatiality, like historicity, is inherent in all social activities; all social institutions have their spaces and times, and therefore cannot be “abstracted” as if space and time are simply the metrics we use to keep track of the where and when of life. Spatiality can be defined as the materially-constructed, socio-spatial orders of life that are routinely produced and reproduced by people carrying out their everyday pursuits. It is because cities and states exhibit quite distinctive, indeed contrasting, spatialities that this perspective is chosen as a lever to understand their changing relationship. The paper is divided into two related arguments: development of a spatiality perspective on cities and states through identifying types of material spaces, and application of this perspective to evaluate contemporary and near-future world-spatialities. The arguments are separated by an interlude; the latter acts as an intellectual bridge by summarizing my revisionist world-systems position that has been presented more fully elsewhere.

Types of Material Space and Social Science Socio-spatial formations are constituted as two types of space. These are spaces of places and spaces of flows (Castells 1996). Thus social space is comprised both of processes operating in a specific place to make it distinctive and, perhaps, provide it with an identity, and by processes that operate across places to create a coherent social formation of connections.

32

Peter J. Taylor

These two sets of processes are not exclusive to each other; they operate simultaneously to produce their spatial outcomes in complex social packages. Nevertheless it is analytically useful to distinguish between them. Spaces are created by social practices. Thus they are not universal, they are always historically specific. Spaces become socially important when they are constituted by myriad social practices. In this form they define a material spatiality of life. All spatialities are products of social agents: activities by people operating as the makers of spaces. There are makers of spaces of places who create worlds of “local” identities, and there are makers of spaces of flows who create worlds of connections. Through these social practices a spatiality is formed in which spaces of places and spaces of flows mutually co-exist but where one may be dominant. Thus we can contrast the dominance of flows over places in the current Kondratieff B-phase (neo-liberal globalization) with the dominance of places over flows in the previous B-phase (1930s nationalist protectionalism). These represent two distinctive world-spatialities half a cycle apart. Making a place is to give a particular segment of space a social meaning. Here I focus on places that provide an encompassing identity to their inhabitants. I use the concept of home to describe the result of combining place with identity. Home implies a place where a person feels comfortable, literally feels “at home”: disruption of home is therefore socially catastrophic. I treat home as a construction that exists at different geographical scales: with no suffix it refers to the locale of modern households, otherwise it can be “home neighborhood”, “home village”, “hometown”, “home province” (home state in the U.S., e.g., Californian or Texan), homeland (referring to the territory of one’s state or country), and culminating with contemporary environmentalists who try and persuade us of Earth as the (only) home of humanity, our “home planet” (Taylor 1999). In this discussion I will focus on one key scale – the makers of spaces that are the places we call homelands because they are the ultimate reproducers of nation-states. In early modern Europe states were largely dynastic in character and therefore were identified with a “royal house” that supplied its rulers. This was a territorial solution to the gross political instability consequent upon the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Codified in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), state subjects were required to adhere to the


33

religion of their sovereign. This created a mosaic of politico-religious spaces, sovereign territories enclosing jurisdictional places. These were states created by “high politics” (through dynastic marriages and succession wars) that were, once military security was established, only of marginal relevance to the everyday lives of ordinary people. But these remote dynastic states, the first state form of the modern world-system, did not survive the exigencies of ever-changing modernities. As socio-territorial containers, modern states developed functions beyond the initial politico-security imperative to encompass, first, economic functions (mercantilism), second, cultural identities (nationalism), and third, social needs (welfare state) (Taylor 1995). These state developments cumulatively produced what Jessop (2002) has termed the “Keynsian Welfare National State” of the twentieth century. In other words the original “high politics” had to cede ground to a new “low politics” that addressed the lives of ordinary people. This is the basis of the common conflation of nation (which is a cultural grouping) with state (which is a political apparatus): the harnessing of the concepts together as nation-state confirms their indelible combination in the contemporary modern state. It is with the nation-state that the world-spatiality of modernity becomes dominated by spaces of places. The high politics of states produced the containers in which places were nationally constructed as homelands. Through a variety of state institutions from nineteenth-century “national education” through to twentieth-century “national media”, there is a powerful socialization process that nationalizes people into the state. Thereafter their behaviors – working (providing income taxes for states), shopping (providing sales taxes for states), TV watching (receiving news about states), driving (licensed and regulated by states), voting (providing leaders for states), and the like – create a “national world” in which person and state are entwined. This is consolidated by cultural celebrations that “bring the nation together”. The state-as-nation becomes the dominant lens through which the social world is viewed and constructed: it is a world mosaic, as depicted by that most familiar cartographic product, the world political map. Nation is imbued so deeply that this map has come to be seen as “natural”: how else would humanity be divided? The fact that this mosaic is a relatively recent modern artefact is lost in the nationalist myths of multiple special, sometimes “chosen”, peoples. Thus, Anderson’s (1983) famous dictum, that, in later modernity, “nation” has replaced early

34

Peter J. Taylor

modern religion as the prime identity for people locating their place in the Cosmos. The result is a mosaic world-spatiality. The making of spaces of flows involves the intersection of two wellknown stories: an economic one about the spread of markets, and a technological one about the “shrinking” of distance. Thus the cultural and political focus of the last story is replaced by the doings of economic and financial agents and the consumption of their goods within a changing context of transport and communication. It is the business of merchants to create spaces of flows. They make their profit by buying cheap and selling dear and this requires “movement” of commodities in either time or space. The former involves holding stock to “play” the market, the latter involves transporting stock to create commodity chains. Commodity chains typically define a myriad space of flows organised through cities. Cities are critical to economic spaces of flows in a second, more opaque, way. According to Jacobs’s (1984) classic theory of dynamic cities, it is cities that are the crucibles of economic innovations that generate economic growth. Such innovation feeds directly into trade through import replacement. For instance, an entrepôt is a mere distribution center that does not of itself create economic growth. However, it becomes a dynamic city when it begins to manufacture goods it previously imported. It can then begin to consume and export its own products. This need not be a problem for the city it previously imported from; as a dynamic economic entity the latter can switch to new commodities of higher value such as the machine tools that the former entrepôt now requires. This process emphasizes the interdependencies of cities in a virtual spiral of economic growth. The unit of economic change is thus city networks in which cities are more than trading nodes, they are the basic locales of economic growth (Jacobs 1984). It is just such a space of flows – a world city network – that is undermining the modern mosaic spatiality of nation-states (Taylor 2004a). The space of places that is the world of nation-states exults homogeneity; it is what nationalism, in its many guises, is ultimately about. Such politics defines who is and who is not a citizen (or potential citizen when the state-making process is still ongoing). In contrast, spaces of flows organized through cities are about heterogeneity; trading only makes sense across spatial differences in production. Thus cities are traditionally full of merchants from different places: the more successful a city, the


35

wider and denser its inward flow of “foreigners”. It follows that cities are inherently cosmopolitan, thriving on their heterogeneity in spaces of flows. Technological innovations that have made transport and communications faster and cheaper over the last two centuries have profoundly affected potentials for the scope and scale of economic activities. While trading has been a world-wide activity since the “long sixteenth century” (c.1450-1650), it remained largely coastal and riverine until the nineteenth century. Communication was subsumed into these trading patterns. However, railways and improved road transport, and the telegraph/telephone and new media such as the radio, altered fundamentally the space of flows. The initial effect was that the new spatial possibilities were harnessed to “nation-building” by states through development of national railway and highway networks, and national telephone and national media as communication separated out from transport. In other words localisms were eroded as states promoted the new technologies to homogenize their territories. This stimulus for a mosaic state world spatiality lasted about a century, from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. However, in the last half-century technologies have made possible increases in the scale of spaces of flows, containerization of land and sea transport, and air transport have created new global commodity spaces of flows, while telecommunications have enabled global organization to become a reality. In particular the combination of communication and computing technologies have provided the means of worldwide command and control for “global corporations” since the 1970s. Subsequently media has become less national and more global. Collectively these technological advances have provided the infrastructure of the space of flows that is globalization. For Jacobs (1984) there is no such thing as a “national economy”; it is a myth to imply state territories are coherent economic units. She calls them “grab-bags” (32) of different economies – aggregations of city economies – that create wholly artificial economic units. She asks why there is an assumption that economic processes should conform to political units, states, created by military and political processes. Jacobs traces the problem back to mercantilism and its state-centric growth theory and development policy: economic success was measured by hoarding bullion within a state. Thus economic study came to be about the state and this easily elided into the assumption that states define economies.

36

Peter J. Taylor

This “mercantilist tautology” (31) continues in contemporary macroeconomics of all political hues. I accept Jacobs’s argument, which I call an unexamined spatiality in economics knowledge. I take the argument a stage further by finding the same unexamined spatiality at the heart of mainstream social science knowledge. The mercantilist tautology has been consolidated in economic knowledge in the last century through reform of state “treasuries” to encompass fiscal/economic regulation, management and planning roles for the state. This reform of economic practice in the state has proved to be important for place-making due to its insistence on the importance of state boundaries as containers. Simultaneously, the broad intellectual tradition of “political economy” was converted into a specialist discipline of “economics” to provide the relevant knowledge for the new expanded state. Thus, following Jacobs, the result was an embedded statism within the new discipline. Other social knowledge was similarly afflicted. The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century was the era both of reforms and discipline-making that went beyond state economics. The discipline of “sociology” was a product of state social reforms that emerged from a more general, positivist “social science”. And political reforms led to more specific knowledge than traditional “political philosophy” that came to be called the discipline of “political science”. It is this specialist trilogy of disciplines that came to be recognized as the “social sciences” in the mid-twentieth century when this form of knowledge became widely legitimized through its institutionalization as chairs/departments in universities (Taylor 1996). Among the many effects of this embedded statism, one stands out as particularly relevant here: the strange assumption of spatial congruence in people’s collective behavior. The study of economic processes, social processes, and political processes are all circumscribed by state boundaries in such a way that economy, society, and politics are nationalized. Whether theoretical or empirical, macro studies use identical spatial units (state territories) to delimit the scope of their arguments. In the case of empirical research this is further enforced by the fact that macro-level data is produced by states for states so that statistics (state-istics) are statedelimited. But theoretical treatments are equally susceptible to this unexamined spatiality. Wallerstein (1984) doubts the validity of the concept of society since it always implies a national entity; he suggests abandoning the term. Recent concerns for replacing “government” by “gover-


37

nance” are based on a similar revelation that not all relevant politics are national. In other words, for most of their short history the social science trinity has been a vehicle for reproducing a world space of places; they are best termed mosaic social sciences. Such a knowledge form has had a deep effect on our understanding of cities (Taylor 2004a). As we have seen, cities are organizational centers of spaces of flows. They are inter-locked by economic (and other) activities that create networks in which the cities act as nodes. However for states, their cities are administrative sub-units, mini-territories that require “local government”. This bureaucratic perspective creates an administrative urban hierarchy with the capital city (national government) at the top and other cities largely ordered by size in different layers of hierarchy. Of course, major cities continued to engage in important “cross-border trade” but this has been treated as largely irrelevant to what was viewed as the national urban hierarchy. And this position was bolstered by social scientists who produced a large literature on “national urban systems” wherein were found urban hierarchies (Taylor 2004a). Purporting to be a tool for state economic management, this “systems-thinking” intellectually legitimized the imposition of the state’s self-image as a hierarchy on to knowledge of cities. The irony of this unexamined spatiality is that the most networked of social collectives, cities, were territorialized; a mosaic urban studies was created wherein a strange world of multiple and separate national urban hierarchies was conceived. This has been disastrous for understanding cities within spaces of flows (Taylor 2004a). The lesson is that mosaic social science is particularly unsuitable as a vehicle for understanding globalization with its transnational processes. We need a “network social science”, social knowledge not mesmerised by state and nation. World-systems analysis is such knowledge, depicting as it does a world of connections within and without the nation-state. But this alternative spatiality embedded in world-systems analysis has never been fully exploited as a radical departure from conventional social science. Such a revisionist world-systems analysis is offered here.

Interlude: Revisionist World-Systems Analysis My revision is a geohistorical one. As well as using the spatiality perspective previously developed, I focus upon a particular time period: the

38

Peter J. Taylor

“long sixteenth century” that culminates in the establishment of a modern world-system (Wallerstein 1974). This timeframe is chosen because it shows the operation of a nascent modern world-system before both the consolidation of the inter-state system and the rise of nationalism. The expectation is that a glimpse of a less state-centric early modernity can help us transcend embedded statism for understanding late modernity, viz globalization. The result is a city-centric variation on Wallerstein’s (1979) world-systems analysis. Most of the ideas have been presented in more detail elsewhere (Taylor 2004a, 2004b, 2004c); here I provide a summary listing of the argument. (a) Following Wallerstein (1974), I identify the long sixteenth century as the transition from a feudal Europe to a European modern world-system. The key phases of any social transition are the initial developments when alternative social matrices come to the fore and the final period when one alternative is consolidated into the dominant social matrix. (b) Following Braudel (1984), I focus on the “city-studded spine” of late medieval/early modern Europe, with its two clusters of cities: a “southern pole” in north Italy and a “northern pole” in the Low Countries. Although the development of a Europe-wide city network centered on these two poles pre-dates the long sixteenth century (Spufford 2003), this separation of city-centered Europe was to prove crucial to the outcome of the transition. (c) In the 1490s north Italy was invaded first by France and then by Habsburg Spain: this showed the military vulnerability of citystates to rising “medium-sized” territorial states. Southern pole cities were not destroyed but they lost their political autonomy. At the same time new trading routes (around Africa, to the “New World”) were beginning to re-orientate European external links from the Mediterranean cities to Atlantic cities. (d) This was the opportunity of the northern pole to become more important economically than the traditionally much richer southern pole. In effect the Iberian states used maritime expertise from Mediterranean cities to develop new trans-continental trading networks that ultimately benefited the northern pole cities, centered on Antwerp. (e) The autonomy of northern pole cities was based on their political location in a decentralized Holy Roman Empire. When the


(f )

(g)

(h)

(i)

39

Habsburgs tried to centralize their power and eradicate a Protestant rebellion the outcome was very different from the earlier fate of southern pole cities. In this case the Habsburgs failed to obtain a military victory resulting in the emergence of a new city-rich polity, the United Provinces, centered on Amsterdam. This was made possible because the cities in the northern Low Countries allied together to produce a fortified territorial shell surrounding their urban wealth-producing centers. The combined wealth of their cities enabled the United Provinces to produce a formidable defensive military capability that repelled the invaders. The result was an oasis of peace within the massive material destruction of the Thirty Years’ War; it became a platform for economic elites to project their power across the nascent modern world-system. Once the shackles of centralizing (territorial) power demands were removed, extraordinary economic growth through autonomous cities took off to create the Dutch “golden age”. There are three interpretations of this new polity: as a new territorial state, as Amsterdam’s city-state, or as a “half-way house” between city and state (Braudel 1984). Since the independence of the United Provinces is the crucial element in the consolidation phase of the transition to the modern world-system (Wallerstein 1980), it follows that how this new polity is interpreted is vital to how we interpret the modern world-system itself. For nineteenth-century Dutch historians the United Provinces were the result of a nationalist revolt that produced the Dutch nation-state. As Schama (1987) has pointed out, this interpretation tells us more about nineteenth-century historians than seventeenth-century history. For twentieth-century historians and social scientists the United Provinces constitutes a new modern state that they call the Dutch Republic (’tHart 1993; Israel 1995). This is the position Wallerstein accepts. However, I think we can make a Schama-type criticism: this interpretation tells us more about the embedded statism of twentieth-century social scientists than the nature of this first Dutch polity. We do not need to equate the United Provinces with what went before (relatively autonomous cities, city-states) or what came after (sovereign states, nation-states) or take Braudel’s middle

40

Peter J. Taylor

stance that assumes a progression from cities to states. I treat the United Provinces as a historically singular polity. It was a highly networked multi-nodal city region with a defensive territorial shield that was able to place itself at the center of system-wide trading networks. This enabled this cluster of cities to capture a disproportionate amount of the wealth being created in the early modern world-system. (j) The unique feature of this state is that it was controlled by economic elites; foreign contemporaries dismissed the polity as a mere “merchant’s state”. But that is the point, merchants in charge of a multi-city polity with no territorial ambitions showed how they could employ a “light” political touch – funding only what was necessary – and create a dynamic economic growth region. However, the reaction to Dutch success was not more “merchant states” but rather mercantilist states that combined old political territorial imperatives with the new economic practices. The result was a political economy of modern states in which there is some sharing of power between political and economic elites. Although the balance between these elites varies greatly over time and space, modern states are distinguished by this historically unusual intrusion of economic concerns into the traditional political realm of kingdoms and empires. (k) Thus the Dutch polity pioneered a capitalist organization of society by economic elites but their mercantilist legacy was only a pale reflection of this. Indeed we might consider that the modern world-system is not actually a capitalist world-economy as Wallerstein (1974) argues, but is better termed a world politicaleconomy to acknowledge the continuing importance of political elites. The latter have, of course, been hugely important in the unfolding of the modern world-system. The French invasion of 1672 is usually taken as the marker for the end of Dutch hegemony. Although (unlike the invasions of northern Italy in the 1490s) this attempted political take-over failed, the United Provinces were irretrievably weakened. In this revised world-systems analysis this year also marks the confirmation of the modern world-system as a world political-economy. The post-hegemonic Dutch polity begins to behave just like any other mercantilist state. Its specificity as a multi-nodal urban


41

polity rapidly wanes in an interstate system that leaves no room for autonomous city polities. It is not until the rise of contemporary globalization that cities are again considered seriously as major players in the modern world-system (Taylor 1995).

Material Spaces of the Twenty-first Century The revisionist interpretation of the modern world-system as a world political-economy has profound implications for interpreting contemporary globalization. Following Wallerstein’s argument for the decline of U.S. hegemony, the recent worldwide promotion of neo-liberal economic agendas represents a major global shift of power from political elites to economic elites. Thus, accepting that we are in the demise phase of the modern world-system, interpreting the latter as a world politicaleconomy means that we are finally on a possible transition to capitalism, to a capitalist world-economy. This is to argue for a world-system that is about to continue where the Dutch left off in the seventeenth century. Here I present two world-spatialities, one that interprets the present and one that extrapolates to a generation hence. I focus upon concrete outcomes in which national spaces of places are interwoven with global spaces of flows. Despite the rise of world cities, the most impressive feature of the contemporary world is the unprecedented political power of one state, the United States. From a standard world-systems position this is interpreted as a post-hegemonic effect: a political-military attempt to compensate for relative economic decline. The classic case is the expansion of the British Empire after British hegemony in the late nineteenth century. But the American situation today is different. The British may have built the largest empire in history but their power within the interstate system was far inferior to the current projection of U.S. power across the world. This reflects the one simple fact that hegemons have gotten larger over time: hegemonic United Provinces were a small polity, hegemonic Britain was a medium-sized state, hegemonic United States was a continental state. Political compensation in the latter case has produced a unique superpower. Instead of viewing hegemony at the state-territorial level, the revisionist position is that it is in cities that the wealth-generation to create hege-

42

Peter J. Taylor

mony occurs. And the cities are not evenly spread across the territories identified as hegemonic: the key Dutch cities were in or near Holland (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leyden, Utrecht, Haarlem, Delft); key British cities were in the north (Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle); and key U.S. cities were in the “manufacturing belt” (New York, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland). Notice that the capital cities are not featured; The Hague, London, and Washington, D.C. were not central to hegemony-making. Also noteworthy is the fact that beyond these cities there were lands that looked anything but hegemonic: the Dutch outer provinces, Ireland in the U.K., and the American “Deep South”. In other words, it is practices in clusters of dynamic cities that initially created each hegemonic interval. This is particularly pertinent to understanding U.S. hegemonic decline. The peak of U.S. hegemony in the 1960s coincided with the final domestic confrontation with the racist ex-Confederate South. The resulting rise of the “New South” coincides with the hegemonic decline. If you divide the United States into a continental wide north-south division we get the two world faces of the country: producers and traders in the north (San Francisco-Silicon Valley, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Boston), and circuses and soldiers in the south (Los Angeles-Orange County, San Diego, Las Vegas, Texas, Florida). And in our consumer society it is the latter that have dominated politically (Kennedy in 1960 is the last time a candidate from the north won a Presidential election). Northern U.S. cities created hegemony; the southern U.S. is using it up. This is the source of the U.S. post-hegemonic political-military compensation, but in the unique circumstances of creating a superstate there is an additional interpretation. In past hegemonic declines there has been rivalry between two states, one dominated by economic elites, the other by political elites: after Dutch hegemony England/Britain versus France, after British hegemony the United States versus Germany. Today, although there is no hegemonic (economic) successor to the United States, it does seem to be the case that the political-military challenge has been internalized. In this argument the southern-dominated United States is the successor of Bourbon/Napoleonic France and Imperial/Nazi Germany. The current balance between national spaces of places and global spaces of flows is that a neo-conservative United States – the “last sovereign state” (Martin and Schumann 1997: 216) – is operating alongside a


43

neo-liberal world city network (Taylor 2004a). This contrast in contemporary spaces is made particularly intriguing because U.S. cities are relatively underrepresented within the world city network; only 7 of the top fifty world cities, as measured by commercial connectivity, are located in the United States (Taylor and Lang 2004a). Looking ahead is speculation; we cannot know the future but we can make informed guesses. From a spatiality perspective I conjecture that the current spatiality will evolve as a reversal of the early modern worldsystem. That is to say, the earlier erosion of city power by states will turn full circle so that in the late modern world-system we will find erosion of state power by cities. Unlike Petrella’s (1995) famous scenario that depicts a city dystopia in which states have been eliminated, in my scenario states and cities continue to operate through their two distinctive spaces. State authorities are eroded by cities, which become the main sources of connections across the world. In the erstwhile periphery and semi-periphery zones of the world political-economy, major world cities develop (Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Moscow, Mumbai, Bangkok), and where there are failing states, cities substitute (e.g., Kinshasa for the Congo). In the European Union (EU) the territorial-sovereign conflict between the nationstates and the EU-center is elided as the trans-border connections of Europe’s cities makes this “old” politics less and less salient. In 2025 most of the world is clearly being run as network relations between cities with states as places of secondary importance. But not all the world is city-dominated. The declining importance of states is hardly operating in two political poles where strong states continue to be powerful. In the western pole, the power of the United States of today remains remarkably resilient, cemented domestically by a strong civic nationalism. In the eastern pole, the rise of the Chinese state creates a political balance with the U.S., its ethnic nationalism connecting it to a wider Chinese diaspora. Both poles will have important cities linked to the world city network (for the U.S.: New York, Washington, Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Los Angeles; for China: Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei, Guangzhou), but they will continue to operate through a neo-conservative territorialist logic, that is, to accumulate wealth within a place in the manner of traditional mercantilism. Economically and demographically these two states provide a severe challenge to the maturing world city network. Too large to dislodge, the

44

Peter J. Taylor

modern world-system has come to an impasse between political elites in their two continental territories and economic elites in their global networks.

Conclusion: Systemic Bifurcation I have attempted to demonstrate in this paper that spatiality is a valuable analytic concept for studying world-systems. My revisionist world-systems analysis has ended with an impasse and I will conclude this demonstration by showing how this relates to Wallerstein’s (2003) argument that the demise of the modern world-system will create a systemic bifurcation. The prediction is that the transition to a capitalist world-economy through the world city network will be hampered by the two champions of political economy, the United States and China. This is a contest between the alternative ruling elites – political and economic – now increasingly divided as the modern world-system declines. The hiatus will finally be broken when the cities in the United States and China begin to feel the economic costs of neo-conservative use of boundaries to divert flows. It is only with the re-emergence of an incipient capitalist worldeconomy that the critical bifurcation appears. The world city network can operate in two ways. One builds upon existing power differentials to create strong hierarchical tendencies within the network, with new monopolies to enable enhanced capital accumulation. This route consolidates a capitalist world-economy. The second route involves a mobilization of citizens to attack existing power differentials and ensure the world city network lives up to its potential for social mutuality. We might call this the anarchist moment. Their previous political flowering coincided with national consolidation of states (a maximal inhospitable social environment for anarchists), but with states gone or tamed the systemic bifurcation provides a practical opening for creating a non-hierarchical, egalitarian world-system of cities (Taylor 2004b).


45

Works Cited Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Braudel, F. 1984. The Perspective of the World. London: Collins. Castells, M.1996. The Rise of Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell. ’tHart, M. 1993. The Making of a Bourgeois State: War, Politics, and Finance during the Dutch Revolt. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Israel. J. I. 1995: The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477-1806. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jacobs, J. 1984. Cities and the Wealth of Nations. New York: Random House. Jessop, B. 2002. The Future of the Capitalist State. Cambridge: Polity. Martin, H-P., and H. Schumann. 1997. The Global Trap. London: Zed. Petrella, R. 1995. “A Global Agora vs. Gated City-Regions.” New Perspectives Winter: 21-22. Schama, S. 1987. The Embarrassment of Riches. London: Collins. Scott, A. J. 2001. Global City-Regions. New York: Oxford University Press. Spufford, P. 2003. Power and Profit. London: Thames and Hudson. Taylor, P. J. 1995. “World Cities and Territorial States: The Rise and Fall of their Mutuality.” In World Cities in a World-System. Edited by P. L. Knox and P. J. Taylor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 48-62. —. 1996. “Embedded Statism and the Social Sciences.” Environment and Planning A 28: 1910-16. —. 1999. “Places, Spaces and Macy’s.” Progress in Human Geography 23: 7-26. —. 2004a. World City Network. London: Routledge. —. 2004b. “Homo Geographicus: A Geohistorical Manifesto for Cities.” Review 27, 1: 35-58. —. 2004c. “Dutch Hegemony and Contemporary Globalization. In Hegemonic Declines: Present and Past. Edited by J. Friedman and C. Chase-Dunn. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Press. Taylor, P. J., and R. L. Lang. 2004. Us Cities in the World City Network. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Wallerstein, I. 1974. The Modern World-System. New York: Academic. —. 1979. The Capitalist World-Economy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. —. 1980. The Modern World-System II. New York: Academic. —. 1984. The Politics of the World-Economy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. —. 2003. The Decline of American Power. New York: The New Press.

46

Göran Therborn

Culture as a World System Göran Therborn

Abstract This article attempts to come to grips with the lack of a systematically argued “systemness” in world-systems analysis and with a reductionism regarding the multidimensionality of world-system relations. In addressing these issues, systemness is taken as a contingent variable and a case made for distinguishing at least five major interconnected and interacting human world systems, that, however, are not reducible to one another. From this perspective, the world system of culture is singled out and illustrative examples of the relationships between religious identities, family structures, cognitive and symbolic forms, and high and popular culture on a global scale are examined to highlight the contradictions of hegemony and resistance in the contemporary world.

Immanuel Wallerstein’s (1974-) still on-going work, The Modern WorldSystem, was a trail-blazer of global social analysis, something which needs to be emphasized now that a younger generation is being snowed under by an avalanche of books on “globalization”. Its daring analytical edge and its enormous erudition stand out. However, in the scholarly world, a shining example may legitimately be taken as an inspiring challenge as well as a model to follow. For a number of reasons I have tended to relate to Wallerstein’s work in the former way. I see two major problems. One regards the system-ness of the Wallersteinian world-system, which is asserted to be tight, strong, even singular, without ever being systematically laid out and cogently argued. The other is the dimensionality of the world-system, and the tendency of Wallerstein to subsume political and cultural dimensions under an assumed, rather than demonstrated, economic primacy. Another approach of some promise may be to take the notion of system as an heuristic tool in the analysis of interdependent complexity and change and to treat systemness as a variable. Systems may then be constituted by the interdependence and the interactions of exogenous actors (be they tribes, cities, states, individuals, or whatever) and, at the other end, systems may operate through actors formed by the system itself

Culture as a World System

47

(such as corporations formed on global markets and cultural groups formed by global cultures) according to an inherent systemic dynamic. Systemness of endogenous or exogenous elements/actors is probably better seen as a continuum than as a dichotomy. If world systemness is taken as a contingent variable, then global processes become central foci of investigation as the constituent parts of variable systemness. Focusing on processes, we can more clearly specify an explanatory framework for world patterns. This entails two elementary distinctions. First, between the global and the sub-global: for modern periods we may short hand the sub-global the national, although it also includes local and regional processes. National processes, the autonomy of which have to be assessed empirically, include national politics, national culture, national economic growth, national demography, and national distributions of resources. Second, among three different kinds of pertinent global processes: global history in the sense of enduring legacies or path dependencies from previous crucially formative moments of trans-national processes; current global flows, such as trade, capital, people, information (including ideas of all sorts), and environmental and/or medical matter; interactions or entanglements of largescale actors, such as states, international organizations, and trans-national movements. In this vein, the basic analytical framework proposed here looks like this.

Figure 1. Global Processes and Global Outcomes

The relative weight of the causal arrows is empirically assessable, and will indicate the world systemness of the world. In the Wallersteinian world

48

Göran Therborn

the most powerful arrows by far fly from global history and global flows, whereas the outgoing national arrows are negligible. In the “modernization” worldview, against which world-system analysis rose in rebellion, all the powerful arrows fly from the nations and the others are ignored or considered insignificant. Now, with hindsight, the world appears more complicated. Analyzing three kinds of world inequality, this writer (Therborn 2003) found global history and national processes most important in explaining current economic inequality, and global flows and entanglements bearing significantly on vital and existential inequality in the contemporary world. With regard to the second problem of existing world-system analysis, that of multi-dimensionality or reductionism, it may be worth while starting out from an agnostic conception of primacy by indicating some key dimensions of world systemness. The inter-relations of these dimensions would then be taken as an object of subsequent empirical analysis. In order to get at the complex multidimensionality of the world, it seems useful to start from a perspective of several world systems – in the minimalist sense of structured totalities – certainly not independent of each other, but with uncertain, largely contingent relations of interaction and influence not to be determined by a priori fiat. In this sense, I think we may heuristically distinguish five major human world systems, interconnected and interacting, probably asymmetrically, but without one being reducible to another: 1. The socio-economic system, currently, world capitalism, with its global markets, division of labor, and social structuration. This is, of course, the focus of Wallerstein’s analysis. 2. The world system of power, of violence as well as of “governance” and influence. This is first of all an inter-state system, the dynamics of which is a perennial topic of controversy among analysts of international politics. 3. The world system of culture, to which a new attention has been given after the end of the Cold War, which was usually framed in some version of inter-state power relations. So far, however, the predominant approach to global cultural analysis has been mutations of Cold War politics (Huntington 1996; Barber 1995). 4. Humanity as a global population system, governed by family and bio-medical processes, as well as by socio-political interventions


49

into them. Here is a confluence of demography, family analysis, and bio-medicine. 5. Finally, the planetary ecology of the socio-natural environment, the world as a human habitat. Each of these systems is certainly dependent upon, affected by, and affects the others. Nevertheless, there seem to be two good reasons for singling them out, even though at the end of the day they all may have to be re-assembled. Distinguishing them will make it easier to spell out their specific aspects and dynamics. By the same token, usually not everything can be done at the same time. Heuristically separating different world systems – not assuming an exhaustive list of five only – will facilitate treatment of the many dimensions of the human world. Within this framework of global processes, variable systemness, and of world systems of different dimensions, the rest of this paper will deal with culture. The point is not to assert any kind of cultural primacy, but in some way to remedy the underdevelopment so far of world cultural analysis.1

The World as a Cultural System “Culture” will here be taken in a sociological sense, broader than in literary and most so-called cultural studies, more delimited than in cultural anthropology. A world cultural system will refer to a worldwide configuration of patterns and processes of identity, values, cognition, and symbolic forms. A global cultural system provides meanings of the world, meanings of oneself in the world, as well as the meaning of others in it. Such a configuration is obviously imbricated with world economics and world power politics (but these relations must be left to another venue). A cultural system in this sense has at least four core elements: 1. An architecture of identities. This is the means by which people perceive the world, the members of it, and their own place in it. A world culture implies some awareness of the social environ1

Recent contributions to these questions included Barber (1995), Huntington (1996), Meyer et al. (1997), Jameson and Myoshi ( 1998), and Berger and Huntington (2002); however, few have made attempts at any comprehensive systematicity.

50

Göran Therborn

ment as a world society, as a global totality, of cultural practices as, in some way, related or comparable to a world of such practices. 2. A geocultural pattern of values and norms. “Geoculture” is a term coined by Immanuel Wallerstein (1991) in analogy with geopolitics, for the “underside”, the “cultural framework” of the worldsystem. But once in the public domain, the notion may also be used for other purposes. In my work on family and sexuality in the world of the twentieth century (Therborn 2004), I found it very useful to treat family systems as geocultures, indicating a historically produced geographic cultural anchorage of norms and institutions. To illustrate, in South Asia the major axis of variation of patriarchy and misogyny is not religion or nation, but region – that is, North versus South. 3. A structure of cognition. There is knowledge of the world and there is ignorance, with their specific modes of production and their channels of distribution. The cognitive is a fundamental dimension of world culture, of any culture. Today, the structuration of cognition means above all, the production of science, the establishment of social perspectives, and the reproduction of literacy. But there is also a developing consensus that the very meaning of knowledge differs widely, even from non-religious perspectives, in terms of different modes of thought and in different ways of manifesting or formulating knowledge, as well as in different historical contexts. 4. Interconnected configurations of symbolic forms. “Symbolic forms” are here used to denote the “high culture” of the arts and of etiquette as well as the “popular” or “mass” culture of entertainment, sports, styles, and brands – languages of all kinds. In all these areas, irreducible to one another, presentation and appearance are crucial, a creative mastering of rules (rather than their following), an imaginative use of knowledge (rather than producing it or having it). There are also two constitutive processes which together produce and maintain a cultural world system. 1. Historical moulding. That is, historical processes of imposition and of diffusion that connect the myriads of cultures of the world


51

with each other in certain particular ways. In principle this may be done by any means, including random mixing, but in actual practice it has always occurred within a power matrix, defining center and periphery, superior and inferior. 2. Current flows and entanglements. What sustains a cultural system is basically a flow of information (in the most general sense) from the conveying of complexes of ideas to iconological signs. But following the methodological rule of approaching global social systems as always potentially systems of systems, that is, link-ups of national and/or other sub-global systems, global cultural flows have to be searched for and identified – rather than assumed – and then their relative significance must be evaluated. And from the assumption of the possibly non-global follows that a global process may not necessarily be a planetary flow. It may also, or instead, involve encounters, interactions (i.e., entanglements of global and non-global actors and institutions), and hybridizations of forms. Finally, as a system the world cultural system has at least two descriptive configurational variables, two ways in which its shape may be characterized, both of which sustained by an infrastructure of means of communication. 1. A horizontal dimension, laying-out the socio-spatial divisions of world culture. In the field of literary studies, this is now being undertaken as a systematic research endeavor (e.g., Moretti 1998). 2. A vertical dimension, of hegemony, dependence, resistance, and alternatives, a dimension which also may be conveyed by the more ambiguous distinction of center and periphery (e.g., Casanova 1999). The systemic dynamic of global culture can no longer be assumed by a rationalist conviction, like that characteristic of the generations of Karl Marx and Max Weber, and still maintained by their disciples of the third quarter of the twentieth century. A persistent drive towards secularization, rationalization or disenchantment is no longer to be taken for granted. The post-modern moment of the late twentieth century has in that sense made an epochal rupture. We are left with a directionless –

52

Göran Therborn

unpredictable – dynamic of human imagination and creativity. Globality means that a freeze of creativity, into repetitions and imitations of the past, well known historically, is becoming more unlikely because of the difficulties of necessary isolation. The dynamics of human creativity render socio-spatial divisions porous and mutable, and hegemonies are likely to be contested. However, the dynamic of creativity may manifest itself as well in imaginative and creative adaptations by the centers and the hegemons. All the same, the actual dynamics of the cultural system cannot be captured by an inherent human creativity only. Cultural efflorescence is dependent on economic resources, from patrons or from commercial auto-commodification. Its radius of influence is dependent on muscles of power. In neither case is there a one-to-one correlation to be expected, but yes, a positive association between wealth or power, on one hand, and cultural influence, on the other. In this way, I think, culture may be systematically analyzed as a world system of its own as well as in its coupling with other kinds of world systemness. In what follows I will try to put some flesh on the bones of this assertion.

The Architecture of Identities Individuals as well as collectives have multiple identities, of a salience shifting from one situation to another, and these identities or self-conceptions are overlapping and crisscrossing in complicated ways. They are all social constructions. But how important is a sense of human or world commonality in the current configuration of identities? How do the major divisions of collective identities run? Most clear-cut are pan-human and planetary identifications. They became significant only in the second half of the twentieth century, and especially in the last third of it. Human rights were introduced into mainstream global discourse with the constitution if the United Nations against the background of the racist barbarism of the Second World War. The rights of all humans qua humans became fully recognized only a couple of decades later, with the fall of racist institutions in the southern United States, the international de-legitimation of South African apartheid, and the thaw in the Cold War that made the USSR recognize human rights in Eastern Europe (in the Helsinki Accords) as the United


53

States did in Latin America with the Carter Presidency. The United Nations Women’s Conferences, from Mexico in 1975 to Beijing in 1995, were also extremely important in articulating a human identity. The oil crisis of the 1970s and eruptive issues of planetary exhaustion and pollution raised a considerable large-scale ecological awareness in the last quarter of the past century, again with crucial inputs of the United Nations machinery, beginning with the Stockholm Conference in 1972. Another perspective on global identities concerns worldwide communities. The great universalistic religions, Christianity and Islam in particular, have always had something of global community to them. Both these religions have recently spawned vigorous movements of revivalism not only in the lands of their roots but beyond as well. In the second half of the twentieth century an important secular globalism developed, dividing the planet into two ideological halves, “the Free World” and “the Socialist Camp” (with the non-aligned leaning in one or the other direction), which served as rallying-points for hundreds of millions of people. Global communities may also take the form of classes or movements. There is a noteworthy convergence of establishment and of leftwing antiestablishment opinion in a recent emergence of a global business community, of what Samuel Huntington (1996: 57) calls “Davos culture” or what Leslie Sklair (2001) sees as a “transnational capitalist class”. This is clearly a novel phenomenon. On the other hand, while there is now an important worldwide International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, freed from the shackles of the Cold War, there is probably less of a world labor identity than among the militants of the early twentiethcentury labor movement. But there is now a counterpart to the “Davos culture”, which by analogy may be named the Porto Alegre culture, the wide spectrum of trans-national movements meeting at the World Social Forum, originally in Porto Alegre (Brazil), most recently in Mumbai (India). This is not one community, but a heterogeneous ensemble of movements, labor, peasant, indigenous, environmentalist, feminist, and the like. What they share is a conviction of the global injustice of today’s world and of its current dominant tendencies. There are also two, more individual, aspects of global identities. One is the establishment and the recognition of a global ranking of merit to which relevant actors relate – as in sports, entertainment, the arts, and science. There is now a world market of perceived talent and a world constellation of stars. The social sciences, philosophy, and cultural stud-

54

Göran Therborn

ies have some world stars too, but economics apart they and the humanities in general have retained a predominance of national or regional processes of identification. This division of the global market of merit versus national/regional delimitation appears to be much more important than what Peter Berger has termed “the globalization of the Western intelligentsia” (2002: 4). A global individual positioning of identity may also follow, in a non-hierarchical form, from the possibility of easily communicating across all borders. Internet chatting may then be seen as involving globalized individuals relating to one another. Finally, there is the globalization of icons with which people identify. Such icons may be cultural stars, in relation to their fans; they may be brands of consumer goods; or they may be packages of objects and practices seen as “styles”. Although there were some embryonic developments in the wake of late nineteenth-century European imperialism, the identification with worldwide icons was hardly possible before the advent of the cheap cassette, satellite television, and trans-national franchising. It is mainly a phenomenon dating from the last decades of the twentieth century. This identification with world icons has tended to transform the traditional relationship between elite and popular cultures, with the latter usually being much more local. While there may be a global business class, the middle and upper middle classes may now tend to be more national or regional in their cultural identifications than sectors of the popular strata. In sum, these global identities (with the possible exception of the trans-national capitalist class), although representing an epochal cultural change, should be seen as additions to, rather than as replacements of other identities such as national, regional, local, religious, political, occupational, or of age, gender, and family position. Moreover, cleavages of us and them remain.2 Indeed, we may ask directly, do global religious cleavages play a major role in the contemporary world? Probably the best answer would be, not generally. But the Islamic 2 In the mid-nineties, Samuel Huntington presented a bold thesis about a new pattern of world identities: “Peoples and countries with similar cultures are coming together. Peoples with different cultures are coming apart” (1996: 125). “Cultures” or “civilizations” were rather arbitrarily defined, which undermined the reach of the argument from the beginning. And since Huntington explicitly admitted that political alignments will “of course not” always coincide with those of culture and civilization (1996: 128), his thesis is difficult to put to any meaningful test.


55

versus non-Islamic one clearly does. The reasons are complex, but a major one is undoubtedly geopolitical, the fact that the payment for the European genocide of European Jewry was thrust upon the Islamic world with the establishment of Israel in Palestine, instead of, say, in Bavaria. A second important reason, which also has little to do with deep civilizational structures, concerns the outcome of the Cold War during which the victors invested heavily in Islamic militancy, above all in Afghanistan – which on a larger scale became to the Muslim generation of the 1980s what Spain was to the European one of the 1930s – but also inside the Arab world. Do regions and regional identities count? Increasingly so. Geography still matters. There is a general tendency for contiguous, trans-national regions to become foci of internal interaction and identification. Africans have a post-colonial continental identity, which does not seem to be seriously cut by the Islamic versus non-Islamic divide, but which rather fades with the Arab and Berber culture on the northern rim. After its series of horrible civil wars, Europe became a significant referent of identity in the final quarter of the twentieth century. With the unification of Europe and the end of the Cold War, “Europe” has clearly gained at the expense of “the West”. Latin Americanism has been a cultural current for a long time. But in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century there was also an important elite identification with Europe (sometimes also with or including the United States), against the “barbaric” natives at home. Although there are still Latin Americans more at ease in Miami than in, say Caracas or La Paz, this is now a private class affinity rather than a direction of cultural and socio-political aspirations. Asia is huge, and the cradle of several ancient great civilizations. But ASEAN, originally a local Cold War appendix, is growing into a center of East Asian interaction, creating a sense of commonality, and connecting with its big and resourceful Northeast (China, Japan, Korea) and reaching out to its Northwest (India). That leaves us with the very important question for the future of what is happening to global class and ideological cleavages. Yes, a global capitalist class is emerging, but how far will global anti-capitalist forces develop with a common identity, and not just as a the coexistence of a series of specific interests? Hitherto, sufficient hard evidence is lacking to sustain a meaningful hypothesis.

56

Göran Therborn

Geocultures: The Experience of Family and Sexuality When I started my work in this field, there were two major alternatives available for understanding the enormous variety of family forms in the world. One, deriving from kinship anthropology, focused on basic structural characteristics of the family (for instance, the nuclear family, the stem family, the joint family) highlighting certain features of generational and of conjugal relations. The problem with this structural perspective is that it starts from a descriptive typology and, when stripped of no longer tenable evolutionist assumptions of the nuclear family as the destination of humankind, it does not include any framework for explanation or prediction. The other alternative was culturalist, some variety of a civilizational approach, with a focus on religions and quasi-religious moral philosophies (e.g., Confucianism). Since the moral canons of civilizations defined in this way were intensely preoccupied with norms of family and sexuality, with the sole exception of Buddhism, such an approach would have added arrows of explanation to the descriptive structures of kinship. However, the empirical record shows that basic cultural values have been crucially affected by time and space, by history and geography. A “Christian” family was very different in slave-holding and in settler America, among Catholics in Western and Eastern Europe, in Europe and in Africa. A “Muslim” family turned out to vary enormously, between location in West Africa, in West Asia, or in Southeast Asia. Hindu families of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Rajastan in northern India, were more similar to Muslim families of Pakistan and Bangladesh than to Hindu families of the south Indian states of Tamil Nadu or Karnataka. From these considerations, I found it useful to treat family systems as a set of historically evolved territorial geocultures, transcending modern political boundaries. They are the (Sub-Saharan) African, the European (including the New World settlements), the East Asian, the South Asian, the West Asian/North African, and the interstitial family systems of the Southeast Asian and the Creole American. Behind the divisions are findings that territorial geocultures have a tendency to prevail, in their bearing upon family features under study, over religious divisions without obliterating the latter. In terms of contemporary polygyny, for instance, African Christians or Muslims are similar to fellow Africans of other religions, and very different from Christians of Europe, or West Asian Muslims, respectively.


57

Geocultures have no fixed, no clear, boundaries and there is no reason to assume a priori that the geocultures of patriarchy, marriage, and informal sexuality, which my study identified, are the same for other kinds of human behavior. That can only be established by empirical investigation. But what the notion of geocultures contributes to cultural analysis is a sense of space and a sense of history. Through different historical experiences the same cultural system, for instance a religion, becomes anchored in very different terrains. Geocultures are pertinent to global studies to the extent of their trans-national, or better, their trans-polity character. Transposed onto the current arena of global politics, it seems that it would make much more sense to analyze it culturally in terms of geocultures than in those of civilizations. The World Value Surveys offer a case in point.

Hegemonies of Cognition and of Symbolic Forms Part of cultural hegemony is a domination of cognitive perspectives. Flows of information as cognitive raw materials usually run from political and cultural peripheries toward powerful centers of knowledge production and elaboration. It tends to be at the centers of wealth and power that overviews and comparisons are produced with the peripheries limited to local knowledge. This constitutes a cognitive power relation. More serious, however, is the production of hegemonic universalisms, social and cultural knowledge pretending to be universally valid and true, while in fact often being little more than elaborations of the provincialism of the powerful. A good deal of IMF economics seems to be of this kind. However, knowledge is formulated differently in diverse parts of the world, which complicates cultural diffusion and translation. Just within the modern North Atlantic context, a German sociologist has distinguished some characteristic national forms of “formulating knowledge”: the British “enquiry”, the American “paper”, the German “work”, and the French “essay” (Münch 1986). But we do have good evidence from experimental psychology that the very process of cognition itself is culturally different in the contemporary world, deriving from ancient civilizational roots. Most of this evidence, assembled by the American psychologist Richard Nisbet (2003), is based on experiments with stu-

58

Göran Therborn

dents of different regional background. East Asians tend to perceive the world more in contextual, relational, contradictory, and spatial terms than Euro-Americans, who focus more on actors’ dispositions, on objects and their categorization, on abstract rules, and on an excluding logic of either/or. In spite of these and related studies, an unraveling and a mapping of global knowledge patterns are just beginning. While there is much more to “knowledge” than (natural) science, science is the main component of a world system of cognition. The configuration of the production of scientific knowledge is a very important part of the contemporary cultural system at a time when a “knowledge-based economy” has become a major slogan of political economy, officially endorsed by the EU, for instance. From a forthcoming study by Peter Weingart (figure 11) we may borrow some indicative data on shares of international science citations 1996-2000: the United States and the European Union (fifteen states) then each accounted for 39 percent, East Asia for 8 percent, and Latin America and South Asia for about 1 percent each. The current EU15 fares surprisingly well by this measure in comparison with the United States. The tie with the United States tells us something about the broad scientific base of Western Europe, while East Asia – led by Japan with a 6 percent share – comes out as a poor third. Nevertheless, the overwhelming picture is of the high geographic concentration of the world science system. At the top level, the dominance of the United States is striking. Out of 371 Nobel Laureates in science and in economics for 1946-2000, 218 or 59 percent were based at institutions in the United States and 139 or 37 percent at Western European institutions. Four percent are then left to the rest of world, according to the Nobel e-Museum. A 2003 Chinese ranking of world universities – from the Institute for Higher Education at Jia Tong University in Shanghai, but soon withdrawn from the public domain – put four U.S. universities at the top, with Cambridge (England) in fifth place. Finally, news is still produced and diffused mainly by national and local media, but there is also an increasingly important component of trans-national production and distribution. The major global players are all Anglo-Saxon, the American CNN, the BBC, and Rupert Murdoch’s Star in Asia, Sky in Europe, and Fox in the United States. Regional networks of importance include the European Euronews and the two independent-minded Arab broadcasters – a thorn in the side of both the United States government, which repeatedly has tried to silence them,


59

and Arab autocracies – Al-Jazeera in Qatar and the very recent AlArabiyya in Dubai.

Symbolic Forms: High and Popular Culture In their manifestations in art, architecture, and etiquette, symbolic forms have roots in the pre-modern cultures of civilizations as well as in modern national and local cultures. But since the advent of modernism in the heyday of European imperialism in the decades around 1900, there has existed a world system of art and all kinds of aesthetic symbolic forms, with its centers, models, and hierarchies. This now includes the recent symbolic manifestations of mass culture: film and television programs, popular music, sports, and style consumption. High culture, in the form of spectacular architecture and top-quality institutions for the performing arts, has become a major instrument of global urban competition for prestige and tourist money. High culture is largely multipolar and is probably less centralized than during the first three quarters of the twentieth century. Paris has lost much of its previous centrality, although remaining an art center of the world; in literature, London is a more important center of publishing (Casanova 1999). New York, which in the 1940s succeeded Paris as the center of painting, seems no longer to be that outstanding, although clearly still a major pole of the art world. The mid-century Euro-American “International Style” of architecture has been followed by a more varied elite taste and Asian architects have reached a very high profile; indeed, the International Style always had an important competitor in Latin American Modernism. Film is a good illustrator of the multipolarity of high culture and the heavy concentration of mass culture. Art film of world acclaim has always been produced in a number of countries, from Sweden and Denmark to Japan, from India to Brazil. For more than a decade, the world elite has been applauding the rise of Chinese cinema, of Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and others. On the other hand, the world has only three net exporters of film, the United States, India, and China, and while Indian and Chinese export markets are concentrated in parts of Asia and Africa, films from the United States dominate globally. The world music industry is concentrated in a handful of corporations, but with different geographical origins, Western European EMI, Universal, and BMG, Japa-

60

Göran Therborn

nese Sony Music, and American Time-Warner. Their cartel power is being corroded, though, by internet buccaneering or unlicensed downloading. However, alongside global mass culture, there are also significant regional variants, with regional centers, like Britain in Europe, Egypt in West Asia, India, and Japan in East Asia – although Korea and Taiwan both tried to prohibit the entry of Japanese culture until recently – always accompanied by other trans-national stars of the region, for instance Korean into Vietnam or Taiwanese into Mainland China (Aoki 2002; Hsiao 2002; Thomas 2002). More generally, among the world’s one hundred most valued brands, sixty-two are American, including the first five – Coca Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE, and Intel – and eight of the top ten. Regionally speaking, sixty-three brands are North American (including ex-Cuban Bacardi in Bermuda, but no Canadian), twenty-nine are Western European, and eight are Northeast Asian. No other region of the world has managed to launch any world brand of comparable value.

Hegemony and Multipolarity The power structure of the world cultural system may be summed up in two words: hegemony and multi-polarity. Economic development or growth, market economies and mass consumption, seems to be the predominant human aspiration. That is an old modernist striving, which at least on a global scale does not seem to have been weakened by “postmaterialism” or “post-modernism”. On the contrary, it now stands out more clearly, as it is for the time being little bothered by rival projects. The success of this strategy in East Asia, the final failure of Communist economics – in Asia as well as in Europe – and the exhaustion of inwardoriented capitalism in South Asia and Latin America settled the issue, for the time being. True, there is a counter-hegemonic view of development floating around in the “Porto Alegre/Mumbai culture”. At the World Social Forum in Mumbai in January 2004, there was a slogan at the center-stage, “People do not want ‘development’. They just want to live”. This draws upon real experience, upon resistance – particularly but not exclusively in India over the past two decades – of local communities and national support movements against big development projects, like dam construction, threatening to uproot community life. The resistance has


61

sometimes been powerful and at least in part successful. But successful economic development is without doubt an ideological ace. Economic wealth and consumption style then naturally become central elements of the cultural hegemony of the United States. The hegemonic language of the world cultural system is English; after the Second World War and the surge of American power, it definitively superseded French as the main language of international diplomacy and information. However, it is important to take notice of the limitations of this hegemony. The cultural dominance of the United States is in no way comparable to its military might. There are two significant counter-hegemonic forces, neither of which is a rival hegemon in any foreseeable future, but rather constitute limiting factors. Militant Islamism is one, concerned with shari’a and the community of believers, instead of with economic development. Secular humanism is the other, espoused by protagonists of sustainable development over accumulation and consumerism, and by militants of peace and human rights. Both are important worldwide forces, although with heavy regional accents. However, neither has a really concrete project of political and economic institutions. As their appeal is to very different social milieux, they are hardly competitors. Moreover, their lack of institutionalization precludes tactical anti-hegemonic alliances. More constraints on and limitations of the hegemony of the United States come from what we may call “regional reservations”. These do not contest the hegemon frontally. Global dominance is accepted with varying combinations of respect and resignation. But a regional culture affirms itself in its own region. This holds for cultures of political economy as well as for mass cultures of entertainment. Within the European Union, for instance, it is a mainstream – if by no means unanimous – opinion that the European “social market economy” or welfare state capitalism is preferable to the American variant of capitalism. Similar views, with respect to Asian socio-economic arrangements, are very widespread and respectable in Asia, not the least in the most successful Northeast and Southeast Asian countries. The American, big publicity-money-driven form of democracy probably has more critics than admirers in the world. On the one hand, as we have seen, high culture is not completely under American dominance (even Stockholm has a special niche of importance as the home of the Nobel Prizes) and mass culture and entertainment and

62

Göran Therborn

alternative journalism have strong regional centers. In sport, practitioner as well as spectator, there is hardly any U.S. hegemony at all. What are the most popular sports varies widely among countries and regions. The United States dominates some, and are at best secondary in others. Football, or soccer, for example, has its centers in Europe and in Latin America, with a quite modest interest and participation in the United States; baseball, on the other hand, is a big American sport, which arouses limited interest outside the country. On the other hand, science is centered in the United States, although the last few decades have seen a remarkable rebounding of European social science and social thought. Something similar may very well happen rather soon in other regions, first perhaps in East and South Asia. Thus, the world cultural system differs from the economic and politico-military systems of the world. Like culture in comparison with wealth or might, the cultural system is more complex and multi-faceted. Easily more fascinating intellectually, culture should not be taken as a veil, hiding the stark features of the contemporary world, the power and privilege, the violence and the exploitation. Culture adds a third dimension to the flat field of political economy.

Cultural Dynamics A cultural system cannot be assumed to have an inherent tendential direction. Rather, its dynamic should be seen as contingent in direction and amenable to systematic empirical analysis. In this vein, it seems reasonable to distinguish, first of all, between constituting and constituted processes. The distinction is relative and is dependent on the topic of analysis, but it does refer to a fundamental discontinuity in processes of change, between parametric change of contextual conditions and intracontextual change. Constituting or moulding processes refer to the former; they are normally more infrequent than the latter and are part of “global history”, which is constitutive of contemporary world culture. To get a handle on “world history” in the model, we have to transform it into a small set of variables. “Civilization” has been defined in several different ways and has been used for many different purposes. In spite of its controversial context, it nevertheless seems to be the most convenient way for high-


63

lighting an important dimension of pre-modern history (cf. Arnason 2003). A “civilization” is here being used to denote a large, trans-ethnic pre-modern culture area with some enduring impact on contemporary culture. Because of the unique longevity of religions, civilizations tend to have a strong religious loading, but they also include canons of “classicism”, of classical art, literature, philosophy, and, at a more popular level, oral treasures of tradition and aspects of ancient habitus, often deriving from the ecological context of the culture. “Modernity” is another useful as well as often misused concept. Here, and elsewhere, I have found it most fruitful to stay very closely to the literal temporal meaning of the word. Modernity is then considered as a culture, an epoch, a society, a social sphere having a particular time orientation. That is, a time conception looking forward to a this-worldly future, open, novel, reachable or constructible, a conception seeing the present as a possible preparation for a future, and the past either as something to leave behind or pieces from which to build a future. Modernity in this sense does not designate per se a particular chronological period or any particular institutional forms, although here the concept is applied to world history of the last 500 years. What then emerges is another crucial distinction, that is, between different historical routes to and through modernity. The most economical as well as the most systematic way of identifying these roads, is to define them by the conflicts surrounding the rise of modernity. Everywhere, modernism and modernity meant a rupture with what had been and this rupture was naturally conflictual. But the forces for and against a modernist break differed fundamentally from one part of the world to another.

64

Göran Therborn

Pre/Anti-Modernity Internal Internal External & “Native”

Europe New Worlds of Settlement

Pro-Modernity External Imported &Learnt Reactive Modernisation

Forced Colonial Zone

Note: Countries of Reactive, or externally induced, Modernisation, e.g., Japan, China, Ottoman Empire/Turkey, Iran, Siam/Thailand.

Figure 2. Roads to/through Modernity by the Location of Forces and Cultures For and Against

The new future orientation first emerged in Europe, not as a natural emanation of European civilization, but out of conflicts internal to Europe, to North-western Europe primarily. In other words, the European route was one of civil war, which pitted the forces of reason, enlightenment, nation/people, innovation, and change against those of the eternal truths of the Church, of the sublime wisdom and beauty of ancient philosophy and art, of the divine rights of kings, of the ancient privileges of aristocracy, and of the customs of fathers and grandfathers. How much the final outcome of the struggles between the forces for and against modernity depended upon European colonial conquests and plunder overseas is still an undecided issue for scholars. But clearly, the rise of modernity in Europe did take place in a global context of colonial expansion and of wars of colonial rivalry. The vanguards of European modernity, the Netherlands and Britain, were rising as major colonial powers, and the French Revolution took place within the crucial context of the crisis of French state finances resulting from colonial wars with Britain. In the New Worlds of European settlement, anti-modernity was, in the rise of modern currents, perceived as mainly external: in the conservative metropolis, in Britain to North America, in Spain and Portugal to Latin America, and, increasingly, in the local Others of the settler societies, the natives, the slaves and ex-slaves. Independence took care of the external metropolis, but what to do with the local Others was to haunt the moderns of the New Worlds for a very long time. It still does. To the Colonial Zone, from north-western Africa to southeast Asia, modernity arrived literally out of the barrel of guns with conquest subduing the internal forces of tradition. Modernity was not carried further by


65

settlers, but by new generations of natives, of “évolués”, who turned what they had learnt from their conquerors against the latter. After independence the ex-Colonial Zone has carried a complex legacy of nationalism, a colonial elite culture – of language, habitus, and, for instance, exotic sports interests (like cricket in South Asia and the Anglo-Caribbean) – and colonial-turned-ex-colonial state-society bifurcation. The countries of Reactive Modernisation were challenged and threatened by colonial domination, and in the face of these threats a part of the internal elite started to import innovation from the outside. Meiji Japan is the most successful and straightforward example, but several pre-modern empires embarked upon it: late Qing and Republican China, rather unsuccessfully; Siam very cautiously; Iran and the Ottoman empire/Turkey hesitantly and belatedly, but finally with a strong push from above. Different modernities have had different Others and the great modern tasks – of emancipation, progress, or survival – did not look the same along the different roads to and through modernity. They were, nonetheless, all inter-connected. Investigating current world culture, it seems useful to add a third aspect of general historical moulding, after civilizations and routes to/ through modernity. That is the experience of twentieth-century history, which may, of course, be seen as a temporal subset of the roads through modernity. Here we have the two World Wars and their outcomes, the global Cold War, the wave of de-colonization, and the crucial periods of the world economy, the Depression, the post-1945 boom, the late-century crisis. Now I shall turn to the second element, intra-contextual change, affecting the cultural system; it is that of global flows, including those of trade, capital, and people. Of particular interest is the flow of information; however, the flow of information has is own modality and has become increasingly decoupled from the other flows with the availability of electronic means of communication. A technical revolution at the end of the twentieth century produced a quantum leap in global flows of information. The internet, cellular telephones, satellite broadcasting and telephony have brought about an enormous growth and extension of what are in essence cultural flows. All flows have a direction. While not doing away with the traditional cultural flow from centers to peripheries, the electronic revolution has made a considerable flow from the peripheries to the centers possible.

66

Göran Therborn

Immigrant populations in Western Europe and North America now have access to television from their countries of origin. Turkish and Arabic newspapers are widely available in Europe, some of them printed in Europe. The internet is a two-way means of communication. Although the electronic media provide for direct flows, they are subject to remote control, like the ownership of broadcasting stations, or by limited access to computers. Thus, cultural flows are to a great extent not direct but gated communication, controlled by agents of selection and translation, and by agents of reception. Here national cultures and national powers are very much at work, constituting inter-national rather than trans-national flows. Cultural institutional entanglements of global and sub-global have become much more important than ever before. As in the case of flows, political and economic entanglements, for instance of states and the IMF or the World Bank, have cultural significance. But we may also single out specific cultural entanglements. Four major forms of recent prominence may be discerned, although it should be remembered that global flows and entanglements are not assumed to have supplanted national (or local) cultural institutions and processes, but to coexist with the latter. One form might be summed up as trans-national networking and imbrication of influential national and trans-national ideological actors. Three current examples of entangled cultural politics are global feminism, enormously stimulated by the United Nations Conferences and the ensuing international support; Neoliberalism as organized by worldwide alumni of U.S. departments of economics and by current and former employees of the IMF and the World Bank; and indigenism as a world movement of local cultural leaders interconnected by global support structures and electronic media. Second, the recent migratory flows of people – still smaller than they were a century ago – have brought about a new ethnic cultural complexity by juxtaposing and inter-relating communities, and not only individuals and families of different backgrounds. In previously nationally standardized Western Europe, this is something new. But a culturally much wider range of migrants than before is also adding a high-profile diversity to the modern countries of immigration, North America and Australia. Third, diaspora-home nation relations are acquiring more importance due to easier, cheaper, and more direct communications.


67

Fourth, global cultural entanglements are manifested in a hybridization of symbolic forms, most audible in music. A hundred years ago, to the extent that it occurred at all, hybridization was a prerogative of the avant-garde of high art, such as Picasso’s use of African masks. These illustrations of the analytical framework proposed may provide indications enough for discussions and evaluations of its promise. It can be summed up in a figure of variables and their inter-relations.

Figure 3. Global Cultural Processes

The point, then, is that through analyses of its processes, culture in a broad, multi-dimensional sense may be conceived as a world system and the extent of systemness of the world’s culture may be investigated and assessed.

Works Cited Aoki, T. 2002. “Aspects of Globalization in Contemporary Japan.” In Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World. Edited by P. Berger and S. Huntington. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 68-88.

68

Göran Therborn

Arnason, J. 2003. Civilizations in Dispute. Leiden: Brill. Barber, B. 1995. Jihad vs. McWorld. New York: Times Books. Berger, P. and S. Huntington, eds.. 2002. Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berger, P. 2002. “Introduction.” In Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World. Edited by P. Berger and S. Huntington. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1-16. Casanova, P. 1999. La République mondiale de lettres. Paris: Seuil. Hsiao, Hsin-Huang Michael. 2002. “Cultural Globalization and Localization in Contemporary Taiwan.” In Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World. Edited by P. Berger and S. Huntington. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 48-67. Huntington, S. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations. New York: Basic Books. Jameson, F. and M. Miyoshi, eds. The Cultures of Globalization. Durham N.C.: Duke University Press. Meyer, J., J. Boli, G. M. Thomas, and F. Ramirez . 1997. “World Society and the Nation-State.” American Journal of Sociology 103, 1: 144-81. Moretti, F. 1998. Atlas of the European Novel 1800-1900. London: Verso. Münch, Richard 1986. Die Kultur der Moderne 2 vols. Franbkfurt: Suhrkamp Nisbett, Richard E. 2003. The Geography of Thought. London: Nicholas Brealey Sklair, L. 2001. The Transnational Capitalist Class. Oxford: Blackwell. Therborn, G. 1992. “The Right to Vote and the Four World Routes to/through Modernity.” In State Theory and State History. Edited by R. Torstendahl. London: Sage, 62-92. —. 2003. “Dimensions and Processes of Global Inequalities.” In The Moral Fabric in Contemporary Societies. Edited by G. Skapska and A.M. Bukowska. Leiden: Brill, 119-42. —. 2004. Between Sex and Power: Family in the World 1900-2000. London: Routledge. Thomas, M. 2002. “Re-Orientations: East Asian Popular Cultures in Contemporary Vietnam.” Asian Studies Review 26, 2: 233-260. Wallerstein, I. 1975-. The Modern World-System, 3 vols. New York: Academic Press. —. 1991. Geopolitics and Geoculture: Essays on the Changing World-System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weingart, P. forthcoming. “Knowledge and Inequality.” In Inequalities of the World. Edited by G. Therborn. London: Verso.

A Note on Method with an Example –The “War on Terror”

Contemporary Research in World-Systems Analysis

69

70

Richard E. Lee


71

A Note on Method with an Example – The “War on Terror” Richard E. Lee

Abstract Much has been made of the centrality of comparison to sociological research. The world-systems perspective, however, posits a single unit of analysis that challenges the possibility of designating the independent cases demanded by the formal logic of comparative analysis. The present work suggests an alternative to comparisons of multiple cases in the form of analogies among instances of processes. The consequences of such a methodological shift are explored through the example of the contemporary “War on Terror”.

One still often hears the claim that all sociology is comparative; indeed, just as Durkheim asserted: “comparative sociology is not a special branch of sociology; it is sociology itself ” (1982[1895]: 157). We might also observe that it is now well-accepted that meaning itself is constructed through difference. Furthermore, with the increasing importance given to the study of larger and larger units over the past half century (associated with establishing generalizability and thus the predictability of interventions), more and more social research has consciously and purposefully identified itself as “comparative”. Whether one works with a large number of cases in a quantitative setting in order to establish explanations, laws or quasi-laws of cause and effect serving as a basis on which to envisage the probable consequences of some projected action, or few cases and “ideal types” qualitatively to account for historical divergences, the aim is a “balance between competing claims of complexity and generality” (Ragin and Zaret 1983: 731). The common, everyday reality, however, is still an on-going tension between the nomothetic stance of the present-oriented disciplines of sociology, political science, and economics and the idiographic propensity of history, anthropology, and oriental studies (this last largely superceded by area studies). Indeed, the more recent criticisms of large-scale work in the nomothetic social sciences have revolved around the absence

72

Richard E. Lee

of the historical dimension. In many respects, this represents the recognition, or the return of a recognition, of agency and complexity as coconstitutive of human reality along with the structures that constrain certain possibilities for action and promote others. The mirror image is the criticism of the idiographic social sciences as providing only nongeneralizable, particularist descriptions that offer no guide to social action. The rise of “comparative-historical sociology” is one manifestation of these critiques. Over the two decades after 1945, an ensemble of new approaches to scientific inquiry (that had actually begun to emerge in the 1930s) was elaborated in opposition, especially, to the reigning positivism and reductionism. In one way or another these new approaches were conceived as appropriate to the study of systems that Warren Weaver (1948) noted exhibited organized complexity, the middle ground between simplicity (the problems of classical physics with few variables, the realm of necessity) and disorganized complexity (problems with many variables amenable to statistical description). These systems had proven particularly resistant to the application of the analytic method, that is, to the development of mathematical models or equations expressing general laws in which all contributing causal factors appeared as variables. The issues involved were addressed by, among others, the elaboration of General System Theory (GST). The domain of GST1 may be specified as those general aspects, correspondences and isomorphisms or rigorous analogies that are common to systems in general. GST cut across disciplinary, cultural, and ideological lines. It tended to negate the nomothetic-idiographic or quantitativequalitative divide and, as Ludwig von Bertalanffy wrote, was “apt to bridge the opposition of C.P. Snow’s ‚Two Cultures‘” (1968: xxiii). In the living world, and the more so in the human world, there were no apparent analogues of the laws of motion. And since positivist and reductionist approaches were as pervasive in the social sciences as in the natural sciences,2 GST seemed to offer new possibilities for describing and un1

In 1954, Ludwig von Bertalanffy formed the Society for General Systems Research with Kenneth Boulding (an economist), Ralph Gerard (a physiologist), and Anatol Rapoport (a mathematical biologist). See Bertalanffy (1968) and George Klir’s fine overview of the field (1991a) and his broad collection of the representative literature (1991b). 2 Although the opposition to reductionism, the idea that “properties of the whole are


73

derstanding the irreducible experience of the phenomenal world of social relations. This scientific reorientation called for inquiry into questions of organization and configurational wholes, those “wholes” that had been eschewed as metaphysical by the logical positivists, over the analytic, mechanistic and summative causality of classical science and its primary units of discrete elements or events. At the macro level, von Bertalanffy wrote that history “is borne by entities or great systems, called high cultures or civilizations … each presenting a sort of life cycle” (1968: 200). This of course would included the world of contemporary social relations. He also noted the level of technological development and the planetary extent of “our civilization … which explode the cyclic scheme of history and seem to place our civilization at a different level from previous ones” (1968: 204). One could conclude, then, that “our civilization” would not be amenable to explanation via comparative analysis, but rather would have to be treated as a single and unique system or unit of analysis. The consequences of this perspective in terms of structural form and mode of reproduction prefigure in many ways the world-systems perspective. [O]rganization of biological wholes [and on analogy in the best tradition of GST, social wholes, REL] is built up by differentiation of an original whole which segregates into parts. … Such transition towards higher order presupposes a supply of energy, and energy is delivered continuously into the system only if the latter is an open system. … [P]arts become fixed with regard to a certain action. Therefore, progressive segregation also means progressive mechanization. … Progressive segregation is often connected with progressive centralization, the expression of which is the time-dependent evolution of a leading part (1968: 69-72).

At the macro level of production and distribution and decision-making and coercion, however, the specification of the appropriate unit(s) reexplicable in terms of properties of the constituent elements”, was “one of the main roots from which systems movement sprang” [sic] … now the two doctrines are viewed, by and large, as complementary” and “current systems thinking goes far beyond thinking molded from either reductionism or holism” (Klir 1991a: 24, 30-31). The political context and ramifications of the opposition to the reductionism of (Western) quantitative social science and that inherent in the Marxist base-superstructure model from the 1950s is examined in Lee (2003).

74

Richard E. Lee

mained problematic. In the English-speaking world during the quarter century following 1945, a particular style of inquiry, theorized as structural-functionalism and operationalized through quantitative techniques and survey data, defined the parameters of authoritative social research, especially in the nomothetic social sciences, sociology, political science, and economics. From the beginning the focus was on “systems analysis“, but the methodology was inherently comparative, and most often reductively quantitative. This always implied multiple units of analysis and it was nowhere more apparent than in the macro arena, where attempts were being made to explain differential development on a world scale based on modernization theory. Modernization theory joined policy planners (with their eyes on the East-West struggle) with social scientists (absorbed with explaining inequality). With explicit reference to GST, social structures and institutions were conceptualized as performing functions in systems where a “society” was a self-sufficient social system. Nonetheless, “societies” were ultimately associated with the state; time was transmuted into a function of autonomous society/state units simultaneously positioned at different points on a single reputed temporal hierarchy of development (horizontal history); and intentional action modifying social structures was postulated as a primary mechanism of change and “progress.” There was a clear bias against, nay explicit rejection of, the move so suggestive in von Bertalanffy. World-systems analysis brought together an intellectual critique of modernization theory, and the way it concealed rather than revealed the working of the world, with the real-world politics of the antisystemic activities of the movements of the 1960s. Modernization theory failed, empirically, on its own terms: fulfilling the political imperative of institutionalizing liberalism and representative democracy, the cultural imperative of implanting meritocracy and entrepreneurialism, and the economic imperative of scratching together enough capital for economic “take-off“, simply did not produce the results anticipated. The seeds of failure were in the methods of analysis; the units were not autonomous and comparable, but all formed historically and relationally in the drive for endless accumulation of capital within a single system. As von Bertalanffy had suggested, for the world-systems perspective the relevant unit of analysis of long-term, large-scale social change is the


75

“historical system“. However, it was argued that historical systems were not amorphous, ill-defined “civilizations“, but constituted a typology of large-scale, long-lasting structures with clear bounding criteria that included world-empires, world-economies, and mini-systems. The modern world-system or capitalist world-economy is such a historical system. Systemic; it possesses continuities in its relational patterns – in other words, its structures remained qualitatively recognizable over the long term. Historical; it has exhibited irreversible change over the long term – in other words, it came into existence at a specific time and place, underwent a spatio-temporal development that rendered it at all times and places different, and ostensibly will eventually cease to exist. Alone among historical social systems, it expanded to cover the entire globe and incorporated all other previously autonomous systems. It was, then, an “open system“. Its expansion to incorporate new pools of low cost labor represented an intake of “energy” in the form of labor-power. The system could thus overcome the entropy of its accumulation processes, capital corresponding to congealed labor. The salient characteristic of this formalization was that the elements of the modern world-system, including the categories through which social scientists, and activists, sought to understand it, were not pre-existing, timeless entities, but historically constituted by the evolution of the system’s relational structure. Over the past quarter century, this conceptualization has provided fruitful ground for a great deal of work developing theoretical strategies and methodological practices that avoid reification and reductionism. When we consider the practical issues of actual research, promulgating and putting into practice methodological practices appropriate to the world-systems framework, it becomes clear that not only our view of the world must undergo a gestalt shift, the ways in which we arrive at our understanding of that world must as well experience a fundamental transformation. It is from this particular perspective that I want to discuss the violent and disconcerting reality of the contemporary world as an example of how the choice of methodological approach constrains our understanding of real-world phenomena. On the morning of Tuesday, 11 September 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City and United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the south tower; American Airlines Flight 77 smashed into the west side of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.; and United Airlines Flight 93 came down in

76

Richard E. Lee

Somerset County, Pennsylvania as passengers thwarted hijackers in anther presumed attack. For the first time in history, the Federal Aviation Agency halted all commercial aviation traffic in the United States. The White House was evacuated. New York City bridges and tunnels were closed and trading on the New York City Stock Exchange was suspended. The two World Trade Center Towers and Building 7, along with parts of the Pentagon, collapsed and fires at the World Trade Center continued to burn for a hundred days; the eventual death toll approached three thousand. On the evening of what will come to be known as 9/11, President George W. Bush promised that no distinction would be made between the perpetrators and the governments that harbored them. The next day, he declared the attacks an “act of war“. By the end of the week he had received congressional authorization to use military force and the Senate had granted forty billion dollars in emergency spending. As Bush authorized calling up thirty-five thousand reservists, Continental Airlines laid off twelve thousand employees; U.S. Airways announced eleven thousand lay-offs; and Boeing prepared to lay off thirty thousand. On Friday, 14 September, Secretary of State Colin Powell identified Usama bin Laden as the prime suspect in the attacks. First of all, let us listen to George W. Bush. In his major address before a Joint Session of Congress on 20 September, Bush made clear the official interpretation of the events: “we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom“; “enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country“; “in a single day … night fell on a different world – a world where freedom itself is under attack” (Bush 2001: 2, 5). This was “civilization’s fight … the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom“; “the whole civilized world is rallying to America’s side” (16). He placed the blame squarely on “a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda … [whose] goal is remaking the world” and its leader, Usama bin Laden, along with the Taliban regime of Afghanistan that “by aiding and abetting murder … is committing murder” (5, 6, 8). But now what of this bin Laden? Usama bin Laden, born in 1957 the seventeenth of fifty-one children, grew up as a strict Muslim in Saudi Arabia; was trained as an engineer; and fought, provided recruits, and supplied infrastructure for the mujahedeen in their resistance to the Soviets in Afghanistan. The “al-Qaidea” network grew out of a desire to


77

document the people who had passed through his “guesthouse” and camps in Afghanistan. In 1996, in a major policy statement, he made clear the motivations and the intentions of the “blessed awakening which is sweeping the world in general and the Islamic world in particular“: “the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the enemies.” He decried the massacre of Muslims around the world as the world watch and hear, and not only didn’t respond to these atrocities, but also with a clear conspiracy between the USA and its allies and under the cover of the iniquitous United Nations, the dispossessed people were even prevented from obtaining arms to defend themselves. … The latest and greatest of these aggressions, incurred by the Muslims since the death of the Prophet … is the occupation of the land of the two Holy Places … by the armies of the American Crusaders and their allies (bin Laden in Alexander and Swenam 2001: Appendix 1A: 1-2).

On the one hand, bin Laden indicts the “corrupt” regime of Saudi Arabia for the “deterioration of the economy, inflation, ever increasing debt and jails full of prisoners,” and collusion with the United States (Appendix 1A: 3). On the other hand, the “crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims” (Appendix 1B: 2). Although he declares economic boycotts an effective weapon (to be used particularly by women!), “due to the imbalance of power between our armed forces and the enemy forces, a suitable means of fighting must be adopted i.e. using fast moving light forces that work under complete secrecy. In other word to initiate a guerrilla warfare, were the sons of the nation, and not the military forces, take part in it” [sic] (Appendix 1A: 12, 11). Indeed, bin Laden, in addressing the U.S. Secretary of Defense directly, stated that the “sons of the land of the two Holy Places had come out to fight against the Russian in Afghanistan, the Serb in Bosnia Herzegovina and today they are fighting in Chechnya and by the Permission of Allah they have been made victorious over your partner, the Russians” (Appendix 1A: 1314). Here are two competing, mutually exclusive visions of the world. They do, however, seem to agree significantly on two things: the nature of the struggle and the final outcome. For Bush, “the war on terror begins with

78

Richard E. Lee

al Qaeda, but it does not end there” and “Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen” (Bush 2001: 10, 13). He ended his address on the twentieth of September by stating that the “course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain” (23). In a final prayer, bin Laden exhorts “Our Lord, make the youths of Islam steadfast and descend patience on them and guide their shots” (in Alexander and Swenan 2001: Appendix 1A: 22). Both see this as a long war and as an episodic war. Furthermore, they both predict ultimate victory for their respective forces. Victory means different things, however. For Bush, victory comes in terms of the reproduction of the world substantially unaltered; for bin Laden, victory is clearly couched in terms of the transformation of the world as we know it into an Islamic utopia. But how do we, whose profession it is to make sense of the world, much less we as citizens of the world, go about arriving at some understanding of what, on the face of it, seems an impossibly complex situation already cast in terms of diametrically opposed, mutually exclusive world views? The most common response is to look for parallels, to find “cases” that can be assimilated to a general classification and treated comparatively. This is, indeed, what we find in the post-9/11 literature. For many, the events of 9/11 were most obviously reminiscent of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941 – the “day that will live in infamy“. A complete surprise, it was considered an unprovoked, “sneak“, attack on US soil (although tensions between the United States and Japan had been mounting for some time) and determined the entry of the United States on the side of the Allied powers in the Second World War. A second parallel has been suggested in the War of 1812. This was the American front in the wars of Napoleon I. Although what actually caused the outbreak of war were clashes with the British on the western frontier, impressments of sailors and the seizure of U.S. shipping were already causes for strong resentment. A third parallel that has been suggested are the Tripolitan and Algerene Wars. In 1800 the Pasha of Tripoli raised the tribute on Christian Nations and thus on U.S. shipping in the Mediterranean and went so far as to declare war. President Jefferson sent a squadron of warships to North Africa and after a long blockade a peace treaty was signed abolishing the annual tribute for the United States. The United States ended all tribute


79

to North African states in 1815 and broke the back of Barbary piracy in in that year. Now as cases for comparison with the present situation, each of these prior phenomena presents similarities, and the consequences of designating such parallels are readily apparent. More precisely, the conclusion that can be drawn from each comparison offers a clear prognostic for the future, both in terms of actions and outcomes. In the case of Pearl Harbor, the United States came out of the war the major victor and in a position of such power that no other coalition of states could challenge her militarily, commercially, or financially. The message is clear: staying the course and bringing overwhelming force to bear, without regard for the cost, will lead to a (new) golden age of Pax Americana and national affluence. Ideologically, this return of the United States to its position of hegemony in the world-system in the immediate post-1945 world not only remains attractive to the political right in the United States, but is, in fact, the stated goal of the Bush administration. Simply asserting the parallel gives the objective a veneer of legitimacy and the actual comparison underwrites the action to be taken and the projected outcome. In the case of the War of 1812, what was at stake was the existence of the United States as a sovereign state and this has been one of the themes of the war on terror. Indeed, the ultimate victory of the United States in the War of 1812 determined a period of nationalistic fervor mixed with isolationism, something that we are already seeing today, where isolationism does not mean pulling back behind national borders, but rather the “go it alone” strategy seeking the maximum of control, including coercive control, over foreign relations. In the case of the wars against the Barbary pirates, it should be remembered that besides the religious or civilizational element, there is a specific mention of such actions in the Constitution and although the United States at this moment does not assert that there exists a state of war, “the legal state of affairs most closely resembles one we experienced at the founding of the Republic“. At the time, pirates and privateers were deemed such a menace that the Constitution gave Congress the “the much narrower power [than declaring war] to ‚define and punish Piracies, Felonies committed on the High Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations‘” (Koh 2001: 158-59). Here the question was whether the United States could project force in a way that would secure the safety of

80

Richard E. Lee

American commerce and its citizens. This is a primary concern of many today, from intellectuals and policy analysts to the protagonists of social movements at the global level. The result of meeting the challenge two hundred years ago suggests the rightness of that decision, and thus of the decision to “meet the challenge” in our own time. As simple comparisons, each of these parallels is defensible and presents a certain face validity; however, comparative sociology demands multiple and autonomous cases, which nonetheless belong to a single category of phenomena that may be characterized by the same set of variables. But how do we proceed when our unit of analysis is singular – a single case? Comparisons may not be the most appropriate mode of inquiry for answering questions about the modern world-system.3 Systems analysis suggests that analogies, or rather the kind of rigorous analogies that systems scientists call homologies (for our purposes, the investigation of the articulation of diverse instances to the same processes reproducing the long-term structures of the system) may offer the answer. I would, then, like to see how the outcome of our inquiry might be altered by the shift from comparing these cases to treating them as analogies. In doing this, we recognize at the level of method a conception of the processes reproducing the modern world as playing out through social time: the uniqueness and singularity of the structures, the fluctuations that account for the long-term dynamic equilibrium of those structures, the trends that manifest the changes in the continuously recognizable system, and finally, the events, Fernand Braudel’s “poussière“. From this perspective, Pearl Harbor may be seen as a single event, which took place, however, in the context of a hegemonic war. Thus, the analogy must be with the Thirty-Years War of the seventeenth century that ended with the Hegemony of the Dutch and with the Napoleonic Wars that ended with the hegemony of the British. The thirty-years long war of the twentieth century, of course, ended with the hegemony of the United States. That period of hegemony is over. Thus, this analogy is one that suggests that the struggle is for world leadership, a world leadership that the Americans, unlike the Dutch, are unwilling to give up. There is much to suggest that no matter what the expenditure of treasure and lives, it will be to no avail and that the harder the United States fights for a return to the state of the world in the quarter century following the end of the war in 1945, the worse will be the future, both for the United States in the long term and for the world, at least in the short and


81

medium term (see Hopkins and Wallerstein 1996; Wallerstein 2003). The question, of course, is who or what is the challenger for world leadership. This question is the key to understanding the analogy with the War of 1812. By prevailing in this conflict, the United States established its sovereignty within the Interstate System. That organization of mutually recognized (but always partial and fluctuating) territorial autonomy, which structurally, only demands that there be at minimum two state-like entities to avoid the imposition of a world-empire. It assures the reproduction of the world division of labor based on the law of value resulting in exploitation and the polarization of inequalities by regulating flows of capital, goods, and labor across borders and restricting resistance activities to the state rather than the system level. Today that sovereignty is being challenged anew, but not by another state or states as it was two centuries ago, but rather by non-state entities that express a completely different conception of the organization of the legitimate use of force on a world scale; this is a challenge to that very system. The Barbary pirates episode in American history, illustrates what Frederic Lane called “protection rents” (1979: 13) and the way that political and economic processes interact. The two wars were fought for “free trade” and certainly are analogous to the struggles today over the appropriation and accumulation of surplus that the present thirty-year economic contraction has made apparent. All the same, the free trade of two hundred years ago is not the neo-liberalism of today. So far my examples have been one-sided; each of the cases that I have cited is based on comparisons among short-term events with outcomes manifested in the medium-term. This generally includes those who see the present period as paralleling anti-colonial or anti-imperial struggles, with the world experiencing the impact of the “weapons of the weak”. However, in world-systemic terms these are but resistances to the deepening of the structures of domination and exploitation that the expansion of the world-system had extended to the entire globe by the end of the nineteenth century. Those who would sustain that the present period is in some way special in this respect should consider that the expansion of the world-system (and resistance to it) has been one of the processes that not only has defined it but assured its reproduction over the long term by resolving its medium-term crises. Nonetheless, the conditions of neo-imperialism and globalization suggest another long-term element.

82

Richard E. Lee

Usama bin Laden (like his adversaries) might well remember that toward the end of the nineteenth century this expansion began to reach its asymptotic limit with no part of the globe left un-incorporated in the axial division of labor. Indeed, for bin Laden whose inspiration is to be found in Wahhabism – “a return to the way of ‚virtuous ancestors,‘ a highly regressive, monolithic interpretation of Islam known as Salafiyya, a doctrinal propensity that for centuries encouraged strict adherence to puritanical principles” (Amanat 2001: 36) – the ideal parallel is a return to the Caliphate and the golden age of Islam on the world stage, prior to the full incorporation of the Islamic world. But what if we were to ask the same questions that Bush and bin Laden are asking about the present situation, but answer them with an analogy that belongs explicitly to the long-term, structural time of the modern world-system? There are good reasons to believe that, with no room for expansion, the internal contradictions of the processes of the modern world-system may no longer allow for the reproduction of the system as a whole (see Hopkins and Wallerstein 1996). The analogy, then, that I would propose for the present would be the long and episodic Hundred Years’ War, the conflict out of which were born the structures of decision making and coercion, production and distribution, and cognition and intentionality that heretofore have been constitutive of our historical system. When Edward III of England made claims on lands on the mainland of Europe and assumed the title of “King of France” in the second quarter of the fourteenth century he did so asserting his feudal rights. At the time England and France were not what we would call “states” today, but realms or royaumes. A century later, the English had achieved little (the government was bankrupt, the Lancastrian dynasty discredited, and civil war was on the horizon). For France, the outcome was very different. They were the big winners, but the system for which they fought, feudalism based on parcelized sovereignty and reciprocal rights and obligations, was moribund. The cost of winning was the death of the object. The emergence of a new geo-political form laid the groundwork for the Interstate System organized as a relational system (with England and France as its founding parts) that would be formalized by Jean Bodin and institutionalized in the Treaty of Westphalia. So George W. Bush may be right in the sense that he will “win“, but winning viewed from a long-term perspective could lead to the transfor-


83

mation of the system that he believes he is trying to protect – much the way France “won” the Hundred Years’ War. So, he is probably dead wrong, however, in thinking that he can reestablish U.S. hegemony in the world-system. Usama bin Laden may also be right, but in the sense that even though his struggle certainly will not succeed – indeed, as Gilles Kepel (2003) has argued, militant, fundamentalist Islamism is actually in decline – it may very well lead to, or at least be part of, the transformation of the world as we know it, although probably not in the direction he would desire. The events of 9/11, then, are like the Khobar Towers bombing of 1996, the Kenya and Tanzania embassies bombings in 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and the aftermath links it to the events such as the bombings, hijackings, and hostage crises of the 1970s and 1980s and reprisals such as the attack on Muammar el-Qaddafi’s compound in 1986. Indeed, Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq – and 9/11 – are specs of Braudelian dust, but they are analogous to the Battle of Crecy and the Jacquerie. Together, they are suggestive of the way analogies among instances of processes may tell a very different story from comparisons of cases.

Works Cited Amanat, Abbas. 2001. “Empowered through Violence: The Reinventing of Islamic Extremism.” In The Age of Terror: America and the World after September 11. Edited by Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chanda. New York: Basic Books, 23-52. Alexander, Yonah and Michael S. Swenam. 2001. Usama bin Laden’s al-Qaida: Profile of a Terrorist Network. Ardsley NY: Transnational Publishers. Bertalanffy, Ludwig von. 1968. General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications. Revised Edition. New York: George Braziller. Bush, George W. 2001. Our Mission and Our Moment: President George W. Bush’s Address to the Nation Before a Joint Session of Congress September 20, 2001. New York: Newmarket Press. Chase-Dunn, Christopher and Thomas D. Hall. 1997. Rise and Demise: Comparing World-Systems. Boulder, CO: Westview. Durkheim, Emile. 1982[1895]. The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method. New York: Free Press. Hopkins, Terence K. and Immanuel Wallerstein, cords. 1996. The Age of Transition: Trajectory of the World-System, 1945-2025. London: Zed. Kepel, Gilles. 2003. Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. Cambridge: Belknap.

84

Richard E. Lee

Klir, George J. 1991a. “Systems Science: A Guided Tour.” In Facets of Systems Science. Edited by George J. Klir. New York: Plenum Press, 1-205. – , ed. 1991b. Facets of Systems Science. New York: Plenum Press. Koh, Harold Hongju. 2001. “Preserving American Values: The Challenge at Home and Abroad.” In The Age of Terror: America and the World after September 11. Edited by Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chanda. New York: Basic Books, 143-69. Lane, Frederic C. 1979. Profits from Power: Readings in Protection Rent and Violence-Controlling Enterprises. Albany: State University of New York Press. Lee, Richard E. 2003. Life and Times of Cultural Studies: The Politics and Transformation of the Structures of Knowledge. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. McMichael, Philip. 1990. “Incorporating Comparison within a World-Historical Perspective: An Alternative Comparative Method.” American Sociological Review 55, 3: 385-97. Ragin, Charles and David Zaret. 1983. “Theory and Method in Comparative Research: Two Strategies.” Social Forces 61, 3: 731-54. Tomich, Dale. 1994. “Small Islands and Huge Comparisons: Caribbean Plantations, Historical Unevenness, and Capitalist Modernity.” Social Science History 18, 3: 339-58. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2003. The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World. New York: New Press.

Path-Dependency, Stocks, Switching-Points, Flows

85

Path-Dependency, Stocks, Switching-Points, Flows: Reflections on Long-term Global Change and Local Opportunities Denis O’Hearn

Abstract This paper examines the possibilities for peripheral localities to achieve upward mobility in the world-system by “hooking on” to larger processes of world-system accumulation. In particular, is it possible for economies that are dependent on foreign investment to receive a flow of investments that is high enough to overcome the negative impacts of a high stock of foreign investment, thus enabling them to cross a threshold and achieve upward mobility in the world-system? An analysis of the recent experience of the southern Irish “Celtic Tiger” economy during 1990-2000 indicates that such an upward movement is possible on the basis of massive foreign investment inflows. On closer examination, however, the Irish-type model appears to be highly deficient, because a high proportion of growth is illusionary and also on grounds of social desirability and lack of generalizability.

In this paper I combine two important debates in the development literature to explore the relationship between systemic and local economic change. Specifically, I examine the possibilities for peripheral localities to achieve upward mobility in the world-system. One debate concerns the nature of long-term historical change and, particularly, the impact of hegemonic-centered accumulation cycles on local developmental possibilities. The other is about the impact of foreign investments, flows and stocks, on local development. The two are obviously related. Direct investments are a key mechanism by which hegemons and hegemonic contenders attempt to transform local economies to support their global strategies. But are there conditions whereby localities can exploit investment flows to achieve developmental goals or, more specifically, to attain upward mobility within the world system. And, if it is possible for a small region/country to “hook on” to larger processes of accumulation in this way, are the results desirable or generalizable?

86

Denis O’ Hearn

I will analyze these questions using the recent example of southern Ireland. This is an important topic for development theory but also in practice. Orthodox experts have used the recent Irish example to convince countries like Poland that accession to the EU will inevitably lead to economic convergence with the European core. Beyond Europe, they have used the Irish example to revive the modernizationist promise of development by invitation.

Systemic Processes and Local Possibilities The broad world-systems approach has done pretty well at generating models to explain long-term patterns of development and peripheralization. In particular, there are compelling accounts of the logic of recurrent cycles of accumulation with respect to trade in commodities (Wallerstein 1984), strategies for controlling the extraction and movement of raw materials (Bunker and Ciccantell forthcoming), and high finance and the application of key technologies (Arrighi 1994; Frank 1998). Not only does the establishment of advantages in these areas by hegemonic contenders shape the developmental processes within the cycle. In addition, the way in which advantages are established – what raw materials are used and from where, which technologies are employed, and which regions are incorporated and reincorporated into specific roles within global commodity chains – can determine the (under)developmental trajectories of peripheral and semi-peripheral regions. Long-term historical analysis indicates that this relationship between development and underdevelopment happens in patterned although not fully determinate ways. Big external forces limit and imperfectly determine courses of change in localities. The structuration and reproduction of a global hierarchy involves alliance, co-optation and compromise with, and the exercise of power over local states, classes and other groups. It involves imperfect plans and actions, including failures, which explain observed variance from the central tendencies of global hierarchy and exploitation of peripheries by core institutions. Each local social or economic structure has its own peculiar characteristics. This is not a world of perfect imperialist control but one where some imperialists are effective enough to dominate regions, exploit people, and compete with other


87

imperialists. Local forces resist and collaborate, creating many of the contingencies that plague attempts to elaborate general theories of economic change. Histories create path dependencies, place barriers, provide favorable conjunctures and opportunities, and sow seeds of destruction in powerful industrial regions and poor agrarian regions. Remarkable people in remarkable institutions strive to transcend the limitations of history. Sometimes they exploit what history provides in remarkable ways; other times (perhaps most times) they fail. Thus, local specificity and historical contingency matter and strikingly different processes occur in different regions and at different times despite the designs of core industrial powers or the hypothesized regularities of the global system. This contingency has been the subject of some debate within the literature. McMichael (1990) approaches the matter of contingency in his critique of encompassing comparisons of historical development. He criticizes world-systems approaches that utilize functionalist analyses of processes such as incorporation, that is, they happen because core regions need to establish control over regions in order to accumulate and expand the world-system. This is an inferior method of historical comparison, argues McMichael, because it predetermines economic outcomes in specific regions by the nature of the whole system and, especially, its need to establish a world-wide division of labor. A superior method is the incorporating comparison, which progressively constructs the whole system through comparative analysis of its spatial or temporal “parts” that form and reform across time and space. This method does not deny system, structure, or recognizable patterns of change but it insists that causal regularities cannot be assumed but must be uncovered by comparing varying or convergent outcomes. Some incorporating comparisons are made at a specific historical juncture, such as the historical dialectic whereby different social relations, such as wage labor and slave relations, are combined and redefined to form something new and possibly even unpredictable. Others compare instances of an evolving process across time. Inter-temporal comparisons may reveal systemic processes and regularities, and even directions of change. Arrighi’s (1994) analysis of systemic cycles of accumulation, begins with broad world-systemic assumptions about the nature of economic and hegemonic cycles but, with the aid of secondary historical analysis, re-examines each cycle in detail to uncover what is particular about each successive hegemonic regime and what is regular across cycles. Likewise, Bunker and Ciccantell (forthcom-

88

Denis O’ Hearn

ing) compares cycles of accumulation with respect to their characteristic relations of material extraction and transport. A similar debate about the nature of long-term patterned change is found in the literature on path dependency. Economic historians have shown how historical economic change is shaped and limited through path dependent mechanisms that, once introduced, “lock in” given trajectories of economic change. Often, these mechanisms are set in train by the introduction of something – a technology, policy, or social relation – that is one of several contingencies at a critical historical juncture, or turning point. The initial change may have been imposed, chosen because of short-term considerations, or even introduced through chance, yet it can have significant long-term consequences that are often inefficient or disadvantageous. What is important is that a change, once made, has cumulative causality: changes in one period affect and limit what happens in subsequent periods. Mainstream economists who discuss path dependency usually focus on a limited set of circumstances where a discrete technological “choice” at one period affects subsequent technologies. Under certain conditions, such as increasing returns to scale, an inefficient technology or producer can dominate a market, an early entrant can remain dominant or a suboptimal pattern of industrial location can be locked in by decisions taken in early history of settlement (Arthur 1988). Exit from a sub-optimal path is not possible by individual actions but requires a “big push” by a central authority or state, which co-ordinates actions by many individuals until they achieve exit into a new, more productive equilibrium path (Rosenstein-Rodin 1943). Self-reinforcing processes are also common to critical theories of economic change. Dependency and world-system approaches, for example, concentrate on how core powers impose structural relationships that “lock in” vast regions to peripheral locations within global divisions of labor. Although their specific forms of production and associated technologies may change over time, these regions remain identifiably peripheral or semi-peripheral. Whether or under what conditions peripheral states may exit to a more advantageous position through policy choice is a key debate within the study of economic change. In a similar vein to McMichael’s critique of historical comparison, Haydu introduces contingency and local agency to the more sterile concepts of path dependency, by moving beyond simple path dependency to


89

reiterative problem solving. “Continuities across temporal cases”, he claims, “can be traced in part to enduring problems, while more or less contingent solutions to these problems are seen as reflecting and regenerating the historical individuality of each period” (1998: 354). Rather than focusing on how an initial change determines a cumulative subsequent trajectory, this brings choice and variability back to each critical juncture. One must explain why one solution is chosen instead of another and how this solution sets a new historical direction and limits future choices. Outcomes at a given “switch point” are thus products of the past rather than historical “accidents”, the preferred term of path dependency. Solutions embody contradictions, create further crises, and also give tools with which to confront future crises. Solutions at one time may close off future options, but they also shape future switch points and can even create new possible solutions in future periods. How does this relate to the debate about investment penetration? The possibility of “switching points” raises the further problem of what kinds of strategies may enable a peripheralized locality to achieve certain developmental results at an opportune time. Certain strategies may be historically identified for localities that have already achieved core status. But orthodox theories like modernisation theories and more recent theories of post-imperialism specifically propose that transnational investments, or development by invitation, is an effective strategy for upward mobility, regardless of the historical trajectories of past entrants to the core. The debate about the effects of foreign investment penetration has concentrated on the distinctions between stocks and flows. Put simply, incoming flows of investments (most recently we are speaking about direct investments by transnational corporations, or TNCs, although there are historical precedents) have an undeniable positive effect on local growth. By definition, they must induce new economic activities, first through the building of plant and then through the subsequent production process. TNC investment flows have both direct growth effects (the output of the project itself ) and indirect (multiplier) effects (the linkages and indirect supporting output it induces). There is little debate about this. The capital dependency approach, however, asserts that flows contribute to a stock of foreign investment penetration that retards economic growth, sometimes through direct plunder but more often through other mechanisms like profit repatriations or squeezing out domestic industry.

90

Denis O’ Hearn

As a flow of investments turns into a stock over time, TNCs implement strategies in localities that weaken the abilities of local agents to induce growth and indigenous development. Many empirical studies have found a negative association between foreign investment-penetration and economic growth (see Bornschier, Chase-Dunn, and Rubinson 1978; Dixon and Boswell 1996). Firebaugh (1992) challenged these empirical findings, arguing that observed negative relationships between foreign penetration and economic growth were artefacts of incorrect measurement of foreign investment flows and capital stocks.1 He agreed, however, that domestic investments tend to induce much more economic growth than foreign investments, possibly because they induced more linkages, spin-offs, and local reinvestments. Dixon and Boswell (1996) respecified Firebaugh’s measure of capital penetration and, like earlier dependency studies, found that foreign penetration depresses economic growth. They explain their findings in terms of externalities. While stocks of foreign investments are not harmful of themselves, TNCs induce structural changes in domestic economies that harm economic growth. For example, TNCs prefer freer trade where 1

More specifically, the effects of flows and stocks of foreign investments have generally been estimated by applying multiple regression analysis to a cross-section of countries for a given time period, where foreign investment flows are defined as investments over a given period (say, five years) while stocks are defined as the accumulated capital held in foreign hands at the beginning of the period. Defined thus, foreign investment flows and capital stocks are simply the numerator and denominator, respectively, of the foreign investment rate, which is positively associated with economic growth. When the effect (coefficient) of capital stock on economic growth is estimated by multiple regression, the effect of investment flows (the other regressor) is held constant. Thus, with the numerator of the investment rate held constant, a falling foreign capital stock by definition implies a rising investment rate, which is in turn associated positively with economic growth. The negative relationship between foreign capital stock and economic growth, therefore, is a denominator effect produced by the fact that such a stock is the denominator of a ratio that has a strong positive effect on growth. Firebaugh’s argument that the negative relationship between capital stocks and economic growth is simply a denominator effect is demonstrated most powerfully by introducing domestic investment rates and stocks into the multiple regression. As with the foreign capital stocks, he finds a negative relationship between domestic capital stocks and economic growth. Unless we recognise the problem of misspecification, we are left with the absurd conclusion that both foreign and domestic capital stocks hinder economic growth.


91

they invest, causing import penetration that threatens the viability of local firms. Dixon and Boswell cite O’Hearn (1989), who shows that the economic growth generated by TNC investments in Ireland between 1955 and 1987 was accompanied by greater free-trade-induced losses in the domestic economy. Foreign penetrations also increase the disarticulation of economies and depress levels of domestic investment. Despite remaining disputes, then, the debate about stocks and flows of TNC investment has shown almost decisively that over time TNCs restrain growth in host countries below their optimal levels if other indigenous paths were followed. But are indigenous paths available to peripheralized regions? Clearly, world-system power relations reduce their availability. If indigenous strategies are unavailable, or if they will be strongly resisted and punished by the core, localities may find development by invitation more attractive (and certain class fractions within localities will certainly find them more attractive). But if our assumptions about stocks of TNC investments are correct, this is likely to be a limited strategy, and the distortions and negative externalities created by TNCs will become a major blockage to local development. In other words, TNC penetration (stocks) are a major path-dependent mechanism whereby localities are “locked in” to a given position within the world-system. On the other hand, what I want to examine here is whether a sufficient flow of foreign direct investment can act as a “switching point” to move a local economy onto a new economic trajectory and enable it to achieve upward mobility within the world-system. Let us for the moment leave aside the debate about TNC investment stocks. They have negative consequences on local growth (Bornschier, Chase-Dunn, and Rubinson 1978; Dixon and Boswell 1996) or they are inferior to indigenous means of achieving economic growth (Firebaugh 1992). Either way, they may be connected to path-dependent processes that limit local economic change. Instead, let us ask whether there are historical junctures where the flows of TNC investments can be great enough to move a local economy onto a new economic growth path. Can a sufficiently high investment flow, in Schumpeter’s terms, enable the local economy to shift outward its productions possibilities frontier so that it achieves upward mobility, say, from semi-peripheral to core status within the world-system. In such a case, can the new outward-shifted production frontier be “locked in” so that the local economy is more or

92

Denis O’ Hearn

less insulated from the inevitable stock effects of the new, higher level of TNC penetration of its economy. If so, we can speak of some kind of threshold effect of TNC investment flows, beyond which a temporary flow permanently transforms an economy? To explore this possibility I want to briefly review historical cases of upward mobility from the literature and then to introduce the case of the Celtic tiger, the southern Irish economy, which experienced a quite stunning economic boom in the short period from about 1994 to 2000. This boom, I argue, is precisely caused by a rapid and sustained flow of inward TNC investments, which dominated any negative effects caused by the stock of previous and incoming TNC investments.

Historical Core Entrants and the Irish Example From a critical perspective, there are two seemingly regular “laws” of movement within the world-system hierarchy. First, upward mobility between the three main zones of the system – core, semiperiphery and periphery – is rare (Arrighi and Drangel 1986), although movement into the semiperiphery may be more common than into the core (Wallerstein 1979). Second, in those cases where core status has been attained, it has generally been achieved when a region has been able to avoid or overcome the negative effects of world-system peripheralization, usually with the aid of an effective developmental state.2 According to Innis’s staple growth theory, Canada (and New Zealand and Australia) achieved core status by exploiting a sequential series of resource-export regimes, for which there was significant demand and undersupply in the world market (Innis 1956). Upward mobility by the United States has been explained by various internal factors, including its pattern of resource availability in space and by its ability to capture economies of scale and space in their extraction and transport (Bunker forthcoming). Perhaps more to the point of this paper, small states in Western Europe achieved upward mobility in the late 1800s despite the fact that pathdependent mechanisms meant that divisions of labor established at the 2 I will not discuss movements from periphery to semiperiphery in this paper, although Wallerstein’s (1979, 1980) distinction between “seizing the chance” and “promotion by invitation” raises the question of limited upward mobility into the semiperiphery through mechanisms such as TNC investments.


93

end of the Middle Ages continued to determine their development paths. According to Senghaas (1985), they went through critical turning points where policy choices determined whether they would achieve “autocentric” industrial development or revert into peripheralization. Small European countries, having been compelled to turn toward the world market, realized the gap that had opened up between them and the industrialized European core after the industrial revolution. Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Romania responded by continuing to adapt to an externally-imposed division of labor. They remained peripheral. But the Scandinavian countries broke out of underdevelopment by inducing a broad-based agricultural revolution and spreading the gains from agricultural productivity to raise the average incomes of all sectors. By expanding and protecting the domestic market, they created demand for new domestic industrial products, especially the specialized processing of local agricultural produce. From such beginnings, they built up an industrial base and moved into export markets and eventually to free trade only after they had gone a substantial way toward equalizing their development levels with the already industrialized countries. The development of linkages between economic sectors was key to the process. In countries like Ireland and Spain productivity gains were sectorally limited and dualistic structures impeded the opening up of the domestic market. Growth remained exogenously determined and dependent. But the Scandinavian countries switched from exports of staples to processing and exporting finished and semi-finished manufactures. As a result, they developed linked indigenous economies and then graduated to export-orientation, which enabled such small countries to transcend the limits of their local markets. None of them achieved upward mobility in the context of an open economy and high dependence on foreign investment penetration. Ireland appears to have been different. It missed out on the upward movement to the core achieved by the small northern European states, primarily because of the economic restrictions imposed by Britain. The 1801 Act of Union insured deindustrialization and reperipheralization of its economy, including a transformation from cotton manufactures to pasture-based extensive agriculture that was helped along considerably by famine (O’Hearn 2001a; Crotty 2001). In the twentieth century, its attempt to achieve indigenous protected industrialization after 1931 – a strategy that, arguably, enabled its upward mobility into the semiperi-

94

Denis O’ Hearn

phery – was cut short both by an underdeveloped and incompetent state and, then, by its reperipheralization under U.S. control after the Second World War. Under intense pressure from the U.S. State Department after 1946 and in severe recession in the 1950s, the Irish economy transformed overnight from extreme protection to extreme openness. It rapidly became dependent on TNC investments, primarily from electronics and chemical firms in the United States. Its dependency on these investments became particularly acute after Ireland’s accession to the European Union in 1973, when it became a main point of entry for the products of U.S. TNCs that sought access to the emerging EU market. Despite its membership of the EU, a core regional association, Ireland until the 1990s appeared to be stuck in a semi-peripheral position that provided little prospect of upward mobility and almost certain stagnation and economic degradation. In gross economic terms, it was stuck at per capita income levels that cycled between 50 and 60 percent of the EU average. In good years, TNCs provided sufficient investments to enable the country to maintain a moderate economic growth rate and to maintain unemployment rates at 5-10 percent, as long as enough people emigrated so that even this low growth rate was not put under pressure. In bad times, as in the mid-1980s, the economy experienced negative real growth rates and the unemployment rate rose to 20 percent, despite rising emigration (O’Hearn 1998: 50, 67). Against all expectation, this seeming historical stagnation changed practically overnight. During six short years between 1994 and 2000 Irish economic growth rates (real GDP) rose to 5.8 percent and remained at least as high until the end of the decade, sometimes exceeding ten percent. Per capita national income, which had been barely 60 percent of the EU average in 1988, reached the EU average in 1997. Today, less than a decade after the term “Celtic tiger” was coined, Irish per capita GDP (in purchasing power standards) is more than 20 percent above the EU average and the country is considered to be the richest in the EU except Luxembourg (Eurostat 2003). This amazing story of rapid enrichment is almost entirely the result of an unprecedented level of TNC investment flows. During the decade of the 1990s, TNC investment flows nearly tripled. The first wave of investments came after 1991 as most of the major computer-related companies in the United States followed Intel into Ireland to access the European market, made even more attractive by unification in 1992. A further wave


95

was from U.S. pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, whose introduction of one Irish-produced product, Viagra, led in 1996/97 to a 70 percent rise in “Irish” output of organic chemicals without adding a single new worker. As critical theorists might predict, these foreign investment flows squeezed out local investments, which fell by about a third. This process was reinforced as TNCs dominated their share of corporate profits in Ireland and indigenous profits actually fell during the 1990s. Thus, we have the seeming paradox that Ireland’s economic growth was historically rapid, not just by national but by world standards, while its indigenous sector was actually contracting. In 1990, the indigenous share of fixed investments in manufacturing was more than 40 percent. By the end of the decade, it was below 15 percent – 85 percent of investment flows in Irish manufacturing were by TNCs and 85 percent of those were U.S. TNCs (data supplied to the author by the Irish Central Statistics Office). The only viable conclusion is that the new flow of foreign investments was so rapid that it actually moved the “Irish” production function and per capita incomes significantly upward. The inflow of TNC investments was rapid and sustained enough to counteract any negative externalities that they had on indigenous sectors (the exact connection between the investment inflow and falling indigenous investment is not examined here). While the stock of foreign investment as a proportion of GDP was about 10 percent in 1990, roughly equivalent to the EU and world averages, it rose to about 50 percent in 2000, four to five times the world average. As a result of this massive flow of foreign investments, along with other indicators of openness, sources like Foreign Policy magazine have for some years found Ireland to be the world’s most globalized economy, far ahead even of Singapore and Switzerland (Foreign Policy 2003). TNCs directly accounted for most of the economic growth that Ireland experienced, and indirectly caused much more in construction and services. Between 1995 and 1999 TNCs directly accounted for 85 percent of economic growth in terms of value added. Their rising profits alone accounted for 53 percent of economic growth! The effect of TNCs on economic growth was concentrated in exports of three manufacturing sectors that are dominated by US firms: chemicals, computers, and electrical engineering. These three sectors alone (not including software-related services and teleservices) accounted for 40 per cent of Irish GDP

96

Denis O’ Hearn

growth during the 1990s and more than half in recent years. They were the only economic sectors that exceeded the average GDP growth rate of 6.3 percent during the 1990s, together growing annually by about 15 percent. The recent southern Irish experience, while possibly unique in recent world history, appears to indicate that it is indeed possible to reach a threshold where the flow of TNC investments is so great that they swamp the negative stock effects of such investment, enabling the country to achieve rapid upward mobility into the core of the world-system.

Limitations of the Irish Example Having set out the case that there is a threshold beyond which TNC investment flows can create long-term upward mobility for a locality, I will now argue why we should not take this conclusion too seriously and why this experience should not be considered an appropriate model for other localities. This is because: the Irish experience is partly an illusion, it is not sustainable, it is due to highly specific circumstances that are impossible to replicate, and it is socially undesirable. It is partly an illusion. Ireland’s economic convergence with and exceeding of EU income levels is based on Purchasing Power Standards (PPS), which can overstate income levels in countries whose economic growth is dominated by certain kinds of exports. An even bigger illusion is caused directly by TNC-domination of the economy. Ireland is unique in the EU and rare in the world in the degree to which gross national product (GNP) diverges from gross domestic product (GDP), which is the preferred measure of comparative income levels and comparative economic growth. The difference between the two measures is dominated by repatriated TNC profits, which are included in GDP but not in GNP. GNP is thus a more accurate measure of the well-being of a country, as it measures what is produced in and remains in a country. In Ireland’s case, the difference is huge. TNC profits rose as a proportion of total corporate profits in Ireland from 48 percent in 1990 to 89 percent in 2001. They are so great that in 2002 Irish GDP was 24 percent higher than GNP. Thus, even before inequality is taken into account, Irish per capita incomes are overstated because of TNCs by a quarter. On this account alone, the true Irish income level, rather than being above the EU average is actually below it. To drive the point home, in 2002


97

Ireland was the fastest-growing economy in the EU: its GDP grew by 6.1 percent. In the same year, Ireland was also the slowest growing economy in the EU: GNP grew by only 0.1 percent. Despite the recent history of Irish economic growth, its average living standards, wage rates, levels of technology and even its physical infrastructure are all still well below the EU average. It remains dependent on TNC investments as a source of economic growth and, as such, is structurally still a semiperipheral region even if its current level of national income is quite high even by European core standards. It may not be sustainable. The world-system is replete with historical and contemporary examples of boom economies. There are always social scientists who jump at a case at a specific historical moment and argue that its boom disproves certain supposed hypotheses of critical development approaches. In time, most of these booms end, local economies are again degraded, and the supposed exception returns to the fold of the experiences of historical underdevelopment. Resource-based boom economies of the late twentieth century led some analysts, for example, to theorize “post-imperialism”. In his study of Peru, Becker even argued that “bonanza development … is a viable model” precisely because of the interdependence of interests of TNCs and localities (Becker et al. 1987: 64). The subsequent experience of those resource-dependent countries and regions showed in a very short time, once again, that imperialism is alive and well, hardly “post-” and probably healthier than ever. Likewise, the Irish boom may turn round and the Irish economy may experience severe degradation. Extreme dependence on U.S. investments raises new concerns about the sustainability of economic growth. A repeat of US disinvestments as happened in the 1980s could create another, possibly even deeper, period of recession and decline. Largescale cutbacks in TNCs in Ireland already began in 2001 and the computer sector experienced negative growth. A sustained downturn in such growth sectors could cause severe income contraction. Of course, this may not happen. Most economists are optimistic that the southern Irish economy is in for a “soft landing” on the basis that local service sectors will replace TNCs as the engine of growth (Bergin et al. 2003: 82; also Barry and Bradley 1997 and Krugman 1997). Yet it is difficult to understand where these services will originate when, to date, growth has been so overwhelmingly dependent on a flow of foreign investment.

98

Denis O’ Hearn

It cannot be replicated. Even if the Irish experience is real and sustainable, it is due to unique conditions. Countries on the EU periphery and further afield look to Ireland as a model of successful development. Yet southern Ireland “succeeded” because it attracted 40 percent of U.S. high tech sector investments into the EU, with just 1 percent of the EU population. Next door, Britain attracted 40 percent of total foreign investments into the EU but with twenty times as many people. It hardly became a “tiger” for doing it. The same limitations of the TNC-led model hold for all but the smallest countries or regions. It is not even desirable. Many people have begun to question whether the TNC-led form of economic growth in Ireland is socially desirable. It has caused an extreme rise of inequality, as the profit share of nonagricultural incomes rose from its usual level of 30 percent (up to the mid-1990s) to more than 50 percent today. Even apart from the TNCs, which have pocketed the vast proportion of wealth generated under the Celtic tiger (after all, that is its raison d’etre), the other main recipient of the wealth created by economic growth, to a much greater extent than elsewhere in the core, has been professionals. Perhaps the most significant outcome of the Celtic tiger is the complete lack of connection between economic growth and the state’s ability to service the population. Here, Dixon and Boswell’s (1996) hypothesis that TNC investments create external diseconomies is most apt. In order to attract TNC investments, the Irish state had to not only institute the most neoliberal tax retime in Europe, where corporations are practically exempt from taxation, it also has followed a strictly neoliberal strategy down the line of social policies. Thus, the fiscal resources that were created by growth were not invested in better services for the people but instead were used to finance tax reductions that heavily favored the rich. Between 1998 and 2001 the top 50 percent of income earners received about 8 percent more income because of budgetary changes while the bottom 30 percent gained less than 2 percent and the lowest decile actually lost income. I could go on and on about other indicators of degradation of Irish people and Irish life under the recent growth regime, but this clarifies the picture. As a result of growth and the policies that have been associated with growth, the south of Ireland is now the second most unequal country in the OECD, with the second highest poverty rate. At the end of the millennium it had the lowest per capita expenditure in Europe on pri-


99

mary education, one of the highest rates of adult illiteracy in the OECD, a severely ailing health programme and the worst physical infrastructure in the EU (O’Hearn 2001b).

Toward a more Meaningful Development Concept This paper has admittedly used a strange logic. After introducing the possibility of contingency as an opportunity for localities within the world-system I used the recent Irish example to show that one of the tenets of modernization theories is at least possible. An adequately large flow of foreign investments into a country can create wealth to such an extent that the country achieves rapid upward mobility in the worldsystem. There may be “switching points” whereby a locality can use a strategy of development by invitation to break out of its historically-defined and path-dependent position in the world-system hierarchy and division of labor. Yet in the Irish case the results of such a strategy were highly questionable on grounds of sustainability and desirability, and completely absurd on the question of generalizability. The recent Irish experience is no appropriate model for any locality that is seeking to develop within the context of the world-system. At a general level, this example shows the weaknesses of conceptualizing development strictly in growth terms. Even critical approaches, while eschewing capitalist models of development, often slip into growthbased analyses and evaluations of local developmental experiences. Obviously, “development” entails other outcomes than growth, regarding not just distribution and quality of life for the masses of a population but also cultural issues such as the escape from the humiliation of colonial histories and, in the process, the reinforcement of human dignity. While such alternative visions of development are beyond the subject of this paper, one implication of the limitations of income-based strategies is, once again, that we need to be looking in places other than simple economic growth for our models of social and economic change.

100

Denis O’ Hearn

Works Cited Arrighi, G. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century. London: Verso. Arrighi, G. and J. Drangel. 1986. “Stratification of the World-Economy: An Explanation of the Semiperipheral Zone.” Review 10, 1: 9-74. Arthur, W.B. 1988. “Self-Reinforcing Mechanisms in Economics.” In The Economy as a Complex Evolving System. Edited by P. Anderson, K. Arrow, and D. Pines. Santa Fe: Santa Fe Institute. Barry, F. and J. Bradley. 1997. “FDI and Trade: The Irish Host-Country Experience.” Economic Journal 107, 445: 1798-1811. Becker, D., J. Frieden, S. Schartz, and R. Sklar. 1987. Postimperialism: International Capitalism and Development in the Late Twentieth Century. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner. Bergin, A., D. Duffy, J. Fitzgerald, and J. Cullen. 2003. Medium Term Review 2003-2010. Dublin: Economic and Social Research Institute. Bornschier, V., C. Chase-Dunn, and R. Rubinson. 1978. “Cross-National Evidence of the Effects of Foreign Investment and Aid on Economic Growth and Inequality: A Survey of Findings and a Reanalysis.” American Journal of Sociology 84, 3: 651-83. Bunker, S. and P. Ciccantell. Forthcoming. From Amsterdam to Amazonia: A Sociological Inquiry into how Matter, Space and Technology Shape Globalization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. Crotty, R. 2001. When Histories Collide: The Development and Impact of Individualistic Capitalism. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira. Dixon, W. J. and T. Boswell. 1996. “Dependency, Disarticulation, and Denominator Effects: Another Look at Foreign Capital Penetration.” American Journal of Sociology 102, 2: 543-62. Eurostat. 2003. “Eurozone and EU15 GDP up by 0.1%.” http://www.wuropa. eu.int/comm/eurostat/Public/datashop/print-product/EN?catalogue= Eurostat&product=2-10072003-EN-AP-EN8mode. Firebaugh, G. 1992. “Growth Effects of Foreign and Domestic Investment.” American Journal of Sociology 98, 1: 105-30. Foreign Policy. 2003. “Measuring Globalization: Who’s Up, Who’s Down?” Foreign Policy January-February: 60-72. Frank, A. 1998. ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley: University of California Press. Haydu, J. 1998. “Making Use of the Past: Time Periods as Cases to Compare and as Sequences of Problem Solving.” American Journal of Sociology 104, 2: 33971. Innis, Harold A. 1956. Problems in Canadian Economic History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Krugman, P. 1997. “Good News from Ireland: A Geographical Perspective.” In International Perspectives on the Irish Economy. Edited by Alan Gray. Dublin: Indecon.


101

McMichael, P. 1990. “Incorporating Comparisons within a World-Historical Perspective.” American Sociological Review 55: 385-397. O’Hearn, D. 1989. “The Irish Case of Dependency: An Exception to the Exceptions?” American Sociological Review 54, 4: 578-96. —. 1998. Inside the Celtic Tiger: The Irish Economy and the Asian Model. London: Pluto. —. 2001a. The Atlantic Economy: Britain, the U.S. and Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press. —. 2001b. “Economic Growth and Social Cohesion in Ireland.” In Economic Growth and Social Cohesion in Europe Edited by Michael Dauderstadt. Bonn: Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Rosenstein-Rodin, P. N. 1943. “Problems of Industrialization of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.” Economic Journal 55: 202-11. Senghaas, D. 1985. The European Experience. Leamington Spa: Berg. Wallerstein, I. 1979. The Capitalist World-Economy. New York: Cambridge University Press. —. 1980. Modern World System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600-1750. New York: Academic Press. —. 1984. The Politics of the Capitalist World-Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

102

Dale Tomich

Atlantic History and World Economy: Concepts and Constructions Dale Tomich

Abstract This article presents a unified, multidimensional, and relational approach to Atlantic history by treating the Atlantic as a historical region of the capitalist world economy. In contrast to more conventional comparative approaches, the approach presented here grounds Atlantic history in the longue durée geographical historical structure of the maritime Atlantic and construes particular political, economic, social, or cultural units as parts of the more encompassing Atlantic and world economies. Within this framework, particular units or relations are viewed as complex historical outcomes of relations and processes operating across diverse spatial and temporal scales. Thus each unit is related to the others, and each occupies a distinctive location in the maritime Atlantic division of labor. Through an example of plantation slavery, the article examines the ways in which specific units are formed within the larger historical field and examines the variation among them. By calling attention to the relations among units over time and in space within a unified historical field, it identifies specific conjunctures and contingencies shaping Atlantic history.

In the last several decades the Atlantic has emerged as the focal point of innovative work in transnational history. For many scholars, an Atlantic perspective or Atlantic history offers a promising and productive horizon of research. Yet, for all the promise of Atlantic history, great uncertainty remains about what the Atlantic is and how to study it. Scholars of the Atlantic have paid too little attention to the problems of theory and method attendant upon the Atlantic as a perspective for historical inquiry. Too often, Atlantic history is written as if the objects of its inquiry were already given political, social or cultural units. Thus, the boundaries of empire are taken to constitute distinctive British, French, Spanish, or Portuguese Atlantics. These empires are themselves regarded as comprised of metropolises and colonies. Whether the concern is with relations between empires or within them, such units are treated as closed,

Atlantic History and World Economy: Concepts and Constructions

103

coherent, and internally unified entities and other such units are regarded as external to them. Exploration, diplomacy, war, trade, migration, colonization, and state policy are regarded as the forms of interaction through which such ostensibly autonomous entities are brought into relation with one another (Hopkins 1982b: 146-52). Thus, the Atlantic is seen as a composite of autonomous units, whether empires, colonial territories, or nations rather than as an integral historical space. The theoretical and methodological premise of internality and externality guides strategies of interpretation, analysis, and comparison. Such frameworks treat the Atlantic by extending conventional approaches that were formulated to study national histories. Conventional conceptions of state formation are extended to include empire, of class to include migration, and so forth. Such studies emphasize the agency (of individuals, groups, or states) that constitutes an Atlantic space – for instance, voyages, routes, colonization, migration. They focus on the movement from stable Old World centers (Europe and Africa) to fluid New World peripheries (the Americas), and on the comparison of conditions in Old and New within the already constituted analytical units or between units. (Of course, such approaches may also be applied to social and cultural units rather than to political units, hence a Yoruba or Bantu Atlantic may be constructed through quite similar procedures.) The result of such conceptions is the production of a bounded and internally integrated English Atlantic, Yoruba Atlantic, Spanish Atlantic, or Portuguese Atlantic. Each of these is presented with the latent expectation that such partial studies somehow can and will be combined to realize the promise of a rich and diverse Atlantic history. I wish to argue that the methodological approaches pursued in such studies and the theoretical assumptions that underlie them vitiate the possibility of arriving at an Atlantic history through such a procedure. Their focus on agencies too often ignores the relationships that enable and constrain such agencies. By extending the framework of national histories to embrace empires, such approaches fragment the spatial relations specific to the Atlantic. The fragmentation of space is matched by the fragmentation of time. Instead of disclosing the temporal rhythms specific to the Atlantic world, historical analysis and interpretation is trapped in the chronology of European national histories (e.g., early modern history, colonial history). Such approaches break up the Atlantic into a composite of discrete and self-contained sub-units (English, Por-

104

Dale Tomich

tuguese, etc.) each with its own history. Ironically, they effectively eliminate from consideration the Atlantic as a constitutive relation of Atlantic history only to try to bring it back into the account as the product of imperial or national histories. In any case, summing up such partial histories cannot reveal the spatial-temporal relations specific to Atlantic history. However, the Atlantic is more than the sum of its truncated parts. We need methodological and theoretical approaches that allow us to grasp the Atlantic in the fullness of its spatial and temporal complexity. My point is not that inquiry into partial domains of Atlantic history is invalid or unfruitful. (Still less am I claiming that empire, colonies, or states do not have boundaries or that such boundaries are inconsequential.) Rather, my contention is that scholars of the Atlantic have paid insufficient attention to the methodological and theoretical issues entailed in constituting such units as objects of historical inquiry within the framework of Atlantic history. We need to reconsider the theoretical premises and methodological assumptions upon which we construct such studies and the historical-geographical parameters within which we conduct them in order to realize the rich potential of an Atlantic perspective. This article addresses these questions by treating the Atlantic as a specific historical region of the capitalist world economy. There are substantive grounds for this choice. On the one hand, the incorporation of the Atlantic is the historical condition for the creation of a specifically European world economy (i.e., it is formative of the larger totality of relations comprising what Immanuel Wallerstein refers to as the modern world system [Wallerstein 1974]). On the other hand, such world economic processes construct the specificity of the Atlantic space as a distinctive historical region. At the same time as the Atlantic is viewed here as a historically and geographically singular space, it is not isolated from the larger complex of relations. This perspective regards the formation and reformation of the Atlantic as part of more encompassing spatial-temporal processes forming a capitalist world economy.


105

World Economy and Historical Social Science: Braudel and Wallerstein The perspective of world economy opens a distinctive methodological approach to Atlantic history. The innovation of scholars such as Immanuel Wallerstein and Fernand Braudel is not that they emphasize a longer time frame or a larger geographical unit as the object of study. Nor is it simply that they posit a new supranational object – world economy – that coexists alongside other social-historical units. Rather, their challenge is the proposal for the development of a new historical social science that is implied in and required by their understanding of world economy. By positing world economy as the governing unit of analysis, Braudel and Wallerstein introduce a radical theoretical and methodological approach to inquiry that implies a rethinking of the necessary relation between history and theory. They take as their point of departure the world economy as a singular unit of analysis. They conceive of the world economy as a distinctive and comprehensive theoretical-historical construct that is unified in time and space. Put simply, if, in this approach, the concept of world economy is taken to represent a specific historically encompassing and unified world, then no phenomenon belonging to such a world may be treated independently of it. States, relations of production and exchange, classes, and ethnicities are not treated here as independent of the larger complex of relations or of one another. Rather, they are regarded as constituent relations of the world economy as a whole. Further, each particular relation, that is, each possible sub-unit is formed through its relation with others, and each occupies a distinctive spatial-temporal position within the evolving ensemble of relations comprising the world economy. Finally, in this perspective, time and space are substantive properties of social relations, and the ensemble of relations of the world economy produces its own temporal rhythms and spatial extensions. (This is not to say that these relations may not have histories that are antecedent to the formation of the world economy or that their histories simply reflect the historical development of the larger governing whole. Rather, it is to say that, once formed, the world economy provides the ground from which such relations derive their distinctive roles, rankings, and meanings.) This distinctive set of premises and assumptions alters the role of theory in historical explanation. Here, it is not a question of looking for

106

Dale Tomich

universal laws or formulating theoretical statements about patterns of shared variables within formally independent and comparable units. Instead, causal and interpretive statements are specific to the myriad of diverse, discrete and autonomous object units comprising the world economy. Here, the distinctive logic of interpretation and explanation seeks to disclose spatially and temporally linked processes forming particular social historical configurations within a differentiated and heterogeneous but nonetheless unified world economic whole (Wallerstein 1991: 135-48). The focus of concern is not with the formulation of immutable laws or, on the other hand, with the interpretation of random contingencies. Rather, this approach seeks to comprehend the formation and re-formation in space and time of relations and processes comprising the world economy, hence the distinctive temporal rhythms and spatial organization of world economic change. Such an approach allows us to reconstruct the spatio-temporal specificity of both parts and whole within the totality of relations comprising historically distinct and singular world economies. In this perspective, we may distinguish between world economy as unit of analysis and particular units of observation (including, of course, the world economy itself )) (Hopkins 1982a: 29-37). As a theoretical-historical construct world economy provides a notional conception of the whole. It is the ground for analysis and interpretation of particular phenomena and enables us to reconstruct the complex interaction of relations and processes historically forming the world economy. Thus, within the framework of the world economy as unit of analysis, we may focus our research on particular units of observation. These could be social, economic, political or cultural, or geographical relations of varying spatial and temporal extension. Such particular sites of observation are construed as parts of the larger whole and interpreted through reference to encompassing processes of the world economy. Our concern here is not with the aggregate of discrete empires, national, or colonial societies. Rather, it is with the formulation of a spatially and temporally comprehensive framework that allows us to understand the conditions and processes of differentiation of particular social, political, economic, or cultural formations throughout the hemisphere within broader fields of world historical process. Such an approach allows us to specify particular configurations of relations over diverse temporal and spatial scales through their relation to one another and to the larger whole. It thereby


107

discloses the complex interactions and interdependencies forming and reforming relations of the capitalist world economy. From this perspective, the Atlantic (or the British, Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Yoruba, or Bantu Atlantics) constitutes a unit of observation, while the world economy forms the unit of analysis. The Atlantic is conceived as a particular sub-region of the European world economy and is treated through its relation to the larger spatial-temporal whole. In this approach, the Atlantic is not presumed as a given empirical unit. Rather, it is seen as the product of theoretical and historical reconstruction. Its unity, coherence, and integrity as a part of the historical formation of the capitalist world economy must be established. Inquiry focuses on processes forming the Atlantic world and creating its boundaries within the larger world economic whole. Within this framework, the specific characteristics of particular formations are not taken as points of departure for comparative inquiry. Rather, they too represent the results of theoretical and historical reflection. The question is how, over long historical time, the physical and human space of the Atlantic is shaped through its complex historical interaction with the processes and relations forming the world economy. This approach enables us to specify and differentiate particular relations (or complexes of relations) in order to establish the diverse temporalities, conjunctures and spatial formations of the Atlantic as part of the historical processes of the European world economy. It thereby discloses the long-term relations that at once enable and constrain agency. The outcome of this inquiry is understood as a compound of diverse spatial-temporal relations and processes, or as Braudel puts it, a “set of sets” (Braudel 1981b: 458-599).

Geographical Space: Human Space Atlantic historians are trapped in a paradox. At the same time that they want to write “Atlantic history,” they remain deeply suspicious of what they regard as geographical determinism (see, for example, the chapters by Braddick and Elliot in Armitage and Braddick 2002: 11-27, 233-49). It is never quite clear what is meant by geographical determinism. Nonetheless, in their eagerness to avoid it, they treat the Atlantic as if it were an absolute geographical space rather than a social historical space. Their Atlantic is the physical Atlantic – that is, the Atlantic as a given, already

108

Dale Tomich

constituted physical space. It becomes the passive setting for their accounts rather than constitutive of historical processes. Consequently, they are unable to engage the complex geo-historical realities of the Atlantic as the organizing framework for their inquiries. Their histories remain partial accounts that are inscribed over the geographical space of the Atlantic rather than constructed through it. By treating the Atlantic as a given external space, this conceptual approach transforms its historical units into abstractions that exist independently of their geographical setting. In such a perspective, the validity and value of “Atlantic” as a unit of historical analysis itself comes into question. There is little besides the geographical setting or the particularity of contingent events to distinguish the British Atlantic from British Asia. Our interest, however, is not with absolute geographical space, but with what Braudel refers to as human space (1995, I: 276). That is to say, we are not concerned with an inert geography but with the interaction between natural and human actors over diverse spatial extensions and temporal rhythms. This concept of human space is especially important for scholars writing from the perspective of world economy. Their conception of historical capitalism is necessarily grounded in a historically singular world and entails the political and economic reorganization of distinct geographical spaces – that is, the relation of human space and geographical space – over long historical time. The historical geography of world capitalism is fundamental to this conception of capitalism. The question for world systems theorists is how does the geographical Atlantic intersect with historical processes of the capitalist world economy? Or, more precisely, how is the Atlantic continually made and remade as a distinctive world region, and, conversely, how does the distinctive historical geography of the Atlantic region shape the development of historical capitalism as a world system? Braudel remarks: Europeans therefore neither discovered America and Africa [sic] … Europe’s own achievement was to discover the Atlantic and to master its difficult stretches, currents and winds. This late success opened up the doors and routes of the seven seas. From now on the maritime organization of the world was at the service of white men (1981a: 62-3).

On the one hand, this comment draws our attention to the accomplishment and condition of European expansion, and, on the other hand, it brings into focus the human space of the Atlantic. From this perspective,


109

the question is not the movement from Old World to New World, the fate of individual spaces within the Atlantic basin, or the chain of events that lead from discovery to colonization. Rather, Braudel’s focus on the sea throws into relief the structural relation between four continents (Europe, Africa, North and South America) over long historical time. The ocean is the medium that creates this relation – the human space of the Atlantic, the Atlantic as a spatial zone of the capitalist world economy. Its discovery and conquest bring together the hitherto disparate spaces of the Atlantic and calls the historical geography of the Atlantic into existence as a formative moment of the European world economy. At the same time, the ocean shapes the distinctive temporality of Atlantic history, that is, its duration and the historical rhythms of its development.

Geographical History: The Atlantic and the Longue Durée Braudel’s emphasis on the sea provides the analytical framework for conceptualizing the Atlantic as an object of analysis. It calls attention to the relation of spaces established through the sea, hence to the interface of geography and history that shapes Atlantic history over the longue durée and provides the analytical framework for conceptualizing the Atlantic as an object of analysis. The geographical heterogeneity of territories conjoined by the Atlantic shaped its incorporation into the European world economy. The maritime Atlantic represents a distinctive social-geographic space of diverse ocean currents and winds, soils, climates, topographies, hydrologies, ecologies, landforms, coastal features, and socialeconomic and cultural zones. Only human agents who had mastered the sea could have unified its disparate regions. Nonetheless, these agencies were at once enabled and constrained by the region’s specific geographies. Diverse geographical, material, and social historical conditions governed the potential material and social interdependence forming the Atlantic as a zone of the world economy. They provided the natural and human endowments to be transformed into economic resources in accordance with the historically changing needs and capacities of the capitalist world economy. The formation of the Atlantic as a zone of the world economy is not a question of geographical determinism. Indeed, even to think of the adaptation of the social and economic arrangements of the world economy to

110

Dale Tomich

the physical and cultural environments of the Atlantic risks obscuring the complex historical processes through which specific aspects of those environments and not others were selected and developed. Which natural and human resources were developed and the scale, intensity, and direction of their development depended upon the historically developed needs, technical and social capacities, and forms of social and political organization of the world economy. Even a cursory glance at the early colonization of the Atlantic, let us think of the Captaincies of Brazil for example, is sufficient to indicate that the successful exploitation of the Atlantic environments was by no means guaranteed. The establishment of material and social interdependence between geographically distinct zones created the maritime Atlantic as a stable and coherent historical region of the world economy. They established a material and spatial division of labor that shaped the patterns of settlement and economic activity in the new Atlantic space and determined the flows of commodities and (forced and unforced) migrations. The diverse environments of the maritime Atlantic were integrated into a hierarchical order that served accumulation in its European centers (and redefined Europe’s relation to Asia, creating a European world economy). Atlantic Europe was divided between the Iberian maritime empires that pioneered Atlantic expansion and the ascendant commercial and manufacturing centers in northwestern Europe (Holland, Britain, and France). The winds and currents of the north Atlantic gave Europe access to the entire seaboard of North America as well as the Caribbean. The south Atlantic currents carried European shipping towards the coast of South America and then toward the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa (Braudel 1981a: 420). The temperate regions of the Americas were zones of European migration and settlement. In North America, the fur trade, forest products, fisheries, and European style farming and husbandry combined with commerce and manufacturing as the predominant economic activities. In the temperate zones of South America, the Rio de la Plata flourished as a commercial outlet for highland mining zones while the rich Pampas provided oxen, cattle, and mules to the region’s mining and plantation economies. The sub-tropical and tropical region stretching from the Chesapeake Bay to São Paulo in Brazil developed as a zone of export agriculture based on African slave labor and the production of plantation staples. In Africa, both natural and human obstacles impeded European penetration of the interior. The European


111

presence on the continent’s Atlantic coast was limited, for the most part, to trading. The sea routes gave these coastal trading stations access to the plantation zones of both North and South America, and, for over four centuries, these entrepôts responded to the Atlantic economy’s changing demand for slave labor. The ocean was the focal point of the maritime Atlantic. Across its surface flowed the tropical staples, foodstuffs, raw materials, manufactured goods, and labor that integrated and animated the region’s development. Throughout the circum-Atlantic world economic activities and patterns of social life were reoriented toward the sea. The boundaries of the Atlantic were, of course, fluid. At certain points in time one could, for example, construe Peru or Mozambique as part of the Atlantic. Nonetheless, the heart of this system was the network of ports and sea routes linking the coastal enclaves, river systems, and islands of the circum-Atlantic littoral. Not only ecological considerations, but also proximity to water transport privileged the coastal zones as centers of economic activity. The American plantations, the slave trading entrepôts of Africa, and the commercial and manufacturing centers of temperate Europe and North America were concentrated between coast and fall line. The movement of goods and people, social and technical innovation, and intense cultural interaction and the creation of new identities characterized this dynamic and cosmopolitan maritime zone (Berlin 1998: 15-92). Beyond the coast there were hinterlands indirectly linked to the Atlantic: the farming frontiers of North and South America, the pastoral region of the Brazilian northeast and of the Pampas, and the slave trading kingdoms behind the African coast. Finally, we may include even movements into the interior frontiers, including North American fur traders and pioneers, the Brazilian bandeirantes, and African slavetrading expeditions that extend the influence of the Atlantic far inland. This approach calls attention to the interrelation, interaction, and mutual dependence of the geographical zones of the maritime Atlantic. Each such zone is formed through its relation to the others. Each particular site of observation is a point of concentration of diverse relations, a partial outcome of complex processes of varied spatial and temporal extension. None can be conceived in isolation from the more comprehensive Atlantic and world complexes of which it forms an integral part. (For a recent work that embraces such a relational conception of Atlantic his-

112

Dale Tomich

tory, see Alencastro 2000.) Indeed, these more comprehensive fields of relations provide the ground through which the historical development of particular regions or relations is interpreted. The stability of the relation between the various zones of the maritime Atlantic determined the temporal continuity of Atlantic history over the longue durée.1 This relational matrix is the most basic level of Atlantic history. Despite the continual transformation of physical and social environments, changing material conditions of production, and development of the forms of economic and social organization of the world economy, this slowly changing spatial-temporal relation provides the framework of Atlantic history and defines its continuity. As long as the ocean articulates interdependence and a division of labor between zones, there is a distinctive Atlantic region and ground for Atlantic history.

Historical Geography: Reformations of the Atlantic Within the long-term geo-historical structure of the maritime Atlantic, empires, colonies, particular complexes of production and exchange, social groups, and movements of people and goods are made and remade. Through their development, they continually transform physical and social environments, alter material conditions of production, and change forms of political and economic organization. These agencies or acting units are formed through their relation to the long-term socialmaterial conditions of the Atlantic world and to one another. Each such agency is a site of concentration of diverse relations and processes and occupies a distinctive spatial-temporal position within the Atlantic division of labor. Each is a partial product of complex causes and a partial cause of complex outcomes (Hopkins 1982b). As parts of a broader field 1

I use Braudel’s famous concept of longue durée here to invoke his discussion of plural temporalities (Braudel 1972). However, I should note my reservations about its use in this context: the long-term temporal continuity of the Atlantic refers to a specific historical geographical configuration whose coherence is itself contingent upon first, the specific maritime link articulating a regional division of labor, and, second, its relation with the wider world economy. Further, the duration of the Atlantic longue durée, although longer than the temporality of the conjuncture, is shorter that what Braudel seems to have in mind when he uses the term long durée. The Atlantic is an historical artifact of the European world economy.


113

of relations they necessarily operate in more limited spatial and temporal domains. They must adapt to the conditions presented by the maritime Atlantic even as they are agents of its development. Within this framework the continually changing relations among these constituent elements creates distinctive spatial transformations and temporal rhythms of lesser extension and duration (conjunctures). We may trace such systemic transformations of the maritime Atlantic by examining the historical trajectory of plantation slavery in the Americas. The establishment of plantation slavery beginning in the sixteenth century was a fundamental aspect of the formation of the Atlantic division of labor and world economy. Let us take as our unit of observation what anthropologist Charles Wagley conceptualized as “plantation America” (Wagley 1957: 3-13). In his seminal essay, Wagley calls attention to the unity of “plantation America” as at once a distinct New World cultural sphere and spatial region. This sphere extends from the tropical coastal lowlands midway up the coast of Brazil to the Guianas, along the Caribbean coast, throughout the Caribbean itself, and into the United States (where it is no longer tropical). During the nineteenth century, it penetrated into the mainland interior, but only in Brazil and the United States (Wagley 1957: 5). Europeans discovered at the beginning of colonization that, even though these tropical lowlands possessed neither dense aboriginal populations nor mineral wealth, their rich clay soils were suitable for the cultivation of sugar cane that, in turn, required a large labor force. “Thus,” writes Wagley, “the sugar plantation with African slave labor became the fundamental formative features of the PlantationAmerica culture sphere – other crops such as cacao, coffee, and later cotton were grown by a similar system.” There are important differences within this cultural sphere, “but where the plantation system and slavery were fundamental institutions, a way of life took form which has resulted in many common problems and many similar contemporary culture traits throughout the region” (Wagley 1957: 5). Wagley’s purpose is to develop a typology of common cultural characteristics that is valid across space and time. These common features distinguish this region and define what he regards as the distinctive type of New World plantation society. He argues that such an approach avoids studying process and problems of plantation societies in too local terms. Wagley urges that studies of particular new World plantation societies in Brazil, the Caribbean, and the United States should take this broader

114

Dale Tomich

culture sphere, which shares certain basic institutions and cultural patterns, as their frame of reference (Wagley 1957: 11). Wagley’s concern is with the functional adaptation of labor, culture, and society to a particular geographical environment. Nonetheless, his formulation enables us to conceptualize the pervasive presence of African slavery and plantation production in the Americas as a unified spatiotemporal zone that is necessarily linked to the maritime Atlantic division of labor and European world economy. Such a conception at once holds open the spatial and temporal boundaries of social historical process and delineates the parameters of plantation slavery’s longue durée structures from the beginning of the sixteenth century to slave emancipation in Brazil in 1888. It allows us to treat particular slave formations not as internally integrated and self-enclosed entities, but as constituent parts of the larger world economy. This approach enables us to specify differences between slave plantation complexes not by establishing the presence or absence of particular universal factors across cases, but by specifying the processes forming and reforming particular slave plantation regimes through their relation to the maritime Atlantic division of labor. In each instance, these relations are constituted differently within emerging patterns of the world economy. By identifying the distinctive temporal rhythms and spatial configurations that shape their development within more comprehensive processes of polity and economy, we may differentiate particular slave plantation formations from one another and determine the variation of relations that constitute the slave zone of the Americas. The diverse plantation commodities produced by slave labor provide a means to conceptualize individual slave formations as integral parts of the European world economy and, further, to examine the variation among them. The distinctive plantation crops of the various slave regimes, sugar, coffee, cotton, tobacco, indigo, wove each into the broader fabric of the Atlantic world. By focusing on plantation crops we may at once call attention to the ways that distinctive material processes associated with each crop shape relations of production and social relations more generally. Further, we may disclose the ways that variation and succession of different crops express the extension, deepening, and differentiation of the world division of labor. The formation of different crop regimes, their distribution over space, and their succession through time, provide an axis that allows us to specify particular complexes of slave


115

relations within the processes of the divisioning of labor, state formation, and material expansion of the European world economy. Around these axes, we may reconstruct the movement of peoples, institutions, and cultures forming distinctive slave plantation societies. (Within the methodological framework proposed here, such systemic transformations of slave plantation regimes are themselves indicators of fundamental changes is the world economy as a whole.) This focus on material production calls attention to the geographical and ecological diversity and the possible distribution of slave labor in the hemisphere. It incorporates the particularities of place into the spatial and temporal dynamics of the European world economy and shapes specific historical trajectories. Particular crops only grow in certain regions or under certain environmental conditions. (Mineral exploitation is, of course, completely place specific.) Location and the physical characteristics of crops are fundamental factors in determining the possibility of slave labor and the relation of individual zones to the world market. At the most elemental level, the relation of the value of the labor input to the value of the product determined the suitability of slave labor in a given territory. At the same time, as Sidney Mintz (1985) has argued, the first slave crops were “drug crops.” Their material characteristics created new needs and drew consuming populations into new market relations. Specific combinations of material processes and social relations of slave production create distinctive complexes of export agriculture in particular environmental zones. To this day, the identification of place, crop, and slavery remains strong: sugar in Brazil and the West Indies, tobacco in the Chesapeake, rice in the Carolina Low Country, and Sea Island Cotton. The question of how, when, and under what conditions such environmental niches are exploited is key to the historical differentiation of slave relations in the Americas. Different crops were produced at different times and in different places with different consequences. The fate of any particular slave zone is historically contingent upon the material and social conditions of production, exchange, and consumption obtaining in the world economy as a whole. The succession of crops and sites of production further draws our attention to the dynamic character of slave production in the Americas. Gavin Wright (1987) highlights an important difference between slavery and other forms of coerced or dependent labor, the consequences of which have not received the attention they

116

Dale Tomich

deserve. Unlike serfs, debt peons, or other forms of dependent or unwaged labor, slaves are highly mobile. They can move not only from Africa to the Americas, but also from one zone of production to another within the Americas. Geographically mobile slave labor animates not simply isolated zones of production, but moving commodity frontiers (Moore 2000). Migratory plantation agriculture and itinerant slave labor combine and recombine across the territory of the Americas to exploit new spaces and create new configurations of land, slave labor, and capital. World demand for specific crops, the changing needs and capacities of the various colonizing powers, the sources and availability of slave labor, and conditions on the slave commodity frontier shaped distinct rhythms and patterns of development across the American plantation zone. At the same time, different crops require different material conditions of production. Cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, coffee impose different conditions on slave labor. All differ, among other things, in environmental requirements; the procedures necessary to process them; and the relations between weight, bulk, and value that they embody. Such distinctions have important consequences for the location of production sites, transportation requirements, land-labor ratios, the number of production units and the scale of production, the division of labor and technological conditions of production on the estates, and the character and rhythm of expansion. Such factors, in turn, are directly related to the size and composition of the slave labor force and the distribution of tasks and skill requirements within it; the organizational structures and practices of management and social control; and the organization of labor time over the day, the season, or the year. Task labor, for example, was particularly suitable for rice and tobacco cultivation. In contrast, large-scale gang labor and the management strategies associated with it were important in propelling the nineteenth-century cotton boom in the U.S. South. Sugar production, on the other hand, combines gang labor for agricultural operations with skilled labor in manufacturing. Attention to such differences discloses systemic variation of slave labor regimes along the spatial-temporal continuum of the world division of labor. The movement and succession of zones of production call attention to the world economic character of slave labor and the interdependence of material and political economic factors in shaping it throughout the hemisphere. Sugar is paradigmatic of one kind of itinerant crop.


117

While in any site it may appear almost immobile, over the long historical time of the maritime Atlantic the center of world sugar production migrated across the Atlantic world. From São Tomé, paradoxically perhaps the first American sugar colony, where, from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth century, sugar making was the exclusive work of slaves and slaves were exclusively African, the core of sugar production moved to Brazil from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries. Then it moved to the French and British Caribbean from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries, and finally to Cuba in the nineteenth century. Each geographical shift in sugar production was part of a cyclical restructuring of the Atlantic economy. Each such shift was characterized by superior ecological conditions, an increase in the scale of production, technological innovation, the recruitment of slave labor from new sources and on a new scale, and, importantly, the dominance of a new imperial power. Particularly noteworthy is the role of Holland in transferring the center of sugar production from Brazil to the Caribbean and reorganizing the Atlantic economy around the superiority of Dutch productive, commercial, and financial capital. As I will discuss below, Britain played a similar role in restructuring the Atlantic division of labor during the nineteenth century. Brazilian economic historian Antônio Castro (1971 II: 49-83) argues that geographical expansion of export staple production is best understood in terms of the formation of three distinct zones: a pioneer zone, a zone at the peak of its productive capacity and a zone in decline. We may also note that in each cycle of systemic expansion, increased scale of production and changing location meant changing relations of bulk, value, and transport costs (Bunker 1994: 112-42). Thus, we may discern such a process of differentiation both within particular territories and between territories as sugar migrated across the maritime Atlantic boundaries. The changing character of production zones altered the relation of labor and output over time and transformed the character of slave relations in the different zones. Gilberto Freyre’s well-known portrait of the patriarchal character of Brazilian slavery (1981) draws substantially on evidence from the period of decline of the sugar industry in the Brazilian Northeast. In contrast, Franklin Knight (1970) has demonstrated that protective legislation of Church and State that intended to guard the moral personality of the Cuban slave was a dead letter once the sugar boom began there.

118

Dale Tomich

At the same time, the scale and technological complexity of sugar production was continually transformed over the course of its development in the New World. But this was in no way a linear movement. During the nineteenth century, for example, under the material and social conditions prevailing in Martinique, expanding demand for sugar in combination with local forms of slave resistance provoked a crisis of gang labor and the emergence of task labor as the prevailing form of labor discipline (Tomich 1990). Concomitant with this development, Cuba was able to respond to the increased demand for sugar by establishing larger plantations and incorporating new technologies. These innovations lead to the extension and intensification of gang labor in the fields (Tomich 1994; Fraginals 1976). Before the nineteenth century, the slave zones of the Americas were closely integrated into the Atlantic maritime complex. Not only ecological considerations, but also proximity to water transport limited the extension of Brazilian and Caribbean sugar as well as American tobacco to coastal enclaves and insular environments. In contrast, the first half of the nineteenth century witnessed a massive reconfiguration of slavery across the hemisphere in response to industrialization, urbanization and market integration in the core regions of the world economy. The international slave trade was abolished. In the new interregional configuration of slave labor, cotton, an industrial raw material not a drug crop, emerged as the key commodity in world trade. The steamship and railroad broke the transportation barrier. Extensive new areas of the U.S. South were opened to cultivation and an internal commodity frontier was created. At the same time, planters in Cuba and Brazil used slave labor to produce sugar and coffee on an unprecedented scale. They also developed internal commodity frontiers, often incorporating new production and transportation technologies. These new production zones sustained patterns of trade and economic activity outside of old colonial frameworks. As Southern planters exported raw cotton to British and Northern industrial centers, the United States became a major consumer of Cuban sugar and Brazilian coffee. At the same time, new regions of tropical staple production developed outside of the Americas. These changes were part of the expansion of the world economy and restructuring of the world division of labor under the hegemony of British capital. This new scale of production and reconfiguration of the world division of labor superseded the maritime


119

Atlantic and marks the limit of Atlantic as a relevant concept for historical analysis.

Conclusion By proposing a conceptualization of the Atlantic as a historical region of the European world economy, this article has sought to present a unified and multi-dimensional relational approach that is capable of comprehending the complexity and richness of Atlantic history. The integration of the Atlantic into the world economy creates the conditions for the region’s coherence and stability. Within the historical-theoretical framework of the maritime Atlantic, particular economic, political, social, or cultural units (in our own example, instances of plantation slavery) are conceived as parts of the more encompassing Atlantic and world economies. Each such unit is understood, not as a self-contained entity, but as an outcome of a dense web of relations and processes operating across diverse temporal and spatial scales. Here units are understood to be interdependent and mutually formative within the larger world economic framework. This approach stands in contrast to the more familiar strategy of comparing cases that are treated as discrete and independent entities. Rather than presuming the fundamental homogeneity and equivalence of already given units, it calls attention to the ways they are constituted differently within the long-term structure of the global and Atlantic division of labor and discloses the historically changing character of social relations. It thereby enables us to differentiate and specify particular configurations of relations within a unified historical field. By grounding Atlantic history in the long-term geographical-historical structure of the maritime Atlantic, this methodological approach enables us to both establish the conditions under which individual units are formed within historically cumulative causal sequences and to specify the variation among them in space and time. By thus calling attention to the relations among diverse units within a more or less integrated global system, this perspective further allows us at once to discern long-term structural conditions and to identify particular conjunctures and contingencies shaping the history of the maritime Atlantic. Such a procedure offers a productive new perspective from which to explore the complexity and diver-

120

Dale Tomich

sity of Atlantic history, together with the intricate and ever-changing networks of relations that make and remake it.

Works Cited Alencastro, Luiz Felipe de. 2000. O Tratado dos Viventes. Formação do Brasil no Atlântico Sul. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. Armitage, David and Michael J. Braddick, eds. 2002. The British Atlantic World, 1500-1800. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Berlin, Ira. 1998. Many Thousands Gone. The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Braudel, Fernand. 1972 . “History and the Social Sciences.” Economy and Society in Early Modern Europe. Essays from the Annales. Edited by Peter Burke. New York: Harper & Row, 11-42. —. 1981a. The Structures of Everyday Life. Civilization & Capitalism, 15th-18th Century. Vol. 1. New York: Harper and Row. —. 1981b. The Wheels of Commerce. Civilization & Capitalism, 15th-18th Century. Vol. 2. New York: Harper and Row. —. 1995. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bunker, Stephen G. 1994. “Regional Development Theory and the Subordination of Extractive Peripheries.” Comparative National Development: Society and Economy in the New Global Order. Edited by A.D. Kincaid and A. Portes. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 112-42. Castro, Antônio Barros de. 1971. Sete ensaios sobre a economia brasiliera. 2 vols. Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitaria. Fraginals, Manuel Moreno. 1976. The Sugarmill: The Socioeconomic Complex of Sugar in Cuba. New York: Monthly Review Press. Freyre, Gilberto. 1981. Casa Grande e Senzala. Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio. Hopkins, Terence K. 1982a. “The Study of the Capitalist World-Economy: Some Methodological Considerations.” In World-Systems Analysis: Theory and Methodology. Edited by Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein. Beverley Hills: Sage Publications, 9-38. —. 1982b. “World-Systems Analysis: Methodological Issues.” In World-Systems Analysis: Theory and Methodology. Edited by Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein. Beverley Hills: Sage Publications, 145-58. Knight, Franklin. 1970. Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Mintz, Sidney W. 1985. Sugar and Power. The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Viking Penguin. Moore, Jason. 2000. “Sugar and the Expansion of the Early Modern World Economy: Commodity Frontiers, Ecological Transformation, and Industri-


121

alization.” Review XXIII, 3: 409-33. Tomich, Dale. 1990. Slavery in the Circuit of Sugar: Martinique and the World Economy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. —. 1994. “Small Islands and Huge Comparisons: Caribbean Plantations, Historical Unevenness, and Capitalist Modernity.” Social Science History 18, 3: 339-58. Wagley, Charles . 1957 . “Plantation America: A Cultural Sphere.” In Caribbean Studies: A Symposium. Edited by Vera Rubin. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 3-13. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World-System. Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press. —. 1991. Unthinking Social Science. The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms. Cambridge: Polity Press. Wright, Gavin. 1987. “Capitalism and Slavery on the Islands: A Lesson from the Mainland.” British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery. Edited by Barbara L. Solow and Stanley L. Engerman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 283-302.

122

Barry Axford

Multi-Dimensionality, Mutual Constitution …

Culture in the World-System

123

124

Barry Axford


125

Multi-Dimensionality, Mutual Constitution and the Nature of Systemness: The Importance of the Cultural Turn in the Study of Global Systems Barrie Axford

Abstract In this article I will address the critical question of the constitution of global systems and the part played in such processes by what is often summarized as culture. I examine the important distinction between culture and globalization and culture as constitutive of global social relations. The need to cleave to a systemic treatment of globality is put, while noting the dangers that lie in one-dimensional accounts of global system constitution. To offset any such tendency I explore the constitution of global systemness from a structurationist perspective. I outline the nature and significance of culture in the study of global systems, drawing attention to different literatures. Finally I underscore the importance of the cultural turn in the study of global systems and what has to be done to take full advantage of it. In what follows I will address the critical question of the constitution of global systems and the part played in such processes by what is conveniently – if sometimes unhelpfully – summarized as “culture”. By global systems I mean networks of interaction and meaning that transcend both societal and national frames of reference. I want to shift the emphasis away from an under-theorized focus on cultural globalization to a consideration of global systems as enacted in part through cultural processes. In other words, I do not want to conflate the conjunctional features of contemporary (cultural) globalization with culture as the realm of lived experience integral to the enactment of all social-systemic relations. In some respects this approach may be seen as part of a shift – perhaps a paradigm shift – in how we understand the space of the social, and in how, or whether, we construe the global as the constitutive of all social relations (Beck 2003; Shaw 2003). I will begin with a mild polemic against a well-known systemic account of world-making forces that highlights some of these issues.

Re-reading the text of an interview given by Immanuel Wallerstein a few years back (Kumar and Welz 2000), I was again struck by his insistence that, when explaining how the social is constituted, reproduced and

126

Barry Axford

transformed, “culture” should not be made to play second fiddle to economics and politics. Of course many of the world-systems persuasion came in for criticism precisely on the grounds that they were using culture as a convenient way of rounding out a gaunt economism. Perchance Wallerstein was always open to the idea that culture matters, and meant by this something more than advocating strategic voluntarism while clinging to a robust theoretical essentialism. Certainly there are some grounds for making this claim. By far the strongest is the main burden of world-systems analysis: its attempt to redirect the analytical focus of social theory from the societal to the world level. On this Wallerstein was never coy, believing that the conceptual structures and epistemologies of social science need to be reworked to account for the global nature of social reproduction (Friedman 2000: 637). National societies must not, indeed cannot, be analyzed without recourse to the manner in which they are linked to and conditioned by extra and trans-societal networks of exchanges called world-systems (Robertson 1992; Friedman 2000; Shaw 2003). Whether or not you subscribe to an exchangist model of world-system constitution, the main contention is sound, although still outside the purview of much usual science where “methodological nationalism” is remarkably tenacious regardless of the discipline (Friedman 2000; Beck 2003; Shaw 2003). Of course, the message has not been lost, but it is often taken as read, without thought to its profound implications for social analysis and the reconfiguration of social knowledge (Albrow 1996). In debates about the nature and effects of current globalization, it has been parlayed into the language of ritual dispute between “hyperglobalisers” and various strains of globalization sceptics, including denizens of the broad church of International Political Economy (Held et al. 1999; Rosamond 2003; Shaw 2003). Such cavalier treatment is possible only because much research and commentary is transfixed by the current intensive phase of globalization, rather than with the making, reproduction, and transformation of global systems – with globality as a “constitutive framework” for all social relations (Friedman 2000; Keohane and Nye 2000; Shaw 2003: 35; Urry 2003). This is a key distinction and I will take it up below. For now, let me return to Wallerstein and his treatment of culture. Any revisionist tendency, where meaning counts, must confront his actual use of culture. For Wallerstein culture is the “ideas system” of the


127

modern world-system, revealed in the dominant ideology of liberalism, with its (false) universalizing credos. Such an account is not vulgar Marxism, because culture is not treated as the ideological superstructure of the capitalist world-system (1991). Wallerstein is able to argue thus primarily because he rejects conventional wisdom that culture (civil society/ agency) is a domain separate from politics and economics, so that the question of which sphere dominates does not even arise. To that extent, but only to that extent, his is a multi-dimensional account of worldsystem construction. Indeed, in his words, all three are “implicated and integrated”. This formulation appears rounded enough, but, as always, the devil lies both in what is meant by “implicated and integrated”, and in the detail of how he actually depicts cultural phenomena, and thus agency. Implicated is a weasel word, and in Wallerstein’s corpus obviously culture is “implicated” in the reproduction and possible transformation of the modern world-system. As the ideas system of world capitalism, culture is functional for the reproduction of that system in much the same way as states are crucial to maintaining the competitive dynamic essential to the survival of the world-economy. At the same time, cultural phenomena in the shape of a variety of antisystemic groups and movements have become the site of both intellectual and actual struggles to deconstruct the false totality and universalist pretensions of global liberalism. Here we have a reworking of the familiar structure-agency dualism, with the cultural system of global liberalism challenged by agency in the guise of counter-cultural forces such as social movements, local resistors and so on. The upshot is that culture is both system-integrative and – admittedly in particularistic and local forms (agency) – anti-systemic. In accounts of global hegemony influenced by Gramsci, hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses also compete for the ideational closure of the global system. Moreover, in much of the anti-globalization rhetoric of the late 1990s, players from an eponymous “global civil society” appear as both opponents of “top-down” globalization and avatars of a more benign globality. Instead of anti-systemic forces (agency) just kicking against the pricks of a global geo-culture, they demonstrate attributes of a more “innovative and variegated type of politics” (Falk 1999). Such actions also intimate an ethical ideal of social order where life-world (agency) is first rescued and then reinvigorated (Seligman 1995). Set against the over-determined cast of world-systems analysis this is a much more permissive,

128

Barry Axford

if still under-theorized, treatment of what is often summarized as global civil society. Thus, success or failure for the global justice movement is held to be contingent on the availability of adequate resources, a serendipitous upturn in the issue-attention cycle, and on other vagaries which beset the mobilization of collective agency. On the face of it, this is a much more pluralist environment in which to traffic contentious politics, one in which agency is not only visible, but potent. In worldsystems analysis, the world-system is already configured by the needs of historical capitalism and agency is left as a residual category, more often than not constrained by the dominant cultural system of ideas. So that while Wallerstein is right to stress the need to abjure conventional “levels” of analysis in the study of world-systems, and rejects the tendency to analyse phenomena in terms of discrete categories and through a-priori reasoning, it is by no means obvious that he practices what he preaches. Indeed, for all the talk of “integration”, Wallerstein’s analysis of culture stops some way short of a considered treatment of relationality (where that refers to both relations between zones of existence and between agency and structure). It is clearly a long way short of the concept of mutual constitution of the social, although this is understandable. Wallerstein is hardly a closet structurationist, and even from within that canon it is hard to move beyond the intuitive plausibility of the concept. But as I will argue later, questions of relationality between zones of existence and between agents and structures must be addressed directly, even if we favor the idea of the mutual constitution of social life, or a more radical formulation of socially constitutive relations. Wallerstein’s corpus does draw attention to the ease with which important questions about relationality, mutual constitution and systemness can be glossed over to make a compelling case for a one-dimensional account of world-system constitution. The significance of the cultural turn in the analysis of social (global) systems is that such cavalier treatment is more difficult to sustain. Does that mean that we are all culturalists now? In the rest of the paper I will examine the treatment of cultural phenomena and of culture in the study of globalization and the constitution of gobal systems. I do so in part to clarify usage and in order to point up the important distinction between culture and globalization and culture as constitutive of global social relations. Then I will explore the constitution of global systemness from a structurationist per-


129

spective. Finally, I will outline the significance of the cultural turn in the study of global systems and what has to be done to take full advantage of it.

Globalization or Globality? Primarily this refers to a disjunction between what Martin Shaw usefully labels the conjunctional and processual features of the current phase of globalization, and the structural or systemic features of an enacted globality (2003: 35). The former requires only a set of empirical referents as indicators of more-or-less intensive globalization (Kearney 2003). It can also accommodate a little ideological commitment either way (is globalization good or bad? destructive of the local? protective of thick identities? and so on). Where it is not simply a perspective on, or convenient shorthand for, the intensification of current or even long term trends, globalization is presented as a process corrosive of existing modalities, sometimes causing disjunctures with past practice, but more often possessing an evolutionary or teleological dynamic. None of this is reprehensible; indeed it adds considerably to the contested sum of what we know about the vagaries of globalization. At the same time, it has detracted from what may be thought a more compelling, if less newsworthy, focus on the properties of dynamic systems, revealed in the embedding of world-wide social relations. In much of the globalization discourse, the global “level” is taken for granted (Urry 2003) and globalization is depicted as the force through which sub-global actors (of all varieties) come to identify with the global. As a result globalization becomes a kind of reified structure, with individuals, groups, localities, regions, and so on, also reified as agents; with the whole often underpinning a simple domination-resistance motif of global relations. By contrast, a focus on global systems, to quote Friedman again, entails “a theoretical framework within which the institutional structures of the world are themselves generated and reproduced through global processes” (2000: 638). These institutional structures and processes tend to generate a systemic dynamic because the totality of global flows, networks, interactions and connections reveals a structural shift in the organization of human affairs, in the exercise of power, and in the sites at which power is employed or immanent (Held et al. 1999). It also directs

130

Barry Axford

attention to the changing meanings attached to spaces and places, and thus to the realm of culture. This latter point is important because while we are often drawn to the ideal of “thick” local cultures as the site at which consciousness of and meanings attached to the world are reproduced or transformed, the global system focus abjures the powerful mythology that culture is just a signifier of place. By adopting such a perspective, methodological nationalism is already weakened and culture, as well as ways of talking about it, commute from being only a property of place, to being the result of “world-making practices” sometimes tied to place, sometimes not. Now, I realize that all this may reek of abstract principles rather than the “muck-raking” sociology of events, crises and brute numbers, but it is a necessary distinction. Unless we can locate globalizing processes in general, and processes of cultural globalization in particular, in a wider treatment of global system construction of globality, we run the risk of succumbing either to journalism (usually without the panache) or crude empiricism, with neither tied to theory. We also miss, or misinterpret the importance of the cultural turn. But the shift in emphasis is not without risk. For one thing, the legacy of much systems-analytic work is a hard burden to bear when dealing with fluid global configurations (Albrow 1996). The examples offered by heavily systemic, but utilitarian and functionalist accounts from strains of world-system analysis are not auspicious, for all their devotion to world-level constraints. In these, culture remains a convenient equation filler when all else fails. More promising, if highly abstract, is John Urry’s recent exegesis on complexity theory applied to global systemness. Urry is rightly critical of much of the social science of globalization. His solution is to argue for globality as a theory of connections, in which phenomena such as “local”, “global”, “identity”, and “technology”, have to be recast as a set of complex, reflexive systems and self-organizing exchanges and transactions linked to both narrower and wider systems of power and influence (Hand and Sandywell 2002). This approach certainly avoids the implication that interactions between a stable global system (steering) and any number of derivative or theoretically subordinate local and networked recipients (culture, life-world) are in any way over-determined. Instead, world-making practices have a powerful emergent quality revealed in the imbrications of local and global, through the interplay of global scapes and contingent glocal actors


131

and through various networks, fluids and governance institutions (Urry 2003: 103; Appadurai 1990, 1996). Urry’s formulation may be a brand of system-lite, but it syncs with the indeterminate and open nature of current globality. However, there are complaints that complexity theory merely caricatures the social carry weight and there remains some ambiguity about the place of agency in such accounts (Fuchs 2001). Urry insists that “there is no agency, no micro and macro levels and no system and no life-world” (2003: 122). While this strikes me as very problematic with respect to agency, it is clear that he is trying to abrogate the simplicity of approaches which presume entities with separate and distinct essences that are brought into external juxtaposition with each other. As such, he evinces a proper regard for relationality in the making of the social and over the ways in which domains of collective existence influence, affect and constitute each other. As I will make clear, my position is that relationality in the matter of global systemness relies on the dynamic of mutual constitution (Giddens 1984, 1990) of reflexive engagement between agents and the conditions of action. Because of this, Urry is wrong to neglect agency, whose dynamic and visceral qualities are integral to any theory of global system construction. To be fair, he recognizes as much when he says that relationality is brought about through a wide array of networked or circulating relationships that are implicated within increasingly overlapping and convergent material worlds.

Making Global Systems Of course, treating global social relations as systemic addresses only one part of the problem. True, we get away from the idea of globalization as a process detached from history, resources and culture, but often at some cost. The most obvious cost is that one-dimensional accounts of global system construction abound. These vary in provenance, but they all privilege one zone of experience as expressing system identity. In the literature on global systems this has tended to be the economic sphere and, in terms of recent globalizations, the practice and ideology of the market. The global system is thus reduced to the structures of capitalist relations, including the ideological ones. We could offer much the same critique of one-dimensional theories that privilege, not economics, but political/

132

Barry Axford

strategic and, yes, cultural structures as the key organizational principles of the global system. Of course, essentialist accounts are of a significantly different order to those which acknowledge the “fundamental singularity of social space” (Shaw 2003: 36), but still recognize the conjunctional impact of market forces, cultural trends and geo-strategic factors in shaping basically integrative, global pressures in world politics, economy and culture. Sometimes essentialism and voluntarism are inadvertently combined. As a case in point, consider a recent piece on the limits of global civil society (GCS) by Neera Chandhoke (2002). Chandhoke rehearses some key weaknesses of the concept, among which is that it suffers from a tendency found in much social-scientific analysis, namely the propensity to analyze phenomena (areas of collective life) in terms of discrete categories. Thus, national civil society is often depicted as a normative moral order diametrically opposed to the state and the economy. In like vein, GCS as a putative or actual “third sector” is not only distinguished from, but seen as a self-conscious alternative to the current architecture of statecentric world politics especially in its “thin, anarchical” form (Booth 1991). It also provides an uncontaminated, popular and thus “thicker” counterweight to the instrumental geo-culture of neo liberalism. Now, at this point in reading Chandhoke’s interesting paper, I thought that she would either treat GCS as constitutive of the global condition, or reject its usage. However, she does not, or rather she does a little of both, but in a way that simply reposes the problems of relationality between elements of the social and thus how we construe the global condition (Robertson 1992). She notes that GCS actors are not autonomous of the “other institutions of international (sic) politics” and that GCS probably reflects the power constellations of existing institutions (Chandhoke 2002: 37). At one level, this is perfectly acceptable, since it remains an empirical question as to whether such actors have widened the agenda of world politics, enlarged the scope of agency and successfully challenged the world-views and practices of existing institutions of global governance, or just increased the number of players. It goes without saying there are different positions on this question (compare Brown 2001 and Florini 2001). At another level, and certainly for my purposes, it is an opportunity missed. Chandhoke wants to emphasize the ways in which domains of collective existence (2002: 35) influence, affect and even constitute each


133

other. In this regard her formulation tends usefully towards the systemic. The problem is that while she is concerned with “life-world” issues (agency), seeing GCS as a realm of social integration, there is a strong suspicion that she cleaves to a “core identity” for the global system, to be found in states and especially in markets – the structures of steering and of system integration. People may acquire and reinvent political agency and different forms of selfhood in the spaces opened up by transnational collective action, but pace Wallerstein, they are merely counter-cultural or anti-systemic and thus contingent upon shifts in the dominant culture of world politics and economics to call them into being and to sustain or destroy them (Axford 1995). This is a version of globality that misses out on the key feature of global systemness, that is, its mutual constitution through reflexive engagements between actors and the conditions of action (Giddens 1991, 1993; and, with a different gloss, Urry 2003). Thus Chandhoke’s is a failure to comprehend how global systems are constituted, and both reproduced or transformed through routine and distanced interventions by actors, and perhaps through what Urry calls “iterative social interactions” (2003: 46). Recognizing GCS as a zone of agency appears initially to address this question, but bracketing off the reflexivities of life-world from system does not capture the messiness and the complexity of globalization processes, wherein actors routinely cross the boundaries between the everyday and the systemic (Axford 2001). We are now firmly in the territory of the mutual constitution of social systems. Elsewhere, I have criticized both system-centered and actorcentered theories of social life from a variety of perspectives (Axford 1995). But in the structurationist project (Giddens 1984) the conventional distinction between structure (rules) and agency (individual and collective) is abjured in favor of a “duality of structure” which underlines the recursive nature of social life. Structure is not external to what actors think and do (and this applies to what might conventionally be seen as the “structures” of globalization) but instantiated in social practice. Thus, what are known as structures or institutions are “the medium for and the outcome of the contingently accomplished activities of situated actors” (1984: 25). Structures both constrain and enable action because they supply rules and resources which generate action, and are the outcome (intended and unintended) of a myriad of recursive actions by knowledgeable agents. In turn, rules “validate the ontological status of

134

Barry Axford

actors by providing the broad cultural frameworks for the sort of social arrangements that are possible” (Barrett 1992). All this puts agency center-stage in the business of world-making practices, but without the postmodern conceit that institutions are simply extensions of self and collective identities. At the same time, while structures codify rules and supply resources for action, they are instantiated, reproduced, and changed only through action. Global cultural products, while not empty of meaning until they are drawn upon or enacted by subjects, have no “objective” quality which immunizes them from interpretation and appropriation. In an interesting gloss on this argument, John Urry (2003) insists that structuration theory fails to appreciate the “complex” character of structure-agency duality. He argues that such relationality is better understood as a complex of iterative social interactions, wherein change is generated by countless iterations of routine actions and their (un)intended consequences, rather than through the deliberate intervention of agents. In other words, complex change occurs because of the emergent qualities of the system. While this has to be true some of the time, the idea of change simply being the outcome of happenstance underplays the importance of consciousness and intent. In charting the twists of a contested globality, we should acknowledge a power for agency that goes beyond the fact that it is implicated in great and small events just through being there. In the real world, of course, questions of access, resource pools and the vagaries of the issue-attention cycle must bear on the quality of intervention. I want to avoid the intuitively pleasing, but simplistic idea that through their everyday practices agents connect to global outcomes, in the sense that what a person eats, or smokes or drives, is linked to structures of global ecology consciousness, let alone to rules or cultural scripts which regulate or constitute that issue-area. Rather, I am suggesting a way of grasping how (conscious) agency draws upon rules and resources supplied by system structures to instantiate and change the conditions for action and the contexts which supply meaning. This is a fruitful way to understand the constitution of global systems and of cultural processes and structures as constitutive of such systems. One final word about relationality, which is the key to understanding global systemness. It is easy to prescribe a relaxed approach to the imbrication of economics, politics and culture and the value of a multi-dimen-


135

sional treatment of systemness. Unfortunately this is harder to deliver, unless all that is meant is a convenient division of the social universe denoting typical features, which can be described and classified. If we take the idea of global systemness seriously the relationality between zones of experience is more difficult to theorize, especially if we accept the claim that with the universalization of capitalism, the distinction between culture and economics has dissolved. As Wernick says, culture in the guise of market ideology now seeps into everything, and everything is subject to the cultural logic of commodification (1992). And to up the ante somewhat, consider the proposition that postmodernity makes the cultural economic at the same time as it turns the economic into myriad forms of culture. But should we worry about all of this? If we cleave to a broadly structurationist position on the duality of structures, the problem recedes, since structures, regardless of their provenance, are the outcome of practice, and agency relies on rules and resources to substantiate its ontology. As long as we are clear that the dynamic and often open nature of global systems is subject to more than one trend or force, careful empirical research should do the rest. Singularity in explanation beggars global complexity. As Martin Shaw notes, “while pre-existing trends towards the commodification of social life continue … political changes have made this possible” (2003: 36). He might have added that in the seminal changes taking place in global modernity, cultural factors and aesthetics too have assumed a growing significance, not only in matters of political display, but as registers of power and interest. Because of this, it must be understood that the complex and contradictory relations of economics, politics and culture require the observer to unravel the inter-twinings of an economic system dependent on the principle of commodification and cultural terrains which are both determined by and yet still mange to elude or subvert that principle.

Culture in/and the Study of Global Systems Culture is an intriguing zone of analysis for students of globalizations and global systems, in part because of its relative neglect by researchers of all persuasions (for an account see Tomlinson 1999). Recent interest in

136

Barry Axford

cultural phenomena reflects a reworking of disciplinary paradigms and a growing realization that a frenetic search for appropriate indicators of globalization cannot be confined to economic or narrowly conceived governance phenomena. As I have tried to indicate, the ever stronger sense that we have to analyze social relations in terms of global constraints is late to this feast, but does signal a sea change in how to think about the constitution of the world. Attention to the soft features of globalization and global systems – and here I refer largely to cultural and motivational phenomena – has enriched our understanding of global processes and their impacts on situated actors. Of course, past literatures often reveal a penchant for treating cultural phenomena as either avatars of “thin” (though often oppressive) global homogeneity or the expression of “thick” local identities. On the credit side, this does help to distinguish between the role of cultural factors in promoting or resisting globalization processes on the one hand, and the impact of globalization on received notions of culture on the other (Tomlinson 1999). As to the downside, we are drawn, yet again, into the intuitively appealing, but caricatured depiction of globalization processes as playing out a simple domination-resistance model. Either this, or else we admit that globalization (cultural globalization) is either a slide into nihilism or nothingness (Ritzer 2003) or a corrosive dialectic in which a hegemonic global consumer culture spawns primitivism and/ or fanaticism (Barber 1996). Yet in principle, the inclusion of cultural factors in the analysis of world-making practices should produce a more nuanced and credible picture of global complexity. And so it proves, at least in part. Roland Robertson offers a wonderfully rich historical weave of global complexity in which the “concrete structuration” of the world takes place through the relationships between universal and particular and local and global (1992: 102). His is both a voluntaristic and a multi-dimensional theory of global system construction quite at odds with the foundationalism of over-systematized accounts and the anti-categorical credos of postmodernism. Of course, for Robertson, it is only “convenient” to talk about a global “system” (1992: 13), because that implies homogeneity and closure, whereas the cultural state of the world predicates heterogeneity and disorder. That said, we need to retain the concept of system, or rather of global systems. While the idea of the world is not “exhausted by its systemic qualities” (Robertson 1992: 13), the sense of it being “made” is possible only by


137

acknowledging (and then unraveling) the systematic duality of agencystructure. The cultural complexity of global systems and the contradictory nature of globalization processes receives further endorsement from many sources, only a few of which can be reprised here. For example, Appadurai’s fluid global scapes and contingent “glocal” subjects remind us that order and disorder are emergent properties of global systemness rather than as contradictory states vying for the core identity of the system (1990, 1996). This reflection underlines the sense that global systems, indeed all social systems, consist of a surface appearance of stability set in an energy or flux (Axford 1995). The idea of a system as a scape, a flow or an energy rather than an order allows for relationships within it to be generative and degenerative, as the identities of actors and institutions are reproduced through processes of cultural enactment, autopoietic selfreflection and reflexivity, without loss of systemic energy. Much new research from diasporic cultural studies and from global communications challenges the conventional wisdom about the cultural reproduction of identity in transnational spaces. The very notion of identity is redolent with the mentality of imagined communities and cultures that are rooted in national experience (Aksoy and Robins 2002). The upshot is that new forms of transnational modality are often judged through the lens (and with the moral purview) of the national imaginary (Aksoy and Robins 2002: 3). The reality is a lot more complex. Thinking about transnational communications in the context of diasporic cultural studies, Aksoy and Robins argue that Turkish migrants who routinely watch transnational satellite television are not simply reproducing “Turkishness” as members of a diasporic audience, but enacting new kinds of “transnational mobilities” that may redefine the migrant experience and ways of thinking about it. Their research underlines the analytical necessity and the emotional sense of treating new media cultures and especially digital media as part of a cultural shift in the tenor of life in post-historical societies under global constraints, rather than as instrumentalities tacked onto a real world of politics and social relations. The results of this shift could be modalities which may, but may not, reproduce conventionally “thin” or “thick” identities and imaginaries (Kellner 2001; Dahlgren 2001; Luke 1998; Aksoy and Robins 2002). On a different tack, attempts to rework cosmopolitanism “for another age” (Held 2002: 12) cleave to a more informal and strongly “cultural”

138

Barry Axford

version that rounds out the parsimony of liberal internationalism. To the lexicon of good governance and the rule of law extended across territories, cultural cosmopolitanism adds “slow-fooders”, contingent identities forged across (cyber) space and any number of coalitions of the willing. In particular, Held calls for “recognition … of the increasing interconnectedness of political communities in diverse domains, and the development of an understanding of overlapping “collective fortunes” which require collective solutions – locally, nationally, regionally and globally” (2002: 12). Urry’s references to a “cosmopolitan fluidity” visible in the creation of global audiences for media events (the death of Diana, the Iraq war, and the SARS outbreak) and in the increasing and often voluntary movement of people around the globe, fall into the same vein of reflection (2003: 137). By embracing a “new” cosmopolitanism for the global age, these are welcome interpretations. They seem to discard the strait-jacket cut from ethical universalism and to admit the kind of routine or informal cosmopolitanism noted by many cultural anthropologists (Vertovec 2001). Unlike some treatments of global civil society, this informal cosmopolitanism embraces a pretty catholic range of actors, actions, motivations and mobilizing factors. “Davos Man” is there, along with his doppelganger in the Trans-National Capitalist Class (Berger 2003; Sklair 2000), but so are networks of computer hackers, Socrates exchange students, and human rights activists. Finally, intimations of a “networked globality” (Axford 2005) draw heavily on the notion that culture as the realm of meaning and context for identity formation, can be seen as a property of networks of interaction – transterritorial and global – as well as being an attribute of place. Such a take is at odds with the reified concept of culture found in positivist and functionalist sociology, and with the treatment of “authentic” sources of culture as shared meaning previously found, and to some extent still visible, in what Friedman calls “globalized Anthropology” (2000: 641). For students of global structuration, the issue of the production of shared meaning, not tied to place, particular history, and so on, is critical. For example, claims to discern a systematic transnationality, even a global civil society, are given short shrift by many commentators. One of the primary obstacles bruited by students of collective action is the alleged difficulty of extending social networks of trust, reciprocity and shared meaning across borders. As a corollary, the “embeddedness” of


139

identities in particular social networks and cultural scripts may also inhibit the creation of “detached” or purposive identities that can traffic across borders, mobilizing and uniting disparate activists (Melucci 1996; McAdam et al. 2000). Of course, culture has always had a problematic status in sociological explanations of action or stability, let alone in globalization studies (Robertson 1992). In explanations of stability and change, cultural variables have usually assumed dependent status. In much of this discourse, which is either broadly or explicitly functionalist, the assumption is that culture functions as a general value system for society. As a kind of social cement culture both holds the collectivity together by providing shared meanings, and also serves to delineate insiders from outsiders, through embodying and exemplifying the “reality of a particular past” (Wallerstein, 1991: 190). Forms of methodological individualism need the explanatory power of socialization processes to ensure that some kind of social order is produced from the preferences of rational individuals (Meyer et al. 1997). The same obsession with functionality is found in neo-Marxist analyses, and these, along with other broadly realist positions, need some kind of semi-autonomous ideological dynamic to soften compelling material realities. Even those arguments that display a more obvious “cultural turn” pace Gramsci, often end up in obfuscation over degrees of allowable autonomy and the tendency either to conflate cultural structures and the interpretative practices of agents, or else to ignore the latter. The key lesson for attempts to comprehend the construction of global systems is that culture must be understood as the contextual expression of interpretative practices by agents (Kunda 1992). Cultures do not exist outside their making, they are constituted in action. Once this is accepted the idea of the mutual constitution of global systems can be comprehended as a theoretical possibility and a project accessible through empirical research.

The Importance of the Cultural Turn Let me reiterate. By stressing the importance of the cultural turn for the study of global systems, I am not suggesting something as a brief fling with postmodernism pace Jameson or Kellner, or even with less sophis-

140

Barry Axford

ticated advocates of the end of grand narratives. Still less am I advocating a form of cultural reductionism where culture takes precedence over economics and politics. The visibility and the vitality of cultural studies have alerted students of the global to the significance of meaning structures, of shared meanings, in the making of the social and provided a rich seam of illustration. As to the latter, let me repeat my concern that we treat culture as more than shorthand for some exotic conjunctional features of current globalization, and examine cultural phenomena as part of a description of new forms of sociality constituted through global processes (Axford 1995; Friedman 2000). In the latter guise, culture becomes the realm of shared meanings and purposive action in systemic relationships constitutive of and dependent on larger processes of the global system. If we are seeking a systematic understanding of the social as constituted through global process, we can proceed in no other way.

Works Cited Albrow, M. 1996. The Global Age. Cambridge: Polity. Aksoy, A. and Robins, K. 2002. “Banal Transnationalism: The Difference that Television Makes.” ESRC Transnational Communities Programme. Oxford: WPTC-02-08. Appadurai, A. 1990. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Theory, Culture and Society 7: 295-310. —. 1996. Modernity at Large. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Axford, B. 1995. The Global System: Economics, Politics and Culture. Cambridge: Polity. —. 2001. “The Transformation of Politics or Anti-Politics?” In New Media and Politics. Edited by B. Axford and R. Huggins. London: Sage, 1-30. —. 2005. “Networked Globality, Global Complexity and Global Civil Society: Beyond the Territorialist and Societalist Paradigm.” Globalizations 2, 1, forthcoming. Barber, B. 1996. Jihad Versus McWorld. New York: Ballantine. Barrett, D. 1992. “Reproducing People as a Public Concern.” Ph.D. Dissertation. Stanford: Stanford University. Beck, U. 2003. “The Analysis of Global Inequality: From Nationalist to Cosmopolitan Perspective.” In The Global Civil Society Yearbook, Vol.2. Edited by H. Anheier, M. Glasius, and M. Kaldor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 45-55. Berger, P. L. 2003. “The Cultural Dynamics of Globalization.” In Many


141

Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World. Edited by P.L. Berger and S. P. Huntington. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1-17. Booth, K. 1991. “Security in Anarchy: Utopian Realism in Theory and Practice.” International Affairs 67: 527-45. Brown, C. 2001. “Cosmopolitanism, World Citizenship and Global Civil Society.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 3: 7-26. Chandhoke, N. 2002. “The Limits of Global Civil Society.” In Global Civil Society 2001. Edited by H. Anheier, M. Glasius, and M. Kaldor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 35-53. Dahlgren, P. 2001. “The Transformation of Democracy?” In New Media and Politics. Edited by B. Axford and R. Huggins. London: Sage, 64-89. Falk, R. 1999. Predatory Globalization: A Critique. Cambridge: Polity. Florini, A. 2001. “Transnational Civil Society.” In Global Citizen Action. Edited by M, Edwards and J. Gaventa. Boulder: Earthscan, 27-39. Friedman, J. 2000. “Order and Disorder in Global Systems: A Sketch.” Social Research 60, 2, 636-58. Fuchs, S. 2001. Against Essentialism: A Theory of Culture and Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Giddens, A. 1984. The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity. —. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. —. 1993. New Rules of Sociological Method (2nd ed). Cambridge: Polity. Hand, M. and B. Sandywell. 2002. “E-topia as Cosmopolis or Citadel: On the Democratising and De-democratising Logics of the Internet, or, Towards a Critique of the New Technological Fetishism.” Theory, Culture & Society 19, 1-2: 197-225. Held, D. 2002. “National Culture, the Globalization of Communications and the Bounded Political Community.” Logos 1, 3, 1-18. Held, D., A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt, and J. Perraton. 1999. Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture. Cambridge: Polity. Kearney, A.T. 2003. “Globalization Index 2003.” Foreign Policy Magazine. Available at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/story.php?storyID=13460 Kellner, D. 2001. Theorizing Globalization. Available at http://www.gseis.ucla. edu/faculty/kellner/papers/theoryglob.htm Keohane, R. J. and Nye. 2000. “Globalization: What’s New?, What’s Not?” Foreign Policy 118: 104-19. Kumar, A. and F. Welz. 2000. “Interview with Immanuel Wallerstein.” La Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, June 25, 1999. Available at http:// www.zmk.uni-freiberg.de/Wallerstein/wallitext.htm Kunda, G. 1992. Engineering Culture: Control and Commitment in a High-Tech Corporation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Luke, T. 1998. “From Nationality to Nodality: How the Politics of being Digital Transforms Globalization.” Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 3-6 September. McAdam, D., S. Tarrow, and C. Tilly. 2000. Dynamics of Contention. Cam-

142

Barry Axford

bridge: Cambridge University Press. Melucci, A. 1996. Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meyer, J., L. Boli, G. Thomas, and F. O. Ramirez. 1997. “World Society and the Nation-State.” American Journal of Sociology 103, 1: 144-82. Ritzer, G. 2003. Globalization of Nothing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Robertson, R. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage. Rosamond, B. 2003. “Babylon and on? Globalization and International Political Economy.” Review of International Political Economy 10, 4: 661-71. Seligman, A. 1995. The Idea of Global Civil Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Shaw, M. 2003. “The Global Transformation of the Social Sciences.” In The Global Civil Society Yearbook, Vol.3: Global Civil Society in an Era of Regressive Globalism. Edited by H. Anheier, M. Glasius, and M. Kaldor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 35-44. Sklair, L. 2000. The Transnational Capitalist Class. Oxford: Blackwell. Tomlinson, J. 1999. Globalization and Culture. Cambridge: Polity. Urry, J. 2003. Global Complexity. Cambridge: Polity. Vertovec, S. 2001. “Fostering Cosmopolitians: A Conceptual Survey and a Media Experiment in Berlin.” Oxford: WPTC, 2K-06. Wallerstein, I. 1991. Geopolitics and Geoculture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wernick, A. 1992. Promotional Culture. London: Sage.

Ethnicity and Religion …

143

Ethnicity and Religion: Structural and Cultural Aspects of Global Phenomena Mathias Bös

Abstract Ethnicity and religion are European concepts used to describe social patterns in the world system. Historically, the Jewish and Greek traditions exemplify two models of the relation between religion and ethnicity. In sociological theory ethnicity and religion are two aspects in the multilayered systems of cultures in human society. Structurally most religions include many ethnic groups, but most ethnic groups have one majority religion. This relation often leads to the local misperception that identifies one ethnic group with one religion. Cultural and structural features of religion and ethnicity show four mechanisms, which account for the particularizing effects of the interaction between religion and ethnicity: religion and ethnicity as meaning structures mutually enhance each other; religion and ethnicity fit together structurally on many levels; religion and ethnicity are highly efficient “mobilizing mechanisms”; and religion and ethnicity can serve as symbolic expressions of inequality.

The suggestion that religion is not only a universal phenomenon, but influenced as well by particular cultural patterns of ethnic groups, is quite old in western thought. This is exemplified in the famous fragment by the Greek philosopher Xenophanes (sixth century B.C.): Mortals think that the gods are born, and wear clothes like their own, and have a voice and bodies. But if oxen and horses or lions had hands and could draw with them and make works [of art] as men do, horses would draw the shapes of gods like horses, oxen like oxen; each would make their bodies according to their own forms. The Ethiopians say that their gods are flat-nosed and black; the Thracians that theirs are grey-eyed and have red hair (cited in Wiener 2003: 92).

Xenophanes’ observation was made in a time when universal ideas of human kind developed in western religious and philosophical thought.1 At the same time, as Patterson (1977) argues, the western concept of 1

Of course not only there; for this argument see the notion of the Axial Age of Civilizations (first formulated in Jaspers 1983 [1942]).

144

Mathias Bös

ethnicity itself developed in close reference to Greek and Jewish experiences. In ancient Greece, language was the central marker of ethnic belonging and the name Greece referred to an area where Greek people saw themselves as the majority. The non Greek-speaking people were “barbaros” – foreign, ignorant, and uncivilized. In the Jewish tradition ethnicity was not only related to religion, but to the experience of a people in exile or diaspora. The common religion defined as well a way of life; leading such a way of life separated Jews from Gentiles.2 Jewish and Greek traditions exemplify two models of the relation between religion and ethnicity. In the Jewish tradition the relation between religion and ethnicity is seen as congruent, that means belonging to the Jewish religion defines belonging to the Jewish ethnic group and, at least in principle, belonging to the same tribe or kingdom. The prime metaphor that expresses this idea is the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt, led by Moses. The Jews escaped from the situation as an oppressed minority and were in search of a place to live as a political community. One of the most dangerous situations Moses mastered was when his people were losing their religion and hence were in danger of losing their identity. In the Greek perception of ethnicity, religious ideas and political units were seen as internal differentiations within the Greek people. Sparta and Athens were both Greek cities, but nevertheless they fought wars about political power and the right way of life. The ancient Greek polis had its own gods and cults and Greek ethnicity encompassed all these units (Patterson 1977). Ideas on ethnicity and religion emerged in European history and were then later used in science to describe processes encompassing the whole globe. In the following, I first give a short sketch of how these terms emerged and how these processes were reflected in sociological thought. In the second part, some structural features of religion and ethnicity on a world scale are explored, before we return at the end to some thoughts on the relationship between ethnicity and religion.

2 For a discussion of the combination of religion, ethnicity, and politics in Jewish community building see Neusner (2003).


145

Relating Ethnicity and Religion Although the ideas that we relate today to the terms ethnicity and religion can be traced back to the Judeo-Greek roots of European thought, the modern use of both terms emerged much later. The English word “ethnic” came in to use in the fifteenth century. It referred to groups of people who were not Christian or Jewish and was often used as a synonym for heathen (Sollors 1996: x). It was not before the nineteenth century that the term ethnic was used in its modern meaning; according to the Oxford Dictionary of Modern English it was first used this way by Daniel Wilson in 1853 in his The Archæology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland where he talked about “That ethnic stock which embraced all existing European races” (OED 2003). Here the word ethnic pertained to a group of common descent and common way of life.3 Whereas the English term ethnic was originally strongly related to phenomena we today summarize under the heading of religion, the term religion itself was not used with “religious” connotations. The word religion in early medieval texts referred just to an inner bond to moral values or a vow and was often used to describe the necessary basic commitment to a political community. It was not before the Age of Reformation that the term religion denoted the idea of an inner bond to moral values, independent from any political authority, legitimized by a reference to something holy like God or the bible. Jean Bodin (1520-1596), one of the first promoters of religious toleration in Renaissance Europe, was one of the first authors who used religion in its modern meaning: Since the leaders of religions and the priests have had so many conflicts among themselves that no one could decide which is true among all the religion, is it not better to admit publicly all religions of all peoples in the state, as in the kingdom of the Turks and Persians, rather than to exclude one (Bodin quoted in Molnár 2002: 56)?

According to Bodin it was not only desirable that everyone have a religion, it was as well not possible to decide what the only “true” religion was. At the beginning such a notion was contested, but with the end of the Thirty Years War (1618-48) – the war between Protestants and Catho3

The noun ethnicity itself came into use after the Second World War (Sollors 1996: xi), either describing minorities in the United States or non Western peoples.

146

Mathias Bös

lics which depopulated large parts of continental Europe – religions (plural) came to be seen as the different ways people relate to God (Molnár 2002). The terms ethnicity and religion are distinct European4 inventions, first used to describe differences and communalities within the population of Europe and then used to describe social patterns in every corner of the world. Both terms are quite vague and convey changing, sometimes even contradictory notions. Small wonder that many of these contradictions are reflected within the field of sociology.

The Sociology of Ethnicity and Religion Although closely related in the history of ideas, the relation between ethnicity and religion is not at all well analyzed in general sociology. Despite the fact that at least two of the founding fathers of sociology, Weber (e.g., Weber 1985[1922]: chp. 5) and Durkheim (e.g., Durkheim 1994[1912]), focused in large parts of their work on religion in relation to other social processes (although rarely using the word ethnic), relatively little theoretical progress was made. Nevertheless, there is a long tradition which emphasizes religion and ethnicity in empirical studies on minority group situations, like Louis Wirth’s The Ghetto (1982[1928]) or Emrich Francis’s The Russian Mennonites (1948). Important empirical work on ethnic-religious formations had been produced, but theoretical progress concentrated mainly on only one of these areas: either religion or ethnicity. New ideas on the relation of ethnicity and religion developed in the context of different concepts of globalization. This is exemplified in the paradigmatic work of Roland Robertson (1992) who put forward the argument that religion, like ethnicity, is intrinsically universalizing and particularizing at the same time. There is no consensus within sociology about the definition of ethnicity and religion. The two subfields of sociology which are concerned with these topics, the sociology of religion and the sociology of race and ethnic relations, both have a long tradition of arguing if and how the 4 It is noteworthy that the very term Europe itself came into use to substitute the notion of Christianity, which after the Age of Reformation and the beginning of the Enlightenment could no longer serve as an unifying idea of the people which inhabit together an appendix of the Asian continent (Davies 1998: 7).


147

terms religion or ethnicity can or should be defined and if they are useful at all.5 Nevertheless we can identify some aspects, which are most common among different definitions. Two basic types of definitions can be found in the mentioned subfields of sociology. Ethnicity and religion are either defined by the meaning structure shared by participating individuals or by their functions for a group or society. In the case of religion the shared meaning is the belief in something sacred, transcendent, or in God. In the case of ethnicity the shared meaning lies in the belief in a common descent associated with a common way of life. With respect to social functions, religion contributes to the cohesion of society through rituals, organizations, and common values and beliefs, whereas ethnicity supplies a way to define the inclusion and exclusion of persons and expresses and reinforces common beliefs within a given group. In such a simplified view of religion and ethnicity, links between both concepts are easy to see. Milton Yinger, one of the few scholars who has tried to link both concepts systematically, put it this way: There is a close and, I think it is fair to say, natural affinity between religion and ethnicity. This affinity is strongest where the sense of primordial attachment to an ancestral group and its traditions is most deeply felt. It is weakest where the ethic [sic] boundaries have been only recently drawn, where those boundaries are temporary or situational or markers of a pan-ethnic cluster of related but diverse groups. Almost nowhere, however, can an ethnic order be described and analyzed without reference to a religious factor (1994: 255).

Yinger refers to two basic models of the relation between religion and ethnicity. The first pattern he describes is that of a group of people with strong primordial attachments to an ancestral group. One of the paradigmatic cases with a high congruency between ethnicity and religion are Durkheim’s famous clans of Australian aborigines (Durkheim 1994 [1912]). Here the idea of common ethnicity through common ancestry is reflected in the religious totem – like an animal – which represents the worshiped forefathers of all persons in the clan. The totem symbolizes the God and the community, hence Durkheim’s famous idea that religion is a fundamental way for society to express itself to its members. The 5

On a short discussion of these problems for the case of religion see McKinnon (2002) and for ethnicity Bös (2002).

148

Mathias Bös

ethnic and the religious meaning structure in those groups are nearly indistinguishable. Through religious beliefs and rituals the clan is integrated and through its ethnic self-description one can decide who belongs and who does not. Durkheim analyzed another feature of religion and ethnicity that is of prime importance: both meaning structures are a way to coordinate action. This chance of “acting together”, exemplified in rituals, is an important way to generate an emotional bond not only between members of a group but of members of a group to the group itself. The point here is not whether this picture of the clans of Australian aborigines bears any empirical reality or not. The main thing is that, in some imagined times and places of sociological theory, societies might exist where religion and ethnicity were simply two aspects of the same undifferentiated social figuration. This ideal typical model most clearly shows the two main social functions that religion and ethnicity share. Both are ways to symbolize a group and both are able to generate a sense of belonging or loyalty to the group as such. These two aspects are thematized in different ways in most works on both subjects. The Durkheimian model of an undifferentiated ethno-religious social figuration is then used as a baseline in describing contemporary or western societies as more differentiated. Religion and ethnicity are still meaning structures which fulfill certain functions, but they do so in different and much more complex ways. As a meaning structure, religion no longer focuses exclusively on worshiping ancestors but is based in more general concepts of transcendence. This can be separated from the ethnic idea of common descent and way of life. Hence religion starts to be “panethnic”; prime examples here are the world religions, like Christianity or Hinduism that give access to salvation at least in principle to everybody who adheres to their ideas and rules. Such an idea of universal salvation, often expressed in missionary work, has many particularizing consequences. Every missionary soon experiences situations in which “heathens” are reluctant to accept the new creed, and to deny the chance of salvation is considered as even more sinful. Many universalized world religions share a particular conscience of the “betterness” of their own adherents, excluding all who are heathens. Those who resist conversion are even more damned than those who are not able to convert.6 6 Of course such statements are sweeping generalizations; the variations in religious


149

Whereas the particularization of world religions starts from a universalizing idea, the universalization of ethnicity starts from a particularizing idea: ethnicity is seen as something special to every group. But if one accepts the idea that it is “natural” to have a common way of life and common ancestors, it is inevitable to assume that other people are in the same way ethnic. Ethnic groups see themselves as surrounded by other ethnic groups. To the ethnic mind the whole world becomes ethnic. This universal segmentation does not necessarily correlate with religious segmentation. In many cases the same ethnic group can encompass different religions, although these are either minority religions or different confessions (e.g., the Germans). We will come back to this point. Those changing meaning structures obviously correlate with changing social functions. Religion and ethnicity still symbolize the community but they do so in different ways. A religion, which is only binding for a part of the population, might “integrate” this part into society but not necessarily atheists or people of other faiths. The same is true for ethnic group patterns; typically French food can be quiet different in different parts of France, but is nevertheless a way to feel common “Frenchness”. Whatever the actual field of research might be, there is always a whole set of complex possible combinations of religion(s) and ethnicity(s) in a group. Therefore it is surely unrealistic to expect or apply a kind of simplified Durkheimian model of ethno-religious categories to contemporary, real-world social figurations. New religious movements (Unificationists, Scientologists, or Transcendental-Meditationists) are largely left out here.

Ethnicity, Religion and Culture A strange desire to imagine undifferentiated social realties is reflected in a conceptional pitfall that religion and ethnicity have in common: religion and/or ethnicity are often simply equated with culture. By studying the role of religion or ethnicity in a group, many scholars are convinced that every aspect of the society under investigation is determined by rethought in the history of human kind is tremendous. This is best exemplified in one of the most influential classics in the anthropology and sociology of religion: James George Frazer’s (1854-1941) The Golden Bough is composed of twelve volumes, an index and bibliographical volume, and a volume called Aftermath.

150

Mathias Bös

ligious or ethnic beliefs. Such a culturalist view tends to neglect two important points, (1) there is nothing like a homogeneous, monolithic culture in human societies, and (2) every social process has a cultural and a structural aspect. Every human society shows many constantly changing cultures. Symbols, modes of conduct, norms and values or artifacts are multiple, sometimes contradictory and often restricted to one sphere of society. Within and across different spheres of societies cultures are patterned. One important factor here are social inequalities; people in differentiated societies often interact more with people of there own strata than with people in other positions in the social hierarchy. This still is true for ethnic groups in modern societies; people like to interact with fellow ethnics of their own strata (for a classical statement see Gordon 1964). These patterned cultures in different spheres of society are again differentiated according to different types of culture. Material culture often diffuses much faster than habits. For instance, a refrigerator can be used by Jews and Christians or Basques and Catalans, but they do it in their own special religious or ethnic ways to prepare food (e.g., conservative Jews do not use the same refrigerator for meat and dairy). One can even argue that homogenization in one cultural area (the use of refrigerators) enables people to be more heterogeneous in other areas (eating habits). Ethnicity and religion are two aspects in the many multilayered systems of cultures in a human society. Some of them with ethnic and religious aspects, some of them without. This is reflected in the fact that ethnicity and religion are not homogeneous blocks either; there is neither one way of being French nor one way of being Catholic. Simple equations between culture and religion and/or ethnicity are sociological nonsense. If any unifying principles can be derived from ethnic and religious formations, it is most of all the symbolic value of an ethnic group or a religion in a given context. Ethnicity and religion as symbols of groups serve to integrate by not standardizing given meaning structures. Catholics in America are a largely heterogeneous group, with different ways of life; nevertheless the idea of Catholicism in America serves to define a community and to foster an idea of belonging. The multilayered systems of cultures with their ethnic and religious aspects can furthermore be analyzed from a social structural perspective. Every social process has a cultural and a social structural component. The failure to recognize this distinction was famously called the “condensed


151

concept of culture-and-society” by Kroeber and Parsons (1958: 583), a failure often recognizable in some strands of multiculturalism, where it is assumed that every “human group” has “a culture” (Reckwitz 2001). The strange misperception that an imagined congruency of “one culture” and “one social structure” can be defined along one clear-cut ethnic or religious line is promoted by many ideological entrepreneurs of a given religion or ethnicity. Every passionate follower of a religion or member of an ethnic group is convinced that all he or she thinks and does is in a special way religious or ethnic (like the special Serbian or Buddhist way to open a refrigerator). Especially in conflict situations people connect all aspects of their life with religion or ethnicity. A Serbian car driver may feel the “Serbianness” of the road he drives on, but the potholes will do pretty much the same thing to his car as those on the Croatian road a few miles ahead. What is true for material culture is true for many institutions as well: there is no such thing like a Catholic market or a Buddhist interest rate. So there are many social structural processes which can clearly be separated from ethnic or religious cultures. Even more important, “cultural” phenomena like ethnicity or religion can be analyzed under a social structural perspective. Ethnicity and religion are not only individual orientations, but often form institutional settings which structure regular conduct between individuals (e.g., churches which develop their own structural dynamics often independent from the religious creed they preach). On the other hand it would be wrong to assume that phenomena that are often subject to social structural analysis have no culture: spheres of society like politics and the economy have there special structures of cognition and intentionality as well. This is to say that there are distinct political or economic cultures. Thus, every social process can be analyzed under a cultural and a social structural perspective. Not to separate cultural and social structural analysis and to employ a condensed concept of culture-and-society in sociological research means not only to ignore many important analytical tools developed in sociology, but to surrender to “common sense” and to give up any scientific perspective.

152

Mathias Bös

Ethnicities and Religions in the World With these caveats in mind we may now take a look at the actual religious and ethnic landscape on our globe. The global patterns of ethnicity and religion are described here in their own right and not as derived from other processes assumed as “more fundamental”, like political or economic processes. Interestingly enough, most literature on religion and to a lesser degree on ethnicity often ignore structural aspects of their subject and focus totally on meaning.

The Global Structure of Religions For the famous observer from Mars the religious landscape of the world is rather simple. Defined in broad categories, over 93 percent of the world population are either Christians, Muslims, Nonreligious, Hindus, Chinese folk religionists, or Buddhists. Whereas Christians and Muslims can be found in nearly every country, Hindus, Chinese folk religionists and Buddhists are more concentrated in some areas of the globe, especially Asia. Reading those figures one has to keep in mind that the very idea that a person adheres to only one religion alone is an idea not all religions share; for instance, Buddhism might be much more widespread than suggested since many people are Buddhists and something else. The list of the most widespread religions is nearly congruent with Weber’s list of world religions (Weber 1988[1920]). Weber’s criteria was only “size”; he considered Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity as the largest religions and therefore as world religions. In his work he included ancient Judaism because he considered it as important for the development of Islam and Christianity. Like most religions, world religions offer salvation from suffering in the world and this salvation is often in principal open for everybody, for all people of the world. This more specific meaning separates world religions from universal religions, like Baha’is that tries to integrate different religions into one. The list of religions reminds us as well that the idea of personal salvation (or even the more general criterion of the belief in something sacred, transcendent, or in God) is not at all a necessary trait of all religions. Indeed, many analysts insist that Confucianism for example has no con-


153

cept of transcendence. One can rightfully argue that definitions of religion derive from the ideal type of a close family of monotheistic religions that emerged in the Levant: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Christianity and Islam forcefully proselytized many parts of the world so that more than half of the world’s population belong to that family of religions and therefore adopt the general definition of religion that was developed out of that context. Historically, the basic distribution of world religions was reached before the last century; this was done mainly through conquest and missionary work. Whereas acts of conquest could be easily linked to peoples and rulers, missionary processes are more diffuse and usually took centuries. In its macro-structure the expansion and retreat of world religions can be located in different parts of Asia and Africa and later on to the whole globe. To take today’s structure of world-religions as a starting point ignores the many layers of religions in the Americas and the Southern part of Africa, which are either exempt or of minor importance today. Looking at the history of today’s world religions, in a first phase (500 B.C. to 600 A.D.) we see Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism emerging slowly in India and China. By the end of this era, Buddhism managed to expand into large parts of that area. Parallel to this process, Christianity emerged and dominated the Levant, Asia Minor, Northern Africa, and Europe. The second phase (600 to 1500) was marked by Islam, which expanded into large parts of Northern Africa, Asia Minor, Central Asia, and some parts of India. The last phase (1500 to 2000) was marked by the (second) Christian expansion, mainly associated with European conquest in nearly every part of the world. Christian expansion was especially successful where it encountered small religious groupings, such as in the Middle and Southern parts of Africa or to a lesser degree in Southern America. Christianity showed an astonishing ability to adapt to local circumstances and often formed quasi-Christian, syncretistic religions, which were nevertheless seen as Christian (Haywood 1997: especially maps 2.06 and 3.05). The situation stabilized in the twentieth century (table 1): grosso modo, all religions faced an increase in the absolute numbers of adherents because of the dramatic increase in the world population, but the relative share was more or less stable. At the beginning of the century the Chinese and the Russian revolutions were the main historical events that influenced the distribution of religions in the world. They led to an increase

154

Mathias Bös

in the percentage of non-religious people. In addition, differentials in population increases have contributed to the changes in the proportions among the different world religions. Missionary work, so often discussed in the relations between religions, is of relatively minor importance for the religious macro-structure on our globe. “A religion” is of course no homogeneous block. Table 1 shows religious subdivisions, often called confessions, for the three major world religions. All major religions are subdivided into many strands and although the differences between different versions of Christianity or Islam often seem small for the external observer, they are nevertheless of extreme importance for some groups of adherents. It is not possible to account for the hostility between some groups, like Sunni and Shiah or other groups like Anglicans and Independents by referring to their dogmatic differences. Dogmatic differences between these confessions are nearly invisible compared to differences between Christianity and Buddhism or Islam and Shinto. Much more is needed before one group feels forced to bomb holy places or feels the necessity to emigrate to another continent, but we return to that at the end of this article. It is noteworthy that confessionalization is not a one-way process of religious differentiation. Especially in Europe recent studies show that there is a tendency of deconfessionalization; on the one hand, more and more adherents consider differences between, for instance, different forms of Christianity as unimportant (Dubach and Campiche 1993)7 and, on the other hand, some confessions tend to form unified institutions like the Lutherans and Calvinists in Germany. Nevertheless, confessionalization contributes in large part to the situational flexibility of religious belonging, which is structurally similar to ethnic belonging: a person in Saudi Arabia can be proud to be a Wahhabi, or a Sunnite, or a Moslem.

7 In addition to the increasingly less problematic confessional conflicts, especially the 20th century showed a new line of conflict between religious and non-religious people.

155

Ethnicity and Religion … 1900 % Christians 34.5 Roman Catholics 16.5 Independents 0.5 Protestants 6.4 Orthodox 7.2 Anglicans 1.9 Marginal Christians 0.1 unaffiliated Christians 2.3 Doubly- or disaffiliated -0.2 Muslims 12.3 Sunnis 10.7 Sufis 4.9 Shias 1.6 Islamic schismatics 0.1 Hindus 12.5 Vaishnavites 8.8 Shaivites 3.3 Saktists 0.4 Neo-Hindus 0.0 Reform Hindus 0.0 Chinese folk-religionists 23.5 Buddhists 7.8 Ethno religionists 7.3 New-/Neo-Religionists 0.4 Sikhs 0.2 Jews 0.8 Spiritists 0.0 Baha’is 0.0 Confucianists 0.0 Jains 0.1 Shintoists 0.4 Taoists 0.0 Zoroastrians 0.0 Other religionists 0.0 (in 3.000 religions) Doubly-counted 0.0 religionists Nonreligious/Atheists 0.2 Global Population, 1,619 abs. number in mill.

1970 % 33.5 18.0 2.6 5.7 3.8 1.3 0.3 2.9 -1.1 15.0 12.7 3.7 2.2 0.2 12.5 8.8 3.1 0.4 0.2 0.1 6.3 6.3 4.3 2.1 0.3 0.4 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0

1990 % 33.2 17.7 5.7 5.6 3.9 1.3 0.4 1.9 -3.3 18.3 15.5 3.8 2.6 0.2 13.0 8.8 3.5 0.4 0.3 0.1 6.6 6.1 3.8 1.8 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0

-0.1

-0.2

18.9 3,696

2000 % Million Countries 33.0 2,000 238 17.5 1,057 235 6.4 386 221 5.6 342 233 3.6 215 135 1.3 80 166 0.4 26 215 1.8 111 237 -3.6 -218 19.6 1,188 204 16.6 1,003 195 3.9 237 204 2.8 170 75 0.2 15 110 13.4 811 114 9.1 550 90 3.6 216 60 0.4 26 35 0.3 17 65 0.1 5 30 6.4 385 89 5.9 360 126 3.8 228 142 1.7 102 60 0.4 23 34 0.2 14 134 0.2 12 55 0.1 7 218 0.1 6 15 0.1 4 10 0.0 3 8 0.0 3 5 0.0 3 24 0.0 1 76 -0.2

-15

16.2 15.2 5,266 (100.0)

918 6,055

Table 1: Religious Adherents 1900 to 2000 Authors calculations based on Barret et al. (2001: table 1-2)

24 (238)

156

Mathias Bös

The Global Structure of Ethnic Groups If counting religions seems to be a difficult task, counting ethnicities or peoples is even more difficult. Like religion and many other group definitions, ethnicity is situational in character, which means from the perspective of an individual that he or she might refer to different ethnic units. A Chinese migrant in America might be identified as “Zhuang”, within the Asian-American community the label “Chinese” might be sufficient; within the macro ethno-racial group structure of the American membership space “Asian-American” could be seen as the appropriate term; and for a foreign observe this person could simply be “American” (Bös 2002). Things get even more complicated in international comparisons. What in one country might be a viable label for an ethnic group, in another context might be a name for an ethnic heterogeneous population: like the French who, although they might consider themselves in the United States as a homogenous ethnic group, are in Europe an ethnically heterogeneous nation. In sociology, generally two types of operationalization are used for ethnicity. An ethnic group may be defined as a language group, assuming that language is a strong cultural marker. As the infamous example of former Yugoslavia showed, groups with the same language can nevertheless define themselves as distinct ethnic groups in very violent ways. So the second approach tries to identify “relevant” ethnic groups by analyzing processes of self-definition. Since the relevance of ethnicity is often connected with some collective movements or formations, it often reflects political processes (Weber 1985[1922]: 237). Such an approach is sometimes called an ethnic peoples or nations approach. This is useful because ethnic groups are usually defined within the context of a world of nation-states. If one uses national borders as a frame of reference, national minorities count as different ethnic groups; that means there is a large ethnic group of French in France and an ethnic minority of French in the United States. For some purposes it is surly appropriate to count them as two different ethnic groups. But one can rightly argue that groups of the same language or origin within different nationstates belong to one ethnic group, that means that all native French-speakers are French, regardless where they live, or all Kurds belong to the same Kurdish nation regardless if they are in Iraq, Iran, or

157


Turkey. The different approaches are summarized in table 2. Obviously the “cross country ethnic-linguistic groups” approach produces much lower numbers of ethnic groups than the “within each country ethnic peoples” approach. Depending on which approach is used one can argue that the number of ethnic groups varies between 7.000 and 16.000 world-wide. “Within national borders” Peoples in all countries Ethno-linguistic groups 13,000 7,000 Ethnic peoples 16,000 10,500 Table 2: Approximate Number of Peoples. Adapted from Joshua Project (2003)

Whatever the definition, there is in any case a large set of ethnic groups that contributes to segmentary differentiation of the world population. Again these differences are unevenly distributed across the globe (see table 3): using the more restrictive ethno-linguistic model, Africa and Asia are the continents with the largest ethno-linguistic variety – each continent covers nearly one third of all languages spoken on this globe. Continent

Languages absolute The Americas 1,013 Africa 2,058 Europe 230 Asia 2,197 Oceania 1,311 World 6,809

Languages % Population % 15% 30% 3% 32% 19% 100%

13% 14% 12% 61% 1% 100%

Average size in thousands 806 409 3160 1691 24 900

Table 3: Geographic Distribution of Living Languages 2000. Adapted from Grimes (2000) and author’s calculations

The picture changes a bit when population size is taken into account. The average size of an ethno-linguistic group is far highest in Europe, here an average of 3 million people belong to a group. One of the main factors for this homogeneous landscape are the European nation-building processes, as widely discussed in the literature (e.g., Smith 1986). In this perspective Asia is quiet homogeneous as well, whereas Africa and especially Oceania are ethnically heterogeneous.

158

Mathias Bös

Structural Relations Between Religion and Ethnicity Finally, table 4 shows one aspect of the structural relation between religion and ethnicity. Most religions encompass different ethnic groups. There might be cases of a one-to-one relation between one ethnic group and one traditional ethnic religion, but the main religions that cover about 93 percent of the world population (together with non-religious people) are pan-ethnic. Nevertheless, most ethnic groups have a “majority religion”, although they often include other religions, but as minorities (like Egyptians who in their majority are Muslims, or Japanese who are mostly Shinto). Number of Ethnic Groups Christianity 6,045 Islam 3,135 Hinduism 2,395 Buddhism 555 Traditional Ethnic 2,736 Daoism 17 Shamanism 35 Sikhism 73 Chinese Folk 59 Judaism 195 Zoroastrianism 14 Confucianism 8 Other 27 Table 4: Number of Ethnic Groups in different religions. Adapted from Joshua Project (2003)

Most religions include many ethnic groups, but most ethnic groups have one majority religion. Mostly this relation leads to the local misperception that identifies one ethnic group with one religion. In respect to the macro-structure of religion and ethnicity it is obviously nonsense to state things like “being Spanish means being Christian”. Without any doubt most Spaniards are Christians, but they constitute only a tiny proportion of all Christians. The main point following from the discussion of the structural aspects of religion and ethnicity is that both refer to groups that are not at all


159

congruent. One example in place is the “Jewish community”. First of all we notice that the Jewish religion, more precisely called Judaism, encompasses about 195 ethnic groups. On the other hand, it is quite obvious that one may find people who are ethnically Jewish – meaning descent from Jewish parents and at least a partly Jewish way of life – but who are atheists (Neusner 2003). So why it is that religion and ethnicity are so often grouped together as related phenomena? To reconstruct this we have to ask what people mean when they speak of their religion and their ethnicity (Trumbull 2002).

Ethnicity and Religion in Times of Globalization As noticed at the beginning of this article ethnicity and religion are often seen as connected. In this article we saw mainly two types of relations: (1) in a cultural perspective, seen as a meaning structure in a given situation – or a structure of cognition and intentionality – the religion and ethnicity of “a people” are often seen as congruent; (2) from a social structural point of view the overwhelming part of all religions are pan-ethnic and most larger ethnic groups include different religions or confessions. In this sense religion and ethnicity reflect the typical pattern of the social structure of membership in today’s social formations where memberships are multiple und overlapping. As noticed above, religion and ethnicity have particularizing and universalizing aspects from a cultural and from a social structural point of view. It was one of the early observations of modern sociology that in differentiated social settings a balance of universal and particular “morals” is necessary. A famous example for this line of thinking is Durkheim’s idea that the abstract morals of individuality and humanity are stabilized by particularistic morals of the family, the occupational group, and the nation state (Gephart 1999: 240-43). In the context of theories of globalization, the categories of universalizing and particularizing were used to reframe the sociological discussion of cultural and social structural aspects on a world scale.8 Religion and ethnicity can both be formulated in universal terms, both can be seen as common features of humankind and as common features of each individual self-identity. 8 For globalization and religion see classical books like Robertson (1992) or Beyer (1994), and as a recent overview Lechner (2003).

160

Mathias Bös

From a social structural point of view those universal types of morals refer to two extreme types of groups: the individual as a one-persongroup and humanity as the all-person-group. Most group structures fall in between these two extremes, where the universalizing and particularizing aspects of ethnicity and religion are balanced. Religion and ethnicity have many particularizing interaction-effects that lead to “unbalanced” processes especially in conflict situations. This point should not be overstressed. No doubt that in many conflicts ethnic and/or religious aspects are present, but it is a common misperception that conflicts mainly characterized by ethnic or religious differences are on the rise. After an increase in ethnic-religious conflicts at the beginning of the 1990s the number of these conflicts is now decreasing (Sheffer 2003). Nevertheless, some recently fought “classical wars”, like the conflict in Iraq, are often framed in ethno-religious arguments. Cultural and structural features of religion and ethnicity show four mechanisms, which account for the particularizing effects of the interaction between religion and ethnicity: religion and ethnicity as meaning structures mutually enhance each other; religion and ethnicity fit together structurally on many levels; religion and ethnicity are highly efficient “mobilizing mechanisms”; and religion and ethnicity can serve as symbolic expressions of inequality. The first important mechanism is surly the mutually enhancing effect of ethnicity and religion as meaning structures. On the one hand, there is an “ethnisizing” effect of religion: religious beliefs often prescribe a certain way of life. By doing so, religious ideas foster commonalities like eating habits and styles of clothes, and support endogamy (for instance, it is generally considered that marrying people of the same religion is to be preferred). A common way of life and common descent are core ideas of ethnicity. On the other hand, basically “ethnic” ways of life are often seen as something sacred and to honor “ancestors” often has religious connotations. “Religisizing” ethnicity is a very powerful means of stabilizing ethnic ways of life. In many situations it is impossible to disentangle religious and ethnic aspects of group definitions. Secondly, religion and ethnicity fit together structurally on many levels. Although it is surly true that religious and ethnic units never match one another exactly, the “Russian doll” structure of many ethnic or religious identities facilitate their connection on an appropriate level and then their reinforcement of one another on that level. The above-men-


161

tioned Wahhabi can connect this religious strand to his honor to be from Saudi Arabia; furthermore, he can see himself as Sunnite together with most people from the Arab world; and talking to a European, he can be engaged in some “clash of civilization” as a Moslem from a non-Western country. None of these pairs are really congruent, but they are structurally fixed enough to serve as a relatively stable “collectivity of reference” to position an individual in a situation. The fact that religious or ethnic identities are not fixed makes them suitable for many different situations. On every level and in every situation religion and ethnicity can reproduce a whole set of ideas that organizes the situation as if it were naturally so. Religion and ethnicity are generators of “traditions” that can serve as perfect guarantors of truths. Thirdly, religion and ethnicity are highly efficient “mobilizing mechanisms”. Although often connected to the “truth as tradition” pattern, this is surely not a sufficient condition, for truth as such has no mobilizing effect. To mobilize and to generate solidarity is as well an effect of social structural conditions. For many adherents religious beliefs are still connected to periodical gatherings and therefore enact a community very much in the Durkheimian sense. Ethnicity works in a similar way: in every area of the world there are special days of gathering, like New Year’s Eve or Carnival, when people gather and act together assuming that all of “their kind” do so in the same way. By acting together the group, be it ethnic or religious, becomes real in the sense that it is experienced by all participants. Such events not only generate loyalty, they symbolize a group in a very concrete way. To explain to a Brazilian Samba dancer that Carnival is “a socially constructed tradition reflecting the unauthentic patterns of his colonial oppressors” might be a scientifically valid statement, but ignores the main feature of Carnival as the symbolic expression of his or her personal and group identity. The experience of acting together is the mechanism that makes religion and ethnicity so important and so natural for participating individuals. The fourth and last mechanism refers to the fact that religion and ethnicity can serve as symbolic expressions of inequality. Whereas the other three mechanisms stated above emerge in the interaction between ethnicity and religion, this mechanism relates ethnicity and religion to economic and political processes. It is frequently noticed that ethnicity and religion are often considered as indispensable for oppressed or deprived people:

162

Mathias Bös Those whose identities are rarely questioned and who have never known exile or subjugation of land and culture, have little need to trace their ‘roots’ in order to establish a unique and recognizable identity (Smith 1986: 2).

In this case, processes in other spheres of societies form groups. Such group-formation processes are often “self sufficient” (such as Marx’s famous transition from a class in itself to a class for itself ). Religion and ethnicity are often found to be in parallel correlation with structures of inequality. But often group formation processes in politics or economy relate to ethnic or religious markers. It is a sociological commonplace that in Western societies religious and ethnic stratification was very important at the beginning of the nation-building process (for the United States, see Pyle and Davidson 2003); indeed, the world system is both religiously and ethnically stratified. It is not the place here to explore the different relations between religion and ethnicity and other spheres of society, but it is important to keep in mind that, in most cases, processes in many spheres of society are at work to define a situation. Looking at our globe today religion and ethnicity can be seen as success stories of modes of social figuration. Ethnicity and religion symbolize the group and enable people to “act together”. Religion and ethnicity serve as elastic spheres in world society; they structure modes of action and patterns of conduct in a highly flexible way. In so doing they have nothing of the demonic or archaic, they are simply cultural and structural features of many aspects of the world system and therefore deserve the same attention and scrutiny as those other spheres which are often considered as “more important”: politics and the economy.

Works Cited Barret, David B., George T. Kurian, and Todd M. Johnson. 2001. World Christian Encyclopedia: a Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bös, Mathias. 2002. “Reconceptualizing Modes of Belonging: Advancements in the Sociology of Ethnicity and Multiculturalism.” In Advancements in Sociological Knowledge over a Half of Century. Edited by Nikolai Genov. Paris: International Social Science Council, 254-283. Dubach, Alfred and Roland J. Campiche, eds. 1993. Jeder ein Sonderfall? Religion in der Schweiz. Zürich: NZN Buchverlag. Durkheim, Emile. 1994[1912]. Die elementaren Formen religösen Lebens. Frank-


163

furt am Main: Suhrkamp. Francis, E. K. 1948. “The Russian Mennonites: From Religious to Ethnic Group.” American Journal of Sociology 54, 2: 101-107. Gephart, Werner. 1999. “Zur Bedeutung der Religion für die Identitätsbildung.” In Religion und Identität: Im Horizont des Pluralismus. Edited by Werner Gephart and Hans Waldenfels. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 23366. Gordon, Milton M. 1964. Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grimes, Barbara F., ed. 2000. The Ethnologue. SIL International. Available at www.ethnologue.de. Haywood, John, ed. 1997. Völker, Staaten und Kulturen – Ein universalhistorischer Atlas. Braunschweig: Westermann. Joshua Project. 2003. Religions Listing by Groups. Available at www. joshuaproject.net. Kroeber, Alfred L. and Talcott Parsons. 1958. “The Concepts of Culture and of Social System.” American Sociological Review 23, 5: 582-583. Molnár, Attila K. 2002. “The Construction of the Notion of Religion in Early Modern Europe.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 14: 47-60. Neusner, Jacob. 2003. “Jew and Judaist, Ethnic and Religious: How They Mix in America.” In Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity. Edited by Craig R. Prentiss. New York: New York University Press, 85-100. OED. 2003. Oxford Dictionary of Modern English (Online). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at http://dictionary.oed.comf. Patterson, Orlando. 1977. Ethnic Chauvinism: The Reactionary Impulse. New York: Stein and Day. Pyle, Ralph E. and James D. Davidson. 2003. “The Origins of Religious Stratification in Colonial America.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 42, 1: 57-75. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2001. “Theories of Multiculturalism and the Concept of Culture: From a Model of Homogeneity to a Model of Cultural Interferences.” Berliner Journal fur Soziologie 11, 2: 179-200. Robertson, Roland. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage. Sheffer, Gabriel. 2003. “The Study of Ethnic Conflict Resolution.” Migration: European Journal of International Migration and Ethnic Relations 42: 5-25. Smith, Anthony D. 1986. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. London: Blackwell Publishers. Sollors, Werner. 1996. “Foreword: Theories of American Ethnicity.” In Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader. Edited by Werner Sollors. New York: New York University Press, x-xliv. Trumbull, Charles P., ed. 2002. Britannica Book of the Year 2002. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. (CD). Weber, Max. 1985[1922]. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr.

164

Mathias Bös

—. 1988[1920]. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie I-III. Tübingen: TB. Wiener , Philip P., ed. 2003. The Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. Wirth, Louis. 1982[1928]. The Ghetto. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Yinger, J. Milton. 1994. Ethnicity: Source of Strength? Source of Conflict? Albany: State University of New York Press.

Multiple Modernities and Globalization

165

Multiple Modernities and Globalization Gerard Delanty

Abstract What is often called “multiple” modernities is best seen as referring to the different expressions of an increasingly emergent global modernity rather than simply to multiple societal forms. Modernity is not converging into a unitary, homogenous form; rather it denotes an isomorphic condition of common aspirations, learning mechanisms, visions of the world, modes of communication. As such modernity can arise anywhere in the world; it is not a specific tradition or societal form but a mode of processing, or translating, culture. Modernity is a particular way of transmitting culture that transforms that which it takes over; it is not a culture of its own and therefore can take root anywhere at any time. This is because every translation is a transformation of both the object and the subject. The essence of modernity is a capacity to transform culture in a continuous process of translation.

The idea of modernity, which now embraces a multiplicity of forms, seems to have continued appeal for social theorists today. Nevertheless a great deal of uncertainty accompanies it. The turn to modernity since the late 1980s can be explained by a dissatisfaction with the older idea of modernization, on the one hand, and, on the other, capitalism as the key feature of modern society (Alexander, 1995; Haferkamp and Smelser 1992). The idea of modernity indicated a concern with issues and dimensions of modern society that were largely ignored by the allegedly functionalist, teleological and Eurocentric assumptions of modernization theory. World-systems analysis had already brought about a major theoretical change, which was critical in shaping the turn to globalization. As Marxist theory with its primary concern with the overcoming of capitalism went into abeyance, the focus on modernity suggested a more fruitful theoretical approach to interpret modern society. Influenced by the cultural and historical turn in the social and human sciences, a much strengthened social theory of modernity has endured the postmodern attack on modernity. Unable to announce a new departure, the postmodern moment was merely modernity in a new key, as Bauman has

166

Gerard Delanty

argued (Bauman 1987). Ever more numerous reinterpretations of modernism have also contributed to the relevance of modernity (Berman 1982; Calinescu 1987; Childs 2000; Jameson 2003). What has emerged out of these developments is a new interest in “cultural modernity” as a counter-movement in modern society (Friese and Wagner 2000; Turner 1990, 1994; Yack 1997). If modernity is now more likely to be seen as an “incomplete project”, to use Habermas’s formulation, it is also one that is on “endless trial”, to cite Kolakowski (Habermas1987; Kolakowski 1990). In light of the widespread interest in globalization the idea of modernity has now entered a new phase in which the notion of a “cultural modernity” has given rise to the idea of “alternative modernities” (Gaonkar 2001). Central to this shift in the conceptualization of modernity is the question whether modernity must be theorized in the plural or singular.1 Is there one or many modernities; or, is it possible to conceive of modernity in a way that does justice to these dimensions? This is the central challenge for the new social theory of modernity. The following is a brief discussion of modernity in recent social theories and a proposal for a view of modernity as a multiple condition.

The New Social Theory of Modernity The critical question today as far as the social theory of modernity is concerned is its suitability as a framework for understanding current global transformations. One of the main objections to the notion of modernity – and which was the basis of the postmodern and postcolonial critiques – was its Eurocentric nature. While the teleological, linear, and functionalist assumptions of modernization theory became less central, the idea of modernity in the view of many critics was not a fundamental advance, failing especially to question the separation of tradition and modernity, the impact of colonization and various processes of localization, such as indigenization, vernacularization, and hybridization. Habermas’s vision of modernity, itself one of the more influential ideas, in 1

Until now the notion of an alternative modernity was generally discussed as part of the wider European cultural modernity. It was generally in these terms that the debate about postmodernism was discussed. The notion of “alternative modernities” did not enter the picture. In that sense, postmodernism was an expression of western late modernity.


167

the 1980s was almost entirely based on an “Occidental understanding of the world”, tied as it was to the completion of the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment project (Habermas 1984: 44; Delanty 1997).2 However, current developments in social theory, including Habermas’s own social theory, seem to suggest that in fact modernity can be reconciled to a critical and non-Eurocentric social theory and that much of the accusations of orientalism are unfounded and even confused (Dallmayr 1996; McLennan 2000, 2003).3 This is reflected in theories of multiple modernities, alternative and even counter modernities, global modernities, hybrid and entangled modernities. Before commenting on some of the problems that I believe are associated with these ideas, a point of a more general nature can be made at the outset. The new social theory of modernity, which is roughly a response to the postmodern/postcolonial critique and the growing consciousness of cosmopolitan currents in the world today and diverse expressions of globalization, represents one of the most exciting and important prospects for a cosmopolitan and critical social theory. The suggestion made in this paper is to theorize modernity in terms of global transformations based on logics of cultural translation rather than as a particular historical condition that might be associated with, for instance, the Enlightenment project of modernity and which may or may not be superceded by postmodernity or some other historical condition that has discarded modernity. What is modernity? The term signals a condition of self-confrontation, incompleteness, and renewal in which the localized past is reshaped by a globalized present; it expresses a self-confidence in the transformative project of the present time as a liberation from the past; modernity is the belief in the possibility of a new beginning based on human autonomy, the belief that the world can be shaped by human agency; and above all it is the consciousness of global or world cultural concepts. In Agnes Heller’s words: “Everything is open to query and to testing; everything is subject to rational scrutiny and refuted by argument” (Heller 1999: 41). This was a consciousness – which was radical and therefore both liberat2 This is also true of Giddens’s conception of modernity, which was exclusively western. 3 Although the relation of globalization to critical theory continues to be problematic (Kozlarek 2001).

168

Gerard Delanty

ing and destructive – that first emerged in Europe and, while not being specifically European, it was carried to the rest of the world since the sixteenth century and the subsequent history of modernity bore the impact of its European origins. These origins were reconstructed by America in the twentieth century but today modernity is global; it is no longer exclusively Western. Global modernity has had many routes into it and has diverse expressions, but today the defining features of modernity are no longer those that can be defined in European terms, but global and – it is possible to venture the claim – that there are parts of the world where the consciousness of modernity is more intense than in the West. The critical point is that modernity is neither entirely singular nor plural, neither universal nor particular, but an on-going process of transformation that arises in the encounter of the local and present time with the global. This is why modernity cannot be equated with globality as such; it arises when the particular, the local, encounters globality.4 It is important to see this encounter as one of cultural translation – but a translation that transforms, or dislocates, both subject and object. For this reason modernity as such has no location. This approach to modernity rests on a hermeneutic theory of cultural translation, suggest by Gadamer and the critical hermeneutics of Habermas and Ricouer. The capacity for translation (of languages, memories, narratives, experiences, knowledges, identities, values) is the basis of communication, tradition, and cultural possibility. Modernity entails a particular logic of translation; it is a kind of social imaginary that is continuously changing. According to Charles Taylor, the problem of modernity needs to be posed from a new angle: “Is there a single phenomenon here, or de we need to speak of multiple modernities, the plural reflecting the fact that non-Western cultures have modernized in their own ways and cannot be 4 A complete definition of modernity would have to take into account the economic, political and cultural forms of modernity and societal dynamics, such as these six: (1) Democratization, which might be seen in terms of a wider principle of autonomy or liberty. (2) Secularization, here in the specific sense of the separation of church and state or the emancipation of law from religion. This could be seen more generally in terms of a logic of differentiation. (3) Comopolitanism. In contrast to secularization, which is based on differentiation, comopolitanism is based on a logic of integration, which may be seen as a wider dynamic in modernity. (4) Scientific rationality (5) wealth creation and (6) the law-governed state. Further consideration of this will not be given in the present paper.


169

properly understood if we try to grasp them in a general theory that was originally designed with the Western case in mind” (Taylor 2002: 91).

The Pluralization of Modernity There is general agreement that modernity does not take one form but many. But beyond that acknowledgment of the plural nature of modernity there is little agreement on methodological implications or even clarity on the nature of the problem. Is there one model of modernity or are there several forms? To what degree is the concept of modernity pervaded by its western origins? Can modernity escape its eurocentricism?5 Can the universalism and particularism within modernity be reconciled? The search for a non-Eurocentric theory of modernity leads to a number of possible models, which can be briefly assessed. The idea of an alternative modernity is one of the most obvious solutions to the tendency to see modernity as uniformity. This notion has been implicit in, for example, the Sonderweg [exceptional path] thesis of German modernity. According to this view, the path to modernity embarked on by Germany was a divergent one based on delayed modernization, and ultimately regression.6 Another instance of this tendency to look for alternative routes to modernity is the notion of “American exceptionalism” (Lipset and Marks 2000). The main problem with this approach to modernity is the assumption that there is a universal norm and everything that does not accord with it must be understood as aberrant. Yet, the notion of an alternative cannot be too easily dismissed, as this is essential for a critical perspective (Eder 1985). There is clearly some value in seeing Soviet communism and fascism as anti-modern movements if by that we mean movements that reacted to certain currents in modernity (Furet 1999). But the assumption that these movements are not just alternatives but counter-modernities, which arose and declined in twentieth century, and were not in fact modern at all is highly questionable. Johann Arnason has argued persuasively against this tendency, claiming that Soviet communism was not merely “anti-modern” but was a failed experiment with modernity (Arnason 1993). Communism and 5 Eurocentrism is a confused term. For a critical analysis see McLellan (2000, 2003). 6 This was also the approach taken by this author in O’Mahony and Delanty (1998).

170

Gerard Delanty

fascism were modernist projects, animated as they were by some of the most captivating of modern ideas – for example, the belief that it is possible for elites to reconstruct society in the image of the state and bring about a new order, the vision of what Toulmin calls a total cosmopolis (Toulmin 1990). While there is indeed something unsatisfactory about the idea of an “alternative” or divergent path to a successful or underlying modernity that has become dominant, the debate on alternative modernities had the virtue of pointing to different societal paths to modernity. A second approach is to abandon altogether the idea of an alternative modernity that has emerged in opposition to a dominate one. The most interesting, but under-theorized, approach is the idea of “multiple modernities” or – to use a term some authors favor – “alternative modernities”. In this view, associated with the work of a very broad spectrum of scholars, modernity is pluralized into numerous societal and cultural forms.7 When generalized to the wider world, modernity needs to be radically de-historicized, it is argued; it cannot be conceptualized in terms of some of the Western processes of modernization. When viewed in this light, it would even appear that the notion of a singular modernity has in fact inherited too many of the assumptions of modernization theory, for instance certain assumptions about nation-state formation, capitalism, and secularization. The idea of multiple modernities points to an epistemic break from a conception of modernity as a historical condition that with some delays and modifications has been generalized to the rest of the world. But how useful is the idea of multiple modernities? Does the concept not presuppose some of the older assumptions? One of the main problems with the idea of multiple modernities is that modernity becomes the functional equivalent for nations. How many modernities can there be? The danger is that modernity becomes a numerical condition that can be infinitively pluralized to the point that it is devoid of analytical clarity and explanatory power. Thus we have an Islamic modernity, a Japanese modernity, an African modernity, a Turkish modernity, an Iranian modernity. From the point of view of a comparative sociology of modernity we are not much better off than we were with a comparison of different patterns of nation-state formation. In one of the most important contributions to the debate, Eisenstadt (2000b) and 7 Some indicative examples are Gaonkar (2001), Kamali (2004), Kaya (2003), Taylor (1999), and Daedalus (1998) and Daedalus (2000).


171

Wittrock (2000) caution against such tendencies, arguing that modernity itself refers to the features that are common to the diverse forms of modernity. The debate on multiple modernities does not appear to have advanced beyond a general recognition that modernity takes more than one form. A second problem is that the idea of multiple modernities might reinforce a view of different modernities isolated from each other and being static, rather than processual, transformative, and interpenetrating. In sum, the logic of translation within modernity tends to be neglected in favor of a multiplicity. Modernity cannot be reduced to a cultural or national context as such without rendering the concept meaningless. For this reason Wolfgang Knöbl (2003) argues that modernization theory is not quite superceded by the new social theory of modernity. Several sociologists have found that not all of the central tenets of functionalist theory have been rendered irrelevant, especially when divested of teleological notions (Holmwood and O’Malley 2003; Mouzelis 1999). For example, Ernst Gellner (1983), who operated within this tradition, favoured an emphasis on uneven modernization to comprehend the diverse development of modernization in many countries. His argument, which reflected a questioning of earlier modernization theory, was that uneven modernization created conditions for nationalism and various backlashes to modernity. To take another example, Reinhard Bendix (1967), himself a proponent of modernization theory, sought to revise some of the presuppositions of classical modernization theory, arguing that it rested on an oversimplification of tradition as well as an overgeneralization of the European experience. Neo-functionalism sought to give stronger attention to the role of agency in responding to modernization (Alexander and Colomy 1990) and, albeit from the perspective of “late modernity”, Beck, Giddens and Lash (1994) introduced the notion of “reflexive modernization” to refer to a condition in which modernity is now essentially concerned with the problems generated in an earlier phase of modernity.8 Mouzelis (1999) has argued that modernity is not westernization and its key processes and dynamics can be found in all societies. But the implications of these ideas for an understanding of the plural nature of modernity are far from clear. 8 In this work, the notion of a new age of “reflexive modernization” is almost exclusively based on late western modernity and suffers from an inadequate theory of tradition.

172

Gerard Delanty

Two major responses have been a turn to postmodernist theories and global modernities. Dissatisfied with modernity as a reference point, a number of scholars have proposed the thesis that parts of the non-Western world are, by virtue of their non-Western nature, postmodern. With the principle examples being Japan, China and Islamic societies, the argument is that the major expressions of postmodernity are in those parts of the world that did not experience the modern overcoming of tradition through secularization and rationalization. The postmodernity of Islam or Japan consists of the mutual mixing of tradition and modernity, it is argued. It is this hybrid condition that makes such cultures postmodern. In this view, then, the postmodern culture of the West is merely an expression of late modernity and something fundamentally different. The fact that in many parts of the non-Western world modernity unfolded through rather than against religion meant that tradition and modernity were entwined, unlike in the West. For reasons of space a more detailed analysis of this highly disputed thesis cannot be gone into.9 It will suffice to mention that the main problem with this argument is that there is no theoretical gain in replacing modernity with a notion of postmodernity, if this is supposed to offer a different expression of modernity. Given that we are back to modernity again, an alternative some authors have proposed is the notion of “entangled modernities” to explain the immeshed, interconnected nature of modernities and that there are not just multiple but overlapping ones (Arnason 2003a; Therborn 2003). Such a position has clear advantages over the idea of a postmodern nonWestern world because of the obvious fact that, with few exceptions, most of the non-Western world has been, to varying degrees, colonized by the West. It also has the advantage of seeing modernity as something that can exist in different forms within particular nations and cultures. However, the notion, while being interesting, offers no major advance beyond the idea of multiple modernities, since it assumes the fact of different modernities that simply become intertwined, leading to hybrid forms. The suggestion that modernity exists not just in multiple but overlapping, entangled forms points to something previously neglected 9 See Ahmed (1992), Dirlik and Zhang (2000), Miyoshi and Harootunian (1989), Sugimoto and Arnason (1995), Wei-Hsun and Heine (1995). I have looked at these issues in Delanty (2003).


173

in the social theory of modernity and which was always central to the older modernization theory, namely an emphasis on transformative processes and, as Johann Arnason argues, interconnections (Arnason 2003b). No account of modernity in a global perspective can neglect interactive and, driven by this, transformative mechanisms and processes. The point is that a comparative historical sociology of modernity must address the fact that “modernities” do not simply exist as coherent or stable units, but are in a constant process of change and that this is due to the nature of the particular forms of interaction, selection, combination, adaptation and processing of cultural codes, resources, imaginaries, etc. A variant on this theme is the notion of hybrid modernities, which is best associated with Gilroy (1993) and postcolonial theory and from globalization theory Jan Nederveen Pieterse (1998, 2003; see also: Friedman 1994; Venn 2000; Morton 2000). Nederveen Pieterse stresses the mixed character of “new Asian modernities”, which he sees as shaped by globalization and constituting alternatives to the nineteenth-century legacy of colonialism and its conceptual dictotomies, such as tradition and modernity and community and society. In this view of modernity, hybridity, syncretism, creolization, and bricolage become the defining features, leading to what has been also been called “cosmopolitan modernity” (Nava 2002). There are not many theoretically grounded approaches that fully address the complexities of a comparative analysis of modernity, now complicated by the fact that the object of comparison is to be conceived processually and, I will be arguing, isomorphically. The major exception is the work of Arnason and Eisenstadt, who adopt a civilizational analysis that builds upon new developments in social theory. Following in the footsteps of the comparative historical sociologies of Weber and Nelson, Eisenstadt (1986, 1995, 1999, 2000a, 2000b, 2001) has argued that the origins of modernity go back to the great civilizations of the world whose universalistic cultures the Great Revolutions of the early modern period partly took over and transformed. European civilization provided the major entry into modernity, which has become a global civilization today he argues. Departing in many respects from his earlier reliance on modernization theory, Eisenstadt sees modernity as global but not necessarily universal, in the sense that modernity is culturally appropriated in different ways: “The actual developments in modern or – as they were then designated – modernizing societies have gone far beyond the homog-

174

Gerard Delanty

enizing and hegemonic assumptions of the original European or western programme of modernity” (Eisenstadt 2001: 329). Eisenstadt’s thesis is that the “multiple and divergent modernities” crystallized during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; modernity was a process of continued revolution and upheaval arising out of its contradictions and antinomies. Eisenstadt remains convinced that modernity is not just global, but is a new civilization and that this is primarily one shaped by the initial impetus of western modernity. Eisenstadt’s writings on multiple modernities have established a basis for future scholarship. Other developments in “historical sociology beyond orientalism” also suggest many important directions to a reconceptualization of East and West in a direction that also avoids the “modernity versus tradition” dichotomy.10 Among the many questions that this opens up, a central one is this: was there a particular historical moment or phase when a parallel development occurred across the eastern and western parts of the Eurasian macro-region? Such a perspective might help to analyze the diverse – but also, to a degree, the convergent – trends in earlier epochs and, in addition, might be able to specify the nature of a later “great divergence” leading to the rise of the West.11 In sum, what recent work in social theory and historical sociology points to is a conception of modernity as global, but entailing diverse paths and different kinds and degrees of realization. The debate on multiple modernities has been very fruitful in advancing the social theory of modernity beyond the limited “Occidental understanding of the world” that was central to Enlightenment-influenced theory of modernity from Kant through Weber to Parsons and Habermas. But many questions remain, principally whether or not the notion is relevant to current largescale global transformations.

10 See various contributions to Delanty and Isin (2003) and especially Arnason (2003b) and Isin (2003). See also Fawaz and Bayly (2002). 11 See, for example, McNeill (1991).


175

An Isomorphic View of Modernity In the foregoing I have argued that current thinking has reached certain limits in theorizing modernity. By pluralizing modernity into multiple modernities, the concept is in danger of being emptied of its specificity and, taken to an extreme, it becomes indistinguishable from nations; restricting it to a singular form, on the other hand, runs the risk of failing to address the diversity of societal models and civilizational contexts. The argument of this paper is that modernity should be defined neither in the singular nor in the plural; it is a condition that arises as a result of the encounter of the local with the global, but is not itself reducible to the latter. Modernity is specifically defined by a mode of cultural translation. The encounter of the local with the global takes multiple forms, determined largely by the forms of cultural translation influenced by civilizational patterns and historical interactions and conflicts. This suggests an isomorphic view of modernity; that is, an approach that stresses common features amongst diverse fields. It needs to be said immediately that the suggestion of uniformity in it is neither a homogenizing nor a harmonious one; it is a social isomorphism of structurations, mechanisms, translations and processes rather than a condition that is simply either heterogeneous or homogeneous. An isomorphic view of modernity refers to a uniformity only in socio-cognitive structures, forms of consciousness, legitimation processes and certain kinds of practices and rationalities – in sum, particular modes of translation. Modernity entails common ways of doing things, certain universalistic values such as democracy; but uniformity does not extend beyond these levels since the global is appropriated, or translated, differently by the local. The concept of isomorphism is of course well established in the new institutionalism (DiMaggio and Powell 1983, 1991) and, more relevant in the present context, has wider application in the work of John Meyer and others (see Boli and Thomas 1999). Where these theorists speak of “institutional isomorphism” as opposed to “competitive isomorphism” in economic theory in order to explain how diverse institutions develop similar structures, goals, and the like, I am pointing to a different kind of isomorphism, which I am calling “social isomorphism”. The significance of this is that it points to an approach that attempts to explain how modernity – that is, global cultural conceptions as opposed to particular institutional structures – emerges in different places, at different times, and in

176

Gerard Delanty

different societal forms without recourse to either an inexplicable notion of heterogeneity (where the stress will be on differences) or an over-deterministic notion of homogenization (where the stress will be on similarities). The multiple crystallizations of modernity cannot be explained monocausally by reference to a homogenizing and linear evolutionary process of modernization to which all societies adapt. It is neither a question of convergences nor of divergences, but one of the diffusion of global culture in different societies by social actors. The argument, then, is that social isomorphism derives from the fact that social actors all over the world are increasingly defining themselves by reference to global culture. But in doing so, they are not all saying the same things; and – to make this more complicated – global culture is not constant but evolving, since translations are never static for people continuously reinterpret their situation in light of their on-going encounter with others. As Charles Taylor has written: “As long as we leave Western notions of identity unexamined, we will fail to see how other cultures differ and how this difference crucially conditions the way in which they integrate the truly universal features of modernity” (Taylor 2001: 180). Modernity, then, is necessarily global in outlook; while it first emerged in western Europe, it is not Western, American, or European, but is an expression of world culture, which increasingly frames the local.12 This does not mean modernity is fully globalized in all aspects. For instance, global civil society does not yet exist but a global ethics does exist to a degree, as is manifest in an ethics of global responsibility that pervades many kinds of political struggles and debates throughout the world and which is also reflected in the scientific world-view (Apel 2000). Perhaps the best example of social isomorphism is the world-wide aspiration for democracy. A notion of modernity as tendentially global in scope avoids the ambiguities of notions of multiple modernities and even of “global modernities” (Featherstone et al. 1995). The subject of a useful volume, the idea of “global modernities” is clearly a response to the recognition that globalization is the primary reference point for modernities as a plural condition. However, in this volume the concept is not explained and remains a vague term to indicate the diverse responses to globalization and fails to distinguish globality from modernity. In the most valuable 12

This approximates to what Hardt and Negri (2000) refer to as “Empire”, which is post-imperial.


177

contribution to the disparate collection of chapters, Göran Therborn has argued for a notion of global modernity that stresses the routes “to/ through modernity”. Rather than begin with the premise of diversity, he argues for a notion of modernity as global but which expresses itself in major macro-regional variations, of which he lists four: the European gate of revolution or reform; the American route of independence; a route represented by Iran, Thailand and Japan based on external threat and selective imports; the route of conquest experienced by much of Africa and Asia (Therborn 1995). This is a helpful way out of the impasse of multiple modernities and succeeds in making a link with globalization as the main explanation of different responses to modernity. It also avoids the danger of reducing modernity to national case studies. But a limiting factor is that it stresses too much on globalization as a motor of modernity, thus neglecting isomorphic processes. The idea of global modernity has the additional advantage of avoiding purely cultural explanations of the various forms of modernity, an argument that is also reflected in Arlif Dirlik’s (2003) claim that modernity is global and that it makes little sense arguing there are non-global modernities. We need to reconcile the diversity of societal forms with a conception of modernity as a global condition. The proposal I am making, then, is to see globalization – as a process that intensifies connections, enhances possibilities for cultural translations, and deepens the consciousness of globality13 – as the principal motor of modernity. To reiterate a definition given above, modernity can be defined as a self-transformative project of translations which seeks to liberate the localized present from the particularlistic past. A wide range of theorists from Habermas, who stresses the progressive extension of communicative rationality to all parts of society and the resultant contestation of power, to the extreme position of Foucault,14 for whom (western) modernity is the extension of disciplinary regimes of power, show, in very different ways, how modernity entails a transformative project. Many other theories of modernity have oscillated between these positions and cannot for reasons of space be looked at here.15 It will simply be suggested that, in the most general sense, modernity concerns a condition of radical self13 14 15

This definition derives from Robertson (1992). Foucault believed this did not apply to parts of the non-Western world. For a critical analysis see Kurasawa (1999). See Delanty (1999, 2000), Heller (1999), Touraine (1995), and Wagner (1994, 2001).

178

Gerard Delanty

confrontation, which can be expressed on socio-cognitive levels (in science, in ethics and in ontological and transcendental visions), individual biographies, social identities, institutional orders, and global processes. Integral to the project of modernity is a culture of translation; modernity entails the continued translation of the global into the local, and indeed different local cultures. What we are witnessing today is the completion of the transformative project of modernity whose origins go back to the “axial age” (Eisenstadt 1986). If modernity arises in the encounter of the particular with the universal, the local with the global, it can be found in many historical contexts.16 The European Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the social movements of the nineteenth century were all expressions of this movement, which today has spread across the globe in a process of continuous social transformation. The forms, inter-relations and dynamics of modernity are varied and uneven, but underlying them is the most basic impetus towards self-transformation, the belief that human agency can radically transform the present in the image of an imagined future. This view of modernity as a break from the past seems to accord with the major philosophical and cultural understandings of modernity as a dynamic process that has made change itself the defining feature of modernity. Modernity is thus a particular kind of time-consciousness which defines the present in its relation to the past which must be continuously re-translated; it is not a historical epoch that can be periodized. Modernity unfolds in different ways, according to different paces, modes of translation, and can take different societal forms. Viewed in this light, there is a possible solution to the perplexing question of whether modernity had an independent origin in the non-Western world. For example is there a tradition of civil society and the public specific to Muslim societies? While historical instances can be found of tendencies towards modernity, the inescapable conclusion is that although modernity in Muslim societies evolved in the encounter with the West – whether through colonization or cultural diffusion – it is possible 16 It thus also makes sense to speak of “early modernities”. Modernity refers to a particular kind of consciousness or socio-cognitive form that has now become global but takes different social, political, economic, and cultural forms; see Daedalus (1998) and Hopkins (2003). 17 See the growing literature on civil society in non-Western societies and especially in Isalmic societies; for instance, Chambers and Kymlicka (2002), Eickelman and Salvatore (2002), Hann and Dunn (1996), Hoexter et al (2002), Kamali (2001).


179

nevertheless to speak of independent societal forms of modernity, that is, diverse local responses to globality.17 This is also true of debates about human rights and other discourses of rights in the rest of the world. Universalistic notions of rights and particularistic cultural traditions are today mutually elucidated in each others’ discourses (Cowan et al. 2001).18 Globalization can be defined simply as the intensification of modernity across the entire world, which is becoming a mosaic of cultural translations. Global modernity is the emergent form of modernity today and is nothing more than the fact of intensified interconnections resulting from accelerated social transformation, new possibilities for cultural translation, and diminishing boundaries between the different parts of the world. Global modernity can be examined by reference to such processes of cultural translation as cross-fertilization and societal interpenetration, dynamics of differentiation and integration, producing convergent or divergent patterns. Its diverse forms are varied and shaped by whatever responses localization generates. This connection of the local and global has been much discussed by authors such as Appadurai (1996), Friedman (1994), Hannerz (1996), Robertson (1992), and Tomlinson (2000) and does not need to be repeated here other than to stress that globalization, which entails agency, is articulated in local contexts, leading to different kinds and degrees of indigenization, creolization, vernacularization, hybridization, cosmopolitanism, transnationalism. Viewed in this way, modernity is globally inclined but is neither universal nor Western (see also Berger and Huntington 2002). Modernity is not universalistic; it does not rest on a universal moral or cultural foundation. As a tendentially global dynamic and consciousness, it is as much an agent of localization/particularization as universalism. Yet, on the other hand, it intensifies the longing for universalistic ideas and frameworks, while making their realization difficult, if not impossible. It is possible in a limited sense to speak of a global ethics as a macropolitical ethics emerging with global modernity taking on an enhanced momentum, but it is also possible to see the destructive dimension of this at work. There are many ways global modernity can lead to, what Jürgen Habermas would call, a limited universalism based on the communica18

We also have every reason to be skeptical of false notions of relativism (see Cook 1999).

180

Gerard Delanty

tive rationality contained within the socio-cultural structures of all societies that have crossed the juncture of modernity. In his social theory modernity entails the setting free of these cognitive potentials for the purpose of emancipatory politics. While the resulting developments cannot be too easily seen in terms of a dialogic rationality, the indeterminacy and contingency of global modernity does suggest something like a global ethics of debate based on flows of communication. There is in principle no reason why global modernity cannot be seen in the terms of communication since it is widely believed that globalization is not necessarily leading to a universalistic moral order or some kind of a global order. The consciousness of globality has been intensified as a result of developments as diverse as information and communication technologies, especially the Internet, migration, multiculturalism, tourism, and global warming, all of which can be seen as enabling different forms of cultural translation. Global modernity does not yet exist as what Niklas Luhmann has called a “world society”, but only as a set of diverse trends (Luhmann 1990). However, what we can say is that global modernity is the primary form of modernity today, for modernity is no longer defined by reference to premodern civilizations or traditions untouched by any dimension of modernity. Modernity has had an impact on virtually every part of the world, including indigenous societies, which have been transformed by the impact of world culture and have to reinterpret their own culture in this light (Povinelli 2002). The self-transformative impetus of modernity – in capitalism, in science, in state formation and democratization, in technology, in communications, in collective identities and cultural patterns – has been multilinear and uneven, but it has had its impact on almost every corner of the world and has led to a modernity that is no longer specific to any nation, society, or culture. The advent of a now more fully globalized modernity has in fact allowed many parts of the world, societies, and groups to reconstruct themselves in the image of modernity.


181

Conclusion In conclusion, the argument is that what is often called “multiple” modernities is best seen as referring to the different expressions of an increasingly emergent global modernity rather than simply to multiple societal forms. It is also not the case that modernity is converging into a unitary, homogenous form; rather modernity denotes an isomorphic condition of common aspirations, learning mechanisms, visions of the world, modes of communication. As such modernity can arise anywhere in the world; it is not a specific tradition or societal form but a mode of processing, or translating, culture. Modernity is a particular way of transmitting culture that transforms that which it takes over; it is not a culture of its own and therefore can take root anywhere at any time; this is because every translation is a transformation of both the object and the subject. The essence of modernity is a capacity to transform culture in a continuous process of translation.

Works Cited Ahmed, A. 1992. Postmodernism and Islam. London: Routledge. Alexander, J. 1995. “Modern, Anti, Post, and Neo: How Intellectuals Have Coded, Narrated, and Explained the ‘New World of Our Time’.” In Fin de Siècle Social Theory: Relativism, Reduction and the Problem of Reason. London: Verso, 6-64. Alexander, J. and P. Colomy. 1990. Differentiation Theory and Social Change. New York: Columbia University Press. Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Apel, K.-O. 2000. “Globalization and the Need for Universal Ethics.” European Journal of Social Theory 3, 2: 137-55. Arnason, J. 1993. The Future that Failed: Origins and Destinies of the Soviet Model. London: Routledge. —. 2003a. “Entangled Communisms: Imperial Revolutions in Russia and China.” European Journal of Social Theory 6, 3: 307-25. —. 2003b. “East and West: From Invidious Dichotomy to Incomplete Deconstruction.” In Handbook of Historical Sociology. Edited by G. Delanty and E. Isin. London: Sage, 220-34. Bauman, Z. 1987. Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Postmodernity and Intellectuals. Cambridge: Polity. Beck, U., A. Giddens, and S. Lash. 1994. Reflexive Modernization. Cambridge:

182

Gerard Delanty

Polity Press. Bendix, R. 1967. “Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 9, 3: 292-346. Berger, P. and S. Huntington, eds. 2002. Many Globalizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berman, M. 1982. All that is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity. New York: Simon and Schuster. Boli, J. and G. Thomas, eds. 1999. Constructing World Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Calinescu, M. 1987. Five Faces of Modernism. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Chambers, S. and W. Kymlicka, eds. 2002. Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Childs, P. 2000. Modernism. London: Routledge. Cook, J. 1999. Morality and Cultural Difference. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cowan, Jane K., Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, and Richard A. Wilson, eds. 2001. Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Daedalus. 1998. Special Issue on Early Modernities, 127, 3. Daedalus. 2000. Special Issue on Multiple Modernities, 129, 1. Dallmayr, F. 1996. Beyond Orientalism: Essays on Cross-Cultural Encounter. New York: SUNY Press. Delanty, G. 1997. “Habermas and Occidental Rationalism: The Politics of Identity, Social Learning and the Cultural Limits of Moral Universalism.” Sociological Theory 15, 3: 30-59. —. 1999. Social Theory in a Changing World: Conceptions of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. —. 2000. Modernity and Postmodernity: Knowledge, Power and the Self. London: Sage. —. 2003. “Japan and Modernity.” In Global America? The Cultural Consequences of Globalization. Edited by Ulrich Beck, N. Sznaider, and R. Winter. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Delanty, G. and E. Isin, eds. 2003. Handbook of Historical Sociology. London: Sage. DiMaggio, P. and W. Powell. 1983. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review 48, 2: 147-60. —, eds. 1991. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dirlik, A. 2003. “Global Modernity? Modernity in an Age of Global Capitalism.” European Journal of Social Theory 6, 3: 275-92. Dirlik, A. and X. Zhang, eds. 2000. Postmodernism and China. Durham, NC.:


183

Duke University Press. Eder, Klaus. 1985. Geschichte als Lernprozess? Zur Pathogenese politischer Modernität in Deutschland. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Eickelman, D. and A. Salvatore. 2002. “The Public Sphere and Muslim Societies.” Archives Européennes de Sociologie XLIII, 1: 92-115. Eisenstadt, S. N., ed. 1986. The Origins and Diversity of the Axial Age Civilizations. New York: SUNY Press. —. 1995. Japanese Civilization: A Comparative View. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —. 1999. Paradoxes of Democracy: Fragility, Continuity and Change. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. —. 2000a. “The Civilizational Dimension in Sociological Analysis.” Thesis Eleven 62: 1-21. —. 2000b. “Multiple Modernities.” Daedalus 129, 1: 1-29. —. 2001. “The Civilizational Dimension of Modernity.” International Sociology 16, 3: 320-40. Fawaz, Leila Tarazi and C. A. Bayly, eds. 2002. Modernity and Culture: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. New York: Columbia University Press. Featherstone, M., S. Lash, and R. Robertson, eds. 1995. Global Modernities. London: Sage. Friedman, J. 1994. Cultural Identity and Global Process. London: Sage. Friese, H. and P. Wagner. 2000. “When the Light of the Great Cultural Problems Moves on: On the Possibility of a Cultural Theory of Modernity.” Thesis Eleven 61: 25-40. Furet, F. 1999. The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gaonkar, D. P., ed. 2001. Alternative Modernities. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Gellner, E. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.. Gilroy, P. 1993. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Habermas, J. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 2 Cambridge: Polity Press. —. 1987. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Cambridge: MIT Press. Haferkamp, H. and N. Smelser, eds. 1992. Social Change and Modernity. Berkeley: California University Press. Hann, C. and E. Dunn. 1996. Civil Society: Challenging Western Models. London: Routledge. Hannerz, U. 1996. Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places. London: Routledge. Hardt, M. and A. Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Heller, A. 1999. A Theory of History. Oxford: Blackwell. Hoexter, M., S. N. Eisenstadt, and N. Levtzion, eds. 2002. The Public Sphere in

184

Gerard Delanty

Muslim Societies. Albany: SUNY Press. Holmwood, J. and M. O’Malley. 2003. “Evolutionary and Functionalist Historical Sociology.” In Handbook of Historical Sociology. Edited by G. Delanty and E. Isin. London: Sage, 39-57. Hopkins, A., ed. 2003. Globalization in World History. London: Pimlico. Isin, E. 2003. “Historical Sociology of the City.” In Handbook of Historical Sociology. Edited by G. Delanty and E. Isin. London: Sage, 312-25. Jameson, F. 2003. A Singular Modernity: Essay on Ontology of the Present. London: Verso. Kamali, M. 2001. “Civil Society and Islam: A Sociological Perspective.” Archives Européennes de Sociologie XLII, 3: 457-82. —. 2004. Multiple Modernities, Civil Society, and Islam: The Case of Iran and Turkey. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Kaya, I. 2003. Social Theory and Later Modernities: The Turkish Experience. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Kolakowski, L. 1990. “Modernity on Endless Trial.” In Modernity on Endless Trial. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 3-13. Knöbl, W. 2003. “Theories that Won’t Pass Away: The Never Ending Story of Modernization Theory.” In Handbook of Historical Sociology. Edited by G. Delanty and E. Isin. London: Sage, 96-108. Kozlarek, O. 2001. “Critical Theory and the Challenge of Globalization.” International Sociology 16, 4: 607-22. Kurasawa, F. 1999. “The Exotic Effect: Foucault and the Question of Cultural Other.” European Journal of Social Theory 2, 2: 147-65. Lipset, M. and G. Marks. 2000. It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States. New York: Norton. Luhmann, N. 1990. “The World Society as a Social System.” In Essays on SelfReference. New York: Columbia University Press, 175-90. McLennan, G. 2000. “Sociology’s Eurocentricism and the Rise of the West Revisited.” European Journal of Social Theory 3, 3: 275-91. —. 2003. “Sociology, Eurocentricism and Postcolonial Theory.” European Journal of Social Theory 6, 1: 69-86. McNeill, W. 1991. The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Miyoshi, M. and H. Harootunian, eds. 1989. Postmodernism and Japan. Durham. NC.: Duke University Press. Morton, P. 2000. Hybrid Modernities: Architecture and Representation at the 1931 Colonial Expoisition in Paris. Cambridge: MA: MIT Press. Mouzelis, N. 1999. “Modernity: A Non-European Conceptualization.” British Journal of Sociology 50, 1: 141-59. Nava, M. 2002. “Cosmopolitan Modernity: Everyday Imaginaries and the Register of Difference.” Theory, Culture and Society 19, 1-2: 81-99. Nederveen Pieterse, J. 1998. “Hybrid Modernities: Mélange Modernities in Asia.” Sociological Analysis 1, 3: 75-86.


185

—. 2003. Globalization and Culture. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. O’Mahony, P. and G. Delanty. 1998. Rethinking Irish History: Nationalism, Identity and Ideology. London: Macmillan. Povinelli, E. 2002. The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Robertson, R. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage. Sugimoto, Y. and J. Arnason, eds. 1995. Japanese Encounters with Postmodernity. London: Kegan Paul International. Taylor, P. 1999. Modernities: A Geopolitical Interpretation. Cambridge: Polity Press. Taylor, C. 2001. “Two Theories of Modernity.” In Alternative Modernities. Edited by D.P. Gaonkar. Durham: Duke University Press, 172-96. —. 2002. “Modern Social Imaginaries.” Public Culture 14, 1: 91-124. Therborn, G. 1995. “Routes to/through Modernity.” In Global Modernities. Edited by M. Featherstone, S. Lash, and R. Robertson. London: Sage, 12439. —. 2003. “Entangled Modernities.” European Journal of Social Theory 7, 3: 293305. Tomlinson, J. 2000. Globalization and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Touraine, A. 1995. Critique of Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Toulmin, S. 1990. Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Turner, B. S., ed. 1990. Theories of Modernity and Postmodernity. London: Sage. —. 1994. Orientalism, Postmodernism and Globalization. London: Routledge. Venn, C. 2000. Occidentalism: Modernity and Subjectivity. London: Sage Wagner, P. 1994. A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline. London: Routledge. —. 2001. Theorizing Modernity: Inescapability and Attainability in Social Theory. London: Sage. Wei-Hsun F. and S. Heine, eds. 1995. Japan in Traditional and Postmodern Perspectives. Abany: SUNY Press. Wittrock, Bjorn. 2000. “Modernity: One, None, or Many? European Origins and Modernity as a Global Condition.” Daedalus 129, 1: 31-60. Yack, B. 1997. The Fetishism of Modernities. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

186

Wilma A. Dunaway

Diaspora History Construction and Slave Culture Formation on Small U.S. Plantations Wilma A. Dunaway

Abstract This analysis of enslavement in an American South subregion provides an historical microcosm for understanding the complexities of provincial culture formation in the modern world-system. Simultaneously rooted in multiple points of local and worldsystemic origin, peoplehood is an historical product of the capitalist world-system. Despite widespread notions to the contrary, low black population density and geographical isolation did not forestall slave community building on small plantations. Despite extreme repression, slaves dialectically preserved and altered hidden transcripts in order to recapture pasts that had been silenced by the capitalist system. Embracing the collective diasporic memory of many disparate communities, small slave populations shared the collective grievance and the counter-hegemonic culture of all who had been forced to participate in international and domestic labor migrations.

Fogel argues that “slaves could develop a degree of cultural autonomy only if there was a community in which they could interact with one another” (1989: 85-86). According to Fox-Genovese, small numbers of slave families could “not anchor the development of Afro-American culture” because of the extreme repression, frequently disrupted households, and geographical isolation of small plantations (1983: 248). To test these widely-held notions, this study breaks new ground by investigating slave culture formation in a subregion of the American South that was characterized by low black population densities. In the Mountain South (also known as Southern Appalachia), slavery flourished amidst a nonslaveholding majority, and blacks comprised only about 15 percent of the region’s 1860 population (Dunaway 2003b: 20-21).1 However, “the Africanization of plantation society was not a 1

For a description of the target area for this study, see Dunaway (2003b: 1-7). I have previously described the incorporation of this region into the modern world-system in Dunaway (1996).

Diaspora History Construction and Slave Culture Formation …

187

matter of numbers” (Berlin 1998: 107). Indeed, a region was not buffered from the political, economic, and social impacts of enslavement just because it was characterized by small slaveholdings and low black population density. Small mountain slave communities routinely operated as subcultures of resistance that were grounded in noncooperation, sabotage, and the emergence of a counter-hegemonic culture and religion. In comparison to the Lower South, there was a higher per-capita incidence of assaults on whites by slaves on small Appalachian plantations. The slave family was the organizational center of resistance, and enslaved women resisted just as frequently as males (Dunaway 2003b: 28-32).

Hidden Cultural Transcripts and Repression In situations of extreme repression, dominated groups construct and preserve hidden transcripts (Scott 1990: 3, 65, 92, 148) that become the infrastructure of their antisystemic resistance. What is the content of such hidden transcripts? First, those counter-narratives provide a better understanding of a group’s social condition than that which prevails in the dominant culture. Through their subversive oral transcripts, oppressed peoples construct and transmit their history. Even to a greater extent than ruling classes, marginalized groups: are constituted by their past – and for this reason we can speak of a real community as a “community of memory,” one that does not forget its past. In order not to forget its past, a community is involved in retelling its story, its constitutive narrative. … People growing up in communities of memory not only hear the stories that tell how the community came to be, what its hopes and fears are, and how its ideals are exemplified in outstanding men and women; they also participate in the practices – ritual, aesthetic, ethical – that define the community as a way of life. We call these “practices of commitment” for they define the patterns of loyalty and obligation that keep the community alive (Bellah et al.1985: 153-54).

The second element of hidden transcripts is the shared suffering of the oppressed. Knowledge about widespread injustice socializes members of the repressed group “to pursue both their own good and the good of the tradition of which they are bearers” (MacIntyre 1981: 208), even in situations defined by danger, crisis, or tragedy. Third, those narratives ex-

188

Wilma A. Dunaway

plain domination in terms of power and injustice, rejecting myths and stereotypes about the inferiority of their own group. As Couto observes, “the awareness of economic subordination and political repression … reminds them constantly of the inaccuracies of the prevailing explanations of these inequalities” (1993: 61). Why were hidden transcripts of a shared past so important for slaves on small plantations? Small plantations disrupted slave families much more frequently than did large planters. Thus, complete families of parents and children resided together in only one-fifth of black Appalachian households. Moreover, Appalachian ex-slaves reported sexual exploitation three times more frequently than did blacks from other regions (Dunaway 2003a: 120-21, 273). In addition to being punished more often than slaves in other regions, black Appalachians reported masters who were extremely brutal nearly five times more frequently than their counterparts in the rest of the United States. On small plantations, punishment and white brutality were most often connected to social infractions, such as participation in illegal cultural rituals (Dunaway 2003b: 167-68). Consequently, mountain slaves were not permitted to develop overt institutions that would allow them to produce and disseminate their knowledge freely. Illiterate and denied any written history of their group’s past, they rooted themselves politically in an oral memory pool that challenged slaveholder myths and stereotypes. Through their knowledge about the collective past and through their participation in an ethnically distinct culture, mountain slaves developed a sense of solidarity with other distant African-Americans. Oneness with others who shared the same oppression helped Appalachian slaves withstand the frequent family disruptions, the brutality, and the sexual exploitation of masters who were more abusive than slaveholders in other sections of the South. Anchored in the assurance that their community persisted even when their families were endangered, individual members shared a collective past and an alternate culture that blanketed them from total domination and despair. By risking reprisals to construct and preserve their families, culture, and religion, black Appalachians engaged in acts of profound antisystemic resistance. According to Dubnow, “the soul of each generation … emanates from the soul of the (collective) ‚body‘ of all the preceding generations, and what endures, namely the strength of the accumulated past, exceeds the wreckage, the strength of the changing present”


189

(1931: 28). On the one hand, the slave community of memory sustained and nurtured individuals by making them part of a common past that was constructed out of stories of suffering and injustice. On the other hand, the slave religion fostered a subversive dream for the overthrow of the oppressive system. Indeed, the Appalachian slave community “held the banner high for an alternative vision of the world” (Wallerstein 1999: 29), for their cultural resistance was a political force for liberation. In addition to providing them a sense of deeper identity, the counter-hegemonic culture and community gave slaves hope for a future day of retribution and laid a lasting infrastructure for a liberation struggle that would span several generations. In many ways, plantations had two distinct cultures: the master’s world view and the marginalized transcripts of the oppressed. Slave “voices from the edge” kept “disturbing the centre” of plantation life (Rawick 1972b: 96). The secrecy of the underground culture made insurrection a constant fear, and dangerous aspects of African heritage reminded whites that their ideology had not brainwashed slaves. Those voices from the edge were constant reminders to masters that African-Americans had “held on to their own, secret souls” and that they were engaged in “the continual creation of a community whose primary function was to struggle against their oppressors” (Fogel 1989: 169). What evidence is there that slaves on small plantations constructed a counterculture despite their small numbers in predominantly white communities? First, slaveholders themselves absorbed and preserved elements of slave culture that were economically beneficial, for example, African foods, basketmaking, and textile dyeing. In other instances, masters tolerated a counter-cultural element as a matter of convenience, such as acquiescing to separate church services because they found slave chanting and emotionalism distasteful. Second, slave patrols were the front-line of repression, and we need to think about those policing tactics in two ways. On the one hand, slave patrols represent an acknowledgment by masters that their black laborers were mobile insurgents. In other words, owners implemented patrols because they recognized that their slaves were engaging in the production of counter-hegemonic knowledge. Thus, the slave patrol system can be interpreted as evidence of the development of a slave culture, not as proof that repression stamped out such activity. On the other hand, the slave patrol was successful at social control only to the degree that its agents were skilled at

190

Wilma A. Dunaway

surveillance. The fundamental weakness in mountain slave patrols lay in their composition, for poor uneducated whites were disproportionately represented among the patrollers.2 By pitting two illiterate groups against one another, mountain slaveholders were failing to clench an iron fist of domination. That is not to claim that mountain patrollers were totally ineffectual or benign, but their lack of knowledge (coupled with the greater travel experience of many black Appalachians) created loopholes for evasions and escape. For instance, how could an illiterate patroller confirm whether a slip of paper was indeed a pass that authorized a slave’s movement on the roads? Even though they were located in areas with low black population densities, Appalachian slaves engaged in numerous collective activities through which they built a sense of peoplehood and transmitted cultural knowledge. Despite their surveillance and brutality, most small slaveholders did not prohibit cultural activities until they were perceived as threatening. Thus, only about 2 percent of the Appalachian ex-slaves reported that they were forbidden participation in social gatherings. By staging their own oppositional values and practices, mountain slaves formed a defensive “closed circle” of ethnically-distinct community members. Weddings, funerals, weekend and holiday gatherings, work parties, and religious meetings were important arenas that made possible the emergence of a counter-hegemonic culture. For it was through group activities that Appalachian slaves developed their “collective identification” with a larger community and with a subculture (Blassingame 1972: 106) that was more far-reaching than the Southern Mountains.

Mechanisms of Cultural Transmission In the United States, the European demand for cotton triggered the largest domestic slave trade in the history of the world (Patterson 1982: 6465). Consequently, the interstate slave trade was the most significant mechanism through which African-American culture was transmitted and preserved. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, tobacco production absorbed two-fifths of the U.S. slaves. By the end of the American Revolution, however, prices for tobacco, indigo, and rice (the three 2 See the list of regional slave narratives online at http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/vtpubs/ mountain_slavery/slave2.htm.


191

major Southern exports) had declined in the world economy. Simultaneously, cotton was required to fuel expansion of the English textiles industry, so prices for that commodity escalated and underwent fewer cyclical drops (Wallerstein 1989: 167). Between 1810 and 1840, U.S. cotton production increased nearly tenfold, as plantations pushed westward to form a long belt stretching from South Carolina through Texas. In almost every decade from 1810 to 1860, Lower South cotton production expanded three times faster than the agricultural output of the Upper South (Fogel 1989: 63-65). As a result, the Lower South demand for slaves expanded 1800 percent, more than twice the rate of increase in the U.S. slave population. Between 1790 and 1860, U.S. enslavement underwent a major transformation such that two-thirds of the country’s slaves were reconcentrated in the region producing the most profitable staple for the world economy (Fogel 1989: 63-65, 70). Over this seventy year period, the Lower South slave population nearly quadrupled because the Upper South exported two-fifths of its African-Americans, the vast majority sold through interstate transactions, about 15 percent forcibly removed through interregional relocations with owners (Tadman 1989: 17-19). The chances of an Upper South slave falling into the hands of interstate traders were quite high. Nearly one of every three slave children living in the Upper South in 1820 was “sold South” by 1860, and one-half of all spouses were removed from their marital households (Tadman 1989: 45). Each decade between 1820 and 1860, traders transported one-tenth of all Upper South slaves to the Lower South. As part of this interregional forced labor migration, there is conclusive evidence in the Census returns of the movement of slaves into and out of Southern Appalachia. After 1840, Appalachian slaves were being exported at a rate slightly higher than the black outward migration from the rest of the Upper South. Between 1840 and 1860, black Appalachians were the victims of nearly one-fifth of all the interstate sales that occurred between 1840 and 1860. To put it another way, Appalachia was home for one of every eight of the slaves involved in the interregional black diaspora between 1840 and 1860. On average, the parents and grandparents of Appalachian exslaves were uprooted by interstate relocations three to five times during their lifetimes (Dunaway 2003a: 18-28, 54-60), repeatedly compelled to integrate themselves into the collective memories of different communities in the Upper South and the Lower South. Dialectically, then, the slave trade weakened the cultural imperialism and totalitarian control of

192

Wilma A. Dunaway

masters by expanding the enduring ties of slave collectivities, both local and distant. Slaves used to their cultural advantage two strategies that small plantations structured to maximize labor. Much more often than Lower South large plantations, Appalachian masters hired out their slaves on profitable annual contracts to distant industrial, commercial, and transportation enterprises, quite often requiring the laborers to travel unsupervised between work site and home. In addition, small Appalachian plantations were four times more likely than other U.S. slave regions to maximize profits by producing their own cloth. To achieve that output, owners assigned women to unsupervised night-time textiles production 3.5 times more frequently than they required males to do evening chores. While mothers worked in groups that included large numbers of children, they told stories, passed along genealogical information, sang, danced, planned resistance, and engaged in illicit religious rituals (Dunaway 2003b: 38-41, 61, 168, 174). Though structured by owners to externalize to black laborers the costs associated with reproduction and the production of subsistence needs, the slave household was the first line of counter-acculturation. In comparison to the Lower South, small mountain plantations were more often characterized by abroad marriages. So as not to circumscribe fertility rates, small slaveholders encouraged the development of family ties between spouses who were owned by different neighboring masters. Despite low slave population densities, family bonds reached across plantations through the many abroad espousal linkages; and visitation patterns created a network of far-flung associations and news sources. In addition, mountain slave children were rooted in their collective past through wide-reaching ties with all those who shared their oppressed station. As part of their socialization, youngsters were taught to identify all blacks as part of their community, distinct from the dominant white system. Gutman observed that “teaching Afro-American children to call all adult slaves (not just blood kin) ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’ converted plantation nonkin relationships into quasi-kin relationships binding together slave adults (fictive aunts and uncles) in networks of mutual obligation that extended beyond formal kin obligations dictated by blood and marriage” (1976: 87, 222-23). Even for those on small plantations, the “black community” lay out there and was a collective, counter-hegemonic reality.


193

Mountain Slaves and the Interregional African-American Culture To what degree did slaves on small plantations learn, transmit, and influence the wider African-American culture? Despite the differences in plantation size and the great distances between the regions, slaves of the Mountain South and the Lower South shared many basic beliefs and cultural practices. Conjurors, herb doctors, musicians, story-tellers, and handicraft artisans kept alive mountain slave traditions. Such cultural specialists were common in other American slave regions (Blassingame 1972; Gutman 1976; Stuckey 1987; Gomez 1998). Mountain slaves preserved the same African music and dance traditions that have been documented in other American slave zones (Dunaway 2003b: 198-238; Gomez 1998: 237-44). One of the strongest indicators of the extent to which black Appalachians shared the broader African-American culture is religious practice. Black Appalachians engaged in counter-hegemonic religious practices and a liberation theology that shared many common elements with those of slaves in other regions (Dunaway 2003a: 233-40). Until 1830, African religious practices dominated among slaves because most whites were themselves unchurched (Davenport 1905: 66-79). Three-quarters of North American slaves were still unconverted in 1860, and the explanation for low black membership in white churches lay in the persistence of African religious customs (Gomez 1998: 113, 284-87). After the Nat Turner rebellion, the southern states outlawed unsupervised black religious assemblies (Blassingame 1972: 134). Because of the contradictory cultural consciousness (Gramsci 1971: 333) of slaves, however, “the process of Christianizing the Afro-American was not one of abject surrender of Africa to the West. In the spirit of Afro-Americans, Christianity was converted to their needs as much as they were converted to its doctrine” (Rawick 1972b: 38-39). As Gramsci argues, all ruling groups seek to perpetuate their power, wealth and status by rendering unchallengeable their own philosophy, culture, and morality. The struggle for religious hegemony is “a process of competition for control of behaviors” in which the ruling class seeks conformity by an oppressed people to values, deportment, institutions, and identity myths that support dominant economic and political interests (Boggs 1976: 39). Slaveholders knew they did not have hegemonic control over the culture and ideology of slaves. Consequently, more than

194

Wilma A. Dunaway

three-quarters of the mountain masters required enslaved families to participate in regular religious instruction conducted by whites, and the vast majority of Appalachian slaves attended regular services at the white churches where their masters were members. Thus, mountain slaves were slightly more likely than their Lower South counterparts to receive white religious instruction (Dunaway 2003a: 230). Because such oppressed groups give only a superficial consent to dominant institutions, so their conversion to an insurgent world-view is always possible (Lockwood 1992: 332, 328-29). In order to construct covert cultural transcripts grounded in liberation, subordinated groups must engage in organized cultural struggle (Abercrombie and Turner 1978: 153), like the underground religion of mountain slaves. Unique in the United States, the praise meeting in the quarters or woods was a syncretism of African and conventional Protestant beliefs (Raboteau 1980: 57-73). African vestiges included the roles of preachers, elders, and women, verbal responses during services, the conversion experience, water baptism, shouting, prayer beads, pot rituals, conjuring, and the notion of the funeral as a “home going.” All these practices appear in Appalachian slave narratives and other primary documents, and African style conjuring and charms are described frequently. Even though a majority of mountain masters required slave participation in white church services, less than 10 percent of those black Appalachians ever joined white churches. Despite legal restrictions and close surveillance, mountain slaves participated to a greater extent in their underground religion than in white services. In fact, illicit prayer meetings and singings ranked high among the reasons for whippings (Dunaway 2003a: 171). Perhaps the most feared agent of social change among Appalachian slaves was the black preacher. As one Appalachian slave noted, “the idea of revolution in the conditions of whites and blacks [wa]s the cornerstone of the religion of the latter” (Rawick 1972a: vol. 17, 142).

Black Appalachians and Diaspora Myths In addition to cultural and religious practices, slaves on small plantations transmitted diaspora myths that were common among all AfricanAmericans. Even though most of them lived in rural areas with small slave populations, black Appalachians preserved and retold international


195

slave trade accounts that were almost identical to the stories of AfricanAmericans on large plantations of the Lower South. “Red cloth” diaspora tales were widespread among American slaves, and these accounts omitted the role of Africans in the international slave trade (Gomez 1998: 199209). Like other African-Americans, mountain slaves believed they had been kidnaped by European slave catchers who scattered bright red articles along a coast (Rawick 1972a: vol. 17, 336, vol. 7, 24-25; Rawick 1977: vol. 9, 1416-17). William Brown recalled a song in which Appalachian slaves drew an historical parallel between the Middle Passage and their own forced migrations from the Upper South to the Lower South. The verse lamented: “See these poor souls of Africa transported to America. We are stolen and sold to Georgia” (1847: 51). Born in 1845, William Davis could remember that his father was a first-generation African. Davis’s father “come from Congo,” and he had told his children about how “a big storm druv de ship somewhere on de Ca’lina coast.” Davis’s father explained to his offspring that the “scars on de side he head and cheek” were “tribe marks” to identify his family and clan linkages in Africa (Rawick 1972a: vol. 4, 290). Davis’s oral transcript is historically accurate. The slave trade concentrated West Central Africans, including 40 percent of the slaves from the Congo, in South Carolina and Georgia. The marks on the father’s head distinguished him as a person of wealth and social status in his homeland (Gomez 1998: 131, 150). Through their preservation of such myths, mountain slaves were “communicating their very high regard of and a deep yearning for Africa to their descendants” (Gomez 1998: 239). By tracing their ancestral claims back to Africa, they were forging ideological weapons of resistance. Moreover, their transmittal of a standardized myth of the slave trade demonstrates that black Appalachians participated in a culture common to other African-Americans. According to Michael Gomez: The stylized and sanctioned version of the initial capture, a well-known tale widely circulated throughout the South, excluded African agency and collusion. … The development of an initial capture account that points the finger exclusively at the European and excludes any mention of his African counterpart is highly significant, for it marks an important stage in the emergence of the African American aggregate identity and signals the fording of a major divide in the journey from ethnicity to race as the principal determinant of collective self-perception. For what the sanctioned version is fundamentally conveying is the idea that, notwithstanding the involvement and betrayal of African political

196

Wilma A. Dunaway and familial entities, the Atlantic trade in slaves was first and foremost the idea of Europeans; they initiated it; they had the ships, they made the voyage, they supplied the commodities, they transported the victims. It was the New World plantation complex that mercilessly drove the exchange. … The white man was found guilty of guile, guilty of violence, guilty of horrors unimaginable. This is the fundamental truth that the African-born wanted their offspring to understand about the initial capture (1998: 207-208).

The omission of certain historical “fact” is less significant than the reality that slaves all over Appalachia and throughout the U.S. somehow constructed and reached consensus about the political parable that white Europeans tricked Africans onto the slave ships. On the one hand, African-Americans cast their slave trade account in the cultural genre of African trickster tales that depict characters gaining dominance over others through guile and lies, a political choice that permitted them to emphasize the moral responsibility of the oppressors. On the other hand, African-Americans were not simply fantasizing their explanation; they did indeed ground it in the real life experience of some slaves. Kidnapping had been one of the acquisition strategies of slavers. After the mid-1700s, European purchases of slaves were more often made in little boats detached from the main slave ship. In some instances, parties of sailors used canoes to work inland rivers. In a manner that echoes the details of black Appalachian accounts, they waited on land and ambushed or enticed stragglers. Since such small groups of whites could not defend themselves against captives, they quite often utilized red textiles, alcohol, or trinkets to trick them onboard (Thomas 1997: 379-80, 393, 406-408). According to the journal of one such slaver, they would sometimes “leave goods a whole night” on the river banks. Slavers also used trickery to kidnap Africans whose families or clans were told that they were being hired to work near their homes. Payments were made in red wool, beads, metal tools, and bracelets (Braudel 1981: vol. 3, p. 435). Why would African-Americans and black Appalachians censor from their collective myth the collaboration of Africans in the slave trade? It is now clear that African-Americans developed two folkloric traditions. When the audience included whites, blacks focused upon Europeans; but there is clear evidence in antebellum manuscripts that AfricanAmericans preserved oral transcripts about the complicity of Africans in the international slave trade. Kidnapping required the assistance of a


197

special type of African middleman whose betrayal is documented in slave cultural transcripts. In the view of African-Americans, the middleman was “lower dan all other mens or beasts” because he had helped whites to “betray thousands into bondage.” The role of the African middleman was “to entice ‘em into [a] trap.” By disarming unsuspecting blacks, “he’d git ‘em on [the] boat” so that the “white folks could ketch ‘em an’ chain ‘em” (Stuckey 1987: 4-5, 360n). Indeed, the emergence of two separate accounts demonstrates the extent to which African-Americans and black Appalachians were constructing a new collective identity as one people with a shared exploitation. In their real life in the United States, Africans were not their oppressors, so the political parable was directed outwardly toward whites (Gomez 1998: 212-214). Indeed, the dissonance between official academic history and AfricanAmerican mythology is itself evidence of the formation and transmission of a slave counterculture. In order to recover the “insurgent consciousness” of slaves from the historical silence, we must pay attention to such marginalized cultural transcripts because they constitute a “conception of the world and life” that was constructed by subordinated groups “in opposition to ‘official’ conceptions of the world” (Gramsci 1985: 142). Indeed, the slave counter-narrative was “valid in terms of their experience” (Thompson 1963: 12-13) because “pastness is central to and inherent in the concept of peoplehood” (Wallerstein 1991: 77). That past takes a moral and political dimension because it can be used to construct or to dismantle political solidarities, to legitimate or to undermine existing institutions, to induce quiescence or resistance. “Pastness is a mode by which persons are persuaded to act in the present in ways they might not otherwise act” (Wallerstein 1991: 78). Pastness is, in short, a tool that people use to resist political domination and cultural genocide. If we look beyond the “error of memory,” we discover the exciting “historical fact” that African-Americans and black Appalachians were defining their peoplehood. On the one hand, black American slaves were reconstituting themselves into one people, even though they had originated from a wide diversity of African ethnicities. On the other hand, political parables, like the “red cloth tales,” laid the moral responsibility at the feet of whites, for the international slave trade was driven by the greedy expansion of the European-based capitalist world-economy.

198

Wilma A. Dunaway

Conclusion This analysis of enslavement in an American South subregion provides an historical microcosm for understanding the complexities of provincial culture formation in the modern world-system. Simultaneously rooted in multiple points of local and world-systemic origin, peoplehood is an “historical product of the capitalist economy through which the antagonistic forces struggle with each other” (Wallerstein 1991: 85). Despite extreme repression on small plantations, slaves dialectically preserved and altered hidden transcripts in order to recapture pasts that had been silenced by the capitalist system. On the one hand, low black population density and geographical isolation did not forestall community building. Instead these illiterate subalterns refashioned world, national, and regional elements into localized counter-hegemonic narratives (Hershatter 1993). On the other hand, small slave populations shared politically the collective grievance (Scott 1990) of all who had been forced to participate in international and domestic labor migrations. Embracing the collective diasporic memory of many disparate communities, slaves on small plantations learned and transmitted an African-American political myth which, placed the blame for the international slave trade on the Europeans who dominated the world-system.

Works Cited Abercrombie, Nicholas and Bryan S. Turner. 1978. “The Dominant Ideology Thesis.” British Journal of Sociology 29: 149-70. Bellah, Robert N., Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven Tipton. 1985. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Berlin, Ira. 1998. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Blassingame, John. 1972. The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press. Boggs, Carl. 1976. Gramsci’s Marxism. London: Pluto Press. Braudel, Fernand. 1981. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century. Vol. 1-2. Trans. Sian Reynolds. New York: Harper and Row. Brown, William W. 1847. Narrative of William Wells Brown, A Fugitive Slave. Boston: Antislavery Office. Couto, Richard A. 1993. “Narrative, Free Space, and Political Leadership in


199

Social Movements.” Journal of Politics 55, 1: 57-79. Davenport, Frederick M. 1905. Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals. New York: Macmillan. Dubnow, Simon. 1931. “Diaspora.” In Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Vol 2. Edited by Edwin R. Anderson. New York: Macmillan, 126-130. Dunaway, Wilma A.1996. The First American Frontier: Transition to Capitalism in Southern Appalachia, 1700-1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. —. 2003a. The African-American Family in Slavery and Emancipation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —.2003b. Slavery in the American Mountain South. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fogel, Robert W. 1989. Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery. New York: W.W. Norton. Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. 1983. “Antebellum Southern Households: A New Perspective on a Familiar Question.” Review of the Fernand Braudel Center 7, 2: 215-54. Gomez, Michael A. 1998. Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum Period. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Translated and edited by Q. Hoare and G.N. Smith. London: Lawrence and Wishart. —. 1985. Selections from Cultural Writings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gutman, Herbert. 1976. The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925. New York: Pantheon Books. Hershatter, Gail. 1993. “The Subaltern Talks Back: Reflections on Subaltern Theory and Chinese History.” Positions 1, 1: 103-30. Lockwood, David. 1992. Solidarity and Schism: The Problem of Disorder in Durkheimian and Marxist Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1981. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Patterson, Orlando. 1982. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Raboteau, Albert J. 1980. Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press. Rawick, George P., Comp. 1972a. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography. Vol. 1-19. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. —. 1972b. From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Co. —. 1977. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Supplement I. Vol. 112. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing. Scott, James C. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press.

200

Wilma A. Dunaway

Stuckey, Sterling. 1987. Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America. New York: Oxford University Press. Tadman, Michael. 1989. Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Thomas, Hugh. 1997. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 14401870. New York: Simon and Schuster. Thompson, E. P. 1963. The Making of the English Working Class. London: Victor Gollanz. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1989. The Modern World-System III: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730-1840s. New York: Academic Press. —. 1991. “The Construction of Peoplehood: Racism, Nationalism, Ethnicity.” In Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, edited by Etienne Balibar and I. Wallerstein. London: Verso Press, 71-85. —. 1999. The End of the World as We Know It: Social Science for the Twenty-First Century. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

The Dialogue between Cultures or between Cultural Interpretations … 201

The Dialogue between Cultures or between Cultural Interpretations of Modernity – Multiple Modernities on the Contemporary Scene Shmuel N. Eisenstadt

I The Notion of Multiple Modernities It is the major contention of my argument that the relations and encounters between different societies on the contemporary scene is not a dialogue between cultures but between different – to no small extent indeed cultural – interpretations of modernity, and that it can be best understood in terms of the continuity of the cultural development and changeability of multiple modernities. The notion of multiple modernities goes against the view of many of the classical theories of sociology and above all those of the theories of modernization and of the convergence of traditional societies which were very influential after the Second World War – views which assumed that the cultural program of modernity as it developed in modern Europe and the basic institutional constellations that emerged in connection with it would ultimately take over, prevail, in all modernizing and modern societies. The notion of multiple modernities goes also against two very influential recent theses about the contemporary world – namely that of the “end of history” as promulgated by F. Fukuyama and that of the “clashes of civilizations” as promulgated by S.P. Huntington. Contrary to all these views, the idea of multiple modernities presumes that the best way to understand the contemporary world – indeed to explain the history of modernity – is to see it as a story of continual constitution and reconstitution of a multiplicity of cultural programs and cultural patterns of modernity.1 At the same time one of the most important implications of the term “multiple modernities” is that modernity and Westernization are not identical; Western patterns of moder1

See S.N. Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities,” Daedalus, v. 129, no. 1, 2000, 1-29.

202

Shmuel N. Eisenstadt

nity are not the only “authentic” modernities, though they enjoy historical precedence and continue to be a basic reference point for others. This view of multiple modernities entails certain assumptions about the nature of modernity. The first such assumption is that modernity is to be viewed as a distinct civilization, with distinct institutional and cultural characteristics. According to this view, the core of modernity is the crystallization and development of a mode or modes of interpretation of the world, or, to follow Cornelius Castoriadis’ terminology, of a distinct social “imaginaire,” indeed of the ontological vision, of a distinct cultural program, combined with the development of a set or sets of new institutional formations – the central core of both being, as we shall see later in greater detail, an unprecedented “openness” and uncertainty. This civilization, the distinct cultural program with its institutional implications, crystallized first in Western Europe and then expanded to other parts of Europe, to the Americas and later on throughout the world, giving rise to continually changing cultural and institutional patterns which constituted, as it were, different responses to the challenges and possibilities inherent in the core characteristics of the distinct civilizational premises of modernity.

II The Cultural and Political Program of Modernity The modern project, the cultural and political program of modernity as it developed first in the West, in Western and Central Europe, entailed distinct ideological as well as institutional premises. It entailed some very distinct shift in the conception of human agency, of its autonomy, and of its place in the flow of time. It entailed a conception of the future in which various possibilities which can be realized by autonomous human agency – or by the march of history – are open. The core of this program has been that the premises and legitimation of the social, ontological and political order were no longer taken for granted; there developed a very intensive reflexivity around the basic ontological premises as well as around the bases of social and political order of authority of society – a reflexivity which was shared even by the most radical critics of this program, who in principle denied the legitimacy of such reflexivity. The central core of this cultural program has been possibly most successfully formulated by Weber. To follow James D. Faubian’s exposition


of Weber’s conception of modernity: Weber finds the existential threshold of modernity in a certain deconstruction: of what he speaks of as the “ethical postulate that the world is a God-ordained, and hence somehow meaningfully and ethically oriented cosmos… … What he asserts – what in any event might be extrapolated from his assertions – is that the threshold of modernity has its epiphany precisely as the legitimacy of the postulate of a divinely preordained and fated cosmos has its decline; that modernity emerges, that one or another modernity can emerge, only as the legitimacy of the postulated cosmos ceases to be taken for granted and beyond reproach. Countermoderns reject that reproach, believe in spite of it… … One can extract two theses: Whatever else they may be, modernities in all their variety are responses to the same existential problematic. The second: whatever else they may be, modernities in all their variety are precisely those responses that leave the problematic in question intact, that formulate visions of life and practice neither beyond nor in denial of it but rather within it, even in deference to it…2

It is because of the fact that all such responses leave the problematic intact, the reflexivity which developed in the program of modernity went beyond that which crystallized in the Axial Civilizations. The reflexivity that developed in the modern program focused not only on the possibility of different interpretations of the transcendental visions and basic ontological conceptions prevalent in a society or societies but came to question the very givenness of such visions and of the institutional patterns related to them. It gave rise to the awareness of the existence of multiplicity of such visions and patterns and of the possibility that such visions and conceptions can indeed be contested.3 Such awareness was closely connected with two central components of the modern project, emphasized in the early studies of modernization by Dan Lerner and later by Alex Inkeles. The first such component is the recognition, among those becoming and being modernized – as illustrated by the famous story in Lerner’s book about the grocer and the 2 James D. Faubian, Modern Greek Lessons. A Primer in Historical Constructivism, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993, pp. 113-115. 3 S. N. Eisenstadt, “The Axial Age: The Emergence of Transcendental Visions and the Rise of Clerics,” op. cit.; idem, ed., The Origins and Diversity of Axial-Age Civilizations, op. cit.

204


shepherd – of the possibility of undertaking a great variety of roles beyond any fixed or ascriptive ones, and the concomitant receptivity to different communication messages which promulgate such open possibilities and visions. Second, there is the recognition of the possibility of belonging to wider translocal, possibly also changing, communities.4 Concomitantly, closely related to such awareness and central to this cultural program were the emphasis on the autonomy of man; his or her – but in the initial formulation of this program certainly “his” – emancipation from the fetters of traditional political and cultural authority and the continuous expansion of the realm of personal and institutional freedom and activity, and of human ones. Such autonomy entailed several dimensions: first, reflexivity and exploration; and second, active construction, mastery of nature, possibly including human nature, and of society. Parallelly, this program entailed a very strong emphasis on autonomous participation of members of society in the constitution of social and political order and its constitution; on autonomous access, indeed of all members of the society to these orders and their centers. It was the combination of all these components of the new ontological vision that gave rise to what Bjorn Wittrock and others have designated as the great promissory themes or visions of modernity – the view of modernity as bearing within itself the continual progress of knowledge and of its rational application; of human emancipation, of continual inclusion of sectors of society within its frameworks and of the expansion of such emancipatory forces to entire humanity. But it was also this combination that bore within itself the seeds of the possibility of the great disappointments and traumas in the attempts to realize these promising themes.

III The Transformation of Political Order The modern program entailed also a radical transformation of the conceptions and premises of the political order, of the constitution of the political arena, and in the characteristics of the political process. The core 4 D. Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East, Glencoe, Ill., Free Press, 1958; A. Inkeles and D. H. Smith, Becoming Modern. Individual Change in Six Developing Countries, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1974.


of the new conceptions was the breakdown of traditional legitimation of the political order, the concomitant opening up of different possibilities of construction of such order, and the consequent contestation about the ways in which political order was be constructed by human actors. It combined orientations of rebellion and intellectual antinomianism, together with strong orientations to center-formation and institutionbuilding, giving rise to social movements, movements of protest as a continual component of the political process. These conceptions were closely connected with the transformation of the basic characteristics of the modern political arena and processes. The most important of these characteristics was first the openness of this arena and of the political process; second a strong emphasis on at least potential active participation of the periphery, of “society,” of all its members in the political arena. Third were the strong tendencies to permeation of the peripheries by the centers and of the impingement of the peripheries on the centers, of the concomitant blurring of the distinctions between center and periphery. Fourth was the combination of the charismatization of the center or centers with the incorporation of themes and symbols of protest which became components of the modern transcendental visions as basic and legitimate components of the premises of these centers. Themes and symbols of protest – equality and freedom, justice and autonomy, solidarity and identity – became central components of the modern project of emancipation of man. It was indeed the incorporation of such themes of protest into the center which heralded the radical transformation of various sectarian utopian visions into central components of the political and cultural program.

IV New Different Constructions of the Boundaries of Collectivities This program entailed also a very distinctive mode of construction of the boundaries of collectivities and collective identities. There developed new concrete definitions of the basic components of collective identities – the civil, primordial and universalistic and transcendental “sacred” ones; and of the modes of their institutionalization. There developed first, a strong tendency to their absolutization in ideological terms; sec-

206


ond, the growing importance of the civil components thereof; third, a very strong connection between the construction of political boundaries and those of the cultural collectivities; and fourth, the closely related strong emphasis on territorial boundaries of such collectivities and a continual tension between the territorial and/or particularistic components of these collectivities and broader, potential universalistic ones. At the same time, the most distinct characteristic of the construction of collectivites, very much in line with the general core characteristics of modernity, was that such construction was continually problematized in reflexive ways. In some even if certainly not total contrast to the situation in the Axial Civilizations, collective identities were not taken as given or as preordained by some transcendental vision and authority, or by perennial customs. They constituted foci of contestations and struggles, often couched in highly ideological terms.5 A very central component in the construction of collective identities was the self-perception of a society as “modern,” as bearer of the distinct cultural and political program – and its relations from this point of view to other societies – be it those societies which claim to be – or are seen as – bearers of this program, and various “others.”

V Contradictory Tendencies of the Cultural and Political Program of Modernity A central aspect of the cultural and political program of modernity has been, to follow Claude Lefort’s terminology, the loss of “markers of certainty” – and the concomitant continual search for such markers. Two basic complementary but also potentially contradictory tendencies about the best ways in which such construction could take place developed within this program. One such major direction was a “totalizing” tendency crystallized in the Enlightenment, but above all in the Great Revolutions which gave rise, perhaps for the first time in the history of humanity, to the belief in the possibility of bridging the gap between the transcendental and mundane orders, of realizing through con5

S. N. Eisenstadt and B. Giesen, “The construction of collective identity,” European Journal of Sociology, Tome 36, No. 1, 1995, pp. 72-102; E. Shils, “Primordial, Personal, Sacred and Civil Ties,” in idem, ed., Center and Periphery. Essays in Macrosociology, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1975, pp. 111-126.


scious human actions in the mundane orders, in social life, some of the utopian, eschatological visions. Such totalizing direction could be of a “technocratic” variety, based on the assumption that those in the know, those who mastered the secrets and arcanae of nature and of man, of human nature, could devise the appropriate institutional arrangements for the implementation of human good, of the good society. The second way in which such totalizing direction could develop emphasized attempts at the reconstruction of society in a very totalistic way according to a cognitive – usually moral or religious – vision. These two directions could sometimes, as in the case of the Communist ideology, come together. The second major tendency in the process of reconstruction of society was rooted in the growing recognition of the legitimacy of multiple individual and group goals and interests and of multiple interpretations of the common good.

VI The Continual Changeability of Modernities These uncertainties and the search to overcome them were exacerbated by the fact that the concrete contours of the different cultural and institutional patterns of modernity as they crystallized in different societies have indeed been continually changing, due to the combination of the tensions inherent in the cultural and political program of modernity and the continual institutional social, political and economic developments attendant on the development and expansion of modernity. The institutional and cultural contours of modernities were continually changing, first of all because of the internal dynamics of the technological, economic, political and cultural arenas as they developed in different societies and expanded beyond them. Second, they were continually changing in connection with the political struggles and confrontations between different states, between different centers of political and economic power that constituted a continual component first of the formation of European modernity, and later through the continual expansion of European, later American and Japanese modernity. Such confrontations developed already within Europe with the crystallization of the modern European state system and became

208


further intensified with the crystallization of “world systems” from the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries on. Third, they were continually changing because of the shifting hegemonies in the different international systems that developed in the wake of the continual developments in the economic, political, technological and cultural arenas, and in centers thereof.6 Fourth, they were changing because of the continual confrontations between interpretations promulgated by different centers and the elites and the concrete developments, conflicts and displacements attendant on the institutionalization of these premises. Fifth, they were continually changing because these confrontations activated the consciousness of the contradictions and antinomies inherent in the cultural program of modernity and the potentialities given in its openness and reflexivity; and gave rise to the continual promulgation by different social actors, especially the different social movements, of continual reinterpretation of the major themes of this program and of the basic premises of the civilizational visions and on the concomitant grand narratives and myths of modernity. Sixth, they were continually changing because the very expansion of modernity beginning in Europe entailed the confrontation between the concrete premises and institutional formations as they developed in Western and Northern Europe and other parts of Europe – and later beyond Europe – of the Americas and later in Asia, in the Islamic, Hinduist, Buddhist, Confucianist and Japanese civilizations. The continual changeability of the institutional and ideological patterns of modernity do indeed indicate that the history of modernity is best seen as a story of continual development and formation, constitution and reconstitution of a multiplicity of cultural programs of modernity and of distinctively modern institutional patterns, and of different self-conceptions of societies as modern – of multiple modernities.7 6 E. Tiryakian, “The Changing Centers of Modernity,” in E. Cohen, M. Lissak and U. Almagor (eds.), Comparative Social Dynamics: Essays in Honor of S. N. Eisenstadt, Boulder, CO and London: Westview, 1985; idem, “Modernization – Exhumetur in Pace (Rethinking Macrosiology in the 1990s),” International Sociology, Vol. 6, No. 2, June 1991, pp. 165-180; idem, “The New Worlds and Sociology – An Overview,” International Sociology, Vol. 9, No. 2, June 1994, pp. 131-148. 7 See S. N. Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities,” Daedalus, op. cit., and the entire volume devoted to this topic.


VII Features of the Developments and Expansion of Modernity The development and expansion of modernity were not, contrary to the optimistic views of modernity as progress, peaceful. It bore within it also very destructive possibilities – which were indeed voiced, and also often promulgated, by some of its most radical critics, who saw modernity as a morally destructive force, and emphasized the negative effects of some of its core characteristics. The crystallization of the first and the development of later modernities were continually interwoven with internal conflicts and confrontations, rooted in the contradictions and tensions attendant on the developments of the capitalist systems and, in the political arena, the growing demands for democratization and with international conflicts in the framework of the modern state and imperialist systems. Above all they were closely interwoven with wars and genocides, repressions and exclusions constituted continual components thereof. Wars and genocide were not, of course, new in the history of mankind. But they became radically transformed and intensified, generating continuous tendencies to specifically modern barbarism, the most important manifestation of which was the ideologization of violence, terror and war – manifest most vividly first in the French Revolution. Such ideologization emerged out of the interweaving of wars with the basic constitutions of the nation states, with those states becoming the most important agent – and arena – of constitution of citizenship and symbols of collective identity; with the crystallization of the modern European state system and of European expansion beyond Europe and with the intensification of the technologies of communication and of war. These destructive forces, the “traumas” of modernity which brought into question the great promises of modernity, emerged clearly after the First World War, became even more visible in the Second World War, in the Holocaust, even if they were paradoxically ignored or branched out from the discourse of modernity in the first two or three decades after the Second World War. Lately they have re-emerged again in a most frightening way on the contemporary scene, in the new “ethnic” conflict – in parts of the Balkans, especially in the former Yugoslavia, in many of the former republics of Soviet Russia, in Sri Lanka and in a most terrible way in African countries, such as Rwanda. These are not outbursts of old “traditional” force – but outcomes of modern reconstruction and seem-

210


ingly “traditional” forces in a modern way – just as the fundamentalist and religious communal movements developed within the framework of the processes of modernity and they cannot be fully understood except within this framework.

VIII Changes on the Contemporary Scene The multiple and divergent modernities of the “classical” age of modernity have crystallized during the nineteenth century and in the first six or seven decades of the twentieth century in the different territorial nationand revolutionary states and social movements that have developed in Europe, in the Americas, and in Asian and African societies until after the Second World War. These contours – institutional and symbolic, ideological contours of the modern national and revolutionary states and movements which were seen as the epitome of modernity – have changed drastically on the contemporary scene. These changess developed in a new historical period and context, the most important characteristics of which was the combination of first, changes in the international systems and shifts of hegemonies within them; second, of processes of internal ideological changes in Western societies; third, the development of new processes of globalization; and fourth, of far-reaching processes of democratization, of the growing demands of new social sectors into the centers of their respective societies, as well as into international arenas. The most important aspect of the new international scene that developed in this period was first, the weakening or transformation of some “old” Western hegemonies and of the modernizing regimes in different non-Western societies; often in situations in which the perception of such weakening became relatively strong among active elites in the nonWestern countries – as for instance after the October War and the oil shortage in the West. Second, a crucial event on the international scene was the demise of the Soviet Union and of the salience of the ideological confrontation between Communism and the West – a confrontation which was set within the framework of the original Western cultural and political program of modernity, and the demise of which could be interpreted as an exhaustion of this program and as the “end of history.”


Parallelly there took place continuous shifts in the relative hegemony of different centers of modernity – first European and U.S. ones, moving to East Asia and back to the U.S. – shifts which became continually connected with concomitant growing contestations between such centers around their presumed hegemonic standing. Second, these developments became closely related to internal ideological changes in Western society, with the development of what has been called “post-modern” or “post-materialist” orientations; and to the concomitant continual decomposition of the relatively compact image of the “civilized man,” of the styles of life, of construction of life worlds, which were connected with the first original programs of modernity. Third, there developed in this period multiple new processes of economic and cultural globalization, manifest in growing autonomy of world capitalist forces, of processes of intense social and economic dislocations of many social sectors, of growing gaps between different sectors of the population, between global and local cities; and the erosion of many middle-class sectors; of intense movements of international migrations, and of the concomitant development on an international scale of social problems, such as prostitution, delinquency, traffic in drugs and the like. In the cultural arena the processes of globalization were closely connected with the expansion especially through the major media of what were often conceived in many parts of the world as uniform hegemonic Western, above all American, cultural programs or visions. Fourth, at the same time there developed throughout the world growing demands of many social sectors to greater access to participation in the central frameworks of their societies – i.e. to growing democratization. All these processes entailed a far-reaching transformation of the “classical” model of the nation and revolutionary states which were predominant in the earlier period. All these processes reduced, despite the continual strengthening of the “technocratic” rational secular policies in various arenas – be it in education or family planning – the control of the nation state over its own economic and political affairs. At the same time the nation states lost some of their – always only partial – monopoly of internal and international violence to many local and international groups of separatists or terrorists without any nation-state or the concerted activities of nation states being able to control the continually recurring occurrences of such violence. Above all the ideological and sym-

212


bolic centrality of the nation and revolutionary states, of their being perceived as the major bearers of the cultural program of modernity and the basic frameworks of collective identity and as the major regulator of the various secondary identities, became weakened, and new political and social and civilizational visions developed.

IX New Social Movements It was in this new context that there developed new movements such as above all the fundamentalist movements which developed in Muslim, Protestant and Jewish communities; the communal religious movements which developed especially in the Hinduist and Buddhist ones; all of which promulgated strong anti-modern and especially anti-Western themes; as well as many of the so-called “new” social movements that developed initially in Europe and the U.S. such as women’s and the ecological movements related to or rooted in the student and anti-Vietnam war movements of the late sixties and seventies, and lately many of the anti-globalization ones. These movements developed in tandem with the crystallization of new social settings and frameworks, such as the new, especially the Muslim, Chinese and Indian diasporas, new types of ethnic minorities like the Russian ones which emerged in many of the successor states of the Soviet Union or those in the former communist East European countries. These movements and sectors contested the older homogenizing cultural programs promulgated by the different nation-states; they claimed their own autonomous place in central institutional arenas – educational programs, public communications, media outlets, positing far-reaching claims to the redefinition of citizenship and of rights and entitlements connected with it. It is not that they do not want to be “domiciled” in their respective countries. Indeed part of their struggle is to become so domiciled, as compared to classical models of assimilation – but on new terms. They want to be recognized in the public spheres, in the constitution of civil society in relation to the state as culturally distinct groups within them promulgating their collective identities and not to be confined only to the private sphere. Thus they posit far-reaching claims to the redefinition of citizenship and the rights and entitlements connected with it. They do make claims – as illustrated among others, for instance


in the recent debate about laïcité in France –, both for the construction of new public spaces and for the reconstruction of the symbols of collective identity promulgated in respective states. Concomitantly there developed within these movements and sectors an important, even radical, shift in the discourse about the confrontation with modernity and in the conceptualization of the relation between the Western and non-Western civilizations, religions or societies. Many of these movements tend also to be active on the international scene. Thus for instance, many of the separatist, local or regional settings, develop direct connections with transnational frameworks and organizations such as for instance the European Union. Parallelly the various religious, especially fundamentalist movements – Muslim, Protestant, Jewish – have become very active on the international scene and they influence the activities of their – and other – states in international affairs and the interrelations between them. Within these movements the basic tensions are inherent in the constitution of modern states, in the modern political program, especially those between the pluralistic and totalistic orientations; between utopian or more open and pragmatic attitudes, between multifaceted as against closed collective are continually articulated identities. Concomitantly there developed within these movements an important, even radical, shift in the discourse about the confrontation with modernity and in the conceptualization of the relation between the Western and non-Western civilizations, religions or societies.

X The Transformation of the Discourse of Modernity All these changes constituted important transformation of the discourse of modernity and of attempts to appropriate and interpret modernity in their own terms, seemingly continuing the contestations between different earlier reformist and traditional religious movements. These movements have reconstituted in new ways the problematic of modernity in new historical contexts, in new arenas. First among these new ways is the worldwide reach and diffusion (especially through the various media) of such movements and of the confrontations they entail; second, their politicization, their continual interweaving with fierce contestations formulated in highly political ideologies and terms; and third, a crucial

214


component of these reinterpretations and appropriations of modernity is the continual reconstruction of collective identities in reference to the new global context and contestations between them. Such contestations may indeed be couched in “civilizational” terms – but these very terms are already couched in terms of the discourse of modernity, defined in totalistic and absolutizing terms derived from the basic premises of the discourse of modernity, even if it can often draw on older religious animosities. When such clashes or contestations are combined with political, military or economic struggles and conflicts they can indeed become very violent. Fourth, the reconstructions of the various political and cultural visions and such collective identities on the contemporary scene entail a very important shift in this discourse with respect to the confrontation between the Western and non-Western civilizations or religions or societies and the relations of these confrontations to the Western cultural program of modernity. As against the seeming, even if highly ambivalent, acceptance of these premises combined with their continual reinterpretation that was characteristic of the earlier reformist religious and national movements, most of the contemporary religious movements – including the fundamentalist and most communal religious movements – as well as the more general discourse of modernity which developed within these societies, promulgate a seeming negation of at least some of these premises. They promulgate a markedly confrontational attitude to the West, to what is conceived as Western, and attempts to appropriate modernity and the global system on their own non-Western, often anti-Western, terms – but formulated in the terms of the discourse of modernity. The confrontation with the West does not take with them the form of searching to become incorporated into the new hegemonic civilization on its own terms, but rather to appropriate the new international global scene and the modernity for themselves, for their traditions or “civilizations” – as they were continually promulgated and reconstructed under the impact of their continual encounter with the West. These movements attempted to completely dissociate Westernization from modernity and they denied the monopoly or hegemony of Western modernity, and the acceptance of the Western cultural program as the epitome of modernity. Significantly enough many of these themes are espoused also, even if naturally in different idioms, by many of the “post-modern” movements.


All these developments and trends constitute aspects of the continual reinterpretation, reconstruction of the cultural program of modernity; of the construction of multiple modernities; of attempts by various groups and movements to reappropriate modernity and redefine the discourse of modernity in their own new terms, and of continual changes in the definitions of the realm of the political in the modern scene. All these various movements and discourses promulgated distinct programs and discourses of modernity – and did not just perpetuate older traditions. They all constituted contestations about the reinterpretation, appropriation and representation of the continual discourse of modernity, and one central theme of the discourse – which developed already in Europe – has been the durability of the continuation and upholding of the distinct traditions of different societies in confronting the expansion of modernity. At the same time they entail a shift of the major arenas of contestations and of crystallization of multiple modernities and modern political programs and of the construction of modern collective identities, from the arenas of the nation state to new areas in which different movements and societies continually interact and cross each other. These movements and developments give rise not to “closed” civilizations but to a great variety of continually interacting modern civilizations in which even the inclusive tendencies are constructed in typically modern ways, and articulate continually in different concrete ways in different historical settings, the antinomies and contradictions of modernity. A crucial component of these reinterpretations and appropriations of modernity is the continual reinterpretation of collective identities – and these may indeed be couched in “civilizational” terms – but these very terms are already couched in terms of the discourse of modernity. However, unlike in the case of older traditional religious confrontation in the contemporary scene, “civilizations” tend to be defined in totalistic and absolutizing terms derived from the basic premises of the discourse of modernity – even if it can draw on older religious animosities. The confrontation or clashes between the various movements, as well as the more general discourse of modernity were not between different civilizations but between different interpretations or programs of modernity, in which the “civilizational” component was mostly, even if certainly not above all focused on the construction of collectivities, of collective identities, and could, of course become also closely related to con-

216


frontation about power within or between different societies, exacerbating the destructive potentialities of modernity. Moreover, these continual reinterpretations and contestations were not static. In all societies these attempts at interpretation of modernity were continually changing under the impact of changing historical forces. But in each of these periods there developed not just one model of modernity – but multiple modernities in the shaping of which the historical experiences and civilizational cultural heritage of their respective societies played a very important role as was the case already in Europe.8

8 The research on which this paper is based has been supported by a grant from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.

Culture and its Politics in the Global System

217

Culture and its Politics in the Global System Jonathan Friedman

Abstract This article deals with the relation between cultural process, the politics of culture and global systemic dynamics. The central argument is that cultural forms are generated out of socially constituted experience, what I refer to as the experiential substrate of culture, and that the latter is itself elaborated in specific conditions of social existence that can be linked to global processes. The history of the culture concept is discussed in such terms and the emergent salience of identity politics from the mid 1970s is understood to be part of a larger process of Western hegemonic decline. From the point of view of the larger system, the new cultural politics is an expression of real political and cultural fragmentation. This systemic decline is also the basis of real political economic globalization and the emergence of cosmopolitan elites that are the major bearers of the discourse of globalization. The latter is part of a process of class polarization that pits emergent cosmopolitan “hybrid” elites against downwardly mobile indigenizing locals.

Much of the rapidly growing literature on cultural globalization has strangely enough dealt only sporadically with the question of culture and even less with the nature of globalization. These terms are usually taken for granted as self-evident realities. I have in a number of publications attempted to distinguish between a global systemic approach to globalization and the kind of impressionistic and often evolutionist interpretations that have dominated at least the anthropological discourse (“before we were local; now we are global”, we are entering a new millennium of “diasporic hybridity”, etc.). I shall argue here that such representations should themselves be subject to an analysis of both content and of their socially positioned nature, but my aim is primarily to try and work out an adequate approach to what is often referred to as the cultural in global analysis. Since the 1980s the usage of the term culture has spread rapidly, from cultural anthropology in United States to Europe, where the term was not popular until the eighties, from the social sciences to popular discourses and not least to social movements where culture has often

218

Jonathan Friedman

been conflated with notions of identity and instrumentalized in various political claims. It might be suggested that the explosive increase and dilution of the term from this period can be understood in global systemic terms, but in order to do so it is necessary to return to the history of the concept itself.

Biographical Sketch of the Culture Concept I do not attempt here to present a detailed analysis but to suggest the outlines of a series of changes in what I interpret to be dominant understandings. I date my suggestions from the official emergence of the concept in American anthropology. The nineteenth century is, of course, an important historical source for grasping the transformations that I address. What is most important is the general association of culture with peoplehood. It has been remarked that the notion of race before the development of biology combined what might be called physical and cultural features, often summarized in the notion of custom. A people or race could be characterized in terms of both linguistic, religious and other cultural features, as well as physical features and even psychological attributes. This was simply a classificatory scheme of difference, one similar to that used by many civilizations in the past to organize the different populations within their realms. The classification of the “other” is part of the imperial project and it takes on numerous forms. European classificatory schemes have a particular property related to the emergent modernism of the nineteenth century. They are evolutionary. While the ranking of peoples is common in both Chinese and Arab empires, it is primarily a spatial classification. In Europe, as in the classical Mediterranean, space is translated into time. The “out there” becomes the “back then”, thus providing a developmental scheme, an evolutionary order that leads to the hegemonic center itself. This is not the whole story, of course, since neighbors within the centers were also categorized in terms of a collection of attributes of the same kind. The equation of peoplehood, race, and culture were common characteristics of the nineteenth century. This should not be taken to imply that there was no understanding of the capacity of humans to learn and change, but it does not enter into the classificatory assumptions, perhaps because this was not an intellectual issue. One of the most important changes occurs within the evo-


219

lutionary schools themselves. Tyler’s famous definition of culture stresses that it includes all that can be learned, thus distinguishing culture from natural phenomena. The notion of culture as learned became the cornerstone of a new discipline. It is Boas’s (1920) reformulation of this innovation that was the foundation of American cultural anthropology. Culture became an autonomous object of investigation, independent of nature, of the biological characteristics of the human being. It was a variable, an historical construct, a structure of meaning, of cognition, as well. Culture was understood in two ways. The break with the past was the assertion that humans were cultural animals, that the way in which they organized themselves was independent of their biological characteristics. This generic notion of culture was crucial in staking out the territory of anthropology. The other understanding was logically derivative of the first even if the two notions have parallel histories. It is the translation of the actual differences in ways of life into cultural rather than racial differences. In this way the generic concept could be transformed into a specific or differential concept. The specific ways of life of mankind could be brought into the realm of study as arbitrary examples of the capacity of humans to create difference. This was further elaborated in the notion of culture as “superorganic”, even if the subject of considerable debate between two of Boas’s most important students, Alfred Kroeber (1917) and Edward Sapir (1917). Was this a mere stroke of scientific insight, a scientific revolution? I think not. At the same time other important conceptual differentiations were occurring. Durkheim (1982[1895]) was arguing in France for the autonomy of the social, that the social fact, just as Boas’s culture, was an object worthy of understanding in itself, that social phenomena could not be reduced to individual psychology. The “social fact” can in this way be equated in functional terms to the “invention” of the culture concept. Psychoanalysis was also emerging in the work of Freud, via the assertion of the importance of psychic structures, the role of fantasy in the construction of the self, the role of language and of the specific semantic processes of displacement and condensation in the formation of the unconscious. Freud’s conflict with his colleague Breuer concerning hysteria was related to the former’s denial of the necessary truth of patients’ reports (Freud and Breuer 1966). Finally, Saussure (Saussure et al. 1916) established modern linguistics based on the assertion of the arbitrariness of the sign relative to the signifier. Schoenberg inventd a new kind of music in which formal structure came to dominate con-

220

Jonathan Friedman

tent, and in abstract art and poetry form became the object of art itself. All of these changes occur in the same two decades, decades that witnessed Mann’s Buddenbrooks, a history of social and family decadence, Kafka’s tales of the alienation of modern bureaucratic society, Proust’s longing for his childhood, and Tönnies (1912) critical essay on Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. This was a major crisis of the modern, the experience of the social as impersonal, rational abstraction independent of the people who inhabited it. The period is also one of economic crisis and restructuring and of massive ideological conflict. Durkheim’s sociology is clearly related to the ideology of the Parti Radical to which he belonged and whose corporatist ideology understood society as an organism that could become sick and had to be cured. His functionalism is clearly comprehensible in such terms. The emergence of the modern culture concept, then, is arguably part of a series of disconnections and objectifications that occurred at the turn of the last century and that are rooted in a major transformation of European society. Culture became an abstraction that took on many variants during the century. The early understanding of culture as the totality of learned behavior in its socially specific form was maintained by materialists and evolutionists, not least White who insisted on the symbolic content of all forms of human adaptation, but insisted equally on the functional relationship between this symbolic entity and the environment, on its energy capturing capacity, and so forth. For Boas and many of his followers, culture was a kind of cognitive grid or code that ordered the entirety of social life. For personality and culture theorists, culture was inculcated in the individual in such a way that the latter could be said to be a true expression of cultural socialization. This extreme view is that which has been mistaken for what is often treated as the essentialism of anthropology, since it can be interpreted as asserting that individual subjects are cultural clones. The scope of culture became considerably reduced in the 1950s and 1960s, except for the neo-evolutionists and cultural materialists who maintained the older concept. For the others, culture became increasingly limited to meaning itself, whether in the form of symbols, cognitive maps and codes for those who stressed the emic, or simply as texts for those who entertained, like Geertz (e.g., 1988), the implicit conflation of observer and observed. For Geertz, social life and its objects were reduced to texts that could be read “over the shoulders” of those whom we observe. This development takes us up to the more re-


221

cent critique of ethnographic authority, an authority best expressed, in fact, in Geertz’s textualism rather than in Malinowski. What some have called a postmodern turn, the critique of modernist paradigms, of theory in general, is already present in Geertz’s suspicion of the theoretical as just another folk model. But what is not questioned is the framework itself in which culture is all there is. Since the 1980s there has been a change in the social sciences and humanities that I should like to understand in terms of a sea change in Western identity. This is a change that can be witnessed in a series of parallel trajectories. It is often referred to as the “cultural turn”. Up to the mid-seventies, the dominant perspective was materialist and developmentalist. This is the dominant modernist identity that has characterized the history of Western hegemony from the beginning of the nineteenth century. Throughout these two centuries there has been a constant increase in the popularity of evolutionism, developmentalism, a belief in a better future and an assumption that evolving material conditions are the basis of social and cultural development. With the decline of modernism all that changed. The former developmentalist bias began to disappear along with and as an expression of the loss of faith in the future. From the mid-seventies we witness a rapid increase in the politics of cultural identity. This process, which I have discussed in some detail elsewhere, consists in a search for and re-establishment of culturally defined roots. The latter are fixed and independent of a person’s relation to social mobility which was becoming negative in this period. Developmentalism is upstaged by a new cultural relativism, but this is only the start. By the eighties there is also a movement against scientific rationality, and for a more complete relativization of the West as well as a developing critique of everything western. If the reemergence of culturalism corresponds to the coming of cultural politics, replacing an earlier modernist class politics, the following phase is more aggressive with respect to that concept itself. This is heralded by Clifford’s (1983) landmark article criticizing “ethnographic authority”, even if similar kinds of critique were already in existence (Ekholm and Friedman 1980; Fabian 1983). Clifford’s critique resonated with a more general postmodern critique of scientific authority and it ushered in a series of associations linking culture to the colonially installed authority of the anthropologist, to the critique of Orientalism (Said 1978) and to the emergence of post-colonial cultural studies whose principle activity consisted in demonstrating how most of the categories

222

Jonathan Friedman

dealing with otherness were essentializing products of imperial relations. Culture itself was critiqued for representing just such essentialism and there were attempts to redefine it as a field of contested interpretations. This deconstruction contained many valuable aspects but it was also an ideological project that tended to attack all categories as expressions of essentialism. In its post-colonial guise a chain of associations was established that identified culture with essentialism, with nationalism, and with racism. The nation-state was often seen as the culprit, supplying the core metaphor for all of the other classifications. What is notable in this development is the persistence of culturalism itself. Thus essentialized culture was replaced by hybridity or créolité, terms that maintain and reduce culture to a kind of substantivized meaning that is blended due to the globalization of cultural flow. The very notion of flow is, of course, dependent on the reduction of culture to a kind of substance, even a liquid. And of course the very notion of hybridity depends on its opposite, purity, which is often projected into some past in which the world was truly a mosaic, when culture did not flow. In all of this there is another tendency which is to objectify culture in the sense of turning it into an object thing or product, thus removing the experiential basis of cultural production itself. This makes ethnography much easier since one can simply focus on things in movement rather than the social contexts within which they move and are constituted. Thus it can now be said that things have social lives, when in fact it is social lives that have things. The upshot of this development is that culture is turned into something that we truly can read and/or observe without having anything to do with informants and their worlds. It is in this way that culture can be defined as hybrid even if those that supposedly live it are unaware of the fact. One might well accept that culture as used today is very much associated with the practice of identity, but it would be a serious error to conflate the two as does Appadurai: “I suggest that we regard as cultural only those differences that either express, or set the groundwork for, the mobilization of group identities” (1996:13). Rather the practice of identity must be understood as a conscious activity that is selective with respect to a larger cultural substrate. It is of course true that culture is indeed a product in the sense of acts of identification i.e. of definition, but there is a significant difference with respect to who is doing the identification. When anthropologists identify culture they try to capture a wide range of practices, interpretations and objects. Self-identification as


223

a political act is more restricted, or selective, as suggested above. It is also the case that while anthropological identifications are linked to a larger classificatory project there is a great deal more to the actual study of particular populations, at least this is what is hoped for.

The Experiential Substrate of Culture and Culture as Product While it might not be necessary to insist on the inclusion of experience in the concept of culture, it is necessary to sort out the problem. The word culture might not be necessary for the anthropological project. If we use it to simply signify the kind of differences that are associated with different populations, then it is merely a classificatory device. The latter might well be criticized as essentializing on the grounds that it should refer to contested fields rather than shared meanings. But this has been countered by Sahlins’s excellent discussion (1999) in which he argues that contestation is always about something that is shared. Otherwise there would be nothing to contest. He argues further that anthropologists, even the classic relativists like Herskovitz (e.g., 1938), were perfectly aware of the degree to which culture was contested and interpreted in various ways by those participating in it. But it should be noted that culture as meaning might equally be understood in terms of various kinds of social representations that can be described quite precisely and need not be gathered before the fact of analysis into a single thing called a culture. If there is a problem with the word culture it is the fact that it may refer to very different kinds of phenomena. This is what permits Geertz to claim that technologies like cosmologies are all similar insofar as they are texts to be read. This flattens out quite disparate realities into identical kinds of phenomena and ignores the very different properties that are juxtaposed in this way. A semantic structure has only semantic properties, but a technological structure also has physical properties, and a social relation also includes the non-intentional properties of practice and interaction that cannot be reduced to meaning or motivated action. If culture, in the minimal sense, can be understood as merely differential (i.e., that there are many ways to skin a cat, to interpret the significance of skinning a cat, etc.), we are still left with the issue of shared-ness within a population as a crucial component of this concept. For if differ-

224

Jonathan Friedman

ence is only individual, then there is no need for anthropology, at least not a cultural anthropology. Individual psychology should be perfectly capable of dealing with this kind of difference. If the culture concept has any anthropological significance it is because of its collective nature, whether or not there are contests of meaning, differing interpretations or other complexities. The issue of experience is not often taken up in discussions of culture. The latter is often understood in terms of a series of tangible manifestations: rituals, buildings, symbols, in general, objects. The latter are, of course, human products, but it has often been the case that cultural production is excluded from culture itself. There is a serious problem here, of course, and it is related to the fact that culture in the broadest sense includes phenomena of very different types. Shared experience is a complex phenomenon on its own, but it cannot easily be compared to cultural products such as monuments or technological artifacts. One way to resolve the issue is to conceive of cultural process as one that links social conditions of existence to the formation of shared experience, to the production and elaboration of interpretations of reality, and to the production of cultural artifacts. It might be suggested that shared social experience, which is always specific and therefore cultural, generates a tendency to interpret the world in similar ways so that interpretations produced tend to resonate positively in a larger population. It should also be noted that the emergence of dominant interpretations is not a mere statistical phenomenon but is dependent upon the way in which authority is constituted within the larger population. If I suggest in the title of this section that shared experience is the substrate of culture rather than a part of culture this is because the properties of such experience are more general than the particular form they take as interpreted phenomena and specific artifacts. But it is also the case that shared experience is produced in social fields that provide the basis of such sharedness. If the cultural refers to the specificity of representations, activities and products, then their structuring into social worlds is dependent on their existential resonance within a population that entertains the same kind of immediate experience. Distinguishing shared social experience from the cultural, however, is not meant to suggest an ontological difference, but to demarcate complementary yet clearly different aspects of what is understood as the cultural. Shared experience is, of course, imbued with an array of interpretative possibilities so that the specificity of the cultural is already potentially present in the particularity of the existential situation. What


225

is important to note is that the objects produced within social lives are potentially distinct from those lives (especially if they are lifted out of their contexts) but that their social significance can only be understood within those lives.

Disorder and Fragmentation The above argument entails that the production of culture (in the sense of texts, representations, cosmologies, etc.) is dependent upon the existential substrates within which they are produced. Now if we understand the orientations that have emerged in anthropology, outlined in the first part of this essay, as very much a question representations, then it can be suggested that the changes in the field can be related to other broader changes in the way reality is interpreted in other social domains.

Figure 1. Hegemonic Circles and Cultural Identity

This might be illustrated in the following way. This graph (which I have used since the 1980s) is meant to illustrate a hypothesized relation between political and economic hegemony and cultural identity, one in which the former is the inverted function of the latter. Thus, the increase in hegemony is related to the decline of local cultural identities and local political units. There may well be resistance in such periods but the ten-

226

Jonathan Friedman

dency is strongly in favor of increasing hegemony. The effect is the decline of cultural identities, either by physical elimination or cultural integration into the expanding realm of the hegemon. In the Western nation-state system this has meant the dominance of modernism, and a strongly assimilationist or at least strongly ranked developmentalist cultural order. Hegemony has gone hand in hand with modernism and evolutionism entailing the representation of culture as part of a past world to be surpassed by the modern. Thus a period of increasing hegemony is a period in which indigenous groups disappear by either physical destruction or social integration, the latter in the form of assimilation or of the formation of marginalized minorities. It is noteworthy that cultural relativism is not the negation of the premises of evolutionism. They are, rather, two versions of the same basic interpretative framework insofar as the former is a negation only of the evaluative terms of the latter. The cultures of the world are still ordered in terms of a universal technological scale of development, but development itself is relativized with respect to human progress, thus opening the door to a re-evaluation of other cultures. In this sense modernism functions as the dominant paradigm, organizing the field of possible interpretations, whether for or against development. The decline of hegemony carries a more thorough form of relativization. In this period, modernism itself declines and the relativism that emerges is total. It begins by relativizing the scientific enterprise in its totality. Anthropology, just as other Western discourses, is denied the privileged positions of universality and objectivity. Together, they are all reduced to local and relative discourses. Scientific knowledge is simply pretentious knowledge that claims to speak for the world. It is replaced by terms such as wisdom and it is attacked for its self-designated authority. Other societies are reduced to a collection of cultural differences, often incommensurable with Western knowledge and with one another. This shift is apparently an across-the-board phenomenon in the West, even if opposed by many. It occurs at the same time as a broader shift in identification. From the mid-1970s, earlier in some places later in others, there is a decline in belief in the future, in development, in modernity and instead a retreat to cultural roots. In France, the global center of modernism, increasing numbers of people begin to read about premodern France, about the Celts. There is increasing talk of finding one’s roots. Regionalism re-appears, from Brittany to Occitania, and there is increasing use of the concept of ethnicity, later to be supple-


227

mented with the discourse of multiculturalism. Similar phenomena occur throughout Europe in this period. In Germany, the TV series Heimat, a partly ethnographically based study of German life in this century, gains tremendous popularity. Long lines of cars queue at the entrance to the city of Trier, the birthplace of Marx, but it is not Marx that interests the tourists. Rather, it is the set of the TV series that attracts them. From the 1970s until today there has been a steady increase in a series of parallel identifications; indigenous: national, regional and immigrant. The regional identities that re-emerged in Europe surprised many researchers who in the previous period had assumed that all minority identities were in the process of disappearance. This sudden reversal is expressive of the cycle described in the above graph. This resurgence occurs in the same period as indigenous identities in areas of Western dominance witness a renaissance, leading to a struggle for cultural and political rights. The number of self-identified indigenous people expands rapidly. This is clearly not a biological phenomenon but a massive process of cultural re-identification. Immigration to centers of the West increases significantly from the 1970s, in a period in which central economies are on the decline. Labor immigration ended in the early 1970s in most of Europe and was replaced by a massive increase in refugees. This migration is related to the general crisis of world accumulation in this period. The massive export of capital and the reduction of national tax bases is related to economic and ensuing crises in other parts of the world. The disintegration of the Soviet empire leads to internal fragmentation and warfare. With the end of the Cold War, government support for African states declines leading to economic catastrophe, ethnicization, and generalized violence. This violence and increasing poverty generates massive displacements that take the form of migration toward the centers of the world system. And this occurs in a period of decline in those very centers, declining investment in the public sector and downward mobility, tendencies that occur even during the financial boom of the late 1980s and which simply amplify the polarization between the increasing wealth of one segment of the population and the decreasing wealth of the rest. This situation is bound to cause conflicts, both class and ethnic. Immigrant populations meet a fragmenting Western nationstate in which multiculturalism has become a powerful new ideology, and in which national identity has increasingly become ethnicized. In this situation the migration process is itself ethnicized or diasporized.

228

Jonathan Friedman

Relations to places of origin, economic links, kinship and marriage, and diasporic cultural identity become central features of migrant communities in conditions where unemployment is high and integration into the host society is considerably weakened. Multiculturalism, an elite and often state-initiated policy reinforces this tendency. These simultaneous and parallel processes can be summarized as follows. The decline in hegemony referred to above is the product of the decentralization of capital accumulation. The latter leads to economic decline in the center for significant portions of the population and also creates disorder in abandoned areas of both center and periphery. This in its turn leads to downward mobility and the economic crisis generates serious identity problems. The decline of modernism is closely related to the impossibility of maintaining a future orientation based on the liberation from the past, from tradition and an investment in the new, in change and both personal and social development. In this decline, there is a turn to roots, to ethnicity and other collective identities, whether ethnic or religious, that replace the vacuum left by a receding modernist identity. This re-rooting is the resonating base of cultural politics and political fragmentation that spreads throughout the hegemonic center. It takes the following forms: 1. Indigenization: Where there are indigenous populations within the state territories, these begin to reinstate their traditions and to claim their indigenous rights. The Fourth World movements have become a global phenomenon, institutionalized via United Nations organs such as the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. The demography of this phenomenon is significant. The population of North American Indians more than doubled from 1970 to 1980. Most of this was re-identification. Five new tribes appeared during the same period. 2. Nationalization: The nation-states of Europe have become increasingly ethnic over the past fifteen years, moving from a formal citizenship/modernist identity to one based on historicized roots. This has been documented via the rapid increase in consumption of historical literature. In France, the Middle Ages, the Celts and everything that preceded the modern state were highest on the list from the late seventies on. Much of this has an indigenous quality to it, especially where there is no competition from other indigenous populations. The so-called “New


229

Right” movements in France, Italy, and Germany harbor ideologies that are similar to fourth world ideologies. They are antiuniversalist, anti-imperialist, against universal religions and exceedingly multi-culturalist. Thus Jean de Benoist, spokesman for the French New Right, stated in 1980: Given this situation, we see reasons for hope only in the affirmation of collective singularities, the spiritual re-appropriation of heritages, the clear awareness of roots and specific cultures. … We are counting on the breakup of the singular model, whether this occurs in the rebirth of regional languages, the affirmation of ethnic minorities or in phenomena as diverse as decolonization … [whether in the] affirmation of being black, the political pluralism of Third World countries, the rebirth of a Latin American civilization, the resurgence of an Islamic culture etc. (cited in Taguieff 1993/94: 119).

3. Regionalism: Sub-national regions have been on the rise since the mid-seventies. After several decades during which it was assumed that assimilation was the general solution to ethnic problems, when social scientists calculated how many generations it would take for ethnic minority groups to disappear into larger national populations, this came as a surprise to many (Lijpart 1977). The weakening of the national projects of Europe became increasingly evident – Scotland, Cornwall, Brittany, Occitania, Catalonia – today supplemented by the Lega Nord and a European wide lobby organization for the advancement of the interests of a Europe of Regions rather than nation-states. In the former empire to the east, the break up of larger units is rampant and violent in Central Asia and Southern Europe. 4. Immigrant ethnicization: The optimism with respect to regional identities in Europe was identical to assimilationist/integrationist predictions with regard to immigrant minorities, especially in the United States. What seemed to be a trend toward integration was broken and reversed in the late 1960s when the multiethnicity of Black and then Red power movements were supported at both grass roots and elite levels (the Ford Foundation was heavily involved in ethnic community local control projects). Today this has become a major state interventionist project in many Western countries at the same time as identity politics has led to what some have called “culture wars” in which

230

Jonathan Friedman

the very unity of the nation-state, its very existence, is questioned. The question of the diasporization process is simply the ethnicization of transnational connections, so that communication, social relations, and economics become organized and even institutionalized across boundaries rather than immigrant groups becoming transformed into separate minorities. Diasporization is simply the ethnicization of the immigration process. It is unlike other processes of fragmentation because it structures itself in global terms, being both sub-national and trans-national. The process of fragmentation has not been a particularly peaceful one. In 1993, for example there were 52 major violent conflicts in the world in fortytwo countries, the most severe conflicts being in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Africa. Half of these conflicts had been under way for more than a decade (UNRISD 1995:15). This is very different than the previous decades of the cold war when there was a simpler division and a much stronger degree of control in the world system. It is noteworthy that the great majority of conflicts are intra-national rather than international, demonstrating the degree of fragmentation of political units in the world. This development, outlined in figure 1, is a transition from an assimilationist nation-state to a multicultural state. And this multiculturalism under the aegis of cultural politics generates a multiethnic state. The process of fragmentation is paralleled by a process of class polarization in which new elites define themselves increasingly in cosmopolitan terms. They take leave of the nation in the nation-state and tend to become a non-national territorial state, ruling a multi-ethnic population. Hardt and Negri’s (2000) Empire is relevant to this process. These authors discuss the emergence of a universal empire ruling a “multitude” of mixed ethnicity. The world they predict is one in which the working class is replaced by an imperial, flexible, and nomadic population. A world that escapes the incarceration of the nation-state, understood by these authors as fundamentally reactionary, is one in which power is not embodied in a given locus, but dispersed and omnipresent. It is a world of differences ruled by a globalized political order with no center. The notion of empire is implicit in the self-identity of cosmopolitans who refuse the relation of national sovereignty of anything like “a people”. The latter are by definition les classes dangereuses, rooted, red-necked, nationalist, and


231

defensive. They are closed, in contrast to the openness and tolerance of the elites.

Figure 2. Cosmopolitanization, Indigenization and Globalization

The social order of this emergent state can be represented as in figure 2. Note that the categories are not fixed, but merely indicate relative positions in a double process of upward and downward mobility. The fragmentation discussed above occurs at the lower end of the social order. Rooting is very much a practice specific to the declining or marginalized sectors of a territorial state even if it is not a simple reaction to the changing economic situation. Thus the ethnicization of regional and immigrant minorities and the diasporization of the latter are part of the same phenomenon as the indigenization of real indigenous peoples as well as populations that indigenize themselves by creating roots, history and spatial boundedness. That this is a practice, a process of identification, rather than the expression of whatever cultural elements might and often are available is demonstrated by the emergence of the Washitaw Indians in the Southern United States, a black community self-identified as the original American Indians who settled the country when it was still connected to the African continent, who have their own homepage, an empress, but who are also allied with the militia group, the Republic of Texas, and are self-identified as pro-Nazis. Their enemy is Washington, multinationals, the Pope, the Jews, and all cosmopolitan schemes to cre-

232

Jonathan Friedman

ate a world government. Their goal, just as the white racist Republic of Texas, is sovereignty, autonomy from the nation-state. At the upper end of this order there is a cosmpolitanization reaching beyond the nationstate. Here identity concerns the encompassment of the world’s differences. The latter is manifested in the consumption of such differences, primarily in the form of commodities or other objects that are accumulated and furnish the social and private spaces of such elites. There is a crucial multicultural component here, not one that concerns a politics of difference, but one that appropriates otherness as part of the identity of the elite. It is the expression of open tolerance as opposed to the closure of the “dangerous classes”. This is an identity based on the encompassment of difference within the self and thus a kind of hybridity, which is simply the juxtaposition of culturally disparate objects within the same identity space. In a world of individualism the space can be reduced to the body so that individual subjects can claim to be hybrid. It can also be maintained at the level of the larger social space in which case it becomes a mode of describing what is referred to as an open ended multiculturalism in which cultural elements are reciprocally transferred between culturally separate units.1 In either case there is a tendency to depoliticize cultural differences or even to aestheticize them by reducing them to the same order of phenomenon, what has been referred to as structures of common difference (Wilk 1995). Such differences pose no threat to those who appropriate them. They are digested, integrated into the spaces of cosmopolitan life. They do not contain social strategies, radically different modes of experiencing the world, different forms of intentionality, the kinds of things that cause anxiety among collectors, the curse of the mummy. It is important to note here that there are two distinct processes involved in the transformations of identification outlined above. While I have suggested that there is a tendency for fragmenting ethnicization to occur in the bottom half of the social order and for hybrid cosmopolitanization to occur in the upper half of that order, this all transpires in the larger context of the declining hegemony depicted in figure 1. 1

The idea of open ended cultural units implies a paradox since the transfer of culture between cultures, so to speak, leads to a situation in which the cultures are no longer identifiable as such. Complete hybridization implies its opposite, homogenization, since all the formerly distinct units become identical insofar as they are all equally mixed.


233

Declining hegemony implies a weakening of the cultural hierarchy linking central state self-representations to lower classes and peripheral populations. Thus the new nationalism connected to marginalization and downward mobility is often anti-state in its orientation. Some aspects of White power racism are truly transnational insofar as there is an aim to create a global racial movement rather than a reinforcement of the nation-state. This would indicate a weakening of the attraction of the nation-state as a source of collective identity. Similarly, the rise of indigenous movements as well as other cultural identity movements is not merely a question of class position, but is related in a powerful way to the weakening of ideological centrality, the hierarchical space that related groups and individuals to a continuum connecting the underdeveloped, the poor, the marginalized, to the developed, the wealthy, the civilized. The rise of international terrorism cannot be directly linked to economic impoverishment. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that those who have been recruited to terrorism are middle class individuals who are often well integrated socially. But the core of the ideology expresses a clear opposition to a decadent West and an expressed wish to replace the current world order with one based on Sharia, with the establishing of a new Caliphate. I would suggest that the emergence of this kind of contestation of hegemonic power occurs in periods of decline. The trajectory of indigenous movements expresses the same tendency, a project of opposition to and disengagement from the modern world system. As figure 1 implies, such movements emerge in periods of hegemonic fragmentation and they are the very expression of that fragmentation. The processes of hegemonic decline outlined above entail the rise of cultural politics. I would argue that the same process accounts for the transformations within the discipline of anthropology as well. While the outline of the history of the culture concept begins earlier, I shall only address the latter period on the assumption that similar kinds of parallels might be suggested for other eras. The postmodernization of the human and social sciences began in the mid-1970s with the turn to culture as meaning and even as text. This was followed by the assault on ethnographic authority and the notion of the unity of culture. In sum, cultureas-meaning was made central and it was at the same time fragmented into increasingly smaller entities. Its very coherence was questioned. Now this might have made sense to those who were engaged in the critique, but one must ask why it became a popular issue when it did. The

234

Jonathan Friedman

parallel in the real world is noteworthy in this respect. In this period a serious questioning of the authority of the modern nation-state was initiated in a series of indigenous, regional, and immigrant minority movements. For anthropology, what was questioned in indigenous movements, was the right of the anthropologist to the authoritative version of the lives of indigenous peoples. The rise of the indigenous voice is an aspect of the broader rise in cultural politics that began in this period. Thus, anthropology’s treatment of the culture concept can be said to have followed suit. The critique of “ethnographic authority” in the academy occurred in the same period that the authority of anthropologists was being assaulted by indigenous movements. The retrenchment of anthropologists led to the various versions of constuctivism and inventionism, which claimed that indigenous movements were fundamentally inauthentic, thus reaffirming ethnographic authority. The large-scale migration in the 1980s and 1990s provided a renaissance of the anthropological market. This is especially so as the ideology of multiculturalism became salient. There were positive aspects of multiculturalism for anthropology since their expertise could suddenly become an asset. The very notion resonated perfectly with cultural relativism. But this soon changed. There was another aspect of multiculturalism that expressed social distance, a vertical distance in which the world of differences could be gazed upon from on high, and in which the totality of differences could be defined as a new reality. The new globalizing anthropology of the late eighties exemplified a new positioning in the field. The deeper differences associated with culture were denied. The differences were no longer to make a difference. The former were now part of a single world in which difference was no more than the localization of the global, an instantiation of the latter. If the local was now encompassed by global culture then its specificity and its status as authentic locus of action could be denied. And all those who insisted on the existence of local strategies, from anthropologists, to indigenous populations, could be identified as both the enemy and just plain misinformed. Thus Meyer and Geschiere seem to admonish both anthropologists and their subjects: “anthropologists’ obsession with boundedness is paralleled by the ways in which the people they study try to deal with seemingly open-ended global flows” (1999: 3). It might appear strange that the people we study have got it just as wrong as we do in their strivings for closure. This attempt to redefine the


235

social world without the benefit of ethnographic data pervades much of the current globalization literature in anthropology. Malkki (1992) for example, after dividing up the “Hutu” refugees from the former war in Burundi who inhabit Tanzania into “nationals” who remain in the camp and “cosmopolitans” who manage to get to the local township of Kigoma and identify often as other than Hutu (but why one might ask), takes another important ideological step. She criticizes what she understands as the moral support for indigenous peoples and asks why they should be more important or valued than migrants (1992: 29). But there is more! The very notion of refugees and people who have lost their homelands, who are thus deterritorialized, is attacked as part of Western ideology. Malkki suggests that this is the product of the national mapping of the world in which cultures are territorialized, even rooted in the earth in specific localities. This creates a certain notion of purity or perhaps homogeneity that besides being the root of most evil and violence also generates categories of non-belonging that can be applied to refugees, thus stereotyping their situations. She suggests, invoking the enormously popular Deleuze and Guattari (1987), that perhaps (although she guards herself against seeing displacement as a positive phenomenon), being deterritorialized ought to be understood as progressive in some way, as the expression of the rhizomatic. Thus her “cosmopolitans” are imbued with the capacity to challenge the order of the nation-state (as if Burundi and Tanzania are obvious examples of the latter). The stress on roots to “places of birth” and “degrees of nativeness” blinds us to a greater cosmopolitan phenomenon, “the multiplicity of attachments that people form to places through living in, remembering, and imagining them” (Malkki 1992: 38). I suggest here that the popularity of these kinds of pronouncements derives from the resonance in which they partake in among the globalizing elites and their wannabes. In another context I have suggested that these kinds of representations are spontaneously produced in the globalizing sectors of the Western world system in this period of real globalization: among international consultants, members of numerous international elite organizations, the global media, for instance. This indicates that these ideas are not the result of research but of the process of formation of ideological hegemony. In previous publications (Friedman 2000, 2002) I have documented the case for a general interpretation of the world that does not have its origins in research but in the changing cultural conditions of rising elites. What is represented by these inter-

236

Jonathan Friedman

pretations is an emerging cosmopolitan identity, one that, positioned above the world, appropriates its differences as essential to its own selfdefinition. The categories: open, tolerant, hybrid, creole, trans-local, trans-national, trans-cultural are key words in this discourse. Trans-X talk is opposed to the ethnic absolutism, nationalism, localism, and worst of all, indigeneity of what have become the new “dangerous classes”. All this demands a critique of culture on the basis that it has been misconstrued as national identity. The latter needs to be replaced by a notion of culture as open and hybrid, a borderless phenomenon. And if real people practice boundedness they are dangerously closed and clearly unaware that the world is unbounded. They are the global rednecks of cosmopolitan anthropology. The resonance of this image accounts for the popularity of the attacks on local strategies expressed by anthropologists, like J. Kelly who makes extraordinary claims about the moral status of the autochthonous Hawaiian movement as opposed to the immigrant Japanese in Hawaii (Kelly 1995), claiming that migrants are morally superior, referring, perhaps unbeknown to himself, to the most endogamous population in the Islands and one that has gained a position of unparalleled economic and political power. It is, however, the recent publication of Hardt and Negri’s (2000) Empire that is most significant in this respect – now in its sixth printing in the United States and popular among numerous political and cultural elites who normally don’t communicate. Their position is identical to that of the globalizers: “Nomadism and miscegenation appear here as figures of virtue, as the first ethical processes on the terrain of Empire” and opposed to this, “today’s celebrations of the local can be regressive and fascistic when they oppose circulation and mixture, and thus reinforce the walls of nation, ethnicity, race, people and the like” (Hardt and Negri 2000: 362). Now globalization ideology is only one among several that are being produced in the contemporary situation. There is a plethora of nationalist and indigenist ideologies as well and the different interpretations of the world are very much at odds with one another. In this sense cultural interpretations in the contemporary period are all forms of cultural politics, and this includes recent discussions of the culture concept itself. From anthropologists who complain that indigenous and ethnic minorities have appropriated and misinterpreted their notion of culture, to those who would reject the concept in toto to those who would redefine it as contestation or hybridity (see Sahlins 1999), there is a great deal of


237

politics involved. And the history of the culture concept seems in all of this to parallel the history of cultural politics in the real world.

Works Cited Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Boas, F. 1920. “The Method of Ethnology.” American Anthropologist 22, 4: 311-21. Clifford, J. 1983. “On Ethnographic Authority.” Representations 1: 118-46. Deleuze, G. and F. Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Durkheim, E. 1982[1895]. The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method. New York: Free Press. Ekholm, K. and J. Friedman. 1980. “Towards a Global Anthropology.” In History and Underdevelopment. Edited by Blussé, Wesseling, and Winius. Leiden and Paris: Center for the Study of European Expansion, 61-76. Fabian, J. 1983. Time and the Other. New York: Columbia University Press Freud, S. and Breuer, J. 1966. Studies on Hysteria. New York: Avon. Friedman, J. 2000. “Des racines et (dé)routes.” L’Homme 157: 187-206. —. 2002. “From Roots to Routes: Tropes for Trekkers.” Anthropological Theory II, 1: 21-36, Geertz, C. 1988 “Anti-anti relativism.” in American Anthropologist. 86, 2: 263-78. Hardt, M. and A. Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Herskovitz, M. 1938. Acculturation: The Study of Culture Contact. Gloucester: JA Peter Smith. Kelly, J. 1995. “Diaspora and World War: Blood and Nation in Fiji and Hawaii.” Public Culture 7, 3: 475-97. Kroeber, A. 1917. “The Superorganic.” American Anthropologist 19, 2: 163-213. Lijpart, A. 1977. “Political Theories and Explanations of Ethnic Conflict in the Western World: Falsified Predictions and Plausible Postdictions.” In Ethnic Conflict in the Western World. Edited by M. Esman. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 46-64. Malkki, L. 1992. “National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity among Scholars and Refugees.” Cultural Anthropology 7, 1: 24-44. Meyer, B. and P. Geschiere. 1999. Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure. Oxford: Blackwell. Sahlins, M. 1999. “Two or Three Things that I Know about Culture.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 5, 3: 399-421. Said, E. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Random House. Sapir, E. “Do We Need a Superorganic.” American Anthropologist, New Series 19,

238

Jonathan Friedman

3: 441-447. Saussure, F., C. de Bally, A. Sechehaye, and A. Riedlinger. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale. Paris: Payot. Taguieff, Pierre-André. 1993/94. “The New Right’s View of European Identity.” Telos 98-99: 99-125. Tönnies, F. 1912. Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft : Grundbegriffe der reinen Soziologie. Berlin: K. Curtius. UNRISD. 1995. States of Disarray. The Social Effects of Globalization. London: Banson. Wilk, R. 1995. “Learning to Be Local in Belize: Global Systems of Common Difference.” In Worlds Apart: Modernity through the Prism of the Local. Edited by D. Miller. London: Routledge.

National Identity and Globalization

239

National Identity and Globalization: Policy Paths and the Process of Reimagining Community Frank J. Lechner

Abstract World culture legitimates the particularity of national identities yet globalization calls their viability into question. What are nations to do? This paper argues that identities undergo embattled redefinition by means of path-dependent renegotiation. The reproduction of national difference and the viability of national culture thus depend on “glocal” forms of identity work, fine-grained understanding of which is important to any analysis of culture in the world system. Proposing that processes of policy formation serve as useful markers of identity transformations, the paper illustrates how in policy arenas in the Netherlands national identity was enacted in meeting recently intensified global challenges with local paradigms while at the same time the content and viability of the national “project” were continually in question, leading to variation over time and by sector in the reimagining of national community.

[T]he centrality of national cultures, national identities and their institutions is challenged … Cultural globalization is transforming the context in which and the means through which national cultures are produced and reproduced, but its particular impact on the nature and efficacy of national cultures … is, as yet, harder to decipher. – D. Held, A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt, and J. Perraton. Global Transformations.

As nation-states become enmeshed in ever-widening, ever-deepening transnational ties, their ability to fashion a distinct identity is called into question. What does it mean to be a “nation” in the global age? What does it take to constitute an “identity”? How could a “national identity” still matter? Drawing on contrasting views of the impact of globalization, I argue that while national identities are certainly challenged by globaliz-

240

Frank J. Lechner

ing trends, the culture of the world system also fosters creative identity work by national groups within their particular territories. In the global age, national identities undergo embattled redefinition, the pattern of which obviously depends on many contingent conditions. Linking two bodies of literature on national identity and public policy, I further suggest that such identity work occurs not only via the symbolic activity of intellectual elites but also through processes of policy formation. Viewed in this way, patterns in collective problem-solving represent useful markers of transformations in national identity. To illustrate these arguments and begin to “decipher” the national impact of globalization, I briefly review shifts in three Dutch policy arenas in the period 1980-2000 that show how Dutch national identity is enacted in meeting recently intensified global challenges (as well as those stemming from European integration) with local paradigms, while at the same time the content and viability of the national “project,” as displayed in these policy arenas, are continually questioned. Even this summary account, drawn from a larger project in progress, suggests that the nature of identity work, demonstrated in at least partial paradigm shifts, varies by policy sector even in a relatively short period in a small nation. The example conveys two main points: that the reproduction of national difference and the viability of national culture depend on “glocalized” (Robertson 1992) forms of identity work, and that fine-grained interpretive understanding of such identity work is therefore important to any analysis of culture in the world system.

Scenarios One way to answer contemporary questions about national identity is to argue that globalization entails the demise of the nation-state (cf. Guillén 2001). The nation-state is “in question” (Paul et al. 2003). As the state loses control over economic flows, as it is exposed to intensifying competition, its effective sovereignty diminishes; therefore, at least those nations shaped by a state apparatus are likely to find their identity weakened. The sheer force of cultural globalization also tends to overwhelm any national community’s efforts to maintain its distinctness. When people, products, and ideas wash in waves across particular places, when all boundaries become porous to outside influence, any group’s commit-


241

ment to “its” identity will have to be redefined. The point of having such an identity must change as well, for globalization fosters ties not bound to place or territory. Dividing the world into distinct nations once may have had a function in a competitive capitalist system, one inference suggested by world-system theory, but under modern circumstances accumulation needs no nations. Even where some semblance of national identity remains, it will become less central in people’s experience, less important in organizing social life. National cultures and national identities, once effective containers of much human activity, will become empty shells. So goes one scenario. Straightforward though this scenario seems, it has a rival. According to the alternative view, the state is no organization bound to lose out in a struggle for influence but a globally legitimated institution imbued with special authority. As states necessarily retain control over people and territory, they also must define the identity of what they manage. Far from overwhelming nations, cultural globalization heightens their visibility and significance, for collectivities cannot live by global flows alone, as if without boundaries. Given their relative historic strengths, national identities are likely to become a stronger focus of loyalty in the global age. In fact, national difference has itself become a feature of world culture. The global injunction is and remains: thou shalt organize in particular nations. Globalization, in this view, entails heterogeneity, notably along national lines. This composite view is supported for different reasons by several influential accounts of globalization, including world-system theory (Wallerstein 1991), world polity theory (Meyer et al. 1997), and globalization theory (Robertson 1992). The rival views are not mutually exclusive. The demise scenario is right to suggest that under the corrosive influence of globalization national identity becomes embattled as states lose control, global flows intensify, boundaries blur, and non-national ties increase. In some respects, the world unifies in a manner that transcends nations. The vitality scenario correctly points to the institutionalized features of world society that bolster national identity as the focus of legitimate state activity, a source of collective responses to cultural globalization, a type of identity more strongly entrenched than many others, and a form of globally sanctioned particularism. As the world unifies, it also diversifies. The centrality and viability of national identities are challenged, but they also can and must be redefined. The global common denominator, then, is continually

242

Frank J. Lechner

embattled refashioning. Of course, quite apart from such global considerations, the sheer weight of national loyalties and the vested interests of national elites often strongly bolster such refashioning. If this middle way is plausible as a scenario in its own right, the analytical task shifts from arguing in global terms about what the fate of national identity might be to showing in particular instances how the dialectic of local and global, of being-embattled and reviving-difference, occurs. How, in short, can we best make sense of the way national cultures become enmeshed in globalization? National-level case studies offer one effective approach (cf. Paul et al. 2003). This strategy does carry risks. For example, it might seem to favor comparative ethnography over more systematic global analysis. My purpose, however, is to complement rather than to criticize the latter. Another risk has to do with the study of any single “case,” for if we have entered the “global age” (Albrow 1997) it would not make sense to portray any nation as a pristinely self-contained unit suddenly confronting outside pressure. Though I focus below on the Netherlands as a unit, my purpose is to demonstrate the dynamics of enmeshment. On the positive side, globally-oriented case studies enable us to capture in more detail the actual global-local dialectic now under scrutiny in theoretical debate. While no single case can demonstrate a global pattern, it can serve to offer nuanced counterpoints to ambitious global scenarios familiar from the literature on globalization.

Frameworks For all the scholarly disagreements over the meaning of “nation” and “national identity,” there is in fact a common thrust that runs through much of the recent literature. According to the conventional wisdom, nations are socially constructed by new methods for particular purposes in modern times. They are “imagined communities,” not primordial ones (Anderson 1991). Even if the peoples that make up particular nations have a long memory of common descent, they emerge in their contemporary form through narrative bootstrapping by elites who create the symbols around which national communities may coalesce. They are the product, rather than the source, of books and flags, schools and state bureaucracies. They represent deliberate efforts at boundary-drawing, increasingly common in a period of history when to count as an actor on


243

the world stage required such boundaries. And they are of recent vintage, modern inventions suited for the modern age (Gellner 1983). This conventional wisdom, I suggest, is not so much wrong in principle as incomplete in practice: though it refers to the role of institutions in the creation of modern nations, scholars usually focus on the symbolic activity of intellectuals. In short, this literature offers a limited picture of the kind of identity work involved in fashioning nations, as mostly a matter of free-floating imagination. But for imagined communities to become actual nations requires some kind of institutional process. Of course, an older literature on “nation-building” recognized as much. More recently, scholars have begun to examine the “politics of discourse” as well. I propose to add to such work by arguing that we can study how national identity is made and expressed by analyzing how any national community, once organized in a state, engages in distinctive patterns of collective problem-solving. In forming policies that address shared problems, national identity gets enacted. Policy formation is also identity work, the work of pursuing a distinct national project. Policy formation is the subject of another large literature. Students of comparative public policy have been especially interested in the way in which nation-states have shaped distinctive economic institutions, such as industrial relations, and moderated the effects of economic inequality, for example by income transfer programs (Crouch and Streeck 1997; Hicks 1999). Others have specifically examined the reverberations of global pressures, both economic and symbolic, and global flows, through media and migration, within domestic institutional settings (Campbell and Pedersen 2001; Joppke 1999; Price 2002; Swank 2002). The underlying assumption in such work, mostly focused on explaining policy outcomes rather than issues of identity, is that nation-states have a certain autonomy or “resilience” (Joppke 1999) in choosing their purposes and selecting methods to fulfill those purposes. Even within a generally capitalist environment, states have some degree of freedom in regulating their economies or redistributing goods. Capitalist welfare states compose variations on common themes. But the state is only relatively autonomous, for it is necessarily embedded in networks and institutions that are not part of the state apparatus itself. On the one hand, as neoinstitutionalist arguments would suggest, the state apparatus is itself shaped by a world polity, composed of institutions that incorporate global models. In that sense, no state policy is ever wholly national, yet one central,

244

Frank J. Lechner

now globally legitimate object of any state is also to form a distinct nation. Domestically, on the other hand, such embeddedness can take different forms, depending on whether the state is closely tied to specific societal groups and whether the state assumes extensive responsibility for the regulation of economic life. Such embeddedness only sets the stage for policy formation, which is generally a fluid process in which many actors get involved. In the institutional process of shaping policy, such actors identify their interests, but they also make claims about the nature of the public good. Making policy is at least in part a discursive process, an intellectual exercise in which ideas acquire power (cf. Kjær and Pedersen 2001). Such discourse, in turn, is shaped by the legacy of past policies, dependent on paths chosen previously. Each nation-state, according to one influential version of the argument, has its own policy paradigms (Hall 1993). Most policy-making occurs within the bounds set by such paradigms. Only occasionally, under the pressure of perceived crises, do their strictures give way to change and learning. But even when states undergo wrenching change, they are still engaged in a national project, shaping a national community by the way state institutions resolve the nation’s problems. This brief gloss on a large literature is intended to make the point that the comparative study of public policy complements the conventional study of national identity. These literatures have thematic affinities – both wrestle with the problems of distinctiveness and continuity under pressure from a challenging environment, both recognize the weight of historical precedent in paradigmatically shaping identities or policymaking, both conceive of the nation as in part a discursive artefact. The heuristics developed by students of national identity provide tools for a fresh interpretation of the meaning of policy-making in nation-states. By the same token, comparative public policy gives substance and a new focus to the analysis of national identity. As nation-state actors make public policy, they demonstrate who they are and what they want the nation to be. As they apply distinctive paradigms by means of a globally legitimated apparatus, they enact an identity. Their institutional process is a form of identity work. A “cultural” reading of policy processes therefore promises to go beyond the constraints of two current literatures.1 1

This approach builds on precedents set by Dobbin (1994) in explaining national variation in the forging of industrial policy and by Kjær and Pedersen (2001) in apply-


245

Focusing on policy has an additional advantage, namely to decompose, as it were, both the work of the nation and the thrust of globalization. Instead of treating nation and globalization in the abstract, as artefacts of discourse, this type of analysis makes it possible to examine more precisely the intricacies of enmeshment. As a heuristic guide, it suggests that globalization’s effects may vary. For example, globalization poses different challenges to a nation-state’s capacity to guarantee collective welfare, to its efforts to integrate minority groups, and to its control over television broadcasting – challenges not described in detail here for lack of space. National responses in social policy, minority policy, and media policy similarly may vary, depending on the relevant paradigm policy makers bring to bear. Analyzing varied responses to different challenges through policy formation in several arenas, as instances of embattled reconstructions of identity, enables us to move beyond the particular versions of the demise and vitality scenarios applicable to each policy sphere and thereby bolsters the overall argument about national identity stated above.

Dutch Social Policy2 By 1980, the Dutch welfare state had become one of the most generous in the world (Bannink 1999). After a late start in extending social provision to the ill, disabled and unemployed, the Netherlands had caught up by creating universal entitlements that provided security against market shifts and personal misfortune. Income transfers now claimed a high proportion of public resources, in fact one of the highest in the world. This generosity was the outcome of the collaborative efforts of many political and social groups. For several decades, they had assumed that the state had a responsibility to ensure solidarity by extending minimal security to all citizens. Welfare, broadly conceived, was not a privilege, ing “discursive institutionalism” to the reception of neoliberalism in Denmark (cf. also Hay 2001). It complements other work examining “what states can do now” (Ikenberry 2003) but shifts attention more explicitly to problems of identity and culture. 2 This section generally relies on Bannink (1999), Roebroek and Hertogh (1998), Van der Veen and Trommel (1999), and Visser and Hemerijck (1997), as well as on primary government sources.

246

Frank J. Lechner

but a right. In securing welfare through transfer payments, the state could also moderate social inequality. Such shared purposes were reflected in an intricate institutional scheme, grounded in many distinct pieces of legislation. While the state controlled the purse strings, it relied on social groups in several ways. For example, in preparation for new policies, it requested the advice of the so-called social partners, representatives of unions and employers. In executing various insurance schemes, it relied on semi-public agencies run by the representatives of business, unions, or private (especially confessional) organizations. The process of making social policy, in short, had been highly corporatist, involving organized consultation with societal groups at all stages. Though conservatives had grumbled about the fairness and expense of redistribution for some years, this welfare state could count on broad support. Then the crisis hit. The second oil shock of the late 1970s combined with a worsening international economy to produce especially severe consequences for the Netherlands, always greatly exposed to the vagaries of external change. Recession cut government income. Yet as unemployment grew, so did state expenditures. The result was a government budget out of control. At the same time, the very structure of welfare state programs seemed to reduce the state’s flexibility to introduce change or to stimulate job growth. From a welfare state sensibly compensating for economic risk without jeopardizing its economic performance, the Netherlands became a state suffering from the “Dutch disease,” its bloated budget and stifling welfare structure now aggravating its condition. Under increasing global pressure, it became clear, the Dutch welfare state might not be viable. Reform was in order. The first priority of the new center-right government that came to office in 1982 was not to transform social policy but to achieve wage moderation in order to improve Dutch competitiveness and thereby increase employment. Such moderation also would indirectly alleviate the burden of transfer payments, since wages were linked to benefit levels. Under pressure from the cabinet, the leaders of the main employer and union organizations agreed on moderating wage demands in exchange for greater job security. But social policy commanded attention as well. Because the system expressed widely held values and retained strong support, the government gradually prepared the way for change. Expert reviews led to government reports, which led to parliamentary debate, which in turn led to new legislation and a closely contested vote in Par-


247

liament, which resulted not in structural change but in reduction of some kinds of benefits and more restricted eligibility criteria for some kinds of programs. Partial retrenchment contained the growth in costs but did not reform the system that produced those costs. It could not drastically reduce the demand for social protection and it could not make its administration more efficient. The numbers of beneficiaries kept growing (from 2.3 to 4 million between 1975 and 1990) and the ratio of inactive to working adults began to approach parity (Roebroek and Hertogh 1998: 339). The main disability insurance program, the WAO, in particular kept growing inexorably. Though the Dutch economy was improving, a burdensome and opaque welfare system that favored protection over work still seemed a drag on economic performance. Cost reduction therefore gradually gave way to reconsideration of the purpose of protection and to revision of its governance structure. While the long-perceived problem of governance created an impetus for welfare revision, that revision received a strong intellectual stimulus from a report by the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), which stressed the idea that the purpose of policy should be to enable people to participate in the work force and that therefore social protection should facilitate (re)activation. Activation minimally required eliminating perverse incentives from insurance programs. Even against the recommendations of the social partners, a coalition of bureaucrats and party officials began to form in favor of more thorough change in welfare laws. In 1992, an unprecedented parliamentary inquiry, triggered by the continuing troubles of the disability program, resulted in strong recommendations for more effective execution of welfare laws and more responsible monitoring by relevant agencies. A substantial reform effort begun by a center-right coalition was continued by a left-right coalition that assumed power in 1994. This effort centered on reforming sickness and disability insurance programs by gradually introducing incentives to prevent entry into insurance programs, increasing employer and personal liability, expanding the kinds of work beneficiaries might have to accept, differentiating premiums and benefits, and the like. New agencies were devised to carry out some of the new laws; the executive role of municipalities also increased. By the year 2000, the Dutch government had reduced its responsibility for income maintenance, devolved executive responsibility to numerous other authorities, and imposed new responsibilities on workers, beneficiaries and employers.

248

Frank J. Lechner

What does this record tell us about Dutch national identity? Until 1990, not much changed: the Netherlands was still a society committed to generous welfare policies as an expression of solidarity. While the cost of programs had come under fire, consensus on the fairness of redistribution remained strong. The process of reform had not changed greatly from the period of building either: corporatist institutions were strong, consultation aimed at producing consensus was still common. Most of the old players and policies were in place. The upshot is that the impact of global pressure was processed within a framework that had a distinct national cast. The shock was accommodated by deliberate collective choices. But as external economic urgency diminished, the impetus toward internal reform intensified. In the twenty years afer the initial crisis hit, the shape of Dutch social policy in fact changed quite substantially. Its discourse now routinely refers to individual responsibility, to the need for participation in work, to incentives and calculation. The justification for policies, in short, has shifted in a “neoliberal” direction. In this respect, the Netherlands clearly absorbed elements of a broader global discourse. The process of making policy also changed: the central state has taken strong action even against entrenched vested interests, new agencies have more clearly defined responsibilities not linked to particular social groups. New players are involved in formulating and executing policy. Policy content reflects new purposes and a new organization of responsibilities: the welfare acts of the 1990s would have been impossible to pass in 1980. But does this amount to a paradigm shift? If it does, has the image of the nation changed, at least insofar as expressed in the work of the social policy community? The results of 1990s policy reform in the Netherlands make sense as part of a new “responsibility” paradigm. But policy legacies still weigh heavily: the principle of universal solidarity remains important; corporatism has not disappeared (and may be strengthened as new agencies become entangled with the central state); and activation measures operate in a framework of still-generous transfer benefits. There has been no “big bang” (Visser and Hemerijck 1997), no change in the essential normative framework (Van der Veen and Trommel 1999). The very debate about the welfare state is still structured by corporatist notions (Cox 1993); the new links between state and society still fit with old notions of “subsidiarity” (Roebroek and Hertogh 1998). The festering problems of the disability insurance program, approaching one million ben-


249

eficiaries out of a population of sixteen million, demonstrate the limits of reform: faced with a choice between dramatic streamlining and balancing of incentives and security, the Netherlands thus far has chosen the latter. However great the practical problems they entail, such continuities are one mark of the efficacy of Dutch identity work. But even the discontinuity contains a message, for the significant reforms were carried out as part of a distinctly national project in which Dutch policy makers deliberately fashioned a Dutch response to a global predicament.

Dutch Minority Policy3 When newly arrived minorities were first widely perceived as a “problem” in the Netherlands in the late 1970s, the apparatus brought to bear on it was not new. The Scientific Council for Government Policy issued an influential report. Government bureaucrats studied the matter, laying the groundwork for a major policy statement by the responsible cabinet officer. Even in the absence of a full-fledged corporatist structure of organizations that focused on the subject and represented relevant groups, experts and officials worked to create a consensus for a particular kind of policy. Without direct representation of affected groups in the political center, government had to take the initiative. The policy’s main goal was to assist migrants to become fully emancipated while retaining their own culture and identity. In this respect, the proposed paradigm resembled the methods by which workers and Catholics had become full members of Dutch society in earlier periods. Like workers, the policy community argued, with increasing support from political parties, migrants were entitled to equality; like Catholics, they were entitled to maintain their own culture, supported by their own institutions. But this reasoning by historical analogy did not prevent the emerging public discourse, in hundreds of publications, from identifying the nation in a subtly new way: the Netherlands, many began to realize, was becoming a “country of immigration.” The extensive discussions and analyses of minority problems in the 1980s gave rise to relatively few specific policies. To some extent, this was 3

This section generally relies on Jaaroverzicht (1998), Lucassen and Penninx (1994), and Tesser et al. (1999), as well as primary government documents.

250

Frank J. Lechner

by design: emancipation in the social-democratic mode required the extension of ordinary entitlements to minorities above all. In part, minority policy was general welfare policy given a special twist. To promote emancipation, a new education policy gave priority to children with disadvantages. But the state did little to promote minority employment, apart from stimulating minority hiring in government. One minorityspecific measure was to strengthen support for a nationwide program to educate minority children in their own language and culture. In principle, the government also recognized the right of Muslim groups to found their own schools with public funding under the 1983 constitution’s freedom of education provision, though initially few Islamic schools were founded. Subsidies began to flow to some minority organizations. Only a few measures indicated the influence of a global human rights regime. For example, permanent residence was eased in the mid1980s; foreign residents obtained voting rights in local elections; and the constitution’s anti-discrimination provision began to cleanse laws and regulations of ethnic and religious distinctions. The high hopes of the early 1980s were not fulfilled. A decade of policymaking did not result in substantial equality between majority and minorities. Even if the expectations themselves had been unrealistically high, the continued minority disadvantage in education and economy and the rising ethnic segregation in major cities around 1990 gave the impetus to a shift in public discourse. Initiated by the political right, treated with skepticism by the governing center-left coalition, a new theme began to pervade minority discourse: integration. The shift in emphasis did not mean that old policies were jettisoned. In fact, the commitment to emancipation remained strong. It translated into new laws to promote affirmative action by private employers and an overhaul of educational disadvantage policy. The process of policy-making also became more regular, in the sense that organized group interests became part of policy deliberations at the national level. A special ministry, instituted in 1998, came to focus on minority issues. But the very name of the ministry conveyed the change: it was devoted to “Large Cities and Integration Policy.” Hallmark of the new thrust was a law, long in the making, to require newcomers to undergo “civic integration.” While public funding to Islamic schools continued, education in ethnic cultures was scaled back to concentrate only on “living minority languages.” A final integrative step was to permit foreign residents to hold dual citizenship under


251

some circumstances, thereby encouraging naturalization. But the greater emphasis on integration did not undermine the equally growing recognition, made explicit in the platform of the coalition that took office in 1998, that the Netherlands had indeed become a country of immigration and a multicultural society. Minorities now had to be integrated into a society that had itself changed profoundly in just a few decades. By 2000, what it meant to be Dutch differed from what it had meant in 1980. But this is not to say that migration simply caused a dissolution of national identity. Judged by the record of twenty years of policy-making, the Dutch have been engaged in the redefinition of national identity within a distinct national framework, as a self-consciously national project. The very emphasis on integration indicates an overriding commitment to maintaining the integrity of a national community. The extensive discourse and the welter of policy actions that emerge also confirm an unquestioned interest in using minority policy as a way to shape the nation in accord with “Dutch values.” That the Netherlands is and must remain a viable nation is taken for granted. Important continuities in policy-making reinforce this national focus. At least some of the principles that underlie current policy are adapted versions of principles already at the center of Dutch welfare state expansion in earlier decades. The engrained method of trying to operate by consensus also has been amply applied to minority issues. The weight of official consensus in fact has created a certain sensitivity about issues that deviate from the common view of minority problems, a view that has become more negatively colored across the political spectrum. In some respects, it is now clear, ethnic minority problems really do differ from those of native Dutch minorities. Yet the apparatus for dealing with them looks increasingly Dutch, that is to say, intricately corporatist. If nothing else, minorities are being integrated by becoming objects of policy, by being represented officially in policy consultations. Making minority or integration policy is itself a form of nation-building.

252

Frank J. Lechner

Dutch Media Policy4 For many decades, as one participant once put it, media policy has been a national parlor game in the Netherlands. When radio emerged as a new medium, the strongly organized “pillars” of Dutch society (Catholics and Protestants especially, socialists more hesitantly) established radio broadcast organizations to reflect their respective interests and worldviews. They used their political clout to gain state support for their right to broadcast time and resources. The path of a pillarized, privately organized yet publicly funded broadcasting system, once established, strongly shaped all subsequent policy into the television age. The parlor game consisted of finding ways to adapt to new circumstances while respecting the vested organizational interests. Participants in the game included, besides state officials, experts within political parties that were strongly tied to particular broadcasters, whose representatives also claimed a strong voice in all media matters. When the threat of commercialization had become more real by the early 1980s, in part due to the spread of cable systems, the responsible cabinet officer appeared to want to change the rules of the game. In fact, the new legislation he prepared, and for which he mobilized support in the political and media community, favored the rights of the old broadcasters and prohibited commercial TV channels or networks. The chief justification was that commerce would threaten the diversity of cultural expression, which would harm the public good. The Media Act of 1988, the outcome of years of debate, thus showed a national policy community in a holding pattern, attempting to preserve a distinct national broadcasting tradition. But in 1989 the work of the previous decade came undone. Taking advantage of a European rule on fair competition in cable television, a commercial broadcasting company based in Luxembourg established a foothold in a Dutch cable system. When it became clear that the government could not prohibit its broadcasts, the era of commercialization had officially arrived. The policy fall-out was significant. Faced with a new kind of competition, the publicly supported broadcasters became even more embattled, at a time when their historic political support declined due to broader depillarization. Their traditional voice in policy-making 4 This section generally relies on Bardoel (1994), Commissie Publieke Omroep (1996), and De Goede (1999), as well as primary government documents.


253

weakened. After a 1991 law formally allowed commercial broadcasting, their market share declined to less than fifty percent of the TV audience. As a result, advertising income for the public channels declined, producing budget shortfalls. To deal with those troubled finances, the government then took the initiative to impose a reorganization on the public broadcasters, reallocating programming slots and giving a new channel to the national television programming service. The traditional organizations received new support, in the form of licensing and financing, but had to accept several restrictive rules. Behind the 1990s amendments to the 1988 law was a new kind of justification for the state role in managing media: diversity of expression was still important, to be sure, but so was enabling fair competition. Although in the process the central government used a heavy hand, the ostensible purpose was to reduce political involvement in running Dutch television, to reduce state entanglements. Because Dutch media policy changed in justification, process, and substance, it is fair to describe its record as a paradigm shift (De Goede 1999). The dam put up in the 1980s broke. Media policy in the 1990s could not put it together again. In the face of new constraints, the very significance of the parlor game itself diminished, as the state challenged the vested interests. If the hallmark of the old media policy was to create and preserve a distinctly national system for the expression of the diversity within a distinctly national culture, then certainly the record of media policy shows that the “centrality” of the national has declined. But even in this arena, where outside pressure clearly had a transforming effect, two important caveats are in order. First, in the paradigm shift some features of the old system were preserved. The traditional broadcasters still receive public support for a public task; they still provide varied, at least partly noncommercial programming. Residues of the old pillarized system survive. Second, actual changes in Dutch media policy were not simply the result of outside pressure. For example, the support for the traditional broadcasters was declining for reasons of Dutch domestic change. They could no longer count on large groups of people or political parties who believed in their mission. Even the paradigm shift, then, resulted from a subtle interaction between global and domestic forces.

254

Frank J. Lechner

Conclusions Interpreting shifts in Dutch policy formation as markers of ongoing national identity work in an effort to decipher the impact of globalization on the centrality of one national culture, this paper briefly described how Dutch identity gets enacted in meeting global challenges with local paradigms. Across the three arenas in recent decades policy-making remained a deliberate and viable national project. But just as the challenges varied, so did the particular paradigm-shaped responses. In the case of social policy, partial reform in the 1980s gave way to significant restructuring in the 1990s, at least partly under the influence of a global neoliberal discourse, but the new “responsibility paradigm” incorporated many features of earlier episodes of policy-making. In minority policy, the relatively modest attempts of the 1980s to respond to waves of migration with multicultural emancipation were succeeded by a new set of policies partly intended to bring about integration. In media policy, the old nationally distinctive approach to a diverse, public-private broadcasting system could not contain the pressures of transnational commercialization and was drastically transformed in the 1990s. The Netherlands thus “processed,” as it were, globalizing economic, migration, and media challenges in variable ways. In two sectors, continuity in content and form balanced a shift in policy purpose and instruments; in a third field, full-fledged paradigm change became more evident. Insofar as the collective formation of public policy helps to shape a nation’s identity, institutional sectors and their attendant intellectual and policy elites thus fashioned slightly different answers to the question of what it meant to be Dutch in 2000. The refashioning of national identity certainly depends on the culture of the world system, broadly conceived. In carrying out its identity work through public policy, a nation-state already draws on an apparatus that has global legitimacy. The very task of defining the nation is itself a global charge to any nation-state, and therefore any definition of national identity is always more-than-national. The actual process of globalization, insofar as it undermines a nation’s settled ways or self-understanding, heightens the significance of that task. Even where the actual capacity of a nation to respond, or to hold on to any one tradition, is in question, the salience of national identity as a project may well increase. Nations can show resilience precisely in becoming embattled. Yet the actual work of


255

refashioning national identities, a form of culture in the world system, is more complex than any account of the culture of the world system can convey. For example, the degree to which a nation’s identity becomes embattled and the particular way in which it shows resilience are shaped by its own historical trajectory of the interplay between globalizing forces and national sediments. The global-national dialectic is itself path-dependent. And the path is only a path if the relevant national actors decide to stay on it, usually after much context-bound argument. Therefore, no single case can fully illuminate the dynamics of what is now a global experience, framed by the culture of the world system yet taking the form of “many globalizations” (Berger and Huntington 2002). However, as this paper has shown by example, close contextual analysis of single cases can support a plausible global scenario for the evolution of national identity, demonstrate the strength of an analytical approach drawing on different bodies of scholarship, and explain how, through distinctive collective efforts to address shared problems, the enmeshment of national cultures in globalization generates heterogeneity. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the American Sociological Association meeting in Chicago, August 2002. I thank Michaeline Crichlow for her comments on that version. Work on this paper was supported in part by the Institute for Comparative and International Studies at Emory University.

Works Cited Albrow, M. 1997. The Global Age. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Anderson, B. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Bannink, D. 1999. “Het Nederlandse Stelsel van Sociale Zekerheid: Van Achterblijver naar Koploper naar Vroege Hervormer.” In De Herverdeelde Samenleving: Ontwikkeling en Herziening van de Nederlandse Verzorgingsstaat. Edited by W. Trommel and R. Van der Veen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 51-81. Bardoel, J. 1994. “Om Hilversum Valt Geen Hek te Plaatsen.” In Omroep in Nederland: 75 Jaar Medium en Maatschappij. Edited by H. Wijfjes. Zwolle: Waanders, 339-71. Berger, P. L. and S. P. Huntington, eds. 2002. Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

256

Frank J. Lechner

Campbell, J. L. and O. K. Pedersen, eds. 2001. The Rise of Neoliberalism and Institutional Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Commissie Publieke Omroep. 1996. Terug naar het Publiek: Rapport van de Commissie Publieke Omroep. The Hague: Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Cox, R. H. 1993. The Development of the Dutch Welfare State: From Workers’ Insurance to Universal Entitlement. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Crouch, C. and W. Streeck. 1997. Political Economy of Modern Capitalism: Mapping Convergence and Diversity. London: Sage. De Goede, P. 1999. Omroepbeleid met en tegen de Tijd. Amsterdam: Otto Cramwinckel. Dobbin, F. 1994. Forging Industrial Policy: The United States, Britain and France in the Railway Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Guillén, M. F. 2001. “Is Globalization Civilizing, Destructive or Feeble? A Critique of Five Key Debates in the Social-Science Literature.” Annual Review of Sociology 27: 235-60. Hall, P. 1993. “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policy-Making in Britain.” Comparative Politics 25: 275-96. Hay, C. 2001. “The ‘Crisis’ of Keynesianism and the Rise of Neoliberalism in Brtain: An Ideational Institutionalist Approach.” In The Rise of Neoliberalism and Institutional Analysis. Edited by J. Campbell and O. Pedersen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 193-218. Hicks, A. 1999. Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism: A Century of Income Security Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Ikenberry, G. John. 2003. “What States Can Do Now.” In The Nation-State in Question. Edited by T.V. Paul, G.J. Ikenberry, and J.A. Hall. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 350-71. Jaaroverzicht Integratiebeleid Etnische Groepen. 1998. The Hague: Ministry of Internal Affairs. Joppke, C. 1999. Immigration and the Nation-State: The United States, Germany, and Great Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kjær, P. and O. K. Pedersen. 2003. “Translating Liberalization: Neoliberalism in the Danish Negotiated Economy.” In The Rise of Neoliberalism and Institutional Analysis. Edited by J. Campbell and O. Pedersen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 219-248. Lucassen, J. and R. Penninx. 1994. Nieuwkomers, Nakomelingen, Nederlanders: Immigranten in Nederland, 1550-1993. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Meyer, J.W., J. Boli, G. M. Thomas, and F.O. Ramirez. 1997. “World Society and the Nation-State.” American Journal of Sociology 103, 1: 144-81. Paul, T.V., G. J. Ikenberry, and J.A. Hall (eds.). 2003. The Nation-State in Question. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Price, M.E. 2002. Media and Sovereignty: The Global Information Revolution and Its Challenge to State Power. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.


257

Robertson, R. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: SAGE. Roebroek, J. M. and M. Hertogh. 1998. ‘De Beschavende Invloed des Tijds’: Twee Eeuwen Sociale Politiek, Verzorgingsstaat en Sociale Zekerheid in Nederland. The Hague: Vuga. Swank, D. 2002. Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tesser, P.T.M., J.G.F. Merens, and C.S. van Praag. 1999. Rapportage Minderheden 1999. The Hague: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. Van der Veen, R. and W. Trommel. 1999. “Maatschappelijke Verandering en de Verzorgingsstaat.” In De Herverdeelde Samenleving: Ontwikkeling en Herziening van de Nederlandse Verzorgingsstaat. Edited by W. Trommel and R. van der Veen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 291-314. Visser, J. and A. Hemerijck. 1997. ‘A Dutch Miracle’: Job Growth, Welfare Reform and Corporatism in the Netherlands. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Wallerstein, I. 1991. Geopolitics and Geoculture: Essays on the Changing WorldSystem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

258

Brie Gertler

Simulation Theory on Conceptual Grounds

On Contemporary Philosophy

259

260

Brie Gertler


261

Simulation Theory on Conceptual Grounds Brie Gertler

Abstract This paper outlines a conceptual argument for Simulation Theory. My principal goal is not to win converts to Simulation Theory, but rather to suggest that the current deadlock in the dispute between Simulation Theory and Theory Theory calls for a shift in focus, from empirical to conceptual considerations. I argue that mental concepts such as BELIEF and DESIRE are indexical, in that possessing them requires the capacity to make direct indexical reference to states which satisfy them (e.g., beliefs and desires). And only Simulation Theory can accommodate this indexicality.

1. Introduction Simulation Theory (ST) and Theory Theory (TT) provide disparate models of the basic process we use in attributing mental states to other persons. This difference forms the central point of contention between these two views. Simulation theorists and theory theorists also disagree on other issues, such as how children develop the capacity to interpret others’ thoughts. Still, the defining feature of the ST – TT debate is the disparity between these two models of how we attribute mental states to others.1 Simulation theorists maintain that we attribute mental states to others – and thereby explain or predict others’ behavior – by a process which essentially involves the capacity to simulate others’ states. (Gordon 1986; Heal 1986; Goldman 1989) This description of ST is admittedly vague; there are deep differences among simulation theorists as to how the ca1

The debate between ST and TT is sometimes taken to have consequences for the nature of mental states. But any such consequences are indirect. For there is room for an error theory about our attributing practices, a theory which claims that they manifest a mistaken view about mental states. While most parties to this debate hold that its resolution will provide evidence about the real nature of mental states, I will not be directly concerned with the nature of mental states. Instead, I will focus on our mental concepts and practices of attribution.

262

Brie Gertler

pacity for simulation contributes to understanding and identifying others’ states. But all simulation theorists are committed to the claim that our overall ability to understand and identify others’ beliefs and desires is somehow grounded in our capacity to simulate others. By contrast, theory theorists deny that simulation is fundamentally involved in attributing mental states to others. On the TT model, other-attributions are subserved by a theory, a largely implicit set of generalizations relating stimuli and behavior to mental states. (Fodor 1987; Stich and Nichols 1995; Gopnik 1993) What I offer here is an outline of a conceptual argument for ST. While I believe that this argument is promising, my principal goal is not to win converts to ST. It is instead to suggest that the current deadlock in the dispute between ST and TT calls for a shift in focus, from empirical to conceptual considerations. The debate between ST and TT is now waged primarily on empirical turf.2 Theory theorist critics of ST claim that ST conflicts with empirical evidence, including developmental data and the prevalence of certain inferential fallacies in everyday reasoning. In response, ST’s proponents have tried to show that the empirical data is in line with ST or even favors ST. And they have offered empirical reasons to doubt that each of us knows, even implicitly, a theory of mind which is complex enough to ground our impressive ability to understand others. This debate has been productive. It has forced disputants on both sides to clarify and refine their positions, and it has led them to develop increasingly sophisticated strategies for interpreting empirical evidence. However, the recent history of the ST – TT debate, in which each side claims that psychological data supports its own case, seems to have reached an impasse. While any position in this area must be consistent with empirical evidence, the philosophical literature on the empirical studies of this issue demonstrates that empirical evidence is open to a wide variety of interpretions. The fact that a position must be consistent with empirical evidence thus, in practice, imposes only minor limits on these theories. Of course, I cannot conclusively show that empirical work will never settle the dispute between simulation theorists and theory theorists; nor 2 The emphasis on consequences of empirical findings is clear from three excellent anthologies on this debate: Davies and Stone 1995a, Davies and Stone 1995b, and Carruthers and Smith 1996.


263

can I provide a complete survey of the empirical literature here. But given that after more than fifteen years of empirical research, each of these theories still has prominent adherents among both philosophers and psychologists, it is reasonable to doubt that empirical results will decide this issue anytime soon.3 This doubt is reinforced by recognizing the wealth of strategies available for explaining particular empirical results. As one example, consider the developmental case most often cited by parties on each side of this debate, the ‘false belief ’ task. In one version of this task, a child witnesses a puppet ‘child’ placing chocolates in a box and leaving the room. The puppet’s ‘mother’ then moves the chocolates from the box to the cupboard. When asked where the puppet will look for the chocolates upon his return, three-year-olds generally say he will look in the cupboard, while five-year-olds say that he will look in the box. Simulation theorists attribute this change to ‘changes in the child’s imaginative flexibility’ (Harris 1995, 216), while theory theorists explain it as ‘a change from one mentalistic psychological theory to another [which occurs] somewhere between [the ages of ] 2 and 4’ (Gopnik and Wellman 1995, 236).4 The literature on ST and TT provides numerous other cases in which analyses of empirical results similarly end in stalemate. Moreover, empirical evidence concerning the process adults use in dayto-day reasoning about others’ mental states is no more promising than developmental evidence, as a way to decide the ST vs. TT debate. For simulation theorists standardly allow that in understanding others we often use interpretive rules of thumb, such as ‘someone who reaches for a glass of water is probably thirsty’, which obviate the need for simulating the others’ state. And theory theorists standardly allow that simulation can be a useful heuristic device, both in identifying and understanding others’ states. Both sides of this dispute can thus accommodate empirical 3

Recent work on this issue may suggest that Simulation Theory currently has the upper hand in the empirical debate. See Gallese and Goldman (1998), Adolphs, et. al (2000), and Blakemore and Decety (2001). (I am grateful to an anonymous referee for bringing these papers to my attention.) But the variety of empirical evidence that has been brought to bear on this issue, and the wide variety of interpretations such evidence has received, counsels against writing off the opposition too soon. For those who think that one or the other side has the empirical advantage, the current paper may be read as highlighting a neglected aspect of this debate; and the conceptual evidence I marshal here can be taken as supporting ST and challenging TT. 4 These contrastive explanations are cited in Davies and Stone 1995c, p. 7.

264

Brie Gertler

results which show that simulation or theoretical generalizations are used in particular cases of interpreting others. In part because of the fruitlessness of empirical arguments, I believe that the most illuminating way to understand the difference between ST and TT sees this dispute as ultimately conceptual. This construal of the difference between ST and TT is, however, at odds with the position of most parties to the debate.5 Hence, my proposal is not an alternative reading of the contributions to this debate; I am instead suggesting that the debate would be more fruitful if contributors turned their attention to conceptual issues. Simulation theorists should argue that, absent a capacity for simulation, our conception of others’ states would be seriously inadequate. Theory theorists should deny that a capacity for simulation is fundamental to understanding others’ states, and maintain that a third-person understanding provides a complete conception of the mental.6 The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2, I articulate and develop a conceptual thesis – the Indexicality of Mental Concepts, or IMC – which strongly supports a first-personal account of mental concepts. Unsurprisingly, this thesis is controversial. Section 3 sketches an argument for IMC. Because my primary purpose is to demonstrate the promise of conceptual arguments, the argument for IMC is only an outline. In Section 4, I show that IMC supports a picture of mental concepts which fits nicely with ST but is incompatible with TT. If successful, my discussion furnishes some conceptual grounds for accepting ST. More importantly, 5

A notable exception is Robert Gordon; see especially Gordon 2000. For criticism of Gordon’s earlier conceptual claims, see Fuller 1995. 6 A comment by an anonymous referee points out that those skeptical of purely conceptual arguments may contend that my argument implicitly invokes some sort of (presumably empirical) theory, and is therefore not a conceptual argument after all. Of course, those who doubt the possibility of purely conceptual argumentation will reject my characterization of the argument, and will dismiss the idea that conceptual considerations can decide the case between ST and TT. Obviously, I cannot defend the idea of conceptual argumentation here, nor can I survey the possible grounds for skepticism about such arguments (which stem from doubts about the analytic/synthetic distinction). It will perhaps suffice to say that while a claim about the nature of one’s own concept might require careful reflection, and may be difficult to justify, that sort of claim is the paradigm of a nonempirical (conceptual) claim. So the current argument qualifies as conceptual if any argument does. (I defend the legitimacy of conceptual arguments in my 2002.)


265

it points the way forward in this debate, by demonstrating the pivotal role that conceptual considerations can play.

2. The Indexicality of Mental Concepts Here is the thesis I will use to ground a conceptual argument for ST. The Indexicality of Mental Concepts (IMC): Possessing mental concepts (such as [belief ] and [desire]) requires the capacity to make direct indexical reference to states which satisfy them (e.g., beliefs and desires). According to IMC, concepts such as [belief ] and [desire] are shaped by the capacity for direct indexical reference to beliefs and desires. (Throughout the paper, I use brackets to indicate concepts.) Hence, while we may at times refer to beliefs descriptively, such as that which led the U.N. Secretary-General to dispatch peacekeepers, thinking of Annan’s belief that a humanitarian crisis was looming as a belief requires the capacity to refer to a belief with a direct indexical. This section will explicate IMC; the next section will provide an argument for it. Let me begin with some remarks about the scope of IMC. Since I am using IMC to support ST, and ST is primarily a claim about propositional attitude states, I limit the scope of IMC to propositional attitudes. Claims of indexicality are more familiar regarding non-propositional phenomenal concepts, such as [pain] and [tickle], and I will address these in passing. But as the ST – TT debate centers on propositional attitudes such as beliefs and desires, I will focus on showing that IMC applies to these attitudes. Note that IMC concerns propositional attitude modes such as belief and desire rather than particular propositional attitude types, such as the belief that snow is white or the desire for lemonade. I do not claim that possessing the concept [belief that snow is white] requires the capacity to make direct indexical reference to a belief that snow is white. Obviously, one grasps [belief that snow is white] only if one has the concept [belief ]. As long as IMC is true of the attitude mode belief — i.e., as long as possessing the concept [belief ] requires the capacity to directly indexically refer to some belief or other — grasping a particular belief will

266

Brie Gertler

require the capacity to directly indexically refer to some belief or other. The next order of business is to explain the kind of reference at issue in IMC. According to IMC, it is not just any sort of indexical reference that is implicated in possessing the concept [belief ], but specifically direct indexical reference. I can refer indexically to Annan’s belief, as the state now causing Annan to dispatch peacekeepers; yet my capacity to refer indexically in that way is irrelevant to my concept [belief ]. For that way of referring to the belief secures its referent by use of a description, whereas the sort of indexical reference which contributes to my concept of belief is, instead, direct indexical reference. Direct indexical reference is unmediated by descriptions; direct indexicals secure their referents independently of any description that the referents satisfy. (I elaborate on the notion of direct indexical reference in the following section.) IMC’s use of direct indexical reference has an important consequence. Since the starting-point for reference is the referrer’s own thought, and direct reference requires that one’s access to the referent is unmediated, one can directly refer only to one’s own states, or to states which share a ‘mental location’ or ‘perspective’ with the referring thought. IMC thus implies that an adequate conception of a mental state requires a first-person grasp of the attitude mode.7 For instance, IMC implies that a prerequisite for understanding ‘Sally desires lemonade’ is grasping what it would be to desire something oneself. That is, one must grasp the meaning of ‘I desire something’ (or perhaps, using direct indexicals, ‘there is a desire here’, or ‘this is a desire’). This directly indexical thought is available only to one who can conceptualize some desire from the first-person perspective. Basically, then, IMC implies that an adequate conception of a propositional attitude must draw on the capacity to refer to an attitude of that type with a direct indexical. It thereby implies that an adequate conception of a mental state requires conceptualizing its mode from the firstperson perspective. This relatively superficial description of IMC will be 7 Gordon (2000) believes that two persons can share a single mental location, so that ‘I’ can refer, in thought, to another person. In fact, he claims that one must indexically refer to another before one can indexically refer to oneself. By contrast, Goldman (2000) believes that indexical reference to one’s own mind is fundamental, and doubts that mental locations can be shared in Gordon’s sense.


267

deepened by examining the grounds for accepting it. Let us turn, then, to arguments for IMC.

3. Establishing IMC 3 1. The Role of Qualitative States One possible argument for IMC should be addressed right away. Every mental state, including every propositional attitude, has essential qualitative features; so properly conceptualizing a mental state requires knowing what it’s like to instantiate the state. Knowing what it’s like to instantiate a state requires conceptualizing it from the first-person perspective, which in turn secures the capacity to make direct indexical reference to an attitude with the same mode. Hence, IMC is true. This line of reasoning may establish IMC for mental states that have essential qualitative features, such as pains and tickles. But there are grounds for accepting IMC, as regards propositional attitudes, that are wholly independent of any qualitative features which propositional attitudes have. If IMC rested on a qualitative view of propositional attitudes, it would be unpalatable to most simulation theorists, since most deny that every propositional attitude has qualitative features. (An exception is Alvin Goldman, who suggests that intentional states may have a distinctive phenomenology. (Goldman 1993)) For this reason, ‘imagination’, with its qualitative connotations, is a somewhat misleading term for ‘simulation’: simulation is not assumed to be qualia driven, or to involve mental imagery. This paper will remain neutral on whether some mental states have essential, defining qualia properties. But if there are such states, IMC is likely to be true of them. For one can adequately conceptualize a state which is defined by qualia properties only if one conceptualizes those qualia properties (this is what I take ‘defining’ to mean, and how I take defining properties to differ from merely essential properties). And to conceptualize a state’s qualia properties just is to grasp, at least roughly, ‘what it’s like’ to instantiate that state. On standard accounts of qualia,

268

Brie Gertler

grasping ‘what it’s like’ constitutes conceptualizing the qualia properties from the first-person perspective. So IMC squares with the existence of essentially qualitative mental states, even if it doesn’t presuppose that there are such states. While it is still a minority view, the claim that intentional states have distinctive qualitative or phenomenological features is currently gaining popularity.8 For instance, Terry Horgan and John Tienson endorse a thesis which they call ‘The Phenomenology of Intentionality’: ‘Mental states of the sort commonly cited as paradigmatically intentional (e.g., cognitive states such as beliefs, and conative states such as desires), when conscious, have phenomenal character that is inseparable from their intentional content.’ (Horgan and Tienson 2002, p. 520) If this claim applies to propositional attitude modes, so that a certain phenomenology is definitive of conscious desires and beliefs as such, then it provides strong reason to accept IMC. Because I remain neutral, for the purposes of this paper, as to whether propositional attitude states have a necessary phenomenology, I will not use this method of arguing for IMC. But my argument will bring out a general parallel between propositional attitude states and phenomenal states. Many philosophers explain the epistemic specialness of phenomenal states – the fact that they must be experienced to be fully understood – by claiming that an adequate understanding of phenomenal qualities involves grasping them directly and/or by use of a demonstrative. (E.g., Tye 1999, Perry 2001). IMC implies a similar picture for propositional attitude state-types: fully understanding them also requires that one is in a position to grasp the appropriate attitude mode directly. It thereby advances the view that, just as simulation is standardly involved in attributing and understanding others’ pains and tickles, simulation is also involved in attributing and understanding others’ beliefs and desires. Finally, the discussion of qualitative states invites a picture of what direct reference provides that may seem to follow from IMC but which, in fact, does not. On one obvious construal, the capacity to make direct indexical reference to an essentially qualitative state constitutes a special access to evidence regarding that state-type. IMC is neutral not only as to whether there are any essentially qualitative states, but also as to whether 8 See especially Strawson (1994), Siewert (1998), Horgan and Tienson (2002), Pitt (forthcoming).


269

subjects enjoy special access to any kind of evidence, qualitative or not, regarding state-types that they instantiate. Perhaps the subject’s capacity to refer to a belief with semantic directness doesn’t provide her with any evidence about the nature of beliefs, but instead simply constitutes, in part, her concept [belief ].9 In any case, IMC is neutral about how, precisely, direct indexical reference contributes to one’s grasp of mental concepts. I have mentioned some familiar reasons for taking IMC to apply to mental states with essential qualia properties. The remainder of this section is devoted to showing how the capacity for direct indexical reference, or for conceptualizing a state from the first-person perspective, contributes to a grasp of propositional attitudes.

3 2. The Argument for IMC: Beliefs Many philosophers maintain that, for rational subjects, there is a basic asymmetry between first-person and third-person awareness of propositional attitude states that are involved in practical reasoning, including both beliefs and desires. According to this view, part of possessing the concepts [belief ] and [desire] is being disposed to self-attribute a belief that p, or a desire that q, whenever one has them – or, at least, whenever they play a promiscuous role in practical reasoning. And crucially, this disposition to self-attribute a belief underwrites one’s competence in attributing beliefs to others. Christopher Peacocke endorses this view, which he expresses as follows. [T]here is a sense in which the concept of belief is a first-person concept. The sense is not that there is something it is like to have a belief — there is not. … [It is rather that possessing the concept of belief ] requires the thinker to have the capacity to ascribe beliefs to himself and relates mastery of third-person predications to that capacity to ascribe beliefs to himself. (Peacocke 1992, 164)

Peacocke thus holds that possessing the concept [belief ] requires a firstperson grasp of the attitude type belief, because he maintains that our 9 Cf. Peacocke’s suggestion that self-attributions don’t involve an observation of a belief. Rather, on his view ‘having the concept of belief involves taking certain conscious judgments as reasons for self-ascribing the corresponding belief, and … first-order beliefs produce such reason-giving conscious judgments.’ (Peacocke 1992, 84)

270

Brie Gertler

concept [belief ] is shaped by the process a rational person uses to selfattribute beliefs. At the same time, he denies that beliefs have essential qualitative properties. On this view, rational subjects must be capable of recognizing their own beliefs and desires. For – according to Peacocke, Sydney Shoemaker (1988), André Gallois (1996), and others – a subject incapable of such recognition would run the risk of pragmatic inconsistency. The most famous instances of pragmatic inconsistency are utterances described by G.E. Moore (1942), such as ‘It is not raining but I believe that it is raining.’ Such statements are logically consistent, of course, given the possibility of false belief. But they are pragmatically inconsistent. In a sincere assertion one aims to express one’s beliefs, and – assuming that one understands ‘it is raining’ and ‘it is not raining’ – one’s willingness to sincerely assert this statement shows a failure to grasp the relation between an expressed belief and a self-attributed belief content. According to the view at hand, this failure manifests the subject’s failure to grasp [belief ]. The truth of IMC does not require that we generally enjoy self-knowledge; it requires only that one who grasps [belief ] is capable of the sort of reference which self-knowledge typically involves. The threat of Moorean pragmatic inconsistency stems from one’s capacity for direct indexical reference to a belief. ‘It is not raining but the tallest person in the room believes that it is’, which refers to the alleged believer descriptively (taking ‘the tallest person in the room’ as a genuine description), is non-paradoxical even if the speaker is the tallest person in the room. For she may intend to refer to someone else, and may be unaware that she is herself taller than her intended referent. In that case, the speaker does not intend to self-attribute the belief that it’s raining. Another case uses an indexical not directly linked to the belief: ‘It is not raining but the person now reflected in the mirror believes that it is’. This is non-paradoxical even if the speaker is the person now reflected in the mirror. For she could fail to recognize herself as the person reflected in the mirror, a person absent-mindedly opening an umbrella. In these cases, the statements are false but non-paradoxical. Only attributions of belief which refer to the belief via a direct indexical run the risk of pragmatic inconsistency. Now for grasping [belief ] it is not enough that one avoid Moore-paradoxical statements; after all, one could avoid these simply by resolving


271

never to indexically refer to beliefs. Grasping [belief ] requires that one understands, at least implicitly, the pragmatic inconsistency that Mooreparadoxical statements involve. This requirement gives us the first premise in an argument for IMC, regarding [belief ]. 1. Truly grasping [belief ] requires understanding, if only implicitly, that utterances such as ‘Not p but I believe that p’ are pragmatically inconsistent. 2. Understanding that such utterances are pragmatically inconsistent requires the capacity to make direct indexical reference to some belief. Therefore: 3. Truly grasping [belief ] requires the capacity to make direct indexical reference to some belief, as IMC claims. This argument is clearly valid; opponents of IMC will likely reject Premise 2. To evaluate Premise 2 we must closely examine the work done by direct indexical reference. Direct indexical reference is necessary to generate Moore paradoxes, since it is only such reference which guarantees that the speaker cannot (rationally) fail to recognize that she is the subject of the attribution (‘I believe that it is raining’). The reason that direct indexicals guarantee this, on my view, is that only direct indexical reference is unmediated by a mode of presentation. François Recanati describes a case which nicely illustrates the mediating role ordinarily played by modes of presentation. Consider the utterance ‘This ship <pointing to a ship through one window> is a steamer but this ship <pointing to a ship through another window> is not a steamer.’ The speaker is not irrational even though she says of the same ship both that it is and that it is not a steamer. She is not irrational because she does not realize that there is only one ship; and she does not realize this because she thinks of the ship under two different (psychological) modes of presentation. In other words, we have to posit two different (psychological) modes of presentation of the reference, one corresponding to each token of the expression ‘this ship’, in order to make sense of the utterance. (Recanati 1990, 711)

Just as a ship cannot both possess and lack a single property, being a steamer, I cannot simultaneously possess and lack the property believes that p. Rational speakers implicitly recognize this; the speaker in

272

Brie Gertler

Recanati’s case could coherently ascribe and deny a property to a single ship only because she believed that she was referring to two distinct ships. Now if a sincere speaker can rationally both deny p and self-attribute the belief that p, then she must similarly think of either the believer or the belief under two different ‘psychological modes of presentation’. We saw above some ways in which this could happen: e.g., she could think of the believer as the tallest person in the room, or she could think of the belief as that which is causing her (the person reflected in the mirror) to open an umbrella. There are two possible positions about the role played by modes of presentation in directly indexical reference. The first is that directly indexical reference occurs without any mode of presentation; the second is that the mode of presentation is identical to the referent and hence plays no mediating role.10 I will not decide between these. The crucial point is that, in direct indexical reference, there is no mediating mode of presentation at work. So in a genuine case of pragmatic inconsistency, the belief in question, which is simultaneously contradicted and self-attributed, is not mediated by any psychological mode of presentation. As long as the speaker’s relation to herself or her belief is mediated by a mode of presentation in even one of the Moorean conjuncts, the paradox is defused. I can now give, in outline, a defense of the main premise of the above argument for IMC, Premise 2, which says that understanding that it is incoherent to say ‘Not p but I believe that p’ requires the capacity to make direct indexical reference to some belief. The pragmatic inconsistency of Moore statements rests on the fact that the (expressed and self-attributed) belief is grasped independently of any mediating psychological mode of presentation, that is, any psychological mode of presentation distinct from the referent. Now since there is no logical inconsistency in self-attributing a belief while simultaneously asserting its contrary, one cannot recognize the kind of incoherence involved in uttering a Moore statement merely by understanding what it means to make direct indexical reference to a belief. For consider the following case. 10 The notion that a mode of presentation may be identical to the referent is familiar from many sources. Here, for instance, is Kripke, who defends this claim as regards pain: ‘Pain … is not picked out by one of its accidental properties; rather it is picked out by the property of being pain itself, by its immediate phenomenological quality.’ (Kripke 1980, 152-3)


273

A understands that direct indexical reference to a belief is reference unmediated by a (distinct) mode of presentation. But A is unable, for whatever reason, to makes such reference herself. A hears B utter ‘It is not raining but I believe that it is raining’, and believes – justifiedly or not – that in performing this utterance, B makes directly indexical reference to his belief. A concludes – justifiedly or not – that B recognizes that he has a false belief (viz., that it is raining). The situation seems entirely mundane to A, and it doesn’t occur to A that B’s utterance expresses or reflects any sort of tension. For instance, it doesn’t lead A to expect that B will relinquish his belief that it’s raining. If this scenario is possible, then understanding the basic nature of direct indexical reference does not afford a grasp of the incoherence involved in Moore paradoxical utterances. On the obvious diagnosis, the culprit is A’s incapacity to make direct indexical reference to one of her own beliefs and, hence, her incapacity to imagine uttering a Moore paradoxical statement. (Of course, premise (2) doesn’t require that the scenario described here is possible.11) But an advocate of TT may add a further twist to the case. Suppose that A, still unable to make direct indexical reference to a belief, is told that denying that p while asserting that one believes that p is pragmatically inconsistent. In that case, A will be surprised or even confused by B’s utterance. (Perhaps A will take the assertion to be a slip, acknowledging a false belief already relinquished). This possibility suggests that (2) is false: it is possible to appreciate the relevant pragmatic inconsistency without being able to make direct indexical reference to a belief.12 This scenario implies only that one can identify pragmatic inconsistencies without being able to make direct indexical reference to a belief. It doesn’t mean that one can understand why such statements are pragmatically inconsistent. Now in order to understand why these are pragmatic inconsistencies, it is of course not necessary to have a philosophically 11

12

It is not clear to me whether someone capable of reasoning about others’ beliefs, as A does, could really be incapable of making direct indexical reference to her own beliefs. But if the scenario is impossible for this reason, that fact itself provides grounds for thinking that truly grasping [belief ] requires the capacity for such reference, as IMC says. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for raising this objection.

274

Brie Gertler

developed view about the inconsistency. (Luckily, since philosophers differ on the precise source of the inconsistency.) After all, people implicitly avoided such statements, and would react with surprise and confusion if someone made them, long before they were discussed by philosophers. It is necessary only to appreciate the inconsistency. But appreciating the inconsistency is not simply a matter of possessing the brute ability to identify pragmatic inconsistencies. Suppose that you speak no Spanish, and are asked to identify which Spanish statements have the feature X. You are not told what feature X is; you are told only that statements with feature X are pragmatically inconsistent and that statements with the following form have feature X: “[some terms] pero yo no creo que [the terms repeated].” You can thereby classify the following statement as having the feature X: “llueve pero yo no creo que llueva.” Using your rote method, you can identify that they are paradoxical; you understand what ‘paradoxical’ means, and hence understand that such statements are relevantly odd; but still, you do not perceive the paradox as such. To genuinely appreciate the pragmatic inconsistency, one must have some appreciation, however vague and implicit, of the kind of oddness they involve. And I submit that this appreciation requires the capacity for direct indexical reference to a belief. For it is only by exploiting one’s capacity for direct indexical reference that one can grasp the kind of inconsistency which is present in uttering a Moore statement. This isn’t to say that the inconsistency must be felt, in a phenomenal sense; it may perhaps be a purely cognitive sense of oddness. If this line of argument is correct, then even implicitly understanding the paradoxical nature of these statements involves drawing on the capacity for direct indexical reference to some belief or other. I have argued that IMC is true of the concept [belief ] as follows. Those who truly grasp the concept [belief ] recognize the incoherence involved in self-attributing a belief while asserting its contrary. This incoherence requires direct indexical reference to belief; and one can fully appreciate this incoherence only by exploiting one’s own capacity to make direct indexical reference to some belief. So possessing the concept [belief ] requires the capacity to make direct indexical reference to some belief.


275

3.3. The Argument for IMC Expanded: Desires and Intentions While this discussion has focused exclusively on beliefs, the capacity for direct indexical reference also plays a key role in grasping other propositional attitude states, and for broadly similar reasons. Consider this statement: ‘Bring me some lemonade, but I don’t want you to.’13 Like the Moore paradoxical utterances, this statement trades on a tension between what is expressed by the directive ‘bring me some lemonade’, on the one hand, and the self-attribution of a lack of desire, on the other. Assuming that by saying ‘I don’t want you to’ the speaker disavows any desire that lemonade be brought, someone who sincerely uttered this would fail to adequately grasp the concept [desire]. (The paradox requires this assumption, to exclude non-paradoxical cases of conflicting desires like the following. I know that lemonade is dangerous for my weak-willed diabetic friend, and I believe that if I don’t drink it, he will. So I want it drunk by me, and hence want it brought over. Yet I hate the taste of lemonade, and so in a sense I strongly desire that it not be brought over. This case allows a non-paradoxical gloss of the statement, but only by limiting the range of desires disavowed with ‘I don’t want you to’. In one sense, I do want you to bring it to me.) As with [belief ], the danger of pragmatic inconsistency is present only when no psychological mode of presentation mediates the subject’s grasp of the desire. This unmediated grasp of the desire is available only to the desiring subject, and hence only to one capable of direct indexical reference to the desire; for instance, there is no threat of pragmatic inconsistency in ‘Bring me some lemonade, but the person now reflected in the mirror doesn’t want you to’. Hence, since grasping [desire] requires understanding the pragmatic inconsistency of certain utterances, and that understanding in turn requires the capacity for direct indexical reference to some desire or other, grasping [desire] requires a capacity for direct indexical reference to some desire or other. So standing in a direct indexical relation to a desire, and being guided by the pragmatic constraints which that relation imposes, is crucial to grasping [desire]. Richard Moran provides a different sort of pragmatic consideration which supports IMC. Drawing on Sartre, Moran argues that there is a fundamental difference between a first-person and a third-person per13

I owe this example to Charles Siewert.

276

Brie Gertler

spective on one’s own states, including intentions. While ‘I resolve to stop gambling but I doubt that I will’ is not a strict paradox on a par with a Moore statement, for Sartre and Moran there is a pragmatic tension between resolving to carry through a course of action, on the one hand, and recognizing that one is unlikely to act in accordance with one’s resolution, on the other. ‘What I am aware of concerning myself empirically, as a facticity [as that exhaustively grasped from a third-person perspective], cannot substitute for what I am committed to categorically [as that which requires a first-person perspective]; commitments I have simply in virtue of having any beliefs about the world or any decisions about my action.’ (Moran 1997, 150) On this view, adequately conceptualizing intentions requires understanding the role of agency in intending; that understanding requires grasping intentions from a first-person perspective; and that grasp secures the capacity to refer to intentions with a direct indexical.14 On the views I have sketched, adequately conceptualizing beliefs, desires, and intentions requires conceptualizing these attitude types from the first-person perspective, the perspective of one who is committed to some beliefs, one who has some desires, one who is resolved to carry through on some intentions. To take a merely third-person (descriptive, non-indexical, or indirectly indexical) stance towards these attitude types is to miss something crucial about the nature of the attitudes. As IMC contends, possessing concepts like [belief ], [desire], and [intention] requires the capacity to make direct indexical reference to states which satisfy them. My next task is to show that IMC provides reason to favor ST over TT.

4. How IMC favors ST over TT In this section I examine ostensible points of tension between TT and IMC and show that, while some apparent conflicts between them are resolvable, TT ultimately cannot do justice to IMC. My initial focus will be the ST – TT debate as it concerns the nature of mental concepts. After 14

Roth (2000) also argues that intentions have a self-referential indexical component. On Roth’s view, when one intends to X, one thereby intends that X occurs as a result of this very (reflexively referred to) intention. Compare Searle (1983).


277

explaining how IMC undermines TT views about mental concepts, I will then argue that this result supports a simulation theorist account of other-attributions.

4.1. How IMC Undermines TT Views about Mental Concepts According to TT, the same sorts of cognitive resources are implicated in the grasp of mental concepts and the grasp of non-mental concepts. In particular, TT holds that ‘an individual’s mastery of the concepts of the propositional attitudes is … constituted by his or her tacit knowledge of … a theory embedding these notions.’ (Davies and Stone 1995c, 2) So if TT is accurate about our mental concepts, mental states are not conceptualized by any special means, relative to non-mental states. We conceive of mental states as theoretical entities, on a par with (other) scientific postulates. Here is one reason TT may appear at odds with IMC. Since theories are usually construed as sets of propositions, TT seems to imply that our propositional beliefs about mental states exhaust our mental concepts. (Jane Heal has suggested, in conversation, that she takes TT to be committed to the exhaustiveness of propositional knowledge.) This is in tension with IMC if the indexical nature of mental concepts implies that mental concepts are non-propositional in nature — i.e., if it implies that possessing mental concepts is possessing some irrreducible knowledge how, rather than possessing expertise which is reducible to knowledge that propositional attitudes are thus-and-so. The claim that a true grasp of mental concepts requires an ability, or knowledge how, resonates with some versions of ST.15 If TT construes the grasp of mental concepts as purely propositional, and if indexical knowledge is irreducibly knowledge how, then TT cannot accommodate the indexicality of mental concepts. This apparent source of tension between TT and IMC is, I think, merely apparent. First, there seems no reason why TT must be committed to the claim that propositional beliefs about the mental exhaust our 15

Gordon (1995) and Heal (1998) maintain that grasping (indexical) mental concepts requires knowing how to simulate (or ‘co-cognize with’) another; and this know-how requires other abilities, such as the ability to imaginatively identify with the target and, at least for Heal, to think about the subject matter the target is thinking about.

278

Brie Gertler

mental concepts. TT does claim that mental concepts are on a par with non-mental concepts, but there are no obvious grounds for denying that non-mental scientific concepts can involve irreducible knowledge how. More importantly, even if TT must construe mental concepts as propositional, it does not immediately follow that such knowledge cannot be indexical. A simple example of indexical knowledge which appears to be propositional is this: ‘It is now six p.m.’.16 There is, however, a more promising argument to show that TT is incompatible with IMC, one which also exploits TT’s assimilation of mental concepts to non-mental, indisputably ‘third-person’ concepts. This alternative allows that propositional knowledge may be indexical, but denies that an adequate grasp of non-mental properties requires conceptualizing them from the first-person perspective, and so it denies that having purely propositional knowledge of non-mental properties requires the capacity to refer to their bearers with a direct indexical. Here is the argument. Grasping ordinary non-mental concepts – the concept [star] or [liquidity], say – doesn’t require conceptualizing stars or liquids from the first-person perspective, or effecting direct indexical reference to them. One can understand [star] and [liquidity] without being able to conceive of being a star or instantiating liquidity. More to the point, one cannot indexically refer to a star, as ‘this’, without such reference being mediated by some psychological mode of presentation. So the continuity TT envisions between concepts of the mental and concepts of the non-mental implies that, since direct indexical or first-person reference to instances isn’t required for non-mental concepts, it isn’t required for mental concepts. This is at odds with IMC, and so TT cannot accommodate IMC. 16 The question whether indexical knowledge can take a propositional form is familiar from responses to the ‘Knowledge Argument’ for dualism. (Jackson 1982) This argument claims that exhaustive physical knowledge would leave out ‘what it’s like’ to experience a certain sensation, and so the phenomenal property of the sensation is not a physical property. Some try to block this argument by claiming that what’s left out is an ability rather than a piece of propositional knowledge; and since we don’t generally expect exhaustive propositional knowledge to yield abilities, there is nothing special about sensations in this regard. (Nemirow 1990, Lewis 1990) Other opponents of the Knowledge Argument allow that propositional knowledge can be indexical, but argue that we shouldn’t expect even exhaustive non-indexical knowledge to yield indexical knowledge.


279

In evaluating this argument, we should first note that TT is consistent with the claim that a capacity for some direct indexical reference is necessary for having ordinary (non-mental) scientific knowledge. Perhaps possessing ordinary scientific knowledge requires that one can distinguish here (this world or time or spatial region) from there. David Lewis implicates indexicals in ordinary scientific knowledge when he claims that all de re reference to objects is grounded in indexical self-reference. (Lewis 1979; compare Castañeda 1966, Perry 1979.) For instance, according to Lewis, when one thinks ‘the North Star is bright’ one refers to the North Star only because, by thinking that thought, one implicitly selfattributes the property of occupying a world where there is a bright North Star. Since on Lewis’ view all de re reference is mediated by directly indexical self-reference, the need for directly indexical self-reference does not distinguish a grasp of the mental from a grasp of non-mental items. TT can, then, accommodate the claim that properly conceputalizing a belief requires being able to engage in some direct indexical reference. (Lewis himself favors TT.) But while Lewis’s claim entails that one who refers (de re) to a belief is capable of some directly indexical self-reference, IMC goes further than this. IMC says that one who fully grasps [belief ] must be capable of direct indexical reference to some belief. It is this further implication of IMC that TT cannot accommodate. This is because TT assimilates concepts of the mental to concepts of the non-mental, and for some — perhaps even for every – non-mental property P, one can possess a concept of P without grasping what it would mean to instantiate P oneself. Hence, one can grasp a non-mental property P without being in a position to effect direct indexical reference to any instance of P. The directly indexical reference which Lewis requires for belief de re directly refers to oneself, and only indirectly refers to the ordinary objects — such as the North Star — that one’s de re belief concerns. It may be objected that, Lewis’ view notwithstanding, we can directly refer even to ordinary physical objects such as rocks, trees, and stars. (See e.g. Perry 1986.) I have two responses to this objection. First, as explained above, the notion of direct reference I’m using is that which is tied to psychological modes of presentation. So the claim that one can refer directly even to rocks, trees, and stars is highly implausible, since our reference to these is psychologically mediated by their perceptible properties. Of course, other notions of direct reference are possible, including no-

280

Brie Gertler

tions which allow that linguistically direct reference may occur via psychologically mediating descriptions. But these other notions are not relevant to the issue at hand. This is clear from the fact that it is psychological directness that underlies the pragmatic inconsistency of Moore statements. Second, even allowing direct indexical reference a wider domain, TT cannot accommodate IMC. For TT holds that the capacities used to grasp the mental are generally the same as those used to grasp non-mental items. And any view about reference will deny that we can directly refer to some non-mental items, such as electrons. Electrons are theoretical posits, never directly observed. Hence, assuming that some people grasp [electron], a grasp of [electron] does not rest on the capacity to effect direct indexical reference to electrons. According to TT, propositional attitudes are basically similar to electrons on this score: they are theoretical posits, accepted for their power to make sense of observations. TT entails, then, that your understanding of ‘Sally desires lemonade’ is entirely independent of whether you can make direct indexical reference to some desire, just as your understanding of ‘the Eiffel Tower is partially composed of electrons’ is independent of whether you can make direct indexical reference to some electron. So TT’s picture of mental concepts is at odds with IMC.

4.2. How the Failure of TT Views about Mental Concepts Supports the ST Picture of Other-attributions The claim that one’s grasp of [belief ], [desire], and other propositional attitude types essentially depends on one’s capacity to make direct indexical reference to states which fall under those concepts (IMC) doesn’t explain how we go about attributing mental states to others. If the above argument is correct, IMC undermines the TT view of mental concepts. IMC may constitute an ST view of mental concepts. Still, we have not yet shown how our mental concepts bear on our practice of attributing mental states to others. One point is clear. When we attribute mental states to others, we do so by using our mental concepts. Given IMC, this means that we attribute propositional attitudes which are type-identical to those to which we can make direct indexical reference. E.g., we conceive Sally’s belief that it’s


281

raining as a state of the same type (where the relevant type here is belief) as beliefs to which we can directly indexically refer. In this way, IMC supports a limited ST picture of other-attribution. Attributing propositional attitudes to others essentially draws on a first-personal grasp of the state-type. One can attribute only those state-types which one can grasp; and one can grasp only those state-types which one could instantiate or, at the very least, simulate. Perhaps one who is without beliefs, desires, or intentions could not engage in any simulation, since simulation is a deliberate activity, undertaken for reasons. But consider another, less basic propositional attitude mode, such as hope. Even if I don’t have any particular hopes, my grasp of [hope] might involve my simulating a hope. A simulation would allow me to grasp the pragmatic inconsistency in saying: ‘I hope that he arrives but I will be disappointed if he does.’ If the argument of Section 3 extends to [hope], grasping the pragmatic inconsistency here may be required for grasping [hope]. While this tells us what it is to attribute a belief to Sally, it does not tell us anything about the evidence we use in attributing that belief. For instance, it gives us no reason to think that we engage in simulation in anything like following sense: in order to determine what mental states are motivating Sally’s current behavior (opening an umbrella while preparing to go outdoors, say), one imaginatively projects oneself into Sally’s situation, recognizes that a belief that it’s raining would be the likely cause of one’s behaving in that manner, and so concludes that Sally must believe that it’s raining outside. I do not believe that this account of the evidence we use in other-attributions is a deep point of contention between simulation theorists and theory theorists. For as noted above, simulation theorists can allow that, in attributing mental states to others, we usually shortcut the simulation process; and theory theorists can accept that we often use simulation as a sort of heuristic device. In order to accept simulation theory on conceptual grounds, one need not maintain that we usually use simulation to provide evidence for other-attributions. So long as our mental state concepts are essentially first-personal, as I’ve argued, our other-attributions stem from our instantiating those states or, at least, draw on our capacity to simulate them. For similar reasons, one may accept TT on conceptual grounds while admitting that we frequently use simulation as a heuristic device. In this way, one’s position regarding the basic mental concepts (ST or TT) is silent as to the evidence we use for them in everyday cases;

282

Brie Gertler

this gives us further reason to believe that the principled claim at issue between simulation theorists and theory theorists is conceptual.

Conclusion It is a laudable aim which moves theory theorists to claim that mental concepts are analogous to non-mental concepts: they want to improve the prospects for a simple, elegant ontology. Their construal of the nature of mental concepts is meant to pave the way for a stance about the nature of the mental itself. The overarching hope is to show that the mental does not form a special, sui generis kind, fundamentally different from the non-mental. But if the arguments of the last two sections are correct, TT’s construal of mental concepts does not accommodate a critically important feature of our mental concepts. There are thus clear conceptual grounds for favoring a picture of concepts amenable to IMC and, hence, for favoring ST. But as I said at the outset, offering a convincing case for ST is not my main purpose. Rather, I hope to have demonstrated that a focus on the conceptual differences between ST and TT holds promise as a way to enliven this debate, and to move beyond the current impasse.

Cited Works Adolphs, R., H. Damasio, D. Tranel, G. Cooper, and A.R. Damasio. 2000. A Role for Somatosensory Cortices in the Visual Recognition of Emotion as Revealed by Three-dimensional Lesion Mapping. Journal of Neuroscience 20: 2683-90. Blakemore, S.-J., and J. Decety. 2001. From the Perception of Action to the Understanding of Intention. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2: 561-67. Carruthers, P. and P. Smith, eds. 1996. Theories of Theories of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Casteñeda, H.-N. 1966. ‘He’: a Study in the Logic of Self-Consciousness. Ratio 8: 130-57. Davies, M. and T. Stone, eds. 1995a. Folk Psychology: The Theory of Mind Debate. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Davies, M. and T. Stone, eds. 1995b. Mental Simulation: Evaluations and Applications. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Davies, M. and T. Stone. 1995c. Introduction. In Davies and Stone 1995b, 1-18.


283

Fodor, J. 1987. Psychosemantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Fuller, G. 1995. Simulation and Psychological Concepts. In Davies and Stone 1995a, 19-32. Gallese, V. and A. Goldman. 1998. Mirror Neurons and the Simulation Theory of Mind-reading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12: 493-501. Gallois, A. 1996. The World Without, the Mind Within. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gertler, B. 2002. Explanatory Reduction, Conceptual Analysis, and Conceivability Arguments about the Mind. Noûs 36: 22-49. Goldman, A. 2000. The Mentalizing Folk. In Metarepresentations, edited by D. Sperber. New York: Oxford University Press. Goldman, A. 1993. The Psychology of Folk Psychology. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16:15-28. Goldman, A. 1989. Interpretation Psychologized. Mind and Language 4: 161-85; reprinted in Davies and Stone 1995b, 74-99. Gopnik, A, and H. M. Wellman. 1994. The theory theory. In Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture, edited by L. A. Hirschfeld and S. A. Gelman. New York: Cambridge University Press. Gopnik, A. 1993. How we know our own minds: The Illusion of First-person Knowledge of Intentionality. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16: 1-14. Gordon, R. 2000. Sellars’s Ryleans Revisited. Protosociology 14: 102-14. Gordon, R. 1995. Simulation Without Introspection or Inference From Me to You. In Davies and Stone 1995a, 53-67. Gordon, R. 1986. Folk Psychology as Simulation. Mind and Language 1:158-71; reprinted in Davies and Stone 1995b, 60-73. Harris, P.L. 1995. From Simulation to Folk Psychology. In Davies and Stone 1995a. Reprinted from Mind and Language 7: 120-144. Heal, J. 1998 Co-cognition and Off-line Simulation: Two Ways of Understanding the Simulation Approach. Mind and Language 13: 477-98. Heal, J. 1986 Replication and Functionalism. In Language, Mind, and Logic, edited by J. Butterfield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Horgan, T. and J. Tienson. 2002. The Intentionality of Phenomenality and the Phenomenality of Intentionality. In Chalmers, ed., The Philosophy of Mind: Contemporary Readings. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 520-33. Jackson, F. 1982. Epiphenomenal Qualia. The Philosophical Quarterly 32: 127-36. Kripke, S. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lewis, D. 1979. Attitudes De Dicto and De Se. The Philosophical Review 88: 51343. Lewis, D. 1990. What Experience Teaches. Reprinted in Mind and Cognition, edited by W. Lycan. Oxford: Blackwell, 499-518. Moore, G.E. 1942. A Reply to my Critics. In The Philosophy of G.E. Moore, edited by P.A. Schilpp. Open Court. Moran, R. 1997. Self-Knowledge: Discovery, Resolution, and Undoing. The

284

Brie Gertler

European Journal of Philosophy 5:141-61. Nemirow, L.1990. Physicalism and the Cognitive Role of Acquaintance. In Mind and Cognition, ed. W. Lycan. Oxford: Blackwell, 490-99. Peacocke, C. 1992. A Study of Concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Bradford. Perner, J. and D. Howes. 1995. ‘He Thinks He Knows’: And More Developmental Evidence Against the Simulation Role-taking Theory. In Davies and Stone 1995a, 159-173. Revised from Mind and Language 7, 1992. Perry, J. 1979. The Problem of the Essential Indexical. Noûs 13: 3-21. Perry, J. 1986. Thought Without Representation. Aristotelian Society Supplement 60: 137-52. Perry, J. 2001. Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Bradford. Pitt, D. forthcoming. The Phenomenology of Cognition; or What is it Like to Think that P? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Recanati, F. 1990. Direct Reference: from Language to Thought. Oxford: Blackwell. Roth, A. 2000. The Self-Referentiality of Intentions. Philosophical Studies 97: 1151. Searle, J. 1983. Intentionality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shoemaker, S. 1988. On Knowing One’s Own Mind. Philosophical Perspectives 2: 183-209. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Press. Siewert, C. 1998. The Significance of Consciousness. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Stich, S. and S. Nichols. 1992. Folk Psychology: Simulation or Tacit Theory? In Davies and Stone 1995a, 123-58. Revised from Mind and Language 7, 1992. Strawson, G. 1994. Mental Reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Tye, M. 1999. Phenomenal Consciousness: The Explanatory Gap as a Cognitive Illusion. Mind 108:705-25.

Unconventional Utterances?

285

Unconventional Utterances? Davidson’s Rejection of Conventions in Language Use Mason Cash

Abstract Since people can often successfully interpret utterances that flout or ignore conventions, Davidson concludes that shared conventions are neither necessary nor sufficient for linguistic interpretation. This conclusion is based on an overly narrow conception of what it is to know, and to share, a language. Rather than, as Davidson argues, simply interpreting the meaning the speaker intends their words to be interpreted as having (and their words’ truth conditions), successful interpretation requires interpreting the illocutionary act the speaker intends to be interpreted as performing (and the act’s felicity conditions). This change in focus highlights the need for many types of shared conventions, beyond the conventional meanings of words that Davidson considers and dismisses as unnecessary. When any one convention is ignored or flouted, interpretation is possible because the apparently unconventional utterance nonetheless conforms to a host of other shared conventions. Conventions are necessary for linguistic interpretation.

In “A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs”, Donald Davidson (1986, henceforth “NDE”) draws the rather incendiary conclusion that “there is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed” (NDE, 446). What these philosophers and linguists have allegedly supposed, in brief, is that sharing a language is sharing syntactic and semantic conventions governing the construction of sentences and the meanings of words. Even Davidson notes that this conclusion “is the sort of remark for which one expects to get pilloried.” (SAL, 1) Many commentators have indeed done so.1 There 1

As Rysiew (2000) notes, some implausibly accuse Davidson of conflating speaker meaning and linguistic meaning (e.g. Bar-On and Risjord 1992, 185-6). He also reports accusations that Davidson confuses sufficient and necessary conditions (Rysiew (2000, 78 n9) cites Bennett (1985, 603) Bar-On and Risjord (1992, 186 n30) and Ramberg (1989, 106) as examples). The problem Rysiew (2000, 79-80) identifies is Davidson’s concentration on the wrong kind of convention; conventions of the

286

Mason Cash

is a common intuition among many philosophers, and perhaps some linguists, that there has to be something wrong with this “remarkable,” “startling” and “downright astonishing”2 conclusion. I’m surprised to find myself agreeing with Davidson: a language cannot be anything like what he claims “many philosophers and linguists” have supposed. However, I want to take his conclusion even further. A language also cannot be anything like Davidson’s proposed alternative. My principal objections are to Davidson’s denial that shared conventions are necessary for successful communication, and his claim that his alternative account (which he claims does not depend on conventions) is sufficient for successful communication. Davidson concludes: We should try again to say how convention in any important sense is involved in language; or, as I think, we should give up the attempt to illuminate how we communicate with one another by appeal to conventions (NDE 446).

In “The Social Aspect of Language” Davidson (1994; henceforth “SAL”) amplifies this conclusion that “shared ways of speaking” are not essential for sharing a language. “The same doubts” he argues, “apply to the notion of following a rule, engaging in a practice, or conforming to conventions, if these are taken to imply such sharing. (Please note the proviso.)” (SAL, 6; italics in original). Shared conventions, Davidson argues, are neither necessary nor sufficient for communication. His account of what is necessary and sufficient for communication focusses on the ability to interpret what he calls “first meaning”: the meaning a speaker intends their words to be interpreted as having (NDE, 435). Davidson argues that “a speaker necessarily intends first meaning to be grasped by his audience, and it is grasped if communication succeeds” (NDE, 436). As I’ll show, getting the audience to interpret “first meanings”, is not necessarily the speaker’s intention. Neither is this a good meanings of words are not the only relevant conventions. Rysiew proposes that a convention of truthfulness and trust; that it is a convention that speakers do not say “X” unless they believe X is true. In spite of the objections Davidson would have to this being a convention (which I’ll discuss presently), I think Rysiew comes closest to seeing the problem accurately. However, I think there is good reason to look far more widely than this convention of truthfulness to find the conventions that uphold our linguistic abilities. 2 Ramberg (1989, 1); Bar-On and Risjord (1992, 163); Hacking (1986, 447).


287

criterion for successful interpretation. The ability to interpret first meaning is certainly not a good description of the abilities that enable us to understand one another. Rather than focussing narrowly, as Davidson does, on uttering words with intended “first meanings”, I advocate focussing on the wider phenomenon of people interacting socially, and on speakers performing illocutionary acts as part of ongoing social interactions. Successful interpretation, I argue here, depends on the audience interpreting the illocutionary act the speaker intends to be interpreted as performing (and the act’s felicity conditions) rather than their interpreting the meaning the speaker intends their words to be interpreted as having (and their words’ truth conditions). This wider focus has the advantage of enabling us to make sense – much more sense than Davidson’s account affords – of people’s interpretive abilities. The keystone of Davidson’s argument is people’s ability to successfully interpret utterances when speakers make slips of the tongue, malapropisms, use unfamiliar jargon and use familiar words in unfamiliar ways. Davidson takes successful interpretation of such “unconventional utterances” (as I’ll call them) to be a counterexample to the thesis that shared conventions of word meanings can undergird communication. The fact that his account requires interpreters to construct ad hoc theories of interpretation – for interpreting one utterance only, of one speaker only, possibly on one occasion only – is problematic. His claim that the ability to construct correct “passing theories,” as he calls them, does not depend on shared conventions is particularly outrageous. It appears to make successful interpretation require a near telepathic ability to figure out speakers’ intended meaning without appeal to any shared conformity to or awareness of conventions. The approach I offer here, based in interpreting speakers’ actions rather than their words’ meanings, firmly grounds our ability to interpret unconventional utterances in shared practices and conventions. To see these necessary conventions, I argue, we have to look more widely than at conventions of the meanings of words. The principal focus of this paper, then, is to “try again to say” how shared conventions (also shared practices and ways of following rules), are involved in language use.3 I 3

Rysiew (2000, 82) concludes that we should take neither of Davidson’s alternatives, neither giving up on conventions, nor trying to find something new to say about the role of conventions in language. Rysiew (2000, 79) looks slightly more widely than Davidson, arguing that we simply need to correct a misreading of Lewis’s account of

288

Mason Cash

argue that if we consider pragmatic conventions, in addition to the semantic conventions that Davidson considers and dismisses, we find a very wide variety of shared conventions that are necessary for our successful communication, especially in cases of unconventional utterances.

Standard Theories and Davidson’s Alternative As a shallow first cut, we might say that the necessary and sufficient conditions for successful communication would include sharing a language. But what is it to share a language? Davidson argues that “many philosophers and linguists,” including his earlier self (NDE, 437), hold the following conception of what it is to know and share a language: in learning a language, a person acquires the ability to operate in accord with a precise and specifiable set of syntactic and semantic rules; verbal communication depends on speaker and hearer sharing this ability, and it requires no more than this (SAL, 2).

These “standard descriptions of linguistic competence” (NDE, 437), hold three principles about the meanings of utterances as foundational. First, the meaning of an utterance is systematic, in that it is given by the meaning of the parts of the sentence uttered and the ways these parts are put together. Second, meanings are shared by all speakers of that language. Third, meanings are governed by pre-learned rules and regularities; we learn the rules and then subsequently apply them to utterances we interpret. According to these “standard” conceptions of language, before conversing with someone I have a “theory” about which meanings this person will assign to particular expressions,4 which referents they will conventions. He argues that the conventional underpinning of successful communication is the convention that people generally intend to conform to the convention of saying what they believe. This tactic of looking at other conventions, I argue here, is a step in the right direction. However, as I will show, this convention is only a minor aspect of the large network of conventions necessary for successful communication. 4 I use “expressions” here to cover both sides of a distinction that I do not feel a need to rule on: the distinction between whether it is a word or a sentence that is the fundamental meaningful unit of speech. As will presently become clear, I hold the fundamental unit of “meaningful” speech to be, as Austin puts it, the total speech act in the total speech situation. Accordingly, I use “expressions” to refer generally to either a single word or a group of words, or a sentence.


289

assign to nouns, the colloquialisms with which they will be familiar, and so on. Davidson calls this my prior theory of interpretation for this person (NDE, 442). Having this theory enables me to interpret this person’s utterances, and enables me to produce utterances that I expect this person will be able to interpret. This is the conception of a shared language with which Davidson disagrees. Davidson’s disagreement is prompted by linguistic phenomena that he takes as counterexamples to standard views: the fact that interpreters can understand speakers’ slips of the tongue, malapropisms, uses of expressions they have never heard before and uses of familiar expressions in unfamiliar or ungrammatical ways.5 Consider the following examples: (A) My grandmother once countered my grandfather’s rather convoluted route directions, saying “But there’s a simpler way to get there; if you go his way there’s too many turners to corn.” We all knew she’d meant that there are too many corners to turn, and the conversation flowed on without any need for clarification. (B) My wife and I made pizza for dinner recently. While she was sliding the pizza onto the cutting board to slice it, she said, “Can you grab the doohickey from the drawer?” I knew that she was talking about the sharp-bladed wheel for slicing pizza, kept in the drawer in front of me. I also knew that she was not inquiring about my ability to grab the pizza-slicing wheel, but that she wanted me to get it, and to hand it to her. (C) I once worked as an electrician’s assistant at a hydroelectric power station. Before the electrician I worked with and I re-wired a cabinet, a supervisor recommended, “The cabinet’s pretty close to the wall on the right. You’ll have to get behind the cabinet from the left and screw the wires into place with your left hand.” The electrician replied “Yeah, I’m ambiguous enough to do that”. In spite of his using “ambiguous,” the supervisor and I both knew that he was asserting that he was ambidextrous enough to accomplish the task with his left hand. 5

Austin (1962, 17) calls this kind of infelicity a “flaw.” It is interesting to note at the outset that Austin remarks on the trouble a theory of language (like Davidson’s) that explains linguistic phenomena in terms of meanings can have in accounting for such utterances: “Somebody ‘says something he really did not mean’ – uses the wrong word – says ‘the cat is on the mat’ when he really meant to say ‘bat’. Other similar trivialities arise – or rather not entirely trivialities; because it is possible to discuss such utterances in terms of meaning as equivalent to sense and reference and get so confused about them, though they really are easy to understand” (1962, 1378).

290

Mason Cash

Davidson argues (NDE, 445) that interpretation of linguistic phenomena like these unconventional utterances force us to revise our analysis of the necessary and sufficient conditions for successful communication. A shared prior theory is not necessary because we often get by without it. When the supervisor and I interpreted the electrician’s utterance successfully, we interpreted the word “ambiguous” without using any theory of interpretation shared with the electrician prior to interpreting that utterance, according to which “ambiguous” means “able to do things with either hand”. Nor did we use a theory of interpretation that was learned prior to this occasion of interpretation. Similarly, no shared, prior theory of interpretation was used to interpret “doohickey” as referring to the pizza-slicing-wheel. Thus, argues Davidson, a shared, pre-learned prior theory is not necessary. It is also not sufficient for successful communication, since in cases like these we need more than our prior theory of interpretation. Thus we have reason to reject the standard theories’ account of the necessary and sufficient conditions for successful communication.6 Davidson’s alternative account details conditions he thinks are necessary and sufficient for successful communication. To interpret unconventional utterances as the speaker expected and intended them to be interpreted, the interpreter must temporarily amend their prior theory, since only an amended theory could serve to correctly interpret such utterances. Thus, the interpreter must have the ability to construct what Davidson calls a passing theory of interpretation (NDE, 442). A passing theory of interpretation is the interpreter’s prior theory, custom tailored to interpret this utterance, of this speaker, on this occasion. For instance, in the passing theory I constructed to interpret the electrician, the phrase “ambiguous” was given all the powers, roles and relations that “ambidex6 There is some reason to doubt that anyone has actually held the above to be necessary and sufficient for successful communication. Davidson implies (as I’ll soon show) that these “precise and specifiable rules” must allow of no exceptions. However, he argues, we are able to successfully communicate in exceptional cases (where the rules don’t guide the interpreter to interpret a flaw as the speaker intended to be interpreted). This undermines the standard view of what it is to know a language. But this appears an attack on a straw person. Has anyone actually argued that this strong conception of exceptionless, precise, comprehensive rules is necessary and sufficient for actual human communication? Dummett (1994, 258-61) is right to question the target here. It is far from clear that anyone has held precisely the view that Davidson alleges is held by “many philosophers and linguists”.


291

trous” had in my prior theory for speech transactions with him. To Davidson, all language interpretation situations call for the construction of a passing theory of interpretation for the speaker’s utterance. Even on occasions when the speaker uses speech interpretable using the prior theory, our passing theory is just the theory that the unamended prior theory applies in this case.7 Davidson concludes (NDE, 435) from this that “linguistic ability is the ability to converge on a passing theory”. Thus speakers and interpreters “having the same language” is their having the ability to construct correct, that is convergent, passing theories of interpretation for speech transactions with one another (NDE, 445). The degree of convergence indicates the degree of similarity of their languages. This ability, he argues, does not rely on shared conventions, rules or regularities (NDE, 442, 446). An interpreter constructs a passing theory, says Davidson, by wit, luck and wisdom, from a private vocabulary and grammar, knowledge of the ways people get their points across, and rules of thumb for figuring out what deviations from the dictionary are most likely (NDE, 446).

There are no rules to follow in constructing correct passing theories, he says, “no rules in any strict sense, as opposed to rough maxims and methodical generalities” (NDE, 446). There is also no way of regularizing the process of constructing a successful passing theory, nor is there any chance of teaching someone how to do so. To Davidson, a passing theory of interpretation is for use on this occasion only, to interpret this utterance only, of this speaker only (NDE, 443-4). The need for such ad hoc theories, constructed by “wit, luck and wisdom”, counts heavily against the overall approach to language to which Davidson’s theory and the “standard” theories belong. In this overall approach, speakers and interpreters employ a (pre-learned or not, shared or not) theory of the words’ meanings and knowledge of the systematic ways that these word-meanings combine to form sentence-meanings. The need for such temporary, special purpose, ad hoc, modifications of prior theories of meaning, appears to be an attempt to “add epicycles” to what Lakatos (1974) would call a degenerating research program, in order to accommodate the apparent falsifications of standard theories evi7 See Simpson (1998, 107, note 4).

292

Mason Cash

dent in our ability to successfully interpret unconventional utterances. If an ad hoc explanation like Davidson’s apparatus of constructing passing theories is the best way to explain people’s linguistic abilities from within a theory-of-expression-meaning approach, then this seems a good reason to abandon the attempt to explain people’s linguistic abilities in terms of the production and interpretation of expressions’ meanings. The approach I advocate here accounts for the ability to successfully communicate with one another by drawing attention to the many conventional social practices within which linguistic moves are made. Many different skills and practices (not just separably “linguistic” skills as Davidson maintains8) underlie the ability to communicate successfully, especially in the face of unconventional utterances. Only a few of these are separably “linguistic”. Almost all of them are dependent on a shared familiarity with a large corpus of (explicit and implicit) conventions. I will outline this approach, and highlight its advantages and the necessary role of conventions in linguistic interactions, by contrasting it with Davidson’s argument against the necessity of conventions in language use.

8 Davidson believes that people’s linguistic skills and knowledge are separable from their other skills and knowledge. He attempts to make just such a separation. He notes at one point that “first meaning” is not limited to language; according to everything he’s said so far, “first meaning” applies to any sign or signal with an intended interpretation. So, he asks, “what should be added [to what he’s already said] if we want to restrict first meaning to linguistic meaning?” (NDE, 436). His aim is to make just such a restriction. Davidson aims to account for linguistic meaning, not for meaning in general. Part of the burden of his paper, says Davidson, is “that there is much that they [that is, interpreters] can do that ought not to count as part of their basic linguistic competence” (NDE, 437, his emphasis). His aim is to analyze people’s specifically linguistic skills and competencies, and to delineate these from other competencies people might have. Thus Davidson appears troubled by his conclusion that linguistic ability amounts to the ability to converge on passing theories, since in proposing this account “we have erased the boundary between knowing a language and knowing our way around in the world generally” (NDE 445-6). Davidson appears uncomfortable at this prospect. I, on the other hand, welcome it. A significant portion of the skills and knowledge that enable us to interact linguistically with one another are not separably linguistic, but are indeed part of our abilities to “get about” in the social world.


293

Davidson’s Argument Against Conventions I follow Lewis (e.g. 1969, 1972) in defining a convention as a regularity (R) of behaviour (or of belief and behaviour) to which everyone conforms and mutually believes that everyone else conforms. This mutual belief in others’ conformity gives everyone a reason to also conform to R. (Lewis also adds the conditions that there is a general preference for conformity to R, and that there are alternative regularities to R; these are less important for present purposes.)9 Overall, Davidson’s argument that conventions are not part of the necessary and sufficient conditions for linguistic communication, is of the following form:10 If there are conventions operative in language use, they must be conventions associating expressions (or expression types) with one of three candidates for, or types of, meaning: (a) A conventional illocutionary force; e.g. declarative sentences conventionally having the force of an assertion, imperative sentences having the force of an instruction or order (C&C 266-71).11 9 In most of what follows, I do not make a distinction between conventions and norms. The distinction could be made as follows: a convention is a regularity of behaviour to which it is reasonable for people to conform (because other people conform). Norms, however, are a subset of conventions: those in which the regularities of behaviour are regularities to which people should conform (because other people expect them to conform). Some kind of (perceived) potential enforcement or sanction applies to norms. My own belief (one I have not the space to defend here) is that in language many of the conventions have a stronger, normative flavor. In what follows, however, I argue about the role of conventions (rather than norms) in language most of the time, principally because this is the more general form. Norms are a subset of conventions, so if there are no conventions, there are no norms either, but if there are no norms, there still might be conventions. I also do this because this is the terminology that Davidson uses. 10 The argument is most explicitly presented in Davidson’s “Communication and Convention” (1984, henceforth “C&C”), but is endorsed and echoed in NDE and SAL. 11 I should take a moment here to distinguish the concept of a type of illocutionary act the speaker performs from the concept of the illocutionary force of an utterance. The concept of separable illocutionary force is principally due to John Searle (1968, 1969). Searle analyzes all illocutionary acts into two parts, the illocutionary force and the propositional content. Thus sincere utterances of “Did Cinderella go to the ball?”, “Cinderella, go to the ball!” and “Cinderella went to the ball” share a common propositional content, but have a different illocutionary force. The motivation for this separation is to isolate the part that is susceptible to analysis in terms of

294

Mason Cash

(b) A conventional purpose; e.g. the non-linguistic “Gricean” ulterior motive the speaker has for making the utterance (C&C, 271-75), such as the perlocutionary effects (Austin 1962, 101 ff.) or the response the speaker intends to produce in the hearer (Grice 1989, Ch. 5 and Ch. 14). (c) A conventional meaning; a conventional tie to either an extension or an intension (C&C, 276-78; NDE). For each of these possibilities, either it is not possible that conventions could do the job required, or conventions are not necessary to do that job. For (a) and (b), no convention could do the job of relating expressions to illocutionary forces or to speakers’ purposes. A convention of type (a), according to which an expression or grammatical mood has a conventional illocutionary force, he argues, could be made explicit and manifest in the symbolism (C&C, 269). But then it could be regularly defied, since it would be available to liars, actors and others whose utterances do not have that illocutionary force (C&C, 270). A conventional symbol, he argues, cannot make an insincere utterance into a sincere one. A convention of type (b), assigning to an expression a conventional purpose, also cannot be derived from what the expression is used to do, since many expressions can be used for several different purposes, and most purposes can be achieved using a multitude of different expressions. Furthermore, expressions are often used to achieve effects in the hearer that are the opposite of what they literally mean (e.g. sarcasm, lying) (C&C, 274). Against conventions of type (c), Davidson argues that such conventions can be transgressed and communication will still be successfelicity conditions from the part that is to be analyzed in terms of truth and falsity. I am strongly opposed to this notion of separable illocutionary force. My (forthcoming) “Austin and Searle on Locutionary Acts and Illocutionary Acts” argues that Austin’s analysis has all the richness we need, and that Searle attempts to draw us back into the conceptually hazardous territory that Austin tries to guide us away from. When I discuss the type of illocutionary act the speaker intends to be interpreted as performing, I do not use this to refer to any such thing as a separable illocutionary force, but to an entire, undecomposed illocutionary act with all of its contextual setting, which includes what Searle would call the “content”. I make a fairly finegrained distinction between types of illocutionary act, such that an invitation to meet me for dinner at 6:00 pm is a token of a different type of illocutionary act from an order that you meet me for dinner at 6:00 pm, and from an invitation to meet me for a drink at 6:00 pm.


295

ful (his argument in NDE expands this objection). Therefore, he concludes, it is not possible that conventions of type (a) and (b) could uphold successful communication, and those of type (c) are not necessary for successful communication. He concludes: I want to urge that linguistic communication does not require, though it very often makes use of, rule governed repetition; and in that case, convention does not help explain what is basic to linguistic communication, though it may describe a usual, though contingent, feature (C&C, 279-80).

In his (1986) NDE, he expands this point, arguing that all a speaker and hearer need to share is the ability to converge on passing theories. Davidson explicitly denies that this ability to converge on passing theories is based on sharing the rules, regulations or conventions of a language. The ad hoc passing theory an interpreter actually uses to interpret a speaker, he says (NDE, 445), “is not learned, so is not a language governed by rules or conventions known to speaker and interpreter in advance”. Furthermore “what the speaker and interpreter know in advance [that is, their prior theories] is not (necessarily) shared, and so is not a language governed by shared rules and conventions” (NDE, 445). Thus shared and pre-learned conventions are not necessary for successful communication. There are at least five important ways in which this argument against conventions in language is problematic:12 (1) Language-use is not simply about the interpretation of people’s words, but the interpretation of people’s actions (including actions employing words). Many of the relevant conventions are conventions of the use of expressions to perform illocutionary acts (and so “use” is used in a wider sense than in (b) above), rather than conventions of meaning. (2) Davidson’s conclusion that conventions are not necessary is an attack on a straw person. He takes a limited conception of the relevant conventions, and (arguably) shows that these are not necessary to linguistic communication. However, there are 12

Each of his objections to the three candidates for the role of conventions can be objected to individually, but here I’m interested in the overall picture of the role of conventions that Davidson dismisses, and in the overall conclusion that conventions in general are not necessary.

296

Mason Cash

more conventions involved than conventions about expressions’ meanings, and these other conventions are necessary for successful communication. (3) Davidson’s objections to conventions of types (a) and (b), showing that many regularities admit of exceptions, is not an argument against their being conventions. Regularities do not have to be exceptionless in order to be conventions that uphold successful interpretation. Davidson’s arguments that these regularities can be excepted does not undermine their being conventions, as he claims. (4) The interpretation of unconventional utterances especially requires conventions. When any one convention is not followed, interpretation is only possible because of the large number of other conventions that are still followed. (5) Illocutionary acts in which conventions are deliberately flouted (for instance, Gricean implicatures), depend for their successful interpretation upon mutual familiarity with the very convention that is flouted. The following sections address, in order, these five problems with Davidson’s argument, at the same time illustrating an alternative view, in which conventions (but not necessarily conventions of expressions’ meanings) are completely necessary for successful linguistic interactions.

We Interpret the Intentions Behind Actions, not just the Meanings Behind Words The first problem arises from Davidson’s assumption that analysis of interpretation should focus on how hearers interpret the meanings of people’s words, rather than their interpreting people’s actions. This narrow focus is evident throughout Davidson’s papers. For instance, he argues that successful interpretation requires that the speaker and hearer assign “the same meaning to the speaker’s words” (C&C, 277) and about how “one must always intend to produce some non-linguistic effect through having one’s words interpreted” (C&C 272). In NDE he explains that his concept of first meaning “applies to words and sentences as uttered by a particular speaker on a particular occasion” (NDE, 434). In


297

SAL he focuses on “how the speaker intended his words to be understood” (SAL, 12) (all italics in the above are mine). Davidson takes interpreting the meaning of the speaker’s words as central to an analysis of people’s linguistic interactions. These conceptual blinkers are a consequence of his focus on assertions as the primary form of illocutionary act, and on a theory of truth as the basis for a theory of meaning. Interpreting the meaning the speaker intended their words to be interpreted as having, to Davidson, depends on the hearer determining the truth conditions of the speaker’s utterance. This focus on truth as specifying first meaning is evident in Davidson’s (NDE 435) analysis of Diogenes’ reply to Alexander the Great, when Alexander asked him if there is anything he can do for him. Diogenes replies with the Greek equivalent of, “I would have you stand from between me and the Sun.” To Davidson, Diogenes utters this, “with the intention of uttering words that will be interpreted by Alexander as true if and only if Diogenes would have him stand from between Diogenes and the Sun” (NDE, 435, my emphasis). The truth condition of the statement is Diogenes’ mental state; this sentence would be true if he does in fact want Alexander to move. This mental state specifies Diogenes’ first meaning. This first meaning is the first intention in the string of means to ends in the following sequence: intending to be interpreted as uttering words that mean that he would have Alexander move, as a means of asking Alexander to move, as a means of getting Alexander to move (NDE 435). One of my aims here is to broaden this narrow focus on first meaning, truth and assertion, to take the performance of an illocutionary act, and securing what Austin (1962, 22, 138) calls “illocutionary uptake” – recognizing which illocutionary act the speaker intends their utterance to constitute, and responding appropriately – as the primary focus for speakers and interpreters. Austin went to great lengths to show (1962, 140-47) that truth and falsity are but one dimension among many along which we can assess the felicity of illocutionary acts. The sentence asserted “corresponding to the facts” is a prominent dimension of felicity, especially for assertions. But even assertions are subject to many other felicity conditions in addition to assessment in terms of truth (see Austin 1962, 136 ff.). For other illocutionary acts, such as asking offering an apology or making a promise, fitting the facts is a less prominent dimension of felicity. For many types of illocutionary act (“How do you do?”), the truth conditions are rather irrelevant.

298

Mason Cash

This focus on truth conditions, and on interpreting the meanings behind speakers’ words, blinds Davidson to the crucial role of convention in enabling hearers to interpret the whole illocutionary act the speaker performs. Davidson’s initial premise – that if conventions have a role in successful communication, it is linking expressions with their meanings – is false. We can see a clear necessity for conventions if we focus instead on the speaker’s intention to do something that will count for the hearer as the performance of a particular type of illocutionary act. The ability to interpret one another’s actions – including but not limited to their illocutionary acts – is at the centre of the conventional relationships that underlie all linguistic interactions. When I speak to you, it’s not just the words I utter that you need to interpret. Rather, you need to interpret the total speech act in the total speech situation (as Austin puts it13): my act of uttering these words, to you, in this physical and social situation, with this tone and inflection, with this history of interactions between us, with such and so facts taken as mutual knowledge, in this physical, linguistic and cultural context. It’s this complex of features that helps the hearer identify the intentions behind the speaker’s illocutionary act. The success of any illocutionary act, then, is contingent on the hearer’s ability to recognize the type of illocutionary act the speaker intends their utterance to constitute. Securing such illocutionary “uptake” (Austin 1962, 22, 138) is one of the more important of Austin’s felicity conditions on any illocutionary act.14 If the hearer can’t recognize the illocutionary act the speaker intends to be interpreted as performing, then the illocutionary act is infelicitous; by Austin’s classification of infelicities, it will be “void” (22). For instance, when I try to apologize to a friend for 13

14

Austin actually says: “we see that in order to explain what can go wrong with statements we cannot just concentrate on the proposition involved (whatever that is) as has been done traditionally. We must consider the total situation in which the utterance is issued – the total speech-act – if we are to see the parallel between statements and performative utterances and how each can go wrong” (Austin 1962, 52). Of course, securing uptake is necessary but not sufficient for complete success. There are cases “where the act is achieved” says Austin (1969, 16), but it is professed, or hollow. Insincere promises and lies are prominent examples. Austin classifies such infelicities as “abuses”. This is still a case of interpreting the speaker as they intend to be interpreted, however. The problem lies with the speaker lacking the intention to live up to the commitments entailed by the act they intended to be interpreted as performing.


299

not meeting her as we arranged, she must recognize that an apology (and not, for example, an excuse or a taunt) is being offered. She must also recognize that I’m apologizing for not meeting her, not apologizing for arranging the meeting. If what I do is not recognizable to her as the act of offering an apology for not meeting her, then I haven’t successfully apologized for not meeting her. This felicity condition of securing illocutionary uptake applies similarly to invitations to meet for coffee, promises that I will be there next time, assertions that I failed to show up because I had a flat tire, and all other illocutionary acts. In order to secure illocutionary uptake, speakers need to make it the case that the hearer appreciates that the speaker’s action is intended to count, for the hearer, as the performance of a particular illocutionary act. Davidson doesn’t disagree. He simply denies that this is the speaker’s primary intention; their primary intention is to get the hearer to interpret their words’ first meaning. He also denies that conventions are necessary for successful uptake: There is no known, agreed upon, publicly recognizable convention for making assertions. Or for that matter, giving orders, asking questions, or making promises. These are all things we do, often successfully, and our success depends in part on our having made public our intention to do them. But it was not thanks to a convention that we succeeded. (C&C, 270).

With this, I couldn’t disagree more. There are many ways to make which illocutionary act we intend to perform easy to interpret. All the ways I can identify rely upon shared conventions. The aforementioned felicity conditions (discussed in detail presently) are clearly conventional. The relationships either between types of illocutionary act and particular expressions (or grammatical moods) conventionally used to perform them are conventional. So are the relationships between types of illocutionary acts and the perlocutionary effects they are conventional means of achieving. Interpretation also relies upon conventions of use of particular expressions; for example, to draw the hearer’s attention to particular types of event or object. Speakers’ and hearers’ expectation of conformity to conventions such as these, enables speakers to produce recognizable illocutionary acts and enables hearers to recognize what illocutionary act the speaker intends their utterance to count as. What I mean by this, why it is so, and how this is a serious departure from Davidson’s approach, will become clearer

300

Mason Cash

as I discuss the other problems with Davidson’s argument against a necessary role for conventions.

Conventions of words’ meanings are not the only relevant conventions The second problem with Davidson’s argument is that he has a very limited conception of the kinds of conventions that could be relevant to interpreting illocutionary acts – especially to interpreting the kinds of unconventional utterances he takes as counterexamples to the necessity of shared, pre-learned conventions. In objecting to any necessary role for convention, Davidson considers, and argues against, only three kinds of candidate for a role for conventions: conventions associating expressions with (a) illocutionary forces, (b) ulterior motives (i.e. intended perlocutionary effects), or (c) propositional contents. However, many other conventional linguistic and social practices are necessary underpinnings of the performance of a successful illocutionary act. These conventional underpinnings are not, as I’ll show Davidson assumes, reducible to conventional meanings of words. It follows that Davidson’s rejection only of the above three roles for conventions is a rejection of a straw person. Davidson reveals the limited nature of his conception of what could be “conventionally required” for an utterance of a declarative sentence to count as an assertion when he objects to the notion that declarative sentences could be related to assertions by convention (or interrogatives to requests, etc.). First, we should note that here Davidson expects convention to attach a type of proposition or grammatical form either to (a) a particular illocutionary force, or to (b) the intention to achieve a particular perlocutionary effect. Many of the limitations of his argument stem from this conception of an illocutionary act as expressing a proposition (either true or false) with an associated illocutionary force. He states clearly that his target is “the idea that convention can link what our words mean – their literal semantic properties, including truth – and our purposes in using them, for example, to speak the truth” (C&C, 271). Davidson’s argument against this idea is based on the premise that “if there is a convention, it must be further conventional trappings of the utterance that make it an assertion” (C&C, 269). Endorsing Frege’s principle that these conventional trappings could be made explicit and mani-


301

fest in the symbolism,15 Davidson objects that adding a symbol (such as Frege’s turnstile ‘ ’), whose conventional meaning is to make a declarative sentence into an assertion, is not possible. Such a convention would be abused by liars and would be invoked by actors who did not believe the propositions they asserted (269-70). Thus in many cases, the use of this symbol would not suffice to make the illocutionary act in which it features a felicitous assertion. The problem with this argument is generated by the assumption that whatever is conventional about assertion can be attached to a symbol that has this as its meaning. Davidson shows that adding such a symbol (like Frege’s turnstile) wouldn’t make an utterance an assertion. He is right. It won’t do that. However, this is not because convention cannot do the job, but because not everything conventional about an illocutionary act can be made into the conventional meaning of a symbol. Robert Stainton’s (1995, 192-4) reconstruction of Davidson’s argument highlights this part of the problem. Two premises are introduced: (1) “Where conventionally specified conditions C obtain, the class of declaratives is identical with the class of assertions” and (2) “Whatever is conventional about assertion can be put into words”. A contradiction is then derived, since a symbol that had as its conventional meaning that the conventional conditions obtain, would be used when those conventional conditions do not obtain (e.g. abused by liars and actors). Davidson (C&C, 270) and Stainton (1995, 194) use this reductio ad absurdum to deduce the falsity of (1). However, the problem is not with (1) but with (2): not everything conventional about assertion can be put into words. The shortsightedness here is a result of seeing illocutionary acts as propositions with illocutionary force attached. Davidson’s objection is that the meanings of the proposition cannot ensure that the utterance has a particular force. He is right. But what makes an utterance a felicitous assertion (or any 15

This is somewhat similar to Searle’s (1969, 19-21) “Principle of Expressability”: whatever can be meant can be said. A consequence of this principle, argues Searle, is that to study speech acts of promising or asserting we only need to study sentences whose literal and correct utterance would constitute the performance of that speech act (1969, p21). Thus we get back to studying not actions in their full physical, social and cultural context, but expressions and what they mean. With Davidson, this attitude takes the form: whatever is conventional about an illocutionary act can be said explicitly. Davidson and Searle thus presume (incorrectly) that the expressions are all that is important, that the “further conventional trappings” of the utterance can be captured by expressions and their literal meanings.

302

Mason Cash

other type of illocutionary act) is not simply convention that attaches a particular force to the words uttered. It is a wide range of conventionally required circumstances, which cannot be made to apply by the use of an extra symbol. Austin’s (1962, Chs. II-IV) felicity conditions detail many of these conventionally required circumstances for successful, felicitous assertion (as well as for other illocutionary acts). They include the speaker’s having certain beliefs and intentions, the presence or existence of certain objects, and certain physical relations obtaining between people and objects. Convention also relates the illocutionary act performed to the interactive end the speaker intends this act as a means of achieving (e.g. inviting the hearer for tea on Thursday, is a means of getting them to come to tea on Thursday). Convention also licenses expectations of the speaker’s future behaviour, by virtue of commitments undertaken by the performance of the illocutionary act, and the norm that one should live up to one’s commitments. (This applies to assertions as well as to promises: an assertion entails a commitment to defend that assertion, if challenged, and to act consistently as someone who believes what I asserted. If the King walks into the room just after I assert that the King is dead, this convention entails that others are licensed to expect me to be surprised, and to expect me to either retract my assertion or explain my reasons for asserting that the King is dead.) The social relationship between speaker and audience and the immediate and long-term history of their interactions is also relevant (only certain people can felicitously give me orders, for instance). Breaching any of a number of such (often only tacitly recognized) conventions would make the illocutionary act infelicitous. Few, if any, of these conventionally required circumstances – such as, to use Davidson’s examples, the speaker having the requisite intentions (e.g. being sincere), and the situation being appropriate (e.g. not play-acting) – can simply be made to apply by adding an extra symbol. Responding to a similar objection by Dummett (1973, 298), that it is a convention that speakers are understood to believe what they assert, Davidson appeals to a false analogy. He argues that even if we all agreed to an explicit and clear analysis of exactly what contextual conditions make an utterance an assertion, it would not follow that the conditions were conventional. We all agree that horses have four legs, but it is not a convention that horses have four legs (C&C, 269).


303

Granting that Davidson’s claim about horses is true, this claim depends on a question-begging analogy between assertions and horses. It assumes that neither for horses nor for assertions, do conventions make them what they are. The important difference, however, between assertions and horses is that horses are not constituted by the norms of a particular practice; norms that depend upon (often tacit) agreement among practitioners of that practice. Linguistic practices and their norms and conventions however, do constitute people’s illocutionary acts, such as acts of asserting. Assertions are not like natural objects that would be the way they are if humans and their practices did not exist. Assertions are more like moves in a game of chess than they are like horses; they depend upon the normative human practices within which their existence is constituted. Players agree about the rules of chess, such that chess pieces move in particular ways and so on. It is precisely because of these constitutive conventions, that a certain move counts as placing one’s opponent in check. And it is precisely because of the speaker’s conformity to similar constitutive conventions that a certain utterance counts as an assertion. Few of the wide variety of felicity conditions can be made to apply to such an utterance by simply saying more. To use the analogy with games further, chess has a symbolic accompaniment to a checking move: the player utters “check” when moving. However, it is not the case that this symbol could be applied to any move to make it a checking move. A move only counts as a checking move when a large number of – conventionally specified – contextual conditions apply (for example, that one is playing chess, that the board is set up in the regulation way, that it’s the player’s turn to move, that the opponent’s king is placed under threat, and so on). Uttering “check” cannot make these conditions apply, but this does not mean that the conditions are not conventionally specified. Similarly, we could adopt the custom of adding “I hereby assert…” to utterances, but this would not make any utterance a felicitous assertion; only the satisfaction of the many felicity conditions (constitutive conventions) could do that. The many conventional felicity conditions that have to be satisfied before an utterance counts as an assertion (or a question, promise, order, and so on) are one particularly crucial role that conventions play in underpinning successful communication. As we will see, in addition to being crucially important for the speaker’s ability to successfully per-

304

Mason Cash

form the illocutionary act, these conventional aspects are crucial for the hearer’s ability to successfully interpret the speaker’s illocutionary act. These conventions, I will show, are especially vital to interpreting unconventional utterances like those Davidson highlights.

Regularities do not have to be Perfectly Regular to be Conventions In addition to only considering a limited role for conventions, a third problem with Davidson’s argument is his reasons for rejecting, as not being conventions regularities of types (a) and (b). Davidson explicitly denies that conventions can perform (a) the function of making speakers’ intentions to perform a particular illocutionary act recognizable to hearers, on the grounds that there will not be perfect conformity with the convention. Davidson objects that if it was “thanks to a convention” (C&C, 270) that speakers succeed in making their intentions public, then liars and actors would use those same conventions, when they do not have the conventionally specified intentions. Furthermore, Davidson (1979, 110) decries the notion that a sentence can have a “standard” use (C&C, 271). For instance, by varying the circumstances and intonation the expression “It’s raining” can be used to issue a warning (e.g. not to wear the silk dress), make a complaint (about having to walk), issue a prediction (before looking out), ask a question, and to perform several other illocutionary acts in addition to simple assertion. The lack of perfect regularity in the use of an expression, for Davidson, is reason to reject the suggestion that a particular expression could be conventionally associated with the intention to perform a particular type of illocutionary act. For similar reasons, Davidson also objects to (b) a conventional association between an expression and the speaker’s intention to bring about a particular perlocutionary effect: … even if, contrary to what I have argued, some convention governs the illocutionary force of the utterance, the connection with the intention that the request or order be carried out would require that the speaker be sincere – that what he represents himself as wanting or trying to do he in fact wants or is trying to do. But nothing is more obvious than that there cannot be a convention that signals sincerity (C&C, 274)


305

Davidson rejects such conventions because he incorrectly expects that perfect regularity, without exception, is required for conventions to associate expressions with types of illocutionary act, or with perlocutionary purposes, or even with conventional uses (e.g. referents). Perfect regularity is not needed. We can see this by considering Ruth Millikan’s (1984, 1989) argument that a type of object can have a proper function16 in spite of the fact that sometimes particular tokens of that type fail to perform this function. It simply has to be the case that the function is performed often enough by tokens of that type, that the tokens are reproduced because they perform that function.. Hearts have the proper function of pumping blood, even if a particular heart with a broken valve or a clogged artery fails to pump, because of the numerous times that hearts are reproduced because of the need for something to pump blood. Similarly, sperm have the proper function of fertilizing an egg, in spite of the fact that those that succeed are outnumbered millions, perhaps billions, of times over by sperm that fail to perform the function. In this case, very few successes are enough to ensure that entities that perform the proper function continue to be reproduced. Tools like chisels also have proper functions. Tool designers make them for chipping precise pieces of wood and stone, and carvers select chisels because of a need for something that can be used to perform this function. They continue to be made and selected because of a recurring need for tools of this kind. A blunt chisel still has this function because of the way it was created and selected, in spite of the fact that it is no longer particularly good for chipping wood. Likewise, linguistic expressions, argues Millikan (1998, 36 ff.), have “cooperative proper functions,” fulfilled via a convention of eliciting a cooperating response in the hearer. Expressions have proper functions derived from the cooperative purposes to which speakers conventionally 16 An item has a proper function, for Millikan, if it belongs to a type of items that are reproduced, one as a copy of the other, because of the function such items serve. The heart’s proper function, for instance, is to pump the blood. It has this proper function because of natural selection in favor of creatures with an organ that pumped blood efficiently. Having something that pumped blood efficiently led to the reproduction of the creature, and thus of the item that performed the function of pumping blood. Similarly, a chisel’s proper function is to chip precise bits of wood or stone; toolmakers design them, and carpenters and sculptors select them, for use to achieve this purpose. People continue to produce and acquire this kind of tool because of a recurring need for a tool that can be used to perform this function.

306

Mason Cash

employ the word and the purposes towards which hearers recognize the expressions are conventionally employed. The expression is reproduced (that is, continues to be used) because it serves this cooperative function. For example, a particular expression can have the proper function of drawing the hearer’s attention to a particular type of circumstance or object. The expression “the door,” for instance, has acquired the function of directing people’s attention to doors through a long history of people using tokens of this expression (and its etymological ancestors) for that kind of purpose. It continues to be reproduced because both speakers and interpreters recognize that it serves this cooperative proper function.17 Human cooperative ends like these are met often enough by employing such expressions, that speakers can assist others in interpreting their intentions by conforming to this regularity. And hearers rely on conformity to the regularity to interpret speakers’ illocutionary acts and to recognize the further (cooperative, perlocutionary) ends for which speakers perform such illocutionary acts. The point against Davidson is that an expression or action can have a conventional function, and the convention can be sustained and relied upon, even though the convention is occasionally flouted, abused or transgressed. All that is required for a behavioural regularity to be a part of a body of conventions, is that the regularity is followed often enough to be relied upon with success in enough cases that the behaviour continues to be reproduced. Admittedly, linguistic conventions are occasionally abused by liars and they are turned to parasitic ends by actors (C&C, 270, 274). Expressions, furthermore, can be used to perform illocutio17 Likewise, the expression “Can you tell me the correct time?” is conventionally used to perform the illocutionary act of asking someone to tell the speaker what time it is. Interpreters, furthermore, know that speakers perform that illocutionary act because it conventionally serves the end of getting the interpreter to tell them the time (rather than eliciting “Yes, I do know how to tell the time”). Grammatical moods also have cooperative proper functions. For instance, tokens of a particular grammatical mood (interrogative, imperative, etc.) are conventionally used to perform particular types of illocutionary act (asking a question, giving an instruction), because that grammatical mood is conventionally associated with the intention to perform that type of illocutionary act. Furthermore, that type of illocutionary act is conventionally associated with the intention to elicit a particular kind of response in the interpreter. “The proper function of the imperative mood is to induce the action designated, and a proper function of the indicative mood is to induce belief in the proposition expressed” (Millikan 1998, 37; see also 1984, 53-4).


307

nary acts they are not conventionally used to perform, and illocutionary acts can be performed using locutionary means not conventionally used to perform them. In spite of these exceptions, the hearer’s responding in the conventional way to a conventional use is the recurrence of a pattern of actions that recurs often enough to be sustained. Asking a question using the interrogative mood often does elicit an answer. Speakers often conform to the convention of asserting things they believe, and hearers often take such conformity as a reason to believe the propositions they hear (trusted) speakers assert.18 Speakers can use particular expressions to perform the illocutionary acts one conventionally uses them to perform, and can direct hearers’ attention to situations or objects using expressions conventionally used to refer to those situations or objects. As long as these associations between intention, action, and uptake occur frequently enough they will be maintained. Speakers and interpreters will find it reasonable to rely on these patterns: speakers can use them to make their intentions in acting interpretable and to secure uptake in interpreters, and interpreters can use them to interpret the intentions behind speakers’ actions and to demonstrate their “uptake” in the way they respond to speakers’ actions. Thus particular expressions can have conventional uses even though they can be used, in cases of unconventional utterances, for other purposes (just as chisels can be used to turn screws, but are conventionally used for chipping precise pieces of wood). A pilot’s utterance of “the plane will be landing momentarily”, Dummett (1994, 265-6) argues, 18

This is the convention that undergirds successful communication according to Rysiew (2000): the convention that “speakers (regularly) intend to conform to the (further, target) regularity of only saying ‘S’ when they believe ‘S’ is true” (2000, 79). While Rysiew expands Davidson’s conception of the relevant conventions to include conventions wider than conventions about the meanings of words, Rysiew’s approach still takes speakers’ meanings and truth as central concepts. Many, many other conventions come into view when we move away from taking assertions as the paradigm illocutionary act and from taking meanings as the focus of speakers’ and interpreters’ activities. Rysiew, furthermore, still owes us an account of how interpretation of unconventional utterances is possible. He argues that “people try not [to] say, for example ‘That’s a nice derangement of epitaphs’ unless they take it that the object in question is a nice arrangement of epithets.” This, however, does little to illuminate how the hearer knows to interpret the speaker this way. (Well, it illuminates at least as little as Davidson’s claim that hearers “construct a convergent passing theory”.)

308

Mason Cash

shows that “momentarily” can be used to mean “in a moment” rather than as it is conventionally used, to mean “for a moment”. Davidson, as Dummett argues, is overly impressed by the fact that we can understand the pilot. The fact that we can understand a non-conventional use, however, does not entail a rejection of the notion that conventions are essential for such understanding. In fact, it emphasizes the conventionality, by highlighting what happens when the pilot’s aberrant use becomes common: it undermines the convention (the equivalent of “blunting” the chisel by using it to turn screws too many times), by undermining interpreters’ confidence that speakers follow the regularity. It becomes less reasonable to rely upon others’ conformity, causing uncertainty when the doctor says “you will feel a momentary pain” (is that a pain soon, or a brief pain?). These regularities precisely fit Lewis’s (e.g. 1972, 5-6) definition of a convention: a regularity of behavior to which people conform, because everyone conforms, this conformity perpetuated because of a common interest that such general conformity serves. The “everyone” here does not need to entail perfect, exceptionless conformity, however. A few exceptions can be tolerated, as Lewis notes (1972, 5), as long as it remains reasonable to expect that any particular performance conforms to the regularity. All of the above conventions are perpetuated because speakers often follow them in order to make their intentions recognizable to hearers, and because hearers are often successful in interpreting speakers’ intentions by presupposing conformity with these conventions. Thus in conventional cases it is still thanks to these conventions that a speaker can utter a particular expression and expect to be interpreted as they intend to be interpreted. The unconventional cases especially trouble Davidson, however. As I just noted, Davidson is especially impressed by our ability to deal with unconventional utterances. It remains to be explained how we are able to do this, and whether this ability relies indispensably on conventions. As I’m about to show, conventions are especially necessary for these cases.


309

Conventions that Enable Interpretation of Unconventional Utterances The fourth (and possibly the most serious) problem with Davidson’s argument is the particularly serious error of generalization he commits in moving from the (true) premise that it is possible that successful interpretation can happen when a particular convention is absent, contravened, ignored or abused, to the conclusion that successful communication is possible without any conventions at all. 19, 20 Let us charitably extend Davidson’s claim further than he has established, and grant for the sake of argument that for any particular convention, it is possible to ignore, break, or flout that convention, while communication is still successful. Even if this were the case (and it may well be), this would not establish his further conclusion that successful communication could happen in the absence of any conventions at all. My point here is that communication can happen when one convention is flouted, contravened, or is not known by both parties, only because the unconventional illocutionary act nonetheless conforms to a host of other shared conventions. It is by expecting, and finding, conformity to these other conventions that the hearer can interpret the utterance successfully. I now want to briefly catalogue some of these other shared conventions, and to highlight their role in enabling successful interpretation, especially of unconventional utterances. One essential kind of convention relates illocutionary acts to others’ illocutionary acts, as part of ongoing interactions. As Winograd and Flores (1986, 64) point out, the 19 This move is very explicit in C&C (e.g. 279) and repeated in NDE (445-6), and in SAL (e.g. 6), where he denies that sharing practices, rules or conventions are necessary for successful communication. 20 Rysiew (2000, 78) points out that many commentators – he cites Bennett (1985, 603), Bar-On and Risjord (1992, 186 n30) and Ramberg (1989, 106) – have accused Davidson of failing to distinguish between sufficient and necessary conditions in arguing that conventions are not necessary. They argue that while conventions might not suffice for linguistic communication, this does not mean that they are not necessary. Rysiew is correct in arguing that Davidson is “doing more than making the banal point that linguistic communication is more than a matter of conventional meanings of words” (2000, 78). He is, in part, arguing that communication is not at all a matter of conventional meanings of words. His initial premise is that no convention of the meaning of words is necessary for correct interpretation of unconventional utterances.

310

Mason Cash

regularities in language use are not regularities of coupling between a language user and an external world, but regularities of coupling between language users. Most interactions that involve the performance of illocutionary acts take the form of mutual leading-and-following patterns of action, response, and further response, very much like a cooperative conversational “dance”.21 I do something, intending that your “uptake” involve your recognizing what I did and “following my lead” by responding to the move I made. When you do so, I, in turn, follow your lead, responding to the move you make. Examples of such conversational “dances” include the sequence of action and response initiated by actions such as asking someone to do something, asking for an explanation of how to do something (and clarifying misunderstandings), suggesting a meeting (and negotiating a time and place convenient to all parties), and debating a controversial topic. When we look at such ongoing interactions between language users, conventions can be seen in the types of illocutionary acts that regularly follow one another. These conventions22 structure the kinds of actions – including but not limited to illocutionary acts – that are legitimate or appropriate responses to our partner’s moves, just as conventions about appropriate steps structure our interaction while waltzing, two stepping, or tangoing. Participants’ expectations are informed by familiarity with these conventions. These expectations guide interpretation of one another’s actions. The practice initiated by person A making a request of person B, that B do something is a good example of such a conventionally structured sequence of actions. Winograd and Flores (1986, 65) give this map (fig 1) of each of the linguistic23 moves in this practice, showing how each move opens up a limited number of expectable linguistic responses. For instance, after A’s REQUEST that B do a particular thing (at stage 2), A can expect that B’s next illocutionary act will be one of the “open” moves: B will either PROMISE to do it, COUNTER with an alternative to the act requested, or REJECT the request. Other possibilities include B’s questioning the intelligibility of A’s 21

For more on this metaphor of conversational “dances”, see Winograd and Flores (1986, 64-5). 22 Many of these conventions are probably better seen as norms that specify appropriate (not just effective) responses to others’ actions. At stake is not just successful communication, but social appropriateness. Someone who uttered true statements that have nothing to do with their fellow conversationalists’ actions, could well be “sanctioned” by being shunned, gossiped about, or committed to an asylum.


311

initial illocutionary act (“I didn’t hear you”), or rejecting the practice itself (“you can’t ask me to do that”). If A’s request is for something B can do verbally (e.g. provide information or make an evaluation) B’s utterance could simply be B’s performing the act requested. At stage 3, after B has PROMISED to perform the action, a subsequent utterance by B is likely to be one of only two appropriate moves. B is likely to either ASSERT that the action has been performed or RENEGE on the promise. This latter move itself initiates a different practice, whereby B can be expected to offer explanations or excuses, etc.

Fig. 1. The illocutionary acts involved in the practice of A asking B to do something. Adapted from Winograd and Flores (1986, 65).

These conventions governing what kind of move appropriately follows other moves within a certain practice, can play a crucial role in enabling hearers to interpret a speaker’s utterance. This ability to interpret an illocutionary act as the speaker making a conventional linguistic move in a practice, is one of the reasons that we are able to cope, occasionally rather smoothly, with the kinds of unconventional utterances that 23 Note that Winograd and Flores (1986) do not include the non-linguistic moves, such as B’s performing the act requested. Since an appropriate response to the illocutionary act of requesting someone to do something is to just do it (and not even need to declare it done), it would be appropriate to include these moves in the diagram as well, if we wanted to give the structure of the overall practice. However, as a guide to interpreting utterances, a map of the linguistic moves makes explicit the conventions that help one participant disambiguate the type of illocutionary act the other performs at a particular juncture in the interaction.

312

Mason Cash

Davidson brings to our attention. But the process often works in the opposite way to the apparatus of “passing theories” that Davidson proposes (see his Diogenes example; NDE, 335). The hearer’s ability to construct such a passing theory for interpreting a particular utterance, in a large number of cases, will depend on their first having successfully interpreted the whole illocutionary act within which the unconventional expression is employed. And this ability often depends on conventions like those that Winograd and Flores map. Conventions of what moves are open following other conversationalists’ moves, structure the expectations of each participant, and so enable them to interpret an utterance as the performance of an appropriate “next move”. The supervisor and I could interpret the electrician’s utterance of “Yeah, I’m ambiguous enough to do that,” by recognizing that he performed one of the open moves in the practice initiated by the supervisor’s RECOMMENDATION. Recognizing he that was accepting the recommendation that he use his left hand enabled us to deduce that he used “ambiguous” to do the job that “ambidextrous” would conventionally be used to do. These kinds of conventions of illocutionary means to perlocutionary ends can play a crucial role in enabling successful uptake of unconventional utterances, by working in reverse. For instance, they can help interpret an utterance as initiating or “keying” 24 a practice, by depending on mutual knowledge that a particular practice is one that people are likely to initiate in the present situation. For example, I could understand that my wife’s uttering “Can you grab the doohickey?” was keying the practice of asking me to do something: get and hand her the pizza-slicing wheel. I could do this because I recognized that the wheel was needed, and that asking me to pass the needed tool is a conventional move to make in a situation where she has her hands full and I, being closer to the drawer, am better able to do what needs to be done. Sometimes it is by noticing an end the speaker is likely to want to achieve in the present situation that a hearer can interpret their illocutionary act, as employing a means of achieving that conventional end And in some situations the speaker can employ rather unconventional means of achieving that con24 Zillian (1989, 111-14) discusses in detail such “keys” to the nature of a social situation. For example “The End” on the screen at a movie is part of the illocutionary act that “keys” a change of social situation by declaring the film over. Such keys, Zillian argues, “are either conventional or sufficiently similar to a conventional key to be intelligible”.


313

ventional end, trusting that the end is conventional enough to enable the hearer to figure out why you made that utterance. For instance, as you walk away from the open door that is letting the cool air in from outside, and which I think you should know I prefer to be closed, I can ask you to close the door by exclaiming “Put t’wood int’ hole!” (a colloquialism used by a childhood friend’s English mother). I expect that you could interpret my act of uttering this unconventional locution in this situation principally because you can recognize that I’m annoyed about something, and can figure out that it’s probably the door you have left open. Thus you can recognize that my utterance is intended to constitute the illocutionary act of asking you to close the door, because that’s a conventional aim to have in this situation, conventional enough that I can employ a somewhat unconventional means of achieving this further end. Conventions of means to ends like this are an important source of clues as to which illocutionary act a speaker intended their utterance to constitute. Conventions of intonation and body language can also help hearers recognize the type of move being made by an utterance. A rising intonation, for example, could be enough to indicate that “it’s raining” is intended as a question. Uttering this expression with a curt staccato intonation and a raised eyebrow can conventionally indicate skepticism, as a request for confirmation perhaps. Uttered with a groan conventionally indicates that the utterance is a complaint. Speakers can often rely on these conventions of body language and intonation to enable the hearer to interpret the kind of move made by their utterance. The conventions here are almost independent of the particular words used. (As an experiment, try saying “Hah” in several different tones of voice and intonation contours – pensive, protesting, laughing, accusatory, and so on. This syllable alone could be used to perform any number of illocutionary acts, depending on how it is used, by whom, in response to what, in what situation.) The success of these different illocutionary acts will depend on many subtle, often tacit, conventions of tone and body language, in addition to the conventions of action and appropriate response, appropriate actions in particular circumstances, and so on. In all the above cases, contrary to Davidson’s claim (NDE, 446; SAL, 6) that shared conventions are not involved in the construction of “passing theories”, such shared conventions are vital. Interpretation is enabled

314

Mason Cash

by these conventions, along with many others, with which the illocutionary act does conform and with which the hearer expects conformity. It’s interesting to note that the above considerations of how conventions enable interpretation entail a rejection of “standard” theories’ first principle (NDE, 436) that the meanings of sentences are systematic, in being derived from the meanings of the parts of the sentence uttered and the ways these parts are assembled. Davidson takes it for granted that we interpret speakers’ words, and use the words’ meanings to then interpret the whole utterance’s meaning, and then interpret the speaker’s illocutionary purpose (e.g. NDE, 334). It is no accident that Davidson believes this systematicity principle survives his consideration of unconventional utterances; though it needs to be “understood in [a] rather unusual way” (NDE, 446). Both the “standard” theories and Davidson’s apparatus of passing theories share a belief that human beings’ ability to interpret a potentially infinite number of sentences requires such systematicity. However, they ignore the fact that these sentences are available for performing a finite number of moves in language games. The conventions of what linguistic moves are “open” or expectable in a situation enable the process to work in reverse in many cases. It is only after first interpreting the whole illocutionary act, that interpreters can then assign particular functions (or “meanings”, if one insists on referring to such entities as meanings) to parts of the sentence uttered. From an interpretation of that whole illocutionary act as the making of a particular move (accepting the recommendation, rejecting a set of route directions as too complicated, asking me to pass something), the hearer can then determine the contributions of the parts (“ambiguous” is doing what “ambidextrous” would conventionally be used to do”; “turners to corn” is doing what “corners to turn” would conventionally do; “doohickey” is used to refer to the tool obviously needed right now, sufficing in this context to perform a linguistic function that “pizza-slicing wheel” would conventionally perform). This reversal25 is part of my reason for disagreeing with Davidson’s (NDE, 436) concentration on interpreting first meaning, as that which “a speaker necessarily intends” the audience grasp, and with his claim (NDE, 435) that interpreting the utterance’s “first meaning” is always the interpreter’s means of determining the speaker’s illocutionary act. Conversationalists’ ability to interpret utterances by first appreciating the illocutionary act the speaker performs (and perhaps not even bothering


315

to figure out the utterance’s “first meaning”), enables our linguistic interactions to be peppered with expressions like “thingamabob” “doohickey” and “whatchamacallit”. We can felicitously and effectively use such general “stand ins” when the overall illocutionary act performed is conventional enough, and so recognizable enough, that using these unspecific nouns is not a barrier to successfully eliciting the intended response from the hearer.

Mutual Knowledge of a Flouted Convention is Often Necessary for Interpretation A further counterexample to Davidson’s argument that conventions are not necessary for communication, is that in many cases where a convention is flouted or transgressed, mutual familiarity with the very convention that is flouted is essential to the hearer’s ability to successfully interpret an illocutionary act. When conversational implicatures (Grice 1975, 1989, ch. 2, esp. 30-37) are successful, it is only because of mutual reliance upon a convention and the speaker’s intentional flouting of that convention. The speaker can make a conversational implicature by flouting a convention (e.g. of quantity of information), expecting that the hearer can recognize that this convention is being deliberately flouted. This kind of case is a serious counterexample to Davidson’s argument that if a convention can be transgressed or flouted and successful communication is still possible, then that shared convention is not necessary for successful communication. Here the very convention that is flouted is a convention that the speaker and hearer both rely upon in order for the hearer to interpret the speaker as they intend to be interpreted. Mutual knowledge of the convention that is flouted is essential to successful communication using a conversational implicature. If this convention were not one that is gen25 The relationship between the correct interpretation of whole illocutionary acts and the particular jobs being done by expressions used is somewhat dialectic. Each level of interpretation can be used as a clue to interpreting the other. However, in terms of analyzing people’s conversational abilities and the conventions that support them, the interpretation of people’s illocutionary acts are of primary importance. Of secondary importance is the theoretical and analytical purpose of analyzing “the language” as a formal system, perhaps by determining what types of illocutionary acts particular expressions are well suited (conventionally) for performing.

316

Mason Cash

erally conformed to and essential for communication, this type of communication would not be possible.

Conventions are Necessary for Successful Linguistic Interaction Davidson’s argument that conventions are not necessary for language use, then, ignores the large raft of conventions that are essential for our ability to interpret people’s illocutionary acts. Davidson expects that if we are going to find shared rules, practices or conventions anywhere, we should find them governing candidates for the meanings of words. The candidates that Davidson identifies, however, he shows to be exceptionable; there are particular occasions of successful communication for which each is not necessary. Thus, he concludes, shared, pre-learned rules and conventions are not necessary for successful communication. However, the fact that a regularity is not perfectly regular does not mean, as Davidson supposes, that it cannot be a convention. Conventions do not demand perfect regularity. They simply require enough regularity that people can expect that others conform to them, and that such expectations are met often enough to encourage continued conformity to the convention. Furthermore, Davidson is incorrect when he denies (NDE, 445) that the ability to construct a convergent passing theory depends upon shared, pre-learned, conventions. Davidson argues that people construct passing theories, by employing “wisdom”, “knowledge of the ways people get their points across” and general “rules of thumb” (NDE, 446). However, he seriously underestimates the degree to which that knowledge and wisdom, and those rules of thumb are dependent on shared rules, practices and conventions. An extensive web of shared social and linguistic conventions in addition to conventions for the meanings of words provides essential support for our linguistic interactions. In particular, many conventions govern moves made in linguistic interactions and the linguistic means employed to make them. Interpreters can appeal to shared conventions relating particular expression types and grammatical forms to types of illocutionary acts they are conventionally used to perform. They can also appeal to shared conventions relating illocutionary acts to perlocutionary ends those acts are conventional


317

means of achieving. Conventions also relate social situations to practices people conventionally initiate in such situations, and to illocutionary acts that are conventionally performed in such situations to initiate these practices. Interpreters are also able to use conventions of action and appropriate response structuring practices the speaker and interpreter are already engaged in. The above examples, I’m sure, comprise a far from complete list of the conventions that speakers and interpreters rely upon in performing interpretable illocutionary acts, and in interpreting them. They do, however, significantly undermine Davidson’s claim that conventions are not necessary for successful interpretation. Especially in cases of unconventional utterances, when a particular convention is flouted, is transgressed against, or is unknown to the hearer, the hearer’s ability to successfully interpret the speaker’s illocutionary act depends upon the many other linguistic and social conventions to which this act still conforms. In such situations, interpretation is possible only because the illocutionary act conforms to many other conventions familiar to both speaker and hearer. It therefore is certainly not the case, as Davidson argues, that knowledge of the conventions of language is “a crutch which, under optimum conditions for communication, we can in the end throw away, and could in theory have done without from the start” (C&C, 279).26 An utterance that flouts, transgresses or ignores a linguistic convention is not evidence that shared conventions, rules and practices are not necessary to successful communication. In fact, such utterances highlight the ways that people depend upon such shared conventions, rules and practices to communicate with one another. In each case where a convention is flouted or transgressed, the illocutionary act performed conforms to a great number of other conventions. Many conventions (often including the one that was flouted or broken) are necessary to guide the interpreter’s theory about what the speaker meant to say, or should have said. Davidson’s contention that the conventions of language are merely a practical aid, but are not necessary, is highly questionable. We cannot do without them, and certainly could not have done without them from the start. 26 If this were the case, then these “optimal conditions” would have to involve some kind of telepathy, by which hearers can recognize speaker’s intentions directly, rather than needing to appeal to conventional clues as to their nature.

318

Mason Cash

Works Cited Austin, J. L. 1962. How to Do Things With Words. New York: Oxford University Press. Bar-On, D., and M. Risjord. 1992. Is there Such a Thing as a Language? Canadian Journal of Philosophy 22:163-90. Bennett, J. 1985. Critical Notice: Davidson’s Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Mind 94:601-26. Davidson, D. 1984 (C&C). Communication and Convention. In Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, 265-80. Oxford: Clarendon Press. —. 1986 (NDE). A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs. In Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, edited by E. LePore, 433446: Basil Blackwell. —. 1994 (SAL). The Social Aspect of Language. In The Philosophy of Michael Dummett, edited by B. McGuinness and G. Oliveri, 1-16. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Dummett, M. 1973. Frege: Philosophy of Language. London: Duckworth. —. 1994. Reply to Davidson. In The Philosophy of Michael Dummett, edited by B. McGuinness and G. Oliveri, 257-67. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Grice, H. P. 1975. Logic and Conversation. In The Logic of Grammar, edited by D. Davidson and G. Harman, 64-75. Encino and Belmont, CA: Dickenson Publishing Company. —. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Lakatos, I. 1970. Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. In Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave, 91-195. Cambridge University Press. Lewis, D. 1969. Convention: a Philosophical Study. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press. —. 1972. Languages and Language. In Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, edited by K. Gunderson, 3-35. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Millikan, R. G. 1984. Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, a Bradford Book. —. 1989. Biosemantics. Journal of Philosophy 86 (6). —. 1998. Proper Function and Convention in Speech Acts. In The Philosophy of P. F. Strawson, edited by L. E. Hahn, 25-43. Chicago: Open Court. Ramberg, B. 1989. Donald Davidson’s Philosophy of Language: An Introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Rysiew, P. 2000. Conventional Wisdom. Analysis 60 (1):74-83. Searle, J. 1968. Austin on Locutionary and Illocutionary Acts. Philosophical Review (October):405-424. —. 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Oxford


319

University Press. Simpson, D. 1998. Interpretation and Skill: On Passing Theory. ProtoSociology 11:93-109. Stainton, R. 1995. Philosophical Perspectives on Language. Peterborough, ON: Broadview. Strawson, P. F. 1964. Intention and Convention in Speech Acts. Philosophical Review 73 (4):439-60. Winograd, T., and F. Flores. 1986. Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation. Zillian, H. G. 1989. Convention and Assertion. In The Mind of Donald Davidson, edited by J. Brandl and W. L. Gomboc, 109-119. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

320

Ron Wilburn

Moral Realism, Supervenience, Externalism and the Limits of Conceptual Metaphor Ron Wilburn

Abstract In this paper, I articulate a form of moral realism that I take to be of special promise. I hope to show, not only that this realist position satisfies cognitivist, objectivist and success constraints, but also that this position is particularly commended by a number of recent apologetic strategies that have been more commonly deployed in the defense of other non-moral varieties of realism. To this extent, I aim to show that moral realism, far from being a desperate or quixotic position, is a perfectly natural extension of analytic philosophy’s efforts to reform itself in spirit of post-positivistic recovery.

I. Introduction By “moral realism”, I intend (using Sayre-McCord’s taxonomy) a cognitivist/objectivist/ success theory of moral factuality and knowledge.1 Cognitivism, on this account, is the view that moral claims have truthvalues. Objectivism, on this account, is the view that moral claims are not any different in kind (though perhaps in degree) from natural scientific claims in so far as their objectivity or realistic status is concerned. Naturalism, on this account, is the view that the property attributions made by moral claims are not, in any sense, supernatural. And success theory, on this account, is the view that such claims can be, in a significant number of cases, true. So understood, moral realism stands opposed to most of the metaethical accounts proffered in the 20th century analytic tradition. Emotivism and prescriptivism are condemned by cognitivism, as is relativism 1

Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey (1988), “The Many Moral Realisms” in Essays on Moral Realism, Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey (ed.), (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), pp. 123.

Moral Realism, Supervenience, Externalism

321

by objectivism, Moorean supervenience theory by naturalism and Mackie’s error theory by the success constraint. To be a moral realist is to believe that we can reliably make fact-stating assertions about the moral qualities of actions and agents in the world, that these statements, when true, are true in the broadly the same way that natural scientific claims are true, and that the moral qualities so predicated are, at some level, identifiable with (sets of ) natural qualities. Is moral realism, so construed, defensible? Since the mid-70’s a number of philosophers have endeavored to develop strategies for staging such a defense. In this paper, I articulate a form of moral realism that I take to be of special promise. I hope to show, not only that this realist position satisfies the cognitivist, objectivist and success constraints cited above, but also that this position is particularly commended by a number of recent apologetic strategies that have been more commonly deployed in the defense of other non-moral varieties of realism. To this extent, I aim to show that moral realism, far from being a desperate or quixotic position, is a perfectly natural extension of analytic philosophy’s efforts to reform itself in spirit of post-positivistic recovery. Let’s begin by canvassing a number of familiar themes that have enjoyed special play in the literature. Here I unabashedly aim to present a gloss that incorporates the best of what various theorists have suggested, not an account on which any particular theorist has made it a point to stake his or her sacred honor. The primary elements of this account are the (1) adoption of a Davidsonian truth-conditional semantics for moral language, (2) the primacy of thick moral concepts, (3) the role of homeostatic cluster concept analysis, (4) the role of supervenience analysis and (5) various themes that have been invoked to make moral realism plausible by reigning in its seemingly extravagant ontological demands. Note that much of what I have to say in these regards is far from original. However, it provides necessary background for what I hope to be useful contributions in the last several sections of this paper.

II. Truth-Conditional Semantics The adoption of a Davidsonian truth-conditional semantics for moral language is part of a broader movement in philosophy to recover semantic analysis from the seminal negative legacy of positivism, i.e., the failure

322

Ron Wilburn

of verificationism. This, of course, is the failure to provide, via decompositional analysis, necessary and sufficient conditions for the applications of terms. In the moral sphere, one sanguine legacy of the bankruptcy of verificationism is the following: We are left unable to clearly distinguish between allegedly factual and allegedly normative discourse. The former can hardly be distinguished from the latter on account of its verifiability if, strictly speaking, statements of no kind can ever be verified in isolation. Thus, the question arises: Why shouldn’t the consequent semantic fate of metaethics parallel the semantic fate of non-controversially factual discourse. In the case of allegedly factual discourse, fate has dictated a specific course: Verification procedures play no role in sentential meaning; rather, truth-conditions do. The idea suggested here is, I think, a significant one, as its runs afoul of a common assumption made concerning the post-Rawlsian resurgence of normative ethics, i.e., that this resurgence has occurred without the sort of justifying meta-ethical critiques that have recently served to make scientific realism more respectable. Thus, we are led to ask, why shouldn’t the meanings of moral claims be just as subject to truth-conditional analysis as allegedly purely descriptive claims. After all, our rationale for offering truth-conditional analyses of moral assertions, on this telling, is the same as our rationale for offering truth-conditional analyses of non-moral claims: Having failed to develop a plausible analyses of our moral statements in alternative terms, truth-functional analysis presents itself as the best, if not the only, game in town. Metaethical analysis sports a history of failure and indecision no less glaring than in any other area of philosophy. The jury is still out as to whether goodness-attributing utterances prescribe or express subjective feelings, attribute natural or metaphysical properties, or command choices of appropriate actions. And even when emotivist or prescriptivist analyses have been settled upon, their proponents are generally hesitant over their actual attempts to unpack particular utterances. As Arrington eloquently notes: “None of these analyses has carried much conviction, and almost all of them have been put forward by their authors as mere approximations to the sense of the sentence, practically an admission that the theorist has not quite gotten it right.”2 2 Arrington, R. L. (1989) Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press). I make considerable use of Arrington’s incisive synoptic account throughout this paper.


323

It was when such symptoms of deep failure came to haunt the semantic analysis of non-moral discourse that truth-conditional approaches acquired credibility for the simple solution they propose: take truth, not meaning or reference, to be basic and unanalyzed. Why, the moral realist asks, shouldn’t we, when posed with a similar problem for moral discourse, adopt a similar strategic line? This question, taken at face value, points to the naturalization of moral discourse, not in the Quinean scientistic and eliminativist sense of the term, but in the looser and more broadly applicable sense in which to naturalize a phenomenon is to analyze and explain it in terms that are on a metaphysical and epistemological par with those used to object-linguistically describe the phenomenon itself. In effect, the question asks us why we should assume that moral discourse is essentially different from more famililar, less problematic, areas of non-controversially descriptive discourse.3 Truth-conditional semantics is the model of meaning that was suggested by Tarski and brought to mature form by Davidson.4 It is a model whose guiding strategy is to avoid philosophical complication by taking our ascriptions of meaning at face value. On this account, to ask for basic sentential meaning is to ask for no more than appropriate truth conditions, and to ask for term meaning is to ask for no more than appropriate reference or satisfaction conditions (all under the qualification of semantic holism, of course: what is ultimately primary, on such accounts, is overall theory, against which T-sentential and referential ascriptions are only relatively settled). However, to ask for these things is to ask for no more than the relevant T-sentences and reference and satisfaction axioms of a Davidsonian theory of interpretation. The result is what McDowell 3

Of course truth-conditional semantic has had its detractors, e.g., the Wittgenstein of Philosophical Investigations and the Dummett of Truth and Other Enigmas, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978). In simply pointing to problems with verification-centered semantics, I am, needless to say, not pretending to respond to their objections. For the purposes of this paper, concerns for brevity and topical focus keep me from even trying to do this. Perhaps I may be excused for this, however, by the fact that I am less concerned to argue that truth-conditional semantics is true than I am to argue that it is no less applicable to our moral talk than it is for other sorts of discourse. 4 Tarski, Alfred (1983) “The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages,” in Logic, Semantics, and Metamathematics, rev. ed., trans. J. H. Woodger (Indianapolis: Hackett); Platts, Mark (ed); (1980) , Reference, Truth, and Reality (London: Routledge and Kcgan Paul).

324

Ron Wilburn

and Platts label “austere” semantics.5 T-sentences give us the literal meanings of the sentences they mention. They communicate sentential content, which can then be manifested in various ways through the performance of distinct illocutionary acts. Reference and satisfaction axioms then derivatively secure term meaning, but only at a higher level of speculative theoreticity. Two paragraphs back, I refer to the “naturalizing” effect of truth-conditional strategy for moral discourse. The first step of this naturalizing process is obvious: Truth-conditional analysis treats moral utterances as having truth conditions. This is important, even if susceptible to misconstrual. For one thing, the acceptance of a truth-conditional analysis of moral utterances does not, in itself, imply the acknowledgement of moral truths: T-sentences are biconditional, not unconditional, assertions. For another thing, such acceptance does not, in itself, imply that moral utterances are devoid of all non-descriptive import. On a truthfunctional account, the utterance “Boiling puppies for pleasure is wrong” might have the prescriptive import, say, that one should make it the case that boiling puppies for pleasure is wrong. But note that, even in this case, a truth-functional analysis weds speaker comprehension to a grasp of substantive truth conditions, i.e., a grasp of the notion of its being the case that boiling puppies for pleasure is wrong.6 The second step in the naturalization of moral discourse which is fostered by truth-conditional tactics concerns the parochial character of the interpretive act through which such an analysis would have us understand moral discourse in the process of explaining it. In any biconditional T-sentence explicating a claim of one’s own language, the left hand side mentions the very sentence that the right hand side uses (or a home language translation thereof ), thus explicating the meaning of the sentence in question in terms of that very sentence itself. For discourse generally, this is important because it precludes the sort of neutral analytic perspective that we might use to place ourselves at an 5

McDowell, John “On the Sense and Reference of a Proper Name” in Reference, Truth, and Reality; Platts, Mark (1979) Ways of Meaning, (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press), Ch. 10. 6 Arrington, R. L.(1989) Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism, p. 129. As Arrington notes here, it arguably makes little sense to say this. But, this fact, he notes, is more telling against prescriptive accounts of moral illocutionary force than it is against truth-conditional semantics itself.


325

agnostic distance from our familiar conceptual repertoire, thereby enforcing an ordinary reading of our own discourse, rather than the kind of reading that once seemed in the offing for positivists who held out for translations of ordinary talk into the alternative terms of some conceptually prior protocol language. For moral discourse, more particularly, this is important because it precludes the sort of neutral analytic perspective so commonly professed by non-cognitive metaethicists who have traditionally aimed to analyze the meanings of moral utterances without claiming to understand their alleged normative force. Such thinkers have generally maintained that they could explicate the meaning of moral language without themselves making the associated normative prescriptions. They could do this, they claimed, by simply saying what such language “really” comes to in the specialized lexicon of some prescriptivist or emotivist metatheory. On the austere account, however, the theorist finds it harder to pretend to hold his normative utterances at arm’s length in this way, making his aspirations to detachment problematic. Why? Consider an example. Suppose we offer as a T-sentence the following: “‘Boiling puppies for pleasure is wrong’ is true if and only if boiling puppies for pleasure is wrong”. On the austere account, we are here using the moral sentence cited on the left hand side of the biconditional to say, on the right hand side, what we mean by this very same moral sentence. We are engaged in an act of radical interpretation, effectively occupying dual roles of subject and interpreter to understand ourselves by employing the same kind of sentence to describe the conditions under which the claim is assertible as we use to asserting the sentence itself. And while this is not to say that the metaethical theorist must have precisely the same beliefs as his subjects, it is to say that the descriptions of the world that he relies on are of a kind with those invoked by his subjects. His interpretive strategy is to supplement the apparent understandings of his subjects to the end of theoretical tidiness, not to impose novel interpretations from scratch. The consequence of this approach is best stated by Wiggins: If the theorist believes his own theory, then he is committed to be ready to put his mind where his mouth is at least once for each sentence s of the object language, in a statement of assertion conditions for s in which he himself uses either s or a faithful translation of s.7 7 Wiggins, David (1998) “Truth, Invention and the Meaning of Life”, in his Needs, Values, Truth: Essays in the Philosophy of Value (Oxford: Clarendon Press), p. 13.

326

Ron Wilburn

In other words, according to the austere account, the normative sense of moral claims must be mentally entertained by any theorist who claims to understand the significance of his own moral T-sentences. If normative import is present in the sentence to be analyzed, normative import should remain in the analysis itself. So, what is the realist upshot of applying an austere, truth-conditional analysis to moral discourse? Here, we need to be careful, as sanguine hyperbole poses a clear and present danger. Such a strategy certainly doesn’t sponsor the acceptance of any particular moral theory. Indeed, it doesn’t, in itself, even require us to acknowledge the existence of moral facts: We could very well set out to provide an account of the circumstances in which the truth of “Boiling puppies for pleasure is wrong” obtains, but subsequently fail in the attempt, forced to conclude that this region of human discourse is, like selected others, fictional. What it does do, however, is force us to appeal to the actual resources of our existing moral discourse in our efforts to understand this very discourse. It then challenges us to provide an informative and coherent theory of the alleged objects of moral discourse in those very terms. Once again, a parallel with the non-moral analytic tradition is useful. In “Epistemology Naturalized” Quine describes the failure of the conceptual and doctrinal projects of positivist epistemology.8 Left unable to reduce the terms and derive the doctrines of empirical science to and from anything more certain, Quine recommends that we simply drop all reductionist pretence. The objects of our epistemological concern all along had been the stimulations of our sensory receptors. So, why, he suggests, shouldn’t we simply settle for an account of how our construction of theory from evidence really proceeds? Such an account, he claims, would be a doctrinal component of psychology itself, giving us license to make free use of empirical psychology in the course of pursuing our epistemology. In so “appealing to psychology”, Quine is invoking the nascent Davidsonian strategy of combining a thin conception of truth with a coherence theory of justification. The terms of naturalistic epistemology are to be understood like all terms, via second-order referential and denotative ascriptions, which are bounded only by flexible T-sentential ascriptions of semantic values to sentences and our ability, within these con8 W. V. Quine, (1969) “Epistemology Naturalized,” in his Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia University Press).


327

straints, to create a coherent account of how empirical knowledge might work. Quine recommends that we explicate our epistemic judgments within the psychological home language from which they originally arise. The ‘austere” approach to moral theory recommends that we do something quite similar, using the home language of ordinary moral talk to explicate the terms and judgments of moral discourse. Of course, parallel strategies motivate parallel challenges. So, just as Quine’s agenda becomes that of showing how natural facts and our knowledge thereof can be coherently explicated within the world view over which our common-sense and sophisticated scientific discourse ranges, the challenge of naturalized ethics becomes that of explaining how moral facts and knowledge thereof can be coherently explicated within the world view over which our commonsense and more sophisticated moral discourse ranges. Such challenges are substantive ones, those arising in the moral case no less so than in the non-moral. For, in both cases, although the reasoning allowed may be circular, it is not viciously circular: In neither instance is programmatic success assured. Consider the Quinean case. What we may call the “scientific skeptical” challenge (i.e., the challenge to natural science to demonstrate its own knowability on the assumption of its own precepts) is a truly formidable one. In the course of attempting to fill out and refine our intuitive physicalist picture of the external world and our interaction with it in a way that promises to explain how said interaction could yield us perceptual knowledge, there is a significant risk that we might end up undermining our initial knowledge claims. Thus it is that Quine’s proclaimed goal in naturalized epistemology is the defense of science, “from within, against its own self-doubts.” What we may call the challenge of “moral skepticism” (i.e., the challenge to moral judgments to demonstrate their own ontological and epistemic intelligibility and non-arbitrariness) is similar in kind, even if more daunting in degree. In the course of attempting to fill out and refine our intuitive picture of moral claim-making and reason-giving, we are obliged to say how our use of moral terms could be governed by moral states of affairs, and how the obtaining of these states of affairs is itself compatible with our reasonable Twentieth-Century view of the world as a place within which there is ultimately nothing but natural knowledge of natural properties. Moral judgment must be shown to be explicable in terms without invoking supernatural attributes or supernatural perceptual faculties, just as knowledge of science must be shown to be explicable

328

Ron Wilburn

without invoking Platonic Forms or mystical routes to apprehension. But, in both the moral and epistemological cases, the accounts we develop to show the possibility of our inquiries are allowed to use the respective vocabularies of their respective disciplines. And, although, this fact tells us nothing about where the project of moral realism may end up, it does us something very important about the resources with which our investigations may begin. Of course, the parallel with epistemology naturalized should not to be overstated. Quine’s goal, after all, is to dispense with normative for descriptive discourse, except in the minimal engineering sense in which means may be prescribed once ends have been simply chosen.9 But in other central respects the parallel is, as noted above, quite exact. Explication in terms of verification conditions is eschewed in the case of each, as is the pretension of ranking discourses into a hierarchy of more and less conceptually and epistemically fundamental. And, just as with epistemology naturalized, once, if ever, the task of meta-analysis has been completed by the moral realist, the much harder investigative work yet remains to be done. In the case of epistemological inquiry, this work consists in immanent projects of physical, developmental and evolutionary biology and psychology. In the case of moral inquiry, this work consists in the much less specialized project, pursued by each individual cognizer of the specifics of his own peculiar case, of deciding which contingencies make which moral imperatives peculiarly salient in his or her own situation.

III. Thick Moral Concepts It is only when we take the above-described primacy of truth-conditional analysis to be in place that the significance of insisting upon the invocation of thick moral terms (e.g., “loyalty”, “courage”) over thin moral terms (e.g., “good”, “right”) becomes apparent in moral analysis. For, unless we have already decided that our analysis of moral judgment is to employ the full resources of moral discourse itself, the richness of this discourse, in and of itself, is of little consequence. 9 Hahn, Edwin and Schilpp, P. A. , eds. (1998) The Philosophy of W V Quine, expanded edition (Chicago and La Salle, IL: Open Court Press).


329

Once the decision has been made, however, the consequence of this richness is immediate. Perhaps nothing in modern moral philosophy has done more to make non-cognitivism seem plausible than the analytic penchant for avoiding substantive psychologically tinged moral vocabulary for such skin-tight locutions as “the right” and “the good”. Psychologically tinged moral vocabulary, after all, was thought to be part of social science and thus no part of ethics. Thus, moral vocabulary was quickly relegated to the sorts of skeletally thin and general locutions that look to be criterially ungoverned. And, once these judgments are seen as criterially ungoverned, it is but a short step to the suspicion that they express nothing more than attitudes or feelings whose associations with objects and actions are so radically contingent and arbitrary that they lack any and all rational connection to the features of these objects and actions being judged. It is thus that the skeptical outlook on moral attribution comes to be seen as a natural one. For, after all, what kind of fact could it be that boiling puppies for pleasure is wrong? If wrongness is, say, merely a feeling of disapprobation or disgust, isn’t it the most contingent of accidents that we don’t happen to be so biologically and culturally constituted as to feel approval and pleasure at such acts of canine cookery. This is why moral realists have tended to focus on the sorts of substantial, “thick” moral concepts that have traditionally had the greatest play in discussions of virtue and character. To paraphrase Platt’s ubiquitous and wonderful invocation of Bovary-vintage Flaubert, “Moral language is like a cracked cauldron upon which we beat out melodies fit for making bears dance when we are trying to move the stars to pity.”10 To analyze what we mean by our moral terms, it is essential that we invoke the rich resources of our living moral vocabulary. Little is encoded into the Jack Handyish concept of a “good person”. However, much is encoded into the irreplaceable notion of “personal loyalty”. Whereas the former concept is too amorphous to be defensibly applicable, the latter term’s application is much more strictly delimited by public standards and defensible through reliance on the same, a fact enhanced by the truth-conditional approach which makes the meaning of “loyalty” no less substantive than the phenomenon of loyalty itself. The full meaning of “loyalty” is likely 10 The locution of “thick” and “thin” moral concepts was originally articulatred by arch moral antirealist Williams, Bernard (1985) Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge :Harvard University Press), pp. 144-145.

330

Ron Wilburn

to outrun the limited and colloquial understanding we have of this meaning at any given time, just as the truth value of claims about loyalty are likely to outrun the verification conditions we have for assessing them. It is this last feature that gives thick moral terms the semantic depth that realists regard as typically characteristic of discourses admitting of genuine discovery rather than mere invention. Platt’s characterizes the significance of semantic depth in precisely these terms of finding vs. formulating. Starting with our bare grasp of austere truth conditions, he tells us, we endeavor to sharpen our perception of individual implementations of loyalty, courage and the like.11 And, because this process continues without stopping, we are never allowed to become complacent in our applications of these concepts because we are never allowed to become cocky about our level of perceptiveness of morally salient properties and states.12 Semantic depth therefore signals to the moral realist a need to wrestle with a mind-independent world, the demands of which often surpass our current practical abilities. The sorts of differences of moral opinion that incline some to moral non-cognitivism are thus mere expected concomitants for the moral realist. We must expect to argue about such matters if they are factual. Only if we didn’t so argue would we have reason to worry, as this would probably symptomize the merely conventional status of our moral concepts. For the moral realist, this explains a great deal, particularly regarding the ways in which we come to learn moral language and form moral opinion. It explains, for instance, how we can apply a term like “loyalty” or “courage” in paradigmatic circumstances and yet not feel competent applying it in more nuanced cases until we acquire more real life experience. Much goes into the process by which a ten-year-old’s recognition of Rambo’s Technicolor heroics as courageous can blossom into a twentyyear-old’s recognition of an impoverished single mother’s stoical toleration of personal degradation to the end of keeping her struggling family together as courageous. We describe such recognitions as cases in which we come to discover what courage really is, or as cases in which we come to recognize broader family resemblances between various courageous acts. Thus it is that definitions of courage seem to admit of discussion 11 12

Platts, Mark (1979) Ways of Meaning, p. 246. Ibid., p. 225.


331

and disagreement about the nature of courage, whereas definitions of “the good” and “the right” often impress us as merely stipulated. Here, we would be well-advised to expand upon the Davidsonian parallels introduced in the preceding section. In the course of employing truth-conditional tactics to moral language, no less than in the case of empirical language, our ascriptions of others’ evaluative beliefs are operationally constrained by an effective need to view others as rational by assimilating their thought and talk to our own. In light of this, the employment of thick moral vocabulary is especially significant. For, while the relative vacuity of thin moral terms may imply little behavioral consequence, and thus much multiple interpretability, the relative substantiveness of thick moral terms implies just the opposite. I think this explains why it is often harder than relativists suppose to convincingly imagine an alien population that is both rational and immoral, or rational and amoral, by our own lights. Though I take the issue here to fall short of literal intelligibility (and to thus lack the sort of antiskeptical import sometimes attributed to it) there would seem to be no less reason to greet a speaker who invoked justice without displaying the slightest concern over equity (in recognizably ordinary circumstances) any differently than we would a speaker who invokes knowledge (once again, in recognizably ordinary circumstances) without displaying the slightest inclination to assent to such familiar Moorean banalities as “This is a hand.” In neither case would we know how to go on in the discussion. In both cases, we would sense a failure to abide by the terms of any plausibly attributable language game. It is thus that Davidson’s methodological stricture that speakers’ utterances must be interpreted as largely true as a precondition for plausible understanding applies to moral no less than to other cases. I suspect that such scenarios (involving rational and immoral, or rational and amoral, alien populations) seem clearly possible only to people who suppose that the descriptive and evaluative components of a moral term can come apart and recombine, willy nilly, in any combination. Thus, to paraphrase Foot’s example, the radical relativist supposes that we could easily recognize a moral attitude on the part of one who clasps and unclasps his hands five times a day (not by virtue of its ritual value within a determinate set of religious rights, for instance, but simply for its own sake). 13 I’m not sure that this would be recogniz13

Foot, Philippa (1978) “Moral Arguments”, Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in

332

Ron Wilburn

able as rational at all, any more than someone’s taking pride in the ocean (once again, without some background description of context in place that would make this attitude intelligible to us). The emphasis that new moral realists place upon thick moral terms is, in part, out of recognition of the fact that it is harder to imagine the descriptive and evaluative components of meaning coming apart in these cases. The evaluative meaning of “bravery” and “loyalty,” for instance, are firmly tied to limited sets of objective and public occasions on which these terms are applied. Whether or not one acts courageously on a given occasion, and thus whether or not one should commend an agent for his bravery, are relatively decidable matters. In any case, the preceding account of thick moral vocabulary isn’t intended to suggest that we should aim to eliminate all reference to “the good” and ‘the right” from our moral theorizing. Their place is secure, to be certain, but only as higher level moral terms whose content is specifiable only by way of the sorts of thick moral terms described above. This is a conception of things that is strongly conducive to the role of virtue theory in moral analysis. I will now turn to this relation.

IV. Virtues, the Good and Homeostatic Cluster Concepts Simply dispensing with all thin moral concepts such as “the good” and “the right” would be undesirable primarily for its tendency to sabotage any hopes we might ever have to describe relations between particular virtues. Thin moral properties are best viewed, I would suggest, as consequent upon the harmonious interaction of numerous other thick moral properties. Think of Aristotelian accounts of human flourishing, on which human well-being is given its most substantive characterization in terms of the harmonious interactive systematization of lowerlevel, mean-enforcing, desire-regulating character traits. On such accounts, “happiness” can be seen as only provisionally construed as “activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.” Though this isn’t an empty notion, it is clearly a willowy one that becomes fleshed out only by a more detailed description of how the operation of the virtues harmonizes potentially conflicting actions under a regulative principle of reason. Moral Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 115-118.


333

Richard Boyd has recommended a more concrete metaphysical and semantic framework within which the relations between lower and higher level moral properties can, I believe, be constructively pictured.14 Relying on recent non-naturalistic ordinary language semantics, he has suggested that we employ property-cluster or criterial attribute theories, on which moral terms are effectively defined by reference to collections of properties such that the possession of some adequate number of these properties is sufficient to fix the referent of the relevant term. On such accounts, our concepts of moral kinds would be significantly open-textured, exhibiting the essential imprecision or vagueness that is typically characteristic of ordinary linguistic usage. This indeterminacy would directly follow from the property-cluster form of the definitions at issue, as such definitions would be generated, not by stipulated necessary and sufficient conditions, but rather by fallible observations concerning pertinent contingent facts regarding inductively and explanatorily relevant causal structures. The operative intuition behind this account is that groups of properties are often contingently clustered as a result of their regular co-occurrence in a statistically significant number of cases. This clustering is, moreover, a function of these properties’ causal homeostasis: Either some of the properties of the cluster favor the presence of others under appropriate conditions, or else significant numbers of the clustered properties jointly result from common underlying properties. Clustering may also be causally significant in another way: important effects may result from these properties only when they are taken in combination, or when they are taken in combination with their underlying mechanisms and processes. Consider biological species, which provide perhaps the clearest examples of kind categories that are properly picked out by homeostatic cluster concepts. Canis lupus, the grouping that covers wolf-like canids including the domestic dog, exemplifies all the features described above. All wolf-like canids share homeostatically related physiological, morphological and behavioral properties. These properties regularly co-occur (e.g., canine teeth and body frames conducive to chasing and hunting). They largely result from common, underlying mechanisms (e.g., domestic dogs differ from gray wolves by at most 0.2% of their mitochondrial DNA). And many these properties systematically conspire to place pat14

Boyd, Richard (1988) “How to Be a Moral Realist”, in Essays on Moral Realism.

334

Ron Wilburn

terned limitations on canine forms of life (e.g., the ability to communicate intention through barking and posture and the propensity for juvenile play are just two of the stereotypical properties that presumably steer dogs into pack social structures). But, why believe that moral properties are like this? Why believe that “the good” or “human well-being” is a homeostatic cluster concept given substantive content only by a surrounding cloud of thicker, interrelated moral properties and relations? The main reason to suspect this regards the unity of the virtues. This is, of course, a monumental topic. Consequently, what I aim to say about it here is criminally preliminary and schematic. In this spirit of criminal schematism, consider a brief account recently offered by Stephen Duncan, itself closely modeled on the more substantial work of Nancy Sherman.15 Its brevity aside, Duncan’s account is commendable for a number of reasons, the foremost of which is that it invokes nothing in the way of human essences, final purposes or any of the other common Aristotelian metaphysical commitments that make virtue theory so initially suspect to the Twenty-First Century reader. Rather, Duncan assumes only that there is sufficient commonality among human beings to allow us to form enough approximately correct generalizations concerning human desire to identify a representative assortment of apparent goods. Our actual desires, on this telling, provide a starting point for our investigations. They launch our inquires in the right direction, as we seek to discern a hierarchy of reliance relationships among them in a way that ranks them into higher and lower. The items occurring within this range of apparent goods are familiar enough, directly adapted from the work of John Finnis.16 Identified as non-instrumental, directly pursuable and constituted by activities that are unsusceptible to assimilation by other activities which would give them greater satisfaction potential than they would otherwise have, they consist in the likes of knowledge, friendship, aesthetic activity, practical wisdom and recreation, leading to an account of the “happy life” as one 15

Duncan, Steven M (1995) A Primer of Modern Virtue Ethics (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America); Sherman, Nancy (1989) The Fabric of Character: Aristotle’s Theory of Virtue (Oxford: Clarendon Press). 16 Finnis, John (1980) Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press).


335

in which one participates, in a substantial way, in most or all of these lesser goods. Let me provisionally assume this list of goods for purposes of illustration. Note that I am not here assuming its comprehensiveness. I have, in fact, as little interest in identifying a specific class of primary goods as I will later have little interest in identifying a specific class of subvening virtues. Even though these are seminally important projects, they will have to wait for another occasion. My interest is exhausted by the claims, (1) that there are recognizable examples of each, and (2) that not just anything could be made to fit on these lists. So construed, I take the summum bonum, whatever the details of its nature might prove to be, to be a plausible example of a homeostatic cluster property. Consider, for instance, the mutual reinforcement that must undoubtedly accrue between friendship and the other three items on the short list above: friendship typically requires the active sharing of intellectual, aesthetic or recreational interests, just as the pursuit of these three interests typically requires mutual cooperation, and thus effective sociability with others. Or else, consider the ways in which recreation promotes the kind of physical and mental well-being that is typically necessary for the effective pursuit of intellectual and aesthetic agendas. Whatever else may be said of the “happy life”, it is clear, I think, (provided even minimal demands for tranquility, the importance of which we would all seem to acknowledge) that it is one in which a balance of activities and pursuits allows each component activity and pursuit to be engaged in more effectively than it would be if pursued in isolation. The thin moral property of human happiness is given substantive content by such thicker properties and relations as friendship and knowledge, in whose balance and mutual causal sponsorship the property of overall happiness accrues. On this account, the unity of the primary goods parallels more traditional accounts of the unity of the virtues. However, beyond this parallel, there is a more intimate relation between the two, as the former directly lead to the latter. We see this when we ask what leads to the primary goods? It is here, I would suggest, that the more standard list of Aristotelian-style virtues surfaces to play an essential supporting role: The primary goods, I would suggest, are effectively supported by the likes of courage and prudence, these being necessary for their pursuit. The virtues, on such a standard reading, are habitual strengths of character that promote human flourishing by effectively moderating between states of

336

Ron Wilburn

excess and deficiency in ways that allow us to more effectively pursue the primary goods themselves. When virtues are so understood, the thesis of their unity becomes a familiar one, as do supporting examples, particularly when we focus on the dual role that the virtues play in moderating both feeling and action. Think of the questionable effectiveness of courage without perseverance, or without good judgment regarding means and ends, or without a realistic appraisal of one’s own abilities. This very last example points to the long-recognized fact that, though not all virtues may be primary goods, some primary goods may also be virtues. Consider knowledge (which I have tentatively placed on the list of primary goods), and think of any given range of human activity in which practical wisdom is likely to be of use. For one’s pursuit of such an activity to be competent, one must manifest a considered understanding of this activity’s value and, therefore, a cognizance of the human benefits provided by this activity. This requires both practical and theoretical knowledge of one’s own nature, and of human nature more generally, as such information bears upon our own and others’ capacities for pleasure, pain, risk and benefit, and the various and sundry tradeoffs that must be made in the course of pursuing and avoiding them. Prudence is only made possible if one possesses such knowledge, as is courage, for its requirement that risks be taken only for ends that merit them. Similarly for kindness and generosity: We can exhibit either of these virtues only if we know enough about people and their circumstances to competently judge what would effectively benefit and encourage individuals. Thus, knowledge is, as well as an apparent good, a lower-level virtue as well. This supporting role of virtues to the primary goods makes it fair to speak of lower and higher-order moral properties and relations, the higher ones supervening on the lower. But, such talk brings out the worst in many. Thus, we need to turn to a topic around which much blood and venom has been shed, that of moral supervenience.

V. Supervenience The candidate moral goods gestured toward above (e.g., knowledge, friendship, aesthetic experience, recreation and the “human happiness” that results from their causal coordination) are far from unproblematic.


337

One temptation we might have is to say that they are not really moral properties at all, being clearly describable in non-moral terms. To say this is to question their normative standing. It is to question their moral status on the grounds that such alleged normative characteristics simply fail to arise on any characterization we might have of them that makes them intelligible and identifiable in the first place. It is, in effect, to raise Hume’s doubts regarding the derivation of “ought” from “is”. A recurrent approach to this issue has appealed to the mechanism of moral supervenience. Supervenience accounts, generally, have been developed in recent decades in an effort to defend a non-reductive physicalist worldview. According to the stratification aspect of these accounts, the world is a layered whole, organized from microlevel to macrolevel – from atoms to molecules to cells to organisms to conscious agents – via tiers of mereological ascendancy. According to the non-reductive aspect of these accounts, even though higher-level items may be no more than mereological composites of their lower-level predecessors, they are still often characterized by altogether new and different properties which effectively show these composites to be somehow greater than the sums of their parts. According to Kim’s articulation of the strong form of this relation, as applied to moral examples, moral properties supervene on physical properties, in that necessarily, for any moral property M, if something x has M at time t, there exists a physical base (or subvenient property set) P such that x has P at t, and necessarily anything that has P at t has M at t.17 More casually stated, moral supervenience requires that no moral changes can occur in the world without concomitant non-moral changes (though not vice versa). That is, every moral property has a physical base that guarantees its instantiation, even though a given moral property may be realized in numerous alternative physical bases. The hope here is to circumvent Hume’s concerns by making out some sort of non-derivational covariance connection between descriptive and normative properties. The normative punch of moral goods is taken to emerge, on such accounts, as a function of these goods’ purely descriptive characteristics, without being actually inferable from these descriptive characteristics. Of course, the immediate question that arises is the following: How 17 Kim, Jaegwon (1998) Mind in a Physical World : An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press), p. 9.

338

Ron Wilburn

could such a supervenience relation work? How could moral facts be non-contingently related to non-moral facts, and yet not be implied by them? Simon Blackburn, in particular, has dined out on this question for years, arguing that any such alleged relationship between moral and nonmoral properties serves to make moral realism, at best, mysterious and, at worst, incoherent.18 Moral facts become, a la John Mackie, “unpalatably queer”. Why is this? For Blackburn, the reason is that the sort of covariance that supervenience theory posits between descriptive and moral properties requires a logical connection where none is supposed to exist. For, without such a logical connection, the covariance that supervenience requires becomes much too contingent. For, if it is logically possible for an item to retain all of its naturalistic qualities and not have some particular moral status, then shouldn’t it also be logically possible for it to retain all of its naturalistic qualities while changing its moral characteristics. The motivation behind supervenience analysis, after all, is to ground our moral judgments, at some systematic level, in descriptive facts. And, for this we need it to be the case that were someone to claim that an item is “absolutely identical in every respect” with another item except “morally much worse,” this would “not merely be a moral mistake, but a logical one.”19 Moreover, we need it to be the case that, were an entity to change in its moral character, it would automatically change in its non-moral character as well. Otherwise, the moral realm would be left hanging above the natural realm by supernatural threads, as it were, bringing questions about the possibility of moral knowledge to the fore. As Mackie writes, some epistemic faculty would have to be postulated which allows us to “see at once the natural features that constitute the moral quality of the item, see the [consequent] rightness or wrongness [of the item], and see the mysterious consequential connection between the two.”20 To seek such a faculty, one might suspect, is clearly to tilt at windmills. However, I would like to suggest that Blackburn’s objections can be met once we recognize two things: (1) the a posteriori but necessary nature of the con18

Simon Blackburn (1971) “Moral Realism”, in Morality and Moral Reasoning (London: Methuen Press). 19 Ibid., p. 197. 20 J.L. Mackie, J.L. (1977) Ethics : Inventing Right and Wrong (Harmondsworth [England]; New York : Penguin).


339

nection between subvening natural and supervening moral properties, and (2) the truly radical multiple realizability of supervening moral qualities.21 Let’s consider each in turn. Consider courage, for example, an attribute that I tentatively present above as a lower-level moral property. It is presumably unproblematic that an individual’s manifestation of “courage” on a particular occasion consists in nothing more than the obtaining of various subvening personal dispositions against a background of various particular contextualizing circumstances. Thus (ignoring his more audacious and flamboyant heroics), Oscar Schindler’s courage consisted in his disposition to list children, housewives, and the otherwise unqualified as expert mechanics and metalworkers despite the constant suspicions of the Gestapo, which arrested him on a number of occasions for irregularities and Jewish favoritism. His performance of these actions was, in short, only courageous given various facts regarding his mental state, perception of his situation and exigent social circumstances. What’s suggested by such an analysis is a relation of token-token identity between subvening natural and supervening moral properties. Adopting a term of Platts’, we can say that Schindler’s disposition to falsify records effectively “fixed” his manifestations of courage, but only given the realistic sobriety of mind, genuine circumstance of risk, and personal perception of this genuine circumstance of risk in which he manifested it.22 Here, the moral quality at issue is not contingently related with its associated psychological disposition. It is identical with it, but only under quite specific circumstances. It is this specificity of required circumstances that largely fuels the second recognition above: the truly radical multiple realizability of supervening moral qualities. The terms of description here are carefully chosen. Moral multiple realizability is, indeed, especially radical, in that it proceeds along dimensions that generally fail to figure in more frequently cited cases of multiple realizability, i.e., those occurring in non-reductive but physicalistic theories of mind. Let me explain. Mind-body supervenience has, for the last three decades, been viewed by many as a perfect mechanism for reconciling the demands of physical21

Robert Arrington makes very similar observations, albeit in somewhat different terms: Arrington, R. L. (1989) Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism, pp. 146-152. 22 Platts, Mark (1979) Ways of Meaning, pp. 244, 253.

340

Ron Wilburn

ism and non-reductionism. Assuming Kim’s notion of “strong supervenience” cited above, this reconciliation is supposed to proceed as follows: Since one and the same mental property can have numerous physical bases, it may be grounded in various neural properties across species, across individuals, or even across different implementations in the same individual at different times. The ranges of such implementations do have limits, however. Unless we assume an extremely radical externalist theory of intensionality, the relevant psychophysical laws will always place substantive constraints on what can count as the realization of a given mental state. Assuming that the laws of nature are fixed, a given neural state must always constitute a specific pain state, irrespective of other facts concerning the sentient agent, her situational context, or her personal perception of her situational context. With moral supervenience, however, this is simply not the case. Consider again the strange case of Oscar Schindler. The propensity to falsify documents is seldom a candidate realizer of moral courage, properly eliciting commendation and regard. This fact is made even clearer by Shindler’s well-known moral and personal complexity (the man was something of a rake, scoundrel and profligate before finding his moral calling, and deciding to risk his wealth and safety in pursuit of it). The propensity to falsify documents can only realize moral courage in very particular circumstances, both situational and attitudinal. This propensity would not have been a realizer, for instance, if Schindler had been a chronic alcoholic: Most of us would agree that “drunken bravery”, and the subsequent ability to laugh while bleeding, doesn’t really count. Moreover, the social circumstances (with their threat of unspeakable consequences) as well as Shindler’s perception of these social circumstances, had to be much as they were. Much more is relevant to making a disposition a virtue, or to making a commodity or activity a moral good, than the relevant causal laws. I have argued in this section, albeit much too briefly, for two claims: (1) The relation between subvening natural and supervening moral properties is one of token-token identity, and thus both a posteriori and necessary, and (2) The multiple realizability of moral properties is more extreme than the that more commonly invoked to relate the mental with the physical (or to hierarchically arrange any of the special sciences, for that matter). I have argued for these claims, moreover, in response to Blackburn’s allegations that invocations of moral supervenience generate


341

more confusion than clarity. The subject matter of morality, I maintain, is particularly conducive to supervenience analysis; more so, in fact, than the subject matter of psychology, due to the more radical multiple realizability of its defining predicates. I would, moreover, agree with Platts that this multiple realizability is extreme enough to make moral situations, for all practical intents and purposes, unrepeatable. As Platts notes, there is a reason why, in ordinary moral life, our problem is not typically that of squaring our present judgments with our previous judgments, but that of attending to the full, unobvious complexity of the present case.”23 It is almost always through reference to an inimitable combination of natural, subvening situational features that we formulate and justify our moral proclamations. It is in this last fact that we are provided the resources with which to answer Blackburn: Even though a particular set of physical features occurring in a particular situational and perceptual/attitudinal context may be what makes for a good, or goods-promoting virtue, by being literally identical with it, it is pointless to speak of a logical or derivational connection between the two. For, once we shun bad faith, we realize that criterial rules in the moral realm are never more than rules of thumb. Lacking effective universal generalizations, the demand for law-like derivational connections between natural and moral claims becomes empty. For, even more than in the psycho-physical case, type identity demands are unreasonable here. This point bears upon the plausibility of our claims, above, regarding the primacy of thick moral terms. Bruce Brower has argued against the tactic of invoking thick moral vocabulary to support moral realism by arguing that one can be a realist about the properties referred to by the likes of “courage” and “kindness”, without being an ethical realist as a consequence.24 Why? Because the conditions governing the application of virtue terms can be shown by thought experiments to be completely descriptive in character. Through these thought experiments, we are asked to envision possible worlds in which actions remain constant, but background circumstances change. As a result, actions that would normally count as courageous or kind regularly lead to consequences that render them either not worth the risk or else regularly conducive to pain. 23 Ibid., p. 54. 24 Bruce W. Brower (1988) , “Virtue Concepts and Ethical Relativism”, The Journal of Philosophy, Volume 85, Issue 123 (Dec., 1988), pp. 675-693.

342

Ron Wilburn

As a result, Brower concludes, our emotive appraisals of these actions drastically change, challenging the non-descriptivist contention that thick moral terms’ descriptive and normative semantic contents are inextricably linked. The critical relevance of supervenience analysis to Brower’s objection is immediate. Virtues, being radically multiply realizable, are not to be identified with their cross-world implementations. Background laws, circumstances and social/psychological variance make all the difference between genuine and phony implementations of courage. Brower’s observations, far from providing an objection to the moral realism defended in this paper, provide a defense of it, at least once we acknowledge the radical context-dependence that characterizes our a posteriori characterizations of what makes for the likes of courage on particular occasions.

VI. Does Supervenience Explain Anything? Look. Suppose you grant everything I’ve asked for (which, given the sketchiness of my account, would be very charitable indeed). What then emerges is an account on which, using the substantive conceptual content provided by a truth-conditional analysis of our thick moral language, we identify a number of human goods, making up a homeostatic property cluster, arrayed above a larger number of subvening goods (i.e., the goods-conducive virtues), themselves literally just identical to baser subvening natural properties, whose implementations literally constitute them, given the situational, attitudinal and perceptual circumstances in which they are realized. A question still remains: How does this make for moral realism? The concern here is Jaegwan Kim’s.25 In recent writings, Kim has eloquently argued that supervenience accounts, though seemingly elucidatory, are really nothing of the kind, since they effectively spotlight a fundamental question that they do nothing to answer: What is the relation between lower and higher level properties? Consider mind/body matters. Many philosophers have invoked supervenience in this connection, that is, the 25 Kim, Jaegwon (1998), Mind in a Physical World : An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation, p. 9.


343

idea that there can be no mental differences without physical differences. Taken in conjunction with the above-described stratified model of reality, this idea generates the mereological supervenience thesis: Properties of wholes are fixed by the properties and relations that characterize their parts. Proponents of this thesis have hoped that it might serve to explain the relation between the mental and the physical. But, this hope is forlorn, Kim argues, because to maintain mereological supervenience is merely to attest to co-occurrence. It is to assert nothing more than the existence of “phenomenological” relations of property co-variation that offer nothing in the way of an informative account of why such co-variation occurs. For this reason, mind-body mereological supervenience resists the mind-body problem instead of supplying a solution to it. It merely restates the very problem we seek to answer, albeit in a somewhat pithier form. To solve the mind-body problem, we need to note more than that mental properties simply vary with physical properties. We need to explain how and why the former depend on the latter. For Kim, this challenge has led to one of the most interestingly ironic inferential inversions in recent philosophy of mind. Where many other writers on this topic (including Kim’s own previous incarnations) have been tempted to view supervenience as a segue to non-reductive theoretical autonomy, Kim is now inclined to view it as a segue to reduction. His reasoning, specifically regarding psychophysical relations but clearly generalizable to all cases of tiered property relations, is as follows: If a functional, supervening property is identical, wherever it occurs, to the physical property that implements it on that particular occasion, then its causal powers must simply be those of said physical implementation. But, if this is the case, then we would seem to be at a loss to say what supervening properties add. Functionalizability, on Kim’s telling, merely informs us that a reduction is in the offing. The question this raises concerning my account is immediate. If Kim is right, then the account I have been developing can merely gives reason to regard higher-level moral properties as fictitious, at least insofar as their allegedly emergent moral status goes. Why? Because, on Kim’s account, to say that moral properties supervene on natural properties is to note nothing but their co-variance, and to implicitly explain this co-variance solely in terms of token-token identity. But, to say this is concede, on Kim’s account, that supervening moral properties should be summarily dispensed from our ontology as causally idle?

344

Ron Wilburn

This is a significant challenge? Can it be dealt with? First, let’s consider the accusation of causal idleness, as this will lead nicely to larger concerns. Consider this accusation, as more specifically articulated by Harman.26 On Harman’s formulation, the problem for moral realism stems from our inability to deduce moral facts by way of inference to the best explanation. Why? Because claims such as [(Susie’s doing A in circumstances C is just) → (Fred believes that Susie’s doing A in C is just)] can always be replaced by claims such as [(Susie doing A in circumstances C is an action that Fred believes to be just) → (Fred believes that Susie’s doing A in C is just)]. The point here is obvious enough: Why explain an agent’s moral beliefs or related actions by reference to moral properties when we can explain them less mysteriously in terms of other moral beliefs? Moral beliefs are mere psychological states, after all. Their origins would seem to admit of thoroughly naturalistic explanation. And their causal efficacy would seem to be much easier to account for than that of alleged supervening moral facts or attributes. Harman’s objection is, in effect, a more localized version of Kim’s. He asks, more particularly, how we can justify invoking moral facts to explain the occurrence of our moral knowledge and belief. To respond to each of these appraisals we need to develop a richer account of what moral realism is supposed to actually entail. To this end, we require a more substantive account of what our moral realism is supposed to be. Thus, we need now to turn to this question.

VII. Alternative Realist Construals One such possible account is paved by recent interpretations of Investigations-vintage Wittgenstein that depict language as a social practice unconstrained by external standards.27 On this view, particular language games, or discourses, delineate their own assessment criteria, circumventing the traditional metaphysical impulse to confront them with ex26 Harman, Gilbert (1977) The Nature of Morality: An Introduction to Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press), Chapter 1. 27 McDowell, John (1981) “Non-cognitivism and Rule-Following,” in S. Holtzman and C. Leich, eds. (1981), Wittgenstein: To Follow a Rule (London: Routledgc and Kegan Paul).


345

ternal standards of assessment proper to wholly altogether different discourses (e.g., the physical sciences), to which special objective status has been traditionally accorded. On this account, our inferential procedures are thoroughly human activities, normatively (rather than causally) regulated, and thus subject only to the standards of legitimacy that we internally describe and utilize from within the discourse at hand, rather than from some external evaluative standpoint that is only fueled by external standards. Of course, an immediate consequence of this view is that no privileged, neutral perspective is left standing from which we can survey and pass judgment on the epistemological and ontological findings of all particular discourses. Adopting such an account would clearly help me in my efforts to avoid the criticisms of Kim and Harman (which are, again, just variants of the same insight). In response to Kim, I might claim that supervenience relations serve, at least sometimes, to forge connections between distinct discourses, which nonetheless remain governed only by their own internal criteria of metaphysical and epistemological assessment. In response to Harman, I might claim that the parochial, scientific criteria through which he negatively assesses the plausibility of ascribing causal powers to moral properties is illicitly generalized by him to range across all of discourse. Causal inferences, just like classificatory and descriptive practices, proceed from parochial human interests and capacities, and are thus legitimized, like all inferences, only from within their own humanmade normative canons of evidence. Consider Sabvina Lovibond’s defense of such tactics, as she endeavors to reinstate parity, of sorts, between moral and scientific reasoning by appealing to the fact that, in the case of both, our claims and conclusions are equally responsible to contingent and public evidential norms.28 In this connection, she has us consider A.J. Ayer’s demonstration that “moral argument” is really just empirical argument operating from within a context of common pre-rational attitudes and dispositions. On Ayer’s telling, we do not really argue about moral facts when we endeavor to steer another to a specific prescriptive conclusion. All we really do is point out pertinent empirical facts (i.e., “This child has been abused and neglected”) to the end of bringing the listener to a particular decision 28 Lovibond , Sabina (1983), Realism and Imagination in Ethics (Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press).

346

Ron Wilburn

(i.e., “society is obligated to help this child”). In pursuing this strategy, we implicitly count on having a shared background training and acculturation with our interlocutors. It is only thus that we feel that we can count on shared factual observations to lead to shared reactions of moral sympathy, pity, disgust and outrage.29 Lovibond’s response to this line is striking in its irony, as she notes that this is “just the picture drawn by Wittgenstein in connection with every manifestation of the activity we call ‘reasoning’.” Why? Because on Wittgenstein’s account, “scientific, and even mathematical, rationality turn out to consist in nothing more than conformity to the consensual norms of valid reasoning that happen to apply to the appropriate field of study.” In other words, all inferences in all fields are ultimately regulated by sets of trained propensities constituting “forms of life,” none of which can be fairly judged as particularly irrational or arational from the standpoint of another. But, is this view credible? The picture painted by Lovibond is fuzzy, to say the least. To bring it into clear enough focus to honestly evaluate it, we need to know what her charged invocations of “practices” and “discourses” and “forms of life” really turn on? I would suggest that her view is credible only if we settle upon certain assumptions about rule-following, best articulated (albeit not endorsed) by John McDowell; assumptions which, I would maintain, we should be wary of making.30 Consider Wittgenstein’s response to the famous rule-following puzzle that he himself raises, both puzzle and response familiar from such passages such as the following: It can be seen that there is a misunderstanding here from the mere fact that in the course of our argument we give one interpretation after another; as if each one contented us at least for a moment, until we thought of yet another standing behind it. What this shows is that there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibited in what we call “obeying the rule” and “going against it” in actual cases. Then can whatever I do be brought into accord with the rule?“ – Let me ask this: what has the expression of a rule – say a sign-post – got to do with my actions? What sort of connection is there here? – Well, 29 Ibid., p. 44. 30 McDowell, John (1998) “Wittgenstein on Following a Rule”, in his Mind, Value, and Reality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998) pp. 221-262. McDowell attributes this reading to Crispen Wright.


347

perhaps this one: I have been trained to react to this sign in a particular way, and now I do so react to it. 31 But that is only to give a causal connection: to tell how it has come about that we go by the sign-post; not what this going-by-the-sign-post really consists in. – “On the contrary; I have further indicated that a person goes by a sign-post only in so far as there exists a regular use of sign-posts, a custom.32

The non-interpretive customs that Wittgenstein is taken by some to invoke here are thoroughly non-cognitive and non-normative in character: They are a bedrock of dispositions to behavior, shared feelings of constraint and common perceptions of salience, that lead to similarities in response.33 On such a view of rule-following, Lovibond’s account of parity between moral and scientific reasoning is perfectly motivated, since the reasoning that governs both ontological reification and prescriptive moral inference becomes no better than scientific reasoning, since both are shown to be ultimately pre-rational. However, this is not a line I feel free to take, for at least three reasons. First, I find myself undecided as to the plausibility of the alleged “resolution” of rule-following puzzles to which this account commits us, both because of its intrinsic implausibility and because of Wittgenstein’s own unclarity in this regard. Second, such a tactic aims to put scientific and moral discourse on a par by, effectively, deflating both: They are equally realistic, but only to the extent that neither is realistic at all. Third, such an account would, on the face of it, seem to be incompatible with our previous invocation of truth-conditional reading of moral discourse. So, let’s think a little more closely about what we should take “realism” to mean. Of course, given the variety of brands and flavors in which realism comes these days, to invoke “realism’, per se, is, as Wright notes, to do little more than utter an inarticulate noise.34 So, before proceding, let’s briefly canvass an abridged spectrum of realist positions. This promises to better display our available options. 31

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1997) Philosophical Investigations; translated by G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: UK ; Malden, Mass. : Blackwell), ss. 201. 32 Ibid., 8. 33 McDowell, John (1998) “Wittgenstein on Following a Rule”, in Mind, Value, and Reality, p. 241. 34 Wright, Crispin (1992) Truth and Objectivity (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press), p. 1.

348

Ron Wilburn

At the apex of such a spectrum, we might place the “pure inquiry”vintage views of Bernard Williams.35 On this account, the realm of morality and its ilk contrasts with the “absolute conception” of ideal natural science, which aims to describe “how the world is anyway”, completely irrespective of whatever pragmatic, conceptual and attitudinal filters through which we are inclined to conceptualize and describe it. This is an account of the world which contains, as a proper part, an explanation of how and why the world seems to us to be as it is. Against this standard of objectivity, of course, moral discourse is simply not credentialed to describe reality, as it lacks the objectivity of ideal physical science. At the nadir of our spectrum of positions, we might place the new pragmatism of Richard Rorty, who argues, in many ways, along the same lines of Lovibond. Like Lovibond, Rorty levels all claims to special objectivity through a strategy of universal deflation. While excluding much of philosophical enquiry from legitimacy on the pragmatic ground that its questions admit of no interesting answers, Rorty nonetheless maintains that numerous different disciplines enjoy equal claim to “objectivity,” namely, none at all.36 As a consequence, science cannot be singled out as an intellectual center. It cannot be used as a stance from which to critically assess the ontological or epistemological pretensions and practices of other discourses. There is, on Rorty’s account, no identifiable “scientific method.” Sciences, like all disciplines, are geared to the end of solving particular kinds of problems, presupposing their own doctrines and standards in the course of doing so. On Williams’ account, moral discourse enjoys no realistic standing of any kind, because it lacks the sort of all-or-nothing objectivity to which only an ideal natural science could aspire. On Rorty’s account, moral discourse enjoys no realistic standing, but neither does any other discipline, making moral discourse no worse for comparison. In addition to these positions, moreover, there is a third way, broadly suggested by the “pragmatic realism” of Hilary Putnams since 1980 or 35

Williams, Bernard (1978) Descartes: the Project of Pure Enquiry, Harmondsworth (Eng.: Penguin Books; New York: Viking Penguin). 36 Esp. in Rorty, Richard ( 1979), Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press); Rorty, Richard (1982) Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), and Rorty, Richard (1989) Contingency, Irony, Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).


349

so.37 On this account, objectivity is conceived as along a continuum, with mathematics and hard science at the top and ethics lower down. By allowing for such realism by degree, Putnam aims to accord physics the particular respect it deserves, while yet maintaining a lit candle for other disciplines, which, because they participate in objectivity, but to a lesser degree, still retain a right to be taken seriously. Now, what are we to make of these three options? It is clearly a mistake to regard physics as the absolute conception. Putnam’s Jamesian arguments make a very strong case for the implausibility of such a view, by noting how we only countenance scientific facts upon the adoption of various pragmatic values that determine what “true” theories should look like.38 When we take true theories to be the simplest ones, for instance, or those theories with the greatest degree of unifying comprehensiveness and power, we are no longer even pretending to describe the world except through the mediation of various pragmatic, conceptual and attitudinal filters. Thus, the pure inquiry option is clearly bankrupt. What about Rorty’s option? I take this also to be implausible. We cannot reasonably maintain that natural science fails be distinctive in the proximity of its ties to observation, or in the features that follow from this proximity (such as conceptual clarity, relatively rapid convergence of scientific opinion and cumulative advance over time). It is not enough to say that scientific discourse serves its ends and moral discourse serves its ends, and that these services and ends are simply incommensurable. For, the ends are importantly distinct from each other, as are the levels of service. The ends of science are settled much less incontrovertibly than the ends of ethics: To thrive, scientific theories require much more in the way of direct cooperation from non-human reality. It is much harder, as it were, to simply fast-talk one’s way out of a predictive failure when dealing with a scientific theory than when dealing with a moral theory. As for levels of service, we need only consider the fact that, even though science can be distorted by prejudice and wishful thinking (think of N37 See esp. Putnam, Hilary (1983) Realism and Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Putnam, Hilary (1983) The Many Faces of Realism (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court); Putnam, Hilary (1988), Representation and Reality (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press); Putnam, Hilary (1995), Realism with a Human Face (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press); and Putnam, Hilary (1995), Pragmatism:: An Open Question (Oxford, UK : Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell). 38 Hilary Putnam (1995) Pragmatism: An Open Question Oxford, esp. Ch. 1.

350

Ron Wilburn

rays, and the Nazi biologists who claimed to find demonstrable differences between Aryan and Semitic blood cells), such discoveries always make for big news in scientific circles. In ethics, they are treated as par for the course. Thus, I take Rorty’s account to be also untenable. What about Putnam’s account, on which objectivity is a commodity that comes in degrees. Such an account certainly recommends another possible direction for us. Pursuing this option, we would tell the following story. Physics, as we have noted, cannot be Williams’ “absolute conception”, since it is a view of things that is necessarily filtered through pragmatic, conceptual and attitudinal filters. Thus, from the standpoint of the absolute conception, the world of physics, strictly speaking, is indeed a realm of illusion. But, even so, we might maintain, this shows not that objectivity is an illusion, but that objectivity comes in degrees. According to such an account, as microphysics is true from the standpoint of creatures who value simplicity and explanatory coherence in their physical theories, it is also the case that the world is in color, albeit only from the perspective of visually sentient creatures. We might suggest something similar for the realm of morals. Moral values exist from the perspective of creatures like us, where we are made the creatures we are, in part, by the propensities for sympathy and moral conceptualization that we inherit with our mothers’ milk and subsequent socialization. Thus, the study of morality is a study of objective facts to the extent that moral theory consists in sets of statements that describe, truly or falsely, selective aspects of how the world, as a matter of fact, is experienced by creatures like us. Something akin to John McDowell’s “second nature” accrues to human beings as a result of the moral training that informs any recognizably human life. This, in turn, is what allows us to employ the substantive conceptual content provided by a truth-conditional analysis of our thick moral language. In this way, we identify a number of human goods making up a homeostatic property cluster, arrayed above a larger number of subvening goods (i.e., the goods-conducive virtues), themselves literally just identical to baser subvening natural properties, whose implementations literally constitute them, given the situational, attitudinal and perceptual circumstances in which they are realized. What makes talk of moral factuality true to the experience of human beings, as it were, is the very fact that the recognition of these situational, attitudinal and perceptual circumstances define the common human perspective from which a moral


351

point of view on the world becomes possible. Moral truth is thus only appreciable, indeed only present, from the standpoint of mature human beings, not (as far as we know) from the standpoints of Borgs, Martians or sentient dolphins. This might sound like unpalatable relativism. But, this is the case, we might insist, only to those who take the purpose of moral discourse to be something other than that of letting human beings get along with each other and to aid one another in the pursuit of common goals. Moral discourse describes the world as perceived by a certain kind of creature with certain kinds of developed capacities. It should not be expected to describe anything else or anything more. Let’s call the above the objectivity-by-degrees account (henceforth, “OBD”). Now, OBD certainly has its appeal. For, it at least endeavors to walk the very thin line that spans our two major conflicting intuitions about moral factuality: that such factuality, though not completely imaginary, is still less entrenched in the non-human nature of things than is the factuality of natural science. But is OBD tenable in the form described above? Let’s consider one line of reasoning for the claim that it isn’t. To this end, we need to think more closely about the continuum of objectivity that ethics and physics are both supposed to occupy, according to OBD, which putatively allows them to differ only in degree, but not in kind. The prompting observation behind this account is, again, that the “pragmatic, conceptual and attitudinal filters” through which our description of the moral realm emerges is no different in kind from the pragmatic, conceptual and attitudinal filters through which our description of the natural scientific realm emerges. There are merely additional and more densely packed, somehow, in a way that makes our moral judgments more subject to the biases and selective interests that define the human condition. But, this, we must admit, is a dubious contention, particularly when we consider the limitations and contradictions implicit in the perceptual metaphors we have used throughout our characterization of OBD above. To speak of moral knowledge as mediated by situational, attitudinal and perceptual filters is, in itself, fine: Knowledge often begets knowledge by enabling receptive and recognitional capacities that would not otherwise be in place. A fatal slide occurs, however, when we move from this modest epistemic claim to our more problematic metaphysical talk of moral values as things that exist only from the perspective of creatures

352

Ron Wilburn

like us, made what we are by the propensities for sympathy and moral conceptualization that we inherit with our mothers’ milk and subsequent socialization. Think of the parallel with secondary qualities. Colors also exist only from the perspective of color-sensitive perceivers like ourselves. However, unlike the pragmatic filters of simplicity, explanatory scope and the like, through which the basic shape of scientific theory is delineated, colors can be nothing but projections. It could not be an intrinsic feature of the non-perceived world that it is colored, after all, color being a property that characterizes, not the world itself, but perceivers’ experiences (or experiencings) of the world. In contrast, the world could very well be as described by the simplest, most conservative and most explanatorily unified physical theory that we might be able to cook up. We may, of course, never know that the world is like this. But this, again, is a modest epistemic fact of no immediate relevance to the ontological issues of present concern. The relevance of this to moral property ascription is obvious. Such ascriptions’ metaphysical queerness would seem to make them more like the redness we attribute to apples in our choice of phenomenal predicates than the simplicity we attribute to the world in our choice of natural scientific concepts and laws. The problem that consequently arises for OBD is that we are unable to make out the idea that there are “pragmatic, conceptual and attitudinal filters” informing moral theory on the same continuum as the “pragmatic, conceptual and attitudinal filters” that inform natural science. The world described by moral theory cannot be the same world as that described by natural science, different from it only in the degree of distortive bias through which its predicates and laws are chosen. The normative character of moral properties, no less than the phenomenal character of perceived chromatic properties, would seem to exile them from the objective realm. Note that the problem here is not a problem, per se, with the idea that objectivity might come in degrees. The objection that objectivity must be an all-or-nothing affair is, in itself, no more consequential than Peter Unger’s assertion that knowledge, being the designation of an “absolute” term (like “flat” and “vacuum”) must be an all-or-nothing affair.39 We can easily meet this sort of maneuver by simply shifting the focus of our concern to some philosophically 39 Unger, Peter (1975) Ignorance: A Case for Skepticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press), Ch. 2.


353

more significant notion (just as Williams and others have suggested that we counter Unger’s criticisms by shifting from questions about knowledge to questions about justification).40 The objection we are considering here is seemingly more intractable than anyone’s mere carping over the use of the word “objective.” For, it is the objection that, unlike, say, ascriptions of simplicity to the world, ascriptions of value to the world cannot conconceivably describe how the world could even possibly be. The nature of moral values makes them particularly subject to the accusation of projective error. Unlike the ascription of the likes of simplicity to nature, their ascription is founded upon a deep confusion between the character of one’s experiences and the character of the objects being experienced. It would seem, then, that OBD, in the form described above, is inadequate to the task of supplying a segue to moral realism. It does us no good to conceive of moral reality as merely less objective than natural scientific reality. At least, doing so would seem to offer no substantial advantages over making moral properties unqualifiedly real?

VII. Limits of Perceptual Metaphor Can such a picture of unqualifiedly real moral facts be intelligibly made out? I think that the answer to this question is “yes” if we can eschew perceptual metaphors in our exposition of the moral realist picture presented above for an alternative account on which moral properties are thoroughly relational, and facts of obligation are deeply externalist. This account is, in some ways, much like the moral realism of John McDowell. But, in other ways, it is significantly different in both substance and emphasis. For these reasons, it will be useful to use McDowell’s account as a lead-in to our own. McDowell has argued for more than two decades that projectivist readings of moral properties are artificially impoverished, largely due to a crucial equivocation between two distinct senses of “objectivity.” In one sense, a property is objective only if “what it is for something to have it cannot be adequately understood otherwise than in terms of dispositions 40 Michael Williams (1991) Unnatural Doubts : Epistemological Realism and the Basis of Skepticism (Oxford, UK ; Cambridge, Mass., USA : B. Blackwell)

354

Ron Wilburn

to give rise to subjective states.”41 In another sense, however, a property is objective only if it is “there to be experienced, as opposed to being a mere figment of the subjective state that purports to be an experience of it.”42 According to the first sense, a property’s objectivity requires that our understanding of its implementation be conceptually independent from the various first-personal experiencings we may have of its implementations. According to the second sense, a property’s objectivity requires only that it be ‘out there’ in the world, waiting to be experienced, even though it may only be experiencable by those possessing particular and specialized conceptual and/or perceptual capacities and equipment. (i.e., the pragmatic, conceptual and attitudinal filters alluded to above.) McDowell maintains that we conclude a property’s subjectivity in the second sense from its subjectivity in the first sense, not by way of cogent argumentation, but rather by way of confused association. To claim that secondary properties are conceptually related to our experiencings of them is not, on McDowell’s telling, to claim that they cannot be “properties genuinely possessed by elements in a not exclusively phenomenal reality.”43 To be cognizant of secondary properties, we must possess particular sensory and experiential capacities. And it is in terms of our registration of these secondary properties by means of these sensory and experiential capacities that we come to understand their natures. But, to say this is to say nothing about the ontological standing of secondary properties themselves. It is, rather, merely to say something about the manner in which we come to access these properties. McDowell’s extension of this diagnosis to the case of values is mediated by a further example. He asks us to consider the case of fear.44 To be fearful is to be inclined to induce fear-responses. Fearful objects are thus necessarily represented as having the property of being fearful. Is fearfulness, so conceived, merely projected onto the world? McDowell defers from this construal, since there are clearly criteria in place for determining when fearfulness is and isn’t merited. Serial killers are fearful, or fearsome, whereas street mimes are merely annoying. We only assess fear responses as merited when they correctly characterize their intentional 41

McDowell, John (1985) “Values and Secondary Qualities”, in Mind, Value and Reality (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press), p. 136. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid., p. 141. 44 Ibid., p. 143.


355

objects as fearful (disposed to bring forth fear responses in standard conditions, etc.) In these regards, our references to secondary qualities, on McDowell’s account, parallel our references to fearfulness and the like in limited, but illustrative ways. And even where these parallels fail, McDowell maintains, this only goes to show us that the terms in which such comparisons are made are often biased against the project of making morality factual. As with fearfulness, red objects are necessarily represented as having the property of being red, where such representation is closely governed by relatively determinate criteria of application. Unlike fearfulness, however, attributions of redness can be regulated and corrected by purely causal considerations concerning the conditions under which veridical color experiences are typically made. Corresponding stories about causal mechanisms are lacking in the case of fearfulness and value talk. But, this, McDowell argues, is merely indicative of the fact that causal explanation enjoys no deep privilege over the many other forms of explanation that we must invoke in our efforts to understand ourselves. Granted, we cannot provide a causal explanation of the fact that a given fear response is merited or called for. But, this only speaks to the fact that there is a noncausal style of sense-making explanation that we require to “understand ourselves in this region of our lives”.45 Such sense-making explanations are necessary if we are to render intelligible our own emotions, and it is to such explanations that we ultimately refer when we endeavor to distinguish between merited and unmerited evaluations. Where many assume that all putative claims to explanation are to assessed against the standard of legitimacy provided by causal narratives, McDowell urges us, in good Wittgensteinian fashion, to take at face value the full range of available explanations we actually employ, and to view the model of explanation provided by causal narratives as merely one available amongst many. Once we do this, McDowell assures us, we recognize the similarities between secondary and evaluative properties (and the intermediary “fearfulness”) for what they are: Both play a similar role in the rationality of evaluation, telling us when the application of various predicates is appropriate. I would agree with McDowell that not all explanations should be judged against the standard provided by causal narratives. Given the in45 Ibid., p. 144.

356

Ron Wilburn

tractable mysteriousness of the causal connection, it would seem puzzling, in fact, that anyone might assume that they should. Presumably, the reason for thinking that they should is a conviction that, whereas causal connections are clearly discovered, rationalizing connections are clearly invented, products of little more than our omnipresent proclivity for metaphysical story telling. But any such suggestion of a deep, acrossthe-board difference is dubious in the light of Goodman and Hume. The identification of projectable predicates has never been a matter of pure discovery, and presumably never will be. The perceptual metaphor of moral insight remains a problem, however. In particular, McDowell’s attempt to assimilate moral to secondary properties is dubious. As I have already noted, our best argument for attributing a problematic status to secondary qualities is not the one that McDowell identifies – an illicit transition from the observation of secondary qualities’ subjectivity in his first sense to the conclusion of their subjectivity in his second. It is, rather, an argument stemming from observations concerning the intractably qualitative nature of phenomenal states, and this argument proceeds in complete independence from the questionable transition that McDowell incriminates. The most direct reason to avoid ascribing phenomenal redness to external things is not provided by some questionable argument that redness doesn’t so accrue to external things so much as it is by the fact that we have such deep problems understanding how redness could so accrue. We can, a la Locke, understand how our own red appearances might predictably register the occurrence of dispositional secondary properties which are themselves mere functional results or mereological composites of various altogether different primary qualities (e.g., surface reflective qualities and the like). But this understanding is not one of how phenomenal qualities are, in any sense, “out there”. That our colored appearances register the occurrence of real qualities of real objects gives us no reason to suppose that it provides us any veridical insight into said objects’ intrinsic natures. To the extent that we can draw conclusions about the nature of perceived objects from our phenomenal experience of them, we do this only by way of precisely the kind of causal story that we have seen McDowell cite in differentiation of secondary from moral qualities. Such causal stories describe how such and such phenomenal qualities of experience are typically caused by such and such non-phenomenal qualities of objects. But, as we have seen McDowell admit, no such causal stories are


357

available to us in our efforts to describe the processes through which we come to recognize the normative import of allegedly morally significant states of affairs. What this means is the following: To the extent that we can take the above-described “registering” relation as performing anything like the functions of a sought-for representation relation, this is the case solely by virtue of the fact that a type of accompanying explanation can be provided in the secondary property case that is missing entirely in the moral property and fearfulness cases. Secondary properties and the perceptual paradigm of knowledge acquisition simply do not provide us with a useful but limited model with which to understand our relation to moral attributes. The model it provides us with is, rather, deeply misleading from the outset. I would suggest that our best hopes for moral realism arise only from a self-conscious eschewal of the perceptual model of knowledge. To embrace this eschewal is to retain the bulk of McDowell’s positive account of moral factuality while rejecting dubious convictions he maintains regarding the phenomenology of moral experience. What I argue in the remainder of this paper is that we can extract from McDowell’s suggestions a basis of moral realism that is all the stronger for the differences it extols between moral and secondary qualities.

VIII. Relationalism McDowell’s insistence that causal explanations are not the only explanations available to us in our efforts to understand ourselves, the world, and the relations there between is the central move of his concerted effort to reverse the modern scientific “disenchantment of nature”. A conception of nature as ‘merely natural’, he insists, is not a genuinely natural conception. For, whatever may be true of non-human reality, reason-giving is an essential aspect of the human condition. Thus, an account of reasongiving must be provided if we are to give a satisfactory account of ourselves that reflects an accurate understanding of the sorts of natural objects we are. Causal explanation, McDowell seems to urge, is not adequate to the end of understanding all there is in the natural world because human beings are part of the natural world, and reason-giving is an essential aspect of human nature. On this account, human interactions both with

358

Ron Wilburn

other humans and with the non-human world is regulated, through and through, by rational constraints, of which our rational natures render us sensitive to varying degrees. The reason for this is simple. To have structured experience at all requires sensitivity to such constraints, and thus a concern for getting rules right. For McDowell, this sensitivity does not operate merely in the social realm, but also “in our perception of the world apart from human beings.”46 This is the moral to be found in the linguistic behavior of children, who talk incessantly until their utterances are either confirmed or corrected by attentive grown-ups.47 From such confirmations and corrections a child’s worldview is constructed, from which emerges the very difference between private experiential and public physical objects. Thus, to even have experience, McDowell maintains, one must take a seat within the space of reasons. And although this space of reasons is not the space of causes, it is not for that reason unnatural. Human nature is natural, but rational all the same, since our very structuring of experience is essentially permeated by sensitivity to reasons. “Exercises of spontaneity belong to our mode of living. And our mode of living is our way of actualizing ourselves as animals.”48 Accordingly, to equate nature with the realm of causal law is to arbitrarily exclude from nature a clearly natural range of prosaic objects, namely ourselves. McDowell’s aim with this story is seemingly not to leave us gasping for air in the iron jaws of reason so much as it is to gently remind us of a neglected possibility which we have somehow forgotten in our post-Humean eliminativist frenzy. McDowell would have us slap our heads and exclaim, with wry relief, “Of course! How can we have been enticed into forgetting how obviously right it is to say that a repertoire of conceptual capacities belongs to the acquired nature of a mature human being?”49 This is the core of McDowell’s account that I would like to use as a foundation for further development. Before I do, however, we need to note three things. First, we need to note that this account in no way 46 McDowell, John (1994) Mind and World (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press), p. 78. 47 Jan Bransen (2002) “On the Incompleteness of McDowell’s Moral Realism”, in Topoi 21, pp.187-198, p. 192. 48 McDowell, John (1994) Mind and World, p. 78. 49 McDowell, John (1998) “Comment on Hans-Peter Krüger’s Paper”, Philosophical Explorations 1(2), pp. 120–125, p. 123.


359

conflicts with my previous commitment (in Sec. IV) to internal causal relations as those things which might support the structural integrity of a hierarchy of human goods ranging from lower-level virtues to higherlevel homeostatic property clusters: With such causal talk I aimed merely to proffer, in systematic fashion, candidate moral goods which might then be justified subsequently within the logical space of reasons. Second, we need to note that this core story makes no reliance upon McDowell’s previously described likening of moral to secondary qualities. If anything, it is in tension with this previous account, as we gain little insight and much confusion from likening the discernment of objective reasons to the operations of perceptual faculties. Third and finally, we need to note that, even though McDowell’s language in laying out this core account is occasionally reminiscent of OBD accounts, this construal is only one amongst many, and not the best one available at that. McDowell sometimes writes of how the disenchantment of nature misrepresents how the world is for us, as though (employing our previous metaphor of pragmatic/conceptual and attitudinal filters) our moral judgments depict the same world as that described by the natural scientist in purely causal language, only in the terms of a less objective, and thus potentially more distortive, vocabulary. However, this reading is far from forced on us. An alternative reading is available which utilizes the mechanisms of relational property analysis and externalist content ascription. On this alternative account, moral facts are relative only to the extent that they are relational, where this analysis extends even to whatever homeostatic property cluster we might eventually choose to identify as the summum bonum for human beings. For, when we take “intrinsic value” to accrue only to those items that are, in and of themselves, worthy of approval, we find little impediment to the conclusion that nothing counts as intrinsically valuable.50 Consider, in this regard, the tentative property cluster tendered in Sec. IV, comprised of such alleged primary goods as knowledge, friendship, aesthetic activity, practical wisdom and recreation. As I have proffered this candidate cluster, it is derived not through a priori reflection, but through a process of reflective refinement upon the actual desires of a particular species of agent, and as such makes no claims to intrinsic value. The primary goods, I would maintain, are 50 This account of intrinsic value, which has been endorsed in broad outline by many, is particularly well developed in Lemos, Noah (1994) Intrinsic Value: Concept and Warrant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 15.

360

Ron Wilburn

valuable only as they stand in relation to distinctive facts about human nature, where such facts effectively render them relevant by delimiting the range of coherent interpersonal human life plans. Moreover, the alleged relations of mutual reinforcement between various primary goods described in Section IV are themselves a function of further relational specifics (e.g., only social creatures with the emotional lives of human beings are going to require friendship relations, which are themselves only fueled by the active sharing of intellectual, aesthetic or recreational interests, the pursuit of which interests requires, in turn, mutual cooperation, and thus effective sociability with others). On a more subvening level, even the courageousness of an act is occurrent, not in that act’s intrinsic nature, but in a relational complex of factors of which the goal and execution of that act are merely component relata. On such a telling, both the misleadingness and ultimate harmlessness of talk about an act’s or object’s moral status from “a human point of view” is revealed. For, on such accounts, we can make straightforward sense of how it might be the case that no moral facts could obtain in the absence of human beings performing acts and manifesting states of character to enter into relations with the social and natural world around them. On a relationalist account, such facts do not result from human projection onto the natural order, nor are they revealed by a distinctly human quasi-perceptual capacity to discern properties that pre-exist social reality, but which only we have the ability to apprehend. Nor are they the results of distortive biases through which our pragmatic, conceptual and attitudinal filters color that which is objectively there anyway. Rather, moral facts require the existence of sentient and reflective human beings in much the way that the property of being highly regarded requires the existence of agents and their affections. That an agent’s being regarded well by the majority of those who know her requires the existence of other agents and their affections does nothing to militate against the first-rate realistic status of the fact that the agent is, in fact, highly regarded. It does nothing to show that this isn’t one more fact about this agent that we are obliged to include in any objectively accurate description of all there is to be said about her. Similarly, that an act can only be praiseworthy for its courageousness when manifested by such reflective and vulnerable creatures as human beings (as opposed, say, to angels or spirits) does nothing to show that the praiseworthiness of the action is a fabrication of the human mind or heart. Rather, it merely highlights


361

the obvious fact that no relation can obtain in the absence of its proper relata. Moreover, I would suggest that the relational status of moral properties should hardly come as a surprise to us. It is, in fact, bluntly recommended by the radical multiple realizability that we have already identified as characteristic of moral supervenience. Granted, we have, in our discussion of candidate virtues and intrinsic goods spoken of moral values as though they were monadic properties, but this is best viewed as a convenient shorthand. Relational properties are often treated as monadic properties only because it is convenient to view them as relativized to standard or normal background conditions that we are inclined to treat as given (e.g., we say that [seven-foot-high] George is tall only because we take it as a given that the folks to which he is being compared average considerably less than this). Even the goodness of what we have identified as “apparent goods” is recognizable only insofar as these goods function as they do within the relational matrices of human needs, desires and capacities that they occupy. We need not suppose, on this account, that anything’s value must shine from within, as it were, like Kant’s jewel of right intention. A relationalist account of moral properties solves many problems. To the question of how we can perceive occurrent moral properties, it answers that we can’t. Or, a least, it answers that we can’t perceive occurrent moral properties any more or less than we can perceive other occurrent relational properties, such as that of “being older than.” Although various spatio-temporal relations are arguable exceptions, I would suggest that relations generally should be viewed as ontologically dependent upon the monadic properties of their relata. Thus, we can perceive that George is older than Michael without registering the occurrence of a monadic or intrinsic quality of “being older than” which is somehow inherent in George. George’s occurrent property of being older than Michael is an occurrent relational attribute that functionally supervenes on the monadic and intrinsic qualities that George and Michael have of forty years old and forty one years old, respectively. Similarly, I would suggest, Oscar Schindler’s courage consists in his complex of dispositions to do such things as lie to the Gestapo, but only as these dispositions stand in relation to such things as his intentions, sobriety, and situation of genuine risk. We thus might want to say, a la Grundlagen-vintage Frege, that courage, though “objective (i.e., properly amenable to being

362

Ron Wilburn

taken as a subject by true or false sentences), is not “actual” or “concrete” (i.e., properly detectable by the senses). But, in these respects, courage is no different than numerous other clearly respectable properties and relations. No property can be sensorily detected, afterall. Rather, implementations of properties can be sensorily detected. And there is, on the face of it, no reason to think that the facts that make for an implementation of courage are any less objective and actual than the facts that make for implementations of other, more clearly natural, properties. To the location question of where moral attributes are, the relationalist account answers, very simply, “all around us”. Again, this response is made plausible by the fact that moral attributes, far from being found in some mysterious non-causal realm, are relational composites of mundane natural attributes, whose normative import is recognizable, not by virtue of any occult causal powers of “goodness”, but rather by virtue of their positions within the logical space of reasons. Moreover, I think that this line of response to the location problem does much to answer a long-standing concern over the tenability of moral supervenience. For, even when we have, as above, reined in our supervenience aspirations to embrace mere token-token identity theory, we may still be concerned that Platt’s aforementioned notion of “fixing” remains much too mysterious for comfort. Why? Because Platts’ account, as he himself admits, leaves him with few precedents for the fixing relation to which we might appeal in our efforts to render moral emergence intelligible and familiar. Consider Platts’ example of pointellesque portraits.51 Envision a two-dimensional figure of the human head, comprised on a canvas by clumps of black dots. Here, Platts suggests, we have a clear example of the fixing relation. If we alter the pointellesque distribution, we may vary the head shape. Similarily, and if we alter the shape of the head portrait, we may automatically change the pointellesque distribution. And yet, even though some spatial description of the distribution of pointellesque components may, in fact, imply that the painting is that of a head, it is not through this description that we perceive the painting as a head portrait. Even though the dots fix the figure, we do not infer the figure from the spatial distribution of dots. Instead, we notice the latter independently of whatever we may know about the former. 51

Platts, Mark (1979) Ways of Meaning, pp. 244, 251, 253.


363

Platts’ originally hope is to use this example as a precedent for the kind of non-inferential supervenience relation with which he aspires to elucidate moral properties. On such an account, the relation between Schindler’s bravery and its subvening circumstances might be one on which the former, even though consisting in nothing more than Schindler’s disposition to falsify records in pertinent circumstances of risk and sobriety, may yet not be inferred from these subvening factors. Rather, it may be immediately recognizable, independently of them. Though (ontologically) grounded in natural facts, it would not be (epistemologically) recognized on the basis of these facts. This, at least, is Platts’ initial hope. Unfortunately, this hope is forlorn. For, the cases are deeply disanalogous. In the Schindler case, it is clearly necessary to validate one’s judgment of the man’s bravery through citation of the aforementioned facts concerning his dispositions and situation. These facts comprise the very reasons that Schindler’s act is courageous. In this, the Schindler case is unlike that of the pointellesque portrait, where it is unnecessary to validate one’s judgment of the figure’s shape through citation of the aforementioned facts concerning the spatial distribution of constitutive dots.52 The worry that emerges from this disparallel is that the obtaining of the fixing relation, e.g., between dots and pointellesque portraits, provides no precedent for the alleged supervenience relations that obtain between, e.g., Schindler’s dispositions and circumstances, on one hand, and his courage, on the other. Since the former example is, as the latter is not, one in which allegedly supervening properties are recognizable without reference to their allegedly subvening bases, only in this former case does the fixing relation seem to give us what we want: a way in which a supervening property might enjoy a claim to autonomous reality, to a life of its own, as it were, beyond those of its consititutive subvening base properties. Fortunately, however, I think a relationalist construal of moral propertyhood allows us to acknowledge this disparallel between the two examples without deriving from it any conclusions at all concerning the second-rate status of moral property attribution. For, on the relationalist account, it is easy to explain why one’s ascription of courage to Schindler 52 See Arrington’s articulation of this difficulty, which is somewhat clearer than Platts’ own. Arrington, R. L. (1989) Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism, p. 147.

364

Ron Wilburn

obliges one to itemize the facts whose obtaining consititutes Schindler’s implementation of courage: The relational features of occurrent circumstances making for this implementation simply cannot be taken in at a glance in the way that relative placement of black dots making for the occurrence of a pointellesque portrait can be. One needs to justify the occurrence of courage by citing relevant subvening facts because these facts extend into the past and the future, and include non-directly observable details concerning personal history, intended aims, motives and states of mind. But, why should we take this obvious feature of moral facts (i.e., their reliance upon determining facts which are relatively difficult to simultaneously observe due to their mentalistic nature and/or dispersion across space and time) to indicate their relative unreality or lack of autonomy? Why, rather, shouldn’t we take this obvious feature of moral facts to illuminate our above suggestion that moral facts are relational composites of mundane natural attributes, whose normative import is recognizable by virtue of their positions within the logical space of reasons. It is through reason as much as sensation, after all, that the components of complex relational facts can be individually recognized and interrelated for what they are.

IX. The Ontological Status of the Realm of Reasons But, why should we suppose that this position which moral property ascription enjoys within “the logical space of reasons” entitles them to genuine ontic status? This, to be sure, is the single most important challenge facing our account. It is, in effect, the challenge posed by both Kim and Harman. Kim’s claim, one last time, is that supervening properties of any kind, moral properties included, are necessarily doomed to superfluous status, since whatever causal efficacy they might ever possess is invariably already present in the purely natural connections that characterize the relevant physical goings on at subvening levels of description. Harman’s claim, one last time, is that any appeal to alleged causal connections between moral facts and subsequent actions can always be replaced by appeal to causal relations between agents’ beliefs about moral facts and these very same subsequent actions, where the agents’ beliefs are themselves the causal results of ordinary social and psychological factors, rather than the result of causally efficacious moral facts.


365

To address these concerns, we need to say more about the relation between reasons and causes. As noted above, I think it unwarrantedly parochial to regard causal explanation as a standing exemplar for explanation across the board. But, even so, given the common theme of both Kim and Harman, e.g., that causal connections are ultimately all we need for a comprehensive understanding of the world, it is incumbent upon us to say more about the intellectual division of labor that warrants our invocation of non-causal explanatory accounts. In this connection, I would maintain the following: Non-causal, rationalizing explanations are required if we are to have any hope at all of discerning regularities in our morally pertinent behavior. And, if our search for the way things objectively are is understood as a search for an objective order, where “objectivity” is taken to have even minimal connection with patterned systematicity, then this need to invoke reasons in addition to causes, for the articulation of such an order gives us perfect justification for taking reasons to partly define reality. Suppose that Lisa, upon seeing tiny bespectacled Millhouse being trounced by much-larger schoolyard terrorists Nelson and Jimbo, decides to intervene. She intervenes, as best she can, because she perceives the situation as unjust. In this situation, it must be noted, reasons may indeed be said to enjoy indirect causal efficacy, thorough the mediation of causally characterizable acts of recognition of them as reasons. There is a directly causally efficacious event, i.e., Lisa’s perception of the situation as unjust, that prompts her quixotic attempt at intervention. To be sure, this particular event, occurring on this particular occasion, is invariably token identical with some or other brain state, that brain state constituting its concrete implementation at this time and place. But, it is a mistake to assume, with Kim and Harman, that this fact allows us to simply jettison our prefacing talk of moral reasons for the purposes of explaining Lisa’s action. Why? Because there is absolutely no reason to suppose that the next time Lisa, or anyone else for that matter, acts out of a sense of injustice, we will be able to discern any telling similarities, at the causal level, between the sources of this action and Lisa’s previous action that will allow us to articulate anything remotely resembling a nomological pattern. There is no rationale for thinking that a law-like order will be discernable at the purely causal level of description, as opposed to that level which describes both of the above events as perceptions of injustice. Talk of moral reasons thus proves, I suspect, ineliminatable. If we think

366

Ron Wilburn

that our search for an accounting of reality is a search for an intelligible order, rather than a search for a mere chronology of one damn thing following another in no discernible pattern, we are left with no principled grounds for refusing to include moral reasons amongst our inventory of ontic realities. Indeed, I would suggest that we have even more reason to suspect the inability of our subvening level of description to systematize events at the supervening level here than we do in the sorts of psychophysical cases that Kim emphasizes. Those cases, after all, are ones in which we are challenged to describe supervening causal events in terms of subvening causal events. However, the moral cases of concern to us here are, even more radically, ones in which we are challenged to describe non-causal patterns in terms of causal ones. This is the gloss I would put on McDowell’s suggestion that there is a non-causal style of sense-making explanation that we require to “understand ourselves in this region of our lives”.53 The claim here is similar to familiar invocations of multiple realizability in the defense of the autonomy of psychology and other special sciences. However, what I have tried to argue is that this line of reasoning is even more convincing in the case of ethics case than it is in these other mereological causal supervenience cases. The reason, I have suggested, is that the differences in point and function between normative and causal explanations gives moral discourse particular claim to autonomy from causal discourse, that is, an autonomy more insurmountable that that between merely different varieties of causal discourse. On this account, we might say that the most reliable (if not the only) test for the objectivity of a discourse is its explanatory indispensability. Thus, even though Kim may be correct in arguing for the dispensability of various supervenient causal theories, and Harman may be correct in arguing for the causal dispensability of moral explanation, neither of these arguments, I would maintain, is to the point.

53

McDowell, John (1985) ‘Values and Secondary Qualities’ in Mind, Value and Realiy.


367

X. Externalism This sort of relationalist analysis can be cautiously recast in externalist terms. I regard this to be one practical upshot of any plausible effort to pursue McDowell’s goal of reinstating meaning in nature through a process of re-enchantment. The moral meanings of actions are likely, though not guaranteed, to be externalistically delineated to roughly the same extent that they are relationally constituted. For, if a fact consists in selected permutations of relata, which are themselves external to an agent, the more likely, it would seem, that such facts might obtain outside the agent’s conscious awareness. However, here we must walk a fine line. Moral facts, as such, enjoy normative, rather than merely causal, efficacy. And normative efficacy involves the following of rules, not merely the obtaining of laws. But, the following of rules cannot be, by its nature, completely unwitting. Otherwise, to use Sellars’ oft-quoted example, thunder could be said to track lightening as a result of “following a rule”.54 Thus, one might suspect that a tension exists within my account: the tension between its relationalist and normative foci. It is time to address this suspicion. I will do this below in two stages. First, I will describe at greater length my reasons for thinking that moral discourse, in particular, is especially amenable to externalistic construal. Second, I will argue that the tension anticipated above does not, in fact, arise once we segregate issues of moral worth from issues of moral responsibility. As for the first point, my argument is comparative, in much the manner of my previous argument that moral discourse is especially amenable to supervenience analysis. It will be remembered that I argue this earlier claim by way of contrast with mental state discourse. I will now argue that moral discourse is especially amenable to externalistic analysis by way of contrast with both intensional and epistemological discourse. Let’s consider each of semantic and epistemic externalism in turn. Beyond concerns about the capacity of dead and gone historical facts to exercise casual efficacy in the present (except insofar as they have been somehow intrinsically encoded into the internal natures of occurrent mental and semantic events), my deepest suspicions concerning exter54 Sellars, Wilfred ( 2000) “Does Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation,” in Epistemology: An Anthology, ed. Ernes Sosa and Jaegwon Kim (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 120-124, p. 122.

368

Ron Wilburn

nalist semantic analysis are expressed by Martin and Heil, who argue that we have, in fact, no good reason to invoke broad content because we have no good reason to suppose that the contents expressed by the Doppelgängers of familiar Twin Earth thought experiments differ from each other in any way at all.55 These characters’ apparent dispositions to behavior are exactly the same, after all. And, even though one is led by his verbal dispositions to water and the other is led by his verbal dispositions to twater, this has nothing to do with content and everything to do with contingent contextual circumstances, where we can say this without supposing that the latter determines the former in any interesting sense. The central point of this argument can alternatively be stated in evolutionary terms, by elaborating on Fodor’s observation of how “empirical theories are responsible only to generalizations that hold in nomolologically [as opposed to conceptually] possible world.”56 Given that Jones grows up on Earth and Twin-Jones grows up on Twin Earth, we should immediately wonder what evolutionary mechanism could ever come into play to give either character an ability to determinately mean, or refer to, one substance as opposed to the other. What evolutionary pressures could favor a specific or over a vague or equivocal referential capacity in such cases? It is clear to the philosopher, of course, that there should be a difference, but this is only because the philosopher can consciously stipulate a descriptive distinction between the two worlds and the two substances that gives each term a distinct narrow content for her. The conclusion that broad content must be operative is, in the cases of such thoughtexperiments, never the result of anything more than an unargued-for assumption that the characters in the externalist’s scenario must, by virtue of externalist content, make the very same distinctions that are available to the philosopher by virtue of her own internalist content distinctions (as in Davidson’s swampman case, for instance, where the swampman’s thoughts and words must refer to nothing, we are told, since it is obviously the case that “what a person’s words mean depends in the most basic cases on the kinds of objects and events that have caused the person to hold the words to be applicable; similarly for what the person’s 55

Martin, C.B. and Heil, J. (1998) “Rules and Powers,” Philosophical Perspectives 12, pp. 383-312. 56 Fodor, Jerry (1994), The Elm and the Expert (MA: MIT Press). Needless to say, given his idiosyncratic take on the role of selection in the evolution of language, Fodor may not agree with this use of him in the context of an evolutionary argument.


369

thoughts are about”57). There is an equivocation of perspective, and a subsequent “informational mismatch”, at play in such thought experiments, as we are encouraged to assume a God’s-eye point of view on the subject’s referential situation, and then encouraged, on the basis of this unearned point of view, to attribute semantic properties to him that, properly speaking, accrue only to us.58 Note that I am not claiming here that a perfectly useful function isn’t served by likening speakers to texts, about whom interesting questions can then be posed concerning the “deeper meanings” that might result from social and natural factors of which the speaker is unaware. My claim here is only that such externalist ascriptions of meaning can be, at most, supplements to internalist ascriptions. They cannot effectively replace these internalist ascriptions for the purposes of any full adequate account of the varieties of legitimate meaning. My suspicions regarding externalist accounts of knowledge are closely related. Perhaps we can argue over what we should call “knowledge” or “warrant” or whatever other epistemological term we decide is most important to us. In particular, we can ask if we need be conscious of this relation for it to obtain? And, we can ask if we must be able to articulate our evidence for this relation’s obtaining when it does? But, to argue these issues is not to argue that externalist epistemological concepts should replace internalist ones. It is, at most, to argue that they should supplement them. A full defense of this claim would take me well beyond the scope of this paper. It would also reiterate extended arguments that I have given elsewhere.59 Suffice it to say that it is no answer to Cartesian worries about the possibility of empirical knowledge to note that if the setting in which you make your worldly claims is, the one that you purport to describe with these worldly claims, then you know that your worldly claims are correct. The notion of “having good reason” that the skeptic invokes simply cannot be fully captured by an externalist account. As Stroud notes, 57 Davidson, Donald (1987) , “Knowing One’s Own Mind,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Asociation 60, pp. 441-58. 58 The locution here (of “informational mismatch”) is due to Fogelin, who uses it in a very different, epistemological, context in Fogelin, Robert (1993), Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification (Oxford: Oxford University Press:). 59 Wilburn, Ron (1998), “Epistemological Realism as the Skeptic’s Heart of Darkness”, Journal of Philosophical Research, Volume XXIII.

370

Ron Wilburn So even if it is true that you can know something without knowing that you know it, the philosophical theorist of knowledge cannot simply insist on the point and expect to find acceptance of an ‘externalist’ account of knowledge fully satisfactory. If he could, he would be in the position of someone who says: ‘I don‘t know whether I understand human knowledge or not. If what I believe about it is true and my beliefs about it are produced in what my theory says is the right way, I do know how human knowledge comes to be, so in that sense I do understand. But if my beliefs are not true, or not arrived at in that way, I do not. I wonder which it is. I wonder whether I understand human knowledge or not.’ That is not a satisfactory position to arrive at in one‘s study of human knowledge-or of anything else.60

But, of course, the above conditional assurance is all that the externalist can ever offer the skeptic, which is to say that the externalist must answer skeptical concerns as a preliminary to answering these very same concerns. Again, this criticism is essentially the same as that employed above against narrowly externalistic changes of subject in connection with philosophical semantics. Some of our deepest epistemological concerns have to do with the question of whether and how “personal” or “subjective” justification and “impersonal” or “objective” justification hook up.61 To simply eliminate the former internalist notion for the latter externalist one is to make these questions unaskable. But, once again, note that I have even less concern to argue that externalist stories about knowledge and content are false as I have to argue that they are incomplete; unable to serve the full range of purposes for which we need to invoke epistemic and semantic concepts. As it is often useful to liken speakers to texts for purposes of semantic analysis, it is also often useful to liken cognizers to thermometers for purposes of epistemic assessment. My point here is merely to show that with popular thoughtexperiment-based arguments, externalists do nothing to show that their ersatz notions serve the same functions as these notions’ internalist counterparts. Nor do they show these internalist functions to be dispensable. In this fact, I would maintain, there is a marked difference between the property concepts of semantics and epistemology, on the one hand, and those of ethics, on the other. Moral notions, I would suggest, are much 60 Barry Stroud (2000) “Understanding Human Knowledge in General,” in Understanding Human Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 99-121), p. 119. 61 Alvin Plantinga (1990) “Justification in the 20th Century”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 50, Supplement (Autumn, 1990), pp. 45-71.


371

more likely candidates for thoroughgoing externalist and relationalist analysis (of the type I have sketched in this paper) than are semantic and epistemological notions. Whereas there are indispensable internalistic construals of what I mean and what I know, there are no corresponding indepensible internalistic construals of what I need, what I should pursue, how I should be, or what I should do. Note that I am not here suggesting that right action and virtuous character can accrue to the utterly clueless and unreflective. Rather, I am suggesting that, even when we consider the role of “right intention” in moral action, we need not find it to take the form of some conscious access to some introspectable intention to “do the right thing”. Consider, again, the strange case of Oscar Schindler. On the account we have been painting, Schindler’s disposition to falsify records effectively fixed his manifestations of courage only given such internal mental states as the realistic sobriety of mind and personal perception of genuine circumstance of risk in which he manifested it. But, these mental states are not to the point. For Schindler’s actions to be courageous, it is not required that he perceive them as such. And this, I take it, is what would be required by an internalist analysis of courageous action, an analysis on which an agent’s courageousness requires that he consciously know or intend his action to be courageous (just as, on this account’s sister internalist construals, an agent’s knowing requires that he knows that he knows, and an agent’s denoting dogs by “dog” requires that he consciously intend to pick out such and such kind of animal through the direction of such and such intentional description). Not that right action and virtuous character are never concomitant with a conscious desire to do the right or courageous thing. My point only is that such conscious desires are not essential to, or constitutive of, doing the right thing. Think of the virtues Huck Finn displays when he decides that he simply must help runaway Jim, despite his conscious conviction that this action is immoral (let alone his literal expectation that he can expect nothing but an eternity of righteous hell-fire in return). Thus, I would maintain that, whereas there are indispensable internalistic construals of what I mean and what I know, there are no corresponding indepensible internalistic construals of what I need, what I should pursue, how I should be, or what I should do. Rather, there are essentially internalist notions of moral responsibility which make it the case, e.g., that an agent can hardly be held responsible for actions he

372

Ron Wilburn

performs due to non-willful ignorance and the like. Now, the distinctions at issue here, between our moral assessments of acts and characters, on one hand, and of agent culpability, on the other, is a long-standing one. We allow for the possibility that the 16-year-old Khmer Rouge revolutionary may have done unspeakable things for years, and may have lacked anything remotely resembling a coherent set of excellence-making personal virtues while he did them, and yet still not blame him for his youthful and ignorant crimes. What this illustrates is that the essentially externalist basis of our judgments of virtue and obligation are clearly separable from the essentially internalist basis of our judgments of moral responsibility and blameworthiness. Because this operational distinction already exists in our moral reasoning, there is no danger that an externalistic analysis of other evaluative terms will cause us to ignore indispensable internalistic aspects of our moral reasoning. But, in this, I have argued, the moral case is crucially different from the epistemological and semantic cases, where confusion seems to constantly arise precisely because the proper functions of internalistic and externalistic analyses are not clearly segregated while being simultaneously, if only implicitly, acknowledged.

XI. Conclusions I have tried herein to sketch a broad strategy for developing a significant form of moral realism. Using the substantive conceptual content provided by a truth-conditional analysis of our thick moral language, we identify a number of human goods making up a homeostatic property cluster, arrayed above a larger number of subvening goods (i.e., the goods-conducive virtues), themselves literally just identical to baser subvening natural properties, whose implementations literally constitute them, given the situational, attitudinal and perceptual circumstances in which they are realized. On this account, moral property terms are most usefully viewed as having externalistically determined normative content, and moral properties themselves are most usefully viewed as relational properties, whose normative import is discerned, not on the model of causes, but on the model of reasons. Even those goods commonly described as “intrinsic goods” have their value, on this account, by virtue of their relational connections to human wants, needs, interests and desires.


373

On this account, moreover, the three specific constraints cited at the outset of this paper, those of cognitivism, objectivism and success, are all satisfied. Cognitivism is satisfied because moral utterances are in the business of stating facts. Objectivism is satisfied because the facts so asserted by moral utterances, being relational complexes that ultimately supervene on occurrent naturalistic relata, are token identical with multifaceted physical facts. This allows for a moral realism that avoids scientism while embracing science: Moral facts, on this account, are fully part of the natural realm. But, their idiosyncratic relational complexity renders them of little interest to the natural sciences, given its largely non-normative ends. It also helps explain the aforementioned concession that the ends of natural science are settled much less incontrovertibly than are the ends of ethics. To thrive, natural scientific theories do require much more in the way of direct cooperation from non-human reality. And agreement in ethics is harder to come by, since the relational complexes that make for moral factuality are likely to be much more varied across individuals. Finally, the success constraint is satisfied to the extent that we have no particular reason to suppose that our moral judgments are generally, or always, false. Given our account of what moral facts are, we have no reason to think them generally unrecognizable by creatures like us. Perhaps the major recurrent theme of this paper has been such an account should not strike us as bizarre, since we should feel no reservations about applying the realistic tools of supervenience and relationalist/ externalist analysis to the task of understanding moral discourse. Indeed, I have maintained, these tools are arguably more appropriate to the understanding of moral attributes than they are to the understanding of psychological and semantic ones, even though it is to the analysis of the later that they have been most frequently and popularly employed. Moral realism is, I would argue, to this extent far from being a desperate or quixotic position. On the contrary, it is a perfectly natural extension of analytic philosophy’s efforts to reform itself in the spirit of post-positivistic recovery.

374

Gerhard Preyer

Eine neue Theorie der Kooperation Gerhard Preyer

Abstract In the contemporary research on cooperation we find mathematical, game-, moraltheoretical, experimental and ethological investigations. These approaches are individualistic in principle. Raimo Tuomela introduces a correction of the conceptualization of the standard game theory because this proposal lacks an account of collective commitments and acting for a reason, we need for explaining many cases. The essay sketches Tuomela’s proposal with regard to his new turn of analyzing cooperation. A substantial problem in social theory emerges from this framework understanding the social. The questtion is whether there is something like a basic consensus in social systems or a normative notion of collective commitments. This leads us to a re-interpretation of the function of social norms, I will sketch.

Es gehört zu den Teilnahmebedingungen von sozialen Systemen, dass ihre Mitglieder in unterschiedlichen sozialen Positionen die Rolle von Kooperationsteilnehmern ausüben. Dies trägt zu ihrem Reproduktionserfolg bei. Die Mitglieder sozialer Systeme bekämpfen sich aber auch (Ausscheidungskämpfe), konkurrieren auf den Märkten der Teilsysteme der Wirtschaft, Politik und Wissenschaft oder verhalten sich selbstsüchtig und ehrgeizig, ohne das Wohlergehen von anderen zu berücksichtigen. Die Analyse von Kooperationen ist deshalb auch für eine Soziologie der Mitgliedschaft von Interesse, da es zu den Mitgliedschaftsbedingungen von sozialen Systemen gehört, dass die Mitglieder untereinander bereit sind, zur Erreichung von gemeinsamen kollektiven Zielen zu kooperieren und in unterschiedlichen sozialen Positionen dazu beizutragen. In der Kooperationsforschung liegen philosophische, zum Beispiel moralphilosophische, mathematische, vor allem spieltheoretische und experimentelle Forschungen vor, die sich mit der Situation des kollektiven Handlungsdilemmas beschäftigen. Zu erwähnen sind auch biologische (ethologische) Untersuchungen der Kooperation unter Tieren. Die wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen und spieltheoretischen Ansätze der Analyse von Kooperation sind individualistisch angelegt,

Eine neue Theorie der Kooperation

375

da sie davon ausgehen, dass die Letztelemente von Kooperation individuelle rationale Entscheider sind. Daran nimmt Tuomelas Theorie der Kooperation eine Korrektur vor: Gruppengründe sind für die Erklärung von Kooperation in vielen Fällen erforderlich.1 Von der Spieltheorie wurde oft nicht hinreichend genug in Betracht gezogen, dass die meisten Kooperationen in einem institutionellen Bezugsrahmen stattfinden. Oder anders ausgedrückt, Kooperationen finden immer in sozialen Systemen statt und betreffen ihre kollektive Handlungsfähigkeit. Die Systemreferenz ist somit für die Angabe der Funktion von Kooperationen relevant, von dort ist dann ihre Funktion zu respezifizieren, zum Beispiel im Wirtschafts-, politischen, Wissenschafts- oder Erziehungssystem. Damit sind die strukturellen Anforderungen an Kooperationen angesprochen, die je nach Systemreferenz unterschiedlich ausfallen können. Für Tuomela betrifft dies den institutionellen Kontext, wobei beides nicht ganz dasselbe ist, aber institutionelle Kooperationen sind im Hinblick auf die jeweilige Systemreferenz reinterpretierbar. Tuomela analysiert in seiner systematischen Untersuchung die grundlegenden Gesichtpunkte von Kooperation und welche Arten von Kooperationen zu unterscheiden sind. Dabei ist hervorzuheben, dass er im Bezugsrahmen seines Ansatzes dem wichtigsten Problem der vorliegenden Forschungen nachgeht: Unter welchen Bedingungen ist es rational zu kooperieren oder sich der Kooperation zu verweigern (Kapt. 11-12). Die Kerntheorie seines Ansatzes entwickelt Tuomela in Kapt. 1-4. Seinen Kooperationsbegriff und die Basiselemente von Kooperation stellt er im 1. Kapt. vor (vgl. dazu 4-10, 11-17). Er besagt, dass das kooperative zusammen Handeln in seinem Kern eine voll entfaltete Kooperation ist (full-blown cooperation). Dies betrifft Kooperationen, die auf einem gemeinsamen kollektiven Ziel in einem strengen Sinn beruhen (g-cooperation, group-mode oder we-mode, eine we-ness perspective, gemeinsame soziale Gründe). Seine Kritik an der traditionellen Spieltheorie besteht darin, dass Gruppenkooperationen für das Verständnis von Kooperationen gegenüber dem individualistischen Ansatz, der das Gefangenendilemma als paradigmatischen Fall behandelt, zentral sind. Das ist der entscheiden1

R. Tuomela, Cooperation. Philosophical Studies Series 82, (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers 2000).

376

Gerhard Preyer

de Punkt, der Tuomelas Zugangsweise von den vorliegenden Ansätzen unterscheidet. Insofern geht er von der Annahme aus, so möchte ich sie reformulieren, dass die Mitgliedschaft in sozialen Systemen zu ihrer allgemeinen Bedingung eine Bereitschaft (Disposition) der Mitglieder hat, miteinander zur Erreichung von gemeinsamen kollektiven Zielen zu kooperieren. Mit diesem Anschnitt nimmt er eine nicht-individualistische Analyse von Gruppenprädikaten vor. Für Tuomelas Ansatz spielen die Präferenzkorrelationen bei Kooperationen eine führende Rolle, vor allem bei voll entfalteten Kooperationen. Solche Korrelationen stabilisieren Kooperationen, sie tragen aber auch zu ihrer Flexibilität bei und spielen eine motivierende Rolle für das sich Einlassen und die Fortführung der jeweiligen Kooperation. Das schließt einen Präferenzwandel nicht aus, der einer besonderen Analyse bedarf (dazu Kapt. 10 I). Die Erhaltung sozialer Systeme benötigt sowohl Gruppenkooperationen als auch Kooperationen des Zusammenwirkens (coaction cooperation), da sie ihre Bestandserhaltung in den Dimensionen zeitlich, sachlich und sozial nur über kooperierende Mitglieder gewährleisten können. System- und Gruppenmitgliedschaft bringt sozusagen autokatalytisch die Teilnahme an Kooperationen hervor, die wiederum je nach Differenzierungsform (segmentäre, stratifikatorische, funktionale Differenzierung) in ihren Teilnahmebedingungen durch die Selektion der Mitglieder begrenzt sind. Das heißt aus meiner Sicht, dass es nicht vorrangig Koordinationserfordernisse sind, die zu Gruppenkooperation führen, sondern die Positionsvorteile in Umweltbeziehungen sozialer Systeme, durch die eine Ausbildung von Einrichtungen kollektiven Handelns herbeigeführt werden. Kollektive Handlungsfähigkeit ist eine sehr frühe evolutionäre Errungenschaft, da sie durch interne Beschränkungen, der Selektion von Zielen, Mitteln und Teilnehmern, die Außenbeziehung sozialer Systeme verbessert hat. Man denke zum Beispiel dabei an Jagd, Ackerbau, Kriegsführung und religiöse Rituale. Dabei ist davon auszugehen, dass kollektives Handeln in sozialen Systemen nicht immer gewährleistet ist und zerfallen kann. Sofern soziale Systeme sich aber elementar über die Entscheidung über Mitgliedschaft reproduzieren, gehört dazu die Aufrechterhaltung von Kooperationen. Man sollte eine Theorie der Kooperation aber nicht so verstehen, dass sie das Gesellschaftssystem steuern könnte. Es betrifft dies die Nichtabstimmbarkeit der


377

Kooperationen als Ereignisse des Gesellschaftssystems, die sich immer gleichzeitig ereignen und sich einer Steuerung und Planung entziehen. Die idealtypische Beschreibung der Wir-Einstellung einer Person bezogen auf eine Gruppe besagt, 1. sie besteht dann und nur dann, wenn die Gruppe diese Einstellung hat, 2. sie unterstellt, dass sie die Gruppenmitglieder teilen und 3. es wird angenommen, dass es eine gemeinsame geteilte Einstellung der Mitglieder derart gibt, dass sie diese tatsächlich Einstellung teilen. Das schließt Ausgrenzungen wiederum nicht aus. Diese gemeinsame Wir-Einstellung ist ein sozialer Grund für ein Gruppenmitglied für die entsprechende (intentionale) kollektive Handlung. In diesem Fall sind die Teilnehmer an Kooperationen an das entsprechende Ziel kollektiv gebunden, das heißt, sie gehen ein Commitment ein, dass sie nicht mehr ohne weiteres frei zur Disposition stellen können. Diesen Ansatz nennt Tuomela die Theorie der kollektiven Ziele von Kooperation (collective goal theory of cooperation). Im Unterschied dazu sind Kooperationen mit einem kollektiven Handlungsdilemma, zum Beispiel dem Gefangenendilemma, Kooperationen in einem schwachen Sinn. Es handelt sich dabei um Ich-Kooperationen, bei denen die Teilnehmer ein gemeinsames privates Ziel, aber kein gemeinsames kollektives Ziel verfolgen. Ich-Kooperationen werden auch in Kapt. 10-12 analysiert. Ziel wird dabei in einem weiten Sinn verstanden, da auch geteilte Handlungen, die ein Mittel zu etwas sind, als Ziele zählen können. Für eine Theorie der Kooperation sind nicht kollektive Handlungen als solche interessant, bei denen mehrere Teilnehmer beteiligt sind, sondern nur solche, die auf sozialen Gründen beruhen. Dabei wird davon ausgegangen, dass kollektive soziale Handlungen in einem strengen, vollentfalteten Sinne kooperativ sein können – im Hinblick auf ein geeignetes Ziel –, ohne dass sie auf einem gemeinsamen Plan oder einem Einverständnis beruhen. Die Verfolgung kollektiver Ziele setzt eine Wir-Einstellung (we-mode) voraus, die nicht auf Ich-Einstellungen (I-mode) oder ihre Aggregationen zurückführbar sind. Ein Wir-Einstellungsziel ist gerade nicht als eine private Absicht oder eine nichtprivate personale Absicht mit einen kollektiven Inhalt, zum Beispiel als ein Zusammenhandeln, zu analysieren. Wir-Einstellungen setzen eine Gruppe in einem strengen Sinn vor-

378

Gerhard Preyer

aus. Sie setzen insofern Mitgliedschaft voraus. Dies schließt kollektive Commitments und ihre öffentliche Zugänglichkeit durch die Gruppenmitglieder voraus. Das ist in der Basisthese der Kooperation, die Tuomela aufstellt, enthalten (12). Wir erkennen daran, dass seine Theorie der Kooperation auf eine Soziologie der Mitgliedschaft verweist. Insofern nehme ich eine mitgliedschaftstheoretische Lesart seiner Theorie der Kooperation vor. Das 1. Kapt. enthält einen Anhang zu den Forschungen zu Kooperationen. Mit den Ansätzen von Williams, Bratman, Regan, Hollis setzt er sich weiter auch im Fortgang seiner Theorie auseinander; zum Gefangenendilemma diskutiert er Bicchieri, Moulin, dazu auch Kapt. 7, 12 und ingesamt 7-12; erörtert werden Axelfords Simulationsforschungen über Kooperation, Argyles’ und Fegers sozialpsychologische Analysen, die biologischen und ethologischen Ansätze von Harcort, de Waal, Hinde, Groeble, Kitcher und utilitaristische Ansätze von Boyd und Richerson. Das relevante begriffliche Element seines Ansatzes, den Begriff der kollektiven und gemeinsamen Ziele analysiert Tuomela im 2. Kapt. Dabei unterscheidet er idealtypisch: 1. kollektive Ziele, die auf einem gemeinsamen Wir-Ziel (we-goal, we-want) beruhen, 2. beabsichtigte kollektive Ziele, 3. beabsichtigte gemeinsame Ziele und 4.ein kollektives Ziel. Der erste Typus ist der schwächste und der zweite Typus ist ein strengere Begriff, da er ein beabsichtigtes kollektives Ziel einschließt, aber nicht eine zugrundeliegende gemeinsam geplante Absicht (planbased joint intention). Der dritte Typus bedeutet in seinem voll entfaltenden Sinn, daß die Teilnehmer ihre grundlegende gemeinsame Absicht, ein bestimmtes Ziel zu erreichen, gemeinsam ausführen. In diesem Fall beabsichtigt jeder Teilnehmer zu der gemeinsamen Handlung seinen Beitrag zu gewährleisten. Die Handlungsintention erfordert somit von den Teilnehmern eine Wir-Intention (Gruppenintention) für die Zielerreichung. Diese Intentionen schreiben wir Mitgliedern im Unterschied zu Nicht-Mitgliedern zu. In diesem Fall besteht ein gemeinsames Commitment zur Zielerreichung.2 Es ist in 2 Zu dem Begriff des Commitments vgl. die Besprechung von R. Tuomela, The Philosophy of Social Practices. A Collective Acceptance View, (Cambridge: 2002) G. Preyer „Ein Meister aus dem Norden“, in: Philosophische Rundschau 4 2003; rep. in: Preyer, Interpretation, Sprache und das Soziale. Philosophische Artikel, (Frankfurt am Main 2004).


379

seiner strengen Version ein kollektives Commitment. Wir-Intentionen und soziale Commitments als Bindungen an die Teilnehmer der Kooperation und der Gruppenziele basieren somit auf einem Differenzschema der Mitgliedschaft-Nichtmitgliedschaft und der Differenzierung im Mitgliedschaftsstatus. Ergänzend möchte ich dazu anmerken, dass durch diese Differenz soziale Systeme selbstkonstituiert sind. Ihre Grenzen sind durch die Entscheidung über Mitgliedschaft bestimmt und sie regeln die Teilnahme an Kooperationen strukturell vor. Der vierte Typus betrifft Ziele, die wir den Handlungen eines sozialen Kollektivs zuschreiben, zum Beispiel das Ziel eines Staates, der ein bestimmtes Territorium erobert. An diesem Fall wird die Mitgliedschaft als Grundlage der Zuschreibung der Ziele besonders deutlich, da wir sie auf die Mitgliedschaft in einem Kollektivs instanziieren. Sofern jemand Mitglied in einem bestimmten Kollektiv ist, so erfüllt er bestimmte Bedingungen, die zu seiner Mitgliedschaft führen. Zu den Strukturen eines Kollektivs gehört es, dass es 1. ein Entscheidungssystem gibt, durch das die Ziele für die Mitglieder der Gruppe festgelegt werden. Das schließt ein, dass nicht alle Mitglieder die festgelegten kollektiven Ziele haben, sie werden aber durch das Entscheidungssystem dazu verpflichtet. Das Kollektiv kann 2. ein beabsichtigtes Ziel verfolgen, sofern ihre Mitglieder eine schwache Wir-Absicht teilen. Das betrifft die statistische Bedeutung des Begriffs der kollektiven Ziele. Der Schlüsselbegriff der Analyse von Gruppenzielen im Unterschied zu Ichzielen ist die kollektive Akzeptanz. Sie betrifft das Einverständnis gegenüber bestimmten Wir-Überzeugungen (54). Insofern betrifft sie bestimmte Einstellungen von Mitgliedern gegenüber einem Einstellungsinhalt p in dem Sinne, dass sie kollektiv (als Gruppe) in einer Wir-Einstellung daran gebunden sind, ein bestimmtes Ziel herbeizuführen. Ihr Handeln hängt somit von der entsprechenden Einstellung ab. Dabei kann die kollektive Akzeptanz eine unterschiedliche Strenge haben, aber sie hat eine kollektive Aktivität in einer Wir-Einstellung zu enthalten, das heißt, eine bestimmte Art des Zusammenwirkens, die darauf abgestellt ist, den Zielinhalt p herbeizuführen. Das betrifft das kollektive Commitment der Teilnehmer, das sie eingegangen sind. Insofern enthält kollektive Akzeptanz ein kollektives Commitment gegenüber dem jeweiligen Inhalt p.

380

Gerhard Preyer

Nach Tuomela setzen Gruppenkooperationen eine bestimmte Einstellung und Präferenzen voraus. Das einleuchtendste Beispiel für eine vollständige Kooperation sind kooperative gemeinsame Handlungen als der grundlegende Fall von Gruppenkooperationen (Kapt. 3). Sie setzen voraus, dass die Teilnehmer eine kooperative Einstellung gegenüber der gemeinsamen Handlung und ihren Teilnehmern haben, die des Helfens und der Bereitwilligkeit. Das bedarf seinerseits ein besonderes Vertrauensverhältnis. In dem Kapt. werden weiter unterschiedliche Arten des Zusammenhandelns charakterisiert und ihre Beziehung zu Kooperation dargestellt. Die theoretische Grundlage seines Ansatzes wird von Tuomela in Kapt. 4 eingeführt und analysiert. Es sind dies die Gruppenkooperationen, ob sie nun auf gemeinsamen Handlungen beruhen oder nicht. Sie sind durch die Akzeptanz des kollektiven Ziels begründet, das heißt, sie erfüllen die Collectivity Condition. Das Kapt. diskutiert weiter schwächere Arten von Kooperationen, zum Beispiel solche, bei denen keine vollständigen Informationen vorliegen, unilaterale Kooperationen und Kooperation als ein Zusammenarbeiten. Tuomela geht davon aus, dass es rational ist zu kooperieren. In unproblematischen Fällen liegt dabei eine hohe Korrelation der Präferenzen der Teilnehmer vor. Tuomela beansprucht zu zeigen, daß es auch in einigen Fällen objektiv rational ist, zu kooperieren, in denen ein kollektives Handlungsdilemma, wie zum Beispiel beim Gefangenendilemma, vorliegt (Kapt. 4, 9-12). Das praktische Begründen (Schließen), sofern es zu Gruppen- und Ich-Kooperationen gehört, und ergänzend dazu das kommunikative Handeln, wird in Kapt. 5 analysiert. Das wird an zwei Mustern, den Schemen von praktischen Schlüssen sowie den Ich- und Gruppenzielen, dargestellt, die parallel zu dem Schema der Wir-Intentionen angeordnet sind. Kollektive soziale Handlungen benötigen keine kommunikativen Handlungen im strengen Sinn, sie schließen aber eine „Botschaft“ für die anderen Teilnehmer und Beobachter ein. Die Gründe der Teilnehmer werden dabei als Begriffe sui generis eingestuft, die ihrerseits nicht auf normative oder naturalistische Begriffe zurückführbar sind. Antezedensbedingungen dieser Schlüsse sind Ziele, Absichten und Überzeugungen. Die leitende Fragestellung ist dabei, ob Kommunikation zur Erreichung eines gemeinsamen kollektive Ziels erforderlich ist. Dieses Kapt. bedürfte einer be-


381

sonderen Analyse, da es über die vorliegende Literatur des praktischen Begründens hinausgeht. Die verschiedenen Arten von sozialen Normen werden in Kapt. 6 analysiert und erörtert, die relevanten Bestandteile von sozialen Institutionen im Kontext von Kooperation sind. Auch bei institutionellen Kooperationen sind nach Tuomela Gruppenkooperationen grundlegend. Die These ist, dass die normativen Begründungen eine Auswirkung auf die erzeugten zugeordneten institutionellen Präferenzen haben, die zu Kooperationen beitragen. Dabei sind auch normative Autoritäten zu berücksichtigen, die für Kooperationen relevant sind.3 Der Collective Acceptance Ansatz geht davon aus, dass auch eine relativ schwache Art von Kooperation bei einer kollektiven Akzeptanz ausreicht, um kollektiv soziale Vorkommnisse und soziale Institutionen hervorzubringen und zu erhalten. Soziale Normen und Einverständnis werden als kooperative Aktivitäten gefasst. Rituale und Zeremonien gelten als extreme Fälle solcher Aktivitäten (zu sozialen Normen 190-94). Tuomela geht davon aus, dass in allen institutionellen und auch anderen normativen Beispielen teilweise normativ zu charakterisierende Ziele oder Handlungen vorliegen, die grundlegend durch eine kooperative Aktivität zu erreichen sind. Die Analyse von Kooperationen wird in einem weiteren Schritt in den Bezugsrahmen der Spieltheorie gestellt (Kap. 7). Von Interesse ist dabei der Teil der Spieltheorie, die sich mit bindenden Vereinbarungen und Koalitionen beschäftigt, die sogenannte kooperative Spieltheorie. Da sich dieser Ansatz nicht mit normativen Begriffen, wie kollektiven Commitments und Handlungsgründen beschäftigt, wird gezeigt, wie er zu der Theorie der Gruppenkooperation abzustimmen ist. Die Standardannahme der kooperativen Spieltheorie besagt, dass individuelle Mitglieder einer Koalition bei der Koordination ihrer Handlungen eine bindende Übereinkunft eingehen. Diese Übereinkünfte betreffen eine Strategie derart: „Ich tue x und du y“. Der Ansatz bezieht somit nicht die Ziele der Teilnehmer ein, insbesondere keine beabsichtigten Ziele. 3

Zu dem Begriff der normativen Macht G. Preyer, „Entscheidung, Rechtsgeltung, Argumentation“, in: Rechtstheorie, Habermas-Sonderheft, System der Rechte, demokratischer Rechtstaat und Diskurstheorie des Rechts nach J. Habermas, Hrsg. von W. Krawietz, G. Preyer, (Berlin: 1996), 376-77, zu dem Begriff des institutionalisierten legalen System 374-76. Rep. in: Preyer, Interpretation, Sprache und das Soziale. Philosophische Artikel, (Frankfurt am Main 2004).

382

Gerhard Preyer

Das einzige Ziel ist die Optimierung des zu erwartenden Nutzens. Sofern der Nutzen in Geld oder mit Geld vergleichbaren Gütern dargestellt wird, macht es sicherlich Sinn von Zielen zu sprechen, zum Beispiel, wenn ein Unternehmen seinen Gewinn optimiert. Der entscheidende Punkt ist jedoch, das hebt Tuomela hervor, dass dieser Ansatz nicht ohne Künstlichkeiten konkrete Ziele, wie zum Beispiel der gemeinsame Bau eine Brücke, die gemeinsame Herausgabe eine Buches u.a., und die dabei eingegangenen Commitments erfassen kann. Gerade diese Gesichtspunkte sind aber bei einer triftigen Analyse von kooperativem Verhalten zu berücksichtigen (dazu Kapt. 2 und 3). Das ist ein wichtiger Punkt, der zu einer erheblichen Einschränkung der Leistungsfähigkeit dieses Ansatzes führt. Die Unterscheidung zwischen Gruppen- und Ich-Zielen betrifft die Strategie der Teilnehmer, da die Gemeinsamkeit die kollektive Absicht der Teilnehmer im Hinblick auf das angenommene Einverständnis betrifft. Dabei wird hervorgehoben, dass eine auf Einverständnis beruhende gemeinsame Handlung nicht eine Übereinstimmung über weitere kollektive Ziele beinhaltet. Sie mag nur Handlungen als ein Mittel zur Erreichung eines privaten Ziels der Teilnehmer einschließen. Aber kollektive (weitere) Ziele setzten eine kollektive Kooperation und Abstimmung von Handlungen als Mittel voraus (Kapt. 4.1). Tuomela begründet dies mit einem konzeptuellen Argument: Sofern ein kollektives Ziel gegeben ist, so existiert in der Sicht der Teilnehmer eine kollektive Handlung als mögliches Mittel. Ihm ist dahingehend zuzustimmen, dass in der (kooperativen) Spieltheorie ein mächtiges mathematischen Instrument vorliegt, sie aber in konzeptueller und theoretischer Hinsicht zu dürftig ist. Insofern bedarf sie – auch durch weitere Forschung – einer Korrektur. Das schließt nicht aus, dass die mathematischen Resultate der kooperativen Spieltheorie dazu beitragen können, eine analytisch klare Darstellungen von Gesichtspunkten kollektiver Ziele zu geben. Kooperative Präferenzen sind zergliederbar in ihnen zugrundeliegenden soziale Bestandteile der sozialen Abhängigkeit (Steuerung, controll). Faktoren der sozialen Steuerung sind zum Beispiel von Thibaut und Kelley, Wilson und Bixenstine erörtert worden. Ziel ist es, die „semi-motivationalen“ Bestandteile der sozialen Steuerung bzw. Typen der Steuerung zu beschreiben, die sozialen Interaktionssituationen zugrunde liegen. Diese Bestandteile betreffen die struktu-


383

rellen oder situationellen Determinanten (multi-agent action in einem technischen Sinn). Vorgenommen wird eine technische Analyse des Bestandteils der sozialen Steuerung, die in allen Interaktionssituationen vorhanden ist, in denen ein gemeinsam geteiltes Wissen über kollektive Aktivitäten vorliegt (Kapt. 8). Der Ansatz wird an der Interaktion einer endlichen Anzahl von Aktoren exemplifiziert. In der Anwendung auf eine einfache Zwei-Personen-Interaktion besagt sie, dass die Teilnehmer den Nutzen ihres gemeinsamen Ergebnis in die Bestandteile des Nutzens zerlegen können, ausgedrückt in 1. der absoluten Steuerung ihrer eigenen Handlungen, 2. im Hinblick auf die Handlungen der anderen Teilnehmer und 3. in ihrer konditionalen oder interaktiven Steuerung. Die relevanten Korrelationen zwischen den Präferenzen der Teilnehmer für ihre Kooperation kann dabei gemessen werden und sie zeigt sich als von den Bestandteilen der sozialen Steuerung in einer besonderen Weise abhängig. Gruppen- und Ich-Kooperationen unterstellen entsprechende Präferenzen bei ihren Teilnehmern, vor allem finale Präferenzen. Auf diesen Zusammenhang geht das Kapt. 9 ein und führt ihn einer technischen Analyse zu, die mit Hilfe variierter spieltheoretischer Strukturen illustriert wird. Kooperation und Konflikt im Kontext der Dilemmas der kollektiven Handlung, des Konflikts zwischen individueller und kollektiver Rationalität, wie zum Beispiel das Gefangenendilemma u.a., wird in Kapt. 10 erörtert. Tuomelas Ansatz geht dahin, dass, wenn die Bereitstellung von öffentlichen Gütern auf dem Spiel steht, dieses kollektive Ziel im Sinne der Collectivity Condition zu interpretieren ist (Kapt. 4). Sie besagt: Intendierte kollektive Zielen sind durch gemeinsame Ziele der Teilnehmer und deshalb durch kollektive Commitments bestimmt (27). Besonders hervorzuheben ist, dass Tuomela rationale Kooperation mit spieltheoretischen Mitteln illustriert und in diesem Zusammenhang für die Zentralität der kollektiven Gründe für Kooperationen argumentiert (Kapt. 11). Tuomela ist dabei an einer umfassenden Rationalität orientiert, die auch Ziel-, Wert- und expressive Rationalität umfasst, wobei sich in den Überzeugungen, Absichten und Zielen immer auch die Gesellschaft und Kultur der Akteure wiederfindet. Vergleichbare Überlegungen findet man bei N. Rescher und dem deutschen Soziologen R. Münch. Tuomela bezieht mit dem Begriff der „well-groundedness“ von Rationalität auf Follesdal und Audi. Er geht davon aus,

384

Gerhard Preyer

dass eine Handlung immer einige relevante Kriterien von Rationalität erfüllt (dazu 299-300). Sie setzen wahre Überzeugungen und erfüllbare andere propositionale Einstellungen voraus. Auf das Rationalitätsproblem gehe ich hier nicht weiter ein. Die Rationalitätssemantiken, die wir aus der Philosophie, aber auch Soziologie kennen, wirken mittlerweile etwas blass. Sie sollten teilweise dahingehend umgearbeitet werden, wenn man von der theoretischen Rationalität einmal absieht, dass wir sie soziologisch von der Mitgliedschaft in sozialen Systemen (Gruppen) her reinterpretieren: Als Mitglied einer Gruppe wird uns Rationalität auferlegt. Hervorzuheben sind für die soziologische und philosophische Analyse immer auch die nicht-rationalen Bestandteilen des Handelns, die aus der Soziologie bekannt sind (Durkheim, Weber, Pareto, Parsons), aber in vielen Konzeptualisierungen von Rationalität nicht berücksichtigt wurden. Das trifft allerdings auf Tuomela nicht zu, da er den motivationalen Bestandteil der Veranlassung auf Kooperation in seinen Kooperationsbegriff miteinbezieht. Der thematische Rahmen der Analyse von Gruppen- und Ich-Kooperationen wird dahingehend erweitert, da die personenrelativen Gründe für kooperative Handlungen privat, aber auch möglicherweise sehr weitgehend sozial oder kollektiv sein können. Die kollektiven Gründe sollen dazu beitragen, den Konflikt individueller und kollektiver Rationalität zu entdramatisieren. Die Probleme von Kooperationen von iterierten Spielen und verschiedene Arten der Lösung des kollektiven Handlungsdilemmas wird in Kapt. 12 erörtert. Ergänzt wird diese Analyse durch die Besprechung von experimentellen Ergebnissen der Untersuchung der Kooperation in dilemmatischen Situationen. Tuomela wendet seine Ansatz auf die politische Philosophie an, insbesondere auf Rawls Theorie des politischen Liberalismus (Kapt. 13). Tuomela hebt hervor, dass Kooperationen unter verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten – auch sich überschneidenden – zu klassifizieren sind. Der erste Klassifikationsfaktor ist die Unterscheidung zwischen Gruppenkooperationen und Ich-Kooperationen, die sich dazu eignet, grundlegende Kooperationen zu unterscheiden (Kapt. 4). Der zweite Klassifikationsfaktor betrifft die Gemeinsamkeit der Präferenzen, das heißt, der Grad der Korrespondenz (Kapt. 9) misst das Ergebnis der grundsätzlich geplanten gemeinsamen Handlungen (Kapt. 3). Das betrifft die kol-


385

lektiven Ergebnisse, welche aus den jeweiligen Beiträgen der Teilnehmer resultieren. Der dritte Klassifikationsfaktor betrifft die Strategie. Die parametrische Unterscheidung wird dabei auf die jeweilige Kooperationssituation angewandt (Kapt. 10). Das Gefangenendilemma ist dafür ein gutes Beispiel. Der vierte Klassifikationsfaktor betrifft die Schnittstelle zwischen den Bestandteilen der sozialen Steuerung in der jeweils gegebenen Kooperationssituation (Kapt. 89, 10, Teil V). Der fünfte Klassifikationsfaktor ist der institutionelle bzw. nicht-institutionelle Charakter der Kooperation. Er betrifft die jeweiligen Teilsysteme, zum Beispiel im Wirtschaftssystem Anweisungen innerhalb eines Unternehmens, monetäre Operationen oder institutionelle (organisationelle) Kooperationen im politischen – und im Wissenschaftssystem (Kapt. 6). Für die Analyse der Abstimmbarkeit von Präferenzen ist soziologisch anzumerken, dass hier die von den Mitgliedern sozialer Systeme jeweils vermutete Übereinstimmungen zwischen Erwartensstrukturen relevant sind. Das betrifft ihre Bestimmtheit aber auch ihre Vieldeutigkeit und die Orientierung an kognitiven und normativen Erwartungen. Damit sind weniger die in Frage kommenden Teilnehmer bei der Lösung von kooperativen Aufgabenstellungen angesprochen, sondern es betrifft dies strukturell erzwungene Variationen des Handelns, um besondere und höhere Ansprüche an Kooperationen zu stellen. Das betrifft dann auch die Konsequenzen, die aus dem Erfolg und Misserfolg der Lösung der kooperativen Aufgabenstellung für das soziale System resultieren. In der Durkheim-Parsons Tradition der Soziologie hat man sozialen Normen oder der normativen Kultur ein grundlegende Bedeutung zugesprochen. Die Annahme von einem Basiskonsens, verhaltenssteuernden Normen und der Reduktion von Sozialem auf Normen ist darüber hinaus bei Sozialphilosophen unterschiedlicher Herkunft weit verbreitet. Auch Tuomela geht davon aus, dass für Soziales soziale Regeln (Regelnormen) und geeignete (angemessene) soziale Normen grundlegend sind (vgl. dazu 190-94). Diesen grundlegende Gesichtspunkt von Sozialem hält er mit seinem Modell der kollektiven Akzeptanz vereinbar. Der Punkt ist nicht, dieses einfach zu bestreiten. Soziales gibt es nicht ohne Normen, sondern es ist die Frage zu stellen, an welcher Stelle sie in der Theorie sozialer Systeme oder auch der Sozialtheorie anzuordnen sind.

386

Gerhard Preyer

N. Luhmann hat dieses Problem vom Grundsätzlichen her gesehen aus meiner Sicht richtig erkannt, wenn er davon ausgeht, daß der Begriff der sozialen Norm „an theoretisch sekundärer, abgeleiteter Stelle“ in der soziologischen Theorie einzuführen ist.4 Er verlagert die normative Strukturerhaltung bzw. die durchaus weit verbreitete Auffassung, dass Soziales durch normative Reduktion bestimmt ist, in den Begriff der Generalisierung von Erwartungen.5 Dadurch wird das, was erwartet wird, in einem gewissen Ausmaß unbestimmt. Mir geht es nicht um die Übernahme von Luhmanns Ansatz, sondern um das Problem, das bei diesem Anschnitt erkennbar ist. Bei theoretischen Problemen und der Aufbereitung der fruchtbaren Fragestellungen geht es normalerweise nicht darum, ob man dafür ist oder dagegen, sondern der Anschnitt sollte dahingehen, sich zu fragen, wie man das Problem erörtert, um zu weiteren Einsichten zu gelangen. Ich möchte in diesem Zusammenhang eine mitgliedschaftstheoretische Analyse von Normen andeuten, die der Trivialität, dass Soziales ohne Normen nicht möglich ist, eine nicht-triviale Reinterpretation gibt. Soziale Systeme sind aus meiner Sicht in ihrer Operations- bzw. Verfahrensart durch Mitgliedschaftsbedingungen und der Entscheidung über Mitgliedschaft selbstkonstituiert. Das betrifft auch ihre Strukturbildung. Jede Operation in der Zeit setzt ihre Anschlussfähigkeit voraus. Damit verändern oder bestätigen sie ihre Teilnahmebedingungen resp. die in ihnen vorliegenden grundsätzlichen Beschränkungen. Im Hinblick auf die Mitgliedschaftsbedingungen sind die Operationen die Entscheidungen über Mitgliedschaft, somit einmalige zeitliche Ereignisse, die aber als Ereignistyp wiederholbar sind. In der Systemtheorie wird mittlerweile hervorgehoben, dass soziale Systeme und ihre systemtypischen Operationen künstliche Gebilde sind. Damit soll ihre Leistungsfähigkeit, aber auch ihre Gefährdetheit verdeutlicht werden. Durch die Entscheidung über Mitgliedschaft gewinnen soziale Systeme Steigerungs- und Selektionsleistungen bei der Lösung von kooperativen Aufgabenstellungen. Wir können aber noch einen Schritt weiter gehen, sie stellen 4 N. Luhmann, Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie, (Frankfurt am Main: 1984), 444, vgl. 444-47. Zu kognitivem und normativem Erwarten 437-40. 5 Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, 445-47.


387

sich damit selbst zur Disposition indem sie beschränkte Negationen praktizieren und sich dadurch lernfähig halten. Dadurch irritieren sich soziale Systeme selbst und bilden durch diese Negationen ein Immunsystem aus.6 Welche Funktion nehmen in sozialen System Normen ein, sofern sie durch Mitgliedschaft selbst konstituiert sind und an welcher theoretischen Stelle sind sie einzuführen? Soziale Normen und Rechtsnormen gebieten, verbieten oder erlauben bestimmte Handlungen und Verhaltensweisen. Normen sind oft Normensysteme und greifen ineinander. Soziale Normen wirken aber nicht durch sich selbst, sondern es bedarf immer einer Instanz (Autorität), die sie setzt und durchsetzt. Sie gelten immer für die Mitglieder einer bestimmten Gruppe resp. eines sozialen Systems. Normen können aber auch sinnlos, disfunktional sein oder unterhöhlt werden. Wir sprechen meistens von Normativität dann, wenn an Erwartungen und Erwartenserwartungen auch in der Situation festgehalten wird, in denen sie enttäuscht werden. Kognitive und normative Erwartungen sind zwar grundsätzlich zu unterscheiden, sie sind aber im Alltag nicht streng voneinander getrennt. Um kommunikativen Anschluss zu gestalten, hat man sich immer zu überlegen, was man kognitiv und was man normativ erwarten kann. Die Stabilisierung von normativem Erwarten betrifft die evolutionäre Rolle des Rechts (Rechtsystem), insofern diese Erwartungen, die entsprechende Unterstützung finden und auch entsprechend durchgesetzt werden können. Das heißt aber nicht, dass normatives Erwarten nicht auch lernfähig zu halten ist. Insofern geht es nicht nur um das Problem der Stabilität von Normen, sondern um ihrer Aufrechterhaltung im Enttäuschungsfall. Das heißt aus meiner Sicht, die Normprojektion wird durch die Mitgliedschaft gewährleistet, die Enttäuschungsfestigkeit gewährleistet und gleichzeitig durch die Entscheidung über die Teilnahmebedingungen die Erwartung kondensiert. Die Stabilität der Erwartungen wird somit durch die fortlaufende Entscheidung hergestellt, die ihrerseits wiederum Spielräume für die Erwartensänderung ermöglicht. Die Stabilitätsbedingung und das Festhalten im Entäuschungsfall besteht aus mei6 Zu dem Begriff des Immunsystems sozialer Systeme Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, 50409.

388

Gerhard Preyer

ner Sicht in den Commitments der bestimmten Zielverfolgung, welche die Mitglieder sozialer Systeme eingehen und durch Mitgliedschaft gewährleistet werden. Diese Commitments sind nicht vorrangig moralisch zu verstehen. Sie sind aber einer Moralisierung zugänglich, die je nach Ausmaß auch verfehlt sein kann. Mitgliedschaft bringt soziale Bindungen in einem unterschiedlichen Ausmaß sozusagen autokatalytisch hervor. Sie mag schwach sein, aber wir können uns, solange wir an sozialen Systemen teilnehmen, nicht selbst als Mitglied in Frage stellen. Das kann man nur in einem absurden Theaterstück. Das wird von Tuomela durch die Collectivity Condition angesprochen. Daraus erklärt es sich, dass die Mitglieder von sozialen Systeme Verhaltenserwartungen ausbilden, die von ihnen ihrerseits erwartbar sind. Soziale Normen sind deshalb gegenüber der Annahme von Basisnormen oder normativen Reduktionen an einer sekundären theoretischen Stelle einzuführen: Mitgliedschaft und die Anforderungen an Statuspositionen in sozialen Systemen wird erst sekundär durch ihre Erwartung von Erwartungen gewährleistet, wobei sie fortlaufend durch die Entscheidung über Mitgliedschaft und Teilnahme anschlussfähig zu halten ist. Das Problem wird von Tuomela mit der „Long-Term Cooperation“ angesprochen (evolutionäre Spieltheorie, Skyrms). Das ist aber wiederum nicht Normen anheimzustellen, sondern der fortlaufenden Entscheidung über Mitgliedschaft als ein Strukturerhaltungsmittel sozialer Systeme, letztlich ist es der Evolution zu überlassen. Das Problem der Rolle von sozialen Normen habe ich angesprochen, nicht nur weil es soziologisch zentral ist, sondern es erneut erörtert werden sollte. Dabei brauchen wir nicht bei Null anzufangen. Das gilt auch für die Strukturanalyse von Kooperationen, da die Durchführung ihrer Aufgabenstellung zwangsläufig zu besonderen Anforderungsprofilen an ihre Teilnehmer führt. Hinzuweisen ist in diesem Zusammenhang, dass funktionale Differenzierung ohne reflexive Erwartungen nicht möglich wäre. Tuomela räumt ein, dass sein Ansatz für unterschiedliche ontologische Interpretationen offen ist. Aus meiner Sicht führt uns seine Theorie zu einem Differenzschema der Teilnahme an Kooperation, der Unterscheidung zwischen Mitglied und Nichtmitglied, da Wir-Intentionen und die Collectivity Condition auf die Mitgliedschaft in Gruppen (sozialen Systemen) zu instanziieren ist. Angesprochen ist damit die


389

Sozialontologie, da mit der Instanz der Mitgliedschaft von Wir-Intentionen Soziales einen nicht-individualistischen zu charakterisierenden Gegenstandsbereich hat. Die Letztelemente von Sozialem (sozialen Systemen) sind Mitgliedschaften und Teilnehmerpositionen. Soziale System haben sich ko-evolutiv ergeben und weisen emergente Eigenschaften aus. Mit der Mitgliedschaft geht konzeptuell ein Autoritätssystem einher, das über Mitgliedschaften und kollektive Ziele entscheidet. Tuomelas Ansatz kann in eine allgemeine Theorie sozialer Systeme eingearbeitet werden und weist in seiner Analyse der sozialen Steuerung auf eine systemtheoretische Reinterpretation hin. Wir können mittlerweile Wissen, dass Systemund Handlungstheorie gegenüber landläufigen Meinungen, keine sich ausschließenden Ansätze sind. Das kann hier nicht weiter vertieft werden. Ich habe seinen Ansatz in einem ersten Durchgang skizziert, ohne eine Einzelerörterung durchzuführen. Das wird die Aufgabe weiterer Forschung sein. Hervorzuheben ist insbesondere, dass er die Beschränkungen der individualistischen Konzeptionen der Analyse von Kooperationen überwunden hat und er wird im Fortgang zu Recht als eine neue Theorie erörtert werden. Sie hat die uns geläufigen atomistischen Ansätze hinter sich gelassen.7

7 Eine gekürzte Fassung ist in Philosophischer Literaturanzeiger 1 (2004), 59-65 erschienen.

390

Robert Kowalski

Development – Paradox, Paralysis and Praxis Robert Kowalski Abstract Development is permeated by paradoxes. These are primarily the result of a confusion of logical types that characterises human communication. When these paradoxes are turned into double binds they have a distinctly disabling impact upon the partners and the processes of development. The two main causes of double binds are an inability to withdraw from the no win choices of paradox, and an interdiction against discussing the existence of the paradox. A number of examples of double binds in development and their causes are discussed and a series of suggestions to improve the practices of development are made.

1. Introduction In recent years I have been consistently drawn to the phenomena that are generally characterized as paradoxes (Kowalski 1999). From writers such as Bateson (1972), Laing (1990) and Watzlawick (1993) I became aware that paradox was at once at the very heart of what it means to be human, whilst at the same time being responsible for many of the dysfunctions that beset individuals and societies. It was, therefore, with a mixture of affirmation and disquiet that I read Ellerman (2002, p.43) writing, in regard to development assistance, that if the doers are to become autonomous, then what is the role of the external helpers? This paradox of supplying help to self-help… is the fundamental conundrum of development assistance. [emphasis in the original]

At the beginning of the 21st century, why is it that we are still apparently surprised by the paradox of development? Korten (1983 p.220) had long since written, “[The] central paradox of social development: the need to exert influence over people for the purpose of building their capacity to control their own lives.” Gronemeyer (1992 p.64) had acknowledged that, “Help appears more and more as a conceptually unsuitable means of promoting development. In short, help does not help.” Kaplan (1996

Development – Paradox, Paralysis and Praxis

391

p.3) had indicated that, “We cannot cause development.” Pieterse (1999 p.79) had written that, “The Tao of development means acknowledging paradox as part of development realities: such as the antinomies between … intervention and autonomy.” Why has there been such a resolute avoidance of considering the nature, impact and management of paradox itself in the formulation of fresh responses to the challenge of development? Especially when Seers (1969, p.3) resolved that Since development is far from being achieved at present the need is not, as is generally imagined, to accelerate economic growth … But to change the nature of the development process.

or when Kaplan (1996 p. 64) observed, that the development practitioner, needs to understand the process of development in order to facilitate the ‘stuck’ organisation into taking their next step … to a point of greater consciousness and awareness

and when Crush (1995, p.4) commented that “what [development] says it is doing, and what we believe it to be doing, are simply not what is actually happening.” Is it that we engage with the problem of development at the wrong level so that, although behaviors change, systemic change is avoided? Plus ça change plus ça le même chose To address this lacuna I intend to examine the issue through a number of steps, beginning with the concepts of logical types, paradox and double binds. These enable us to understand the nature of development paradoxes, and their particular, unhelpful manifestation in double binds. This, in turn, provides insights that suggest behaviors that may enable us to be more adept in our interventions.

2. Logical Types What do we mean by a paradox? The classical example is the liar’s paradox, attributed to Epimenides, the Greek, who is purported to have said, “All Greeks are liars”. Confusion arises because if the enunciator himself is a Greek, then the statement is a lie, and yet if the statement enunciated is a lie then Epimenides, as a Greek, is impossibly speaking truth, and so

392

Robert Kowalski

on ad infinitum (Berman 1982). Careful consideration of this example shows that the paradox is generated by the attempt at self-reference. The rule that applies in logic or mathematics to such a case can be elaborated as: no class of objects can be a member of itself (Russell 1937). In the example above the word “Greek” is being used in both the sense of a class (the enunciator of statements) and as an item within that class (the word Greek). The class is being forced to be a member of itself, a situation that is not allowable in logic, thus generating a paradox. It is a paradox because two different levels of abstraction, or logical types, are being mixed up. As Berman (1982, p. 220) recognized, This [mathematical] axiom, that there is a discontinuity between a class and its members, seems trivially obvious, until we discover that human and mammalian communication is constantly violating it to generate significant paradoxes.

This notion, that human communication does not conform to the logic of the Principles of Mathematics, is founded upon the recognition that in any act of communication there are three logical levels in operation as follows: Level one – is about the manifest content or message of the communication itself – the denotative meaning. Level two – is about the relationship between the people in communication as it relates to the manifest content. Level three – is about how the receiver is to discriminate between types of communication at level two. Thus the levels two and three contain information about context and information about intention, both of which are referred to as Metacommunication, since it is about the relationship between things not the things themselves. As Berman (1982, p.220) averred, “all meaningful communication necessarily involves metacommunication - communication about communication – and is therefore constantly generating paradoxes of the Russellian type.” It is this multi-level nature of human communication that lies at the root of paradoxes being so common. The value of paradox is that it can be both a means of stimulating creativity and a method of expressing it. Indeed, the greatest use of paradox is in the field of humour where many jokes and capers are made possible only by the sweet confusion that paradox brings. However, the


393

matter of creativity and humour are not the subject of our analysis today, our attention must be placed upon another manifestation of paradox, the double bind because it is my contention that it is through double binds that development assistance is brought to nothing.

3. Double Blinds Examples of double binds abound, from the classic trap of “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” to more subtle ones like “Be spontaneous!” (Watzlawick 1993, p.108 & p.100 respectively). Robin Lakoff provides careful insight into how women and men are double binded into gender inequities thus: Now the command that society gives to the young of both sexes might be phrased something like: ‘Gain respect by speaking like other members of your sex,’. For the boy, as we have seen, that order, constraining as it is, is not paradoxical: if he speaks (and generally behaves) as men in his culture are supposed to, he generally gains people’s respect. But whichever course the woman takes – to speak women’s language or not to – she will not be respected. So she cannot carry out the order (Quoted in Jamieson 1995, p.13).

Jamieson (1995 p.5) also said that: Binds draw their power from their capacity to simplify complexity. Faced with a complicated situation or behaviour, the human tendency is to split apart and dichotomise its elements. So we contrast good and bad, strong and weak, for and against, true and false, and in so doing assume that a person can’t be both at once – or somewhere in between. Such distinctions are often useful. But when this tendency drives us to see life’s options or the choices available to women as polarities and irreconcilable opposites, those differences become troublesome.

But, even though people refer quite often to such double binds, it is not clear that they have fully understood the real magnitude of the issue in hand. Jamieson (1995, p.13) described a double bind as: “a rhetorical construct that posits two and only two alternatives, one or both penalizing the person being offered them”. But contrast this with the detailed description provided by Bateson(1972, p. 208), who said that the three characteristics of a double-bind situation are: 1. When an individual is involved in an intense relationship; that is

394

Robert Kowalski

a relationship in which he feels it is vitally important that he discriminate accurately what sort of message is being communicated so that he may respond appropriately. 2. And, the individual is caught in a situation in which the other person in the relationship is expressing two orders of message and one of these denies the other. 3. And, the individual is unable to comment on the messages being expressed to correct his discrimination of what order of message to respond to, i.e., he cannot make a metacommunicative statement. and we see that as a rule a double bind is more than simply an impossible dilemma or a paradox. Lawley (2000, p.33) emphasised the proper intensity of double binds, taking them to another level beyond simple paradox, when he said: The common expression ‘damned if you do, and damned if you don’t’ is not a double bind because there is only one level of bind (whatever she does she’s damned). For it to be a double bind requires a further bind at a higher level precluding escape from the primary bind.

It is not that the difficulties posed by the impossible choices of a paradox are damaging, though they are, but that double binds are particularly potent because the dilemma or paradox is felt at two levels. The first is the paradox itself, and the second involves a further bind that precludes making a choice about or resolving the first paradox. According to Watzlawick, Bavelas & Jackson, (1967, p.212): even though the message is logically meaningless, it is a pragmatic reality: he cannot not react to it, but neither can he react to it appropriately (nonparadoxically), for the message itself is paradoxical. This situation is frequently compounded by the more or less overt prohibition to show any awareness of the contradiction or the real issues involved. [emphasis in the original]

In addition to the interdiction to realize that a paradox is occurring, Berman (1982, p. 228) drew attention to another difficulty or dimension of the double bind thus: “The crucial element [that makes a double bind] is not being able to leave the field, or point out the contradiction”. Being regularly exposed to such situations impacts negatively upon the psychology of even the most robust, as Goleman (1998, p.154) pointed out:


395

double-bind theory proposes that the repeated experience of [a variety of ] messages such as “Do not submit to my orders” – that is, messages which are impossible to comply with – creates a warp in the recipient’s habitual mode of perceiving.

Jamieson (1995, p.13) concurs with Bateson and his colleagues that responses to a double bind include ‘helplessness, fear, exasperation, and rage’ and notes that other scientists have found that in so-called ‘normal individuals,’ double binds increased expressed anxiety as well.

4. The Nature of Development’s Paradox As Ellerman (2002) has pointed out, helping to self-help as the methodology of Development Assistance is a dilemma of metacommunication, or Paradox, amounting to ‘Let me help you to stand on your own two feet ’. The other person cannot both allow themselves to be helped and at the same time be autonomous. He refers to this as the helping or fundamental conundrum. Likewise Fukuda-Parr, Lopes & Malik (2002, p.15) refer to the development paradox as a Catch 22 resulting from the asymmetry between donor and recipient. Botchway (2001) discusses the paradox of empowerment in terms of a double edged sword and Rist (2002, p.91) comments upon the antinomy contained in the notion of an interest in being disinterested as the position of donor countries. Rihani (2002, p.1) saw an intriguing paradox between the efforts and resources put in and the progress made when he wrote that: “Despite fifty years of intensive activity by movers and shakers of the day, and costs amounting to billions of dollars, too many deprived regions on earth have stubbornly failed to develop”. This echoes with Eade’s observation (Eade 1997, p.13) that “Relief efforts which do not strengthen people’s existing capacities necessarily intensify their vulnerabilities”. I have been struck by the similarity between these expressions of development assistance and another situation described by Watzlawick (1993, p.109) as follows: In disturbed family interaction we frequently observe that – quite reasonably – the parents expect of their child that he become independent of them and begin to live a life of his own, but that, on the other hand, they interpret any step that their child may make in that direction as a sign of ingratitude, disaffection or even treason. Thus, no matter

396

Robert Kowalski whether he remains dependent or attempts to become independent, he is wrong and a bad son.

Similarly, Rogers (1993) and Ellerman (2002) draw an analogy between education and development. In both the main basis for saying that teaching and development are similar is presented as the impossibility of performing either task because of the paradoxical relationship between the intention and the act. Ryle (1967, p.118) identified the paradoxes of teaching when he wrote: How in logic can the teacher dragoon his pupil into thinking for himself, impose initiative upon him, drive him into self-motivation, conscript him into volunteering, enforce originality upon him, or make him operate spontaneously? The answer is that he cannot.

The link between development and education and the reason for their susceptibility to paradox lies in the very nature of the learning process that underpins both. It was Gregory Bateson’s insight to recognise that the impact of the three levels of communication would be mirrored in three levels of learning. These are characterised, after Bateson (1972), as: Learning I (Proto-learning): The simple solution of a specific problem. The manifest content of schooling or instruction. Learning II (Deutero-learning): Progressive change in the rate of Learning I. Understanding the nature of the context in which the problems posed in Learning I exist; learning the rules of the game. Equivalent to paradigm formation. Often referred to as the “Hidden Curriculum” of schooling (Snyder 1971). Learning III: An experience which provokes a person to realize the arbitrary nature of their own paradigm, or Learning II, and is enabled to go through a profound reorganization of personality as a result. One might refer to this reorganization as Freire’s “conscientizaçao” – the “critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world” (quoted in Shor 1993, p. 26), or Chambers’(1997, p.32) “Self-critical epistemological awareness”. Although Ellerman (2001, p.6) has alluded to its rarity when he wrote: The roots of intrinsic motivation such as an individual’s self-identity … are typically not open to intentional and deliberate choice. One chooses according to who one is, but one does not directly choose who one is.


397

Additionally, as Freire (1971) recognized, schooling is not about individual development (ability to perform Learning III), but about domestication, developing the ability to conform (through Learning II). He also pointed out that: “what we have is an Africa over which there hovered, in domination, colonial-style, the Portuguese language, the French language, the English language.” (Freire 1998, p.179) The introduction of discourses about development and its accompanying bureaucratic forms necessarily brings with it its own language, which represents a fresh colonialism. Here is another paradox that faces development - to foster the indigenous language and exclude participation in metacommunication, or to promote local proficiency in an alien tongue. Once more we see that this is a false choice, and we are challenged sensitively to achieve both. Carrying forward the links between logical types and paradox, Berman (1981, p.222) noted that: The significance[of paradox] lies in the fact that it is largely this violation of logic which constitutes most of our deutero-learning; that we obtain a personality, and a world view, by means of a pervasive system of cultural, metacommunicative messages. [emphasis in the original]

This reinforces the necessity of the approach captured by Horton (1998, p. 122) when he stated: “You don’t just tell people something; you find a way to use situations to educate them so that they can learn to figure things out themselves”. This view was emphasized by Ortega y Gasset who suggested: “He who wants to teach a truth should place us in the position to discover it ourselves.” (cited in Ellerman 2001, p.28). Indeed, since all adjectives descriptive of character (e.g. fatalistic, superstitious, self-determining) are descriptions of the possible results of Learning II (as described above), so in the context of a purposeful development process it is vital to ask what sort of learning context would we devise in order to inculcate a particular habit of autonomy or free will? (Bateson 1972, p.170). Kaplan (1996, p.27) marked what he considered to be the central intention of the development process in an oblique reference to the importance of Learning III when he wrote: The phase of interdependence, though, is that phase when I am secure enough in myself to be able to recognise and accept my dependence; it is the phase when I can define myself in and of myself, and so remain

398

Robert Kowalski open, alive, awake and objective towards the world around me, towards others, towards both sides of the coin.

As did Nelson (1949, p.18-9) in reference to the possibility of education when he wrote: the end of education is rational self-determination, i.e., a condition in which the individual does not allow his behavior to be determined by outside influences but judges and acts according to his own insight.

The context of development places both parties in situations where they have intentions for change at different levels, and are also communicating about them at different levels, with the evident potential for confusion of logical types in the messages exchanged. The transfer of know how and the building of human capacity is, in Bateson’s terms, Learning I. Therefore, what we seem to be about in development when trying to change one set of habits, characterised by context and the process experienced, for a new set denoting the new context and the processes which pertain to it, is to foster Learning II. For example to bring about changes in people’s self-confidence or to encourage risk taking and the advent of entrepreneurial spirit is to change character. However, these are not the expansion of true autonomy, nor the ability to truly self-help – although Learning II is capable of fostering reasonable simulations of these capabilities. True development, like true education, is arguably about giving control over the choice of what habits or characteristics to adopt or change, that is Learning III. Development can be stratified into the three levels of Actions (simply behaviors), Processes (consistent patterns of behavior) and Systems (the broader manifestations of values and beliefs within which the patterns are practised). These can be related to the ultimate ends, as outlined in the previous paragraph, via the means we use to achieve them (See Box 1). It should be noted that many different kinds of abilities can be learnt by Learning I, and there are a wide variety of characteristics (each of which may be portrayed as intrinsically good or intrinsically bad) that can be acquired by Learning II. Learning III, however, is a single positive outcome, and therefore its acquisition can either be enabled or prevented. The framework of logical types demonstrates that Actions lead to Learning I; Processes lead to Learning II; and Systems lead to or prevent Learning III. As is apparent from the framework, Actions alone cannot


Level of Development

Alternative Approaches in Development

Alternative Tactics

Outcomes

Actions

• Blue Print Projects • Technical Assistance • Capacity Building • Institutional Strengthening

• Expert advice Learning I • In-line work Know how • Agenda setting Simple responses • Conducting research • Problem setting

Processes

• Top Down • Participatory • Partnership • Direct Budget Support

Outsider • Does it; • Facilitates it: • Provokes it; • Mentors it. Insider • Accepts it; • Informs it; • Directs it; • Controls it

Learning II This is how the world works; characteristics – compliant, fatalistic, resistant, innovative, or selfdetermining

Systems(Cast of Mind1)

That Prevent Outcomes • Modernization2 • Global Reformism3 • Social Idealism4 That Promote Outcomes • Holism5 • Indigenisation6

Preventing • Proscribing • Coercing • Supplying Promoting • Encouraging • Supporting • Enhancing • Engaging

Learning III Reflection on the variety of ways to respond to any situation – flexibility, debate

Box 1. A Framework of Logical Types in Development

1 2 3 4 5 6

399

Sachs (1992, p. 1) Rist (2002, p.93-108) Rist (2002, p.211-237) Rist (2002, p.10) Schumacher (1973, p.168-169) & Hirschman (1984, p.91-93) Hettne (1995, p.75)

400

Robert Kowalski

lead to Learning II, it is only Actions in their wider context (Processes) that can do that; nor can Processes lead to Learning III, but only the experience of processes within a wider [belief ] System that actively seeks to promote it. As Ellerman (2001, p.6) wrote: “Carrots and sticks might buy or induce compliant behaviours, but they cannot directly cause changes in the determinants of intrinsic motivation”. From a consideration of this framework it follows that there needs to be a high degree of congruence between the underpinning system in use (or development paradigm), the processes employed and the specific actions taken, if the fullest manifestation of Human Development (Learning III) is to be achieved. Similarly, any incongruence between the way that the different levels are projected, consciously or unconsciously, will be received by all parties as a paradox, and in turn will lay each party open to double binds. This need for congruence emphasizes the importance of ensuring that all staff of a Development Assistance (or Educational) organization need to share a common understanding of purpose and process – to pay lip service is effectively to present people with a paradox.

5. Beyond Paradox Given the frequency of paradox in human communication, and the complex nature of the philosophical structures within which development is conducted, what can we say about the way that the paradoxes in development are fashioned? and in particular how are they turned into double binds? As one might expect, paradoxes are created in the process of development assistance in a number of contexts.

(a) The Donor/Recipient Interaction The nature of the classic situation is to present two apparent choices “Develop in your own way” and “Develop in the way we specify”. As Ellerman (2002, p.45) noted: if the doers do X only to satisfy conditionalities and thus receive aid, then the motive will falsify the action, the reforms will not be well implemented, and the policy changes will not be sustained.


401

And Hirschman (quoted in Ellerman 2001, p.3): “Thus the conditional aid is ‘fully effective only when it does not achieve anything”. This leads straightaway to the ‘paradox’ that aid is only autonomycompatible when it does not do what is conventionally taken as a major purpose of program aid – to tip the balance of motives in favour of reforms and good policies (Ellerman 2001, p.33).

The double bind itself is created by the threat, actual or perceived, to withdraw funds or favors if either choice of the paradox is not achieved, leading recipients to pretend that the donor’s objectives are, in fact, what they want for themselves. More importantly, this is usually compounded by preventing the recipient of development assistance from withdrawing from the bind themselves through the application of various forms of coercion, whilst at the same time prohibiting the recipients from commenting upon the paradoxical behavior of the donor, or more particularly its agents.

(b) The Implementation of Development Assistance Development assistance is increasingly promulgated as Institutional Strengthening or Capacity Building (Eade 1997; Fukuda-Parr, Lopes & Malik 2002), frequently undertaken through projects. When an organization or institution is functioning well it invariably takes on the form of a hierarchy. This is in keeping with the division of labour associated with the gradation from strategy to specific action. The managerial approach pursued within this hierarchy may vary from a very autocratic style in which each level and individual is merely charged with carrying out their function, to a very democratic style in which individuals at all levels are engaged in determining organizational direction as well as being charged with carrying out their own functions. Nevertheless, all necessary functions are catered for and each individual has a clearly defined set of functions to perform; and are supported in their performance. In an organization that is not functioning well there clearly exists the need to take remedial action. This invariably takes the form of an initiative – which for our purposes we may designate as a project. Whether it is undertaken by outsiders or by staff of the organization, such a project

402

Robert Kowalski

then is unavoidably separated from the organization or institution, since it is being charged with action (as Subject) that will impact upon the Institution (as Object). The important issue here is that the project is not a part of the normal functioning of the organization, but has been set up for a limited time, with limited resources in order to effect change in the organization itself. The danger, which emerges from this Subject/Object relationship, is that the logical types separated in this way become confused, and a number of paradoxes result. These are then turned into double binds by the project staff being required to, or feeling it necessary to perform actions and take on responsibilities that are the proper function of the organization itself. Although this seems obvious it is remarkable how often this is inflicted upon projects. One way is to set up structures that run parallel to the organization and which draw off resources from the parent structure. This frequently occurs in matched funding projects where a condition of funding support is the provision of local resources, which, since they don’t actually exist, get taken away from the recurrent budget of the parent organization. The bind on the project is completed by the unspoken requirement that the project in some way does the work of the parent organization that those appropriated resources would otherwise have done. The appropriate position of an institutional strengthening project is outside of the institution and below it – providing support (see figure 1 below). A second way to bring about the double bind is to draft staff into projects who are primarily technically qualified, with little or no process skills, rather than to find staff with good process skills and only some technical background. The message of this metacommunication is that the issues to be faced in the project are technical, and the result is that the staff concerned get caught up by their identification with the technical in the actions and activities of the organization, rather than in promoting the processes of change. The double bind is brought into effect by the relatively lowly status of project staff who are unable to reject their placement and yet lack the necessary understanding firstly to appreciate and then to metacommunicate about the situation in which they find themselves.


403

Figure 1. Positioning of a Project in Relation to its Parent Institution.

(c ) The Classic Form that Development Assistance Projects or Programs Take These are drawn up and formulated according to the practices of the donor, usually by donor staff or by consultants acting on behalf of the donor, and increasingly using the project planning tool called the logical framework (Dearden & Kowalski 2003). However, the abilities of the draughtsmen (sic) and the care with which they approach their task are often inadequate. This is further compounded by the lack of support given to local stakeholders to develop their capacity to operate in such a conceptual minefield. At the very heart of the framework is an imposed differentiation of logical types into a hierarchy that just invites the creation of paradoxes through the positioning of various objectives in inappropriate places in the structure. An error of this kind that I have frequently encountered is the specification of outcomes for the project that are really

404

Robert Kowalski

outcomes for the institution. Thus, even if the project manager is inclined to devote their attention to processes of change, their terms of reference that are drawn from the project documents, force them to take responsibility for things which are the proper products of the institution (further binding paradoxes at the level of implementation as given above). In particular, institutions frequently lack a Strategic Plan, and the temptation is to specify that a key Output for the project must be such a plan. However, this is a violation of the logical hierarchy, firstly because the creation of a strategy is a sine qua non for being able to provide any actions that will strengthen the institution, and secondly the plan cannot be produced by the project, only by the institution. Thus a starting point for any intervention must be the establishment of a strategy for the organization before any project intervention can be planned. I have facilitated participatory planning workshops that worked particularly well when the first few days have been spent developing a vision, mission and strategy for the key institution. On the other hand, experience has shown that the requirement that projects have to produce strategic plans invariably leads to a lack of the necessary institutional ownership of the emerging plan, resulting in the plan simply gathering dust on some shelf. The double bind is then rendered operative by the bureaucrats in the donor organization insisting that the logical framework is adhered to, and resisting the application of that degree of flexibility that any process of implementation requires. The balance of power between advisers and implementers, especially if the latter are contractors or donor employees, precludes the withdrawal of, or any attempts to metacommunicate by the implementer in the face of paradoxical behavior (Fukuda-Parr, Lopes & Malik 2002, p.10-11). As Dewey (1939, p.146) recognized: “Even today questioning a statement made by a person is often taken as a reflection upon his integrity, and is resented.”

(d) Policy Analysis This involves the misperception of development professionals that they are outside and detached from the system that they are analyzing or into which they are designing interventions. As Scruton (1996, p.22) observed:


405

We encounter here … an enduring paradox. It seems that we describe the world in two quite different ways – as the world which contains us, and as the world on which we act. [author’s emphasis]

It has always been a source of tension between Freirian theory and experience that actions for Development have been largely initiated by representatives of the ‘oppressors’ rather than the ‘oppressed’ (Aronowitz, 1993). Rahnema (1992 p.125) made reference to this when he wrote: “[There is a] necessity for ‘progressive’ groups of non-alienated intellectuals to transcend their class interests and to engage in conscientization exercises.” He highlighted the dangers that emerge from the paradox by noting: “[Such] Agents of change … have tried to use conscientization or participatory methods, simply as new and more subtle forms of manipulation.” Westbrook, commenting upon the actions of an American philanthropist, said: Like [Shakespeare’s King] Lear …Pullman exercised a self-serving benevolence in which he defined the needs of those who were the objects of his benevolence in terms of his own desires and interests (Quoted by Ellerman 2001, p.14).

Fukuda-Parr et al. (2002, p.8) also drew attention to this particular paradox when they wrote: “the asymmetric donor-recipient relationship [contains] the belief that it is possible for donors ultimately to control the process and yet consider the recipients to be equal partner”. Watzlawick, Bavelas & Jackson, (1967, p.213) warned of the dangers of approaching a paradox naively thus: A person in a double bind situation is therefore likely to find himself punished (or at least made to feel guilty) for correct perceptions, and defined as ‘bad’ or ‘mad’ for even insinuating that there be a discrepancy between what he does see and what he ‘should’ see.

They went on to comment ( p.218): This shift away from the real issues becomes all the more plausible if it is remembered that an essential ingredient of a double bind situation is the prohibition to be aware of the contradiction involved.

To discuss at all the motivations of what Chambers (1997) calls ‘Uppers’ will either be construed as mad (you would destabilize the whole system)

406

Robert Kowalski

or bad (you are maligning a system whose intention is to do good ). As Fukuda-Parr et al (2002, p.11) expressed it: “Consultants … have little incentive to criticize the basic system. If they do, they will soon be replaced by more compliant staff ”. In fact the experts are also caught in the double bind – because, like the recipients of Development Assistance, they are themselves dependent upon the continuing dependence of the recipient, for if the recipient were to become truly independent – capable of self-help – then the ‘external’ helper would no longer be necessary. As Watzlawick, Bavelas & Jackson, (1967, p.214) pointed out: “If … a double bind produces paradoxical behaviour, then this very behaviour in turn double-binds the double-binder.” The helpers cannot withdraw from helping nor can they comment upon the paradox to which they are party. This dependence and all the other ways in which the developed world is dependent upon the recipients of Development Assistance is not included in the analyses of the prevailing situation – and largely remains ‘outside’ the deliberations of what can be done to change the situation. The fable of the emperor’s new suit of clothes is entirely the nature of the double bind that experts find themselves in.

6. Conclusions The argument of this paper is that the first step to make development more effective is to look out for and avoid paradox whenever possible. A great help in this undertaking are Ellerman’s five themes (Ellerman 2001): 1. Start from where the doers are. 2. See the world through the doers’ eyes. 3. Don’t override self-help capacity with conditional aid. 4. Don’t undercut self-help capacity with benevolent aid. 5. Put the doers in the driver’s seat. In addition, a number of other measures need to be taken to avoid paradoxes. Principal amongst these are that the logic of the logframe must avoid paradox. Secondly, throughout the development process it is important to emphasise the processes of strategic planning, ensuring that, as far as possible the higher order objectives are discussed and established before the detailed actions are planned and carried out. In this matter it is


407

gratifying to see that nation states are developing Poverty Strategy Plans, and that in some cases donors are putting in place their country strategy plans thereafter, with donor programs and projects dovetailing into an existing, locally owned development planning process. Next, it is important to recognise that paradoxes cannot always be avoided. In fact it is likely that paradoxes in Development and Education will continue to exist and to be created. For example, the asymmetry of the relationships between donors and recipients, between advisers and consultants or contractors, and within the hierarchies of Ministries between staff at various levels will continue to be features of the Development Assistance landscape. However, as Kaplan (1996, p.69) stated: It is not reconciliation or compromise which is the essential note of organisational consciousness. Rather, it is the holding of the conflict between opposites as conflict. The ability to hold opposites as opposites, in conflict. Not to reconcile or compromise, but to see both as true at the same time, or at least to see both as embodying aspects of the truth.

Therefore, it is an absolute priority to prevent turning those unavoidable paradoxes into double binds. The double bind’s requirement that the minor partner should be unable to comment upon the paradox confronting them is a key element. Therefore, the first action to take in this prevention is to deal with the hubris that can arise from the exercise of power by individuals on behalf of donors, or similarly powerful players, by giving a voice to the less powerful partners and participants. This provision of a voice should be taken very much, in the first instance, in terms of enabling people to name their world based upon a Freirian pedagogy that accepts that: “recovering the voice of the oppressed is the fundamental condition for human emancipation” (Aronowitz 1993, p.18). This requires that the primary action of the more powerful partners and their staff is to listen, to facilitate speaking. Giving voice and dealing with hubris might also countenance Dalyell’s (2000), call for a ‘thorn in the flesh’ of the rulers (in his case the executive branch of government). His thoughts echo: A wise Roman emperor receiving the adoration of his people after a triumph was always accompanied by a slave who whispered in his ear ‘remember Caesar, thou art mortal’. Indeed, this theme was taken up by Ellerman (2001, p.29) when he proposed that: “devil’s advocacy might not only be tolerated but fos-

408

Robert Kowalski

tered in a development agency functioning as an open learning organization”. In a similar vein, Fukuda-Parr et al (2002, p.15-16) made reference to: The Government of Tanzania … agreed with the donors as a group on a radical change of rules and roles between the partners in development, which included what subsequently became 18 specific steps on which progress in the relationship could be monitored by an independent assessor.

There is a strong case to be made that this particular aspect of giving voice to balance the asymmetrical donor-recipient relationship is actually a matter of applying good governance. As such the appointment of an Ombudsman (Storm 1999) for development within all donor agencies to whom all stakeholders can go to seek redress might be an appropriate step to take. In the same vein of strengthening voice and metacommunication, Fukuda-Parr et al (op.cit.) have suggested a strengthening of recipients’ networks to try and foster another means of redressing the power balance, and to provide forums in which recipients can talk to each other about the problems of managing unequal relationships. Finally, and in many ways most importantly, we must address the issue of the need for congruent behavior and skills of donor staff, consultants and implementing agencies, at all levels. This will require a commitment to training and staff development that far surpasses anything that has gone before. Also, as a mirror image to this initiative, we must commit resources to the capacity building of the personnel of the recipient governments and non-government organizations at all levels (Malik 2002). This is necessary to provide the local partners with a voice and the potential to understand what is going on and to participate as full partners in the metacommunication necessary to ensure the successful creation of autonomy in a world of paradox.

Acknowledgements The views expressed in this paper are the results of a distillation process lasting many years. Many people contributed to that process and the author would like to acknowledge their impact. Most notable amongst


409

them have been my colleagues and post-graduate students at CIDT, my mentor John Seymour, and the authors cited in the text.

Works Cited Aronowitz, S. (1993). Paulo Freire’s Radical Democratic Humanism. In P. McLaren, and P. Leonard (Eds.), Paulo Freire: a critical encounter (pp. 8-24). London: Routledge. Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. London: Paladin. Berman, M. (1982). The Reenchantment of the World. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Botchway, K. (2001). Paradox of Empowerment: Reflections on a Case Study from Northern Ghana. World Development 29, 135 – 153. Chambers, R. (1997). Whose reality counts? : putting the first last. London: Intermediate Technology. Crush, J. (1995). Introduction: Imagining Development. In J. Crush (Ed.) Power of Development. London: Routledge, 1-23. Dalyell, T. (2000). Democracy needs its awkward squads. www.theherald. co.uk/perspective/archive/16-8-1999-23-37-35.html, accessed 28 April 2003. Dearden, P. N. & Kowalski, R. (2003). Programme and Project Cycle Management (PPCM): Lessons from South and North. Development in Practice, volume 13 (5), 501-514). Dewey, J. (1939). Freedom and Culture. New York: Capricorn. Eade, D. (1997). Capacity Building: an approach to People-Centred Development. Oxford: Oxfam. Ellerman, D. (2001). Helping people help themselves: Towards a theory of Autonomy-compatible help. World Bank Working paper, 2693. http:// econ.worldbank.org/view.php?type=5&id=2513 accessed 28 April 2003. Ellerman, D. (2002). Autonomy-respecting assistance: Towards new strategies for capacity-building and development assistance. In S. Fukuda-Parr, C. Lopes & K. Malik (Eds.), Capacity for Development. London: Earthscan Publications, 43-60. Freire, P. (1971). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of Hope. New York, Continuum. Fukuda-Parr, S., Lopes, C. & Malik, K. (2002). Institutional innovations for capacity development. In S. Fukuda-Parr, C. Lopes, & K. Malik (Eds.), Capacity for Development. London: Earthscan Publications, 1-21. Goleman, D. (1998). Vital Lies, Simple Truths. London: Bloomsbury Publishing plc. Gronemeyer, M. (1992). Helping. In W. Sachs (Ed.), The Development Dictionary: A guide to knowledge as power. London: Zed Books, 51-69. Hettne, B. (1995). Development theory and the three worlds (2nd ed.). Harlow:

410

Robert Kowalski

Longman. Hirschman, A. O. (1984). A Dissenter’s Confession: the strategy of economic development revisited. In G. Meier & D. Seers (Eds.), Pioneers in Development, New York: Oxford University Press, 87-111. Horton, M. (1998). The Long Haul: an autobiography. New York: Teachers College Press. Jamieson, K. H. (1995). Beyond the double bind : women and leadership. Oxford : Oxford University Press. Kaplan, A. (1996). The development practitioner’s handbook. London: Pluto. Korten, D. C. (1983). Social Development: putting people first. In D. Korten & F. Alfonso (Eds.), Bureaucracy and the Poor: closing the gap. West Hartford: Kumerian, 201-221. Kowalski, R. (1999). Development and the “Double Bind” – old wine in new bottles. Participatory Development Conference - Deepening Our Understanding and Practice. Ottawa, Canada 25 – 27 August 1999 Laing, R. D. (1990). The Divided Self. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Lawley, J. (2000). Modelling the structures of binds and double binds. Rapport, 47, 32 – 35. Malik, K. (2002). Towards a normative framework: technical cooperation, capacities and development. In Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Carlos Lopes & Khalid, Malik (Eds), Capacity for Development. London: Earthscan Publications, 2442. Pieterse, J. N. (1999). Critical Holism and the Tao of Development. In Ronaldo Munck & Denis O’Hearn (Eds.), Critical Development Theory. Dhaka: The University Press, 63-88. Rahnema, M. (1992). Participation. In W.Sachs (Ed.), The Development Dictionary: A guide to knowledge as power. London: Zed Books, 116-131. Rihani, S. (2002). Complex Systems Theory and Development Practice: understanding non-linear realities. London: Zed Books. Rist, G. (2002). The History of Development, (new ed.). London: Zed Books. Rogers, A. (1993). Adult education and agricultural extension: some comparisons. International Journal of Lifelong Education 12, 3, 165-176. Russell, B. (1937). The Principles of Mathematics (2nd ed.). London: Allen & Unwin. Ryle, G. (1967). Teaching and Training. In R. S. Peters (Ed.), The Concept of Education. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 105-119. Sachs, W. (1992). Introduction. In W. Sachs (Ed.), The Development Dictionary: A guide to knowledge as power. London: Zed Books, 1-5. Schumacher, E. F. (1973). Small is beautiful: Economics as if people mattered. London: Blond & Briggs. Scruton, R. (1996). An intelligent person’s guide to Philosophy. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. Seers, D. (1969). The meaning of development. International Development Review, 2-6.


411

Shor, I. (1993). Education is Politics: Paulo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy. In P. McLaren & P. Leonard, (Eds.), Paulo Freire : a critical encounter. London: Routledge, 25-35. Snyder, B. R. (1971). The Hidden Curriculum. Knopf: New York. Storm, S. (1999). Policies and practice in Denmark and Sweden. Journal of Consumer Studies & Home Economics, 23, 111-128. Watzlawick, P. (1993). The Language of Change: Elements of Therapeutic Communication. New York: Norton & Co. Watzlawick, P., Bavelas, J. B. & Jackson, D. D. (1967). Pragmatics of Human Communication. London: W. W. Norton & Company.

412

Published Volumes

CONTRIBUTORS Prof. Dr. Mathias Bös, Universität Marburg, Institut für Soziologie, Ketzerbach 11, 35032 Marburg, Germany. Prof. Terry Boswell, Department of Sociology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. Prof. Mason Cash, Department of Philosophy, University of Central Florida, Orlando FL. 32816-1352, USA. Prof. Christopher Chase-Dunn, Inst99ute for Research on World-Systems, University of California, Riverside, USA. Prof. Gerard Delanty, Department of Sociology, University of Liverpool, Eleanor Rathbone Building, Bedford Street South, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZA, UK. Prof. Wilma A. Dunaway, School of Public & International Affairs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, VA 9986170115, USA. Prof. Shmuel Eisenstadt, Van Leer Jerusalem Institut; The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Faculty of Social Sciences, PO 4070,Jerusalem 01040, Israel. Prof. Jonathan Friedman, Directeur d’études, EHESS (GTMS), 54 boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris, France, Dept of Social Anthropology, Lund University, Box 114, 221 00 Sweden. Prof. Brie Gertler, Department of Philosophy, University of Virginia, 512 Cabell Hall, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA. Prof. Denis O’Hearn, School of Sociology and Social Policy, Queens University Belfast, Ireland.

Bookpublications

413

Prof. Robert Kowalski, The Centre for International Development and Training, University of Wolverhampton, Priorslee, Telford, Shropshire, TF289NT, UK. Prof. Richard Lee, Fernand Braudel Center, Suny-Binghamton, N9913902-6000, USA. Prof. Frank J. Lechner, Department of Sociology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. Dr. habil. Gerhard Preyer, Privatdozent, Protosociology, 60064 J. W. Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Prof. Peter J. Taylor, Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK. Prof. Göran Therborn, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden. Prof. Dale Tomich, Department of Sociology, Binghamton University, P.O. Box 6000, Binghamton, N.Y. 13901-6000, USA Prof. Ron Wilburn, Department of Philosophy, 4505 Maryland Pkwy, Box 455028, Las Vegas, NV, 89154-5028, USA.

414

Bookpublications

IMPRINT ProtoSociology: An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research ISSN 1611-1281 Editor: Gerhard Preyer Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Dep. of Social Sciences Editorial staff: Georg Peter Layout and digital publication: Georg Peter Editorial office: ProtoSociology, Stephan-Heise-Str. 56, 60488 Frankfurt am Main, Germany, phone: (049)069-769461, Email: [email protected], [email protected] Bank: Dresdner Bank AG, Frankfurt am Main, account: 44 121 168 01, BLZ: 500 800 00 – SWIFT-BIC: DRES DE FF IBAN DE60 5008 0000 4412 1168 01 ——————————————— Die Zeitschrift soll 1/2jährlich erscheinen. Die Anzahl der jährlich erscheinenden Hefte und Sonderhefte bleibt jedoch vorbehalten. Copyright: Die in dieser Zeitschrift veröffentlichten Beiträge sind urheberrechtlich geschützt. Alle Rechte sind vorbehalten. Übersetzungen, Nachdruck, Vervielfältigung auf fotomechanischem oder ähnlichem Weg oder im Magnettonverfahren, Wiedergabe durch Vortrag, Funk- und Fernsehsendungen sowie Speicherung in Datenverarbeitungsanlagen, auch auszugsweise, sind nur mit Genehmigung des Herausgebers möglich. Für eingereichte Beiträge wird keine Haftung übernommen. Weitere Publikationsrechte von Artikeln bleiben vorbehalten. Zweitpublikationen seitens des Autors werden eingeräumt. Bei einer Zweitpublikation ist das Heft (Nummer, Titel, Erscheinungsjahr) der PROTOSOCIOLOGY zu zitieren. Für unaufgefordert eingesandte Manuskripte wird keine Haftung übernommen. Gerichtsstand ist Frankfurt am Main. Copyright: All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. Additional publications of the articles are reserved. The authors retain the personal right to re-use their own articles. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients is garanted by PROTOSOCIOLOGY, provided that the base fee is paid directly to VG Wort, Goethestr. 49, 80336 München RFA.The publisher accepts no responsibility for submitted manuscripts.

Titel

415

ON PROTOSOCIOLOGY The relatively young journal Protosociology has become an important forum for discussion in the philosophy of social science and of sociality and, more broadly, for theoretical discussion in social science. It is especially interesting and important that such new fields as social metaphysics and social epistemology as well as research related to collective intentionality and its applications have acquired a prominent place in the agenda of Protosociology. Raimo Tuomela Protosociology occupies an important position in the European intellectual scene, bridging philosophy, economics, sociology and related disciplines. Its volumes on rationality bring together concerns in all these topics, and present an important challenge to the cognitive sciences. Donald Davidson, Berkeley (USA)

Protosociology publishes original papers of great interest that deal with fundamental issues in the human and social science. No academic library is complete without it. Nicholas Rescher, Pittsburgh (USA) Protosociology has been remarkably successful in publishing interesting work from different tradition and different disciplines and, as the title signals, in giving that work a new, eye-catching slant. Philipp Pettit, Canberra, Australia Protosociology is a truly premier interdisciplinary journal that publishes articles and reviews on timely topics written by and for a wide range of international scholars. The recent volumes on rationality are remarkable for their breadth and depth. Protosociology would be a great addition to any library. Roger Gibson, St. Louis (USA

416

Published Volumes

PROTOSOCIOLOGY An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research Double Vol. 18-19, 2003 Understanding the Social II – Philosophy of Sociality Edited by Raimo Tuomela, Gerhard Preyer, and Georg Peter Contents I Membership and Collective Commitments Acting as a Group Member and Collective Commitment Raimo Tuomela and Maj Tuomela On Collective Identity Kay Mathiesen A Collective’s Rational Trust in a Collective’s Action Maj Tuomela Social Action in Large Groups Ulrich Baltzer II Collective Intentionality and Social Institutions What do We Mean by “We”? Stephen P. Turner Collective Intentionality, Complex Economic Behavior, and Valuation John B. Davis Institutions, Collective Goods and Moral Rights Seumas Miller The Micro-Macro Constitution of Power Cristiano Castelfranchi III Social Facts and Social Practices Foundations for a Social Ontology Amie L. Thomasson

On the Objectivity of Social Facts Antti Saaristo Explaining Practices Petri Ylikoski Some Notes on Ontological Commitment and the Social Sciences Steven Miller IV On Margaret Gilbert’s Proposal of Collective Beliefs Two Modes of Collective Belief Christopher McMahon What Really Divides Gilbert and the Rejectionists? K. Brad Wray Why Accept Collective Beliefs? Reply to Gilbert Anthonie Meijers Rejecting Rejectionism Deborah Perron Tollefsen On Social Epistemology and Terrorism in Time of Globalization Goldman’s Knowledge in a Social World: Correspondence Truth and the Place of Justification in a Veritistic Social Epistemology Patrick Rysiew Is Terrorism Globalizng? Albert J. Bergesen

Published Volumes

417

PROTOSOCIOLOGY An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research

Vol. 17, 2002 Indirect and Reported Speech

CONTENTS

The Meaning of What is Said and the Ascription of Attitudes The Semantic Significance of What is Said Emma Borg Representing What Others Say Cara Spencer The Things People Say Jonathan Sutton Reported Speech and the Epistemology of Testimony Sanford C. Goldberg Reports and Imagination Eros Corazza Propositional Content and Cognitive Structure On Representing Content David Hunter Conceptual Realism and Interpretation Max A. Freund

Content Partialism and Davidson’s Dilemma Corey Washington Vagueness, Indirect Speech Reports, and the World Steven Gross On Contemporary Philosophy and Social Sciences Epistemological Remarks Concerning the Concepts „Theory“ and „Theoretical Concepts“ Hans Lenk Social Science and (Null) Hypothesis Testing:Some Ontological Issues Steven Miller and Marcel Fredericks

418

Published Volumes


Vol. 16, 2002 Understanding the Social: New Perspectives from Epistemology

CONTENTS FROM MENTALIZING FOLK SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY

TO

Alvin I. Goldman The Mentalizing Folk Margaret Gilbert Believe and Acceptance as Features of Groups Antonie Meijers Collective Agents and Cognitive Attitudes Deborah Perron Tollefsen Challenging Epistemic Individualism

GROUP RESPONSIBILITY AND THE CONSENSUS ACCOUNT OF JUSTIFIED BELIEF Pekka Mäkelä and Raimo Tuomela Group Action and Group Responsibility Lamber Royakkers Collective Commitments: a Theoretical Understanding of Human Cooperation Fred Schmitt Justification and Consensus: The Peircean Approach ON CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY

EXTERNALISM, EVENTS AND INSTITUTIONAL FACTS Gerhard Preyer From an Externalistic Point of View: Understanding the Social Steven Miller Are „Context“ and „Event“ Equivalent? Possibilities for an Ontological Symbiosis Frank Hindriks Institutional Facts and the Naturalistic Fallacy: Confronting Searle (1964) with Searle (1995)

Roger F. Gibson How I Came to Know Quine: A Reminiscence Hans Lenk and Matthias Maring Responsibility and Globalization

Published Volumes

419

PROTOSOCIOLOGY An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research Vol. 15, 2001 On a Sociology of Borderlines: Social Process in Time of Globalization Gerhard Preyer, Mathias Bös (eds.) CONTENTS

Introduction: Borderlines in Time of Globalization (Gerhard Preyer, Mathias Boes) I RECONCEPTIONALIZATIONS OF THE GLOBAL: BORDERLINES IN WORLD SOCIETY Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt The Continual Reconstruction of Multiple Modern Civilizations and Collective Identities Christopher Chase-Dunn: Globalization: A World-Systems Perspective Thomas D. Hall: World-Systems, Frontiers, and Ethnogenesis: Incorporation and Resistance to State Expansion Richard E. Lee: After History? The Last Frontier of Historical Capitalism II DEFINING BORDERLINES IN WORLD SOCIETY: THE EMERGENCE OF NEW MEMBERSHIPS Gerhard Preyer: Globalization and the Evolution of Membership Barrie Axford: Enacting Globalization: Transnational Networks and the Deterritorialization of Social Relationships in the Global System Mathias Bös Immigration and the Open Society: The Normative Patterns of Membership in the Nation State Uta Gerhardt, Birgitta Hohenester: A Transformation of National Identity? Refugees and German Society After World War II Marja Keränen: Citizenship, Universal-

Speak, and Local-Speak

III THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL: THE COLLAPSE AND RECONSTRUCTION OF BORDERLINES Christie Davies, Eugene Trivizas The Collapse of the National Morality and National Moral Boundaries of Small Peripheral Countries: not Globalisation but the Imposition of Liberty Walter L. Bühl: Former GDR between “Transformation” and “Social Evolution” F. Peter Wagner: Beyond “East” and “West”: On the European and Global Dimensions of the Fall of Communism Ramón Grosfoguel ‘Cultural Racism’ and ‘Borders of Exclusion’ in the Capitalist World-Economy: Colonial Caribbean Migrants in Core Zones Francisco Entrena: Socio-Economic Restructurings of the Local Settings in the Era of Globalization ON A SOCIOLOGY OF VIOLENCE Konrad Thomas Ein anderes Verständnis von Gewalt: Der gesellschaftsanalytische Beitrag des Literaturwissenschaftlers René Girard CRITICAL REVIEW: ProtoSciology, Vol. 12, 1998-Special Edition: After the Received View. Developments in the Theory of Science George N. Schlesinger

420

Published Volumes


Vol. 14, 2000 Folk Psychology, Mental Concepts and the Ascription of Attitudes: On Contemporary Philosophy of Mind CONTENTS Alvin I. Goldman Folk Psychology and Mental Concepts Philip Pettit How the Folk Understand Folk Psychology Jane Heal Understanding Other Minds from the Inside Christopher S. Hill From Assertion to Belief: The Role of Linguistic Data in the Practice of Belief-Ascription David Rosenthal Content, Interpretation, and Consciousness Jay L. Garfield Thought as Language: A Metaphor Too Far Robert M. Gordon Sellars’s Ryleans Revisited Louise Röska-Hardy Self-Ascription and Simulation Theory Brian P. McLaughlin Why Intentional Systems Theory Cannot Reconcile Physicalism With Realism about Belief and Desire Gerhard Preyer Primary Reasons: From Radical Interpretation to a Pure Anomalism of the Mental

Rebecca Kukla How to Get an Interpretivist Committed David Pitt Nativism and the Theory of Content Raffaella De Rosa On Fodor’s Claim that Classical Empiricists and Rationalists Agree on the Innateness of Ideas Consuelo Preti Belief and Desire Under The Elms Erwin Rogler On David Lewis’ Philosophy of Mind Barbara Von Eckardt, Jeffrey S. Poland In Defense of the Standard View

ON CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, ONTOLOGY AND MORAL THEORY Thomas Baldwin Nearly Logic James E. Tomberlin Logical Form, Actualism, and Ontology Arend Kulenkampff, Frank Siebelt What a Noncognitivist might tell a Moral Realist

Published Volumes

421

PROTOSOCIOLOGY An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Rese4r7h Vol. 13 1999 Reasoning and Argumentation D. Mans, G. Preyer (eds.) CONTENTS Ralph H. Johnson: Reasoning, Argumentation and The Network Problem Leo Groarke: The Fox and the Hedgehog: On Logic, Argument, and Argumentation Theory J. Anthony Blair: Presumptive Reasoning/Argument: An Overlooked Class Robert C. Pinto: Argument Schemes and the Evaluation of Presumptive Reasoning: some Reflections on Blair’s Account Douglas Walton: The New Dialectic: A Method of Evaluating an Argument Used for Some Purpose in a Given Case Manfred Kienpointner: Comments on Douglas Walton’s Paper Christopher W. Tin4ale: The Authority of Testimony John Woods: Peirce’s Abductive Enthusiasms Henry W. Johnstone, Jr.: “‘Any,’ ‘Every,’ and the Philosophical Argumentum ad Hominem” ON CONTEMPORARY PH44OSOPHY Hans Lenk Interdisziplinarität und Interpretation Ellery Eells Causal Decision Theory

422

Published Volumes

PROTOSOCIOLOGY An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research VOL. 12, 1998 – Special Edition AFTER THE RECEIVED VIEW – Developments in the Theory of Science Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter, Alexander Ulfig (Eds.) in memoriam Wolfgang Stegmüller CONTENTS Introduction: Developments in the Theory of Science (Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter, Alexander Ulfig) LOGICAL OPERATIONALISM – SIGNIFICANCE AND MEANING Wilhelm K. Essler: Truth and Knowledge. Some Considerations concerning the Task of Philosophy of Science Gerhard Preyer: The Received View, Incommensurability and Comparison of Theories – Beliefs as the Basis of Theorizing Robert Schwartz: Reflections on Projection Jeffrey E. Foss: The Logical and Sociological Structure of Science STRUCTURALISM – MEANINGFUL MEASUREMENT – THE CONCEPTION OF PHYSICAL LAW C. Ulises Moulines: Structuralism vs. Operationalism Nicholas Rescher: Meaningless Numbers R. I. G. Hughes: Laws of Nature, Laws of Physics, and the Representational Account of Theories James R. Brown: Einstein’s Principle Theory INDUCTIVE INFERENCES – INTERPRETATION OF PROBABILITY – GAME THEORY Kevin T. Kelly, Cory Juhl Transcendental Deductions and Universal

Architectures for Inductive Inferences Howard H. Harriott: R.A. Fisher and the Interpretation of Probability Brian Skyrms: Evolution of an Anomaly PROPERTIES – UNDERDETERMINATION – SCIENTIFIC REALISM George N. Schlesinger: Degrees of Characterizations Carl A. Matheson: Observational Adequacy as distinct from the Truth about Observables Thomas R. Grimes: Scientific Realism and the Problem of Underdetermination Paul C. L. Tang: On Paul Churchland’s Treatment of the Argument from Introspection and Scientific Realism RATIONALITY – METAPHORS – VALUES IN SCIENCE David Resnik: Scientific Rationality and Epistemic Goals Aldo Montesano: Rationality in Economics: A General Framework Joseph Agassi: Science Real and Ideal: Popper and the Dogmatic Scientist Michael Bradie: Models and Metaphors in Science David Gruender: Values and the Phi-

losophy of Science

423

Published Volumes

PROTOSOCIOLOGY An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research Vol. 11, 1998 Cognitive Semantics II – Externalism in Debate CONTENTS RADICAL INTERPRETATION, ONTOLOGY AND THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE Gerhard Preyer, Michael Roth: On Donald Davidson’s Philosophy: An Outline Richard Manning: All Facts Great and Small Barbara Fultner: Of Parts and Wholes: The Molecularist Critique of Semantic Holism Louis Goble: Re-Evaluating Supervaluations David Simpson: Interpretation and Skill: On Passing Theory Wulf Kellerwessel: Katz on Semantics and Pragmatics

EXTERNALISM

AND THE INDIVIDUATION OF

CONTENT Ron Wilburn: Knowledge, Content, and the Wellstrings of Objectivity Anthony Brueckner: Content Externalism and A Priori Knowledge Consuelo Preti: The Irrelevance of Supervenience Michael Liston: Externalist Determinants of Reference Arnold Silverberg: Semantic Externalism. A Response to Chomsky Gerhard Preyer: Interpretation and Rationality: Steps from Radical Interpretation to the Externalism of Triangulation

424

Published Volumes


Vol. 10, 1997

CONTENTS MEANING, TRUTH AND THE USE OF LANGUAGE Herman Cappelen, Ernie Lepore: Semantic Theory and Indirect Speech Kirk Ludwig: The Truth about Moods Louise Röska-Hardy: Language, Use and Action Jeffrey King: The Source(s) of Necessity Filip Buekens: The Genesis of Meaning (a Myth) REFERENCE, INDEXICALS AND SPEAKER MEANING Robert Hanna: Extending Direct Reference Peter Ludlow: Semantics, Tense, and Time: a Note on Tenseless Truth-Conditions for Token-Reflexive Tensed Sentences Gerhard Preyer: Verstehen, Referenz, Wahrheit. Zur Philosophie Hilary Putnams Reinaldo Elugardo: Descriptions, Indexicals and Speaker Meaning

RATIONAL DIALETISM OF ANTINOMIES Mark Sainsbury: Can Rational Dialetheism Be Refuted By Considerations about Negation and Denial? CONTEMPORARY DEBATES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND Klaus Sachs-Hombach: Philosophy of Mind: Die Simulationstheorie IN RETROSPECT Joseph Agassi: Wittgenstein – The End of a Myth Kent A. Peacock, Richard Feist: The Einstein-DeSitter Controversy

Bookpublications

CONCEPTS

OF

425

MEANING

Framing an Integrated Theory of Linguistic Behavior ed. by Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter, Maria Ulkan Introduction Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter, Maria Ulkan

I Speaker Meaning, Communication, and Intentions

II Truth, Semantic Content, and Externalism

1 Communicative and Illocutionary Acts Maria Ulkan 2 Language Acts and Action Louise Röska-Hardy 3 Reflections on the Intentionality of Linguistic Behavior Jan Nuyts 4 Descriptions, Indexicals, and Speaker Meaning Reinaldo Elugardo 5 Informatives and/or Directives? (A New Start in Speech Act Classification) Georg Meggle, Maria Ulkan 6 Constructive Speech-Act Theory Dirk Hartmann

7 The Truth about Moods Kirk Ludwig 8 Semantic Theory and Indirect Speech Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore 9 All Facts Great and Small Richard N. Manning 10 Knowledge, Content, and the Wellsprings of Objectivity Ron Wilburn 11 Interpretation and Skill: On Passing Theory David Simpson Contributors Index

Kluwer Academic Publisher, Philosophical Studies 96, 2003Dordrecht, Netherland

426

Bookpublications

LOGICAL FORM

AND

LANGUAGE

Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter (eds.) To Donald Davison This volume brings together some of the world’s most distinguished linguisticallyminded philosophers and philosophically-minded linguists in an outstanding collection of new papers on what logical form is supposed to be and why it matters for the study of language. - Zoltan Szabo, Cornell University

CONTENTS

Barry Schein Events and the Semantic Content of Thematic Relations

Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter: Introduction PART I: THE NATURE

OF

LOGICALFORM

Stephen Neale Logically Unformed

Jason Stanley Nominal Restriction

Ernie Lepore, Kirk Ludwig What is Logical Form Paul M. Pietroski Function and Concatenation Jeffrey King Two Sorts of Claim about “Logical Form” Peter Ludlow LF and Natural Logic. The Syntax of Directional Entailing Environments Robert May/R.F. Fiengo Identity Statements PART II: INTENSIONALITY, EVENTS SEMANTIC CONTENT

Norbert Hornstein A Grammatical Argument for A Davidsonian Semantics

AND

James Higginbotham Why is Sequence of Tens Obligatory? Richard Larson The Grammar of Intensionality

PART III: LOGICAL FORM, BELIEF ASCRIPPROPER NAMES

TION AND

Bernard Linsky Russell’s Logical Form, LF and Truth Conditions Lenny Clapp, Robert Stainton “Obviously Propositions are Nothing.” Russell and the Logical Form of Belief Reports Robert Matthews Logical Form and the Relational Conception of Belief Marga Reimer Ordinary Proper Names Reinaldo Elugardo The Predicate View of Proper Names

Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002 www.protosociology.de/Books.htm

427

Bookpublications

Analytische Ästhetik Eine Untersuchung zu Nelson Goodman und zur literarischen Parodie Georg Peter I. ANALYTISCHE ÄSTHETIK:

DIE

ZEICHENTHEORIE NELSON GOODMANS

1. Eine ‚andere‘ Fragestellung / 2. Zu Nelson Goodman in allgemeiner Absicht / 3. Zeichenbedeutung: Sprachliche und nichtsprachliche Denotation / 4. Von der Probe zum passenden Etikett: Exemplifikation und Ausdruck / 5. Die Nebenbeschäftigung der Symbole: Ein bedeutungstheoretischer Exkurs zu Metapher und Wahrheit / 6. Ästhetische Bedeutung und kognitive Funktion: Das Kunstwerk als Probe / 7. ‚Wann‘ oder doch ‚Was ist Kunst?‘ II. SCHEMAINTERPRETATION

UND DIE IDENTIFIZIERBARKEIT ÄSTHETISCHER

ZEICHEN

1. Schemainterpretationismus und Symboltheorie: Vom Symbol zum Schema / 2. Der konstruktive Schemainterpretationismus von Hans Lenk / 3. Hermeneutik und Schemainterpretation / 4. Die soziale Verankerung der Interpretation: Ästhetische Kompetenz und Kultursoziologie / 5. Thesenhaftes zu einer schemaorientierten Symboltheorie: Wann ist (es) Parodie III. ROBERT NEUMANNS PARODIEN: DIE PROBE

AUF DIE

EXEMPLIFIKATION

1. Literaturwissenschaft und Parodie: eine vorbelastete Beziehung / 2. Die Parodie als eine Form des Komischen / 3. Das Problem der Wertung: Die kritische und die (bloß) komische Parodie / 4. Nachahmung, Bezugnahme und Robert Neumanns Theorie der Parodie / 5. Von der Funktion der Zeichen zur Funktion der Parodie: Goethe und Brecht parodiert / 6. Komplexität der Parodie und die komplexen Parodien Robert Neumanns / 7. Zeigen und Sagen: Funktion und Qualität der Parodie anhand einer Benn-Parodie / 8. Die Grenzen der Parodie und der Parodierbarkeit / 9. Parodien und andere Formen der Nachahmung IV. ZUR METHODIK

DES

ANSATZES

UND SEINER

WEITERFÜHRUNG

ca. 330 Seiten, Erschienen in der Reihe: PHILOSOPHISCHE ANALYSE / PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS, Herausgegeben von / Edited by Herbert Hochberg · Rafael Hüntelmann et al., Deutsche Bibliothek der Wissenschaften, Dr. Hänsel-Hohenhausen AG, Frankfurt a.M., München, New York 2002.

428

Bookpublications

Borderlines in a Globalized World New Perspectives in a Sociology of the World System Gerhard Preyer, Mathias Bös (eds.) To Walter L. Bühl Introduction Gerhard Preyer, Mathias Bös Borderlines in Time of Globalization: New Theoretical Perspectives

I RECONCEPTIONALIZATIONS

OF THE

GLOBAL: BORDERLINES

IN

WORLD SOCIETY

Shmuel N. Eisenstadt: The Continual Reconstruction of Multiple Modern Civilizations and Collective Identities Christopher Chase Dunn: Globalization: A World-Systems Perspective Thomas D. Hall: World-Systems, Frontiers, and Ethnogenesis: Incorporation and Resistance to State Expansion. Richard Lee: After History? The Last Frontier of Historical Capitalism

II DEFINING BORDERLINES

IN

WORLD SOCIETY: THE EMERGENCE

OF

NEW MEMBER-

SHIPS

Gerhard Preyer: Globalization and the Evolution of Membership Barrie Axford: Enacting Globalization - Transnational Networks and the Deterritorialisation of Social Relationship Mathias Bös: Immigration and the Open Society: The Normative Patterns of Membership in the Nation State Uta Gerhardt, Birgitta Hohenester: A Transformation of National Identity? Refugees and German Society after World War II

III. THE GLOBAL BORDERLINES

AND THE

LOCAL : THE COLLAPSE

AND

RECONSTRUCTION

OF

Christie Davies, Evgenios Trivizas: The Collapse of the National Morality and National Moral Boundaries of Small Peripherial Countries not Globalization but the Imposition of Liberty F. Peter Wagner: Beyond “East” and “West”: On the European and Global Dimensions of the Fall of Communism Francisco Entrena:Socioeconomic Restructurings of the Local Settings in the Era of Globalization Kluwer Academic Publishers Social Indicators Research Series Vol. 9 Dordrecht, Netherlands 2002

429

Bookpublications

The Contextualization of Rationality Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter (eds.) Introduction: Problems, Concepts and Theories of Rationality RADICAL INTERPRETATION, NATURALIZED EPISTEMOLOGY John Heil The Propositional Attitudes David K. Henderson Epistemic Rationality, Epistemic Motivation, and Interpretive Charity Gerhard Preyer Interpretation and Rationality: Steps from Radical Interpretation to the Externalism of Triangulation INTENTIONS

AND THE

Peter Gärdenfors The Social Stance

NORMATIVITY

Roger F. Gibson Stich on Intentionality and Rationality Paul K. Moser and David Yandell Against Naturalizing Rationality Harvey Siegel Naturalism, Instrumental Rationality, and the Normativity of Epistemology

SOCIAL ASPECT

Alfred R. Mele Rational Intentions and the Toxin Puzzle

AND

OF

RATIONALITY

Peter French Rationality and Ethics Julian Nida-Rümelin The Plurality of Good Reasons and the Theory of Practical Rationality

Timo Airaksinen and Katri Kaalikoski Instrumental Rationality Raimo Tuomela Rational Cooperation and Collective Goals CONCEPTS

OF

EXPLANATION, JUSTIFICATION

Philip Pettit Three Aspects of Rational Explanation Keith Lehrer Rationality and Trustworthiness

AND

REALITY

Alexander Ulfig Validity, Justification and Rationality Nicholas Rescher Reason and Reality

250 Seiten mentis Verlag, Paderborn 2000

430

Bookpublications

Materialismus, anomaler Monismus und mentale Kausalität Erwin Rogler und Gerhard Preyer Für Jaegwon Kim Vorbemerkung Anomaler Monismus und mentale Kausalität: Ein Beitrag zur Debatte über Donald Davidsons Philosophie des Mentalen Erwin Rogler und Gerhard Preyer 1. Kommentar zu Davidsons Theorie des Mentalen 2. Der Einwand des Eigenschaftsepiphänomenalismus und Gegenargumente (i) Erweiterung der nomologischen Begründung (ii) Kontrafaktische Analyse (iii) Superveniente Kausalität 3. Zum Problem der kausalen Relevanz mentaler Eigenschaften (1) Singuläre Kausalaussagen (2) Sind mentale Eigenschaften real oder irreal bzw. fiktiv? Von der Radikalen Interpretation zum Triangulationsexternalismus und seiner Ontologie Gerhard Preyer Volkspsychologie und die Zuschreibung von Einstellungen Gerhard Preyer On David Lewis‘ Philosophy of Mind Erwin Rogler I Ramsification, Reduction, Multirealization a) Some Fundamentals of Lewis‘ Theory of Mind b) Some questionable Objections II Intentionality III Qualia and Materialism IV Conclusion Verlag Humanities Online, Frankfurt am Main 2001 www.humanities-online.de

Bookpublications

431

Gesellschaft im Umbruch Politische Soziologie im Zeitalter der Globalisierung Jakob Schissler und Gerhard Preyer Inhalt 1. Eine Republik der Bürger Zur Kritik des Modells der Bürgergesellschaft 2. Gewalt als Furie des Verschwindens 3. Der Mythos der Modernisierung Zur pädagogischen und politischen Ideologie der 68er 4. Moderne und Krieg Zu Karl Otto Hondrichs Lehrmeister Krieg 5. Die herausgeforderte Vergangenheit Zu Ernst Noltes Streitpunkte 6. Neue Wirtschafts- und Sozialpolitik 7. Hochschulen der Zukunft 8. Die Kopernikanische Wende der neuen Medien

Verlag Humanities Online, Frankfurt am Main 2002 www.humanities-online.de

432

Bookpublications

PROTOSOZIOLOGIE IM KONTEXT “Lebenswelt” und “System” in Philosophie und Soziologie Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter, Alexander Ulfig (Hrsg.) in memoriam Paul Lorenzen Einleitung: “Lebenswelt” und “System” in Philosophie und Soziologie, Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter, Alexander Ulfig

ZUM BEGRIFF

DER

LEBENSWELT

Ernst W. Orth: Lebenswelt als unvermeidliche Illusion? Husserls Lebensweltbegriff und seine kulturpolitischen Weiterungen, Walter Biemel: Gedanken zur Genesis der Lebenswelt, Alexander Ulfig: Lebenswelt und Reflexion. Anhang: Lebenswelt als Fundament der Wissenschaft, Gerhard Preyer: Hintergrundwissen: Kritik eines Begriffs, Hubert A. Knoblauch: Soziologie als strenge Wissenschaft? Phänomenologie, kommunikative Lebenswelt und soziologische Methodologie

LEBENSWELT – BEGRÜNDUNG – WISSENSCHAFT Jürgen Mittelstraß: Das lebensweltliche Apriori, Peter Janich: Die Rationalität der Naturwissenschaften, Jürgen Mittelstraß: Rationalität und Reproduzierbarkeit, Elisabeth Ströker:Lebenswelt durch Wissenschaft, Paul Janssen: Lebenswelt, Wissen und Wissenschaft, Richard T. Murphy: E. Husserl’s Phenomenology of Reason LEBENSWELT/LEBENSFORM – SPRACHE Pierre Kerszberg: Lifeworld and Language, John F.M. Hunter: The Motley Forms of Life in the Later Wittgenstein, Peter A. French: Why did Wittgenstein read Tagore to the Vienna Circle? Georg Peter: Die Nebenbeschäftigung der Symbole. Zu Wahrheit und Funktion der Metapher

SYSTEM – SOZIALSYSTEM – GESELLSCHAFT Niklas Luhmann: Die Lebenswelt nach Rücksprache mit Phänomenologen, Niklas Luhmann: Observing Re-entries, Gerhard Preyer: System-, Medien- und Evolutionstheorie. Zu Niklas Luhmanns Ansatz, Richard Münch: Autopoesis per Definition, Hans Zitko: Codierungen der Kunst: Zur Kunstsoziologie Niklas Luhmanns, James Bohman: The Completeness of Macro-Sociological Explanations: System and Lifeworld, Göran Ahrne: Outline of an Organisational Theory of Society, Anhang: Karl Otto Hondrich: Zu Göran Ahrnes Ansatz

392 Seiten Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1996 Digitale Neuauflage bei: Humanities Online, Frankfurt am Main2001 www.humanities-online.de

433

Bookpublications

INTENTION – BEDEUTUNG – KOMMUNIKATION Kognitive und handlungstheoretische Grundlagen der Sprachtheorie Gerhard Preyer, Maria Ulkan, Alexander Ulfig (Hrsg.) Einleitung: Zu kognitiven und handlungstheoretischen Grundlagen Sprachtheorie, Gerhard Preyer, Maria Ulkan, Alexander Ulfig

der

I INTENTIONEN UND KOMMUNIKATIVE HANDLUNGEN Maria Ulkan: Kommunikative und illokutionäre Akte; Georg Meggle/Maria Ulkan: Grices Doppelfehler. Ein Nachtrag zum Griceschen Grundmodell; Jan Nuyts: Intentionalität und Sprachfunktionen II INTERPRETATION UND BEDEUTUNG Gerhard Preyer: Kognitive Semantik, Anhang Sprechaktsemantik: J.L. Austin, J.R. Searle, H.P. Grice, P.F. Strawson; Louise Röska-Hardy: Sprechen, Sprache, Handeln; Frank Siebelt: Zweierlei Holismus. Überlegungen zur Interpretationstheorie Donald Davidsons; Peter Rothermel: Semantische Implikaturen; Volkmar Taube: Referenz und Interpretation. Zur Theorie nichtsprachlicher Symbolisierung; Georg Peter: Zu Richtigkeit und Interpretation der Metapher: Kognitive Funktion und rekonstruktive Schemainterpretation III KLASSIFIKATION

VON

SPRECHAKTEN

Maria Ulkan: Informations- und Aufforderungshandlungen; Dirk Hartmann: Konstruktive Sprechakttheorie; Volkmar Taube: Bildliche Sprechakte IV KOMMUNIKATIVES HANDELN

UND INTERSUBJEKTIVE

GÜLTIGKEIT

Jürgen Habermas: Sprechakttheoretische Erläuterungen zum Begriff der kommunikativen Rationalität; Karl-Otto Apel: Illokutionäre Bedeutung und normative Gültigkeit. Die transzendentalpragmatische Begründung der uneingeschränkten kommunikativen Verständigung; Peter-Paul König: Kommunikatives und strategisches Handeln. Kritische Bemerkungen zu zwei zentralen Begriffen der “Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns” von Jürgen Habermas; Alexander Ulfig: Präsuppositionen und Hintergrundwissen. Eine Kritik am formalpragmatischen Präsuppositionsbegriff V DIALOGSTRUKTUR

UND

ARGUMENTATION

Wilhelm Franke: Konzepte linguistischer Dialogforschung; Franz Hundsnurscher: Streitspezifische Sprechakte: Vorwerfen, Insistieren, Beschimpfen; Dieter Mans: Argumentation im Kontext, Exkurs: Zu Christoph Lumers “Praktische Argumentationstheorie” 408 Seiten Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1997 Digitale Version: Humanities Online 2001

434

Bookpublications

STRUKTURELLE EVOLUTION

UND DAS WELTSYSTEM

Theorien, Sozialstruktur und evolutionäre Entwicklungen Gerhard Preyer (Hrsg.) Einleitung: Gerhard Preyer: Strukturelle Evolution und das Weltsystem: Theorien, Sozialstruktur und evolutionäre Entwicklungen ZENTRUM

UND

PERIPHERIE –

INSTITUTIONELLE

ENTWICKLUNG –

ASKRIPTIVE

SOLIDARITÄT

Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt: Social Division of Labor, Construction of Centers and Institutional Dynamics: A Reassessment of the Structural–Evolutionary Perspective, Bernhard Giesen, Kay Junge: Strukturelle Evolution, Gerhard Preyer: Mitgliedschaftsbedingungen. Zur soziologischen Kerntheorie einer Protosoziologie, Anhang: Die modernen Gesellschaften verstehen. Richard Münchs Entwicklungstheorie moderner Gesellschaften, Erwin Rogler, Gerhard Preyer: Relationslogische Darstellung der sozialen Gesetze, Gerhard Preyer: Die modernen Gesellschaften “verstehen”. Zu Richard Münchs Entwicklungstheorie moderner Gesellschaften, Dieter Claessens: Bemerkungen zur Entstehung der modernen Ökonomie: Das Organistionsproblem, Richard Pieper: Strukturelle Emotionen, elementare Strukturbildung und strukturelle Evolution DIE EVOLUTION

POLITISCHER

ORDNUNGEN

Rainer C. Baum: Parsons on Evolution of Democracy, Mathias Bös: Zur Evolution nationalstaatlich verfaßter Gesellschaften, Konrad Thomas: Das Ethnische und das Staatliche, Volker Bornschier: Die westeuropäische Integration als Gesellschaftsmodell im Zentrumswettbewerb ZUR SOZIOLOGIE

DES

WELTSYSTEMS

Immanuel Wallerstein: Evolution of the Modern World-System, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Thomas D. Hall: The Historical Evolution of World-Systems: Iterations and Transformations, Albert Bergesen: Postmodernism: A World System Explanation, Richard Münch: Modernity and Irrationality: Paradoxes of Moral Modernization, Walter L. Bühl: Transformation oder strukturelle Evolution? Zum Problem der Steuerbarkeit von sozialen Systemen STATE

OF THE

ART: Michael Schmid: Soziologische Evolutionstheorien

Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1998, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft

Bookpublications

435

LEBENSWELT – SYSTEM – GESELLSCHAFT Konstruktionsprobleme der “Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns” von Jürgen Habermas Gerhard Preyer I DIE ENTWICKLUNGSLOGIK VON WELTBILDERN 1. Die Rationalisierung von Weltbildern 2. Strategien der Analyse von Weltbildern 3. Folgeprobleme und Kritik II GESELLSCHAFT ALS LEBENSWELT UND SYSTEM 1. Die Strukturen der Lebenswelt 2. Allgemeine Bezugsprobleme der soziologischen Evolutionstheorie 3. Die Verständigungsformen 1. Weltbilder und soziale Integration 2. Zur Durkheim-Interpretation 4. Kommunikationsmedien und generalisierte Kommunikationsweisen 5. Folgeprobleme und Kritik III DIE FORMAL-PRAGMATISCHE BEDEUTUNGSTHEORIE 1. Die sprechakttheoretische Grundlegung 2. Interpersonal geltende Bedeutungskonventionen 3. Regelbewußtsein und Handlungskompetenz 4. Die Expansion des semantischen Gehalts 5. Verständigung und die Herstellung interpersonaler Beziehungen IV DER ERWERB DES MORALISCHEN BEWUßTSEINS 1. Die sozial-kognitive Grundausstattung 2. Diskurs und moralisches Bewußtsein 3. Folgeprobleme V KONSTRUKTIONSPROBLEME UND KRITIK 1. Rekonstruktionshypothesen 2. Zu den Konstruktionsproblemen ANHANG: Max Webers Religionssoziologie als eine Typologie des Rationalismus 290 Seiten digital bookpublication: Verlag Humanities Online, Frankfurt am Main 2000 www.humanities-online.de

436

Bookpublications

Die globale Herausforderung Wie Deutschland an die Weltspitze zurückkehren kann Gerhard Preyer Der Begriff Globalisierung hat bereits Schlagwortcharakter bekommen und ist in aller Munde. Globale Märkte haben die Grundsituation wirtschaftlichen und politischen Handelns grundsätzlich verändert. Das heute entstehende globale Weltsystem und der Medienverbund auf dem es beruht, fordert uns alle heraus. Was bedeutet Globalisierung? Worin bestehen die globalen Herausforderungen, die zu bewältigen sind? Darauf wird eine Antwort gegeben. NEUE MEDIEN, WISSENSCHAFT

UND

TECHNIK

IM

ZEITALTER

DER

GLOBALISIERUNG

Was heißt Globalisierung? – Die neuen Medien: Eine Kopernikanische Wende – Der Überlebensimperativ: Technologieentwicklung – Die Zukunft der deutsche Universitäten VERÄNDERTE KONSTELLATIONEN Globale Wirtschaft und globale Ordnung – Die Globalisierung der Finanzmärkte – Auf dem Weg zur virtuellen Organisation – Das Ende des klassischen Arbeitsmarktes – Zu einer neuen Wirtschaftspolitik EUROPA

IM

ZEITALTER

DER

GLOBALISIERUNG

Zur Ausgangssituation im Zentrumswettbewerb – Frankreichs Zentralismus: Grenzen der Marktwirtschaft – Das Überlebenssystem Italien – Großbritannien zwischen Tradition und Modernisierung – Deutsche Stärken im Umbruch – Neu gemischte Karten – Die Wiedergewinnung des Standorts Deutschland DIE EVOLUTION

DES

MITGLIEDSCHAFTSCODES

Zur Soziologie der Grenzziehungen – Gesellschaft, Organisation und Interaktion – Gesellschaftsinterne Globalisierung und Entwicklungstrends – Die globalisierte Gesellschaft

290 Seiten Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/Gabler Edition, Frankfurt am Main 1998 Neuauflage–Reprint Digital Verlag Science-Digital, Haiger 2003 www.science-digital.com

Bookpublications

437

INTEGRIERTES MANAGEMENT Was kommt nach der Lean-Production? Gerhard Preyer/Jakob Schissler Es gibt heute im Weltmaßstab kein Unternehmen, das seine Umstrukturierung nicht an den Bestandteilen des japanischen Modells der schlanken Produktion und des schlanken Managements, der Lean-Modelle, orientiert. Die Lean-Modelle sind zu einem integrierten Management fortzuentwickeln: dem über Vernetzung integrierten segmentierten Unternehmen, mit durchlässigen, ständig wechselnden Grenzen zwischen Unternehmen, Lieferanten und Kunden. Integriertes Management ist das Unternehmensmodell, das eine erhöhte Qualifizierung der Mitarbeiter und die Fähigkeit, in sich selbst steuernden Teams mitzuarbeiten, erfordert. Das bedeutet aber auch die Entwicklung eines neuen Führungsstils. Mit integriertem Management kann jedes Unternehmen sofort anfangen. Dazu wird in diesem Buch ein Weg gezeigt. Es wird eine wichtige Funktion als Impuls für weitere Entwicklungen haben. Inhalt DIE NEUEN HERAUSFORDERUNGEN 1. Vom japanischen und amerikanischen Management lernen? 2. Information, Wissen und Entscheidungen KREATIVITÄT – ORGANISATION – FÜHRUNG 1. Managementfähigkeiten 2. Innovative Organisation 3. Management und Führungsstile STRATEGIE – MARKT – KULTUR 1. Unternehmensstrategie 2. Controlling 3. Marketing 4. Zur Unternehmenskultur STICHWORT Was kommt nach der Lean Production? Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Verlagsbereich Wirtschaftsbücher, Blickbuch-Wirtschaft, Frankfurt am Main 1996, 164 Seiten. Neuauflage–Reprint Verlag Science-Digital, Haiger 2003 www.science-digital.com

438

Bookpublications

System der Rechte, demokratischer Rechtsstaat und Diskurstheorie des Rechts nach Jürgen Habermas hrsg. von Werner Krawietz / Gerhard Preyer Editorial: Zivilgesellschaftliche Assoziationen und spätmoderner Rechtssstaat (Werner Krawietz)

I JURISTISCHE ENTSCHEIDUNG, BEGRÜNDUNG UND RECHTFERTIGUNG PERSPEKTIVE DISKURSIVER REFLEXIONSTHEORIE

DES

RECHTS

IN DER

Enrique P. Huba: Standortbestimmung in der zeitgenössischen Rechtstheorie Rawls, Dworkin, Habermas, Alexy und andere Mitglieder der modernen ‘Heiligen (Rede-) Familie’, Thomas McCarthy: Legitimacy and Diversity: Dialectical Reflexions on Analytical Distinctions, Gerhard Preyer: Rechtsgeltung – Argumentation – Entscheidung II ORDNUNG, RECHT

UND

RATIONALITÄT

IM JURISTISCHEN

DISKURS

Karl-Heinz Ladeur: Rechtliche Ordnungsbildung unter Ungewißheitsbedingungen und intersubjektive Rationalität, Ulfrid Neumann: Zur Interpretation des forensischen Diskurses in der Rechtsphilosophie von Jürgen Habermas, Ota Weinberger: Diskursive Demokratie ohne Diskurstheorie III KONSENSUSTHEORIE

SUBJEKTPHILOSOPHIE? VORAUSSETZUNGEN UND FOLGEN DISKURSES IM DEMOKRATISCHEN RECHTSTAAT

VERSUS

JURISTISCHEN

DES

Michael Pawlik: Die Verdrängung des Subjekts und ihre Folgen. Begründungsdefizite in Habermas’ “System der Rechte”, Uwe Steinhoff: Probleme der Legitimation des demokratischen Rechtsstaats, William Rehg: The Place of Consensus in Democratic Legitimation: A Recommendation

Rechtstheorie Zeitschrift für Logik, Methodenlehre, Normentheorie und Soziologie des Rechts 3 1996, Habermas-Sonderheft (erschienen 1998) Duncker und Humblot, Berlin 2. Afllage 2004

Bookpublications

439

Donald Davidsons Philosophie Von der radikalen Interpretation zum radikalen Kontextualismus Gerhard Preyer Für Bruce Aune EINLEITUNG I RADIKALE INTERPRETATION, LOGISCHE FORM UND EREIGNISSE 1. Donald Davidsons Philosophie: Ein Überblick 2. Wahrheit, Bedeutung und radikale Interpretation 2.1 Radikale Interpretation als ein radikaler Externalismus (1) Der Zirkel zwischen Überzeugung und Bedeutung: Die Asymmetrie von RI (2) Die Strukur von Inhaltssätzen: sagen, daß ... (3) Der Grundsatz der Nachsicht (4) Die Autonomie der Bedeutung (5) Radikaler Externalismus: Der innertheoretische Schritt (6) Die Ontologie von RI 2.2 Von der Idiolekttheorie zum dritten Dogma des Empirismus (1) Ausgangs- und Übergangstheorien der Interpretation (2) Die Demontage eines Mythos (3) Die epistemischen Beschränkungen von Verstehen 3. Die logische Form von Handlungssätzen und die singuläre Kausalaussage 3.1 Logische Form und adverbiale Modifikation 3.2 Kausale Beziehungen 4. Wahrheit und Überzeugung 4.1 Zum Haupteinwand 4.2 Zur empirischen Offensichtlichkeit von Einstellungszuschreibung 4.3 Rationalität als normativer Begriff II KÖRPERBEWEGUNGEN UND HANDLUNGEN 1. Das logische Verknüpfungsargument 2. Primäre Gründe und die Identitätsthese: Die synkategormatische Fassung von Absichten 3. Basisakte 4. Flucht vor den Körperbewegungen 4.1 Thalbergs Handlungstheorie und der “Akkordeon-Effekt” 4.2 A.I. Goldmans Kritik an der Identitätsthese 4.3 H.L.A. Hart: Zuschreibungen 4.4 Körperbewegungen als Bestandteil von Handlungen

440

Bookpublications

III EINE RADIKALE THEORIE DES HANDELNS 1. Der Begriff der Einstellungsrationalität 1.1 Die Homogenität der Interpretation 1.2 Bewertende Einstellungen 2. Handlungsbeschreibungen und Handlungsverursachung 3. Eine Handlungserklärung 3.1 Überzeugungen, Absichten, Situationen 3.2 Praktische Gedanken 3.3 Handlungsgründe 3.4 Zu Hempels Ansatz 4. Praktische Schlüsse 4.1 Zur Gültigkeit praktischen Schließens 4.2 Entscheidungen und die Ausführung von Absichten 4.3 Überzeugungen und willentliche Handlungen 5. Radikaler Kontextualismus Literatur 290 Seiten

Verlag Humanties Online, Frankfurt am Main, 2002 www.humanities-online.de

Bookpublications

LANGUAGE, MIND

AND

441

EPISTEMOLOGY

On Donald Davidson’s Philosophy Gerhard Preyer, Frank Siebelt, Alexander Ulfig (eds.)

Introduction: On Donald Davidson’s Philosophy (Gerhard Preyer, Frank Siebelt, Alexander Ulfig) PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE Jerry Fodor, Ernie Lepore (New Brunswick, USA): Meaning, Holism, and the Problem of Extensionality; Olav Gjelsvik (Oslo, Norway): Davidson’s Use of Truth in Accounting for Meaning; Wilhelm K. Essler (Frankfurt/Main, Germany): Was ist Wahrheit? Arend Kulenkampff (Frankfurt/Main, Germany): Eigennamen und Kennzeichnungen EPISTEMOLOGY Roger F. Gibson (St. Louis, USA): Quine and Davidson: Two Naturalized Epistemologists; Eva Picardi (Bolongna, Italy): Davidson and Quine on Observation Sentences; Ralf Naumann (Düsseldorf, Germany): Events and Externalism; Dorit BarOn (Chapel Hill, USA): Conceptual Relativism and Translation; David K. Henderson (Memphis, USA): Conceptual Schemes after Davidson; Frank Siebelt (Frankfurt/Main, Germany): Singular Causal Sentences and two Relational Views PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND THEORY OF ACTION Louise M. Antony (Raleigh, USA): The Inadequacy of Anomalous Monism as a Realist Theory of Mind, Louise Röska-Hardy (Darmstadt, Germany): Internalism, Externalism and Davidsons Conception of the Mental, Marcia Cavell (Berkeley, USA): Dividing the Self, Ralf Stoecker (Bielefeld, Germany): Willensschwäche - Wie ist das nur möglich? Klaus Puhl (Graz, Austria): Davidson on intentional Content and Self-Knowledge, Johannes Brandl (Salzburg, Austria): Sharing Beliefs and the Myth of the Subjective, Kirk Ludwig (Gainesville, USA): First Person Knowledge and Authority, Gerhard Preyer (Frankfurt/Main, Germany): Rationalität: Absichten, Primärgründe und praktisches Denken. Donald Davidson: Dialectic and Dialogue 445 pages Kluwer Academic Publishers, Synthese Library, Dordrecht

442

Bookpublications

Reality and Humean Supervenience Essays on the Philosophy of David Lewis Gerhard Preyer, Frank Siebelt (eds.) “This is a very fine collection of essays about David Lewis’s work. Centered around such central Lewisian doctrines as Humean supervenience, modal realism, the counterfactual analysis of causation, and physicalism, the collection is a fitting tribute to his outstanding work and to its influence.” – Jeremy Butterfield, University of Cambridge “This collection gathers papers on David Lewis’s metaphysics. Since the editors have assembled a superb group of authors, the result is at the cutting edge of the best work in contemporary metaphysics. Together with Lewis’s writings it would make for an outstanding seminar in metaphysics.” – Ernest Sosa, Brown University “David Lewis’s work occupies a central place in contemporary metaphysics, and in this volume some of our leading metaphysicians comment, interpret, and critically appraise Lewis’s important and influential claims and arguments on issues like modality and possible worlds, Humean supervenience, endurance and perdurance, counterfactuals and time, causation, and the mind-body problem. This is a timely and highly useful collection indispensable to students of Lewis’s work in metaphysics and philosophy of mind.” – Jaegwon Kim, Brown University Preface Gerhard Preyer, Frank Siebelt Reality and Humean Supervenience - Some Reflections on David Lewis’ Philosophy MODAL REALISM Phillip Bricker: Island Universes and the Analysis of Modality, John Bigelow: Time Travel Fictions, Peter Forrest: Counting the Cost of Modal Realism, Paul Teller: Lewis’s Defence of Counterpart Theory, Harold W. Noonan: The Case for Perdurance PHYSICALISM, CAUSATION AND CONDITIONALS Daniel Bonevac: Naturalism for the Faint of Heart, D. M. Armstrong: Going throug the Open Door again: Counterfactual vs. Singularists Theories of Causation, Jonathan Bennett: On Forward and Backward Counterfactual Conditionals REDUCTION

OF

MIND

Terence Horgan: Multiple Reference, Multiple Realization and the Reduction of Mind, Michael Tye: Knowing what it is like: The Ability Hypothesis and the Knowledge Argument

Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, USA, 2001

Bookpublications

443

Wilhelm K. Essler „Unser die Welt“ Sprachphilosophische Grundlegungen der Erkenntnistheorie Ausgewählte Artikel herausgegeben von Gerhard Preyer

Einleitung: Zur Struktur von Erfahrung 1. Fundamentals of a Semi-Kantian Metaphysics of Knowledge 2. Kant und kein Ende 3. Tarski on Language and Truth 4. Am Anfang war die Tat – Semantische und epistemologische Anmerkungen zur Sprachstufung 5. Was ist Wahrheit? 6. Gorgias hat recht! 7. Was ist und zu welchem Ende treibt man Metaphysik 8. Das logische Aufbauen von Welten 9. Unsere Welt – trotz alledem 10. Selbst das Selbst ist nicht selbst 11. „Erkenne dich selbst!“ Der Versuch von Hinweisen auf die Weisheit des Sokrates und auf die des Buddha Schakyamuni 12. Offenes Philosophieren

Digitale Publikation: Verlag Humanities Online, Frankfurt am Main, 2001 www.humanities-online.de

444

Bookpublications

ProtoSociology: Digital volumes available Vol. 11 is a free download. Visit our homepage and go to “Free Downloads”. Vol. 20 – World-SystemAnalysis: Contemporary Research and Directions Vol. 18/19 – Understanding the Social II: ThePhilosophy of Sociality Vol. 17 – Semantic Theory and Reported Speech Vol. 16 – Understanding the Social: New Perspectives from Epistemology Vol. 15 – On a Sociology of Borderlines: Social Process in Time of Globalization Vol. 14 – Folk Psychology, Mental Concepts and the Ascription of Attitudes Vol. 13 – Reasoning and Argumentation Vol. 12 – After the Received View – Developments in the Theory of Science Vol. 11 – Cognitive Semantics II – Externalism in Debate (free download!) Vol. 10 – Cognitive Semantics I – Conceptions of Meaning Vol. 8/9 – Rationality II &III (double volume)

Order and download directly from our hompepage: www.protosociology.de Payment by credit card or bank tranfer: 15.- Euro each For subscription or additional questional, please contact: E-Mail:

[email protected] or [email protected] or [email protected]

PROTOSOCIOLOGY. Editor: Gerhard Preyer, Johann Wolfgang GoetheUniversität Frankfurt am Main FB 3: Department of Social Sciences. Editorial staff: Georg Peter. Editorial office: Stephan-Heise-Str. 56, D-60488 Frankfurt am Main, Tel. 069/769461

Bookpublications

445

Science

-digital Publishing House and Service Provider for Scientific eBooks

eBooks

The founding of the publishing house Science-Digital is a result of the changes in modern sciences and ten years of experience with ProtoSociology: Sciences become more and more specialized, international and dynamic. So there is a need for a media that is fast, reaches a worldwide readership, inexpensive, and that will fit (in)to modern communication structures. Science-Digital offers scientific publications as eBooks for immediate download: first and new editions, serials, reprints or scientific journals with the main focus on philosophy, sociology and literary studies. With an easy to use, save payment system and encrypted to save the author’s rights. Gerhard Preyer Die globale Herausforderung. Wie Deutschland an die Weltspitze zurückkehren kann 164 pages. PDF-file, 15.- Euro Gerhard Preyer, Jakob Schissler Integriertes Management. Was kommt nach der Lean Production? 260 pages. PDF-file, 15.- Euro International authors and editors will find a state of the art surrounding and network especially for topical readers and reprints of important works.

For further information visit: www.science-digital.com Or contact: [email protected] Georg Peter Publishing House – Science-Digital Postal Address: Frankfurter Str. 122 D-63067 Offenbach am Main (Germany)

446

Bookpublications

METAPHYSICA INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR ONTOLOGY & METAPHYSICS Hrsg. von / Edited by RAFAEL HÜNTELMANN • UWE MEIXNER • ERWIN TEGTMEIER

EDITORIAL BOARD LAIRD ADDIS • IOWA, USA DAVID ARMSTRONG • SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA SIGMUND BONK • REGENSBURG, GERMANY BOJAN BORSTNER • MARIBOR, SLOVENIA PAUL BURGER • BASEL, SWITZERLAND REINHARDT GROSSMANN • BLOOMINGTON, USA HERBERT HOCHBERG • AUSTIN, USA INGVAR JOHANSSON • UMEÅ, SWEDEN / LEIPZIG, GERMANY CHRISTIAN KANZIAN • INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA WOLFGANG KÜNNE • HAMBURG, GERMANY KEVIN MULLIGAN • GENÈVE, SWITZERLAND FREDERIC NEF • RENNES, FRANCE JERZY PERZANOWSKI • TORUN/KRAKÓW, POLAND ALVIN PLANTINGA • NOTRE DAME, USA MATJAZ POTRC • LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA CHRISTOF RAPP • BERLIN, GERMANY RICHARD SCHANTZ • SIEGEN, GERMANY BARRY SMITH • BUFFALO, USA / LEIPZIG, GERMANY HANS-PETER SCHÜTT, KARLSRUHE, GERMANY JOHANNA SEIBT • AARHUS, DENMARK RALF STOECKER • BIELEFELD, GERMANY KÄTHE TRETTIN • FRANKFURT A. M., GERMANY HERMANN WEIDEMANN • MÜNSTER, GERMANY METAPHYSICA is published in two volumes annually. The price of a single volume is EUR 25,00, in subscription (two volumes) EUR 45,00 plus postage and handling. Order from: ontos verlag, P.O. Box 15 41, 63133 Heusenstam nr. Frankurt, GERMANY, Tel. +49-6104-66 57 33, Fax +49-6104-66 57 34, mailto: [email protected] www.metaphysica.net ISSN 1437-2053

447

Bookpublications

REVIEW FERNAND BRAUDEL CENTER A Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations Vol. XXVII in 2004 has special issues on Directions for World-Systems Analysis? and Siberia and the World-System Previous Special Issues and Sections still available include: XXVI, 2, 2003 –– Ecology of the Modern World-System XXV, 3, 2002 –– Utopian Thinking XXIV, 1, 2001 — Braudel and the U.S.: Interlocuteurs valables? XXIII, 4, 2000 — Development Revisited XXIII, 1, 2000 — Commodity Chains in the WorldEconomy, 1590–1790 XXII, 4, 1999 — Caribbean Migrants to Core Zones XXII, 3, 1999 — ReOrientalism? XXI, 3 & 4, 1998 — The States, the Markets, and the Societies: Separate Logics or a Single Domain? XX, 3/4, Sum./Fall, 1997 — Nomothetic vs. Idiographic Disciplines: A False Dilemma? XVIII, 1, Winter, 1995 — Labor Unrest in the World-Economy, 1870–1990 XV, 4, Fall 1992 — Two Views of World History A brochure containing the Table of Contents of past issues is available on request. Institutions $98/yr. Individuals $28/yr. Non-U.S. addresses, postage $8/yr. Special rate for low gnp per capita countries $10/yr.

Managing Editor, Review Fernand Braudel Center Binghamton University State University of New York PO Box 6000 Binghamton, NY 13902-6000

448

Bookpublications

WHEN TALK IS A SCIENCE…

Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts Comprehensive, cost-effective, timely coverage of current ideas in linguistics and language research Abstracts of articles, books, and conference papers from nearly 1,500 journals published in 35 countries; citations of relevant dissertations as well as books and other media. Available in print or electronically through the Internet Database Service from Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (www.csa.com). Contact [email protected] for trial Internet access or a sample issue. Linguistics

Language Behavior Abstracts

Published by CSA

Bookpublications

449

Add dimension to your sociological research sociological abstracts Comprehensive, cost-effective, timely

Abstracts of articles, books, and conference papers from nearly 2,500 journals published in 35 countries; citations of relevant dissertations as well as books and other media. Available in print or electronically through the Internet Database Service from Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (www.csa.com). Contact [email protected] for trial Internet access or a sample issue.

sociological abstracts Published by CSA

450

Bookpublications

■ Gruppen, Rechte und Gerechtigkeit

Die moralische Begründung der Rechte von Minderheiten 2003. X, 248 Seiten. Gebunden. S 49,95 [D] / sFr 80,– • ISBN 3-11-017848-6 Sollten muslimische Lehrerinnen im Unterricht ein Kopftuch tragen dürfen? Ist es gerecht, wenn Frauen bei der Vergabe von Arbeitsplätzen bevorzugt werden? Sollten die Kinder der Amish von der Schulpflicht befreit sein? Rechte von Minderheiten beschäftigen zunehmend die aktuelle Rechtsprechung und Politik. In der philosophischen Debatte sind sie nicht zuletzt deswegen so umstritten, weil sie dem Gleichheitsgedanken zu widersprechen scheinen. Es zeigt sich jedoch, dass die Anerkennung von Minderheitenrechten unter bestimmten Umständen moralisch gefordert ist.

Marco Iorio

■ Karl Marx – Geschichte, Gesellschaft, Politik

Eine Ein- und Weiterführung 2003. XII, 372 Seiten. Broschur. S 29,95 [D] / sFr 48,– • ISBN 3-11-017849-4 Mit diesem Buch liegt eine beachtenswerte Neuinterpretation zentraler Teile des Marxismus – der Marx’schen Geschichts- und Gesellschaftstheorie – vor. In einem ersten Schritt lässt Iorio Widersprüche und Mehrdeutigkeiten im Denken von Marx sichtbar werden. Es gelingt dem Autor jedoch, diese Widersprüche im Rahmen einer einheitlichen Theorie der Gesellschaft und des gesellschaftlichen Wandels zu überwinden, die vor allem darum bemüht ist, eine tiefgreifende Spannung zwischen dem Historischen Materialismus und dem marxistischen Konzept des Klassenkampfes aufzulösen. Diese Auflösung zeigt, wie die überindividualistisch strukturalistischen Aspekte des Historischen Materialismus mit Marxens Überzeugung zu versöhnen sind, dass menschliche Individuen Gesellschaften konstituieren und selbst ihre Geschichte machen.

Bitte bestellen Sie bei Ihrer Buchhandlung oder direkt beim Verlag. Preisänderungen vorbehalten.

www.deGruyter.de · Newsletter: www.deGruyter.de/Newsletter WALTER DE GRUYTER GMBH & CO. KG · Genthiner Straße 13 · 10785 Berlin Telefon +49-(0)30-2 60 05-0 · Fax +49-(0)30-2 60 05-251 · E-Mail [email protected]

de Gruyter Philosophie

Susanne Boshammer

Bookpublications

Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society A Quarterly Journal in American Philosophy

Peter H. Hare Randall R. Dipert Editors Since its founding in 1965, this has been the premier journal specializing in the history of American philosophy. Although named after the founder of American pragmatism, all types of American thought are covered, from the colonial period until the recent past. All books published in the field are discussed in essay reviews.

———— Membership/Subscription Rates $20 Special* Individual $35 Institution $60 Sustaining $100 * Special Rate: Students/Retired/Unemployed ————

Postage Outside USA Surface Mail: $10 Air Mail: $25 (USA postage included in Rate above)

————

Back volumes available upon request.

———— Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society SUNY-Buffalo, Philosophy Department 135 Park Hall Buffalo, New York 14260 fax: 716-645-6139 e-mail: [email protected] http://www.pragmatism.org/tps/

451

Proto Sociology Volume 20, 2004 - World-System Analysis

PROTO SOCIOLOGY VOL. 8 9, 1996 RATIONALITY II & III

Proto Sociology Vol. 17, 2002 - Semantic Theory and Reported Speech

Proto Sociology VOL. 13, 1999 - REASONING AND ARGUMENTATION

PROTO SOCIOLOGY VOL. 11,1998 COGNITIVE SEMANTICS II — EXTERNALISM IN DEBATE

Grantville Gazette Volume 20

Index, Volume 20

Photochemistry (Volume 20)

Horticultural Reviews (Volume 20)

Volume 20: Storytelling

Microtas 2004: Volume 2

Microtas 2004: Volume 1

Forex Magazine №20 (7 июня 2004)

Forex Magazine №35 (20 сентября 2004)

Forex Magazine №48 (20 декабря 2004)

PROTO SOCIOLOGY Vol. 15, 2001 - On a Sociology of Borderlines: Social Process in Time of Globalization

Proto Met Problemen

Am Proto-Tor

Proto-Indo-European Syntax

Advances in Computers, Volume 20

Advances in Agronomy, Volume 20

Business Plans Handbook, Volume 20

Proto met problemen

Log-linear models, Volume 20

Advances in Genetics Volume 20

Advances in Parasitology Volume 20

Topics in Stereochemistry, Volume 20

Volume 20, Advances in Photochemistry

Acta Numerica 2011: Volume 20

Advances in Accounting, Volume 20

Plant Breeding Reviews, Volume 20

Proto Sociology Volume 20, 2004 - World-System Analysis

PROTO SOCIOLOGY VOL. 8 9, 1996 RATIONALITY II & III

Proto Sociology Vol. 17, 2002 - Semantic Theory and Reported Speech

Proto Sociology VOL. 13, 1999 - REASONING AND ARGUMENTATION

PROTO SOCIOLOGY VOL. 11,1998 COGNITIVE SEMANTICS II — EXTERNALISM IN DEBATE

Grantville Gazette Volume 20

Index, Volume 20

Photochemistry (Volume 20)

Horticultural Reviews (Volume 20)

Volume 20: Storytelling

Microtas 2004: Volume 2

Microtas 2004: Volume 1

Forex Magazine №20 (7 июня 2004)

Forex Magazine №35 (20 сентября 2004)

Forex Magazine №48 (20 декабря 2004)

PROTO SOCIOLOGY Vol. 15, 2001 - On a Sociology of Borderlines: Social Process in Time of Globalization

Proto Met Problemen

Am Proto-Tor

Proto-Indo-European Syntax

Advances in Computers, Volume 20

Advances in Agronomy, Volume 20

Business Plans Handbook, Volume 20

Proto met problemen

Log-linear models, Volume 20

Advances in Genetics Volume 20

Advances in Parasitology Volume 20

Topics in Stereochemistry, Volume 20

Volume 20, Advances in Photochemistry

Acta Numerica 2011: Volume 20

Advances in Accounting, Volume 20

Plant Breeding Reviews, Volume 20

Recommend Documents