Ian Hacking, Historical Ontology *** 1/2

The expression "historical ontology" refers to the study of (abstract) objects that come into existence or go out of existence over time. Consider, for example, "child abuse." Certainly there have always been acts of violence toward children, but the idea that these acts fall into a category we call "child abuse" began around 1960 (p 69). Did child abuse exist before we started calling it that? Did we discover a category that already existed, or did we create something new? Is the concept part of "the furniture of the universe," to borrow a phrase from Richard Rorty?

In this book, Hacking explores the question of realism versus nominalism. Realism is the view that our words and concepts correspond to aspects of the real objective world; nominalism is the view that our words and concepts create the categories they name, which would not exist without our naming. Over the years I have become convinced that nominalism is correct for most of the categories that really matter to our lives, but it is definitely the counterintuitive view and I recognize the difficulties it presents in a strong form. That's why I am interested in books that explore where the truth lies between the two extremes.

Simplifying quite a bit, I'll say that Hacking is a realist with respect to the categories and concepts of natural science and a nominalist with respect to the categories and concepts of human and social sciences. The key difference between the natural sciences and social sciences is that the former has engaged more intimately with "recalcitrant experience," to borrow an expression from Quine. He suggests that we need to investigate "thick" concepts in the social sciences, in the manner of Michel Foucault (the hero of this book).

"Tired old cultural relativism in morality has been with us (it feels) forever. No jejune relativism had comparable currency among those well acquainted with a natural science. Then Kuhn came bounding in... Compare the abstract topic headings of metaphysics and ethics. We have reality, truth, fact, ... on the one hand, and right, good, justice,... on the other. In the natural sciences we have been taking a look at the material circumstances under which truth, reality, and fact are constructed from case to case (with no obligation to tell the same story in every case). This meant investigating not truth, reality, and fact, but truths, real things, and facts. In ethics, especially in English, there has been too much fixation on the abstract, one the good, the right, and the just. ... Moralists [need] to examine 'thick' concepts rather than abstract notions." (p 66 - 67)

Hacking suggests that we can avoid "jejune relativism" by recognizing that objectivity flows from our styles of reasoning. That is, the characteristics that define objectivity are constructed (if you will) from the ways we reason about things. Kant said that all experience takes place in space and time because these concepts are built into our understanding of experience; Hacking says that our concepts are objective because objectivity is built into our modes of reasoning. Or something like that.

Hacking also suggests (around page 32) that we can escape from nominalism by focusing not on how we think about categories but on how we interact with them. I am intrigued by this glimmer of an idea, because it ties together well with two other parts of my worldview: the pragmatic view of truth and with the idea of basic levels in categorization.

In passing, Hacking mentions that "language" is a historically recent term and not a natural kind. What does this mean about the search for the biological basis of language? Or about linguistics in general?

"Life, labor, and language are concepts formed... in the nineteenth century as the material of biology, economics, and linguistics. These sciences have objects that don't correspond with or map onto their predecessors of natural history, the theory of wealth, or general grammar. Those fields of inquiry, in turn, have no parallel in the Renaissance, says Foucault. Such non-mappings result not so much from new discoveries as from the coming into being of new objects of thought for which new truths and falsehoods are to be uttered." (p 78)

I am intrigued by the questions that Hacking addresses in this book and in the other book of his that I read, The Social Construction of What? The book is littered with interesting insights. I agree with him that the most interesting work in this area is detailed historical analysis of individual concepts. In fact, my main complaint is that the book does not include enough of that analysis; it talks about it instead of doing it.