Trabalho IFA - Final Paper

8/12/2019 Trabalho IFA - Final Paper

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Candido 1

Luiz Candido

Luis Assis

IFAIntermediate

1st April 2014

Schemes of Classification, Politics and Ways of Existence

An important branch of the philosophical investigation is the research about the

links between language and reality. Inside this branch of the philosophical investigation,

there are works which try to explain how the categorizations of the objects of the reality

interacts with the objects itself, and, especially, how the categorizations of human beings

interact with themselves. Recent versions of these last theories, by trying to establish and

understand the bonds between the modes of categorization of human beings and the human

beings properly, has produced interesting results, prominently in the works of the Canadian

philosopher Ian Hacking. He has created an original and rich approach to the problem in

which he explains, most of the relationship language-reality, how the categorizations of

human beings produces important social effects in many ways. In this sense, are the

objectives of this essay, on one hand, discuss how these categorizations cause different

kinds of control over the individuals, making possible a variety of interventions on their

lives, their ways of being, their possibilities; but, on the other hand, how I argue, to present

how these categorizations, too, offer other possibilities for the individuals to establish,

interacting with them, other ways of being, possibilities of existence and political action.

In the recent years Ian Hacking has worked in a perspective which deals with the

implications of the classifications of human beings for the human beings themselves. He

recognizes his debt to Michel Foucault, from whom he has borrowed some intellectual

tools, specifically their archaeological method and, into this later, the idea that the

classification schemes and the historical context determinate the way in which we can


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think about the world and ourselves. One of the main preoccupation by Foucault were

about the classification and, in this sense, the relationship between the forms of knowledge

and the way in which we conduct our lives related to others and ourselves, i.e., the power

relations. Some of the knowledge areas that Foucault has been interested were the

criminology, medicine (in general), and psychiatry (in particular). Hacking also retains

much of the Foucaults problems, and looks accurately for the biomedical sciences,

knowledgesfield that plays a main role in the contemporary world.

One of the main features of the knowledge of nowadays is their capacity to provide

ways to intervene in reality. The sciences, in this sense, are understood as techniques to

subjugate, to master the nature. Of course that many of the scientists do dont have

immediate applications, the outcomes of their researches aim to increase our knowledge of

the world. Indeed, this believe even plays a special role in psychological terms as

motivation for scientists to carry forward his work, anything like a passion for the

knowledge. But, at same time, such knowledge is inseparable of its practical applications.

Two kinds of sciences that play a significant role with important practical effects

are the social sciences and the biomedical sciences. In fact, these sciences are mixed in

many senses and opportunities. One example relies with the way in which the statistical

knowledge works to classify people. As everyone knows, what the statistical sciences do is

account things. But, their work is not finished there. Accounting things is not enough if we

dont have categories under which to put the phenomena accounted. So, another part of the

work of accounting the phenomena of reality is to create concepts to describe the

phenomena accounted. This, in turn, is a powerful tool for manipulation of reality.

There are many types of concepts. There are very specific ones, but there are others

that are so general that they transcend one or another field of possibilities of application.


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experience of modernity, and develops an argument that seeks to show how, when

constituting the psychological sciences, defining a specific set of conditions or criteria, it

developed a series of knowledges that by designating categories to classify people, made

possible the very existence of those "kinds of people", understood as essences of those

people. And as essences, these classifications sought to delimit the possibilities: the

classification determines what a person is. And, determining what a person is turns the

person classified a virtual target to intervention. Of course, this is only an example of what

Hacking called later "making up people".

At this point, is needed a most clear comprehension of the meaning of this notion of

kinds of people. Kind of people is an assignation that Hacking uses to refer that he

also names human kinds. There is a now classic discussion in philosophy about the

"types". Authors such as John Stuart Mill, for example, tried to establish whether there are

such things as types. In general, the concern was to try to establish the real existence of

these types. Natural kinds are there? Some have asked. The important thing in this case

was to find out whether the categories we use to treat general phenomena denote actually

existing entities or are mere linguistic devices assigned by us to the world. Hacking

assumes that is possible that there are natural kinds, because, as he argues, there are things

in the natural reality that does not depend of our will, our schemes and so on. But, are these

human kinds also natural kinds? Hacking thinks they are not the same thing. The

human kinds, as he put forward, are essentially social. Differently, they rely on humans to

exist. In fact, they are just products of human activity of knowledge production, naming

phenomena etc.. But, if the human kinds are products of the human activity, also they have

not a solid foundation. Better, maybe they are much more fluid than the natural kinds.

Classifications change every once in a while.


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Therefore, as the classifications change, the people also changes. As Hacking

states, kinds of people are moving targets. Remember that classifications are established

with the goal of intervening in reality. Is to heal, change behavior, or public policy reasons,

they are a way of defining a human phenomenon in reality and to act on it. But human

phenomena are of a different type from those characterized by the natural sciences. The

"objects" classified interact with their own classification and, from the moment someone is

defined as belonging to one or another type, the very people assimilate this perception and

come to understand their possibilities for action in the world from them . Not deal with

static or final classifications, but constantly changing. An important example is the

homosexuals. First identified as patients requiring professional intervention, then as

characteristic of one's personality and transformed into a way of being in the world and

thus in vindicating political rights movement. The same applies to many other cases, just

think of the multiplicity of social and political demands that grow as they multiply kinds of

people.

In conclusion, therefore, it can be said that the problem sorted, either from a

scientific point of view or from a political point of view, it is an issue of utmost importance

and that has proved to be a rich field for future analysis. Saw that classifications have a

very clear political sense, and which are located at the intersection of political practice with

the construction of objective knowledge. If we want to get a broader and at the same time a

precise panorama of the operation of knowledge and politics in our society, we need to

understand how linguistic phenomena such classifications operate and what kind of effects

they produce. For now, we can only say that it is clear that the ratings produce these effects

and at the same time, makes the people see themselves differently when they are classified.

Classifications, so determine, or establish existential possibilities. Moreover, it should be


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noted that for a better understanding would require a detailed study of the case-by-case

situations where the classifications produced different kinds of people.

References

Davidson, Arnold. Foucault and the Analysis of Concepts. Sex and the Emergence of

Sexuality. Cambridge/MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2001, 178-191.

Foucault, Michel. The order of things:an archaeology of the human sciences. London:Routledge, 1974.

Foucault, Michel. The history of sexuality.London: Penguin, 1990.Hacking, Ian. The Looping Effects of Human Kinds. Causal Cognition. An

Interdisciplinary Approach. Ed. D. Sperber, D. Premack and A. Premack. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1995, 351-383.

Hacking, Ian. Making Up People.Historical Ontology. Cambridge/MA: Harvard

University Press, 2004, 99-114.

Hacking, Ian. Kinds of People: Moving Targets.Proceedings of the British

Academy.151 (2007): 285-318.

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