Episode 107: Linda Martín Alcoff discusses identity and history
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What is the purpose of the episode and who are the hosts?
Hey, Matt Techman here from Elucidations. Before we get going, I just thought I'd put in a quick plug for PIPA. We've been doing our hosting with them since 2016. It's been a fantastic experience. So if you have a podcast, you might check them out. They have great analytics, the service is free, and they make it easy to migrate. So if you're curious, visit their website at pippa.io. All right, thanks. Hello and welcome to Elucidations. I'm Matt Teichman.
And I'm Emily Dupree.
With us today is Linda Martine Alcoff, professor of philosophy at Hunter College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. And she's here to discuss identity and history. Linda Martine Alcoff, welcome.
Thanks, Matt. I'm happy to be here.
Okay, so identity is a big word. We use it for lots of things. I guess we think of that as meaning like how a person thinks of themselves or something like that. But yeah, what do philosophers mean when they talk about identity?
How do philosophers traditionally define personal identity?
What's the topic?
Well, historically, the topic has been personal identity, continuation through time. How do you have an identity that continues from the time you're a child to the time you're an old person? So it's been an interesting metaphysical question that's been very abstract that doesn't necessarily come up in everyday practice. Except that Nietzsche suggested that the reason we have these conceptions of identity is for social reasons, because we have to be able to make promises. We have to be able to hold people accountable for actions that they did a long time ago. So how do you do that if there's not something continuous between time frames of our individual experience? So that's been sort of the typical discussion in the history of Western philosophy.
But more recently, there's been a discussion about identity categories that are more commonly used in societies that mark us in various ways. And the question of what do those socially recognized categories of identity like race and gender, etc., really have to do with me? What do they have to do with who I am as an individual? Where do these categories of identity come from? What do they explain? What do they not explain? And should we continue to use them? And that's become a very lively debate over the last couple of decades in philosophy. And I think it's great that finally this more socially relevant debate topic has emerged in philosophy and I think philosophers have a role to play in elucidating the, to use the title of your podcast, the complicating issues involved in that question.
OK, so identity in the sense of the term we're going to be interested in today, maybe it's roughly like the identity that you check a box in when you fill out a census form. Like I belong to this group. I'm this race. I'm this gender. The kind of stuff that makes it into like identity cards and those sorts of things. Religion, religion I have.
Right. And often it starts with your birth certificate. I mean, historically, you had to be identified by your race and your gender on your birth certificate. So the argument has been that... In part, the identities construct us rather than we're constructing our identities. We don't choose these identities. They're chosen for us, you know, in a lot of cases. And so it has raised questions about the right of individuals to choose their own identities, to have a hand in the meaning of their identities, and to reject some identities.
When these identities are chosen for us, what exactly is being chosen? Is it picking out a property that we have as an individual? Is it picking out some particular social location that we occupy? What's going on in that imposition of a category?
Well, I think the main assumption in societies is that it is picking out a property, and that property is understood to be sort of outside of context and outside of history, just a natural property of a person. But in reality, of course, it's much more complicated than that because which properties are considered important and relevant in dividing up human groups is a social question, not a natural question.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the purpose of the episode and who are the hosts?
0:00–1:12
2
How do philosophers traditionally define personal identity?
1:12–6:26
3
Why does Linda Martín Alcoff argue that identity categories like race and gender must be understood historically?
6:26–15:17
4
What role does biological reproduction play in the philosophical analysis of gender?
15:17–25:03
5
How can solidarity be built across different identity groups while respecting their distinct histories?
25:03–32:51
6
What is a ‘hermeneutic horizon’ and how does it shape our experience of identity?
32:51–40:34
7
Why does Alcoff say denying history undermines efforts to address racism and inequality?
40:34–48:28
8
What are the main take‑aways about the future of identity categories and social change?
48:28–50:06
Speakers
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