How do we know what we are? The science of language & human self-understanding

Where do we get our basic conceptions of ourselves as human beings? How do we know what we are? In one respect, this does not seem like the right question to ask, because we neither have nor need any fully articulated concepts of our humanity. Indeed, a determined obliviousness to such questions, punctuated perhaps by occasional abstracted musings–“What a piece of work is man!” or, “Who am I? Why am I here?”–seems entirely adequate for most purposes. We have a functional understanding, tacit but effective, of what a human being is, an understanding that snaps into focus when we talk about “the sanctity of human life,” insist on “human rights,” register shock at “crimes against humanity,” or reflect that “nobody deserves to be treated like that.” On occasion, this understanding acquires institutional force: The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines crimes against humanity as “particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings,” and prohibits them on that basis.1 We must know what a human being is, and what rights it has, in order to frame such a definition and expect it to compel universal assent– which it largely has, with the exception of Israel and the United States, which first signed the document and then, in 2002, “unsigned” it, declaring themselves exempt from its restrictions. Presumably, these two nations demurred because they found the restrictions inconvenient, not because they had doubts about the implied account of the human.

One reason we never get beyond implication is that one of the most durable elements of our species self-understanding is the conviction that human beings transcend all positive or constraining descriptions: we are, we feel, various, inventive, and free to explore or extend our own capacities. Our nature includes an ability to exceed, negate, modify, or refuse nature as such; our particular instincts, unlike those of the octopus, the bluebird, the mosquito, or the lemur, lead us away from the hardwired repetitions and nonnegotiable demands of animal nature. But again–where do we get this implicit yet deeply held belief? How is a general atmosphere of suggestion formed, and what particles make it up? The argument I will pursue in this paper is that because of the ways in which it is conceptualized, articulated, and disseminated, academic discourse plays an influential role in forming our species self-conception. . . .

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Endnotes

• 1Rome Statute Explanatory Memorandum, International Criminal Court, vol. 1, 360. As of October 2008, 108 countries are party to the Rome Statute, including nearly all of Europe and South America, and roughly half the countries in Africa. Forty more states have signed but not ratified the treaty.