Week 7 – Home, Family and Identity

TOPIC GOALS
 Learn the importance of home, family and identity through a
philosophical perspective

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 1. Introduction
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”
(Aristotle, 368BC–348BC)

2. Home
‘Home is where the heart is’ (Gaius Plinius Secundus, AD 23/24 – 79).
This famous phrase is widely used when someone needs to show the comfort and
love surrounding a house which ultimately makes it a home. People have always
longed to belong in a group and having a nest to feel safe and comfortable. That
is the whole meaning of home. ‘Home, both a place and an idea, is complex and
multifaceted. It resonates as a spatial metaphor in everyday conversations—
“home is where the heart is” or “there’s no place like home”—and is the subject
of scholarly debate across many disciplines. While some research suggests that
home has such potent meaning because it is the locus of everyday family life and
a repository of objects and memories, other accounts question whether this
experience is true for everyone. Home operates at a variety of overlapping scales
indicating how and where people feel a sense of belonging’ (Gieseking et al.,
2011). ‘Although many researchers now understand home as a multidimensional
concept and acknowledge the presence of and need for multidisciplinary research
in the field, there has been little sustained reflection and critique of the
multidisciplinary field of home research and the diverse, even contradictory
meanings of this term’ (Mallett, 2004).

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 As Frank T. McAndrew (2015) states in the article Home Is Where the
Heart Is, but Where Is "Home"? ‘A strong attachment to the place that you live
results in greater satisfaction with your home and expectations of future stability
in that place. These feelings transcend attachments to other people in the area
and represent a genuine affection for the physical location itself, and the
passage of time strengthens our attachment to the places that we live. Because
our physical surroundings play such an important role in creating a sense of
meaning and organization in our lives, it is not surprising that our sense of the
place we live is closely tied to our sense of who we are. […] “Home” is the
place where you feel in control and properly oriented in space and time; it is a
predictable and secure place. In the words of
poet Robert Frost, "Home is the place that,
when you have to go there, they have to take
you in." In short, “home” is the primary
connection between you and the rest of the
world.’
Homesick children know how sharp the boundary between home and not-
home can be because they suffer from the difference, as if it were a
psychological thermocline. […] In humans, the idea of home almost completely
displaces the idea of habitat. It’s easy to grasp the fact that a vireo’s nest is not
the same as her habitat and that her habitat is her true home. The nest is a
temporary annual site for breeding, useful only as long as there are young to
raise. But we are such generalists—able to live in so many places—that
“habitat,” when applied to humans, is nearly always a metaphor. To say, “My
home is my habitat” is true and untrue at the same time (Klinkenborg, 2012).

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 3. Family
‘The present and future well-being of children is a central concern of
parents and teachers. Parents hope, for instance, that their children will be
healthy, have a care-free childhood, will find a good partner and a job, be happy
and live in a peaceful society. These generally phrased hopes are most likely held
by all parents, although their specific hopes will be influenced by the culture and
circumstances in which they live as well as their own views on what it means to
live a good life. For instance, what is characteristic of a good partner can range
from being caring, being able to make a decent income, to coming from the
correct religious tradition or a good family. […] It is therefore not surprising that
philosophers of education have analysed aspects of and developed theories about
upbringing in families and education in schools or similar institutions in light of
the (future) well-being of children. […] The family is as much of an
intergenerational site as the school (albeit, obviously, with differences); that is, a
place or space8 where different generations come together. Parents may (quite
obviously, perhaps) not pose the question of how to live together explicitly. But,
rather, in a family, the very living together of different generations is concretely
manifested on a daily (and nightly) basis’ (Smeyers, 2018).

A positivistic philosophy of family science makes several assumptions:

1. There is a real world of family life. This world is a natural one, and it
operates according to a set of general principles. Truth is a matter of
discovery.
2. The world of family life is ultimately knowable. Through careful study of
how individual families work, scientists can increase their understanding
of family life.
3. The best way to study families is by using standard methods useful in other
domains of scientific inquiry. Reliable and valid evidence, or factual
information, must be collected, based on observing families.
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 4. With increasing knowledge based on the facts, social scientists can
intervene or assist others to intervene to improve family life.
(Jrank.org, 2020)

Plato (c. 428–c. 348 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE) on Family
‘Aristotle sees the importance of family as the basis for community, but he
does not adequately establish the significance of the individual and the intrinsic
goodness of marriage and family. The superiority and sovereignty of the political
regime overshadow the family. […] For we see that Aristotle does not adequately
establish the significance of the individual and the goodness of marriage and
family. The superiority and sovereignty of the political regime overshadow the
family’ (Hittinger, 2013).

The question of the family is at the heart of many important political questions.
The debate concerning the status of the family in the polis is due to their differences
in method and metaphysics. As in the famous picture of Raphael, “The School of
Athens,” Plato points upwards towards the heavens while Aristotle spreads his
hand downwards over the earth. So Plato wishes to discover the form of justice, the
perfect city in speech, and he readily abandons the realm of becoming. The family,
more concretely rooted in the things of the earth and the realm of becoming, suffers
as a result. His analysis of regimes begins with the kingship of the wise and finds
all subsequent regimes deficient, from timocracy, oligarchy, democracy to tyranny.
Aristotle, hand spread out over the earth, discovers the true origin and fourfold
explanation of existing cities and therefore revels in particular instantiations and
the inner differentiation of concrete things. The family receives a very positive
treatment; for his analysis of regimes he looks through many particular
constitutions and discovers the six-fold classification of three good and three bad
regimes.
(Hittinger, 2013)

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I. In turning from the Ethics to the Politics, we must consider Aristotle’s
argument for making that turn.
A. In contrast to what the sophists maintain, speeches or arguments have only a
limited ability to persuade human beings, especially those without good natures,
and so habituation and coercion are required.
1. If the family is the first place in which we acquire our moral habits, our
families are in turn shaped by the character of the political community in which
they are found.
2. For those serious about virtue, then, a consideration of political life is
essential.
B. Thus, the end of the Nicomachean Ethics prepares us for the beginning of the
Politics.
II. The first book of the Politics is devoted to establishing the famous
proposition that a human being is by nature a “political animal.”
A. By “political” Aristotle does not mean any specific kind of government, but
that association, beyond the family or a grouping of families, dedicated to
securing not only life but the good life for its members.
(Bartlett, 2008)

Quotes by Aristotle and Plato on Family

Aristotle, A Treatise on Government: Besides, the notion of a city naturally
precedes that of a family or an individual, for the whole, must necessarily be prior
to the parts, for if you take away the whole man, you cannot say a foot or a hand
remains, unless by equivocation, as supposing a hand of stone to be made, but
that would only be a dead one; but everything is understood to be this or that by
its energic qualities and powers, so that when these no longer remain, neither can
that be said to be the same, but something of the same name. That a city then

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precedes an individual is plain, for if an individual is not in himself sufficient to
compose a perfect government, he is to a city as other parts are to a whole; but he
that is incapable of society, or so complete in himself as not to want it, makes no
part of a city, as a beast or a god.

Plato, Republic, Book V: Shall they be a family in name only; or shall they in all
their actions be true to the name? For example, in the use of the word 'father,'
would the care of a father be implied and the filial reverence and duty and
obedience to him which the law commands; and is the violator of these duties to
be regarded as an impious and unrighteous person who is not likely to receive
much good either at the hands of God or of man? Are these to be or not to be the
strains which the children will hear repeated in their ears by all the citizens about
those who are intimated to them to be their parents and the rest of their kinsfolk?
– These, he said, and none other; for what can be further ridiculous than for them
to utter the names of family ties with the lips only and not to act in the spirit of
them?

Plato, Laws, Book III: When these larger habitations grew up out of the lesser
original ones, each of the lesser ones would survive in the larger; every family
would be under the rule of the eldest, and, owing to their separation from one
another, would have peculiar customs in things divine and human, which they
would have received from their several parents who had educated them; and these
customs would incline them to order when the parents had the element of order
in their nature, and to courage, when they had the element of courage. And they
would naturally stamp upon their children, and upon their children's children,
their own likings; and, as we are saying, they would find their way into the larger
society, having already their own peculiar laws.

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Aristotle, Politics, Book II: I am speaking of the premise from which the
argument of Socrates proceeds, 'that the greater the unity of the state the better.'
Is it not obvious that a state may at length attain such a degree of unity as to be
no longer a state? Since the nature of a state is to be a plurality and intending to
greater unity, from being a state, it becomes a family, and from being a family,
an individual; for the family may be said to be more than the state, and the
individual than the family. So that we ought not to attain this greatest unity even
if we could, for it would be the destruction of the state. Again, a state is not made
up only of so many men, but of different kinds of men; for similars do not
constitute a state.
(Borghini, 2020)

4. Identity
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ‘Personal identity
deals with philosophical questions that arise about ourselves by virtue of our
being people (or, as lawyers and philosophers like to say, persons). This contrasts
with questions about ourselves that arise by virtue of our being living things,
conscious beings, material objects, or the like. Many of these questions occur to
nearly all of us now and again: What am I? When did I begin? What will happen
to me when I die? Others are more abstruse. They have been discussed since the
origins of Western philosophy, and most major figures have had something to say
about them’ (Olson, 2019).

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The term “identity” has a long tradition in Western philosophy and much shorter
antecedents in psychology and social psychology. In the last six decades, since E.
H. Erikson made his path breaking contributions to psychoanalytic theory and
character pathology, elevating the term to a theoretical concept, “identity” has been
given many interpretations. Nowadays, in a late modern society we see the
difficulties that are related to the ambiguity of the term “identity”. Nevertheless,
we realize that it cannot be abandoned but is needed to understand both the
successful and the unsuccessful processes of psychological development of
children, particularly adolescents, as well as of adults in the so-called “emerging
adulthood”. We are confronted with questions on identity in a world, where
flexibility is seen as a virtue and accelerating change pervades society, in the
vocational world, in families, relationships, and in the biographies of individuals.
Thus, beside one of the fundamental questions, like “Who do I want to be, which
kind of person and personality?” we are basically challenged by the question “How
come that I feel like the same person in my whole life, although many and very
crucial things changed and will change, like my age and life cycles, marital status,
my friendships, occupation, residence, political engagement, my religious beliefs,
and social values? What enables me to feel being the same ‘I’, the same ‘self’, or
‘person’ in all the different roles, that I have to play, with all my different qualities,
in the changing course of world events and my biography?”
(Sollberger, 2013)

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 ‘What does being the person that you are, from one day to the next,
necessarily consist in? This is the question of personal identity, and it is literally
a question of life and death, as the correct answer to it determines which types of
changes a person can undergo without ceasing to exist. Personal identity theory
is the philosophical confrontation with the most ultimate questions of our own
existence: who are we, and is there a life after death? In distinguishing those
changes in a person that constitute survival from those changes in a person that
constitute death, a criterion of personal identity through time is given. Such a
criterion specifies, insofar as that is possible, the necessary and sufficient
conditions for the survival of persons’ (Korfmacher, 2020). ‘The topic of personal
identity has to do with what the truth of judgments of personal identity consists
of and how it can be known. Equivalently, it has to do with the nature of the
persistence of persons through time and their awareness of such persistence’
(Shoemaker, 2020). Some philosophers hold that though experiences are brain
processes they nevertheless have fundamentally non-physical, psychical,
properties, sometimes called ‘qualia’. Here I shall take the identity theory as
denying the existence of such irreducible non-physical properties. Some identity
theorists give a behaviouristic analysis of mental states, such as beliefs and
desires, but others, sometimes called ‘central state materialists’, say that mental
states are actual brain states. Identity theorists often describe themselves as
‘materialists’ but ‘physicalists’ may be a better word. That is, one might be a
materialist about mind but nevertheless hold that there are entities referred to in
physics that are not happily described as ‘material’ (Smart, 2016).
D.C Phillips, (2014) argues that ‘A concern with identity in educational
studies often is also a concern about a range of enduring inequalities and the way
particular sorts of inequality are attached to particular identities—for instance,
women and wages, or minority ethnic students and educational outcomes. The
issues are not always straightforward. There is significant ongoing academic
debate as well as political struggle over what actually counts as inequality, which

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groups are experiencing inequality, whether inequalities are getting better or
worse, and how inequality can be measured.’ Although the term, identity, has
roots in Western philosophy and more recently in psychology, identity politics is
a highly contested expression in social science fields, such as in education, in
political theory and in philosophy (Smeyers, 2018).

Immanuel Kant, (1724 – 1804) on Identity

‘He argues that as human beings we can be characterised
by our capacities to make ourselves efficacious, autonomous
and creative, and that these capacities ought to be cultivated in
education when we want to moralize ourselves, that is,
cultivate our moral dignity in practice. These characteristics do
not therefore merely indicate what can be made of us, but what
we can make of ourselves in education and elsewhere. The moralization of us is
not, however, something that can be pursued by an individual or specific groups
of people in isolation, nor is it something that can be pursued only once; it is an
open-ended and never-ending process that can be taken up and pursued in the
world by the human species […] We render ourselves autonomous by conferring
value on our capacity to set and pursue our own freely chosen ends and
determining ourselves to be the cause of such ends (see Kant 1998b, 4: 429, and
4: 440). We cannot therefore just use each other as mere means for some further
end, nor just understand who we are in relation to narratives, practices and
traditions; we can also transform and transcend how we take things as they stand,
and think anew’ (Smeyers, 2018).

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John Dewey, (1859–1952) on Self
‘Each individual self has a unique past, “a background
of experiences long ago funded into capacities and likes”
(Dewey 1934/2008c, 93) a present, which at its best
becomes an art that manifests “what actual existence
actually becomes when its possibilities are fully expressed”
(Dewey 1934/2008c, 285), and an ever-unfolding future to
be shaped through choices made in conjunction with environing conditions. This
discussion is organized into three main concepts that are essential for
understanding Dewey’s account of the self. The first is “impulse,” which helps to
clarify how the realms of the individual and social interrelate in constituting the
self. The second is “habit,” which is arguably the concept most central to Dewey’s
account of self. Finally, the concept of “art” is essential for understating the full
richness Dewey’s account of self, as for Dewey the creation of art is integrally
linked to the creation of self’ (Peters, 2017).

John Locke, (1632 – 1704) on Identity

Locke opposes the notion set forth by other philosophical
schools (such as those of Plato and Descartes) that one is
born with innate, fundamental principles and knowledge.
He argues that this idea would mean all humans
universally accept certain principles, and since there are no universally accepted
principles (and if there were, they would not be the result of innate knowledge),
this cannot be true. For example, people differ in moral ideas, so moral knowledge
cannot be innate. Instead, Locke believed that humans are a tabula rasa, or blank
slate, that gain knowledge through experience. The experience creates simple
ideas (based on the senses, reflection, and sensation), and as these simple ideas

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combine, they become more complex (through comparison, abstraction, and
combination) and form knowledge.
Ideas can also be divided into two categories:
1. Primary (which cannot be separate from the matter and are present
regardless of whether a person sees them or not—for example, size, shape,
and motion)
2. Secondary (which are separate from the matter and are only perceived
when the matter is observed—for example, taste and odor)
Lastly, Locke objects to Plato’s concept of essences, the notion that humans can
only identify an individual to be part of a species because of its essence. Locke
creates his own theory of essences based on observable properties (which he calls
nominal essences) and the invisible structures that form the observable properties
(which he calls real essences). For example, we can form an idea and create an
essence about what a dog is based on what we observe and based on the biology
of the dog (which is responsible for the observable properties). To Locke, human
knowledge is limited, and humans should be aware of such limitations.
(Kleinman, 2013)
‘John Locke speaks of personal identity and survival of consciousness after
death. A criterion of personal identity through time is given. Such a criterion
specifies, insofar as that is possible, the necessary and sufficient conditions for
the survival of persons. John Locke holds that personal identity is a matter of
psychological continuity. He considered personal identity (or the self) to be
founded on consciousness (viz. memory), and not on the substance of either the
soul or the body’ (Nimbalkar, 2011). Locke begins “Of Identity and Diversity”
by first getting clear on the principle of individuation, and by setting out what
some have called the place-time-kind principle—which stipulates that no two
things of the same kind can be in the same place at the same time, and no
individual can be in two different places at the same time (L-N 2.27.1).[2] With
some of the basics of identity in place, Locke posits that before we can determine

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the persistence conditions for atoms, masses of matter, plants, animals, men, or
persons, we must first know what we mean by these terms. In other words, before
we can determine what makes atoms, masses of matter, plants, animals, men, or
persons the same over time, we must pin down the nominal essences—or general
ideas—for these kinds (Gordon-Roth, 2019).

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Further reading from the Weekly EBooks:
Book: Kevin M. Cherry (2012). Plato, Aristotle, and the Purpose of Politics,
pages 14 - 29

Additional Reading:
Olson, E.T. (2019). Personal Identity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
[online] Stanford.edu. Available at:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/ [Accessed 4 Nov. 2020].

Additional Material:
Video 1: PHILOSOPHY – Plato
Video 2: PHILOSOPHY - Aristotle

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References:

Bartlett, R.C. (2008). Masters of Greek thought. Part 3: Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. Great
courses ed. [online] Virginia: Teaching Company. Available at:
https://1lib.eu/book/5424000/9c1bf8 [Accessed 4 Nov. 2020].

Borghini, A. (2020). Plato and Aristotle on the Family: Selected Quotes. [online] ThoughtCo.
Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/plato-aristotle-on-family-selected-quotes-
2670552 [Accessed 4 Nov. 2020].

Gieseking, J.J., Mangold, W., Katz, C., Low, S. and Saegert, S. (2011). Section 5: Meanings
of Home – The People, Place, and Space Reader. [online] Peopleplacespace.org.
Available at: https://peopleplacespace.org/toc/section-5/ [Accessed 3 Nov. 2020].

Gordon-Roth, J. (2019). Locke on Personal Identity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

[online] Stanford.edu. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-personal-
identity/ [Accessed 4 Nov. 2020].

Hittinger, J. (2013). Plato and Aristotle on the Family and the Polis. The Saint Anselm Journal,
[online] 8(2), pp.1–22. Available at:
https://www.anselm.edu/sites/default/files/Documents/Institute%20of%20SA%20Stu
dies/Hittinger,%20The%20family%20and%20the%20polis.pdf [Accessed 4 Nov.
2020].

Jrank.org. (2020). Family Theory - Philosophies of Family Science. [online] Available at:
https://family.jrank.org/pages/600/Family-Theory-Philosophies-Family-Science.html
[Accessed 4 Nov. 2020].

Kleinman, P. (2013). Philosophy 101: from Plato and Socrates to ethics and metaphysics, an
essential primer on the history of thought. [online] Massachusetts: Adams Media.
Available at: https://1lib.eu/book/2283293/2a116b [Accessed 4 Nov. 2020].

Klinkenborg, V. (2012). The Definition of Home. [online] Smithsonian. Available at:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-definition-of-home-60692392/
[Accessed 3 Nov. 2020].

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Korfmacher, C. (2020). Personal Identity. [online] Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Available at: https://iep.utm.edu/person-i/ [Accessed 4 Nov. 2020].

Mallett, S. (2004). Understanding Home: A Critical Review of the Literature. The Sociological
Review, [online] 52(1), pp.62–89. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1467-
954X.2004.00442.x [Accessed 3 Nov. 2020].

McAndrew, F.T. (2015). Home Is Where the Heart Is, but Where Is “Home”? [online]
Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-
ooze/201508/home-is-where-the-heart-is-where-is-home [Accessed 3 Nov. 2020].

Nimbalkar, N. (2011). John Locke on personal identity. Mens Sana Monographs, [online]
9(1), p.268. Available at:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115296/ [Accessed 4 Nov. 2020].

Olson, E.T. (2019). Personal Identity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). [online]

Stanford.edu. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/
[Accessed 4 Nov. 2020].

Peters, M.A. (2017). Encyclopedia of educational philosophy and theory. 1st ed. [online]
Singapore: Springer. Available at: https://1lib.eu/book/3578729/e5047c [Accessed 19
Oct. 2020].

Phillips, D.C. (2014). Encyclopedia of educational theory and philosophy. [online] Los
Angeles, California: SAGE Publications, Inc., pp.134–136. Available at:
https://1lib.eu/book/3578729/e5047c [Accessed 15 Oct. 2020].

Shoemaker, S. (2020). Personal identity. In: Encyclopaedia Britannica. [online] Available at:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/personal-identity [Accessed 4 Nov. 2020].

Smart, J. J. C (2016). The Mind/Brain Identity Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

[online] Stanford.edu. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/
[Accessed 4 Nov. 2020].

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Smeyers, P. (2018). International Handbook of Philosophy of Education. Part 1 ed. [online]
Switzerland: Cham Springer International Publishing. Available at:
https://www.springer.com/series/6189 [Accessed 19 Oct. 2020].

Sollberger, D. (2013). On identity: from a philosophical point of view. Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry and Mental Health, [online] 7(1), p.29. Available at:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3751052/ [Accessed 4 Nov. 2020].

Winch, C. and Gingell, J. (1999). Key concepts in the philosophy of education. [online] London
UK: London Routledge. Available at:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e42d/8f99219d083afc86bb68c12a33d62e5adab9.pdf
[Accessed 13 Oct. 2020].

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