With the pronouncement of the Russian-Ukraine conflict on February 2022, many have structured the geo-political ordeal as a paradigmatic clash between Russian nationalism and Western liberalism. A key and overtly controversial espouser of such structuring, is Russian political philosopher, Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin contends that global western liberalism, in wetsern political circles is "entering a totalitarian phase" that "does not tolerate any objection" to their standardised liberal discourse. Dugin's portrait of western liberalism might appeal to some as overstated, aggrandized, and perhaps even pro-Fascist. However, Dugin's painting may not be not sufficiently vibrant.
Any cursory observer of Western politics will note that the western liberal ideology instantiates radical manifestations of nominalism. Nominalism, from the Latin "nomen" assumes that universals or general categories have no extra-mental correspondence, but merely function as linguistic constructions about reality, and consequently, only particulars or individuals that have no essential predications are extramental. The problem of universals has a detailed history, and produced canonical Western literature, that has been explored, and discussed by philosophers from Aristotle to our person of interest, John Locke.
Seeing the pattern of social constructivism, western sociology and gender science assert the bold presupposition, that the concept of humanity is entirely a social construct, meaning that our humanity is not primarily defined by our biological characteristics, functions, and processes, but rather is socially constructed. Such a nominal supposition has proponents in contemporary literature and is formally defined as post-humanism. Post-humanism can be generally defined as a critical view of the primacy of the human and the necessity of the human as a category. We can also make the holistic claim, that post-humanism in some form, undermines the traditional understanding of humanity and human nature. By undermining the collective category of the human being, post-humanism can be seen as inherently nominalistic, because humanity is a abstract category, not a real identity. Acknowledging the nominal trajectory of western liberalism, the possibility of post-humanism and trans-humanism as the future of "humanity" should be seriously assessed. Indeed, liberty is the process of individuation for humanity, because liberty is freedom and self-autonomy of the individual, which necessarily yields just that: the individual. Race, gender, class, religion, and humanity, are nominal essences that merely give meaning to the real essence of the individual but are not essential predications of the individual, meaning humanity, race, gender, religion class and even humanity are not essential to the "human" being, because they are socially constructed i.e nominal. While one cannot predict the path that such implications would prelude, but a lingering yet encompassing contingency of a post-humanist future stands to be taken somewhat seriously.
By: "kun"
The liberal or leftist gender theory proposes two primary arguments, only one of which I shall comment on here. This premise of nominal gender theory is that gender is wholly, a social construct. Traditionally, human sexuality was categorized under the interchangeable concepts of “sex” or “gender." Sexuality and gender were traditionally categorized under the biological indicators of 'male' or 'female'. According to one’s sex, one would have a whole set of sexual behaviors, expressions, and social roles associated with that orientation. Gender was traditionally understood to be binary into which all people could be placed, however such binary notion, according to leftist ideology and nominalism, is not correct. Such a theory is predicated on the idea that this category of “sex” can be divided into several different, mutually independent, categories which each describe one of the aspects that used to all be classified under the singular term of “sex.” For example, the theory will use “biological sex” to describe biological aspects of gender like XX or XY chromosomes or the reproductive organs with which one was born. “Gender” is used to describe what the left considers to be the general socially constructed categories of man and woman. Then there is “gender expression,” which is the set of behaviors and appearances associated with one’s gender, such as clothing, the timbre of voice, mannerisms, sexual preference, orientation, etc. By propounding these mutually-independent distinctions in the category of sex and gender, the liberal ideology no longer has to accept the traditional fungibility of sex and gender, but by independent distinctions that render gender as strictly social, and consequently abstract, we are liberated from a collective and 'universal' form of identity, that can obstruct the liberal values of self-autonomy and individuality. Gender expression, therefore, is purely mental particular. Notice that this theory, as employed by western liberal discourse, refrains from either highlighting the biological aspects of gender, or utterly rejecting the relevance of biology to gender, but by honing in on the social constructivism of gender, liberalism can be definitively deemed as an nominalistic ideology. Social constructivism is often connected to other nominalist movements such as the rise of atheism in the Western sphere, which, uncoincidentally, has explicit ties to nominalism. Likewise, the movement of abortion, where women are liberated from the category from womanhood and motherhood, is ostensibly nominalist. After all, how can a woman truly be free to express their gender, if the category of womanhood is socially imposed as essential to the woman?
John Locke, the renowned Enlightenment thinker, generally proclaimed as the father of modern liberalism was known to be a nominalist among scholars which is notable presuming Locke's contempt for traditional metaphysics. There are several aspects of Locke's nominalism that we shall cover here. Locke's general position on the problem of universals is clear: Universals, whether conceived as universal natures, essences, or forms, have no real existence either in particulars or independently of them. In His "Essay Concerning Human Understanding", we find stark nominalist discourse, that progressively supposes more nominalist propensities. Locke, begins with,
"All Things, that exist, being Particulars, it may perhaps be thought reasonable, that Words, which ought to be conformed to Things, should be so too, I mean in their Signification: but yet we find the quite contrary … To return to general Words, it is plain, by what has been said, That General and Universal, belong not to the real existence of Things; but are the Inventions and Creatures of the Understanding, made by it for its own use, and concern only Signs, whether Words, or Ideas. Words are general, as has been said, when used, for Signs of general Ideas; and so are applicable indifferently to many particular Things; and Ideas are general, when they are set up, as the Representatives of many particular Things: but universality belongs not to things themselves, which are all of them particular in their Existence, even those Words, and Ideas, which in their signification, are general .When therefore we quit Particulars, the Generals that rest, are only Creatures of our own making, their general Nature being nothing but the Capacity they are put into by the Understanding, of signifying or representing many particulars." (Essays Concerning Human Understanding, Book III)
Next, Locke supposed that it was quite impossible for there to be real universals postulated by Aristotle and other scholastic realists, especially when such appertains to essences. The traditional realist hypotheses attributed to essences a self-contradictory set of properties: on the one hand essences were real causes; on the other hand, they possessed the property of universality, a property which can only be attributed to signs, in virtue of their signification, but never to things of any kind. In attempt to clarify this dilemma, Locke puts forth his well-known distinction between real essences and nominal essences.
Locke elucidates that the real essence of a (physical) substance is the constitution of the insensible parts of the body on which its qualities and other properties depend. The nominal essence of a species is an abstract idea associated with an appropriate name. Real essences are the extra-mental causes of the observable qualities of a substance and are individuals themselves like how the springs and cogwheels of a clock are individual. Furthermore, since real essences exist in the world, the real essences of all created substances are perishable since "All Things that exist beside their Author are liable to change." Nominal essences, however, are abstract ideas and are, according to scholastic realists, ingenerable, incorruptible, immutable, and eternal. However we must note that Locke, assumed 'immutable' to not include mental particulars or ideas themselves, but to relations between mental particulars, henceforth every attribute contained in the nominal essence of a substance is essential and eternal to that substance. Locke further supposed that real essences or individuals cannot properly be said to have essential properties (in the loose modern term) and, concludes, that we cannot make essential predications about any real individuals for in nature, there can only be particular contingent matters of fact. Consequently, certain knowledge can therefore only be derived from the immutable relations of abstract ideas.
Hence, from Locke's nominalist thought, we can derive a principal nominalist supposition that shaped modern liberalism (e.g. private property) in which humans beings are only to be seen as particular individuals with no essential predications about their individuality, except in abstract ideas and identities that are collective, categorical and conceptual but not extra-mental. Therefore the totality of all forms of collective identity that appear as universal categories such as race, gender, religion, or class is to be abolished, not because they suppose the existence of such categories, but because they do not stand with the liberal and nominal values of liberty, freedom, and self-autonomy and individuality. Nominalism has ostensibly influenced most aspects of society such as religion (individual relations of man with God), science (atomism and materialism), politics (preconditions of bourgeois democracy), economy (market and private property), ethics (utilitarianism, individualism, relativism, pragmatism), etc. I shall examine a relevant and current example of how liberalism is nominalism and the implications for the near future.