We’re All Philosophers, We Just Don’t All Know It
Mar 23rd, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 2 Comments |
This morning in church, one of our lovely fellow congregants prayed for a person who’d been badly beaten (broken eye-socket) as part of being mugged. He used the phrase, “victims of violence.”
Which I found interesting. Not “victims of other people.” In this ontology, violence is a thing that can do things to people.
I found someone using a non-theological, abstract ontology!
(I just like to see that what I do as a philosopher isn’t irrelevant. Even though I think the ontology is wrong, it’s nice to feel like I still belong in the conversation.)
UPDATE:
Not that I have any problem with theological, abstract ontologies. I like those a lot. I have a few of my own. Or one, rather. But you’d expect a theological ontology in church. It was the merely-philosophical nature of this ontology that caught my attention.
Just wanted to make sure that was clear.
It is clear, right?
Good.
It’s clear. Your mind works strangely, but that’s okay. Mine does too.
I’m getting caught up on your blog before you guys come over, so forgive the woeful tardiness of this comment!
I think the ontology you are pointing to is a subset of Mennonite/Anabaptist understandings of ‘principalities and powers.’ That is, things like ‘violence,’ ‘injustice,’ and ‘evil’ really do have something of a character of their own. Yes, they are perpetrated by people, but their existence is greater than the sum of the individuals involved.
Another perspective: to say that the mugging victim was a victim of ‘violence’ places responsibility with society at large, rather than exclusively with an individual perpetrator. There are institutional systems of priveledge and injustice (read: principalities and powers) that contribute to crime.