"Substantiation"

A more common term meaning the same thing would be "reification," but the problem with reify or reification is that res ('thing') can be applied analogously to substance, accident, even mental entities. A popular definition of reification is to attribute concrete or material existence to something, but this is problematic because it does not distinguish between substance and accident. Hence my choice of the word substantiation, because of its link to the word substance.

[It is also what Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness (or the fallacy of reification) is trying to get at, even if one disagrees with his examples.]

My two big targets:
(1) Treating science, knowledge, a body of opinion, any -ism, a "system of thought," etc. as a thing in itself.

Small wonder C. Blum prohibited the talk of any -ism in the philosophy of history class. Such a label may be convenient at times, but it can also be vague, if one does not specify what one is talking about. And what is this the case? Because unlike actual substances, an -ism does not have any existence in itself, but only exists as an accident in the thinking subject.

There is no fixed and stable "essence" of an -ism to discover, as if one were observing an animal. Rather one must create such an "essence" through the -ism's properties--namely the arguments, both the premises and the conclusions and the structure of the argument. Because an -ism has existence only in the thinking subject, it can differ from one thinker to another, and this needs to be taken into consideration before one begins to speak of an "universal" -ism.

Many try to classify an -ism as if it were a real thing, searching for similarities and differences between -isms, but the problem is that it can be difficult to generalize between the various thinkers who formulated the -ism or contributed to the development of the -ism. Is it necessarily the case that all who claim to be adherents of an -ism hold all the same principles or conclusions? No. Hence, one usually has to resort to delineating an abstraction, looking for what holds true for most [and it is best to support such an abstraction by citing the relevant thinkers and texts showing that such an abstraction is accurate representation of the -ism].

The example I would use is one that I have to deal with in my investigations, and that is Liberalism. Classical or philosophical liberals may have certain tenets and conclusions in common, but they may also differ elsewhere. (Hence it is difficult to argue that "ideas" do have consequences. One can show that this person was influenced by anothers's writings, either because he explicitly references it, or there is indirect evidence that it is so; but to argue that a whole society developed in a certain way because certain members of the intellectual or professional or ruling elites held to certain ideas is usually difficult and problematic.)

It is better to find errors in the premises or principles than errors in arguments and conclusions--the latter are more "distant" and while they may be invalid, this does not necessarily entail that the premises are wrong. (If the conclusion is unsound but the form of the argument valid, then one knows the premises are false, but for the sake of dialogue and the diffusion of truth one needs to show why they are so, by proving their contradictory[ies].)

It is also better not to critique an -ism, but to direct one's attention to a particular writer or thinker. It may be possible to critique a [coherent and unified] tradition if one can identify not only the principles but the conclusions which are explicitly drawn from those principles. While one can show that a conclusion that is adhered to contradicts what actually follows from his/their principles, one should frame one's critique as an exercise in logic, and not psychologize the discussion or write a historical narrative. ("He was unable to see that..." etc.) Dialogue is between two people, not two -isms. Just because one's opponent has studied Kant, for example, does not mean that he is Kant reborn--one must address the actual positions held by the opponent, and this can be discovered only through [hopefully respectful] questioning.

Writing a critique as some sort of historical narrative or genealogy can be dangerous if one is not sufficiently attentive to the evidence and what can be shown from either the text or the tradition. Many who engage in such an enterprise commit various fallacies, such as the argument from silence.

Drawing grand historical conclusions, a la Gilson or Strauss, connecting thinkers who are centuries apart, purely on the basis of arguments and logic, without showing an actual historical connection between them is problematic--it's bad history, and does not amount to a philosophical demonstration, since it is just a comparison between what two people have said. Without evidence of a historical connection, the most one should say is that their arguments are similar (or even identical), and one can hazard a guess that perhaps there has been some learning or borrowing, but this cannot be a certain conclusion.

On the other hand, trying to address too many thinkers without sufficient familiarity with their differences and argumentation = painting with a broad brush, and usually fails. Gilson, for example, attempted to show that many of the great mistakes in philosophy were made because those committing the errors were too essentialist and not existentialist. Criticisms have been leveled against his analysis; I will try to write some thoughts on it some other time.

[It is for these reasons that the historical approach towards philosophy has very limited practical value in leading others to truth. If one already possesses true science and wisdom, and the good logic (especially dialectical skill) , one has all one really needs to dialogue with someone else. Of course this may not be sufficient to convince or persuade, but one also needs to admit that there are other factors, especially moral ones, which influence one's reasoning (or lack thereof).]

(2) The other example is to reify function or, in a political context, office. Function or office cannot be separated from the acts that fufill that function or office, or ultimately from the agent who performs them and has that function or office. Moreover, the actions that can be performed for the sake of a function can vary greatly--still, this does not mean that one cannot evaluate them--some actions may be better than others, or some may be morally good while others are not. I will try to think of some examples of the substantiation of function.