Naslov
Are Nations Social Constructs? Nenad on Nations

Autori
Berčić, Boran

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Poglavlja u knjigama, znanstveni

Knjiga
Thought Experiments between Nature and Society: A Festschrift for Nenad Miščević

Urednik/ci
Borstner, Bojan ; Gartner, Smiljana

Izdavač
Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Grad
Cambridge

Godina
2017

Raspon stranica
375-386

ISBN
1-4438-8643-2

Ključne riječi
social construct, nation, realism, antirealism

Sažetak
In his book Nationalism (II. 1.) Nenad argues that nations are social constructs. The idea that nations are social constructs can be spelled out in the following way: individuals a, b, c, ... form a nation A iff they believe that they form a nation A. However, in the discussion Nenad was sceptical about the idea that the existence of a nation can be reduced to a set of beliefs. He claimed that there was something factive about the nations, something that can not be reduced to any set of beliefs, something that hold no matter what we think about it. Now, the question is whether the relation x is A (individual x is of nationality A, or individual x belongs to a nation A, or x is an A) holds no matter what we think about it or it holds just because we think it does. I propose the following constructivist definition of nationality: x is A iff (1) x believes that he is A, (2) others believe that x is A, (3) x believes that others believe that he is A. In this paper I will try to show that this defininition holds and that we can successfully explain away apparent counterexamples: cases where one discovers his true nationality, that is, cases where prima facie x is A no matter what he or anybody else thinks about it.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filozofija

POVEZANOST RADA