Abstract
Definitions of sustainability—and criticisms of the definitions—abound. I argue that there are problems with the definitional approach itself and not just with any specific definition. Wittgenstein (Philosophical investigations (trans: Anscombe GEM). Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1958) argued that definitions are not sufficient to determine meaning or to legislate correct usage of words. For both singular terms and general concepts, meaning is meaning-as-use, proceeding via examples that instruct within an already existing normative structure. Once we are clear on the ways in which use presupposes a normative structure, I believe we will understand better the meaning of sustainability and its normative basis. On this view, sustainability will be vague and contested (Jacobs in Fairness and futurity. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 21–45, 1999) but not meaningless. And we will not have to be worried about the plethora of definitions.
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Notes
In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein cites Augustine as providing one statement of this conception. That the components of the view listed by Wittgenstein are not “Augustine’s picture of language” is granted; rather, they are components of the “Augustinian conception of language” (Baker and Hacker 2005, 2). As such, commentators read his remarks as applying generally to the family of referential or denotational theories of language.
In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein expands on this simple picture in the following way: “Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands.” How does the correlation occur? “When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out… Thus, as I heard words repeatedly used in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learnt to understand what objects they signified…” (Wittgenstein 1958, §1). (I follow the standard practice of referring to passages in the Philosophical Investigations by the numbered remark that they appear in.)
The Wittgensteinian analysis is phrased as: General or abstract concepts “can be analysed into their characteristic marks (Merkmale) until one arrives at unanalysable simple concepts… Analysis terminates with simple unanalyzable concepts such as ‘red,’ ‘dark,’ ‘sweet’… These are explained by ostensive definition” (Hacker 1975, 269).
Not all referential theories of meaning involve this assumption about the intentions of the speaker. But it is a common assumption and one that is implicated in the attempts to define sustainability.
The ‘simples’ in the sustainability definitions are complex with respect to the traditional philosophical examples of ‘simple ostension,’ e.g., ‘red,’ ‘dark,’ ‘sweet.’ However, Wittgenstein (1958, §47) remarked that “‘simple’ and ‘complex’ are ascriptions within a language game rather than a context-independent measure.” So the components of sustainability can be treated as simples.
Wittgenstein explores how ostension is supposed to work in two related but slightly different situations: ostensive definition and ostensive teaching. Since the issues involved in ostensive definition require a settled language community (Williams 2010) and since we do not yet have that for sustainability, I omit discussion of this context here.
See Ramsey (2014) for a brief discussion of various interpretations of interconnectedness, interdependence, carrying capacity, biophilia and entropy, each of which is featured in many definitions of sustainability.
The quality of the evidence for each of the interpretations varies quite widely, as do the implications of each (Levy 2003). However, these issues go beyond the point that the term is interpreted in a variety of ways.
Moreover, if we merely stipulate we have not shown why that interpretation is important, i.e., why it should carry any normative force from an ethical standpoint. Ostensive definition of the terms in the definiens simply omits the context of why we are interested in sustainability.
Searching for essences is often phrased as laying out the necessary and sufficient conditions for the use of a concept. I am unclear whether sustainability theorists are invested in the desire to provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for sustainability. However, they are heavily invested in the analytical project that is supposed to fix the meaning of the term and to differentiate correct from incorrect usage of it.
Although Wittgenstein applies the analysis it to the notion of language specifically, “many other concepts must also be family resemblance concepts” (Sluga 2011, 79). Wittgenstein is not claiming that no general concepts satisfy the conditions of the Augustinian conception (Forster 2010, 67–68; Sluga 2011, 79–80). However, given the obvious open texture of sustainability discussed in the paper, I believe I am justified in using the concept.
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Ramsey, J.L. On Not Defining Sustainability. J Agric Environ Ethics 28, 1075–1087 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-015-9578-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-015-9578-3