Introduction: Explanations that Feel Complete
Human beings naturally search for explanations that satisfy. One of the most persistent and seductive strategies is to locate causes inside the individual: traits, dispositions, internal representations, or stored meanings. From personality to instincts to beliefs, it seems we have found a compact, tidy locus of understanding.
This post examines why such inner causes are so alluring and sets the stage for revealing their limitations.
1. Why Internalism Feels Explanatory
Locating causality inside an individual feels immediately compelling:
Accessibility: The explanation seems tangible. Traits and dispositions can be described, measured, or observed.
Economy: A single locus can appear to account for many phenomena. “She acted this way because of X” seems simple and decisive.
Predictive Promise: Internal causes appear stable. If a trait or disposition is identified, it promises to forecast behaviour across contexts.
Together, these features produce the sensation that the phenomenon is understood — even when critical relational dimensions are ignored.
2. The Seductive Authority of the Interior
The interior feels authoritative because it is fixed. Unlike social interactions, environmental contingencies, or emergent relations, internal traits appear enduring and insulated. This solidity gives internalist explanations a pseudo-objective weight.
Moreover, the individual as a bounded entity is psychologically and rhetorically convenient. It is easier to attribute causality to what is “there” than to what is distributed across networks, histories, and interactions.
3. Where Misleading Closure Emerges
Internalist explanations close inquiry in subtle ways:
They concentrate attention inside the individual, sidelining context and relational structure.
They suggest sufficiency: once the trait or disposition is identified, further questioning feels redundant.
They transform description of internal state into explanation of behaviour, bypassing the relational and contingent processes that sustain phenomena.
Closure emerges not from demonstration, but from the felt authority of the interior.
4. Preparing for Ontological Unpicking
The purpose of this series is not to deny that traits, dispositions, or stored meanings exist. Rather, it is to show that their explanatory power is often rhetorical rather than ontological. They give the appearance of closure while leaving key relations unexamined.
In the next post, we will examine Traits and Dispositions as Closure Devices, exposing precisely how these internal features function to end inquiry prematurely while seeming explanatory.
No comments:
Post a Comment