If I say you're a he you're a he: the metaphysics of third person pronouns

 

No-one likes being referred to in the third-person.  It’s inherently rude to refer to people within earshot in the third person. It’s only supposed to be a descriptor of entities that aren’t privy to the conversation. Sometimes people might refer to themselves in the third-person, as when Kevin Keegan began referring to himself as Kevin Keegan during the heat of his spell as England football manager. But as a general rule the third person is not supposed to be either the first person or the second person. It’s division into masculine, feminine and neuter is more clearly related to specific gender in English than it is in many languages due to its lack of universal noun gendering. When we refer to him or her we are assumed to be referring to the male or female of a given species, and it when referring to an entity with no apparent specific gender.

 

What is the process by which we decide which of these pronouns to attach to particular entities? It might seem obvious that an individual human is either a man or a woman. Politicians have grown fond recently of declaring that a man has a penis and a woman has a vagina. Nothwithstanding where this leaves androgynes, it illustrates that each person is responsible for deciding for themselves how to define these ideas. And while many people like to think it is that simple, our abstract ideas of a man or a woman are actually highly complex and mutating, based on a progressive accumulation of information and experience, which on such fundamental ideas starts from birth, if not before. A man sounds like this and a woman sounds like that. A man looks like this and a woman like that. A woman wears this and a man doesn’t. Sometimes our abstractions are based on errors or knowledge which is ill-considered or too limited, such as that men can’t multi-task or that women can’t read maps. But whether for better or worse, our knowledge and experiences attach to such general ideas collectively to inform the abstract idea of what a man or a woman is.

For example, until recently I didn’t know that men could get breast cancer. My abstraction of a man, therefore, didn’t include the idea of his getting breast cancer, whereas for those who knew this it did. Our determination of whether a person is a him or a her is based on this abstraction, an idea which continues to develop in the mind as we accumulate new knowledge and experience. It is clear, then, that this abstraction is personal rather than universal, since none of us is in possession of absolute knowledge but instead bases the determination on an abstraction from our own knowledge and experience.

How is the abstraction that we develop of an idea such as a man or a woman relatable to a specific individual? The abstract idea of a man is intimately related to a specific man, since it is from specifics that the abstraction is developed, such as the knowledge that specific men have got breast cancer. And a specific entity is itself based entirely on abstract ideas. For example, the table on which I’m typing this, real as I’m aware it is, is composed of it’s colour, size, shape, it’s feel, etc. all of which are abstract ideas. A specific entity, therefore, is inseparable from the abstract ideas of which it is composed.

Sometimes one person’s abstraction of an idea may be radically different from another’s. If Eddie Izzard’s abstract idea of a woman, for example, includes himself, then he may feel justified in believing that he should be described as her. There are two possibilities of his being right, the first involving his own determination of the word and the second involving mine. If his own abstract idea of a woman includes himself, for example, because of the clothes he wears, or because of certain physical or behavioural characteristics he possesses which he regards as more typically female than male, then according to his own abstract idea of a woman he cuts the mustard. He may also be right according to my own abstraction if I am labouring under lack of knowledge, either of Izzard as a specific individual or of the nature of a woman as an abstract idea. Tony Blair recently declared that a man has a penis and a woman has a vagina. My own abstract idea of a man or a woman is not so straightforward, but unless he has seen Izzard naked he can’t know with certainty which he is in possession of, and nor I am glad to say do I. My own abstraction of a woman is a more holistic one based on a person’s appearance, body shape, personality and attitude, according to which I conclude that Izzard is not a woman. According to Blair’s abstraction he might be a woman whereas according to mine he isn’t.

Yet the third person cannot be the appropriate person to determine which class of the third person he belongs to. This is a descriptor for the use of a conversation between the first and second person, to be agreed based on their understanding of the abstractions of these terms in relation to the specific individual being discussed. If they were forced to use a different word because of the abstract idea of someone else which they don’t have, it would be inimical to communication. Further, it would be to submit to nominalism the view that there is no true abstraction of an idea that is attributable to all members of a class. Such a view can’t be applied to the use of third-person pronouns without rendering them entirely obsolete, since words like him and her exist to denote a given class of entities and therefore depend on the belief that those entities have sufficient in common, distinct from other classes, as to warrant the use of the word in application. To redefine the word according to your own abstraction is fine. To seek to impose this on everyone else, in potential conflict with their own abstraction is not.

How does this relate to the naming of specific individuals? If someone decides to change their name, do I have the right to ignore this and continue using their former name? Muhammad Ali once famously taunted an opponent in the ring, Ernie Terrell, because the latter had persistently called him Cassius Clay long after he had changed his name. Some might take the view that an individual doesn’t have autonomy over their own personal name, for example because it is mainly for the use of other people, and therefore doesn’t have the right to change their name. This would be an abstraction separate from that of the individual choosing to do this, and a person might refuse to accept it for that reason. That wouldn’t seem to me to be a reasonable idea, since a personal name pertains only to a specific individual and not a class. It therefore refers to the whole abstraction from that idea, and it is therefore reasonable to expect that other people should respect the use of that name. But in expecting others to respect his wish to be called her, Izzard is requiring others to change their determination of an abstraction based on a whole class, because of a specific individual. If someone declared themselves a king tomorrow I would not agree that they are a king if my own understanding of the word leads me to determine that they aren’t.

Could it be offensive to a specific individual if I refuse to refer to them with the pronouns they believe are appropriate? Might I be pummelled remorsely for 15 rounds by Eddie Izzard yelling “What’s my pronoun, sucker?” Well he could try, but I would pummel back by pointing out that it's my pronoun, not his, based on my determination. If I’m wrong it’s up to him to educate me how, not attempt to pummel me into submission.