How to Think About Civilizations - The Watson Institute for ...

“secondary” properties (Rescher 1996:47). For example, in modern natural science one
might think of the primary properties of a substance like “gold” as involving its atomic
structure; the secondary properties of gold, such as its solidity or liquidity, are a
consequence of those primary properties interacting with a particular environment and
its temperature, and as such are less essential to the “goldness” of gold than is gold’s
atomic structure (Sylvan and Majeski 1998:88-89). And back behind both secondary and
primary properties, inferred rather than directly experienced, is the simple existence of
the object qua object—an existence that, as René Descartes argued when first
establishing this kind of scientific ontology, is grasped by mind rather than by the
senses, and establishes the continuous persistence of an object even when it undergoes a
myriad of changes (Descartes 1993:67-69).
The relevance of these rather abstract considerations becomes readily apparent
when we apply them to the existence and dynamics of social objects like individuals or
states—or civilizations. Within an attribute-ontology, the claim that something exists
depends on the identification of some relatively stable set of primary properties that
persists over time; this relatively stable set, in turn, serves as the point of departure for a
judgment of existence. Hence we equip ourselves with a definition of an object and go
out into the world looking for things that fit the definition: states, for example, might be
defined in the Weberian manner as successfully upholding the monopoly of the
legitimate use of force within a given territory, and with that as a guide to the primary
properties of a state we might proceed to identify a number of existing states in the
contemporary world. Of course, if we were to modify the definition, perhaps by
How to Think About Civilizations • P. T. Jackson • Page 11