\begin{elementlit}
{Carl Humphries}
{\autor{Carl \kapit{Humphries}}\afiliacja{\wydzf, \aik}}
{The Family and its Ethos}
{The Family and its Ethos.
A Philosophical Case Study in Ontologico-Historical Understanding}
{Rodzina i~jej etos.
Filozoficzne studium przypadku rozumienia
\dyw{ontologiczno}{historycznego}}
\index{Humphries, C.}

\oDef{\oHeidegger}{Heidegger}{Heidegger, M.} % Martin
\oDef{\oWright}{Wright}{Von Wright, G.H.} % Georg Henrik
\ooDef{\ooWalterBenjamin}{Walter}{Benjamin}{Walter Benjamin} % Walter
\oDef{\oPerzanowski}{Perzanowski}{Perzanowski, J.} % Jerzy
\oDef{\oCollingwood}{Collingwood}{Collingwood, R.G.} % Robin George
\oDef{\oAdorno}{Adorno}{Adorno, T.W.} % Theodor W.
\oDef{\oWeber}{Weber}{Weber, M.} % Max
\oDef{\oFreud}{Freud}{Freud, S.} % Sigmund
\oDef{\oProust}{Proust}{Proust, M.} % Marcel
\oDef{\oSellars}{Sellars}{Sellars, W.} % Wilfrid Stalker
\oDef{\oMcDowell}{McDowell}{McDowell, J.} % John Henry
\oDef{\oBrandom}{Brandom}{Brandom, R.B.} % Robert Boyce
\oDef{\oHeg}{Heg}{Hegel, G.} % Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
\oDef{\oMarx}{Marx}{Marx, K.} % Karl
\oDef{\oAristotle}{Aristotle}{Aristotle}

\summary{
This paper attempts an investigation of the system of references and
interdependencies linking historical and ontological concerns to one
another in the context of family life as we know it today. The results
are examined with a view to establishing their implications for some
broader issues pertaining to post-Heideggerian phenomenology, critical
social theory (Adorno), and post-Wittgensteinian philosophy of language.
Finally, the distinctive form of intelligibility presented here is
compared to the conception of ethos presented in Aristotle’s account of
rhetorical practice.
}{
Family ---
Ontologico-historical understanding ---
Ethos ---
Aristotle ---
Heidegger ---
Adorno ---
Wittgenstein
}

1. The question of what, exactly, family life represents for society as 
a~whole, is one that frequently shows up as relevant in the context of 
the discourse of contemporary social and political philosophy. This is 
hardly surprising. Whatever `familiality' or `familyhood' as we 
understand it consists in, it clearly occupies a~close relationship both 
to biologically determined structures of kinship and descent, and to the 
practical and material interdependence between generations that arises 
whenever human beings carry on their lives together in one place, or on 
the basis of some otherwise finitely determined set of natural or human 
resources. This, I think, explains why it is that philosophers and 
thinkers with quite different positions on social and political issues 
are nevertheless able to share, at least for the most part, the 
intuition that `the family' offers a window onto some of the most 
elementary and persistent forms of human coexistence --- forms that must 
somehow be taken into account within any broader theoretical 
understanding of human society.

Indeed, it seems reasonable to think that the importance of such forms 
can be safely assumed, even in societies and cultures very different 
from our own, where they may not even figure in ways that we would 
recognize as being connected to the family. This is not to deny, or in 
any way diminish, the significance of the variations in the organisation 
of kinship relations noted by social anthropologists. It is only to note 
that anthropology has yet to identify a society or way of life that 
could be said to be conducted in terms entirely indifferent to 
\textit{any} form of kinship structure that is connected in some way 
with the facts pertaining to biological descent --- be it part of 
something we would call `familial' or not.\footnote{
Some such structure is, arguably, presupposed wherever the taboo 
on incest is to be found --- or even just wherever the behaviour 
of sentient living creatures demonstrates a~preferential concern 
for their own immediate biological forebears and/or progeny.
}

I~do not wish to imply here any general view about exactly how much of 
our sense of the significance of familyhood should be thought of as just 
reflecting either biologically or culturally construed notions of 
kinship and descent --- at the expense, say, of an acknowledgement of the 
overall role played by practical conditions of life in shaping human 
social existence. My point is just that wherever we look, we find that 
the practical dimension of how human beings collectively organize 
themselves takes for granted and reflects certain rudimentary forms of 
relationship of interdependency between those who come earlier and those 
who come later, while in our modern culture it is also a fact that these 
particular forms of relationship principally take the form of 
intergenerational familial relationships, whose importance is linked to 
the particular understanding of relations of kinship and descent that we 
find exhibited there. The overall purpose of this article is to explore 
what these rudimentary forms of interdependency relationship amount to. 
It seeks to accomplish this by primarily considering them in the form 
most familiar to \textit{us} --- which is that presented by the structures 
of familial relationship typically operative in our lives. Beyond this, 
it also seeks to identify possible broader implications that an 
understanding of these forms could have for a theoretical construal of 
the social dimension of human affairs more generally --- the sort of 
theoretical construal whose relevance would extend beyond our particular 
contemporary forms of coexistence, be they familial or not, since it 
would involve grasping features exhibited by such rudimentary forms 
wherever they are to be found. 

The fact that such rudimentary forms of relationship show up as 
important for us moderns above all in the context of family life may 
help to explain why family-related matters constitute an ethical and 
political touchstone for us --- one that we often feel compelled to invoke 
when seeking to arbitrate between the competing ideals and concerns that 
figure in discussions about what should count as our preferred form of 
communal living. Yet this also risks turning our understanding of the 
importance of the family into a~hostage to fortune, in the form of the 
various agendas and outcomes that tend to figure prominently in such 
discussions, together with the conflicts of perceptions and of interest 
that motivate them. The fact that what we call `the family' can be 
recognized as a~feature of human collective existence at a~level of 
specificity that is, to all intents and purposes, pre-political and 
pre-cultural (and for some, perhaps, even pre-ethical), 
may tempt thinkers of various persuasions to seek to ground their preferred 
understanding of the political, cultural and ethical spheres in an 
interpretation of what they regard as being latent within the supposedly 
more basic, and therefore potentially more universal, structure of 
familial existence itself. 

In this way, then, conservative thinkers tend to find embodied in family 
life the ideals of adherence to tradition and attachment to place 
associated with a~geographically settled or `rooted' material existence 
--- ideals that then find expression in a~treasuring of the legacy of 
one’s forebears and a~sense of being responsible for the state of one’s 
localized surroundings. Liberals, on the other hand, be they libertarian 
or socially progressivist, individualist or communitarian, tend to view 
`the family' as a~kind of project. For them it is something that 
essentially exists in order to provide an ethical training-ground for 
the young, helping them to acquire that mutuality of understanding and 
acknowledgement that will be required of them if their relationships and 
dealings with one another are to be grounded in genuine freedom and thus 
approximate to what is, for liberals, the highest ideal of morally 
civilized co-existence. Meanwhile, marxists will tend to regard 
familyhood in yet another way, finding in it no more and no less than 
a~direct reflection of the structural factors that, at some given 
historical juncture and in some particular place, are thought to be 
responsible for determining how human beings stand relative to a nexus 
of materially constituted economic concerns. 

Whatever our own political and cultural persuasion may happened to be, 
the danger we face here is that of naively assuming that our 
understanding of the rudimentary forms of social relationship we manage 
to identify, and which we then invoke as a~yardstick for clarifying our 
intuitions about social and political matters generally, will not 
already bear traces of the more abstract (and potentially idealizing) 
theoretical commitments we hope to vindicate. With just this caveat in 
mind, I~shall proceed to a~consideration of the features associated with 
modern family life whose wider social implications form the basis of the 
topic I~wish to explore.

2. It seems to me that the central --- because most significant --- feature 
of being involved in family life as a~member of a~family as \textit{we} 
know it is the following: one finds oneself inhabiting, at one and the 
same time, two roles, each of which corresponds to one of the two sides 
of a~certain sort of asymmetric relationship that a~human being will, 
in the natural order of things, typically stand in to certain other human 
beings.\footnote{
We shall bracket out epistemological issues here, much 
in the way that the later \oWittgenstein{} does, by holding that it is 
self-evident that the concerns of epistemological sceptics, 
though not refuted, can be ignored, if what is being described is so deeply 
embedded in the fabric of our lives that we cannot conceive of those 
lives as retaining any meaning or value for us in its absence. 
Where we differ from the later \oWittgenstein, though, is in the matter 
of how far (or in what way and on what basis) this status is to be specifically 
associated with responses we have to the \textit{practical} dimension of 
our affairs, as distinct from the contemplative dimension that shows up 
when, for example, we reflect on things from an \textit{ex post} 
standpoint that brings to light more than just what is presupposed by 
our ongoing practical concerns.
} 
On the one hand, one stands at the end of a~chain 
of relationships linking persons to their ancestral progenitors. 
This, viewed from the perspective of one’s own standpoint 
in time, typically begins with one’s relationship with one’s parents 
(be they living or dead), and extends backwards in time from there. 
On the other hand, one also stands at the beginning of a~chain 
of relationships linking persons to their descendents. 
This, viewed (again) from the perspective of one’s own standpoint in time, 
begins with one’s relationship to one’s children, 
who may already be living or may just represent possibilities 
that one entertains on the basis that, all other things being equal 
as part of what we might call `the natural order of things', 
it is only a~matter of time before they are so. 
In this case the chain of relationships extends forwards in time from 
there.\footnote{
What it means to stand in a relationship to a living 
being who is no longer alive, or to one that is not yet alive, are, of 
course, matters for further elaboration, but we certainly do seem to 
understand ourselves as standing in such relationships, and it certainly 
does seem to matter to us that we do so.
} 

To understand oneself as a descendant of one’s ancestral progenitors 
(parents, etc.) is to understand oneself as forming one constituent 
element within a~relationship whose other constituent element, formed by 
one or more of one’s ancestral progenitors themselves, corresponds, with 
respect to its role within that relationship, to the role of the 
constituent element that one finds oneself forming in the context of 
one’s relationship with one’s descendents. Likewise, to understand 
oneself as an ancestral progenitor of one’s descendants (children, etc.) 
is to understand oneself as forming one constituent element within 
a~relationship whose other constituent element, formed by one or more 
of one’s descendents themselves, corresponds, with respect to its role 
within that relationship, to the role of the constituent element that 
one finds oneself forming in the context of one’s relationship with 
one’s own ancestral progenitors. Viewed in terms that are independent of 
which role one happens to occupy, the two relationships have the same 
form and are therefore of the same kind, involving as they do the same 
contrastive duality of roles. Viewed in terms of the fact that one 
occupies opposing roles depending on whether the relationship in 
question locates one at the end or at the beginning of a~chain of 
relationships stretching away from one’s own temporal standpoint in one 
or other of the only two directions available (i.e. running towards 
either `earlier and earlier' or `later and later' times, either 
`\textit{into} the past' or `\textit{into} the future'), they correspond 
--- as we shall see --- to entirely distinct perspectives on how one stands 
relative to the other persons involved. Relative to these 
standpoint-dependent perspectives, then, 
the two relationships do not have the same form, 
and so cannot be said to be of the same kind.

One’s relationship with one’s ancestral progenitors is a~relationship 
that has the same essential character, regardless of whether they happen 
to be still living or already dead --- though it is one that is, perhaps, 
brought into a~more explicitly graspable form when they \textit{are} 
actually dead. \textit{Their} legacy is \textit{one’s} inheritance, and 
this legacy-inheritance structure links a~\textit{historical} 
understanding of their lives, construed as structures of historical 
development ultimately to be comprehended \textit{ex post}, with an 
internally ahistorical \textit{ontological} understanding of one’s own 
life, construed as that structure of constitutive possibilities 
identifiable as having already been in place prior to any actual 
developments pertaining to its historically contingent unfolding as this 
may have occurred so far. 

This linkage forms a~structure of constitutive `references' running in 
both directions at once.\footnote{
This idea of `constitutive references' has some sort of a~precursor 
in \oHeidegger[’s] elaboration of the intelligibility conditions 
pertaining to equipmentality in Division~I of \textit{Being and Time}. 
However, we are talking here about references 
running to and fro \textit{between} the two mutually irreducible domains 
of the properly ontological and the properly historical. 
\oHeidegger, by contrast, is only concerned with references 
obtaining \textit{within} the domain of the ontological itself --- 
a~domain which he conceived of at that stage in his development 
as in some general sort of way standing entirely prior to the historical. 
See \cite{Heidegger:Being}.
} 
On the one hand, the possibilities that one takes 
to be constitutive of one’s own life as an ontological phenomenon, 
in that they furnish the background framework for making sense of what 
actually occurs over the course of one’s life, are \textit{already} 
pre-imbued with a~meaning: one that reflects a~grasp of the historical 
developments that had to occur in the life-histories of one’s ancestral 
progenitors in order for one to have just \textit{that} totality of 
possibilities available to one, and not some other greater or smaller 
(or otherwise different) one.\footnote{
Invoking \oHeidegger{} once more, 
one might, within the context of \textit{this} example, 
call this \textit{the forestructure of the forestructure} --- 
the prefix `fore-' here denoting historical antecedence in the first case, 
but presuppositional-hermeneutic ontological priority in the second.
} 
(Those developments are ones that, at some point in time or other, 
either had to occur for the possibilities available to one to be so, 
or had to occur for the possibilities not available to one to not be so.\footnote{
The disappearance or non-disappearance of possibilities over time, 
construed as a~function of events, has been analyzed in formal logical 
terms by G.H.~\textsc{Von}~\oWright{} as an evolving diachronically modal scenario. 
That analysis will be taken to be correct for all essential purposes 
here. See \cite{Wright:Diachronic}.
} 
On the other hand, the structures of historical development that 
happened to occur in the life-histories of one’s ancestral progenitors 
are, at the same time, imbued with a~meaning that reflects a~grasp of 
the changed structure of possibilities for one’s own life that one takes 
to actually have issued from them. That such-and-such a~possibility, or 
such-and-such a~contingent necessity (corresponding to a~contingent 
absence of alternative possibilities), obtaining with respect to one’s 
life, issued from such-and-such a~series of events, is --- within the 
context of the particular example we are seeking to elaborate --- part of 
what defines these events as the historical development they are, just 
as that which, at certain decisive junctures, had to happen in the lives 
of one’s ancestral progenitors for some structure of possibility to 
obtain with respect to one’s own life is part of what defines that 
structure of possibility as the ontologically significant structure that 
it is. To come to appreciate this structure of jointly constituted 
significances is, we may say, to come to appreciate both their legacy to 
one and one’s inheritance from them --- understood as two inseparable 
aspects of one relationship.

In parallel to this, we may say that one’s relationship with one’s 
descendants is also a~relationship that, taken in 
non-standpoint-dependent terms, exhibits the same essential character, 
regardless of whether they happen to be already living or to be as yet 
unborn and unconceived --- though it is one that is, perhaps, 
encounterable in a~more explicitly graspable form prior to their 
actually being conceived or born. 
\textit{One’s} legacy is \textit{their} inheritance, 
and this legacy-inheritance structure links 
a~\textit{historical} understanding of one’s own life, 
construed in terms of structures of historical development 
ultimately to be comprehended by others \textit{ex post} 
(where such comprehension is thus something that one 
mostly stands in an anticipatory relationship to), 
with an internally ahistorical \textit{ontological} understanding 
of their lives, construed as that structure of constitutive 
possibilities identifiable as already in place even prior to any actual 
developments pertaining to the historically contingent unfolding of 
their lives so far. 

Here we find the same linkage, forming the same structure of 
constitutive `references' running in both directions at once. This time, 
though, the possibilities that one takes to be constitutive of one’s 
descendants’ lives, construed ontologically as furnishing the background 
framework for making sense of whatever will actually occur over the 
course of those lives, are pre-imbued with a~meaning that reflects 
the historical developments that have had to occur in one’s own life-history 
(at certain decisive junctures) for them to have \textit{ended up 
starting out} with just \textit{those} totalities of possibilities 
available to them, and not others. Meanwhile, the structures of 
historical development that have actually occurred in one’s own life so 
far are imbued with a~meaning that reflects a~grasp of the changed 
structure of possibilities for the lives of one’s descendants that one 
takes to have issued from them. That such-and-such a~possibility, or 
such-and-such a~contingent necessity (corresponding to a~contingent 
absence of alternative possibilities), obtaining with respect to their 
lives, issued from such-and-such a~series of events in one’s life, is --- 
within the context of our example --- part of what defines these events as 
the historical development they are, just as what had to happen in one’s 
life for some structure of possibility to obtain with respect to the 
lives of one’s descendants is part of what defines that structure of 
possibility as being ontologically significant for them in the way that 
it is. To appreciate this structure of jointly constituted significances 
is to appreciate both one’s legacy \textit{to them }and their 
inheritance \textit{from one} --- understood here, just as before, 
as two mutually inseparable relational dimensions 
within one internally complex structure of relation\textit{ship}.

In each of these cases, the (structure of) relationship involves an 
irreducible conjunction of elements --- of historical commitments and 
concerns that derive their form and meaning from references to 
ontological commitments and concerns, and vice versa. As such, such 
relationships must be thought of as constituted with reference to a~form 
of understanding we shall call \textit{ontologico-historical}. 
But in one of these two cases \textit{one} (i.e. I/you/he/she) occupies one 
role, one standpoint, and one perspective on this conjunction of 
elements, and in the other case \textit{one} occupies the other role, 
the other standpoint, and the other perspective on them.\footnote{
Our use of the term `one' here, in preference to `we' or `human beings', 
is meant to be ambiguous between first-person 
and third-person pronominal meanings. 
The point is to avoid any suggestion at this stage of a~definite commitment 
with regard to how such matters stand relative to 
either a~privileging of the first-person standpoint over the 
third-person one, or a~denial of any such privileging.
} 
And it is in what we might loosely and provisionally describe as 
`the natural order of things' for one to occupy both roles at the same time, 
where this fact can itself only be understood with reference to that same form 
of understanding. Hence we must add that an understanding of relationships 
of this kind in ontologico-historical terms implies, for the purposes of 
understanding everything that such relationships imply, an 
\textit{ontologico-historical} construal of whatever it is that is 
denoted by the expression `the natural order of things' itself --- one 
that will require us to conceive of the terms `natural', `order' and 
`things' in a way that will be marked off as distinct from any prior 
usage of these same terms to denote (separately or together) strictly 
and exclusively ontological or historical forms of understanding. At any 
rate, in pursuing the approach that we have taken so far, this seems to 
be the point that we have inevitably been brought to. The same will hold 
true for the many and various references made in the present text to 
`\textit{our} culture', `\textit{our} concepts' and `\textit{our} 
language', to `the family as \textit{we} know it', and so on.\footnote{
Here, to be sure a~first-person standpoint \textit{is} being invoked, 
albeit only in a~plural form. But it is important to note that this 
leaves entirely open the issue of whether, when \textit{this} plural 
first-person standpoint is construed, as we are suggesting 
it should be here, in ontologico-historical terms, it will involve 
a~privileging of the first-person-plural standpoint over 
the thirdperson one, or not. 
That is to say, it might be that an anthropologist visiting our culture 
as an outsider would form the same conclusions about the nature of our 
familial legacy-inheritance relations as I~take to be internal to our 
collective self-understanding, and it might be that they would not. 
What is clear, is that were any such divergence of understanding to emerge, 
it could not be properly construed either as a divergence at the level 
of our respective ontological commitments (pertaining to our social 
\textit{world}), or as one at the level of our respective historical 
ones (pertaining to the current state of our social 
\textit{development}).
}

3. To say that historical and ontological forms or modalities of 
understanding are, in the context of familial relationships of the kind 
just mentioned, conjoined in a~structure of mutual irreducibility and 
interdependence, is to say two things. Firstly, it is to imply that we 
cannot make sense of our \textit{caring that} certain things 
did-or-did-not happen by treating this as if it were entirely a~function 
of our \textit{caring about} certain things’ being-or-not-being the case 
(in the sense of the obtaining-or-not-obtaining of certain states of 
affairs, possibilities, impossibilities, etc.). Secondly, and 
conversely, it is to imply that we cannot make sense of our 
\textit{caring about } certain things’ being-or-not-being the case by 
treating this as if it were entirely a~function of our \textit{caring 
that} certain things have-or-have-not happened. 
These two implications, taken together, may be said to constitute 
the \textit{ontologico-historical structure of familial care} --- 
the structure of care implicit in our conception of what it means for 
a~human being to be embedded in a~structure of familial relationships.

However, as soon as we try to elaborate the understanding `internal' 
to the perspective opened up by this structure --- much as \oHeidegger{} 
in \textit{Being and Time} sets out to do for that internal to his 
conception of Dasein and its relation to `Worldhood', or as \oWittgenstein{} 
in the \textit{Investigations} suggests we might do for the 
understanding internal to this or that practice-constituted form of life 
--- we encounter a~problem. 
This, in turn, is something that, as we shall see, 
derives its problematic significance from the fact that it 
highlights the extent to which we have arrived, in fact, in a~very 
different kind of philosophical territory from that typically associated 
with attempts to elaborate, in the manner of a hermeneutics, the 
understanding internal to some care-constituted perspective 
or other, such as might be taken to be defined by its horizons, 
construed as structures of givenness.

The problem we face here is a~logico-linguistic one. 
Essentially it consists in the fact that the relation between the two forms 
of care just mentioned must mirror the structure of mutual irreducibility 
and interdependence that, we have claimed, is a~feature of the configuration 
of legacy-inheritance relationships described above as furnishing 
the minimal case of the embeddedness of an individual in the structure 
of relationships characteristic of our conception of the family. 
That is to say, it must mirror the fact that for one of these two forms or modes 
of caring corresponding to a~role in which the individual is cast, there 
are historical commitments and concerns that derive their specifically 
historical form and meaning (as structures of constitutive actuality) 
from references to ontological commitments and concerns, while for 
another of these two, corresponding to that same individual’s being cast 
in the opposite role, there are ontological commitments and concerns 
that derive their specifically ontological form and meaning (as 
structures of constitutive possibility) from references to historical 
commitments and concerns. 

What this means is that in one of these two cases our understanding must 
be conceived of as an understanding of a~world that is defined with 
reference to its constitutive possibilities (to which all contingent 
historical actualities are then necessarily relativized), while in the 
other case it must be conceived as an understanding of a~structure of 
events that, in some important sense, could never have been conceived of 
as corresponding to a~set of meaningful (i.e. realistically plausible 
rather than abstractly hypothetical) possibilities before their actual 
occurrence --- rather in the manner, say, of certain coincidences, or the 
sort of historical developments that constitute watersheds in our 
understanding of our ethical and practical circumstances because they 
seem to have brought about irreversible changes to the latter. 
The point about `watershed cases' like these is that while we might recognize, 
in a~quite abstract way, that they are possible in advance of their 
happening, we find it absurd to attach any importance to them as 
possibilities on this basis. Yet once they \textit{have} happened, their 
sheer consequentiality obliges us to attach significance to them as 
actualities, and we cannot then insulate our understanding of them as 
possibilities from this. Hence our understanding of the world as a~world 
of constitutive possibilities takes on a~specifically \textit{ex post} 
character, which we must somehow seek to reconcile with the fact of its 
also having had the \textit{ex ante} character that it did have prior to 
any such coincidence or historical watershed having occurred. 

The logico-linguistic challenge that this poses to our understanding 
lies in the fact that it makes it impossible for us to straightforwardly 
embrace, in any internally unified and consistent way, a~certain 
conception of the nature of our ordinary conceptualizing activities, and 
of the logico-linguistic form through which we convey, 
and in terms of which we evaluate (as true/false, inferentially valid/invalid, etc.) 
the commitments that these activities give rise to. According to this 
conception --- which, of course, has been glossed in many different ways 
in linguistically oriented analytical philosophy over the last hundred 
years or so (it having furnished most of the latter’s defining concerns) 
--- our understanding, insofar as we evaluate it with respect to issues of 
truthhood/falsity and inferential consistency, takes the form of 
propositionally articulated thoughts about how things are, where these 
thoughts can, in virtue of certain structural features (whose exact 
nature is then debated), be grasped and assessed truth-functionally 
in terms of how they connect up with factually obtaining states of affairs.

One of the central ideas --- arguably \textit{the} central idea --- 
of modern analytical philosophy of language is the notion that such 
thoughts must first satisfy some general criteria of appropriateness as 
candidates for these forms of evaluation --- criteria of the sort that 
will serve to differentiate \textit{sense} from \textit{nonsense}. 
The first comprehensively worked out treatment of what this might mean was 
\oWittgenstein[’s] \textit{Tractatus}, and to the extent that all subsequent 
accounts build on certain basic features of the account developed there, 
it seems reasonable to assert that the underlying idea put forward in 
that work as to the nature of propositional sense remains as a~common 
presupposition behind all subsequent accounts, however different they 
may be in other respects. 
That basic conception holds that those declarative sentences 
that possess truth-functional evaluability 
(or the thoughts they might be said to express) 
are identifiable as such partly, if not wholly, on the basis of how they 
stand in relation to other such sentences (or thoughts), at a level where 
they are construed as true-or-false thinkables or assertibles 
(i.e. as possibly true and possibly false), rather than as instances 
of actual thinking or asserting (such as would have to be taken, 
in a~manner that invokes a~stronger, exclusive form of disjunction, 
to be either actually true or actually false).\footnote{
It seems to me that at some level of specificity this basic conception 
remains in force even if one embraces the later \oWittgenstein[’s] account, 
or some account based on this, according to which relations between 
thinkables are to be construed not with reference to the constraints 
of a single monolithic framework governing relations of fit between 
`language' and `world', but as corresponding instead to whatever 
is part of the `grammar' internal to a~particular language game, 
practice or form of life. The real change there is from a~monolithic 
to a~piecemeal construal of the issues pertaining to the \textit{regulative role} 
that any such framework of thinkability might play, as in the context 
of \oWittgenstein[’s] later approach such issues must be resolved anew 
for each and every practice-constituted structure of 
logico-grammatical commitment. 
It is precisely because propositions lose the truth-functionally 
bivalent character they must possess to be counted as part of any 
such framework of thinkables when they function as hinges and serve 
to convey bedrock commitments, that the function they fulfil is held by 
the later \oWittgenstein{} to be constitutive of a~radically distinct mode 
of commitment. (See \cite{Wittgenstein:OnCertainty}.)
} 
The distinctive challenge posed by the foregoing analysis of the two 
structures or modes of ontologico-historical understanding 
found to be constitutive of the perspectives internal to familial care is just this: 
that these two structures or modes, by their very nature, will stand in 
fundamentally different relationships to this conception.

In the case of one’s legacy \textit{to} others, where one cares 
\textit{that} what has (or will have) happened in one’s life has 
(or will have) happened, but does so in a~way that reflects one’s already 
caring about the structure of ontological possibilities relevant to the 
lives of others that those others are going to inherit from this, the 
historical understanding of one’s own life as a~series of events is 
relativized to a~set of framing considerations that correspond to that 
set of ontological possibilities --- a~set that are ‘internally ahistorical’ 
in the sense that they are taken as unconditionally given 
when figuring in this kind of relation.\footnote{
One may liken \textit{this} particular scenario to the 
ontological-ontic relation set out by \oHeidegger{} 
in \textit{Being and Time}, except for the following 
crucial difference: here it is a requirement of any such relation being 
in force that the ontic dimension pertains in the first instance to the 
life of the person(s) whose legacy is at stake, while the ontological 
dimension pertains in the first instance to that of the person(s) whose 
inheritance is at stake, within the relationship in question. 
Such relationships would appear to be entirely absent from \oHeidegger[’s] 
account, which is thus ultimately confined within the horizons of 
meaningfulness of individual and collective forms of first-personhood. 
Viewed from the perspective of the concerns elaborated here, \oHeidegger[’s] 
treatment of such matters resembles a~form of philosophical autism --- 
one which (like its pathological equivalent) may bring to light some 
otherwise unnoticeable features of great significance, but which one 
should nevertheless not succumb to.
} 
Construed as a~structure of understanding expressible in the form 
of truth-functionally evaluable thoughts about reality, 
these framing considerations will then resemble those 
which we encounter in the context of an ontologico-metaphysical 
reading of the significance of the logico-linguistic framework 
of thinkability that, in the context of the Tractarian model, is put 
forward as capturing the nature of the propositional sign.\footnote{
For such a~reading, see the writings of J.~\oPerzanowski: e.g. those collected 
in \cite{Sytnik:Art}. For a~more sophisticated interpretation that is also, 
I think, potentially relevant here, see \cite{Cerezo:ThePossibility}.
}

In the case of one’s inheritance \textit{from} others, 
where one cares about the structure of ontological possibilities 
relevant to one’s own life, but does so in a way that reflects one’s 
already caring that the things that happened in the lives of others 
that happen to be responsible for this structure of possibilities 
in one’s own life happened as they did and not otherwise, 
the internally ahistorical ontological understanding of one’s own life 
as a~set of possibilities (a~kind of situation) will be relativized to 
a~set of considerations that, in effect, make it a~function of a~particular 
historical \textit{moment}.\footnote{
The term `moment' should be understood in a~technical way here, 
as marking not just a~chronological point in time, 
but also a~juncture defined by the arrival of a~new state of affairs 
that is, in turn, significant qua its being the outcome of some course 
of events --- the sort of course of events that typically acquires 
a~significance of its own for those who contemplate it that is inseparable 
from the fact of its having terminated (e.g. a~person’s life, 
contemplated by others who were already acquainted with that person 
in some way before they died).
} 
This time, when we construe the resulting structure of understanding 
as being expressible in propositionally truth-evaluable thoughts 
about reality, we must do so by attaching a~quite different sort of significance 
to the logico-linguistic framework of thinkability that, 
in the context of the Tractarian model, is put forward as capturing the nature 
of the propositional sign. 
One potentially helpful way to think of this would be to draw a~rough 
analogy with a~certain kind of interpretation of a~linguistically 
oriented reading of the \textit{Tractatus} --- one that ascribes to the 
historically contingent limits of `natural language' itself, 
as it appears at a~given juncture in cultural or personal history, 
the role of constituting, for the relevant sort of `subject', 
the limits of the logical space in which they are able to entertain thoughts 
about their historically actual world.

In effect, this means taking both the world as we actually find it, 
\textit{and} the logical space in which its relationships to all other 
possible world-states (or so-called `possible worlds') 
are held to obtain, to be a~historical affair. The value for our purposes of the 
analogy with the abovementioned kind of Tractarian linguistic 
contingentism is limited, though, as it tends to draw attention away 
from the fact that what we really have to make sense of here will be 
\textit{any} context where ontological matters (pertaining to one life 
or set of lives) are relativized to what, in that same context, count as 
an overriding set of pre-established historical considerations 
(pertaining to another life or set of lives), where this need not be 
held to be a~specifically linguistic affair. Ultimately, then, what we 
need here is a~general theoretical account of what all such cases amount 
to --- one that would take in not only this dimension of familial care, 
but also a~wide variety of phenomena that may be grouped under the 
category of historical `watershed cases'. (That is to say, cases that 
involve the thought that an event or course of events has occurred, 
whose outcome is a radically changed overall state of the affairs, 
either for things generally (i.e. `the world'), or for some particular 
domain of human concern that can be meaningfully conceived of in 
self-sufficient terms.)

4. The issues involved in giving a~general account of such cases are, 
to say the least, complex. Nevertheless, as far as the overall 
logico-linguistic challenge posed here is concerned, 
if we consider how certain related problems have been addressed 
by philosophers on previous occasions (albeit in quite different contexts 
of theoretical concern), we find that there are at least three possible 
strategies that might be called upon.

Firstly, we might broadly follow the example of \oHeidegger{} and attempt 
some sort of intervention aimed at making the lexico-grammatical 
`deep structures' of our language more revealing than they otherwise would 
be of the points that concern us philosophically.\footnote{
Here, of course, I~especially have in mind his treatment of the concept 
`Sein' in \textit{Being and Time}. (See \cite{Heidegger:Being}.) 
Nevertheless, similarly tendencies may observed in his later work too. 
One example taken from the latter that seems particularly relevant 
to the analysis undertaken here is his exploration of the concept of `Geschick'. 
(See \cite{Heidegger:ThePrinciple}.)
} 
That is to say, we might seek to identify a~hidden structure of meaning, 
or institute by stipulation a~new structure of meaning (which we might 
then anyway be tempted to argue was latent in language all along), 
\textit{within} our ordinary everyday fact-reporting language. 
This might involve attaching a~specific kind of significance to what, 
under logical analysis, are considered the basic forms of assertion 
pertaining to ontological and historical commitments: 
informal phrases and grammatical particles that function in everyday 
language to express existential commitments (e.g. phrases like `there is', 
that count as paraphrases of uses of the existential quantifier, 
and related uses of either the definite article or demonstrative terms), 
would be subject to qualification through the use of an ontologicality 
or historicality conferring operator.\footnote{
It seems to me that stress on the `epochal' origins and significance 
of ontological concerns that we find in \oHeidegger[’s] later thinking 
can be glossed in terms of the idea that it amounts to an introduction 
of a~historicality conferring operator: one that, for him, would be required 
to takes in the entire logico-linguistic domain within which 
ontological concerns have so far come to be articulated. 
Some of the historicistic currents in \oCollingwood[’s] philosophy 
may also plausibly be interpreted along similar lines.
} 
The same would apply to those elements of our language 
through which we express `happenstantial' commitments --- 
commitments, that is, pertaining to what we take to have 
happened or not happened in terms that count for us as 
historically contingent.\footnote{
Applying an ontologicality conferring operator to `happenstantial' 
commitments to indicate that certain historical facts are, 
in certain contexts, invested with a~significance that can only 
be cashed out in terms of the idea that they have ontological implications 
(albeit for the life of another), has a~parallel in an idea that appears 
in \oWittgenstein[’s] thinking towards the end of his career. 
This is his notion that what is, in its own terms, a~contingent truth 
(such as might correspond \textit{inter alia} to a~historical fact) 
can nevertheless take on the character of a~necessary truth of sorts, 
when it functions as a~`grammatical' commitment (in his special sense 
of the term `grammatical') --- something which, according to 
\oWittgenstein, it may do in virtue of its role as part of a~structure 
of commitment presupposed by a~given practice or form of life. 
See \cite{Wittgenstein:OnCertainty}, §98.
} 
To adopt such a~strategy is to suggest that our relationship to our affairs 
as manifested through language stands in need of \textit{systemic} 
adjustment to reflect the particular philosophical insights that are taken 
to motivate and justify the interventions in question. 
Yet this will be tantamount to investing a~further level of significance 
in those philosophical insights themselves, which may or may not be appropriate. 
(For example, there may be substantial areas of our linguistically engaged 
existence whose internal character --- say, as fundamentally 
practical-ethical, or ultimately strictly aesthetico-contemplative, 
requires us to understand language itself as being strictly closed off from 
the sort of duality that finds expression in the idea of introducing ontologicality 
and historicality conferring operators alongside one another.) 

Secondly, we might follow the example of \oWittgenstein, drawing a~line 
between the sort of structures of understanding we take to be consistent 
with our logico-linguistic intuitions and philosophical commitments 
regarding the nature of our everyday fact-stating declarative 
utterances, and some other dimension of language-use 
that we take to lie strictly beyond this, in which some or all of the 
lexico-grammatical forms of our language may also show up, 
but with a~radically transformed function, 
given the \textit{extra-linguistic} context that happens to be 
in force. Such is the status accorded by \oWittgenstein, not 
uncontroversially, to various forms of language-use 
specifically associated with ritual and religious practices, 
and (also controversially) to first-person avowals 
of the sort that he himself considers inherently non-informative 
(e.g. `I am in pain!'), and which must therefore be understood as standing 
in lieu of behaviour that would itself count as symptomatic --- as a~kind 
of non-fact-stating, primitive verbal expression.\footnote{
See \cite{Wittgenstein:Philosophical}, Part~I 
(§§~244-309) and Part~II (subsection~ix).
} 
Applied to our case, this would require us to designate just one 
of the two dimensions of the relationships and structures of care 
we are seeking to understand as being in line with the fact-stating 
character of our ordinary everyday language-use, while consigning 
the other to whatever conception we are able to form of how language 
functions as significant in our lives when it performs some such alternative, 
non-informative or purely expressive role. 
Yet the difficulty here is plain to see: neither of the two dimensions in question, 
as elaborated here, lends itself to being construed as a~more appropriately 
subject matter either for fact-stating forms of language-use, 
or for some other sort of language-use of that alternative, 
non-fact-stating kind. 
To introduce such a~contrast here would thus be tantamount to arbitrarily 
attaching a~particular significance to one or other of these two 
dimensions of familial care and its related forms of 
ontologico-historical understanding, where this also then 
means denying it to the other one. 
This, in turn, would tend to invite interpretations according to which 
such a~move is taken to be indicative of a view that holds one 
of these to be more public or objective, and the other to be 
more private or subjective. This, as a~conclusion, is something our 
analysis so far suggests would be entirely unfounded. 

Thirdly, we might pursue the sort of approach taken by \oAdorno, who 
invokes a~class of elements that are present within the 
propositionality-supporting structures and practices 
of our ordinary everyday language use, but which, in themselves, 
are rendered distinctive by the fact that they carry, even there, 
a~specific kind of significance, which by its very nature persists 
outside of those contexts as they are typically construed in our 
everyday discourse. 
This is how \oAdorno{} goes about construing the special status 
of proper names in the light of the significance he wishes to invest 
in those instances of their use that interest him. 
These, typically, are ones where such names have been invested with 
the personal associations brought into play when, as names of places 
remembered from one’s past, they are linked to our recollections 
of those places, and to what follows from these recollections in terms 
of our wider responsiveness to things.\footnote{
See \cite{Adorno:Negative}, pp.~373-374. Although \oAdorno{} 
works within a~broader framework that might be described as 
a~hybrid of elements drawn from the philosophies of \oKan[t], 
\oHeg[el], and \oMarx, together with elements of \oWeber[ian] 
sociology and \oFreud[ian] psychoanalytic theory, 
the relevant precursors to his account of the significance of proper 
names corresponding to remembered place names are \oProust{} 
and \ooWalterBenjamin{}{}, neither of whom could be said 
to straightforwardly occupy a~place within the lines of intellectual 
development represented by those thinkers. 
It is important for understanding the use \oAdorno{} makes of this 
device that one realizes that his intention is to link such place names 
specifically with recollections of places assumed to represent, for the 
recollecting subject, both sites of unconditionally given 
aesthetico-spiritual value and sites whose disappearance 
or loss of value counts as a historically given fact. 
In logico-linguistic terms, \oAdorno[’s] conception of the radical 
ethical significance of such uses of proper names implies something 
like \oKripke[’s] anti-descriptivistic conception of them as rigid 
designators. (See \cite{Kripke:Naming}. 
It also requires that they be seen as maintaining their significance 
for us independently of any practice-dependent 
name-tracking network of the sort that has been 
invoked by those seeking to understand the functioning of proper 
names in late-\oWittgenstein[ian] terms. 
(See \cite{Hanna:Word}, pp. 126-132).
} 
The difficulty for us here stems from the fact that \oAdorno{} 
operates with a~paradigm of the historical character of our 
understanding of the ultimate (and essentially personal) meaning and 
value of things that, albeit in the context of a~wider dialectic, links 
this understanding to a~specific mode of reflective responsiveness. 
This, to be sure, is one that might plausibly be thought to have its 
fitting analogue in the overall role that, on his account, proper names 
sometimes fulfil within our overall living out of our lives as language 
users, where they may be said to live a double life as elements figuring 
within the public discourse of our fact-stating propositional 
utterances and as markers for some irreducibly personal sense 
of the meaning of what has transpired in the world, gauged according 
to the ethico-aesthetic yardstick of the responses engendered 
by one’s recollections of one’s own past. 
But to link either of the modes of understanding and care we have been 
exploring here with such features of language is to do something 
not much different from what is involved when we conceive one 
or other of them as lying outside of the boundaries of ordinary language 
altogether, as would be the case if we were to follow the \oWittgenstein[ian] 
strategy outlined above. 
It would also then bring into play similar, and equally problematic, 
implications as to the relatively more subjective and personal character 
of one or other of these two modes.

Perhaps our biggest problem here is that language --- or, at least, 
\textit{our} language\footnote{
It seems appropriate to restate the comment made at the end 
of Section 2~of this article, to the effect that references to 
\textit{`our language'}, \textit{`our concepts'}, 
\textit{`our understanding of the family'}, etc., 
must themselves be conceived (which means, in theoretical terms, 
reconceived) in specifically ontologico-historical terms, 
if they are to be in proper alignment with the kind of understanding 
elaborated here.
} 
--- does not itself encourage or oblige us to differentiate systematically 
between what it means to construe something as significant in essentially 
\textit{ex post }terms as a~set of historical actualities, and what it 
means to do so in essentially \textit{non-ex-post} terms as a~set of 
possibilities or potentialities (for living, acting, suffering, thinking, 
and so on).\footnote{
It is worth noting that this problem remains essentially the same, 
no matter whether we construe such modes of understanding 
and care perspectivally in the sense of their just being a~function 
of differences of temporal-indexical standpoint 
(i.e. as directed towards what happens to count, for some person 
sometime, as `in the past' or `in the future'), or in some other kind 
of way, taking them to manifest differences of temporal orientation 
constitutive of phenomena themselves, where it then becomes an 
open question whether these difference are intelligible in the absence 
of a~tense-specifying mode of construal.
} 
This makes it tempting, when seeking to systematically unfold the 
understanding internal to either of these perspectives, to introduce 
a~thesis to the effect that the nature of language or thought or human 
life generally is such as to validate a~presumption in favour of one or 
other of these two modes of understanding and care as being fundamental, 
so that it (or at least its manifestations in thought and/or language) 
encompasses the other entirely. 
That, however, would be tantamount to making a wholly 
unwarranted assumption about the status of the particular sort 
of structures of understanding and care that we have been concerned 
to analyse here, since it would imply that these structures themselves 
have no fundamental or ultimate implications whatsoever for those very 
generalities. Hence it is a~temptation that we should resist. 

5. What other options might be available to us? One possible course of 
action here would be to pursue a~line that takes as its premise the 
thought that we have just invoked, to the effect that language --- 
or, if one prefers, the loose network of diverse fact-stating and 
non-fact-stating practices that, taken together, might be said to 
sustain and thereby constitute what we call `language' --- does not give 
any clear sign of being grounded in terms of reference that 
systematically grant privileged status to ontological concerns over 
historical ones, or \textit{vice versa}. In that case, it ought to be possible 
to invoke one of the most basic devices that we know of for indicating, 
through language, a~positive commitment to the reality of something --- 
namely, the coining of kind-terms as names denoting distinct 
classes of referents --- without prejudicing the issue of whether what 
any such kind-term is supposed to refer to should properly be 
conceived in terms that imply a~priority for ontologicality over historicality, 
or in terms that imply the converse of that. 

This, it seems to me, is where the concept of \textit{ethos}, which has 
its origin in the Ancient Greek theory of rhetoric as formulated by 
\oAristotle, could --- at least in a~loose and limited kind of way --- prove 
helpful.\footnote{
See \cite{Aristotle:TheArt}.
} 
In its original context, \textit{ethos}, together with \textit{logos} and 
\textit{pathos}, makes up a~tripartite division whose purpose is to 
conceptualize the features in virtue of which a~speaker counts as 
rhetorically effective. Where \textit{logos} designates their 
argumentative efficacy, and \textit{pathos} their success in affecting 
the feelings of their audience, \textit{ethos} refers to the 
plausibility we are inclined to attach to what the speaker has to say 
just in virtue of their credibility as a~speaker --- which means, at least 
in some respects, as a~human being. 
This is something to be construed on the basis of both their past standing 
and any immediate impression they make on us through the vehicle 
of the oratorical performance itself. 
It therefore implies an evaluation of the person that takes into account 
both `where they have been' and `where they are now' --- in the figurative 
senses of these phrases that refer, respectively, to an understanding of 
`who' or `what' they have already amounted to, and `who' or `what', 
in any relevant terms, they promise to turn out to be. 
In the formal context of Ancient rhetorical theory and practice, 
this concept appeals to something beyond the conceptualization of practical 
possibilities implicitly invoked by an appeal to rational argumentation, 
but also stands apart from what, at any given juncture, we can sensibly think 
of as a~causally determined outcome of the rhetorical process (in the sense 
of a~historical `factum' achieved through the brute power of affective 
persuasion). 
Hence, within that context, \textit{ethos} may be said to 
be necessarily irreducible either to a~set of terms that would imply 
a~priority for ontologicality over historicality, or to one that would 
imply the converse of this.\footnote{
Of course, we quickly run up against limits to how far we can pursue 
this analogy: not least because of the fact that, in the context of 
\oAristotle[’s] own wider philosophy (and in that of most of other thinkers), 
the terms of any such construal of an orator’s standing will reflect wider 
notions of goodness (including ideas about the good life and the good 
person), and these notions will tend to attain their distinctive form in ways 
that themselves involve granting some sort of priority to 
practical-ontological criteria over historical-contemplative 
ones, or \textit{vice versa}.
}

Something of this same irreducibility, it seems to me, persists in our 
modern usage of the term. When talking about the \textit{ethos} of an 
institution, a~culture, or even a~society, we surely invoke more than an 
understanding of just its values, customs and habits, conceived as 
possibilities that have, as part of their telos, their being transmitted 
as part of an ongoing tradition that sustains itself through its form as 
a~constellation of practices. 
Yet we also, conversely, have in mind more than just what is grasped 
when we think of these same values and customs and practices 
as outcomes of contingent processes of historical evolution --- as, in effect, 
patterns of ongoing responsiveness, causally shaped by antecedent events 
and situations and the history of a~group’s particular responses 
and reactions to these (where the significance of these for their 
participants remains essentially tied to that of those events and 
situations themselves).\footnote{
This suggests that we should be critical of a~way of thinking about 
the nature of social institutions that has proved influential both within 
and beyond philosophy, and which reflects a~certain reading of the 
implications of both \oWittgenstein[’s] later philosophy and the 
philosophy of Wilfred \oSellars. 
(I have in mind here the lines of interpretation of these two 
thinkers developed, above all, by John \oMcDowell{} and 
Robert \oBrandom.) 
That `normativistic' approach construes social institutions as being 
practice-constituted in a~sense that we might wish to criticize 
as artificially narrow, in that it identifies this characteristic of them 
strictly with those features in virtue of which one can say of them that 
they are irreducibly `norm-governed' or `social', rather than `natural'. 
That is to say, it makes our concepts of the `institutional' and the 
`social' hostage to our ability to give a~meaningful account of what 
differentiates `\textit{the} normative' from `\textit{the} natural'. 
This seems rather stilted, because it implies that our most basic and 
central practices are only ever constituted as intelligible in terms of 
how they are carried on against the background of a~set of contextual 
conditions that are taken as unconditionally given (in the sense that 
they are taken not to be contingent on anything in particular at all), 
and not also with reference to a~(conscious or unconscious) awareness 
on the part of their participants of the specific historical factors that 
have, in fact, contributed to their intelligibility. 
As far as the later \oWittgenstein{} is concerned, this feature is 
perhaps less significant than such normativistic readings suggest, 
in that they underestimate the quietistic dimension of his thought. 
However, even taking that into account it seems fair to say that 
it reflects a~blind-spot in \oWittgenstein[’s] own philosophical 
sensibility --- one that makes his later thinking unattractive to many 
who would otherwise be sympathetic to his account of the irreducibility 
of the participation-dependent forms of understanding internal 
to our practices to reductive, naturalistic modes of explanation. 
The blind-spot in question is his lack of any feeling for the ways 
in which our internal sense of what it means to participate in a given 
practice can be suffused by an awareness of the significance 
that such participation takes on in the light of a~grasp of the history 
of how it came about that we are participating in it, where this 
variable sense of what it means to do so at the same time translates 
into potentially significant differences in how we conduct ourselves in 
respect of that participation itself.
}

Perhaps, then, it is no surprise to find that it can also ring true 
intuitively to talk about the \textit{ethos} of a~family, or even of 
familyhood or family life itself (and, by extension, of a~culture or 
a~society), where what this is meant to evoke is precisely the idea of 
a~structure of values and responses `carried' across the divide between 
\textit{non-ex-post} and \textit{ex post} standpoints (while still 
properly registering the distinct concerns operative on either side of 
that division) --- just what we have found to be in play when we think 
of human relationships as we have tried to do here, in terms of an 
irreducible conjunction of what is denoted, respectively, by the 
concepts of legacy and inheritance.


\streszczenie[*]{
Artykuł bada system odniesień oraz ontologiczne i~historyczne związki
współzależności łączące ze osoby w~kontekście dzisiejszego życia
rodzinnego.
Wyniki są poddane analizie w~celu ustalenia ich implikacji dla szerszych
kwestii dotyczących fenomenologii po-\oHeidegger[owskiej], krytycznej
teorii społecznej (\oAdorno) i~po-\oWittgenstein[owskiej] filozofii
języka.
Taka charakterystyczna forma rozumienia jest porównana do koncepcji
etosu przedstawionej w~opisie praktyki retorycznej Arystotelesa.
}{
rodzina ---
\dyw{ontologiczno}{historyczne} rozumienie ---
etos ---
Arystoteles ---
Heidegger ---
Adorno ---
Wittgenstein
}

\end{elementlit}