Identification Is the Opposite of Alienation

ABSTRACT Identification with and alienation from an attitude appear to be necessarily related, that is, they are not independent phenomena—they exclude one another. This suggests a conceptual relation between them. A simple explanation of their incompatibility is that one is present just when and because the other is not—one is the negation of the other: An attitude is alien just when and because it's not identified‐with, or the other way around. But their incompatibility needn't be explained in this way. Circles and dogs seem to exclude each other, but a circle isn't merely not a dog, rather they are merely different. Similarly, tall and short seem to exclude each other, but these are not merely negations of each other, rather they oppose each other—they are opposites. In this paper, I'll argue that, if we take a certain view of attitudes wherein the attitudes constituting identification and alienation toward the same attitude cannot be had at the same time, then the relation between alienation and identification that most plausibly secures their mutual exclusivity is that of a certain kind of opposition wherein those beings that can identify with and be alienated from attitudes have attitudes they stand in neither relation to.