What I heard about was a kind of pilot project that functions as a proof of principle. The principle being revealed in the answer to the question "can Aristotle's four causes be applied to the analysis of ethnic conflicts?" From what I heard, I think the answer would be "yes", and that the implications of this positive answer may well open up new dimensions of study for analysts, sociologists, journalists and others. The pilot project was based on the application of Aristotle's four causes to a discourse analysis of transcripts of Hutu radio broadcasts made in the years between 1989 and the onset of the genocide against the Tutsis.

Many I'm sure will remember that though it was no secret that there was conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes, thanks to what the Belgian imperialists had done in the last century, and earlier, the savagery of the genocide when it did erupt was very much of a shock, and probably more of a shock to people in policy making positions than to many of the people who read what's posted on this site. For by the time government institutions were able to recognize the seriousness of what was unfolding, it was really too late for any of them to do anything to stop it. Intervention would have been ex post facto. Sadly, it probably would not have helped keep people alive. What would have been needed was some kind of methodological approach which could have identified what was going on when there was still time for minimal but effective kinds of intervention in the right place, and right way, to have the maximum kind of effect.

What the philosopher's are doing gives hope that we may be within reach of such an approach. Perhaps helping to create something like an early warning index which could signal when action was needed and when points of no return were being reached.

I got the distinct impression that a contrast was drawn between philosophical positivist types of views which dominate professionally and more generally, and can be taken back via David Hume to Renee Descartes, and a more classical approach associated with the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Where Humean and Cartesian methods seem to go awry is in their notions of causation. For in the tradition of positivism, causation is a function of pair-wise interaction among individuals. I think the kind of problem addressed might also be identified with empiricism. The empiricist or positivist has a real problem dealing with the future, for example. This is because he needs to work with facts. You do not have to be an etymologist to know that `facts' are already over and done with. From the standpoint of how they were produced, they are dead. (Facio, facere, feci, factum). By the time something has become a fact it has also become a `fait accompli' if you will pardon my French. If genocide is a "fait accompli" then it is too late to do anything, for the facts of the case are then dead people, who perhaps did not have to die, at least, not in that way.

But because the positivist or empiricist only recognizes pair-wise relations, individuals having an effect on other individuals, the pool table theory of physical interactions, the kind of processes which need to be identified are not, because they cannot be from that conceptual starting point. They do not exist until they are dead, over and done with, but then it is too late. Thus we tend to find that sociologists miss the boat in large part, that analysts are caught flat-footed, and the media is what no one here needs to be convinced of, a total waste of time.

In these ethnic kinds of conflicts, individual interactions seem to be secondary, group identities take on lives of their own. The identity-basis of the conflict really points to where the causal character lies, in that it has something to do with who the people think they are and how they react with others. So the philosophers are attempting to answer the question what it might mean to say that an identity based group caused the crisis. For there is a kind of chain of events which begins with two or more peoples living peacefully together and ends with one of them convinced it can only enjoy life and flourish by killing the other, and removing them from existence.

Unlike Humean empiricists, Aristotle recognized four different kinds of cause, which I'm sure many of you will be familiar with, but just to recap. But, if you were the beneficiary of the kind of education I received, you'll probably be like me and remember Aristotle's causes as something related to logic. Actually, they're not really part of logic, but more physical, related to characteristics of being.

Of the four ways in which something can be a cause: there can be a material cause, the way something is made to be, but whether that could apply to a people is a different question; there could be a precipitating event type of cause (proximate cause), but in these cases why should one event be precipitating when previous similar events have not been?; 3) there is a formal type of cause, a cause which addresses the kind or defining characteristic in Greek, eidos, ousia or paradeigma, that is the question of what something is supposed to become; and fourthly, there is the end or goal for which something is done, the purpose,  telos or final cause, what needs to be done for you to flourish?

Of these four kinds of causes it was the last two which became the subject of the study, for here were addressed both the change in characteristic, or kind, in the ethnic group's identity, and the purpose, in the sense of the future which is aimed at as a goal. These two causes both address the question of what seems to me could be called the restructuring of the group's personality, or sense of identity, so that the acceptable boundaries of group behavior are changed and redefined in terms of new and different views of desirable future outcomes.

Now, how could those changes be identified? Raw material for analysis was developed by applying the methods of discourse analysis to Hutu radio broadcasts. The evidence was revealed in the forms of speech.  Discourse analysis is intended to uncover the underlying concepts which in their turn underpin narratives. I think discourse analysis may be a modern way of discussing what used to be called dialectic or argument.

When someone speaks, or writes something, they are addressing readers, or an audience with their ideas. They are also revealing something about the way they think. How do they give voice to their discourse, in the first person, in the active voice, in the passive voice, how frequently do they use adverbial type constructions, frequently, virtually all the time?, or adjectival ones to appear to bolster their case (my biggest effort, virtually my most important effort)? Are they trying to build up themselves through using the first person, if so to what end? Is this reflected in the development of the argument, and the time relatedness of their constructions, and if so how? Do they limit themselves to the indicative mood and present tense, or can they handle conditions and subjunctive moods and future possibilities?  

Discourse analysis  is intended to bring before consciousness what an author or speaker may leave implicit. In this case, the broadcast transcripts would be analysed line by line, and each line assessed in a three-fold way from the standpoint of what was identified as the "field" the subject matter, the "tenor" the forms of authority which were appealed to in support of the subject field, and the "mode", the time and spatial sequence of development. It would be nice, but I'm not able to replicate the entire analysis here.

Suffice it to say what I can say, which is that this analysis reveals a process of transformation , which begins in a kind of restrained pseudo-factual, pseudo historical way to construct a mythical past for the Hutus, into this factually presented mythical past are incorporated images of utter savagery by the Tutsis presumed ancestors, the Tutsi queen placing sword blades on the shoulders of Hutu children to support her as she rose from her throne, which are not evaluated and are presented in the same pseudo-factual way as the constructed mythical history was. The savage images make possible a shift into discussion of untrustworthiness, dissimulation, the claiming of position not due them, which are now situated in the present and expressed as personal opinion, purported visible evidence, "we have cases - we can document this". The language becomes negative and bigoted. Now this is what Tutsis do, they are no longer individuals, they have become a class.

This is the shift which represents the formal cause, and the Tutsis become infiltrators not individuals, and the Hutus become defined by where they came from ideologically not where they are going, and by the demonization of the Tutsis. Through this process the Hutus were made into a people who could only live if they killed Tutsis. As one Hutu said later of his Tutsi neighbors, "We knew they were guilty of no misdoings. But they were all responsible. We no longer looked at them one by one. That's how we looked at them as we killed them."

It seems to me that it this is a much more powerful way of looking at the process involved than, for example, the "Big Lie" analysis which has been associated with the Hitler genocide for so long. Repeat something often enough and everyone will believe it. But also because it does lay the basis for a cyclical type of view which is much more profound than the usual vendetta, blood libel type theory which underlies such conflicts. For at the level of formal and telic causes violence reshapes the narrative, and thus reshapes again the identity over time, so that the boundaries of the possible are reshaped as identities are reshaped.

The implications for the study of ethnic and sectarian conflict are very interesting and possibly very important. It might have been interesting to have been able to study events this past summer, between Israel and Hezbollah from this standpoint. Equally, for example there could be implications for handling gang and related types of violence in countries like this one which tend to afflict themselves with such problems.

I hope you will be as excited as I was to learn that there still things which can be of general importance within the philosophers' 2,500 year old box of tricks which contains so many of the secrets of our Western culture!