Perdurance and Personhood: A Reply to Burge

This essay is a response to the attack on reductionist and perdurantist views of persons which Tyler Burge presents in a paper entitled Memory and Perons . Burge\u27s arguments appeal to a specific form of egocentric indexing called de se form, which he suggests is involved in the individuation conditions of the mental states entailed in the exercise of the core psychological competencies of personhood (i.e. intentional agency, perception with use, inference). Burge argues that the preservation of states with de se form requires the possession of a veridical de se memory competency, which in turn requires transtemporal agent identity. Burge suggests that perdurantist views which convey the persistence of individual persons through time in terms of causal continuity between momentary selves cannot be made compatible with this view of the relation between memory and the core competencies, and that reductionist accounts which attempt to explain personal identity in terms of psychological continuity cannot avoid falling into explanatory circularity in any attempt to account for the core psychological competencies. My response comprises three major parts. First, I argue that Burge\u27s apparently endurantist interpretation of the transtemporal agent identity condition entailed in memory is indefensible, and that a perdurantist interpretation is available which is amenable to reductionist views. Second, I present an exploratory discussion which attempts to ascertain the extent to which egocentric indexing and its relation to memory are relevant to one of the core psychological competencies, intentional agency. I find that while some form of egocentric indexing is apparently necessary to adequately accounting for the exercise of intentional agency, it is not apparent - contrary to Burge\u27s claims - that such indexing need be considered to be partly individuated in terms of an endurantist conception of transtemporal agent identity. Finally, I present arguments from Sydney Shoemaker\u27s response to Burge which I suggest provide a way out of the difficulties occasioned for the reductionists by Burge\u27s arguments. Following Shoemaker, I conclude that Burge\u27s attack on reductionism fails because alternate forms of egocentric indexing are available to the reductionists which they may utilize to account for the core psychological competencies in a non-circular manner. I further suggest that the considerations adduced in favor of perdurantism provide support to the reductionist side of the anti-reductionst versus reductionist debate regarding persons

Barriers to Knowing and Being Known: Constructions of (In)competence in Research

In this paper, we examine the barriers to, and possibilities of, recognizing individuals labelled intellectually disabled as producers and contributors to knowledge about their experiences. Through engaging perspectives within the fields of philosophy of education and disability studies, we examine contrasting research about the use of facilitated communication, an augmentative and alternative communication technique for teaching people with disabilities to communicate through pointing, or typing with support provided by a communication partner. We examine how researchers impose demands for the scientific validation of facilitated communication and use such demands to discredit autistic people identified with intellectual disabilities in their attempts to be recognized as knowers and producers of knowledge. Our analysis calls into question whether self-imposed limitations on contemporary knowledge production render educational research (in)capable of accepting forms of evidence that will facilitate the agency of those labelled or regarded as intellectually disabled and (in)capable of providing consumers of educational research access to knowledge that reflects the wide range of communicative, neurocognitive, and intellectual diversity in schools and communities

Two Challenges for Neo-Brandeisian Antitrust

Several scholars and policy-makers have proposed a “Neo-Brandeisian” reform of U.S. antitrust law, aimed at reviving “republican” antitrust. Republicanism conceives of domination as inherently detrimental to freedom. Republican antitrust considers antitrust law as an “institution of antipower,” aimed at dispersing economic power. This paper sets out two key challenges to the Neo-Brandeisian reform agenda and argues for legal formalism to address them. First, republicanism would alter the normative justification, but not necessarily the content of antitrust law. Neoclassical antitrust law does not broadly reflect a Schumpeterian endorsement of dominance. Rather, its epistemological priors and methodology entail skepticism about the mere presence of economic power. Thus, mainstream antitrust law and policy remain unfazed by the Neo-Brandeisian claim that antitrust should target domination instead of consumer welfare. Second, Neo-Brandeisian reform proposals are inherently polycentric. How Neo-Brandeisians aim to balance distinct values including the competitive process, the harm of concentrated power, and the protection of democracy and egalitarianism has remained unclear. This paper argues that both challenges demand for a formalistic approach to Neo-Brandeisian antitrust. Compared to a case-by-case approach, adopting general rules through legislative or administrative decision-making may legitimately overturn current precedent, incorporate alternate methods of measuring power and competitive harm, and pursue a variety of republican goals. Neo-Brandeisian formalism would essentially reinvigorate the Harvard school’s insight that multiple purposes—including both efficiency and republican liberty—can be attained by formalistic rules.<br/

The ‘onto-logics’ of perspectival multi-naturalism: A realist critique

In this article, I argue for a realist anthropology based on the recognition of mind-independent reality; pitching this premise against concerted anti-dualist tendencies in contemporary anthropological thinking. I spell out core analytical entailments of these, in my view, profoundly conflicting premises. In particular, I focus on perspectival multi-naturalism, arguing that despite adherents’ claims to reinvigorate studies of ‘ontology’, this approach instead exaggerates epistemological dimensions. When assessed from a realist stance, its ground position engenders a series of epistemic fallacies by which the ontological is, effectively, subordinated under epistemology. Advocates’ reluctance to appreciate a distinction between mind and mind-independent reality entails a profound contraction of perspective in terms of empirical and methodological scope, and, analytically, a disregard for ontological complexity and depth, thus curtailing the importance of anthropology in wider academic discourse.publishedVersio

The transparency of EU agency science:Towards a new proactive approach

Recent health and environmental crises have emphasized the importance of transparency of agency science, i.e. the scientific information that underpins public regulation. Yet how EU law shapes the transparency of EU agency science and whether it contributes to publicly holding experts to account for the quality of their advice, remains an open question. This article analyses the transparency regimes of three EU agencies.We show that the EU legal approach to transparency of agency science is undergoing significant change, through legislative reform and agency practice. The traditional “passive” approach based on the Access Regulation is fragmented and reveals several shortcomings. Recent trends, such as the 2021 reform of the General Food Law, indicate that the EU is moving towards “proactive transparency”, which improves expert accountability. Our study contributes to debates on EU risk regulation and the general reform of the Access Regulation. The article offers an interdisciplinary perspective informed by political epistemology, namely the study of the role of experts in public decision-making

Sandra Lapointe (ed.) Themes from Ontology, Mind, and Logic: Present and Past – Essays in Honour of Peter Simons

I review Sandra Lapointe (ed.) "Themes from Ontology, Mind, and Logic: Present and Past – Essays in Honour of Peter Simons"

Privilege and Property. Essays on the History of Copyright

Copyright law is the site of significant contemporary controversy. In recent years copyright history has transformed as a subject from being one of interest to a few books historians to the focus of sustained historical investigation attracting the attention of scholars from across the humanities. This book comprises a collection of essays on copyright history by leading experts drawn from a range of countries and disciplinary perspectives. Covering the period from 1450 to 1900, these essays engage with a number of related themes. The first considers the general movement, from the sixteenth century onwards, from privilege to property-based conceptions of copyright protection. The second addresses the relationship between the protection provided for literary and print materials and that provided for other forms of cultural production. The third concerns the significance and relevance of these various histories in shaping and informing contemporary policy and academic practice. Essays include: 0. The History of Copyright History, by Kretschmer, Deazley & Bently; 1. From Gunpowder to Print: The Common Origins of Copyright and Patent, by Joanna Kostylo; 2. A Mongrel of early modern copyright: Scotland in European Persepctive, by Alastair Mann; 3. The Public Sphere and the Emergence of Copyright: Areopagitica, the Stationers’ Company, and the Statute of Anne, by Mark Rose; 4. Early American Printing Privileges: the Ambivalent Origins of Authors’ Copyright in America, by Oren Bracha; 5. Author and Work in the French Print Privileges System: Some Milestones, by Laurent Pfister; 6. A Venetian Experiment on Perpetual Copyright, by Maurizio Borghi; 7. Les formalités son mortes, vive les formalities! Copyright formalities in nineteenth century Europe, by Stef van Gompel; 8. The Berlin Publisher Friedrich Nicolai and the reprinting sections of the Prussian Statute Book of 1794, by Friedemann Kawohl; 9. Nineteenth Century Controversies relating to the protection of Artistic Property in France, by Frédéric Rideau; 10. Maps, Views and Ornament. Visualising Property in Art and Law: The Case of pre-modern France, by Katie Scott; 11. Breaking the Mould? The Radical Nature of the Fine Art Copyright Bill 1862, by Ronan Deazley; 12. ‘Neither bolt nor chain, iron safe nor private watchman, can prevent the theft of words’: The birth of the performing right in Britain, by Isabella Alexander; 13. The Return of the Commons: Copyright History as a Common Source, by Karl-Nikolaus Peifer; 14. The Significance of Copyright History for the Publishing History and Historians, by John Feather; 15. Metaphors of Intellectual Property, by William St Clair. The volume is a companion to the digital archive Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC): www.copyrighthistory.or

Problems of Religious Luck, Ch. 4: "We Are All of the Common Herd: Montaigne and the Psychology of our 'Importunate Presumptions'"

As we have seen in the transition form Part I to Part II of this book, the inductive riskiness of doxastic methods applied in testimonial uptake or prescribed as exemplary of religious faith, helpfully operationalizes the broader social scientific, philosophical, moral, and theological interest that people may have with problems of religious luck. Accordingly, we will now speak less about luck, but more about the manner in which highly risky cognitive strategies are correlated with psychological studies of bias studies and human cognitive ecology. Chapter Four is concerned with connections between psychological study of biases and heuristics, and the comparative study of fundamentalism. The first section looks at work by psychologists and philosophers on our bias blind spot. Later sections ask, ‘In what ways might biases and heuristics play a special role in aiding our understanding of, and response to, fundamentalist orientation?’. The judgments we make in ignorance of our own biases Montaigne calls our importunate presumptions, and he suggests a host of practical factors that make them appealing. Montaigne, as I discuss in the first section, associates many of our errors with one or another kind of presumption, often about our similarity or differences from others, or from God. Our obvious psychographic diversity, and the polemical ground dynamics involved in our ‘culture wars’ are compounded on the agential side by the invisibility of our biases to ourselves. A number of person and social biases are described that plausibly affect all of our beliefs in domains of controversial views, religious views included. The second section continues to study of how etiological symmetry (similar patterns of belief-uptake) gives rise to religious contrariety (diverse narratives and theologies) in testimonial faith traditions, and what the implications of this are for philosophy of religion, generally, and for an improved comparative study of fundamentalism, in particular. Utilizing the work of philosophers such as Rachel Fraser and psychologists such as Emily Pronin and her co-authors, I offer a four-step genealogical account for how etiological symmetry so easily gives rise to religious contrariety. This account begins with the narrative nature of testimony in the Abrahamic family of religions, and how narrative content confounds our “source monitoring.” My genealogy also introduces what I term biased-closure inferences (BCI) as one of the key enablers of religious exclusivism and absolutism. These are the seemingly ‘logical’ but actually very self-serving inferences people often make, inferences from their own belief being true, to any belief contrary to it being false. Those who claim unique truth, epistemic access, and/or virtue and religious value for the home religion are no exception to the broad pertinence of bias studies across domains of controversial view. The proximate causes of belief are all that we can study, and in these there may be significant etiological symmetries. Yet those groups themselves, especially to the extent that they are exclusivist, are tunnel-visioned on claims of doctrinal uniqueness: on content differences of a theological sort. Comparative philosophy is met with the puzzlement that symmetric or essentially similar doxastic strategies should give rise not just to cognitive diversity, but to what we can call polarized or polemical contrariety, contrariety of a kind where each view adamantly rejects all others. Arguably, the more that theologies offer explanations of a counter-inductive sort, or profess counter-inductive thinking as exemplary of faith, the better evidential ground there for inferring that bias involved in the acquisition or maintenance of beliefs. This provides more substance to the question of when censure, and etiological challenges to faith-based beliefs are philosophically well-motivated

The search for the Jew's gene : science, spectacle, and the ethnic other

This paper considers the collision of spectacle, science, and racial-ethnic identifications in the contemporary scientific search for a "Jewish gene." It aims not so much to distinguish the "line between ‘real’ and ‘fabled’ aspects of the Jew" (as cited in the passage by Gilman above), but to consider the inextricability of both as composite elements, mutually constituting "difference" as racial-ethnic identification. Thus I am concerned with the specular economies of science as well as the knowledge capital of its mediatisation as they come together, troubled, over the Jew’s body. The essay takes as its case study the National Geographic (NOVA/PBS) television documentary, The Sons of Abraham, a film that follows the progress of anthropologist Tudor Parfitt through the Lemba communities of South Africa in a quest to obtain genetic evidence in order to authenticate (or falsify) their claims to Jewish identity