Research Articles (Philosophy)

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The misunderstandings of the Self-Understanding View
(The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) Beck, Simon
Marya Schechtman has argued that contemporary attempts to save Locke�s account of personal identity suffer the same faults that are to be found in Locke, among which is an inability to capture the role our unconscious states play. To avoid these problems, she advocates giving up the mainstream Psychological View and adopting a narrative account like her �Self-Understanding� View that, she claims, has the further virtue of maintaining important insights from Locke. My paper argues that it is misleading to understand the Psychological View as sharing Locke�s commitments and that (partly as a result) Schechtman has not isolated a problem that needs fixing or any reason for going narrative. It further argues that the Self-Understanding View is a great deal more at odds with Locke�s view than Schechtman cares to acknowledge.
Am I my brother�s keeper? on personal identity and responsibility
(Philosophical Society of Southern Africa, 2013) Beck, Simon;
The psychological continuity theory of personal identity has recently been accused of not meeting what is claimed to be a fundamental requirement on theories of identity - to explain personal moral responsibility. Although they often have much to say about responsibility, the charge is that they cannot say enough. I set out the background to the charge with a short discussion of Locke and the requirement to explain responsibility, then illustrate the accusation facing the theory with details from Marya Schechtman. I aim some questions at the challengers' reading of Locke, leading to an argument that the psychological continuity theory can say all that it needs to say about responsibility, and so is not in any grave predicament, at least not with regard to this particular charge.
Understanding ourselves better
(The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) Beck, Simon
INTRODUCTION: Marya Schechtman and Grant Gillett acknowledge that my case in �The misunderstandings of the Self-Understanding View� (2013) has some merits, but neither is moved to change their position and accept that the Psychological View has more going for it (and the Self-Understanding View less) than Schechtman originally contended. Schechtman thinks her case could be better expressed, and then the deficiencies of the Psychological View will be manifest. That view is committed to Locke�s insight about the importance of phenomenological connections to identity, but cannot do justice to this insight and as a result fails to explain things that it should.
The agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction: my two sense(s)
(Philosophical Society of Southern Africa, 2013) Lerm, Jessica
The agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction is very well established and widely employed in the metaethical literature. However, I argue that there are actually two different senses of the distinction at large: the hetero-/homogeneous sense and the dependence/independence sense. The traditional, unqualified distinction ought, therefore, to be amended, with each use of the distinction being stipulated as used in either the hetero-/homogeneous sense or the dependence/independence sense. Careful analysis of various metaethics supports that there are these two senses - analysis, in particular, of a neo-Kantian metaethic, according to which reasons are agent-relative in the dependence sense but agent-neutral in the homogeneous sense, and - perhaps surprisingly - of Utilitarianism, according to which reasons are agent-neutral in the independence sense but agent-relative in the heterogeneous sense.
Transplant thought-experiments: Two costly mistakes in discounting them
(Taylor & Francis, 2014) Beck, Simon
�Transplant� thought-experiments, in which the cerebrum is moved from one body to another have featured in a number of recent discussions in the personal identity literature. Once taken as offering confirmation of some form of psychological continuity theory of identity, arguments from Marya Schechtman and Kathleen Wilkes have contended that this is not the case. Any such apparent support is due to a lack of detail in their description or a reliance on predictions that we are in no position to make. I argue that the case against them rests on two serious misunderstandings of the operation of thought-experiments, and that even if they do not ultimately support a psychological continuity theory, they do major damage to that theory�s opponents.
The extreme claim, psychological continuity and the person life view
(Philosophical Society of Southern Africa, 2015) Beck, Simon
Marya Schechtman has raised a series of worries for the Psychological Continuity Theory of personal identity (PCT) stemming from what Derek Parfit called the 'Extreme Claim'. This is roughly the claim that theories like it are unable to explain the importance we attach to personal identity. In her recent Staying Alive (2014), she presents further arguments related to this and sets out a new narrative theory, the Person Life View (PLV), which she sees as solving the problems as well as bringing other advantages over the PCT. I look over some of her earlier arguments and responses to them as a way in to the new issues and theory. I will argue that the problems for the PCT and advantages that the PLV brings are all merely apparent, and present no reason for giving up the former for the latter.
This thing called communitarianism: A critical review of Matolino's Personhood in African Philosophy
(Philosophical Society of Southern Africa, 2015) Oyowe, O.A.
The subject of personal identity has received substantial treatment in contemporary African philosophy. Importantly, the dominant approach to personal identity is communitarian. Bernard Matolino's new book Personhood in African Philosophy enters into this discussion by way of contesting some of the assumptions underlying communitarian approaches. His own critical assessment leads him to what I believe is an unprecedented objection in the literature; the conclusion that communitarian philosophers are involved in a category mistake when framing the question and articulating the notion of personhood. I intend to present a brief summary of the chapters of the book and reflect on some of the main philosophical issues that the book provokes, noting what I take to be refreshing insights that Matolino brings to the discussion while also engaging critically with the ones I find most contentious. In particular, I briefly assess Matolino's implicit suggestion that an Akan inspired quasi-physicalist account of mind avoids the mind-body interaction problem; I object to the category mistake charge on behalf of communitarians; and lastly, I raise questions about, and propose ways Matolino can refine, his proposal concerning a new way of thinking about personhood, which goes under the rubric of Limited Communitarianism.
Reconsidering a transplant: A response to Wagner
(Philosophical Society of Southern Africa, 2016) Beck, Simon
Nils-Frederic Wagner takes issue with my argument that influential critics of �transplant� thought experiments make two cardinal mistakes. He responds that the mistakes I identify are not mistakes at all. The mistakes are rather on my part, in that I have not taken into account the conceptual genesis of personhood, that my view of thought experiments is idiosyncratic and possibly self-defeating, and in that I have ignored important empirical evidence about the relationship between brains and minds. I argue that my case still stands and that transplant thought experiments can do damage to rivals of a psychological continuity theory of personal identity like Marya Schechtman�s Person Life View.
Technological fictions and personal identity: on Ricoeur, Schechtman and analytic thought experiments
(Taylor & Francis, 2016) Beck, Simon
It is notable when philosophers in one tradition take seriously the work in another and engage with it. This is certainly the case when Paul Ricoeur engages with the thought of Derek Parfit on personal identity. He sees it as worth engaging with, but as emblematic of errors in the analytic approach to the topic, especially when it comes to methodology. But he is, in a fairly clear way, taking the analytic debate on its own terms. Marya Schechtman�s work is also noteworthy in this regard. Although she writes in the analytic tradition, in many ways she has represented thinking like Ricoeur�s in the tradition � pressing concerns that echo his, and demanding that the debate needs to take notice. I will focus on complaints that both of them present, which I think are closely related, about the thought experiments that feature large in analytic discussions of personal identity, especially in the seminal work of Parfit. The complaints relate both to those devices and to the theory they have produced. I want to offer something of a defence of both.
Evaluation of source rock potential and hydrocarbon composition of oil sand and associated clay deposits from the Eastern Dahomey Basin, Nigeria
(ScienceDirect, 2019) Saeed, Mohammed
Oil sands are classified as unconventional hydrocarbon plays and are being exploited to augment global energy needs. Nigeria has the largest conventional oil industry in Africa, but is also endowed with abundant oil sand deposits found within the Afowo Formation of the Eastern Dahomey Basin. In this study, outcrop samples of clay, oil sand, and bitumen seepage from a forestry reserve (J4) in Ogun State, South Western Nigeria were evaluated for organic matter maturity and hydrocarbon composition.
Philosophy of education in a new key: Cultivating a living philosophy of education to overcome coloniality and violence in African Universities
(Taylor & Francis, 2020) Waghid, Yusef; Davids, Nuraan; Mathebula, Thokozani; Terblanche, Judith; Higgs, Philip; Shawa, Lester; Manthalu, Chikumbutso Herbert; Waghid, Zayd; Ngwenya, Celiwe; Divala, Joseph; Waghid, Faiq; Peters, Michael A.; Tesar, Marek
In this conversational article, we consider cultivating decoloniality in university education by drawing upon Jacques Ranci ere�s (2010) notion of a living philosophy. Ranci ere�s (2010) living philosophy holds the possibility of both a medium and a space for a re-thinking and a re-contemplation of what life is in relation to what it might be. Through engaging and sharing real human experiences from and within African societies and universities, we (re)imagine decoloniality as a fiction brought to life through a living philosophy of education. In this regard, we proffer eight points of departure and reflection.
On and beyond artifacts in moral relations: accounting for power and violence in Coeckelbergh�s social relationism
(Springer, 2021) Tollon, F; Naidoo, K
The ubiquity of technology in our lives and its culmination in artifcial intelligence raises questions about its role in our moral considerations. In this paper, we address a moral concern in relation to technological systems given their deep integration in our lives. Coeckelbergh develops a social-relational account, suggesting that it can point us toward a dynamic, historicised evaluation of moral concern. While agreeing with Coeckelbergh�s move away from grounding moral concern in the ontological properties of entities, we suggest that it problematically upholds moral relativism. We suggest that the role of power, as described by Arendt and Foucault, is signifcant in social relations and as curating moral possibilities. This produces a clearer picture of the relations at hand and opens up the possibility that relations may be deemed violent. Violence as such gives us some way of evaluating the morality of a social relation, moving away from Coeckelbergh�s seeming relativism while retaining his emphasis on social�historical moral precedent.
A social ontology of �maximal� persons
(Wiley, 2021) Oyowe, Oritsegbubemi Anthony
In this paper, I address a range of arguments put forward by Kwame Gyekye (1992) and Bernard Matolino (2014) denying Menkiti�s twin propositions that persons differ ontologically from human beings and that human attitudes, behaviours and practices constitute persons in social reality. They argue that his account of �maximal� persons, rooted in African traditional thought?worlds, conflatesissues and ultimately involve him in a category mistake. I argue that their arguments do not succeed, and that Menkiti�s view is not in any predicament because of them. Then, I draw on John Searle�s account of social ontology to clarify the sense in which attitudes, behaviours and practices are constituents of persons. Thus, I characterise persons as social entities belonging in a social ontology.
Naturalised modal epistemology and quasirealism
(South African Journal of Philosophy,, 2021) Omoge, Michael
Given quasi-realism, the claim is that any attempt to naturalise modal epistemology would leave out absolute necessity. The reason, according to Simon Blackburn, is that we cannot offer an empirical psychological explanation for why we take any truth to be absolutely necessary, lest we lose any right to regard it as absolutely necessary. In this article, I argue that not only can we offer such an explanation, but also that the explanation will not come with a forfeiture of the involved necessity. Using �squaring the circle� as evidence, I show that, contrary to quasi-realism, absolute necessity will not be left out in attempts to naturalise modal epistemology.
Thought experiments and personal identity in Africa
(Cambridge University Press, 2021) Beck, Simon; Oyowe, Oritsegbubemi Anthony
African perspectives on personhood and personal identity and their relation to those of the West have become far more central in mainstream Western discussion than they once were. Not only are African traditional views with their emphasis on the importance of community and social relations more widely discussed, but that emphasis has also received much wider acceptance and gained more influence among Western philosophers. Despite this convergence, there is at least one striking way in which the discussions remain apart and that is on a point of method. The Western discussion makes widespread use of thought experiments. In the African discussion, they are almost entirely absent. In this article, we put forward a possible explanation for the method of thought experiment being avoided that is based on considerations stemming from John Mbiti�s account of the traditional African view of time. These considerations find an echo in criticism offered of the method in the Western debate. We consider whether a response to both trains of thought can be found that can further bring the Western and African philosophical traditions into fruitful dialogue.

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