Most versions of the psychological-continuity approach to personal identity (PCA) contain a 'non-branching' requirement. Recently, Robert Francescotti has argued that while such versions of PCA handle Parfit's standard fission case well, they deliver the wrong result in the case of an intact human brain. To solve this problem, he says, PCA-adherents need to add a clause that runs contrary to the spirit of their theory. In this response, I argue that Francescotti's counterexample fails. As a result, the revision (...) he suggests is not needed. (shrink)

In earlier work, I proposed and defended a formulation of physicalism that was distinctive in appealing to a carefully-defined relation of physical realization. Various philosophers (Robert Francescotti, Daniel Stoljar, Carl Gillett, and Susan Schneider) have since presented challenges to this formulation. In the present paper, I aim to show that these challenges can be overcome.

There are, broadly, three sorts of account of intrinsicality: ‘self-sufficiency’, ‘essentiality’ and ‘pure qualitativeness’. I argue for the last of these, and urge that we take intrinsic properties of concrete objects to be all and only those shared by actual or possible duplicates, which only differ extrinsically. This approach gains support from Francescotti’s approach: defining ‘intrinsic’ in contradistinction to extrinsic properties which ‘consist in’ relations which rule out intrinsicality. I answer Weatherson’s criticisms of Francescotti, but, to answer criticisms (...) of my own, I amend his account, proposing that possession of an extrinsic property consists in a relation to one or more actual or possible distinct concrete objects. Finally I indicate ways to avoid some apparent objections to this account. (shrink)

I argue that a ‘mere Cambridge’ test can yield a mutually exclusive, jointly exhaustive, partition of properties between the intrinsic and the extrinsic. Unlike its rivals, this account can be extended to partition 2nd- and higher-order properties of properties. A property F is intrinsic, I claim, iff the same relation of resemblance holds between all and only possible instances of F. By contrast, each possible bearer of an extrinsic property has a determinate relation to some independently contingent concrete object. Such (...) a relation can hold for concrete and abstract objects, of objects which are not remotely duplicates, and can vary from one possible duplicate to another. I compare this with accounts which do not allow extension to 2nd- and higher-order properties and give preliminary rebuttals for some main difficulties raised for the account advocated. (shrink)

I defend the claim that emergence is always a kind of interaction dominance. I utilize Francescotti’s definition of emergence, which captures five features typically thought crucial for emergence: downward causal influence, novelty, relationality, supervenience, and unpredictability. I then explicate interaction dominance, a concept from complexity science. In short, a system is interaction dominant when the interactions of the parts give rise to features that override the features of the parts in isolation or linked via additive and linear dynamics. Locust (...) swarms are presented as an illustrative case of a natural phenomenon that meets the definition for emergent properties. Moreover, locust swarms provide a case of an emergent property arising via interaction-dominant dynamics. I conclude by discussing the relationship of emergence and interaction dominance, with emphasis on the claim that all emergent properties occur due to interaction dominance, but not all systems that exhibit interaction-dominant dynamics have emergent properties. (shrink)