The promotion of rights, autonomy and choice reacts against paternalism, an early twentieth-century response to intellectual disability that suppressed individual personhood through a combination of resource limitations and poor administration. These liberal individualist concepts reflect the contemporary zeitgeist of Anglophone nations, although the strength and certainty with which these concepts are expressed in ID policy when compared with policy for other vulnerable groups suggests that they also serve a secondary function. It has been argued that excessive certainty in ID (...) evidences a feared drop... (shrink)

Epistemic anti-individualism is the view that positive epistemic statuses fail to supervene on internal, physical or mental, properties of individuals. Intellectual humility is a central intellectual virtue in the pursuit of such statuses. After some introductory remarks, this paper provides an argument for epistemic anti-individualism with respect to a virtue-theoretic account of testimonial knowledge. An outline of a dual-aspect account of intellectual humility is then offered. The paper proceeds to argue that insofar as testimonial knowledge (...) is concerned, this stripe of epistemic anti-individualism leads to a particular account of intellectual humility. (shrink)

Virtues are acquirable, so if intellectual humility is a virtue, it’s acquirable. But there is something deeply problematic—perhaps even paradoxical—about aiming to be intellectually humble. Drawing on Edward Slingerland’s analysis of the paradoxical virtue of wu-wei in Trying Not To Try (New York: Crown, 2014), we argue for an anti-individualistic conception of the trait, concluding that one’s intellectual humility depends upon the intellectual humility of others. Slingerland defines wu-wei as the “dynamic, effortless, and unselfconscious state of mind (...) of a person who is optimally active and effective” (Trying Not to Try, 7). Someone who embodies wu-wei inspires implicit trust, so it is beneficial to appear wu-wei. This has led to an arms race between faking wu-wei on the one hand and detecting fakery on the other. Likewise, there are many benefits to being (or seeming to be) intellectually humble. But someone who makes conscious, strategic efforts to appear intellectually humble is ipso facto not intellectually humble. Following Slingerland’s lead, we argue that there are several strategies one might pursue to acquire genuine intellectual humility, and all of these involve commitment to shared social or epistemic values, combined with receptivity to feedback from others, who must in turn have and manifest relevant intellectual virtues. In other words, other people and shared values are partial bearers of a given individual’s intellectual humility. If this is on the right track, then acquiring intellectual humility demands epistemic anti-individualism. (shrink)

The dominant, individualistic understanding of autonomy that features in clinical practice and research is underpinned by the idea that people are, in their ideal form, independent, self-interested and rational gain-maximising decision-makers. In recent decades, this paradigm has been challenged from various disciplinary and intellectual directions. Proponents of ‘relational autonomy’ in particular have argued that people’s identities, needs, interests – and indeed autonomy – are always also shaped by their relations to others. Yet, despite the pronounced and nuanced critique directed (...) at an individualistic understanding of autonomy, this critique has had very little effect on ethical and legal instruments in clinical practice and research so far. In this article, we use four case studies to explore to what extent, if at all, relational autonomy can provide solutions to ethical and practical problems in clinical practice and research. We conclude that certain forms of relational autonomy can have a tangibl... (shrink)

In this article I argue that, despite the views of such theorists as Locke, Hart and Raz, most of a person's property rights cannot be individualistically justified. Instead most property rights, if justified at all, must be justified on non-individualistic (e.g. consequentialist) grounds. This, I suggest, implies that most property rights cannot be morally fundamental ‘human rights’.

This book presents an original picture of the legitimacy underlying the European Union. Drawing on ancient and modern political philosophy, the book argues that the transnational regime is rooted in an individualist social and intellectual culture, and depends on an apolitical, isolated citizenship.

I propose an ‘intellectual genealogy’ of the widespread contemporary lifestyle called ‘expressive individualism’, tracing it back first to the cult of the artist as genius, which flourished during the 19th century, but which has been democratized and universalized in our time. I then trace it back one step further, somewhat surprisingly, to the altered depiction of Lucifer John Milton gives in his poem Paradise Lost. Milton's Lucifer rejects not only Jesus as the highest creature, he rejects the Father (...) as father; he announces ‘I know none before me; I am self-begot.’ To the extent that we embrace the ethic of ‘expressive individualism’, therefore, we are implicitly committed to Milton's Lucifer as an archetype for human fulfilment, which I suggest, however, is a toxic model. (shrink)

We are constantly called upon to evaluate the evidential weight of testimony, and to balance its deliverances against our own independent thinking. ‘Intellectual autonomy’ is the virtue that is supposed to be displayed by those who engage in cognition in this domain well. I argue that this is at best a misleading label for the virtue, because virtuous cognition in this domain consists in thinking with others, and intelligently responding to testimony. I argue that the existing label supports an (...) excessively individualistic conception of good thinking, both within and outside philosophy. I propose replacing ‘intellectual autonomy’ with ‘intellectual interdependence’, which properly emphasises the depth of our reliance on one another, without suggesting we ought ever to be epistemically servile. (shrink)

Individuals who possess the virtue of epistemic autonomy rely upon themselves in their reasoning, judgment and decision making in virtuous ways. Philosophers working on intellectual virtue agree that if the pursuit of epistemic autonomy is not tempered by other virtues such as intellectual humility, it can lead to vices such as extreme intellectual individualism. Virtue theorists have made a number of empirical claims about the consequences of possessing this vice – e.g. that it will lead to (...) significantly fewer epistemic goods and a greater number of faulty beliefs. This paper reports the results of two pilot studies and initial results from a larger series of studies that attempt to shed light on some of the intellectual pitfalls of pursuing unrestricted epistemic autonomy. The studies provide empirical support for the philosophical claim that epistemic autonomy and intellectual humility are mutually supporting virtues by showing that epistemic autonomy without intellectual humility leads to increased belief in misinformation, conspiracy theories and pseudoscience and decreased trust in scientific experts. They also reveal important contours of the complex and often delicate relationship between the virtue of epistemic autonomy and its more vicious cousin, strong intellectual individualism. (shrink)

The article argues that by the 17th century, despite the increased intellectual exchanges of the time, two different kind of individualism were developing across the Channel — one labeled here as ‘centripetal’, the other one as ‘centrifugal’. On the French side, one witnesses a focus on forum internum, as the only site of uniqueness and authenticity. On the British side, the emphasis switched to forum externum and the equality of wills. The article explores the consequences of these different (...) self-apprehensions of the individual in terms of different understandings of political representation. I claim that, despite today’s general consensus, representing ‘the people’ was not naturally assimilated with an ascending theory of representation. ‘The people’, understood as a whole, was apprehended in France as still higher than its representatives — kings, Estates, or Parlements. The idea of individuals willingly delegating their rights and/or authority to a representative remained for more than a century a peculiar British development. The consequences of this ascending understanding of representation are to be seriously reevaluated. (shrink)

Highlighting the social tensions that confront the liberal tradition, Pierre Manent draws a portrait of what we, citizens of modern liberal democracies, have become. For Manent, a discussion of liberalism encompasses the foundations of modern society, its secularism, its individualism, and its conception of rights. The frequent incapacity of the morally neutral, democratic state to further social causes, he argues, derives from the liberal stance that political life does not serve a higher purpose. Through quick-moving, highly synthetic essays, he (...) explores the development of liberal thinking in terms of a single theme: the decline of theological politics. The author traces the liberal stance to Machiavelli, who, in seeking to divorce everyday life from the pervasive influence of the Catholic church, separated politics from all notions of a cosmological order. What followed, as Manent demonstrates in his analyses of Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Guizot, and Constant, was the evolving concept of an individual with no goals outside the confines of the self and a state with no purpose but to prevent individuals from dominating one another. Weighing both the positive and negative effects of such a political arrangement, Manent raises important questions about the fundamental political issues of the day, among them the possibility of individual rights being reconciled with the necessary demands of political organization, and the desirability of a government system neutral about religion but not about public morals. (shrink)

The features of J. Brodsky’s lyricism, which are caused by intellectual dominant of his consciousness, are explored in the article. Intellect here is understood as ‘directed thinking‘ ; in artistic version it is described as project-reflexive thinking. The article gives basic characteristics of the poet’s consciousness, which caused maximum closeness between biographic and poetic ‘Me‘, striving for alienation from the world and self-discipline in spiritual development. The connection between attitude towards the world and its’ artistic realization is observed. Brodsky’s (...) way of thinking is noted for its abstractness of goal, for its insight of integrity of existence and non-existence. But this way of thinking is realized as decoding of material signs of manifestation of holism. (shrink)

The article presents the findings of a historical-philosophical analysis of the Gordin brothers’ works during their period of emigration. This is the first study in Russian historiography dedicated to the conceptual legacy of these two thinkers following their forced departure from the USSR. The authors draw attention to the fact that the biography of the Gordin brothers continues to evoke numerous questions within the scholarly community, and their years in the USA remains under-researched not only by Russian scholars but also (...) by their international counterparts. The article primarily examines philosophical-anthropological and social-philosophical issues. It is demonstrated that both W.L. Gordin and A.L. Gordin remained true to their spiritual bearings in emigration. W.L. Gordin continued his investigations in the field of the philosophy of technology and ontology, whereas A.L. Gordin sustained his work on a doctrine he termed “interindividualism.” The authors identify both similarities and differences in the intellectual explorations of the Gordin brothers. Special emphasis is placed on exploring how philosophical individualism influenced the intellectual pursuits of the thinkers, and how this manifested both in philosophical anthropology and social philosophy. Furthermore, their attitudes towards religion (especially Judaism), contemporary political doctrines (particularly Marxism), and scientific progress (especially quantum theory) are investigated. In emigration, W.L. Gordin remained an atheist, while his brother, conversely, developed a personal understanding of God, with whom the Ego engages in ongoing dialogue. In conclusion, it is posited that while the works of A.L. Gordin (in their conceptual content) align closely with the philosophical treatises of M. Buber (as well as the works of other philosophers inspired by Judaism), the writings of W.L. Gordin to some extent anticipated early transhumanism. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the objectivity of persons is best understood in terms of intellectual virtue, the telos of which is an enduring commitment to salient and accurate information about reality. On this view, an objective reasoner is one we can trust to manage her perspectives, beliefs, emotions, biases, and responses to evidence in an intellectually virtuous manner. We can be confident that she will exercise intellectual carefulness, openmindedness, fairmindedness, curiosity, and other intellectual virtues in (...) her reasoning. I argue further that the cultivation and exercise of such virtues is a social phenomenon and thus challenge highly individualistic notions of intellectual character, epistemic autonomy, and personal objectivity. An advantage of this account of objectivity is that it better enables us to address bias in scientific research, science policy, and public debates about science. (shrink)

The essays in this collection investigate two political traditions and their critical interactions. The first series of essays deals with the development of natural rights individualism, some examining its origins in the thought of the seminal political theorist, John Locke, and the influential constitutional theorist, Montesquieu, others the impact of their theories on intellectual leaders during the American Revolution and the Founding era, and still others the culmination of this tradition in the writings of nineteenth-century individualists such as (...) Lysander Spooner. The second series of essays focuses on the Progressive repudiation of natural rights individualism and its far-reaching effect on American politics and public policy. (shrink)

Ricardo Duchesne argues that the primordial roots of Western uniqueness, with its individualism and autonomous institutions, must be traced back to the aristocratic warlike culture of the Indo-Euro...

In ‘Liberal individualism and Deleuzean Relationality,’ Clegg, Murphy, and Almack argue that the ability to choose has become something of a dogma in the management of intellectual disability, and one that sits badly with the heterogeneity of those with intellectual disabilities. They argue for a move away from choice as the primary ethical category to an ethics of relationality, following from the work of Deleuze and Guattari, to offer a more nuanced and stable form of care. In (...) this commentary, I set out the theoretical considerations that Deleuze and Guattari take to underlie such an ethics, and then briefly question the focus of their uptake of Deleuze and Guattari. Although Deleuze and Guattari may... (shrink)

From the time of British colonial settlement, innumerable taonga have been appropriated from the indigenous Māori population of Aotearoa/New Zealand, from cloaks, weapons, carvings and musical instruments to the practices and products of tā moko. This article focuses on the topic of cultural appropriation, homing in on a recent legal case, Whitmill v. Warner Bros., in which an artist sued Warner Bros. in a US court for pirating a ‘ Māori-inspired’ tattoo created for Mike Tyson, so as to tease out (...) the conflicts between intellectual property laws and norms on one hand, and international frameworks for human and cultural rights on the other. It examines the implications of the case for tā moko as an indigenous artistic tradition, and the tension between human/artistic and cultural rights, before discussing potential remedial strategies, drawing on the findings of the Wai 262 report into claims concerning New Zealand law and policy affecting Māori culture and identity. Theoretically, it employs Manuel DeLanda’s assemblage theory as a framework for analysis, the benefit of DeLanda’s work being that it provides a novel approach circumventing the usual ontological terms of intellectual property laws and norms, which tend towards a kind of methodological individualism or micro-reductionism. (shrink)

The debate between individualism and holism in the philosophy of history pertains to the nature of the entities relied on in historical explanations. The question is whether explanations of historical items require the assumption that the collective historical entities used in these explanations are conceived of as irreducible to the actions, thoughts, and beliefs of individual human beings. In this paper I analyze two methodological problems that holist explanations face in the writing of intellectual history. The first problem (...) derives from the fact that holist explanations in intellectual history have to rely on the claim that certain beliefs were inconceivable to some individuals because they were members of specific collectives, whereas it is unclear how historical research can justify such claims when made from the holist position. The second problem pertains to the difficulties the holist position faces when it has to account for the novel properties of artifacts studied by intellectual history. (shrink)

Throughout the book, Bennett offers a variety of thoughtful suggestions on recovering and strengthening the collegium. He also describes the key intellectual and moral virtues that lie at the heart of the academy's mission to advance learning. Specific strategies for implementing this relational model within the academy are provided, with special attention to the constructive role that chairpersons and deans can play.

While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in sociology, economics and philosophy. This two-volume handbook presents the first comprehensive overview of methodological individualism. Chapters discuss historical and contemporary debates surrounding this central approach within the social sciences, as well as cutting edge developments related to the individualist (...) tradition with philosophical and scientific implications. Bringing together multiple contributions from the world’s leading experts on this important tradition of theorizing, this collective endeavor provides teachers, researchers and students in sociology, economics, and philosophy with a reliable and critical understanding of the founding principles, key thinkers and intellectual development of MI since the late 19th century. ​. (shrink)

It is a delicate task to write about libertarianism. Camps of both of its lovers and haters are vast. Within some not-so-narrow circles, one risks being considered an anti-intellectual even for cal...

According to relational views of autonomy, some social relations or forms of dependence are necessary for autonomous agency. Recent relational theorists have primarily focused on autonomy of action or practical autonomy, and the result has been a shift away from individualistic conceptions of autonomy in the practical realm. Despite these trends, individualistic conceptions are still the default when it comes to autonomy of belief or intellectual autonomy. In this paper, I argue for a relational account of intellectual autonomy. (...) Specifically, I claim that intellectual autonomy requires a sense of one’s standing as an equal member of the epistemic community. (shrink)

The nineteenth century is a very important period from our contemporary point of view. It is then that many socio-political ideas were born and have affected our social and individual life until now. It is in the nineteenth century that humankind sought to reflect on freedom, individualism and progress, and often paid dearly for any utopian misinterpretations in this area. Last but not least, in the nineteenth century the modern philosophical perception clashed with Christianity. The paper sought to show (...) this intellectual turmoil by focussing on the main adherents of reconciling new ideas with religion. This reconciliation could be effected with an integral view of the human being in mind. The integral human being, advocated by Newman and Acton, can manage to abide by timehonoured traditions and assimilate whatever there is of positive value in civilization.Le 19ème siècle est une période riche en enseignements pour notre réflexion contemporaine. C'est durant ce siècle que nombre d'idées sociopolitiques ayant influé jusqu'à présent sur notre vie individuelle et sociale sont nées. C'est au 19ème siècle que l'humanité chercha à réfléchir sur la liberté, l'individualisme et le progrès, et elle paya au prix fort les erreurs d'interprétation utopiste commises dans ces domaines. Aussi, et non des moindres, c'est au 19ème siècle que la perception philosophique moderne entra en conflit avec le christianisme. L'article vise à dépeindre cette agitation intellectuelle en mettant l'accent sur les principaux tenants de la réconciliation des nouvelles idées avec la religion. Cette réconciliation peut se faire si on a à l'esprit une vision complète de l'être humain. Cet être humain complet, tel que défendu par Newman et Acton, possède les qualités suffisantes pour respecter les traditions ancestrales et assimiler ce qu'il y a de valeureux dans la civilisation. (shrink)

The intellectual founding fathers of the French Third Republic were innovative thinkers who achieved an original synthesis of republican and liberal principles. This becomes evident when one examines the works of four philosophers who played a crucial role in the French intellectual and political life of the period extending from the 1870s to the early 1900s: Emile Littre, Charles Renouvier, Henry Michel and Alfred Fouillee. Among their many contributions to moral and political philosophy, I highlight two themes: a) (...) a conception of political liberty that grants a pre-eminent place to civic education as a means to free citizens from domination by dogmatic religious authorities, sectarian political movements or unexamined beliefs of any kind; b) the need to implement reasonable social reforms in order to ensure that the many and complex relations of functional interdependence constitutive of modern societies are equitable and realize an ideal of national solidarity. I suggest that these ideas ought to be carefully examined by contemporary proponents of civic republicanism. (shrink)

Individualism is seen as a central component of moder- nity. (Individualism is, in Charles Taylor’s view for ex- ample, the most beautiful achievement of modernity.) From an apologetic perspective, individualism corresponds to an objective, real need of self-achievement; it repre- sents an essential step towards emancipation. This paper does not aim at contending with this description of the concept of individualism, because to do so would mean suggesting an alternative ideology, but instead it aims at understanding (...) the real grounds of the development of individualism in order to correct the “propagandistic” image of modern individualism. The main arguments which are used to correct this image are that individualism is the expression of a certain crisis of the spirit, not of a prosperity of the spirit, and the resources of its vindication are in fact “intellectual fabrications,” myths rather than objective discoveries. (shrink)

This seminal work by political philosopher C.B. Macpherson was first published by the Clarendon Press in 1962, and remains of key importance to the study of liberal-democratic theory half-a-century later. In it, Macpherson argues that the chief difficulty of the notion of individualism that underpins classical liberalism lies in what he calls its "possessive quality" - "its conception of the individual as essentially the proprietor of his own person or capacities, owing nothing to society for them." Under such a (...) conception, the essence of humanity becomes freedom from dependence on the wills of others; society is little more than a system of economic relations; and political society becomes a means of safeguarding private property and the system of economic relations rooted in property. As the New Statesman declared: "It is rare for a book to change the intellectual landscape. It is even more unusual for this to happen when the subject is one that has been thoroughly investigated by generations of historians.... Until the appearance of Professor Macpherson's book, it seemed unlikely that anything radically new could be said about so well-worn a topic. The unexpected has happened, and the shock waves are still being absorbed." A new introduction by Frank Cunningham puts the work in a twenty-first-century context. (shrink)

Recent epistemology has been notable for an emphasis, or a variety of emphases, upon the social dimension of knowledge. This has provided a corrective to the heavily individualist account of knowledge previously holding sway. It acknowledges the ways in which an individual is deeply indebted to the testimony of others for his or her cognitive endowments, both with respect to capacities and information. But the dominance of the individualist model was connected with a concern for the value of cognitive autonomy. (...) It is unclear how due recognition of the social dimension can allow for this value. It is argued here that there are ways of construing intellectual autonomy that not only can make it consistent with these new emphases but also respect its status as an epistemic concept. The author’s approach is contrasted with Alvin Goldman’s recent development of an approach to social knowledge via the idea of maximising truths. This seems to leave insufficient scope for intellectual character and autonomy. So concepts of independence, mastery, intellectual self-creation and intellectual integrity are explored in order to develop a perspective on cognitive autonomy adequate to the insights of social epistemology.Author Keywords: Autonomy; Testimony; Ideals; Epistemology; Mackie; Goldman. (shrink)

What is the true calling of the intellectual? In this provocative new book, Andrew Shanks presents a distinctive fresh answer. The Other Calling is a systematic riposte both to the elitism of philosophy in the heritage of Plato, and to the typical individualism of Plato's philosophic opponents. Here, instead, intellectual integrity is identified with a form of priesthood. Asserts that intellectuals are critical to bringing together the common aspirations of a community Offers a strikingly original approach to (...) the moral and political aspects of theology’s relationship with philosophy, exploring the perspectives of both disciplines Draws on the work and thought of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Agnostics, and Atheists Argues for a new, religiously multicultural “priesthood of all thinkers”, considering how once, all intellectuals were as a matter of course also priests Published in the new and prestigious Illuminations series. (shrink)

This article examines the ways in which the self-responsibilized individualism underpinning contemporary concepts of the ideal European citizen, on the one hand (Frericks, 2014), and the inequalities and anti-democratic politics that characterize contemporary neoliberal capitalism, on the other, are co-constituent elements in creating an antipathy to forms of solidarity that are affective as opposed to calculative. The active citizenship framework lacks a full appreciation of the interdependency of the human condition and is antithetical to universalistic, affectively-led forms of solidarity. (...) The deep relationality that is endemic to both social production and reproduction, and that impels an affective, morally-led form of solidarity needs to be recognized academically and intellectually, and politically sustained, if we are to move beyond a narrow, calculative, self-interested vision of solidarity in Europe. (shrink)

The article is a reply to Ilya T. Kasavin’s “Creativity as a social phenomenon” and is devoted to the phenomenon of the scientific precariat. A systematic analysis of the relations between the scientific precariat and the academic community as a dialectical opposition of the individual and the collective is undertaken. The method of critical analysis is aimed at rethinking the stable ideas that have developed in science about the collectivity of scientific work. The concepts of labor and employment in science (...) are considered. It is concluded that the global development of digital technologies has led to the disappearance of the boundaries between physical and intellectual labor, against which there is an elevation of creative activity. The availability of information on the Internet, opening up incredible opportunities for research, destroys the monopoly of professional scientific communities on the possession of scientific knowledge. Scientific precarious loudly declare themselves in the public space, demonstrating the boldness and unusual nature of the ideas expressed. Inspired seekers of scientific truth embark on a free voyage through the vastness of the unknown. Traditional scientific communications, while retaining their significance, are enriched with new, non-standard ideas of precarious scientists who, ignoring rules and hierarchies, bring the creative spirit of freedom into modern science. However, the activities of such scientists may have an ambiguous assessment: a precarious scientist completely loses touch with the existing methods and approaches of classical science, and flight from work standards instead of expanding the horizons of scientific creativity turns into new problems caused by “multi-task” and instability of the labor activity of a “free” scientist. Despite the fact that in the conditions of the development of modern society and technology, the opposition of the pair of individual and collective is leveled, many scientists need common structures that determine the development of science, which at the present stage of the development of scientific knowledge are rather represented not by a social organization, but by an intellectual, linguistic and methodological unity focused on the creative development of the world. (shrink)

The moral status accorded to an individual (or class of individuals) helps to account for the weight of the moral obligations considered due to an individual (or class of individuals). Strong arguments can be given to indicate that the moral status accorded, justly or unjustly, to individuals with intellectual disabilities is less than that accorded to those considered intellectually able. This paper suggests that such a view of the moral status of intellectually disabled individuals derives from individualism. Ontological (...) and normative components of individualism are identified. It is shown that individualistic, ontological criteria for personhood compromise the integrity of “dependent” individuals. And it is shown that the normative component of individualism further compromises the integrity of intellectually disabled individuals. An alternative view of the self is outlined in which dependence features centrally. It is tentatively suggested that such a view of the self may prove more congenial to enhancing the moral status of individuals with intellectual disabilities. (shrink)

While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in sociology, economics and philosophy. This two-volume handbook presents the first comprehensive overview of methodological individualism. Chapters discuss historical and contemporary debates surrounding this central approach within the social sciences, as well as cutting edge developments related to the individualist (...) tradition with philosophical and scientific implications. Bringing together multiple contributions from the world’s leading experts on this important tradition of theorizing, this collective endeavor provides teachers, researchers and students in sociology, economics, and philosophy with a reliable and critical understanding of the founding principles, key thinkers and intellectual development of MI since the late 19th century. (shrink)

This article proposes a more culturalist and variegated conception of the individual than that presented by individualization theorists. Inspired by the approach of the individual advocated by Émile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons and John Meyers, it first outlines the general script of the individual-as-actor that informs modern individualism as well as the generic characteristics that are routinely attributed to persons such as agency and free will. It subsequently reconstructs three predominant interpretations of this general script, i.e. utilitarian, moral and expressive (...) individualism. For each variant, the intellectual genesis and overall definition of the institutionalization in specific societal domains and the dominant articulations in social theory are briefly presented. With this threefold distinction, the aim is to synthesize the extensive literature on individualism and to show the sociological strengths of approaching subjectivity in terms of institutionalized scripts. (shrink)

In this chapter, typical examples of methodological individualism explanation are borrowed from Raymond Boudon’s writings. They respectively aim at answering the following questions:Why did Athens’ allies defect in the Peloponnesian War?When does social organization aim at eliminating unintended effects?Why does the rule of unanimity often prevail in traditional village societies?Why do members of an unorganized group tend to defect?Why are collective powers often governed by the iron law of oligarchy?Why did capitalist agriculture develop much more slowly in France than (...) in England in the eighteenth century?Why has the immoral character of interest lending disappeared in modern societies?Why is there no socialism in the United States?Why do economic booms seem to be associated with higher suicide rates?Why does the diffusion of an innovation follow a chain reaction process in situations where interpersonal influence is greater?Why were Mithra cult and Freemasonry, respectively, successful in Ancient Rome and modern Prussia?Why were the peasants in ancient Rome hostile to monotheism?Why did the French intellectuals of the late eighteenth century worship Reason?Why did Indian peasants not adopt the birth control measures advocated by the Indian administration?Why do conflicts between employees in a Taylorized firm tend to be more violent? (shrink)

E. H. Gombrich in 1968: Methodological Individualism and the Contradictions of Conservatism The commonalities Gombrich affirmed between his own positions on science, politics, and art and those of his friend Karl Popper are key to understanding both his work on the history of style and the conservative fulminations on method he published from the early 1950s onwards. United with Popper by their shared experience of exile from fascism, Gombrich failed to register the amateurish character of Popper's political theory and (...) that his aversion to notions of social determination disabled the historian. Popper's skepticism regarding the ontological status of social collectivities and rejection of the concept of totality reinforced Gombrich's suspicions of holistic analysis and led him to fall back on naturalistic descriptions of individuals acting in a social world glued together by such commonsensical categories as "traditions" and "institutions". In this regard he is representative of the common aversion to sociology of the British intellectual establishment in the early Cold War. (shrink)

The present paper examines conventional wisdom on the subject of the justification of indigenous peoples' intellectual property rights, and offers an alternative approach. The examination is achieved by a critique of two such conventional approaches in terms of the strength of each argument employed, and in terms of the efficacy of each in the roles allotted to them. The first such argument is Stenson and Gray's application of Kymlicka's individualist theory advocating national minority autonomy. The second argument is the (...) labour entitlement theory of property acquisition, as advanced by Locke and Nozick. These theories only explain how a liberal social contract theorist would construct justifications from the outside. That this is inadequate is shown by reference to a case study involving indigenous claims against Australian law based on indigenous customary law. There, appeals are not made to abstract theory, but to tribal imperative. This observation finds sympathetic support in a reading of Hegel's philosophy of history. Hegel finds spirit in all peoples at all times. To Hegel, non-state peoples are developmentally prior to states; this means that states have developed dialectically from such peoples and cannot therefore deny them without self-contradiction. This places an onus upon a state that has subsumed an indigenous people to accommodate its laws and ways. (shrink)

The present paper examines conventional wisdom on the subject of the justification of indigenous peoples' intellectual property rights, and offers an alternative approach. The examination is achieved by a critique of two such conventional approaches in terms of the strength of each argument employed, and in terms of the efficacy of each in the roles allotted to them. The first such argument is Stenson and Gray's application of Kymlicka's individualist theory advocating national minority autonomy. The second argument is the (...) labour entitlement theory of property acquisition, as advanced by Locke and Nozick. These theories only explain how a liberal social contract theorist would construct justifications from the outside. That this is inadequate is shown by reference to a case study involving indigenous claims against Australian law based on indigenous customary law. There, appeals are not made to abstract theory, but to tribal imperative. This observation finds sympathetic support in a reading of Hegel's philosophy of history. Hegel finds spirit in all peoples at all times. To Hegel, non-state peoples are developmentally prior to states; this means that states have developed dialectically from such peoples and cannot therefore deny them without self-contradiction. This places an onus upon a state that has subsumed an indigenous people to accommodate its laws and ways. (shrink)

By the 1880s it had become clear that the intellectual tide in Britain was turning against the idea of a minimal state. Under the influence of the New Idealists, the Liberal Party, once the champion of individual liberty, had changed into an organ for interventionist legislation. Challenging this movement was an assortment of anti-collectivists including Old Liberals, Tories, and radical individualists. Spearheading the defence of individualism was the 10th Earl of Wemyss, Francis Wemyss-Charteris-Douglas. Most famous for his role (...) in the formation of the Liberty and Property Defence League, Wemyss worked tirelessly in parliament to obstruct legislation deemed inimical to liberty, as well as to organise a mass educational effort to instruct the public about the errors of collectivist philosophy and policy. This paper examines the role Wemyss played within late Victorian individualism and considers how the melding of traditionalism and individualism provided an intellectual home for libertarianism on the Right. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing by Jeanne-Marie JacksonAvram AlpertThe African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing, by Jeanne-Marie Jackson; 232 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021.The world of postcolonial literary studies harbors a well-earned suspicion of claims to promoting liberal ideals like civility, rationality, and individuality. The liberal worldview, after all, (...) arose in the same era as European colonial expansion. To many critics, this was not a coincidence: liberal ideals were often crafted in opposition to the peoples that Europeans were encountering around the world. Whereas these other peoples were supposedly bound to collective myths, unaware of the primacy of the individual, and condemned to violent passions, liberals claimed that Europeans used rationality to perceive the value of individual life, and, in so doing, had unlocked the key to promoting civilizational harmony. All that everyone else had to do to experience this new way of life was, in one of history's most wretched paradoxes, to succumb to colonial violence and join the empire of liberty. It is thus quite logical that anticolonial criticism would call into question the basic features of the liberal worldview.But in recent years, an interdisciplinary cohort of scholars—including Sankar Muthu in political science, Sanjay Subrahmanyam in history, Mukti Lakhi Mangharam in literary studies, and Ato Sekyi-Otu in philosophy—have come to question this consensus.1 Their challenge rests on an ironic problem of the critique of ideologies associated with colonialism: by criticizing topics like civility, rationality, and individuality as such, do we not play into the very Eurocentric idea that these ideas were invented by Europeans in the first place? As these scholars have shown across various disciplines, geographies, and time periods, this critique risks giving modern Europe too much credit. Ideals often associated with liberalism have antecedents around the world. Sometimes they are used to advance general equality and well-being; sometimes they subvert these ideals. As Jeanne-Marie Jackson argues in her trenchant new book intervening in these debates, The African Novel of Ideas, we thus need a criticism that is as much attuned to the critique of "false universalisms" as it is open to "the promise of one that is true" (p. 189).Throughout her book, Jackson argues that a reconstructed liberalism is not only fundamental to literature from Africa but that the critical neglect of this fact has distorted the general understanding of literature today. Critics—especially but not exclusively in the West—have become so accustomed to sniffing out hints of liberal, individualist ideology that they routinely cast aside the ways in which African philosophers and novelists have themselves sought to explore and transform these ideals. Jackson's argument is not that liberalism, as it stands, is a noble philosophy that has been unfairly jettisoned. Rather, she posits that African writers are developing a fundamental innovation by considering how they—who were so long exploited by European ideals—can nonetheless find [End Page 495] meaning in both alternative and emergent versions of these very same ideals. What their work emphasizes is the "process of getting from an African locality to its universal resonance" (p. 185). In other words, whereas Europeans had simply presumed that their view of the world should apply everywhere, the contemporary novelists and philosophers discussed in this book engage in thorough intellectual and conceptual labor to tease out how ideas generated in one place might speak (without force) to peoples around the world.Jackson advances this argument through an innovative mix of philosophy and literature. Rather than evoking the standard series of French philosophers summoned to explicate literature, Jackson frames her readings through the work of philosophers such as Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Emmanuel Eze. This allows her to shift the focus of her readings of literature from questions of language and close reading to underanalyzed topics in philosophy and literature, especially about how African literature enacts philosophical questions. She discusses topics ranging from the nature of the self and the meaning of rationality to a meta-interrogation on the purpose of philosophizing itself (pp. 16–17). That purpose... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing by Jeanne-Marie JacksonAvram AlpertThe African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing, by Jeanne-Marie Jackson; 232 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021.The world of postcolonial literary studies harbors a well-earned suspicion of claims to promoting liberal ideals like civility, rationality, and individuality. The liberal worldview, after all, (...) arose in the same era as European colonial expansion. To many critics, this was not a coincidence: liberal ideals were often crafted in opposition to the peoples that Europeans were encountering around the world. Whereas these other peoples were supposedly bound to collective myths, unaware of the primacy of the individual, and condemned to violent passions, liberals claimed that Europeans used rationality to perceive the value of individual life, and, in so doing, had unlocked the key to promoting civilizational harmony. All that everyone else had to do to experience this new way of life was, in one of history's most wretched paradoxes, to succumb to colonial violence and join the empire of liberty. It is thus quite logical that anticolonial criticism would call into question the basic features of the liberal worldview.But in recent years, an interdisciplinary cohort of scholars—including Sankar Muthu in political science, Sanjay Subrahmanyam in history, Mukti Lakhi Mangharam in literary studies, and Ato Sekyi-Otu in philosophy—have come to question this consensus.1 Their challenge rests on an ironic problem of the critique of ideologies associated with colonialism: by criticizing topics like civility, rationality, and individuality as such, do we not play into the very Eurocentric idea that these ideas were invented by Europeans in the first place? As these scholars have shown across various disciplines, geographies, and time periods, this critique risks giving modern Europe too much credit. Ideals often associated with liberalism have antecedents around the world. Sometimes they are used to advance general equality and well-being; sometimes they subvert these ideals. As Jeanne-Marie Jackson argues in her trenchant new book intervening in these debates, The African Novel of Ideas, we thus need a criticism that is as much attuned to the critique of "false universalisms" as it is open to "the promise of one that is true" (p. 189).Throughout her book, Jackson argues that a reconstructed liberalism is not only fundamental to literature from Africa but that the critical neglect of this fact has distorted the general understanding of literature today. Critics—especially but not exclusively in the West—have become so accustomed to sniffing out hints of liberal, individualist ideology that they routinely cast aside the ways in which African philosophers and novelists have themselves sought to explore and transform these ideals. Jackson's argument is not that liberalism, as it stands, is a noble philosophy that has been unfairly jettisoned. Rather, she posits that African writers are developing a fundamental innovation by considering how they—who were so long exploited by European ideals—can nonetheless find [End Page 495] meaning in both alternative and emergent versions of these very same ideals. What their work emphasizes is the "process of getting from an African locality to its universal resonance" (p. 185). In other words, whereas Europeans had simply presumed that their view of the world should apply everywhere, the contemporary novelists and philosophers discussed in this book engage in thorough intellectual and conceptual labor to tease out how ideas generated in one place might speak (without force) to peoples around the world.Jackson advances this argument through an innovative mix of philosophy and literature. Rather than evoking the standard series of French philosophers summoned to explicate literature, Jackson frames her readings through the work of philosophers such as Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Emmanuel Eze. This allows her to shift the focus of her readings of literature from questions of language and close reading to underanalyzed topics in philosophy and literature, especially about how African literature enacts philosophical questions. She discusses topics ranging from the nature of the self and the meaning of rationality to a meta-interrogation on the purpose of philosophizing itself (pp. 16–17). That purpose... (shrink)

While it is widely regarded that intellectual humility is among the intellectual virtues, there is as of yet little consensus on the matter of what possessing and exercising intellectual humility consists in, and how it should be best understood as advancing our epistemic goals. For example, does intellectual humility involve an underestimation of one’s intellectual abilities, or rather, does it require an accurate conception? Is intellectual humility a fundamentally interpersonal/social virtue, or might it be (...) valuable to exercise in isolation? To what extent does intellectual humility demand of us an appreciation of how the success of our inquiries depends on features of our social and physical environment beyond our control? These are just a few of the many questions that are crucial to getting a grip on this intellectual virtue and why we might aspire to cultivate it. Furthermore, and apart from the nature and value of humility, it is worthwhile to consider how this notion, properly understood, might have import for other philosophical debates, including those about (for example) scepticism, assertion, epistemic individualism and anti-individualism, and the philosophy of education. This special issue brings together a range of different philosophical perspectives on these and related questions to do with intellectual humility with an aim to contributing to this important and timely topic. (shrink)

This commentary raises a question about the target article's proposed explanation of what goes on when we think through other minds. It highlights a tension between non-mindreading characterizations of everyday social cognition and the individualist, cognitivist assumptions that target article's explanatory proposal inherits from the predictive processing framework it favours.

: In this paper, I consider some issues concerning Hume’s epistemology of testimony. I’ll particularly focus on the accusation of reductivism and individualism brought by scholars against Hume’s view on testimonial evidence, based on the tenth section of his An enquiry concerning human understanding. I first explain the arguments against Hume’s position, and address some replies in the literature in order to offer an alternative interpretation concerning the way such a defense should go. My strategy is closely connected with (...) Hume’s notion of virtue and the role it plays in his epistemology, mainly as presented in his A treatise of human nature. I address the problem of how the section “Of miracles” in the Enquiry must be properly understood, as several misunderstandings of Hume’s epistemology of testimony emerge partially from the particular character and aim of that section. Resumen: En este artículo, considero algunas cuestiones relacionadas con la epistemología del testimonio de David Hume. El eje central será la acusación de reductivismo e individualismo de los estudiosos en contra de la opinión de Hume sobre la evidencia testimonial. Dicha acusación se basa en su tratamiento de los reportes sobre hechos milagrosos, presente en la sección X de su Investigación sobre el entendimiento humano. En primer lugar, se abordan los argumentos en contra de la posición de Hume y algunas respuestas en la literatura reciente, para luego ofrecer una interpretación alternativa con respecto a la forma en que debería articularse esa defensa. Mi estrategia está estrechamente relacionada con la noción de virtud de Hume y el papel que desempeña en su epistemología, principalmente como se presenta en su Tratado de la naturaleza humana. Finalmente, abordaré el problema relacionado con la forma en que debe entenderse correctamente la sección “Of miracles” de la Investigación, ya que varios malentendidos sobre la epistemología del testimonio de Hume emergen parcialmente del carácter particular y el objetivo de dicho ensayo. (shrink)

There was a period in the latter nineteenth century when a distinctively American kind of radicalism flourished, a time when key thinkers could be called, and called themselves, individualists, libertarians, anarchists, and socialists all at once. McElroy gives us a window on the people and times involved. But her work is of more than antiquarian interest: their debates and the issues they faced often sound strikingly modern.

This article surveys Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's social utopia from the inception of Futurism until its end during World War II, contextualizing it in relation to the various diffused anarchistic ideologies of European artists and intellectuals. From the second half of the nineteenth century onward radical politics and the artistic avant-garde were in close dialogue. Max Stirner's individual anarchy held a special appeal to modernist artists, including Gabriele D'Annunzio and Marinetti. Marinetti's aim of renovating Italy's cultural and political life initially led (...) him to glorify the destruction of old institutions. At the end of World War I he developed a more or less coherent utopian vision of a new society, based principally on the exaltation of individual freedom and the importance of art. During the Fascist regime, Marinetti abandoned politics and concentrated his efforts on making the Aerofuturism of the interwar years the official art of Fascism, which the Futurists saw as the fulfillment of their “anarchist” dream. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond Revisionism:The Bicentennial of Independence, the Early Republican Experience, and Intellectual History in Latin AmericaElías José PaltiLatin America's Revolution of Independence was an event of world-historical importance. Citizens of different regions simultaneously created new nation states and established republican systems of government. This occurred at a time when the very meaning of the notions of "nation" and "republic" remained ill-defined. In such a context, a number of debates (...) naturally emerged regarding the tenets of modern politics, and the kind of dilemmas and problems contained therein.Yet the assessment of the historical relevance of these disputes has been precluded by the teleological assumptions which have informed traditional approaches in the history of ideas. These assumptions have led historians to interpret these disputes as mere expressions of local prejudices that prevented the correct understanding of the true meaning of the modern liberal concept of representative democracy. According to this traditional view, the concerns of Latin American commentators were seen as "deviations" from the rational path of conceptual development and understanding. It was necessary to undermine this traditional teleological prejudice before the debates around these notions produced in Latin America in the nineteenth century could reveal their historical significance and become matters for systematic analysis. The rise of a "new intellectual history," insofar as it has [End Page 593] questioned the assumed rationality and logical consistency of the putative models and disclosed the contingent nature of their foundations, has opened the door to an entirely new universe of problems and issues for scholarly research in the field of Latin American politico-intellectual history.The great wave of new studies on the crisis of the Spanish and Portuguese empires and the emergence of new national states, triggered by the approach of the Bicentennial of Independence, has been greatly influenced by this new set of questions.1 Historians from different countries in Latin America have revisited that fundamental event, and have sought to revise established perspectives in the field. This has made room for the development of a self-defined "revisionist" position. However, what is to be revised has not always been clear.The revisionists seek to dislocate an epic narrative of independence as the epiphany of long-lasting struggles of oppressed nations to recover their rights to self-determination.2 They argue that the teleological, nationalistic biases of traditional approaches led their authors to see as already present at the point of departure an entity (the nation) which actually could be perceived only at the point of arrival. If understood in this way, however, the revisionists' contributions are hardly innovative. In the decade of the 1960s, a series of studies, propelled by the spread in Latin America of Marxist thought and social history, as well as by the increasing presence of American and European historians in the field, had already destabilized Manichean emplotments of the Revolution of Independence as a struggle between liberty and oppression.3 These studies introduced a number of nuances that questioned the objective basis of the states that emerged from the rupture of colonial ties. Instead, they demonstrated that the new states were the result of the contingent process of formation rather than its premise. [End Page 594] Yet it is not here that the profound transformation of the discipline has occurred. Revisionists do concentrate their criticism on the contents of nationalistic narratives, but leave untouched the theoretical premises on which these narratives rest. They fail to penetrate and undermine the sets of antinomies on which those teleological perspectives are grounded: enlightenment / romanticism; rationalism / nationalism; "liberty of the Modern" / "liberty of Ancient;" modernity / tradition; individualism / organicism, etc. In the following pages I will trace the origins of revisionism in Latin American, its contributions to the field of politico-intellectual history, and the kind of problems that it raises in turn.The Tradition of History of "Ideas" in Latin AmericaMany scholars consider Charles Hale to be the key figure in the emergence of the revisionist critique. As Fernando Escalante Gonzalbo remarks, for the case of Mexico (which has served as the exemplary case for the entire region): "Up to the moment Charles Hale came to intervene, we could recount to ourselves a delicious... (shrink)