The Concept of Authorship

Joseph Raz’s much discussed service conception of practical authority has recently come under attack from Stephen Darwall, who proposes that we instead adopt a second-personal conception of practical authority. 1 In sharp contrast to both Darwall and Raz, we believe that the best place to begin understanding practical authority is with a pared back conception of it, as simply a species of normative authority more generally, where this species is picked out merely by the fact that the normative authority in question is authority in relation to action, rather than belief. We call this the minimalist conception of practical authority. 2 We do not wish to deny that there might turn out to be substantive properties of practical authority that are peculiar to it (apart from the mere property of being the species of authority that is concerned with action), but, unlike both Raz and Darwall, we do not believe that such features play a fundamental role in defining or delimiting practical authority. We hope that this third conception of authority will appear particularly attractive coming, as it will, on the heels of a comparison of the alternatives. We begin, in section I, with a discussion of Darwall’s and Raz’s accounts of practical authority (readers who are already very familiar with the details of the debate between Darwall and Raz may wish to skip this section). Next, in section II, we consider what we take to be Darwall’s dialectically strongest criticism of Raz, concerning which we end up siding with Raz. Finally, in section III, we focus on the concept of authority afresh, and suggest that our alternative conception of practical authority provides a better starting place for future discussions of authority than either of the

Joseph Raz has argued that the very possibility of moral criteria of legality is precluded by a proper understanding of our concept of authority - a concept that figures prominently in our understanding of law and the concepts that figure into legal practices. Given the way we understand the notion of authority, he argues, there cannot be a legal system with moral criteria of legality. The existence of moral criteria of legality is, on his view, as problematic as the existence of a married bachelor - and, ultimately, for the same reason: both are logically precluded by the content of the relevant concepts. In this essay, I wish to explain and evaluate Raz's argument for this idea, an argument that depends on claims about our concepts of both law and authority. His argument in grounded, most immediately, in two claims. First, he argues it is conceptually true that law claims morally legitimate authority. Second, he argues the content of an authoritative directive must be identifiable without reflecting on the dependent reasons that justify the directive. I argue both claims are mistaken.

This article aims at throwing light on the concept of racial authenticity and on its connections with the discourses around authority and cultural dominance. In particular it looks at the concept of authenticity – conceived as documentations, preoccupation with factuality and credibility – in Ida B. Wells´s Crusade for Justice , which I consider as a work of transition between slave narratives and post-Emancipation political memoirs.

The concept of authenticity has played a crucial and unique role in the history of tourism studies, resulting in theoretical advancements through vigorous debates. Focusing on the fundamental mechanism of tourism, the normative characteristics of the authenticity concept have facilitated diverse academic perspectives and traditions to interact with one another. The current study aims to introduce four prominent scholars who significantly influenced the authenticity discussion in tourism studies and their conceptualization of authenticity. Daniel Boorstin pointed out mass tourism as a symbolic phenomenon of American society, which is full of fakes that seem to be real, and asserted that tourists only seek pleasure without interest in authenticity. Dean McCannell argued that tourists pursue authenticity, which is believed to exist behind commercialized tourist attractions, by using the concept of ‘staged authenticity’. Erik Cohen suggested that each tourist pursues authenticity to various degrees and that authenticity is not a fixed value but a negotiable value that continuously changes. Ning Wang proposed the concept of existential authenticity, arguing that the concept of authenticity can be applied to the subjective experiences of tourists. Each scholar's concept of authenticity reflects not only the scholar's view on tourism but also his/her academic trajectory, worldview, and historical context. This study provides an opportunity to reflect on how humans have established the normative value of ‘real’ in the behavioral context of tourism amid the progress of human civilization.

LAUPA, MARTA, and TURIEL, ELLIOT. Children's Conceptions of Adult and Peer Authority. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1986, 57, 405-412. This study examines children's concepts of authority with regard to the age of persons giving commands, their position in a social context, and the type of command given. The study was conducted at a school with a program that places children in positions of authority. Subjects (24 female, 24 male) from the first, third, and fifth grades were interviewed to assess their evaluations of peer and adult authority commands and rationale for obedience. Subjects also made choices between different individuals who gave opposing commands; age (peer/adult) and social position (with or without an official school authority position) were varied. Subjects at all ages accepted the legitimacy of both peer and adult authorities and were able to conceptualize the social organizational role of authority. However, the boundaries of authority justification did not extend to commands that failed to prevent harm. In addition, children gave priority to adult authority over peer authority and to peer authority over adult nonauthority. The findings indicate that children do not have a unitary orientation toward authority and that they take into consideration the age and social position of authority as well as the type of command given.

From the origins of Muhammad's prophetic movement through the development of Islam's principal branches to the establishment of the Umayyad dynasty, the concept of authority has been central to Islamic civilization. By examining the nature, organization, and transformation of authority over time, Dabashi conveys both continuities and disruptions inherent in the development of a new political culture. It is this process, he argues, that accounts for the fundamental patterns of authority in Islam that ultimately shaped, in dialectical interaction with external historical factors, the course of Islamic civilization. The book begins by examining the principal characteristics of authority in pre-Islamic Arab society. Dabashi describes the imposition of the Muhammadan charismatic movement on pre-Islamic Arab culture, tracing the changes it introduced in the fabric of pre-Islamic Arabia. He examines the continuities and changes that followed, focusing on the concept of authority, and the formation of the Sunnite, Shiite, and Karajite branches of Islam as political expressions of deep cultural cleavages. For Dabashi, the formation of these branches was the inevitable outcome of the clash between pre-Islamic patterns of authority and those of the Muhammadan charismatic movement. In turn, they molded both the unity and the diversity of the emerging Islamic culture. Authority in Islam explains how this came to be. Dabashi employs Weber's concept of charismatic authority in describing Muhammad and his mode of authority as both a model and a point of departure. His purpose is not to offer critical verification or opposition to interpretation of historical events, but to suggest a new approach to the existing literature. The book is an important contribution to political sociology as well as the study of Islamic culture and civilization. Sociologists, political scientists, and Middle Eastern specialists will find this analysis of particular value.

Carolyne Thomas regarded the aesthetic experience in sport as authentic in the meaning from Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. To examine the adequacy of the interpretation, the comparison between Thomas' concept of authenticity and the Heidegger's was attempted in this paper. Thomas' concept of authenticity is opposite to accidentality. It is also positive realization of a self, positive movement toward a capable being, a unique self, a unique experience, and honesty in a sport situation. Authenticity of intent is intent-result matching. On the other hand, Heidegger's concept of authenticity should be understood as follows : the terms, authenticity and inauthenticity, do not have such meaning as authenticity is higher or superior and inauthenticity is lower or inferior ; our everyday life is inauthentic in general ; authenticity is a distinctive and specific situation of ourselves ; authenticity is self-realization and self-disclosure of Being-towards-death. We cannot find any relationship between Thomas' concept of authenticity and Heidegger's. According to Thomas, authenticity of intent, that is correspondence between intent and result, is one of the criteria for the experiential sport aesthetic called perfect moment. But she also indicates that the perfect moment is a happening. This is nothing but a contradiction. We cannot find any justification in the relationship between the authenticity of intent and aesthetic experience in sport, either. However.the sport experience does not seem to be inauthentic instead of authentic in Heidegger's terminology. We need to change and transcend our alternative view on the problem of the sport experience as authentic or inauthentic. In terms of such transcendence, the conception of sportsmood by a Japanese aesthetician Masakazu Nakai was suggested.

This paper explores the differences between bringing about self-change by way of antidepressants versus psychotherapy from an ethical point of view, taking its starting point in the concept of authenticity. Given that the new antidepressants (SSRIs) are able not only to cure psychiatric disorders but also to bring about changes in the basic temperament structure of the person--changes in self-feeling--does it matter if one brings about such changes of the self by way of antidepressants or by way of psychotherapy? Are antidepressants a less good alternative than psychotherapy because antidepressants are in some way less authentic than psychotherapy? And, if so, what does this mean exactly? In this paper I try to show that the self-change brought about by way of antidepressants challenges basic assumptions of authentic self-change that are deeply ingrained in our Western culture: that changes in self should be brought about by laborious 'self-work' in which one explores the deep layers of the self (the unconscious) and comes to realise who one really is and should become. To become oneself has been held to presuppose such a journey. While the assumed importance of self-work appears to be badly founded on closer inspection, the notions of exploring and knowing oneself appear to be more promising in fleshing out an ethical distinction between psychopharmacological and psychotherapeutic practice with the help of the concept of authenticity. Psychotherapy, to a much greater extent than psychopharmacological interventions, involves the whole profile of the self in its attempts to effect a change, not only in the temperament but also in the character of the person in question, and this is important from an ethical point of view. In the article, the concepts of self-change, authenticity, temperament and character are presented and used in order to understand and flesh out the relevant ethical differences between the practice of psychotherapy and the use of antidepressants. Looping, collective effects of psychopharmacological self-change in a cultural context are also considered in this context.

This paper considers the relationship between concepts of authenticity and the consumption of heritage attractions. Critiques of the heritage industry have often revolved around the idea that its visitors can only experience a false representation of history. Although valuable in many ways, such an approach does not explore the full complexity of these experiences. This paper seeks to develop an alternative theoretical framework to understand such visits by referring to discussions generated within those fields concerned with touristic experiences, identity and modernity. These argue that the nature of the authenticity at stake in these experiences is not one dimensional but must look to the concept of a subjective authenticity of self, as well as an authenticity that is judged according to objective realities. These concepts are explored in the context of exhibitionary forms and the meanings people invest in collective memories and cultural identities – that is, the strategies of interpretation and mechanisms of display used at heritage attractions.

As part of the curricular internship activity carried out at the University of Bologna for the master's degree program Engineering of Building Processes and Systems, curriculum Historic Building Rehabilitation under the guidance of Professors Alessia Zampini and Leila Signorelli, it was possible to analyze the concepts of authenticity and monuments. The goal was to analyze how these concepts were interpreted for nine historic centers belonging to the UNESCO World Heritage List: Lyon, Provins, and Albi; Florence, Pienza and Urbino; Cordoba, Toledo e Ávila. The analysis revealed that the historic centers represent the development of a multitude of concepts of authenticities and monuments that can ultimately be assimilated into a single entity. Despite their geographical expansion several projects allowed historic centers to preserve their distinctive features, while maintaining the values of authenticity and outstanding universal value throughout the centuries.

There is a tension in Heidegger's concept of authenticity. On the one hand, authenticity is described as the correlate of inauthenticity and has the function of mineness (Jemeinigkeit) in contrast to the impersonality of the they (das Man). On the other, authenticity is prescribed as an ideal. In this paper, I will examine critically the interrelation of the three concepts of conscience, authenticity, and resoluteness. More specifically, I will show that if authenticity is an ideal towards which Dasein should aspire, then care as the primordial structural totality, as the unity of Dasein, would become questionable. For it would conspire to undermine the a priori status of care. However, the general tenor of Being and Time suggests that authenticity is the meaning of Being, and this thesis is strongly supported by the dimension of care as the matrix of meaning.1 Therefore, since care is

This study investigated an under-explored area in the field of academic practice: the meaning of the complex notion of authenticity in teaching. Combining conceptual with empirical investigation, data included philosophical texts, repertory grid interviews with fifty-five lecturers and students from Law, Physics and English Literature, and fourteen focus groups with forty-six students. Philosophical conceptions were compared to those held by students and lecturers. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of repertory grids revealed differences in experts’/philosophers’ and lay-people’s conceptions of authenticity and additionally showed how lecturers’ and students’ conceptions of authenticity in teaching differed from their conceptions of teaching effectiveness. Focus groups identified linkages between authenticity in teaching and actual teacher actions and attributes that students perceive as being conducive to their learning. The findings enhance the meaning of authenticity, show how it matters in university teaching and offer a hitherto lacking theoretical foundation for further research.

In this volume, Karin Krause examines conceptions of divine inspiration and authenticity in the religious literature and visual arts of Byzantium. During antiquity and the medieval era, “inspiration” encompassed a range of ideas regarding the divine contribution to the creation of holy texts, icons, and other material objects by human beings. Krause traces the origins of the notion of divine inspiration in the Jewish and polytheistic cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds and their reception in Byzantine religious culture. Exploring how conceptions of authenticity are employed in Eastern Orthodox Christianity to claim religious authority, she analyzes texts in a range of genres, as well as images in different media, including manuscript illumination, icons, and mosaics. Her interdisciplinary study demonstrates the pivotal role that claims to the divine inspiration of religious literature and art played in the construction of Byzantine cultural identity.

Traditional conceptions of academic authorship, e.g., the seemingly self-evident assumption that an author is someone who actually writes a text, is challenged by the complexity, scale, and collaborative nature of scientific research. Authors are expected to make a substantial contribution and to assume accountability for all aspects of the work, but in practice, many individuals listed as authors fail to meet all these criteria, notably in biomedical fields. In view of this tension between norm and practice, new conceptions of authorship have emerged, reflecting the growing importance of team science. This paper assesses whether consortium authorship as an emerging practice (also known as ‘group authorship’ or ‘team authorship’) offers a viable approach. Besides practical benefits, there is a normative dimension behind this concept, as it aims to acknowledge the importance of collaboration (seeing it as more than the sum of contributions attributable to individuals), but it also raises ethical questions concerning the responsibilities of consortium authors for the text as a whole. We opt for a case study approach, zooming in on experiences within a research consortium. Besides a literature review, we analyse the results of a deliberative workshop on consortium authorship and analyse how consortium authorship is currently handled in academic journals, notably in the biomedical field. We argue that consortium authorship works best when used in combination with individual authorship, but also notice that it challenges us to rethink the concept of academic authorship as such, for which we use Donna Haraway’s concept of sympoiesis as a starting point.

In this chapter, a new research approach is evaluated, which proposes how the concept of multiple authorship can help to better understand the musician motets and how new impulses for concepts of multiple authorship can be drawn from them. On the basis of two selected examples, Apollinis eclipsatur by Bernard de Cluny and Mater floreat by Pierre Moulu, it is shown that different levels of authorship - from the composition process to the interpretation and reception process - can be found in the musician motets and must be understood in relation to each other. The first example, Apollinis eclipsatur, shows how the compositional design not only names several authorial instances but also incorporates attributed characteristics of these authors into the composition’s structure. In Mater floreat, the focus is on the establishment of a community, which is not only connected by the shared sphere of employment and genealogical references but also on the collective process of creating. In addition to the detailed aspects of the individual examples, new perspectives on the conception of authorship are revealed with the help of an analytical-systematic model. This new approach shows that the musician motets involve not only the self-referential naming and genealogical linking of musicians but rather multiple connections of authorial entities, which must be analysed and considered very precisely.