Contingent Identity Research Articles

Women’s knowledge and musical form: adapting historical identities in Martin Guerre

Abstract This essay assesses the afterlives in film, theatre, and scholarship of a sixteenth-century legal proceeding in which a Basque peasant named Martin Guerre was subject to identity theft. Focusing on the 1996 West End musical, the essay proposes that the conventions of musical theatre allowed this adaptation to revise earlier versions of the story in response to then-current concerns in historiography, in particular, those of new historicist criticism. It argues that the musical’s focus on the female lead’s knowledge and consent, informed by the cultural context of the 1990s, constituted a key intervention in the adaptive history of the Martin Guerre story. And it examines the musical’s engagement with new historicist ideas about the contingency of early modern identity, noting that the lyrics and structure present a contrast between a contingent identity reliant on property ownership, kinship bonds, and religious community with a more ‘modern’ identity based on psychological continuity and unique selfhood. In conclusion, the essay proposes Martin Guerre as a case study for broader questions about how historical individuals’ agency can be represented in adaptation.

Evil and Complicated Queers through History

Evil and Complicated Queers through History

Water Spells: New Materialist Theoretical Insights from Animated Fantasy and Science Fiction

This essay analyses how water elementals in fantasy and science fiction animations created in the last decade suggest an aquatic materiality that raises alternative ways of thinking about a History of Waters. The analysis is conducted based on three characters from award-winning animations that embody, respectively, water in liquid, solid, and gaseous states: Lapis Lazuli (Steven Universe, 2013–2020), Elsa of Arendelle (Frozen 1, 2013 and Frozen 2, 2020), and Masami Yoshida (The Amazing World of Gumball, 2011–2019). The initial assumption is that animations in the fantasy and science fiction genres, in addition to being based on the historical circumstances of their time and even incorporating theories of history, allow the production of new possibilities of thinking historically. The three characters enable us to explore alternatives for a history that incorporates the contingent identity of waters that challenge certainties, permanence, and the traditional notion of historical agency while highlighting the evental and ambivalent nature of time.

El nombre propio como modulador de vínculos sexo-afectivos y genealógicos en las novelas de Armonía Somers: una poética de la suplementariedad nominal

Este artículo tiene como objetivo explorar la potencia del nombre propio como modulador identitario contingente en la novelística de la autora uruguaya Armonía Somers, y, en específico, de la suplementariedad nominal (el acto de retorcer, sobreimprimir, desplazar o sustituir –a veces de forma momentánea– el nombre “original” o “legal”de los personajes por otro(s), como forma de deriva o fuga nominal). Dicha operación se propone como productora de transformaciones subjetivas de los personajes, tal como se verifica en ciertas zonas del discurso literario latinoamericano del siglo XX. Dentro de éstas inscribo tres novelas de Somers: La mujer desnuda (1950), Sólo los elefantes encuentran mandrágora (1986) y Viaje al corazón del día: elegía por un secreto amor (1986), las cuales participan de dicha poética nominal. En dichos textos, y a partir de los desplazamientos nominales, se verifica la reconfiguración o incluso una inauguración de vínculos inéditos entre los personajes. De modo que el uso de este recurso temático, estructural y subjetivo excede el mero cambio de nomenclatura y se revela como un polo de producción subjetiva e intersubjetiva.

There is no actual problem of other minds

I shall argue that you can substantially refute the most persuasive variety of solipsism by taking its most plausible version seriously, and then showing that it is not rational to hold, once one understands the nature of metaphysical commitments. In the first section, I argue that the only viable form of solipsism involves de dicto self-reference. In the second, I argue that this position involves a claim of contingent identity, for which some actual worlds are those where solipsism is not the case. The basis of the argument is a conception of metaphysics which treats the study of reality as the study of the universal features of actually possible worlds (i.e., realistic necessity).

Leading a Double Life: Statues and Pieces of Clay

Abstract Some philosophers think that two distinct things can occupy exactly the same region of space, as with a statue and a piece of clay. Others think that the statue and the piece of clay are identical, but not necessarily so. I argue that Alan Gibbard’s well-known story of Goliath and Lumpl does not support either of these claims. Not the first, as there is independent reason to think that it cannot be true. Not the second, because there is no need to invoke the dubiously intelligible notion of contingent identity to account for the facts of the story.

“Mas o que tinha no meu corpo?” Discutindo sobre infâncias e transexualidade

Este artigo apresenta parte dos resultados de uma pesquisa que tem por objetivo discutir e tensionar a construção e (des)arranjos dos scripts de gênero nas infâncias, percebendo as situações que estão em jogo quando o assunto se refere à constituição de corpo, gênero e sexualidade das crianças, especialmente em relação ao tema da transexualidade. A metodologia utilizada foi a da entrevista-narrativa com três mulheres trans e três homens trans . Buscando apoio teórico nos Estudos de Gênero, de inspiração pós-estruturalista, bem como nos Estudos Queer, pode-se concluir que: a) a transexualidade é uma expressão identitária de caráter contingente que sofre constantemente regulações cisheteronormativas, de ordem social e familiar. b) o poder pastoral e a hipótese repressiva tornam-se tecnologias com vistas na regulação dos corpos. c) mesmo diante de todas as repressões sofridas, as crianças que apresentam variante de gênero operam técnicas para subverter a cisheteronorma.

Coincidence as parthood

There are three families of solutions to the traditional Amputation Paradox: Eliminativism, Contingent Identity Theories, and Theories of Coincident Entities. Theories of Coincident Entities challenge our common understanding of the relation between identity and parthood, since they accept that two things can be mereologically coincident without being identical. The contemporary discussion of the Amputation Paradox tends to mention only one theory of Coincident Entities, namely the Constitution View, which violates the mereological principle of Extensionality. But in fact, there is another theory, namely the Unique Part View, which violates another mereological principle (the Weak Supplementation Principle). In this paper, I argue that the contemporary focus on the Constitution View is unmotivated, at least when we are confronted with the Amputation Paradox, and that a balanced comparison of the two views (as solutions to this specific paradox) should favour the Unique Part View.

Powerlessness and Personalization

Is privacy the key ethical issue of the internet age? This coauthored essay argues that even if all of a user’s privacy concerns were met through secure communication and computation, there are still ethical problems with personalized information systems. Our objective is to show how computer-mediated life generates what Ernesto Laclou and Chantal Mouffe call an “atypical form of social struggle.” Laclau and Mouffe develop a politics of contingent identity and transient articulation (or social integration) by means of the notions of absent, symbolic, hegemonic power and antagonistic transitions or relations. In this essay, we introduce a critical approach to one twenty-first-century atypical social struggle that, we claim, has a disproportionate effect on those who experience themselves as powerless. Our aim is to render explicit the forms of social mediation and distortion that result from large-scale machine learning as applied to personal preference information. We thus bracket privacy in order to defend some aspects of the EU GDPR that will give individuals more control over their experience of the internet if they want to use it and, thereby, decrease the unwanted epistemic effects of the internet. Our study is thus a micropolitics in in the Deleuzian micropolitical sense and a preliminary analysis of an atypical social struggle.

Contingent composition as identity

When the necessity of identity (NI) is combined with composition as identity (CAI), the contingency of composition (CC) is at risk. In the extant literature, either NI is seen as the basis for a refutation of CAI or CAI is associated with a theory of modality, such that: either NI is renounced (if counterpart theory is adopted); or CC is renounced (if the theory of modal parts is adopted). In this paper, we investigate the prospects of a new variety of CAI, which aims to preserve both NI and CC. This new variety of CAI (CCAI, contingent composition as identity) is the quite natural product of the attempt to make sense of CAI on the background of a broadly Kripkean view of modality, such that one and the same entity is allowed to exist at more than one possible world. CCAI introduces a world-relative kind of identity, which is different from standard identity, and claims that composition is this kind of world-relative identity. CCAI manages to preserve NI and CC. We compare CCAI with Gibbard’s and Gallois’ doctrines of contingent identity and we show that CCAI can be sensibly interpreted as a form of Weak CAI, that is of the thesis that composition is not standard identity, yet is significantly similar to it.

La noción de identidad en los "Tópicos"

Aristotle's notion of identity is investigated on this article. This investigation is focused on Top. I7, where different ways of using of the word 'same' are analysed. Two major claims are made. First of all, Aristotle does not seem to be committed to hold that there are different types of identity. The second point concerns contingent identity. What Aristotle says about numerical identity does not commit him to the view that identity can be contingent and it is consistent with the claim that identity statements are in all cases necessary.

Persistence and modality

It seems plausible to say that what changes an entity can or cannot survive depends on its persistence conditions, and that these depend, in turn, on its sortal kind. It might seem to follow that an entity cannot belong to two sortal kinds with potentially conflicting persistence conditions. Notoriously, though, this conclusion is denied by ‘contingent identity’ theorists, who hold, for example, that a permanently coincident statue and piece of clay are identical, although the persistence conditions associated with the kinds statue and piece of clay are potentially conflicting. A clash with Leibniz’s Law is avoided by treating modal predicates as what Harold Noonan has called ‘Abelardian predicates’, as in the version of ‘inconstant’ counterpart theory developed by David Lewis. In addition to other difficulties, however, there is a question whether this ‘Abelardian’ theory does justice to the intuitions expressed in such statements as that the piece of clay could, while the statue could not, have survived a radical reshaping of its matter. I present an argument, which I call ‘the vacuous satisfaction argument’, for the conclusion that the theory does indeed fail to capture the significance of such de re modal statements.

Identity without Lack: Reflecting on Three Memory Images

Employing several perspectives, the article deals with different individual attitudes towards the social and material environment. The subject of analysis comprises everyday life trajectories of three individuals that could formally be defined as “weirdos” expelled by the Soviet society, and the peculiarities of their attitude to the living environment. All these three people were rather elderly in the 1980s, and had completely established their peculiar individual relationship with their own life. The most vivid aspects of this individuality are completely at odds with standard ways of shaping the modern identity and with social roles enforced (or cultivated underhand) by the Soviet regime. The author of the article demonstrates that minimalistic living surroundings in each case can indicate entirely different context of the human life. Thus, external poverty of the individual living conditions can testify to absolutely different attitudes and discrepant experiences. The question is, to what extent does common social norms and publicly shaped patterns implying scales for measuring human worth apply to individual lives? The author goes on to give critical discussion of concepts defining the essentialist society and the related individual identity that is allegedly shaped by making constant choices and following socially valid patterns, as well as presenting the possibility of contingent identity without lack.

Contingent identity and counterpart theory*

Philosophical PerspectivesVolume 30, Issue 1 p. 7-20 Original Article Contingent identity and counterpart theory* Ralf M. Bader, Ralf M. Bader Merton College, University of OxfordSearch for more papers by this author Ralf M. Bader, Ralf M. Bader Merton College, University of OxfordSearch for more papers by this author First published: 15 March 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/phpe.12073Citations: 3 † For helpful comments, I would like to thank Katherine Hawley, Ira Kiourti, Dilip Ninan, Derek Ball and an anonymous referee, as well as audiences at St Andrews and CU Boulder. Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume30, Issue1Special Issue: MetaphysicsDecember 2016Pages 7-20 RelatedInformation

The offshore sailor: enskilment and identity

This paper employs the concept of enskilment – becoming skilful through active engagement – to investigate how a sense of identity, as an offshore sailor, is contingent upon being attuned to one’s environment. It draws on auto-ethnographic accounts to highlight the embodied practices that constitute ‘being’ an offshore sailor. In doing so, it draws on and extends investigations of leisure experiences concerned with offshore sailing, auto-ethnographic inquiry, the relationship between the body and the environment and developing a sense of identity. It highlights the process of enskilment that allowed the author to ‘(re)inhabit’ a particular leisure identity. The paper draws attention to the temporal and contingent identity of ‘being’ an offshore sailor that is grounded in the practice of offshore sailing. To understand the meaning of leisure experiences, it is helpful to foreground the embodied practices that constitute an activity, and consider how enskilment shapes participation and identity.

Critical comments of Harold N. Noonan’s theory of contingent identity


 Alla Gibbard’s famous essay on the possibility of contingent identity (1975) questions the validity of Barcan and Kripke’s argument on the necessity of identity (1947, 1971). Gibbard’s theory has inspired several philosophers to rethink the problem of personal identity. The paper presents a critical analysis of Harold N. Noonan’s theory of contingent identity (1991, 1993, 2005, Curtis-Noonan 2014).

C. S. Peirce on the dynamic object of a sign: From ontology to semiotics and back

That reality, and in particular the (dynamic) objects of signs, are independent of our thoughts or other representations is a crucial thesis of Peirce’s realism. On the other hand, his semiotics implies the claim that all reality and all real objects are real for us only because of the signs we use. Do these two claims contradict, even exclude, each other? I will argue that both Peirce’s metaphysics and his semiotics provide a natural via media: a structural account of the openness of processes, featuring transitive relations, connects process ontology implicit in his evolutionary metaphysics and the relational, quasi-inferential features embodied in interpretational sequences of signs. It is shown that Peirce’s notion of a sign, its normative role and his account of the directional force of objects implies a sort of logical causality that supports the unity of objects. In this way sign sequences are able to relate flexibly sign use with contextually specified independent objects. That is to say, relational properties of object-oriented chains of interpretations provide sign users with a flexible, fallibilistic instrument able to capture by contingent identity relations (teridentity) of the identity of objects in changing situations.Includes: Comment by Francesco Bellucci (pp. 433–437).

On Hendrickson’s New Argument against the Minimalist Theory of Action Individuation

Hendrickson argues that the coarse-grained account of action individuation is unwittingly committed to the metaphysical thesis that all causation is deterministic. I show that the argument does not succeed. On one of the interpretations, all the argument shows is that the minimalists are committed to deterministic causation in a manner of speaking, which is quite compatible with sui generis indeterministic causation. On another, the problem is that minimalism is taken to be committed to a necessary identity claim where the view is only committed to a contingent identity claim. I explore other strategies of saving the argument. In particular, I consider whether the argument will succeed if the designators in question are rigid. I argue that there are principled reasons for thinking that such a strategy must fail. The heyday of the debate on action individuation seems to be over. In fact the debate has satiated philosophical appetites to such an extent that even some participants (notably, Ginet 1990) declared that not much depends on its resolution. Hendrickson (2003) disagrees. He takes the action individuation debate to be significant as it is after all a debate about the nature of action. In his paper, he constructs an interesting novel argument against the coarse-grained theory of action individuation. He argues that the minimalists 1 are unwittingly committed to the metaphysical thesis that all causation is deterministic. Since Hendrickson holds that we should leave room for indeterministic causation, he takes his argument to be a reductio ad absurdum of minimalism. The aim of the paper is to show that Hendrickson’s argument against the coarse-grained account does not succeed. After some conceptual and notational preliminaries (§I) and a brief reminder of the relevant commitments of minimalism (§II), I reconstruct Hendrickson’s argument (§III) and argue that it does not show that minimalism is committed to deterministic causation. Although Hendrickson’s original argument is invalid (see Appendix), it is possible to offer two valid interpretations of the argument. On one of the interpretations (§III.C), all the argument shows is that the minimalist is committed to deterministic causation in a manner of speaking, which is quite compatible with sui generis indeterministic causation. The problem with the other interpretation (§III.B) is that it takes minimalism to be committed to a necessary identity claim where the view is only committed to a contingent identity claim. However, the latter interpretation opens up a possible way of developing Hendrickson’s argument. In §IV, I consider the question whether one could employ the argument against the minimalist if both identity terms are rigid designators, in which case the identity claim would indeed be necessary. I argue, however, that the very set-up of Hendrickson’s argument precludes this sort of response. I. PRELIMINARIES AND NOTATION One of the problems with understanding Hendrickson’s original argument is that he adopts a rather cumbersome notation. In addition, he adopts conventions which he does not always keep. As a result, the argument as it is laid out in his paper is invalid (see Appendix). In what 1 I will refer to the coarse-grained theorists of action individuation also as “minimalists.” Hendrickson understands “fine-grained” accounts quite broadly as encompassing such views as Goldman’s (1970) maximalism as well as moderationism (e.g. Ginet’s 1990; Thalberg 1972 and 1977; Thompson 1977).

Quantified temporal alethic-deontic logic

The purpose of this paper is to describe a set of quantified temporal alethic-deontic systems, i.e., systems that combine temporal alethicdeontic logic with predicate logic. We consider three basic kinds of systems: constant, variable and constant and variable domain systems. These systems can be augmented by either necessary or contingent identity, and every system that includes identity can be combined with descriptors. All logics are described both semantically and proof theoretically. We use a kind of possible world semantics, inspired by the so-called T × W semantics, to characterize them semantically and semantic tableaux to characterize them proof theoretically. We also show that all systems are sound and complete with respect to their semantics.

Identity, mass fatality and forensic genetics

This paper locates the use of DNA profiling within the contemporary disaster response apparatus as an instance of a historically contingent biometric identity regime. It considers why and how DNA profiling and profile matching, first developed to support criminal justice aims, have been adopted for disaster victim identification. The increasingly obligatory status of this identification technology in contemporary society is also discussed, as is the effect of its use on the status of prior philosophical assertions about the nature of personal identity.