This paper introduces a refined approach to conceptualising the commons in order to shed new light on cooperative practices. Specifically, it proposes the novel concept of Common-Property Assets. CPAs are exclusively human-made resources owned under common-property ownership regimes. Our CPA model combines quantity and quality. While these two dimensions are largely pre-existing in the conventional case of natural common-pool resources, they directly depend on members’ collective action in CPAs. We apply this theoretical framework to farm (...) machinery sharing agreements—a widespread grassroots cooperative phenomenon in agriculture—using a systematic literature review to generalise the findings from a sample of 54 studies published from 1950 to 2018. Our findings show that in successful CPAs, members endorse and do not deviate from a quantity-quality equilibrium that is collectively agreed upon. Despite the existence of thresholds for both quantity and quality due to membership heterogeneity, qualitative changes in respect of the common good are possible in CPAs that promote democratic practices. Our study has potentially strong implications for developing ethics in cooperatives and the sustainable development of communities worldwide. (shrink)

In this article I make three inter-related arguments. First, I argue that contemporary critical political theory should re-assert the city as a privileged site of political action. Second, I suggest that in the process of such a re-assertion, the dominant “open” conception of the city, characteristic of much critical urban studies, should be reworked in order to be properly “political”; that is, framed within an agonistic, Left-Schmittian model of politics. Finally, I claim that one way to “politicize” the city in (...) this manner is to think of it as a site of “common property”. (shrink)

Public access to the commons is often restricted, thus leading to implicit regulations. This is relevant toward spatial systems, as an important geographical issue is access to various sites over space, and this paper presents varying degrees of accessibility in different places. There is a dialectic struggle to enhance access to the commons as a fundamental right of the public, with the need to balance tourism and recreational uses of coastal resources with conservation and preservation eff orts. This paper will (...) aid policy makers and those concerned with beach access in Connecticut better understand the nature and complexity of how citizens and officials within coastal municipalities have come to perceive, in a collective sense, their beaches/ municipal parks as common property resources to be utilized for recreational purposes while balancing environmental conservation efforts simultaneously. Various legal frameworks, as well as federal and state efforts in coastal zones in key states, in addition to historically recent court cases in Connecticut resulting in legal enhancements toward increasing public access to nonresidents of specific municipalities, have shaped who can and who cannot access the commons. (shrink)

A broad range of intellectual perspectives may be brought to bear on any important social institution. To this general rule, the institution of private property is no exception. The desirability of private property has been endlessly debated across the disciplines: philosophical, historical, economic, and legal. Yet there is very little consensus over its proper social role and limitations. Is it possible to find a unique solution to questions of property and private ownership, good for all resources and (...) for all times? The famous defense of private property that is found in chapter 5 of John Locke'sSecond Treatise of Governmentanswers this question in the affirmative, for Locke writes as though all property was given to mankind in common, and then seeks to find the quickest and most expeditious way to convert all common property into private property. His implicit, but undefended, assumption is that common forms of property are both undesirable and unstable, while private forms of ownership are always just the opposite. Yet his preferred method for moving from a commons to a regime of private property—the unilateral decision to appropriate by each actor—is one that has been frequently condemned as a sop to unbridled egotism, even though it is subject to two constraints: the first against waste, and the second requiring the appropria-tor to leave “enough, and as good” for others. (shrink)

A plateau has been reached in how to analyze people's use of their common property resources. We require fresh ways of thinking about the issue. Four new and very different approaches are sketched in the article.

Water has a dual role in the Sundarbans area of southwestern Bangladesh. Hydrologic processes are vital to the ecological functioning and cultural identity of the mangrove ecosystem. But at the same time, large scale water development creates external forces that threaten the Sundarbans environment. Water is managed to a limited degree as a common property resource, both in the Sundarbans and in larger regions. It is also managed as private property, a public good, a state-controlled resource, an (...) open access resource, and a natural hazard. And to a large degree, it is not managed at all. By focussing on water, we begin to understand the linkages between the Sundarbans area and larger regional contexts; and between common property resource systems and the broader array of institutional, political, and property relations. Section one of this paper provides an overview of the role of water in the Sundarbans, including modern human modifications of deltaic hydrology. Section two surveys water management issues and institutions at six geographical scales: the International Basin; 2) India and Bangladesh; 3) Greater Bengal; 4) Bangladesh; 5) southwestern Bangladesh; and 6) Khulna district. The conclusion stresses the role that the political geography of water will play both within and outside the Sundarbans ecosystem. (shrink)

The formal theory of the Model of Hierarchical Complexity is presented. Complexity theories generally exclude the concept of hierarchical complexity; Developmental Psychology has included it for over 20 years. It also applies to social systems and non-human systems. Formal axioms for the Model are outlined. The model assigns an order of hierarchical complexity to every task, using natural numbers, establishing a quantal notion of stage and stages of performance. This formalizes properties of stage theories in psychology. The formal theory of (...) the model enables extending the concept of hierarchical complexity to any field where tasks and their performances exist. (shrink)

This paper applies aspects of Hugo Grotius's theologically informed theory of property to contemporary issues concerning access to the human DNA sequence and patenting practices. It argues that Christians who contribute to public debate in these areas might beneficially employ some of the concepts with which he worked--notably "common right," the "right of necessity," and "use right." In the seventeenth century, wars were fought over trading rights and access to the sea. In the twenty-first century, information and intellectual (...) property are the issues of the day. Grotius's writings serve to correct the overemphasis in modern liberalism on individual rights, and have practical application to the debate concerning the reduction of the human genome to the status of private property. (shrink)

Of the three strategies available for managing common property resources (CPR)—centralized control, privatization and local management—this essay focuses on the last, which has proven quite effective in various settings throughout the Third World, with the key to success being local ability to control access to the resource. The major factors at issue in the Sundarbans situation are: historically external pressure on the forest; currently dense population in adjacent areas; a land distribution even more unequal than the norm in (...) Bangladesh; and a decentralized local government structure initiated in the mid-1980s. The first three factors have encouraged the local population to view this CRP as a frontier to be exploited,rather than as a resource to be preservedfor sustained yield. Thus to the extent that the new local government structure proves to be democratic and responsive to popular needs, it would most likely accelerate destruction of the Sundarbans, using the area as a cheap and easy way to provide some livelihood to the rural poor and landless. Accordingly, decentralization cannot be a viable strategy for preserving this unique forest resource; only a strong central control can ensure its survival into the next century. (shrink)

This paper examines the question whether, and to what extent, John Locke’s classic theory of property can be applied to the current debate involving intellectual property rights (IPRs) and the information commons. Organized into four main sections, Section 1 includes a brief exposition of Locke’s arguments for the just appropriation of physical objects and tangible property. In Section 2, I consider some challenges involved in extending Locke’s labor theory of property to the debate about IPRs and (...) digital information. In Section 3, it is argued that even if the labor analogy breaks down, we should not necessarily infer that Locke’s theory has no relevance for the contemporary debate involving IPRs and the information commons. Alternatively, I argue that much of what Locke has to say about the kinds of considerations that ought to be accorded to the physical commons when appropriating objects from it – especially his proviso requiring that “enough and as good” be left for others – can also be applied to appropriations involving the information commons. Based on my reading of Locke’s proviso, I further argue that Locke would presume in favor of the information commons when competing interests (involving the rights of individual appropriators and the preservation of the commons) are at stake. In this sense, I believe that Locke offers us an adjudicative principle for evaluating the claims advanced by rival interests in the contemporary debate about IPRs and the information commons. In Section 4, I apply Locke’s proviso in my analysis of two recent copyright laws: the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). I then argue that both laws violate the spirit of Locke’s proviso because they unfairly restrict the access that ordinary individuals have previously had to resources that comprise the information commons. Noting that Locke would not altogether reject copyright protection for IPRs, I conclude that Locke’s classic property theory provides a useful mechanism for adjudicating between claims about how best to ensure that individuals will be able to continue to access information in digitized form, while at the same time also allowing for that information to enjoy some form of legal protection. (shrink)

I develop an account of private property that preserves public participation and access. A focus on the initial state of common ownership, labour, and the proviso reveals that standard Lockean defences of property ignore important common interests. In consequence, property rights over environmentally significant goods must be less strong than full liberal rights, and I show how these will be designed.

In many countries and resource sectors, the state is devolving responsibility for natural resource management responsibility to ``communities'' or local user groups. However, both policymakers and researchers in this area have tended to ignore the implications of gender and other forms of intra-community power differences for the effectiveness and equity of natural resource management. In the irrigation sector, despite the rhetoric on women's participation, a review of evidence from South Asia shows that organizations often exclude women through formal or informal (...) membership rules and practices. Women may have other ways to obtain irrigation services, but even if they are effective, these other informal ways of obtaining irrigation services are typically less secure. As resource management – and rights to resources – are transferred from the state to local organizations, ensuring women's participation is essential for gender equity in control over resources. Greater involvement of women can also strengthen the effectiveness of local organizations by improving women's compliance with rules and maintenance contributions. Further detailed and comparative research is required to identify the major factors that affect women's participation and control over resources, if devolution policies are to be both equitable and sustainable. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Familiar Analyses of the Concept of Property The Commons and its Tragedy The Anticommons and its Tragedy The Accounts of Commons and Anticommons Property Elaborated and Applied The Liberal Commons Retrospect and Prospect References.

The phenomenon of volunteer produced and freely disseminated information is a significant feature of the digitally networked environment. Notwithstanding recent expansions of copyright law and the development of rights management technology the Internet remains a platform for the free distribution of information and ideas. This article argues that, contrary to the predictions of enclosure, a flourishing commons exists in respect of information that is communicated via the Internet. The commons, however, remains a relatively under-theorized concept in political and legal theory. (...) This article explores the meaning of ‘the commons’ and its relationship to property and advances it as a useful explanatory tool for describing free information environments in cyberspace. (shrink)

The article takes up and challenges the Lockean conception of common sense and common right to property in two ways: first, through a critical investigation of Locke's historical connection to colonialism, and second, by turning to contemporary indigenous conceptions of common sense. Locke's practical experiences in the founding of Carolina, I argue, serve not simply to explain the problematical colonial impulses of the Second Treatise, but indeed to help undo the credibility of that text's ideological claim (...) to acquire and assimilate. Next, I turn from an internal historicized critique of the Second Treatise to a contemporary external challenge, examining current indigenous perspectives de-legitimized by the Second Treatise. I contend that traditionalized conceptions of indigenous knowledge and understanding provide a strategic revitalization of common sense in ways that re-define and re-characterize the word's roots not only in the common but also in the senses themselves. The article concludes by questioning whether these revitalized ‘traditionalisms’ — as much as they challenge exclusionary Lockean conceptions of the ‘common’ and common sense — also carry the risk of denying aspects of indigenous modernity and excluding alternative indigenous conceptions of land and resource use. (shrink)

The article takes up and challenges the Lockean conception of common sense and common right to property in two ways: first, through a critical investigation of Locke's historical connection to colonialism, and second, by turning to contemporary indigenous conceptions of common sense. Locke's practical experiences in the founding of Carolina, I argue, serve not simply to explain the problematical colonial impulses of the Second Treatise, but indeed to help undo the credibility of that text's ideological claim (...) to acquire and assimilate. Next, I turn from an internal historicized critique of the Second Treatise to a contemporary external challenge, examining current indigenous perspectives de-legitimized by the Second Treatise. I contend that traditionalized conceptions of indigenous knowledge and understanding provide a strategic revitalization of common sense in ways that re-define and re-characterize the word's roots not only in the common but also in the senses themselves. The article concludes by questioning whether these revitalized ‘traditionalisms’ — as much as they challenge exclusionary Lockean conceptions of the ‘common’ and common sense — also carry the risk of denying aspects of indigenous modernity and excluding alternative indigenous conceptions of land and resource use. (shrink)

This paper argues that social trust is the emergent product of a complex system of property relations, backed up by a sub-system of mutual monitoring. This happens in a context similar to Ostrom’s commons, where cooperation is necessary for the management of resources, in the absence of external authorities to enforce sanctions. I show that social trust emerges in this context because of an institutional structure that enables individuals to develop a generalized disposition to internalize the external effects of (...) their actions. This is made possible by the “patrimonial” nature of this structure. (shrink)

Intellectual property (IP) can internalize positive externalities associated with the creation and discovery of ideas, thereby increasing investment in efforts to create and discover ideas. However, IP law also causes negative externalities. Strict IP rights raise the transaction costs associated with consuming and building on existing ideas. This causes a tragedy of the anticommons, in which valuable resources are underused and underdeveloped. By disincentivizing creative projects that build on existing ideas, IP protection, even if it increases original innovation, can (...) inadvertently reduce the rate of iterative innovation. The net effect of IP law on innovation and welfare depends on the relative magnitude of these positive and negative externalities. We argue that the current regime probably suffers from excessive, and excessively rigid, IP protection. This motivates the search for institutional alternatives and complements. We suggest that a monocentric IP rights regime may not be the only, or the most efficient, way to internalize the positive externalities of innovation. The knowledge economy supports the emergence of diverse, polycentric forms of bottom-up self-governance, both market and community led, that entail the citizen coproduction of the norms and practices of intellectual creation and discovery. (shrink)

Until recently, dance was not considered to warrant copyright protection because it existed only as a live performance that was not fixed in a ‘tangible medium of expression’. Not being an object, it could not be property. But the more we try to fold dance into existing modes of copyright and conventional notions of property, the more it resists, upsetting the core assumptions of Locke's social contract theory. Legal scholars argue that the expansion of copyright protection shrinks the (...) public domain. While copyright has become more important for dancers and choreographers who wish to control the appropriation of their work that is now made available to millions of end-users online, it also potentially restricts them from engaging in a dialog with other dancers or building on inspiring dance moves across communities. This paper investigates notions of property that rely on both the commons and individual personhood in the context of dance. (shrink)

Erasmus' Adages, a vast collection of the proverbial wisdom of Greek and Roman antiquity, was published in 1508 and became one of the most influential works of the Renaissance. It also marked a turning point in the history of Western thinking about literary property. At once a singularly successful commercial product of the new printing industry and a repository of intellectual wealth, the Adages looks ahead to the development of copyright and back to an ancient philosophical tradition that ideas (...) should be universally shared in the spirit of friendship. In this elegant and tightly argued book, Kathy Eden focuses on both the commitment to friendship and common property that Erasmus shares with his favourite philosophers - Pythagoras, Plato, and Christ - and the early history of private property that gradually transforms European attitudes concerning the right to copy. In the process she accounts for the peculiar shape of Erasmus' collection of more than 3,000 proverbs and provides insightful readings of such ancient philosophical and religious thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Iamblichus, Tertullian, Basil, Jerome, and Augustine. (shrink)

The common discourse on intellectual property rights rests mainly on utilitarian ground, with implications on the question of justice as well as moral significance. It runs like this: Intellectual property rights are to reward the originators for his/her intellectual labour mainly in monetary terms, thereby providing incentives for originators to engage in future innovative labouring. Without such incentives, few, if not none, will engage in creative activities and the whole human community will, thereby, suffer because of reduced (...) inventions. However, such utilitarian argument on piracy as de-motivation may not be necessarily justified. In fact, intellectual property arrangement is one among different institutions concerning how the society may handle new ideas and creative works. In reality, private ownership over one's intellectual product is merely a modern western concept that is being ' advertised' as being normative, which, by itself, is highly debatable. Alarming still, such normative argument assumes both justness and moral dimensions. This article will analyse whether such argument is philosophically sound. (shrink)

In this chapter I argue that the old common law concept of the commons can make a major contribution to how we regulate human tissue and genetic information in the twenty-first century. But if we want to use this concept, we will have to act fast, because private corporate interests have already realised the relevance of the commons for holdings in human tissue and genetic information. Instead of a commonly created and held resource, however, they have sought to create (...) one derived from many persons' mutual labour but owned privately: what I call, with deliberate irony, a 'corporate commons'. (shrink)

This article redescribes early modern European defenses of private property in terms of a theoretical project of seeking to establish the true or essential nature of property. Most of the scholarly literature has focused on the historical and normative issues relating to the various accounts of original acquisition around which these defenses were organized. However, in my redescription, these so-called “original acquisition stories” appear as methodological devices for an analytic reduction and resolution of property into its fundamental (...) elements and axioms. Through these stories, property is “created” in the form of the classical liberal paradigm of presumptively exclusive, private ownership of material things. The problem is that this project of “creation” is also a project which arbitrarily excludes or marginalizes other forms and systems of property, and especially usufructuary forms of common property. After critically explicating this early modern project of creation, I go on to argue that the classical liberal paradigm and its problems continue to inform property theory and discourse in the late modern era. (shrink)

Property regimes are based on fundamental values of the society or group that designs and reproduces them. This paper analyses the ethical underpinnings of Progressive Commons in comparison to the values underlying private property and traditional Commons. Against this backdrop, we discuss the potential of Progressive Commons to address major challenges in context of the twenty-first century economy. Seed Commons serve as an example. Our analysis shows that Progressive Commons respond to contemporary societal and environmental challenges by re-interpreting (...) the classical values underlying traditional private and common property regimes, turning them to sovereignty, re-democratization, and social-ecological sustainability in the global context. (shrink)

The rapid emergence of digital media has created both new economic opportunities and new risks for authors, publishers, and users in regards to intellectual property. There is a theoretical conflict raging between those who believe "information should be free" and those attempting to protect intellectual property through surveillance and control of access. The Intellectual Commons works to develop a theory of intellectual property that is based on a theory of natural rights that assumes the existence of a (...) "natural world" of intellectual resources. (shrink)

In his essay The Dynamic Analytics of Property Law, Professor Michael Heller describes and criticizes the familiar, current analytical tools of property theory and calls for the adoption of a more dynamic approach. In this comment, I shall address briefly two issues discussed in Heller's paper: his suggestion that we add a fourth type of property – "anticommons property" – to the well-known "property trilogy" of private property, commons property, and state property; (...) and his critique of the "bundle of rights" approach of the courts to the takings problem, which leads to excessive fragmentation of private property. The former issue nicely demonstrates the current tendency of scholars to argue against "too much private property." The latter illustrates the familiar, futile search of property scholars for an all-encompassing metaphor to describe and identify private property. (shrink)

In common law, the traditional rule has been that there is no property in excised human tissue. In an era of widespread commodification of tissue, however, the practical reasons behind this position are increasingly outdated, while the philosophical grounds are paradoxical. This no-property rule has been construed so as to deprive tissue providers of ongoing rights, whereas researchers, universities, and biotechnology companies are prone to assume that once they acquire proprietary rights, those rights are complete and undifferentiated. (...) That position can and should be remedied, drawing on a modified Lockean concept of property in what we have laboured to create, and a more sophisticated jurisprudential understanding of property in the body as a bundle of rights. Particularly in the case of women’s tissues, such as ova and umbilical cord blood, this model can offer more effective protection against the global ‘enclosures’ of bodily tissue. (shrink)

The recent Lithuanian court practice shows discrepancies in cases dealing with partitioning of common partial divided property. Moreover, no doctrinal research has been concluded on the limits and conditions of the co-owners‘ right to demand that his share should be partitioned from the common partial ownership in Lithuania. Taking into account that proper implementation of co-ownership rights is based on common agreement of co-owners, when no agreement is reached between co-owners regarding the fact and the mode (...) of partitioning, a question arises on what conditions and to what extent the co-owner is free to implement his right to demand partitioning of his share from the common partial ownership. The research on historical developments of the partition law in different European countries shows that the co-owner’s right to partition is based on the idea of pluralistic conception of the modern property law objects. The authors of this article argue that this conception allows the co-owner to enjoy the right to dispose of his share in the common ownership as a separate object of civil turnover at his own volition and without the other co-owner’s consent. However, the right to partition is not absolute and is limited by the rights of the other co-owner to his share of the same property, so the right to partition may be implemented only following the proportionality and interest balance between the co-owners. (shrink)

Is property-awareness constituted by representation or not? If it were, merely being aware of the qualities of physical objects would involve being in a representational state. This would have considerable implications for a prominent view of the nature of successful perceptual experiences. According to naïve realism, any such experience—or more specifically its character—is fundamentally a relation of awareness to concrete items in the environment. Naïve realists take their view to be a genuine alternative to representationalism, the view on which (...) the character of such experiences is constituted by representation. But naïve realists must admit qualities or property instances as items of awareness if they are to remain wedded to common sense, and the nature of property-awareness may smuggle constitutive representation into the naïve realist account of character. I argue that whether property-awareness involves representation, and consequently whether naïve realism is distinct from representationalism or not, depends on what qualities are fundamentally. On universalist and nominalist accounts, property-awareness turns out to involve representation. Not so under tropism. (shrink)

This paper describes intellectual property legislation in the European Union, the US and the Draft Treaty on the legal protection of unoriginal databases, usually available in the Internet. I argue that this type of legislation, if enforced upon developing countries and countries in transition through international ‘agreements’, could in effect deprive them of their own information commons, their own public domain. With examples from China, India, Africa and Iceland, I argue that this deprivation in the case of developing countries (...) is, morally, equal to a virtual war against them by the West, wholly unjustified and dangerous-an example of virtual imperialism. (shrink)

In this paper, first, I want to clarify the nature and function of private property. Second, I want to clarify the distinction between “common” goods and property and “public” goods and property, and explain the construction error inherent in the institution of public goods and property. Third, I want to explain the rationale and principle of privatization.

The traditional ‘no property’ approach of the law to human biomaterials has long been punctured by exceptions. Developments in the jurisprudence of property in human tissue in English law and beyond demonstrate that a variety of tissues are capable of being subject to proprietary considerations. Further, among commentators, there are few who would deny, given biotechnological advances, that such materials can be considered thus. Yet, where commentators do admit human biomaterials into the realm of property, it is (...) often done with an emphasis on some sort of separation from the person who is the source of those materials. One line of argument suggests that there is a difference between persons and things, which constitutes a morally justifiable distinction when it comes to property. This article examines whether the idea of separability can do the work of demarcating those objects that ought to be considered property from those that ought not to be. It argues that, despite the entailment of a separability criterion inherent in both the statutory and common law positions, and the support given to this by some commentators, it is philosophically problematic as the basis for delineating property in human tissue and other biomaterials. (shrink)

Common property has been theoretically linked to environmental degradation through the metaphor of “the tragedy of the commons,” which discounts local solutions to commons dilemmas and typically posits the need for strong states or privatization. Though neither solution is theoretically or empirically adequate—because of the nature of states and nature in the real world—local arrangements for averting the tragedy suffer certain lacunaeas well, including stringent boundary conditions and overlapping/overarching commons situations that necessitate larger scale cooperation than is possible (...) in the face-to-face communities that are conducive to cooperation. Second-order or meta-commons issues expand the scope of inquiry necessarily beyond conservationto preservation.The Sundarbans illustrates the contradictory implications of the Leviathan solution to comons dilemmas, as well as the centrality of alternative perceptual framings of natural systems. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.1 (2004) 100-101 [Access article in PDF] Kathy Eden. Friends Hold All Things in Common: Tradition, Intellectual Property, and the Adages of Erasmus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001. Pp. ix + 194. Cloth, $35.00. When Erasmus returned from England to the continent in 1500 almost all his money was confiscated before he embarked, although his patron, Lord Mountjoy, had (...) assured him that customs regulations applied only to English currency. Upon his arrival in Paris—poor as a church mouse and feeling rather unwell—he immediately set out writing a new gift for his patron, lest Mountjoy would assume that the humanist was angry with him. A few days later Erasmus had gathered a modest collection of 818 proverbs or adagia, a "treasury or storehouse of the accumulated wealth of classical antiquity collected for common use and thus one of his principal contributions to a cultural program for cooperation," as Kathy Eden defines them (4); not a material but an intellectual wealth, a wisdom transmitted throughout generations and civilizations in the form of proverbs.This Adagiorum Collectanea became a bestseller because it provided both humanists and careerists with numerous bon mots to embellish their (Latin) style and to enhance their arguments. During his first visit to Italy Erasmus spent a few months in the household of the famous humanist and printer Aldus Manutius in Venice. This resulted in a reissue in [End Page 100] 1508 of what was now entitled Adagiorum chiliades, since the collection had been expounded to 3260 proverbs. It opened with 'Friends hold all things in common', an ancient wisdom acknowledging the commonality between friendship and property. Eight more official editions came from the press with an ever-increasing number of adagia, up to 4151 in the final edition, published as volume two of the collected works (Basle: Froben, 1536). Erasmus kept also enlarging the entries themselves, some of them becoming small essays—for instance, the famous Festina lente (Adag. II i 1) or the equally well-known Dulce bellum inexpertis (Adag. IV i 1)—which were even republished separately.In her introduction to Friends Hold All Things in Common Kathy Eden gives a quick survey of the genesis of the Adagia referring her readers for further information to more specific studies on the topic. In keeping with the opening adage she focuses on the ancient philosophical tradition that Erasmus claims as his intellectual inheritance from the past, a tradition rooted in the legal transfer of property. The humanist inherits his understanding of both friendship and property from an ancient philosophical tradition going back to Pythagoras and Plato, as well as Aristotle and Cicero. This pagan tradition is confronted and linked with the concepts of early-Christian writers, such as Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, Basil and Augustine. Not only is there a similarity between some ideas of pagan philosophers and Christian thinkers; they can even be a source of inspiration to pious living. The publication of the Adages also reflected changing attitudes and practices concerning property: thanks to the press of Manutius in Venice (and later of Frobenius in Basle), an increasing number of people was able to appropriate the heritage of classical wisdom, which had hitherto been the intellectual property of only very few. It was precisely in Venice, around the transition from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century, that the first laws regarding intellectual property—be it copyright of the author or protection of the printer's efforts—began to make an occurrence.The author proves to be well-read in both classical, biblical and patrologic sources—I particularly appreciated her combinations and confrontations of pagan and Christian sources. Of course, she is thoroughly familiar with Erasmus's Adagia, too, with an occasional excursion towards his other pedagogical treatises, such as the Antibarbarus, the Enchiridion or the Paraclesis, an adhortation to study Christian philosophy.Friends Hold All Things in Common is a carefully edited publication with hardly any noticeable language or printing errors. As a classicist I feel slightly disappointed... (shrink)

Concern about the commercialization of research is rising, notably in testing new drugs. The problem involves oversimplified, polarizing assumptions about research and development (R&D) and intellectual property (IP). To address this problem this paper sets forth a more complex three phase RT&D process, involving Scientific Research (R), Technological Innovation (T), and Commercial Product Development (D) or the RT&D process. Scientific research and innovation testing involve costly intellectual work and do not produce free goods, but rather require IP regulation. RT&D (...) processes involve an unrecognized IP shift from a common IP right in public goods like information and knowledge to private IP in products and other hard assets. The question then is, what kind of IP right: private or common? Since scientific research and innovation testing require openness about adverse findings, and wide, low cost diffusion of results, they require a common, inclusive IP right. Common IP is appropriate to both sharing knowledge goods and recovering the cost of production. Research is furthermore compatible with commercialization and support by other social interests. On the other hand it is incompatible with the exclusionary private IP rights that permit restrictive publication or total suppression of information. Private IP rather than commercialization conflicts with the openness requirements of scientific research and innovation testing. Commercial funding, however, is in principle compatible with research and testing, especially when regulated by a common IP right. This reflects a pragmatic view of the fundamental interconnections of knowledge and other social interests. (shrink)

Reductionism is a central issue in the philosophy of biology. One common objection to reduction is that molecular explanation requires reference to higher-level properties, which I refer to as the context objection. I respond to this objection by arguing that a well-articulated notion of a mechanism and what I term mechanism extension enables one to accommodate the context-dependence of biological processes within a reductive explanation. The existence of emergent features in the context could be raised as an objection to (...) the possibility of reduction via this strategy. I argue that this objection can be overcome by showing that there is no tenable argument for the existence of emergent properties that are not susceptible to a reductive explanation. (shrink)

Terms such as 'wisdom' or 'happiness' are commonly held to refer to abstract objects that are properties. On the basis of a greater range of linguistic data and with the support of some ancient and medieval philosophical views, I argue that such terms do not stand for objects, but rather for kinds of tropes, entities that do not have the status of objects, but only play a role as semantic values of terms and as arguments of predicates. Such ‘non-objects’ crucially (...) differ from objects in that they are not potential bearers of properties. (shrink)