What’s the Point of Authors?

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Bibliographic Details
Title: What’s the Point of Authors?
Authors: Andersen, LE, Bailey, R, Bhatia, U, Burch-Brown, J, Bright, LK, Brooke, J, Cameron, P, Campbell-Moore, C, Cornelli, J, Crowley, S, Dang, H, Fraser, R, Falconer, I, Ferner, A, Gamez, M, Gerken, M, Hawley, K, Heyman, M, Kappel, K, Landes, E, Landemore, H, Loewe, B, Lunt, D, Martin, U, Meyns, C, Millard, L, Mitchell, D, Okasha, S, Peet, A, Pettigrew, R, de Ridder, J, Ross, R, Saint-Germier, P, Simion, M, Skatova, A, Tanswell, F, Whiting, D, Wilson, A, Brad Wray, K, Yeşilova, D, Habgood-Coote, J
Contributors: University of St Andrews.Pure Mathematics, University of St Andrews.School of Mathematics and Statistics
Source: The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. 75:487-517
Publisher Information: University of Chicago Press, 2024.
Publication Year: 2024
Subject Terms: MCC, 0301 basic medicine, 03 medical and health sciences, T-NDAS, 06 humanities and the arts, 0603 philosophy, ethics and religion
Description: In this paper, I want to start to untangle some of the philosophical issues associated with our practices of ascribing authorship for collaborative work, with an eye to formulating better guidelines for authorship. I will focus on the following questions: 1. What epistemic, social, and ethical functions are played by our practices of ascribing authorship for academic papers? 2. What ways of ascribing authorship would best address these functions? Can any one way of ascribing authorship address all of the functions? I hope to make three contributions. First, I hope to build on established debates about authorship to offer a general framework for assessing practices of assigning authorship. Secondly, to argue that the different functions of authorship are incoherent, making different predictions about who should be an author. Thirdly, I will argue that this incoherence points in the direction of replacing the role of an author with a number of different roles which address the different functions. In the final section I will set out a proposal that does just this, which I will call the no author account of authorship.
Document Type: Article
File Description: application/pdf
Language: English
ISSN: 1464-3537
0007-0882
DOI: 10.1086/715539
Access URL: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/715539
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/19051/
https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/175704/
https://hdl.handle.net/10023/32105
Accession Number: edsair.doi.dedup.....30dfb0df91094557a3c9c3b3aa9ffa0a
Database: OpenAIRE
Description
Abstract:In this paper, I want to start to untangle some of the philosophical issues associated with our practices of ascribing authorship for collaborative work, with an eye to formulating better guidelines for authorship. I will focus on the following questions: 1. What epistemic, social, and ethical functions are played by our practices of ascribing authorship for academic papers? 2. What ways of ascribing authorship would best address these functions? Can any one way of ascribing authorship address all of the functions? I hope to make three contributions. First, I hope to build on established debates about authorship to offer a general framework for assessing practices of assigning authorship. Secondly, to argue that the different functions of authorship are incoherent, making different predictions about who should be an author. Thirdly, I will argue that this incoherence points in the direction of replacing the role of an author with a number of different roles which address the different functions. In the final section I will set out a proposal that does just this, which I will call the no author account of authorship.
ISSN:14643537
00070882
DOI:10.1086/715539