In the Middle Ages, philosophers used to resolve disputes by the medieval technique known as 'Disputations'. This involved question and answers designed to expose inconsistencies in the opponent's position.
Here Martin Cohen and Julian Baggini 'dispute' whether Julian Baggini's book 'The Pig That Wants to Eaten and 99 other Thought Experiments' is really original - or copies Martin Cohen's earlier '101 Philosophy Problems'. Julian Baggini admits having read and reviewed Martin's book shortly after its publication but then explains it could not possibly have been an influence on him, and hence did not merit any acknowedgement.
"I had not re-read your 101 PP since publication, nor any notes on > it (I made none) and I deliberately avoided re-reading it so that I > could write my own book as freshly as possible. In fact, at some stage I > gave it away, though I cannot remember when I did this. It has been some > while since I owned it though. > > So the genesis, construction and writing of this book was in no way at > all copying your work and so I am somewhat amazed that you level this > accusation at me so confidently."
The Disputation starts:
Baggini is allowed the first word.
"So much for opinions. As to facts, the plagiarism allegation is false. > If you are serious about it, you should confront me with your evidence . > before going public. Surely that is the only decent thing to do"!
Argument 1
[Baggini]" The idea of a book of thought experiments > is a very obvious one which many people have. I had been discussing it > with Jeremy of TPM since we started the mag in 1997. One of our > contributors, Peg Tittle, also independently had the idea for a book on > it, which she went on to write."
Response
[Cohen] But the Pig is not really a collection of 'thought experiments' in the same sense. It is really a book of Philosophy Problems. Some of your scenarios are ethical, some are paradoxes, some are artistic. Just like the 101 Philosophy Problems!
Argument 2
There are lots of '101' books around so the structure is nothing special
[Baggini] "Amazon returns over 6,000 results for books with > "101" in the title. For instance, there are also lots of books on 100 > great thinkers or philosophers. You will find that these tend to pick a > very similar list of thinkers, for obvious reasons, and also look at the > same major ideas. The entries themselves are often of very similar > length."
Response
[Cohen] There is only one book in 'introductory philosophy' that uses the '101' format, which prior to that was considered too frivolous for suc a grand subject! Secondly, my '101' is distinct by being in reality two books, the 101 scenarios and the 101 short discussions. It is 50 per cent academic discussion and 50 per cent narrative fiction.Your book is also split distinctively like this.
Argument 3
The books are different because Baggini doesn't attempt to offer answers , but discussions. And he locates these discussions straight after each scenario, rather than in a separate section at the end of the book.
"I did want to differentiate mine from yours and this I did in a > number of ways. First, I made all my scenarios the same length whereas, > as I recall, yours differ. I then also had the discussions being roughly > twice the length of the scenarios, directly after the scenarios, whereas > yours were at the end of the book and varied in length considerably. > Third, my scenarios were often not problems to be solved, as yours were > presented, but stories which raised issues. Fourth, my discussions > provided no answers but provided ways of thinking about the scenarios, > whereas yours were intended as solutions. The main difference is thus > that they are not problems to be solved but scenarios to give rise to > thought and reflection. I think together these make for substantive > differences. There may be more but since I did not refer to your book > when writing mine I cannot be sure."
Response
In my book I state very plainly that I do not attempt to offer answers, but merely discussions. I head the section 'discussions', and each scenario is dealt with in turn. The only difference left is the 'physical location' of the discussions - one book intersperses them between each scenario, the other book collects them all together at the back. I chose to put them all at the back to emphasise that they were not 'as important as the questions'.
The original inspiration for the structure of the 101 Philosophy Problems comes from research into 'Teaching Methods in Philosophy' led by George MacDonald Ross at Leeds University in the 1990s - for which Martin was both the research assistant and a seminar teacher. This aim was to move away from 'lectures' by philosophy experts to active discussions. Part of this was a strategy of producing one page 'problems' suitable for a small group of students from quite different academic backgrounds to discuss. It is this element Martin later took much further in the 101 Philosophy Problems.
Argument 3
The content of the two books is similar because there are only so many topics and scenarios to choose from.
"Let's first take selection of scenarios. Well obviously they're not > coincidental, not because I copied you but because we both drew on a > common source: western philosophy. Sit down 10 philosophers and ask them > to draw up a list of 100 thought experiments (broadly defined) in the > subject and it will be no surprise at all that the lists will be very > similar indeed. As you can see in The Pig, I actually mention the > original philosophical sources in the majority of cases. The idea that > there are "tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of possible topics out > there" is thus misleading: the evil demon, the Turing machine, the > experience machine, the lifeboat etc etc stand head and shoulders above > the more obscure ones and are obvious picks for anyone writing such a > book."
Response
Well, yes, Julian, superficially, this looks plausible, but then one might ask, why in the history of philosophy writing, had no other book gathered this 'obvious' material together before?
Of your '100' thought experiments:
No. 1 The Evil Demon is also Problem 99, "Descartes' Big
Problem, in 101 PPs
No. 2 Beam me up... is also 'Bernard's Body-Exchange
Machine' in Wittgensteins Beetle (WB)
No. 3. The Indian and the Ice is also Problem 5, the
Raven
No. 4 A Byte on the Side, I agree, does not appear in
my books.
No. 5 The Pig that wants to be Eaten is correctly attributed
to Douglas Adams but the general issue of eating meat in distasteful circumstances
is also that of Problem 13, 'A relative Problem'
No. 6 Wheel of Fortune is also Problem 24, 'The Bent
Coin Problem'
No. 7 'When No One Wins' is also Problem 11, Diktatia
No. 8 Good God, which is the classic Euthyphro Dilemma,
is discussed after Ethical Dillemma 44.
No. 9 'Bigger Brother' certainly appears to be your own
take on the idea of free will, a theme which is however discussed extensively
also in both the dilemmas (discussion of D9) and the problems
No. 10 ''The Veil of ignorance', set here as a story,
is also the story set out in Problems 18-20, the Lost Kingdom and the Pesky-Fly
Problem
No. 11 'The Ship Theseus' is of course also the account
of the ship 'Thunderprow' in Problem 8 and ...
No. 12 'Picasso on the Beach' is also Problem 80 'The
Nightingale's Song'.
Our two books cover very similar ground. No other books come near to doing the same!
Argument 5
Where there are very close textual similarities, this is a coincidence, due to the general themes being so obvious. For example, both the 101 Philosophy Problems and The Pig that Wants to Eaten, feature a computer being tried in court, and speaking in its own defence. This looks very similar. But the idea of a computer being 'tried' in a Court is used in Star Trek. This episode was aired prior to the publication of the 101 Philosophy Problems.
"Actually, in discussing this I have learned that the Turing test > computer talking in a court trope is used in a Star Trek episode in > 1987. The court case is to determine whether Data - who is an android - > has human rights. You see - the same ideas come up again and again."
Response
The Star Trek case is not very compelling. Androids, after all, do not exist, and if they did exist, they would be part biological and part machine. The question of what 'rights' they have depends on this ambiguity. Computers, on the other hand, do exists, and are all machine. In the Pig, a reference is given to Alan Turing's views, but his discussion is nothing to do with computers having 'rights'. The obvious source would have been my 101 Philosophy Problems.
Argument 6
"we should not be surprised when we > see even some very striking similarities between intellectual works, and > that plagiarism is much more than this. "
Response
Given that you read my book prior to writing your book, and that there are 'striking similarities', the possibility at the very least is that you 'unconsciously' copied the structure, the content and the style of my book. Given that possibility, why not acknowledge my book, as an influence and source?
Baggini is allowed the last word.
"I have said all I think I need to say carefully and in a considered > matter and I have nothing more to add. My emails were private > correspondence for your information and should not be selectively or > otherwise republished. For instance, your claim that I say I just > "forgot all about it [101 PP]" is false."
Readers are invited to vote whether Baginni should acknoweldge '101 Philosophy Problems' as an influence or no:
YES he should. The rotter...
No, no need, carry on Baginni!