The Functional Fallacy

On the Supposed Dangers of Name Repetition

Bibliographic Data

ID2156263
AuthorsJ De Pina-Cabral (0000-0002-7180-4407, Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume23
Issue1
Pages17-36
Publication date2012-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory and Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0275-7206 • E-ISSN: 1477-2612
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02757206.2012.649273
OpenAlexW2052623867
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited25

Whenever the theme of personal naming comes up, both in academic debate and in public opinion, we encounter a tendency to take for granted that there is some sort of collective interest in the clear and unambiguous individuation of persons through their names. “Society” or “culture”, it is presumed, would not function as well if that failed, so homonymy is automatically taken to be dysfunctional. This kind of explanation carries a deep sense of validity in common sense attitudes and it clearly imposes itself upon all who have discussed this issue over the past few decades, both in history and anthropology. In this essay, I argue that, on the one hand, there are fallacious implications to this explanatory proclivity, to which I call the functional fallacy, and, on the other hand, that it finds its power of evidence in the implicit expectations that characterize late modern thinking concerning what is a person and how persons are constituted. I identify three dispositions that need to be overcome: sociocentrism, individualism and the paradigm of the soul

Common sense · Epistemology · Fallacy · Individualism · Individuation · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Soul · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Race, Genetics, and Society

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