Poetry?

Author(s):  
Floris Bernard ◽  
Kristoffel Demoen

This chapter gives an overview of how Byzantines conceptualized “poetry.” It argues that from the Byzantine point of view, poetry only differs from prose in a very formal way, namely that it is written in verse. Both prose and poetry belonged to the category of logoi, the only label that was very frequently used, in contrast to the term “poetry,” which was reserved for the ancient poetry studied at schools. Many authors considered (and exploited) the difference between their own prose texts and poems as a primarily formal one. Nevertheless, poetry did have some functions that set it apart from prose, even if these features are for us less expected. The quality of “bound speech” gained a spiritual dimension, since verse was seen as a restrained form of discourse, also from a moral point of view. Finally, the chapter gives a brief overview of the social contexts for which (learned) poetry was the medium of choice: as an inscription, as paratext in a wide sense, as a piece of personal introspection, as invective, as summaries (often of a didactic nature), and as highly public ceremonial pieces.

Author(s):  
Dale Dorsey

An important question that a theory of morality must answer concerns morality’s focus: what about people matters? What do we take into consideration when we consider a person from the moral point of view? This paper discusses two answers to this question, and proposes a third. The first, and perhaps most obvious, answer is welfarist: what matters about people, from the moral point of view, is their well-being, the quality of their lives. But a welfarist account of the focus of interpersonal morality has faced a number of challenges, to which a preferentist account has been thought to adequately respond. However, this paper argues that neither a welfarist nor a preferentist account of the focus of morality is adequate. It proposes an alternative, according to which the focus of morality can and should reflect the special normative circumstances that people inhabit given their normatively significant roles, associations, or commitments.


1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Griffin

I want to look at one aspect of the human good: how it serves as the basis for judgments about the moral right. One important view is that the right is always derived from the good. I want to suggest that the more one understands the nature of the human good, the more reservations one has about that view.I. OneRoute toConsequentialismMany of us think that different things make a life good, with no one deep value underlying them all. My own list includes: enjoyment, accomplishing something with one's life, deep personal relations, certain sorts of understanding, and the elements of a characteristically human existence (autonomy, liberty).Most of us also think that moral right and wrong are based, in some way or other, in how well individual lives go, and that the moral point of view is, in some sense or other, impartial between lives. Utilitarianism is a prominent, but not the only, way of spelling out this intuition. There is no reason why an account of the human good needs to be confined, in the classical utilitarian way, to happiness or to fulfillment of desire (on the usual understanding of that notion). Nor is there any reason why impartiality has to be confined to maximizing the good, counting everybody for one and nobody for more than one. We may generalize.Let us broaden the notion of the good. We might say, for instance, that though happiness is a good, so are the other items on my list. But though broadened, this notion of the good stays within the confines of individual goods; it still has to do with human well-being, with what promotes the quality of one person's life.


Etyka ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 79-94
Author(s):  
Janusz Goćkowski

As a specific type of operational behaviour intended to furnish solutions of social problems social engineering functions in virtue of certain moral norms and evaluations. The directives and methods of social engineering are conceived and applied in accordance with a moral point of view held by the social engineer. This moral point of view, with its characteristic values, goals, norms and evaluations, influences the selection of the ways and means that he makes to realize his project. The social engineer is both a specialist who designs and applies certain norms, and a moralist who identifies, explains and justifies the motives and objectives underlying them. The directives of the adherent to a moral system and those of the engineer with a certain professional specialization constitute independent variables in his mind.


1986 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Hegselmann ◽  
Werner Raub ◽  
Thomas Voss

AbstractDo individuals accept a moral point of view - if they are completely oriented towards their natural preferences and interests? The present article outlines the context of discussion concerning this question within moral philosophy and the social science. In addition it suggests a game-theoretical model with the help of which the question can be answered positively.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-41
Author(s):  
VLADIMIR NIKONOV ◽  
◽  
ANTON ZOBOV ◽  

The construction and selection of a suitable bijective function, that is, substitution, is now becoming an important applied task, particularly for building block encryption systems. Many articles have suggested using different approaches to determining the quality of substitution, but most of them are highly computationally complex. The solution of this problem will significantly expand the range of methods for constructing and analyzing scheme in information protection systems. The purpose of research is to find easily measurable characteristics of substitutions, allowing to evaluate their quality, and also measures of the proximity of a particular substitutions to a random one, or its distance from it. For this purpose, several characteristics were proposed in this work: difference and polynomial, and their mathematical expectation was found, as well as variance for the difference characteristic. This allows us to make a conclusion about its quality by comparing the result of calculating the characteristic for a particular substitution with the calculated mathematical expectation. From a computational point of view, the thesises of the article are of exceptional interest due to the simplicity of the algorithm for quantifying the quality of bijective function substitutions. By its nature, the operation of calculating the difference characteristic carries out a simple summation of integer terms in a fixed and small range. Such an operation, both in the modern and in the prospective element base, is embedded in the logic of a wide range of functional elements, especially when implementing computational actions in the optical range, or on other carriers related to the field of nanotechnology.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Sina Saeedy ◽  
Mojtaba Amiri ◽  
Mohammad Mahdi Zolfagharzadeh ◽  
Mohammad Rahim Eyvazi

Quality of life and satisfaction with life as tightly interconnected concepts have become of much importance in the urbanism era. No doubt, it is one of the most important goals of every human society to enhance a citizen’s quality of life and to increase their satisfaction with life. However, there are many signs which demonstrate the low level of life satisfaction of Iranian citizens especially among the youth. Thus, considering the temporal concept of life satisfaction, this research aims to make a futures study in this field. Therefore, using a mixed model and employing research methods from futures studies, life satisfaction among the students of the University of Tehran were measured and their views on this subject investigated. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analysed together in order to test the hypotheses and to address the research questions on the youth discontentment with quality of life. Findings showed that the level of life satisfaction among students is relatively low and their image of the future is not positive and not optimistic. These views were elicited and discussed in the social, economic, political, environmental and technological perspectives. Keywords:  futures studies, quality of life, satisfaction with life, youth


Author(s):  
Angela Dranishnikova

In the article, the author reflects the existing problems of the fight against corruption in the Russian Federation. He focuses on the opacity of the work of state bodies, leading to an increase in bribery and corruption. The topic we have chosen is socially exciting in our days, since its significance is growing on a large scale at all levels of the investigated aspect of our modern life. Democratic institutions are being jeopardized, the difference in the position of social strata of society in society’s access to material goods is growing, and the state of society is suffering from the moral point of view, citizens are losing confidence in the government, and in the top officials of the state.


Dreyfus argues that there is a basic methodological difference between the natural sciences and the social sciences, a difference that derives from the different goals and practices of each. He goes on to argue that being a realist about natural entities is compatible with pluralism or, as he calls it, “plural realism.” If intelligibility is always grounded in our practices, Dreyfus points out, then there is no point of view from which one can ask about or provide an answer to the one true nature of ultimate reality. But that is consistent with believing that the natural sciences can still reveal the way the world is independent of our theories and practices.


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