Socrates’ First City: Pleonexia and the Thought Experiment

Apeiron ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Diaco
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Happy Life ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
The City

AbstractThe present study provides an analysis of Socrates’ account of the first polis in Republic 2 as a thought experiment and draws attention to the fact that Socrates combines both explanatory and evaluative aspects in his scenario. The paper further shows how the analysis of the city of pigs as a thought experiment can explain the lack of pleonexia by saving both the letter of the text, according to which there are no “pleonectic” desires in the city of pigs, and the fact that the first polis is nonetheless concerned with human beings. For, in contrast to the account offered by Glaucon earlier in Book 2, Socrates highlights our needs and lack of self-sufficiency as well as our compatibility with an advantageous and happy life in a community.

The City On Trial: Socrates’ Indictment of the Gentleman in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-270
Author(s):  
Laurence D. Nee
Keyword(s):  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Household Management ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
The City

Xenophon’s Oeconomicus presents the boldest possible response to the city’s charge that Socrates corrupted the young: the city itself, not Socrates, is guilty of this charge. The city’s teaching about what constitutes a noble human being cannot be reconciled with the good of the human being as such; it actually opposes this good. While the would-be gentleman’s desire to be noble shapes his understanding of household management, it fails to bring him the god-like self sufficiency he seeks. Socrates’ critique of the perfect gentleman’s education of his wife demonstrates why the sacrifices made for the household and the gods do not benefit those who seek to be noble. Over the course of the dialogue, images of the Socratic way of life emerge. By revealing the nature of philosophy and its relationship to the good and noble things which the city extols, this dialogue teaches its readers why the Socratic way of life benefits human beings

The Utopia of Bankruptcy

differences ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 76-90
Author(s):  
Raphaëlle Guidée
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Free World ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

Financially choked by economic and demographic decline, the city of Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy federal protection in 2013. In what sense can a situation of generalized insolvency be said to pave the way for the utopia of a debt-free world? Avoiding the easy symbolism that so often transforms Detroit and its inhabitants into an exciting thought experiment, Benjamin Markovits’s novel You Don’t Have to Live Like This (2015) offers a nuanced answer to this question, challenging the capitalist narrative of revival as much as the alternative promise of self-sufficiency. Far from being spared the anxiety of financial collapse, life without debt reveals worlds of precarious possibilities where mutual aid and autonomy go hand in hand with greater vulnerability.

scholarly journals How Much Is Enough? First Steps to a Social Ecology of the Pergamon Microregion

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 479
Author(s):  
Julian Laabs ◽  
Daniel Knitter
Keyword(s):  
Carrying Capacity ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Large Population ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Limiting Factor ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Complementary Region ◽  
The City

In this study, we present a transparent and reproducible approach to model agricultural production with respect to environmental characteristics and available labour. Our research focuses on the city of Pergamon and its surroundings, with an emphasis on the transition between the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Period, where widespread demographic changes took place. We investigated the degree of local self-sufficiency using different concepts of a city’s complementary region. Using simple topographic derivatives, we derive a measure of environmental suitability that we translate into a carrying capacity index. Our results show that workforce was not a limiting factor for local self-sufficiency. However, environmental carrying capacity may have been limiting in a scenario with a large population. An active investment into the environment, e.g., by the construction of terraces, could have helped to increase the degree of self-sufficiency. Future research should investigate the level of resilience of such a coupled socio-ecological system in relation to environmental and socio-cultural dynamics.

Barriers and levers for implementing sustainable Nature-Based Solutions in cities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloé Duffaut ◽  
Nathalie Frascaria-Lacoste ◽  
Pierre-Antoine Versini
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Project Managers ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Urban Plan ◽  
Education And Awareness ◽  
Awareness Raising ◽  
The City

<p>Hydro-meteorological risks are increasing and this could be due to global changes. These risks are particularly important in the urban context where most human beings live. Indeed, the impervious surfaces present in cities increase the risk of flooding, for example. Nature-Based Solutions can help to reduce these risks by creating permeable soils or storing water while promoting biodiversity. In this context, it is essential to understand what hinders the development and sustainability of these Nature-based Solutions in the city and what could help to deploy them on a large scale. For this purpose, various professionals working on Nature-Based Solutions in the city in France, were interviewed between 2020 and 2021, both in the academic and operational sectors, or even at the interface between the two: researchers in ecology or hydrology, IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) project manager, project managers at the Regional Biodiversity Agency, director and natural environment manager of a watershed union, agro-economists engineer among others. They were asked what are the barriers and potential opportunities for Nature-Based Solutions implementation and sustainability in city. By analysing their answers, it emerges that the obstacles are more often cultural, political or financial than technical. The potential levers often mentioned are education and awareness-raising at all levels, especially for elected officials and the general public. Regulations such as the PLU (Local Urban Plan) and new funding for more natural spaces in the city also seem to be means of promoting Nature-based Solutions in urban areas. These interviews with diverse professionals directly involved in Nature-Based Solutions in cities allow to give real courses of action to be taken to democratize these Solutions throughout the French territory, or even internationally, and therefore ultimately reduce the risks of hydro-meteorology. This is one of the objectives of the French ANR project EVNATURB (Assessment of ecosystem performance of a renaturation of the urban environment), in which this study has been carried out.</p>

Everyday agency and transformation: Place, body and story in the divided city

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Mannergren Selimovic
Keyword(s):  
Coping Mechanisms ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Generative Capacity ◽  
Peace And Conflict ◽  
Analytical Work ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The World ◽  
The City

How do we identify and understand transformative agency in the quotidian that is not contained in formal, or even informal structures? This article investigates the ordinary agency of Palestinian inhabitants in the violent context of the divided city of Jerusalem. Through a close reading of three ethnographic moments I identify creative micropractices of negotiating the separation barrier that slices through the city. To conduct this analytical work I propose a conceptual grid of place, body and story through which the everyday can be grasped, accessed and understood. ‘Place’ encompasses the understanding that the everyday is always located and grounded in materiality; ‘body’ takes into account the embodied experience of subjects moving through this place; and ‘story’ refers to the narrative work conducted by human beings in order to make sense of our place in the world. I argue that people can engage in actions that function both as coping mechanisms (and may even support the upholding of status quo), and as moments of formulating and enacting agential projects with a more or less intentional transformative purpose. This insight is key to understanding the generative capacity of everyday agency and its importance for the macropolitics of peace and conflict.

scholarly journals The Experience Machine: Existential Reflections on Virtual Worlds

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Gualeni
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Experience Machine ◽  
Technical Reproducibility ◽  
Self Discovery ◽  
Digital Simulations

Problems and questions originally raised by Robert Nozick in his famous thought experiment ‘The Experience Machine’ are frequently invoked in the current discourse concerning virtual worlds. Having conceptualized his Gedankenexperiment in the early seventies, Nozick could not fully anticipate the numerous and profound ways in which the diffusion of computer simulations and video games came to affect the Western world.This article does not articulate whether or not the virtual worlds of video games, digital simulations, and virtual technologies currently actualize (or will actualize) Nozick’s thought experiment. Instead, it proposes a philosophical reflection that focuses on human experiences in the upcoming age of their ‘technical reproducibility’.In pursuing that objective, this article integrates and supplements some of the interrogatives proposed in Robert Nozick’s thought experiment. More specifically, through the lenses of existentialism and philosophy of technology, this article tackles the technical and cultural heritage of virtual reality, and unpacks its potential to function as a tool for self-discovery and self-construction. Ultimately, it provides an interpretation of virtual technologies as novel existential domains. Virtual worlds will not be understood as the contexts where human beings can find completion and satisfaction, but rather as instruments that enable us to embrace ourselves and negotiate with various aspects of our (individual as well as collective) existence in previously-unexperienced guises.

scholarly journals Knowledge analysis on some zoonosis in a private school in the municipality of Bom Jesus-PI, Brazil

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Héllen De Almeida França ◽  
Isael de Sousa Sá ◽  
Naicy Maria Alencar ◽  
Yago Gabriel da Silva Barbosa ◽  
Jessica Sebastião Dos Santos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Private School ◽  
Larva Migrans ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Primary School Students ◽  
Natural Conditions ◽  
School Students ◽  
Mosquito Nets ◽  
Prevention Measure ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
The City

This study aimed to analyze the knowledge about some zoonosis in a private school in the city of Bom Jesus-PI, Brazil, through the application of questionnaires intended for primary school students, teachers and students´ parents. Zoonosis are transmissible illnesses in natural conditions between the animals and the human beings, and knowledge about them does not always reach the population exposed to constant risks, and it is necessary to plan health education actions in these areas. On the analysis of surveys noted significant numbers in relation to lack of knowledge on the part of interviewed in all groups. In relation to cutaneous larva migrans 37 (46,83%) of the students answered don´t know which factors were associated to the contamination, about to the prevention, 35 (44,30%) didn´t know the measures to be taken. Relating to Leishmaniasis, observed that 43 (54,43%) of the students have already heard about the disease, 37 (46,83%) answered that the dog is the responsible for transmitting and 34 (43,03%) the mosquito. In relation to the prevention, 36 (45,56%) answered combat to the mosquitoes, 35 (44,30%) using repellents, protection screens in windows and use of mosquito nets, as long as 07 (8,86%) didn´t know any prevention measure. In the amount of 79 students that answered the survey, 93,67% affirmed don´t have knowledge about giardiasis and 74,68% answered don´t know about how occurs the transmission about this zoonosis. Therefore, there is a need to carry out works that aim to provide this information to the population, especially the children because they are considered more susceptible as well as agents disseminating this information.

scholarly journals Influence of Technology on Socio-spatial City Development

Prostor ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (1 (61)) ◽  
pp. 118-129
Author(s):  
Ljiljana Vujadinović ◽  
Svetlana K. Perović
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Spatial Dimension ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
City Development ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
And Function ◽  
The City

This paper is studying influence of new technologies on city development with accent on socio-spatial dimension. The primary goal of the paper is to point out the reflections of earlier ideas in the context of modern technological processes in cities. All social, technical and technological components of a community, and finally civilization, are reflected within space of the city. Although having remained the greatest consumer of many material goods, city has also become a ‘’producer’’ of many technical-technological and spiritual values of civilization. Taking into account acceleration of phenomena in the world of technology and technology featuring modernity, it reasonably brings a question on realistic chance for prediction of their further course and related social changes that are about to cause it. In many scenarios of urban future, one can sense the idea of a city as a result of high technological achievements of civilization. Special attention is paid on informational city which, connecting a lot of people into systems of interactive information technology change the way of their mutual communication, as well as their social life and culture of behaviour. Measure of organization and function of city is set by telecommunication technologies, information, and computers. If city is a ‘’print of a society in space’’, then a contemporary moment refers to ‘’digitalization’’ of human beings, digitalization of their interactions, new aesthetics, value and other criteria. The tendency of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of new technologies on 21st century cities interpreted primarily through the prism of certain theoretical and experimental ideas and concepts of the 20th century.

scholarly journals DINAMIKA PENYINTAS MENJADI RELAWAN

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-44
Author(s):  
Indah Ahdiah
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Driving Factors ◽  
Motivating Factors ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Case Study Approach ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Humanitarian Organizations ◽  
The City

AbstrakThis study aims to determine the background and motivating factors for survivors to become local volunteers in the earthquake, tsunami and liquefaction natural disasters that occurred on September 28 in the city of Palu. The method used is a qualitative method with a case study approach. The results of the study showed that being a survivor's background in volunteering was a position as a board or member of Muhammadiyah, and there was also an interest in MDMC work. The driving factors (1) imply the meaning of Al Maun, be useful human beings, (2) as an act of gratitude, (3) an expression of gratitude for the opportunity of life given by God, (4) working as a volunteer becomes one of the ways to restore emotions.Keywords : survivor, volunteer, humanitarian organizations

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