'The most famous of sanctuaries of Asclepius had their origin from Epidaurus’, Pausanias writes in his Hellados Periegesis (‘Description of Greece’). All across the Aegean and beyond, word of the salutary reputation of Epidaurian divinity had spread. And as tales of Epidaurus’ sanctuary of Asclepius travelled the lands and crossed the seas, so did the urge to ensure that the Epidaurian success formula was, as we say, coming soon to a place near you. So we know Epidaurus had managed to (...) make a name for itself: all the way from the Argolid Peninsula to Asia Minor and the shores of Northern Africa. But what exactly had led to its rise in prominence? What about Epidaurus allowed for it to transcend its local cult-status? And how did its celebrated reputation and meaning change across places and time? What, in other words, is the story of what is often simply referred to as the sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus? (shrink)

Our world is mobile. People move, either within the state or from one state to another, to access opportunities, to improve their living conditions, or to start afresh. Yet, we usually assume that migration is an exceptional activity that leads to permanent settlement. In this paper, I invite us to reconsider this assumption. First, I analyse several ways in which people experience mobility in contemporary societies. Then, I turn to migration, as a specific form of mobility. (...) I distinguish between a legal/administrative, a social, and a self-identification-based approach to migration, demonstrating that they lead to divergent definitions of who is a migrant. I proceed by introducing the concept of mobile migration and by developing a typology of mobile migrants. I conclude that, in order to devise migration policies that treat migrants fairly, a careful consideration of the claims and interests of the different types of mobile migrants is necessary. (shrink)

In the last seven years, close to twenty thousand people have died trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Rescue missions by private actors and NGOs have increased because both national measures and measures by the EU’s border control agency, Frontex, are often deemed insufficient. However, such independent rescue missions face increasing persecution from national governments, Italy being one example. This raises the question of how potential migrants and dissenting citizens should act towards the EU border regime. (...) In contrast to the literature, which mainly addresses migration on the basis of justice requirements, this article focuses on the legitimate authority of the EU’s border regime. Focusing on the legitimacy criteria for states’ claims to regulate migration opens a fruitful normative perspective, given the pervasive disagreement over the content of justice in migration. What reasons for compliance and non-interference does legitimacy supply for potential immigrants and dissenting citizens? And what legitimacy standard may be appropriate for the power that individual states claim over potential immigrants? We argue that, even assuming a minimal legitimacy standard for the state-migrant relationship, the structure of the EU’s border regime exhibits unique features, which cause it to stand in tension with such a standard. By coordinating its Member States’ border regimes, especially through Frontex, the EU claims and exercises power over potential immigrants. However, the asymmetrical delegation of state powers to the EU means that the power involved in regulating European borders is, in core respects, unaccountable. This unaccountability, we argue, is significant for the legitimacy of the EU’s border regime. This article sheds new light on the morality of unauthorised rescue missions by assessing the permissibility of resistance to the EU’s border regime. (shrink)

The World Economic Forum notes that there is an economic gap between Indonesia and Malaysia every year as seen from GDP per capita. The economic disparity between the two countries caused differences in available employment opportunities. Limited employment opportunities in Indonesia cause an increase in unemployment in Indonesia. The high unemployment rate in West Kalimantan is the main cause of the migration of Indonesians to Malaysia with the aim of carrying out economic and trade activities in the Serikin Market (...) which is located in Sarawak, East Malaysia. The market only takes about 15 minutes from the Jagoi Babang. This study used primary data collected by using in-depth interview and observation techniques which was analyzed qualitatively. The study found that in general the migration patterns of Indonesian traders who traded in the Serikin Market practiced non-permanent mobility patterns. The opportunities of cross-border trade carried out by Indonesian traders are reducing unemployment, facilitating product marketing, increasing income. While the challenges faced are the inadequacy of the road infrastructure, the quality of merchandise that is not good, the unavailability of lodging for Indonesian traders in the border area of Jagoi Babang, shop rental prices are relatively expensive. Basically, this research is to provide empirical data regarding to opportunities and challenges of cross-border traders that will be able to be used for future research related to strategies in managing cross-border trade Hopefully, this research will contribute significantly to generate an effective migration policy in order to minimize transnational crimes. (shrink)

MEDIA and humanitarian organizations inundate us with headlines and press releases decrying the “Global Refugee Crisis”, the “Syrian Refugee Crisis”, the “Mediterranean Migration Crisis”, the “2014 American Immigrant Crisis” and much more. Careers in academic and policy circles are built on analyzing and proposing solutions to migration crises. The representation of migration as a crisis is a default response to the challenges of human mobility. This default response is often misguided and harmful. This claim may (...) seem odd or even perverse. Why should we represent the forced displacement of millions of women, men, and children around the world as anything other than a crisis? Nonetheless, crisis is an evaluative term, representing an event as dangerous, difficult, and exceptional and often justifying drastic measures. In what follows, I identify four ways in which the representation of migration as a crisis is an abuse, mischaracterizing the nature of migration and harming migrants. I end with a series of remarks about when migrant crisis may be an appropriate label. (shrink)

Addressing studies of the concepts of structure and agency, in 2008 sociologist François Dépelteau called for a ‘relational approach’ that compared the ‘trans-actions’ of actors, but notably left open the question of how such a study should be conducted. The present article attempts to operationalise Dépelteau’s call, albeit in a manner tailored specifically to meet the needs of researchers in the area of ‘lived ancient religion’. The study of ‘trans-action’ is operationalised here by employing key terms drawn from Staf (...) Hellemans’s ‘processing approach’ to the study of religion, in which agents ‘process’ their environments through selection, modification, assembly, performance, integration, and resonance. In the study of the religions of Mediterranean antiquity, questions of structure and agency can be addressed relationally by comparing the performances of specific actors, to the extent that such performances are accessible in the material evidence; for example, in the form of texts, statuary, art, and architecture. In an attempt to demonstrate the utility of this approach, a case study of the ritual of circumcision in ancient Judaism is offered. (shrink)

Global processes significantly affect the mobility of the population. In the context of geopolitical transformation, globalization and quarantine restrictions of Covid-19, it is important to predict the development of the migration movement of countries that are developing. Therefore, the article is aimed at modelling migration changes according to alternative scenarios using the example of Ukraine. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is formed by a number of scientific works of leading scientists from different countries, statistical (...) information on migration processes and socio-economic indicators of Ukraine’s development, economic, mathematical and scenario methods. In the course of the study, the main factors were identified that more affect the migration processes of Ukraine, taking into account the trends in the impact of Covid-19 on them. These include population size, life expectancy, GDP per capita, average monthly wages, and the volume of remittances from individuals to Ukraine. With the help of correlation-regression analysis, a multivariate econometric model of migration growth (reduction) has been built. This made it possible to study the absolute and relative influence of factors on the magnitude of the migration increase (decrease), determine the potential reserves for its increase (decrease), evaluate them using a comparative analysis and carry out predictive calculations of the volume of migration increase (decrease) in Ukraine. (shrink)

The present study collected a larger set of three-dimensional data on human crania from the Kofun period (as well as from previous periods, i.e., the Jomon and Yayoi periods) in the Japanese archipelago (AD 250 to around 700) than previous studies. Three-dimensional geometric morphometrics were employed to investigate human migration patterns in finer-grained phases. These results are consistent with those of previous studies, although some new patterns were discovered. These patterns were interpreted in terms of demic diffusion, archaeological findings, (...) and historical evidence. In particular, the present results suggest the presence of a gradual geological cline throughout the Kofun period, although the middle period did not display such a cline. This discrepancy might reflect social changes in the middle Kofun period, such as the construction of keyhole-shaped mounds in the peripheral regions. The present study implies that a broader investigation with a larger sample of human crania is essential to elucidating macro-level cultural evolutionary processes. (shrink)

As a libertarian studying, embracing, and teaching a philosophy of individual freedom, John Hospers, like many of us, was heavily influenced by the philosophical writings of Ayn Rand. Rand’s major novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged continue to delight and empower readers through embracing the heroic creator or inventor, technological and scientific progress, and the competent individual. These are some of the archetypes of the Randian hero. At the other end of the scale were the incompetent looters and moochers who (...) could only function in her world by controlling those with ability and the savages of ancient or undeveloped cultures who could not comprehend ability, seizing the means of progress before killing the inventor, then retreating into mysticism and magic. Rand was not an archaeologist and wrote at a time before scholars of prehistory focused on the rational and productive aspects of ancient civilizations upon which enabled the present to emerge in fits and starts. These aspects include technology, record keeping, maritime trade, and pre- monetary economies. This paper will consider the emergence of globalized connectivites in the Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1700-1300 BCE) which was arguably the first age of globalization in human history. It was also one of the first ages of social acceleration characterized by a confluence of increasing technological and economic interdependency, yet fragile in its susceptibility to climate change, plagues, and authoritarian city-states and small empires ruled by kings claiming divinity or divine authority. Thus, the Late Bronze Age was also an economically fragile era with a high concentration of wealth distributed among supra-regional global elite plutocrats unified more by wealth and shared symbolism than by cultural tradition or ideology. This era was susceptible to populist resistance in the form of piratical activity and banditry. This paper explores the globalist and populist aspects of the ancient Mediterranean. In doing so, I suggest that some globalized elites of the present day perpetuate another Randian archetype, the moochers and looters. In doing so, it transcends ideology to focus on how the non-productive in current society acquire vast concentrations of wealth and power. (shrink)

Debates around the state-firm analogy as a route to justifying workplace democracy tend towards a static view of both state and firm, and position workplace democracy as the objective. We contend, however, that states and firms are connected to one another in ways that should alter the terms of the debate, and that the achievement of workplace democracy raises a new set of political issues about the demos in the democratic firm and ‘worker migration’ at the boundaries of the (...) firm. Our argument thus contains two key steps: First, drawing on an empirical case study of a worker-owned firm, we enrich the state-firm analogy by developing a more dynamic view of both, focussing on the creation of workplace democracies; worker movement in and out of them; the dynamic meanings of ‘citizenship’ within them; and the status of the unemployed in a world of democratic workplaces. We then argue that in moving to a more sociological view of the state, the things we were comparing begin to show their real-world connections to one another. By going beyond the idealised view of states that has distorted the state-firm analogy debates, we arrive at a more robust view of how widespread workplace democracy might reconfigure basic political relationships in society. (shrink)

This article has begun pondering over the question of Islamic identity by narrating an ancient Muslim philosophers’ quotation. It could also be concluded with a poem from a modern Muslim philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938): “I have lived a long, long while,” said a fallen shore; “What I am know as ill as I knew of yore.” Then swiftly advanced wave from the Sea upshot; “If I roll, I am,” it said; “if I rest, I am not.” Both the first (...) and the last narration insist on a mobile and mosaic identity. Another side of Islamic Identity is related to Ummah, which is also flexible. The Quran describes immigration as an inevitable part of civilization. It was concerned with two great events during the prophet’s time – immigration to Ethiopia and emigration to Medina. It tries to connect worldly and spiritual interests in this topic where a kind of unity in plurality, the secular and sacred affairs meet. It notes that Muslims may migrate because of worldly needs but continue on with unworldly demands; and, indeed, it is possible to combine them rationally. So, focusing on story of immigration in the Quran helps one to better understand the Muslims’ mentality as well as help Muslims to deal with non-Muslims. Obviously immigration consists of some risks; sacrifices for immigrants and hospitality for hosts; but it is also full of opportunities as supported by the Quran. It is related to realizing the high capacity of humankind in facing different cultures and traditions; a mirror for self-knowing and other-knowing; the call to reform morally; to redefine and expand ethical values, to improve the social sphere and change the cultural monologue to dialogue. Finally immigration is a new way to look at God and religion; a new search for the definition of piety and reflects significant different perspectives from the light of the Quran, a misunderstood book in the West! (shrink)

Editor's introduction to special issue of Essays in Philosophy: Migration and Mobility.

The philosophical debate on the freedom of movement focuses almost exclusively on long-term migration, what I call, migration as settlement. The normative justifications defending border controls assume that the movement of people across political borders, independent of its purpose and the length of stay, refers to migration as settlement. “Global mobility,” “international movement,” and “immigration” are oftenused interchangeably. However, global mobility also refers to the movements of people across international borders for a short length of (...) time such as travel, short-term and circular migration. While most scholarly attention has focused on long-term migration, the vast majority of cross-border movement of people (approximately 85% of all cross-border movements in 2019) is short-term. The existing literature offers normative arguments for border controls, which are grounded on states’ right to self-determination, the freedom of (dis)association, the welfare state, the duty to compatriots, and brain drain. In this paper, I argue that these arguments do not justify excluding travelers, short-term and circular migrants from the territory. (shrink)

The articles examines how failure, especially in so-called 'stochastic' arts or sciences like medicine and navigation stimulated reflections about the nature of the knowledge required of a genuine art (techne) or science.

Cannabis in the Ancient Greek and Roman World explores the use of cannabis and hemp in medicine, religion, and recreation in the classical period. This work surveys the plant in Greek and Roman literature and provides a compendium of primary sources discussing hemp through the Middle Ages.

This essay series explores the human costs and policy challenges associated with the displacement crises in the Mediterranean and Andaman Seas. The essays explore the myths or misconceptions that have pervaded discussions about these two crises, as well as the constraints or capacity deficiencies have hampered the responses to them.

Abstract: It is the aim of this paper to establish a temporal and cultural link between entheogen-use1 in Classical mystery cults and their possible use in a segment of the early Christian Gnostic Church. As early Christianity was heavily influenced by the Classical world in which it first developed, it is essential to examine the evidence of entheogen-use within Classical mystery cults, and explore their possible influence on the development of Christian ritual. We will first present textual evidence from the (...) New Testament and Nag Hammadi Library (NHL) that indicate possible use of ritual entheogens. Next we will examine entheogen-use by some of the main religious sects of the ancient Mediterranean world as part of their liturgical practice between c. fifth century BCE and the third century CE. Then we will show that the different schools of philosophical thought examined were quite fluid, and that there was considerable overlap among schools with respect to several key philosophies and practices. Ultimately the subject of entheogen-use in the Classical world necessarily falls into the realm of plausible speculation mainly due to the lack of primary sources. However, should the entheogenic hypothesis2 prove to be correct, it promises to be quite useful in future research and in the translation of original documents. (shrink)

This special issue consists of four articles, contributed by David Owen; Désirée Lim, Sahar Akhtar and (as co-authors) Mollie Gerver, Miranda Simon, Patrick Lown and Dominik Duell. These contributions address issues related to migration policies with the aim of bringing normative theories of migration and discrimination into dialogue. These theories describe the various types of discrimination inherent in the domestic and global migration systems, as well as assess arguments, pro et contra, about whether these forms of discrimination (...) are permissible. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to present how ancient and modern thinkers describe politics and to discuss reasons for differences seen in these definitions. In the ancient period, the identification of human being as a political entity by nature caused politics to be seen as the most supreme of all human activities. For the ancient thinkers, politics is conceptualized as a pluralist area in which the common issues are discussed by equals and also which excludes inequality. (...) Ancient thinker Aristotle says that the purpose of politics is “good life”. However, modern political thought which began with Machiavelli identified politics with the concepts of force, power and violence. Politics is defined by Machiavelli and his successors as the legitimate organization of physical violence, the distribution of power, value and resources by authority. While in the Ancient Greece violence is excluded from the public-political sphere, It has become one of the central concepts defining the political society in the modern world. While the human being was defined as a political entity (zoon politikon) in the ancient period, it is usually seen as an economic entity (homo economicus) in the modern period. For the ancients good life means a life that is dedicated to politics; nevertheless, it has been often associated with econo- mic activity by the moderns. This study argues that the main difference between the political definitions of ancients and moderns stem from differences between their perspectives about the aim of human and human life. (shrink)

It gives me great pleasure and honor to introduce myself as the incoming Editor-in-Chief of Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought. For the last decade I have served as an Associate Editor and the Book Review Editor of the journal. I am very excited about charting new paths for the journal, while continuing to publish first-rate scholarship in our area strengths. Although ‘polis’ is a Greek word that identifies a specific Greek historical political institution, in (...) many important ways the culture of Greek political thought interacted with the political culture of Regal, Republican, and Imperial Rome through Greek settlements in the Western Mediterranean, Roman military conquest, and cultural Hellenization. In the last year the editorial staff of Polis decided to expand the domain of our journal to include scholarship on Roman political thought and Greek-language political thought from the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. Although Polis has been publishing reviews of books devoted to these new domains for several issues, it is quite gratifying to publish an entire special issue, edited by Grant Nelsestuen and Associate Editor Daniel Kapust, devoted to Roman political thought. Additional articles on Roman political thought are in the journal’s publication queue and we look forward to becoming an important venue for the publication of original scholarship and book reviews on Roman political thought and its subsequent reception, along with our original remit for Greek political thought and its reception. The editorial staff of Polis has undergone a number of changes in conjunction with my new role. First and foremost, my mentor and predecessor Kyriakos Demetriou has retired from the position of Editor-in-Chief and become a member of our Editorial Board. I have had the privilege of working with Kyriakos for over 15 years, during which time he transformed the newsletter of the Society for Ancient Greek Political Thought into a pre-eminent peer-reviewed academic journal. I may only hope 15 years from now, that Polis has continued to grow as a source for landmark scholarship on Greek and Roman political thought. During the editorial transition, Associate Editors Rosanna Lauriola and Essam Safty have left our editorial staff. We are grateful for their service to the journal and wish them well in their scholarly endeavors. Finally, I am pleased to announce several additions to our editorial staff. Dimitri El Murr, Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Université Paris Sciences et Lettres), has joined the journal as an Associate Editor responsible for the refereeing and editing of Francophone submissions to Polis. Demetra Kasimis, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, has joined as an Associate Editor responsible for the refereeing of submissions on the political aspects of Greek literature (such as epic, tragedy, and comedy). Matthew Simonton, Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University, has joined the journal as an Associate Editor and Book Review Editor. Finally, Dr. Alexandra Wilding has joined our editorial staff as the journal’s copy-editor. Learn from and enjoy the scholarship of our current issue. Submit to Polis your scholarship on ancient Greek and Roman political thought. Be a part of the future of Polis. Thornton Lockwood Editor-in-Chief. (shrink)

Notwithstanding its pivotal role in the thought of Indian early grammarians, the exact mean‐ ing of the term śabda remains vague and hard to determine for an inexperienced student. The di culty is not simply due to polysemy or ambiguity. The ancient user of the term śabda seems entirely unaware of any distinctions within the semantic range of the word, taking its meaning for granted. The objective of the present paper is to investigate various contexts of the word in (...) order to elucidate its meaning as understood by Indian grammarians, with particular emphasis laid on the followers of the śabdādvaita school. (shrink)

At a time when professional art criticism is on the wane, the ancient quarrel between art and philosophy demands fresh answers. Professional art criticism provided a basis upon which to distinguish apt experiences of art from the idiosyncratic. However, currently the kind of narratives from which critics once drew are underplayed or discarded in contemporary exhibition design where the visual arts are concerned. This leaves open the possibility that art operates either as mere stimulant to private reverie or, in (...) the more contentful cases, as propaganda. The ancient quarrel between art and philosophy is that art influences surreptitiously while philosophy presents reasons that invite rational scrutiny. As such, in contrast to philosophy, art would undermine our agency. In July 2017, a group of philosophers gathered at the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW), in Sydney, Australia, in the presence of two AGNSW curators to explore the basis of their own experiences of selected artworks. Here, those commentaries are reproduced. Each reveal that objective grounds for an experience of art can be based in the community from which one draws one’s terms of reference. In our commentaries we see the expertise of the respective philosophical communities but other communities of culture or expertise might serve the same purpose and hence resolve the ancient quarrel. Before hearing these commentaries, I explain what is at stake when the ancient quarrel between art and philosophy is understood in contemporary terms. This Issue of the Curator also includes an article on the community-based art criticism that emerges from these commentaries followed by an exhibition review which reveals the incorrigible impulse (also demonstrated in the commentaries) to find the basis for the most apt experience of an artwork. A response by the AGNSW curators completes this issue. (shrink)

Contemporary republicanism is characterized by three main ideas: free persons, who are not subject to the arbitrary power of others; free states, which try to protect their citizens from such power without exercising it themselves; and vigilant citizenship, as a means to limit states to their protective role. This book advances an economic model of such republicanism that is ideologically centre-left. It demands an exit-oriented state interventionism, one that would require an activist government to enhance competition and resource exit from (...) dominating relationships within markets of all types, be they marital, labour, or residential. The substantial intervention and redistribution necessitated by such an approach make it leftist, while its tendency to work with rather than against the grain of markets makes it centrist. It is, in short, a contribution to progressive republican political thought, but one that is less social-democratic than market-democratic in character. (shrink)

Since 2023, the UK government's response to the “migrant crisis” has revolved around two controversial flagship policies: the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda, and the detention of migrants aboard a giant barge. In this short article, I examine the colonial and gendered dimensions of the two policies, finding them to be examples of the coloniality of gender. What this indicates, I suggest, is that the purpose of these policies is not merely to deter potential migrants—particularly LGBTQIA+ migrants—but also to (...) create a political narrative that allows the Conservative Party to garner right-wing votes by participating in high-profile culture wars; namely, the debate over transgender rights and the debate over how the UK should reckon with its imperial past. (shrink)

I revisit themes from Against Borders: Why the World Needs Free Movement of People (2020) in dialogue with Gillian Brock's Justice of People on the Move (2020) and Sarah Song's Immigration and Democracy (2019). We share the conviction that current border regimes are deeply unjust but differ in what migration justice requires. Brock and Song continue to give states significant discretion to exclude people from entering and settling in their territories, whereas I contend that migration justice demands open (...) borders. I reject the claim that state self-determination justifies migration restrictions. Central arguments for open borders highlight the role that restrictive border controls and the state category of ‘immigrant’ play in upholding racialised hierarchies and exploitative economic relations, as well as in inflicting violence against mobile people. (shrink)

Most historians and philosophers of philosophy and history of mathematics hold one interpretation or the other of the nature of method of analysis and synthesis in itself and in its historical development. In this paper, I am trying to prove – through three points – that, in fact, there were two understandings of that method in Greek mathematics and philosophy, and which were reflected in Arabic mathematical science and philosophy; this reflection is considered as proof also of this double nature (...) of that method. Thus, we have to rethink the nature of Arabic philosophy systems. (shrink)

Brain drain critiques and human rights advocates have conflicting views on emigration. From a brain drain perspective, the emigration harms a country when emigrants are skilled and the source country is poor. From the human rights perspective, the right "to leave any country, including one's own" is a fundamental right, protected for all, whatever their skills. Is the concern with poverty and social justice at odds with the right to emigrate? At the beginning of the l970s, the economist Jagdish Bhagwati (...) replied in the negative. He imagined a tax on the income earned by the skilled migrants in the destination country, to the benefit of the source country. He thus sought to reconcile the right to emigration and the brain drain effects. -/- This article argues that there is no need to tax skilled migrants in order to reconcile the right to emigration and social justice. Social justice is not incompatible with the right to emigration but rather with restrictions on mobility. If it is both the case that equal opportunities are a minimal requisite for social justice, and that access to opportunities implies freedom of movement, as I shall argue, then the brain drain criticism doesn't satisfy the minimal requirements of social justice. -/- The article is divided into three parts. Each part rejects one of the possible justifications of the Bhagwati tax, that is, as a way, for skilled migrants, (i.) to compensate the welfare loss occasioned to their country of origin; (ii.) to discharge for their obligation to the national community when it publicly financed their education; and (iii.) to compensate for the resulting inequality of opportunities between themselves and their non-migrant compatriots. (shrink)

Previous discussions of the origins of writing in the Ancient Near East have not incorporated the neuroscience of literacy, which suggests that when southern Mesopotamians wrote marks on clay in the late-fourth millennium, they inadvertently reorganized their neural activity, a factor in manipulating the writing system to reflect language, yielding literacy through a combination of neurofunctional change and increased script fidelity to language. Such a development appears to take place only with a sufficient demand for writing and reading, such (...) as that posed by a state-level bureaucracy; the use of a material with suitable characteristics; and the production of marks that are conventionalized, handwritten, simple, and non-numerical. From the perspective of Material Engagement Theory, writing and reading represent the interactivity of bodies, materiality, and brains: movements of hands, arms, and eyes; clay and the implements used to mark it and form characters; and vision, motor planning, object recognition, and language. Literacy is a cognitive change that emerges from and depends upon the nexus of interactivity of the components. (shrink)

The paper aims at critical reconsideration of a motif popular in Indian literary, ritual, and pictorial traditions – a tree goddess (yakṣī, vṛkṣakā) or a woman embracing a tree (śālabhañjīkā, dohada), which points to a close and intimate bond between women and trees. At the outset, I present the most important phases of the evolution of this popular motif from the ancient times to present days. Then two essential characteristics of nature recognized in Indian visual arts, literature, religions and (...) philosophy will be distinguished: (1) a dynamic, creative, self-sufficient and inexhaustible power, and (2) a passive, merely reproductive or vegetative, and dependent field of potentiality. The paper is to demonstrate the interdependence of the popular concepts of nature identified with femininity, and their iconic representations circulating for centuries in Indian culture, with a specific line of argument repeatedly used in social practices and public debates. While doing so, I consider the semiotic function of a cultural topos which proves to be an effective instrument for construing and supporting the gender roles and gender identities. As a modern example illustrating vitality and persuasive power of the motif of yakṣī and śālabhañjīkā, I refer to the Chipko Movement, a group of rural women based in the Garhwal Himalayas (state Uttarakhand), who fought against the mass cut of trees in the 1970s. They were involved in the wide-spread environmental campaign which significantly affected the ecological policy of the local and state authorities. Thus, a traditional motif of the visual arts has been revived and re-elaborated by the activists of this ecofeminist movement through converting the symbolic potential of yakṣī/śālabhañjīkā into social and political power. (shrink)

It cannot be overstated that in recent times the gravity and complexity of irregular maritime migration have triggered concerns and debates in the academic domains of International Relations and International Law. The article examines how states’ compliance with, and enforcement of, international law and legal norms would tackle the challenges of irregular migration in the Indian Ocean region. The legislative and policy challenges regarding irregular migration can be analyzed under two segments. First, there is a lack of (...) comprehensive discussion about the sending and the receiving states’ commitments (regarding irregular migrants) to international law and legal norms. Secondly, deficit of comparative analysis to show how the littoral states comply with international law norms on migration and refugee influx. Such analysis from multiple perspectives would be helpful to get insights and make policy recommendations about how effectively international law norms could be enforced through national legislation and policy framework. (shrink)

The movement of people from one country to another in search of greener pasture, peaceful settlement and so on, has become very rampant in the world today. These same reasons have triggered internal migrations as well. Lives have been lost in the bid to circumvent immigration laws of countries by immigrants. The current spate of wars, political crises, natural disasters and hunger has led to increase in illegal migration in the world. Nigeria is not left out. We hear of (...) boundary clashes and insurgencies, which have resulted in illegal emigration to other countries basically in search of job opportunities and better living conditions. Nigerians have severally been repatriated from foreign lands. Recently, over five thousand Nigerians were repatriated from Libya. Nigeria has also played host to migrants from neighbouring countries, and has experienced internal migration in several parts of the country. The frequently asked questions are: “what role can religion play in curbing the spate of illegal migration and refugee crises in Cross River State, Nigeria? The research discovered that religion can be a veritable partner to government in resolving this ever-increasing menace that has become an embarrassment to the state and nation. This work adopted qualitative or explorative research method. It employed the content analysis approach in examining available printed materials on the subject matter. In view of its peculiarity, oral interviews were conducted on specific groups and individuals. This work proposes the involvement of religious organisations in preaching and teaching on the dangers of illegal migration, the provision of vocational training for our teaming youth population to reduce emigration, and the provision of counselling and resettlement programmes for the repatriated and those in refugee camps across the country. The work also encourages the government to evolve modalities to curb the spate of violence and bloodshed that has fuelled refugee crises in Cross River State and Nigeria in general. (shrink)

Many philosophers argue that the right of self-determination confers to states a right to exclude would-be migrants. Drawing on the case of anti-colonial struggles of the 20th century, I argue that self-determination should be thought of as fundamentally a claim against intergroup hierarchy. This means that self-determination only grants a right to exclude in cases where immigration poses a genuine oppressive threat. Cases involving immigration into wealthy and powerful states rarely meet this criterion, and so talk of self-determination as grounding (...) a right to exclude in such cases is misguided. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders Antigone’s role in the ancient Greek polis in the framework of Hegel’s concept of Sittlichkeit, as developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. My main hypothesis is that Antigone appears to challenge both the Greek androcentric order and Hegel’s hypotheses on subjectivity. I prove this by reevaluating Hegel’s notion of the Ethical act (sittliche Handlung). Finally, I identify the endowment of Sittlichkeit on natural sexual distinction as the real reason for its collapse and point out the problematic (...) consequences of such endowment for further development of the Phenomenology of Spirit. (shrink)

This article analyzes how populism is conceptualized and studied in International Relations (IR) and argues that it should be seen as a political logic instead of a political ideology. It does so by demonstrating that ‘populist foreign policy’ looks radically different when analyzing the populist left, refuting the possibility of any distinctly ‘populist’ foreign policy positions. We argue that large parts of IR scholarship practice a form of concept-stretching that undermines the quality of analysis as well as the ability to (...) make meaningful policy recommendations. Using the empirical case studies of Bernie Sanders in the United States and Podemos in Spain, the article demonstrates that populism does not translate into any shared ideological positions but is a way of formulating and performing – in these cases – leftist politics through which political actors can interpellate and mobilize different societal groups and demands behind their political projects. In particular, the analysis debunks common assumptions about populism’s alleged effects on foreign policy and dangers to pluralist democracy and shows that “populism” neither necessarily opposes multilateralism, migration and global public good provision nor formulates an authoritarian claim to power. (shrink)

This paper examines the interplay between hope and despair in David Walker's "Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World" (1829). I argue that, in his pamphlet, Walker mobilizes despair about the depth and seeming insurmountability of white supremacy to catalyze collective political agency and thereby emancipatory hope among Black Americans. This emancipatory potential of despair is grounded a distinction between the content of despair (a belief in the insurmountability of white supremacy) and its form as a political judgment made (...) in concert with others. Walker uses the form of despair as political judgment to effect a transformation in the political affect of Black Americans from a shared sense that there is nothing to be done to to a collective sense of a 'we' that can act to change the world. (shrink)

Li (禮) and yi (義) are two central moral concepts in the Analects. Li has a broad semantic range, referring to formal ceremonial rituals on the one hand, and basic rules of personal decorum on the other. What is similar across the range of referents is that the li comprise strictures of correct behavior. The li are a distinguishing characteristic of Confucian approaches to ethics and socio-political thought, a set of rules and protocols that were thought to constitute the wise (...) practices of ancient moral exemplars filtered down through dynasties of the past. However, even while the li were extensive and meant to be followed diligently, they were also understood as incapable of exhausting the whole range of activity that constitutes human life. There were bound to be situations in life where there would be no obvious recourse to the li for guidance. As part of their reflections on the good life, the Confucians maintained another moral concept that seemed to cover morally upright exemplary behavior in these types of situations. This concept is that of yi or rightness. In this chapter, I begin with a brief historical sketch to provide some context, and will then turn to li and yi in turn. In the end, I will suggest how li and yi were both meant to facilitate the supreme value of social harmony that pervades much of the Analects and serves as its ultimate orientation. (shrink)

This paper explores two related questions in late Athenian and Alexandrian Neoplatonism. First, how can a philosopher contemplate the eternal Forms while engaging in practical agency in the world? Second, do Neoplatonists provide a consistent account of the philosopher’s progress through the ‘stages of virtue’ (βαθμοί τῶν ἀρετῶν), the conceptual structure that underpins late antique philosophical curricula and hagiography? These questions interact, I suggest, because later Platonists appeal to the stages of virtue and divine maniai (βαθμοί τῶν μανίων) to explain (...) the philosopher’s ability to alternate gracefully between contemplation and embodied agency, and even to engage in both activities at the same moment. I argue that apparently contradictory evidence for the highest stages of virtue can be reconciled satisfactorily, shedding light on two models of ethical and perceptual transformation that are consistent throughout later Neoplatonism. In the first, 'painterly' model, we alternate between a vision of the paradigmatic model and its expression in the media of place and time; in the second, 'dancerly' model, we contemplate in action all at once, like a dancer moving to the music. (shrink)

The present proposal is an approach to the vision, cosmogony and philosophy of the Totonacapan people, and particularly with the inhabitants of the Totonacapan region in Veracruz Mexico, a town whose wisdom is manifested to this day, in the conservation of customs and traditions , as well as the hierarchy of collective desire that seeks health, well-being and peace in the region, are guides in the evolution of their cultural processes, where a closeness, respectful and deep with Mother Nature stands (...) out. This wisdom by the Council of Elders, transmitted to the new generations, by the Supreme Council of Totonacapan who seek share the basis to understand and conceive the current world, from the ancestral vision and cosmogony to identify their space, thought, spirituality and in the building your social context. In the Totonacapan region, the first pre-hispanic population concentrations were located around 1259 to 1311. Already by the year 1450, there is a record of incursions and the conquest of Totonaca territory, by the Mexica, establishing a relationship of domain and subordination. As a result of the presence of "Mexica" in the Totonaco territory, there was an imposition of customs and language, since in some areas they begin to speak in Nahuatl, resulting in the presence of a bilingualism (Nahuatl-Totonac) , situation that persists, until the encounter with the Spaniards in the year of 1519. At present, the Totonacapan region includes the area that extends from the Cazones River to the north, to the towns of Gutiérrez Zamora and Tecolutla, in the State of Veracruz in Mexico. 2 The importance of the document is that it constitutes an invitation to deepen and understand the vision of the inhabitants of Totonacapan, in the construction of their social context and their connection with nature, as part of an ancient culture, which creates and recreates their vision, in the search for the feeling of belonging and as an inheritance of the children of thunder (Tajin), as well as the need to preserve the benefits that nature itself offers them, seeking a peaceful and harmonious coexistence, in the social and environmental environment. However, the preservation of its history, tradition and philosophy of life, contrast with public policy strategies, particularly in the social sphere, and which are aimed at achieving economic development in the fight against multidimensional poverty and marginalization, all Once they have not incorporated into them, the feeling and living of the relationship between individual and nature, as the guiding axis, of the philosophy of the Totonacapan people. What is sustainability for the people of Totonacapan? What is social justice in the search for sustainability? And what is your concept of justice in sustainability and human development? From the vision and philosophy of the people of Totonacapan, as part of the history and tradition of the children of thunder "Tajin" and in whose worldview, he is responsible for regulating the rain, climate and life of the people of the region. How does the people of Totonacapan live and live in the face of the maelstrom of actions that, from public policy, that seek human development? How do you adjust, your way of life and how do you adapt to the requirements, which from the perspective of justice, are required to contribute to the objectives of the 2030 development agenda? This document is an effort to learn and recognize one of the most important millenary cultures in Mexico, in the construction of a more inclusive vision of the social development of the Totonacapan people, which invites us to reflect on the direction and scope of this response. (shrink)

Scholars have widely assumed that the aspects of Kant’s virtue theory that nod to ancient ethics must be cashed out with reference to Aristotle. Interpreters then worry that Kant's conception of virtue as a “moral strength of will” (Doctrine of Virtue, 6:405) must be tantamount to Aristotle’s notion of “continence” (enkrateia) — the state of a person who knows the good, and acts accordingly, but must overcome strong countervailing impulses in order to do so. The result plays into caricatures (...) of Kantian ethics as valorising a joyless standard of duty, which these Aristotelian-oriented commentators (rightly) wish to resist. However, the worry is misplaced. I show that Kant is not thinking about Aristotle here, but is instead engaged with a specifically Stoic approach to ethics as a dimension of natural teleology. I draw on this context to show that Kant’s virtue-as-strength idea is not marred in the ways it appears to be when read through an Aristotelian lens. (shrink)

It is common for social theorists to utilize the metaphors of ‘flow’, ‘fluidity’, and ‘liquidity’ in order to substantiate the ways in which speed and mobility form the basis for a new kind of information or network society. Yet rarely have these concepts been sufficiently theorized in order to establish their relevance or appropriateness. This article contends that the notion of flow as utilized in social theory is profoundly metaphysical in nature, and needs to be judged as such. Beginning (...) with a discussion of the accelerating timescape that characterizes the network society, it will then move on to examine three main issues with this ‘metaphysics of flux’. First, that the concept of flows unjustly privileges the process of becoming and, as a result, is unable to account for the materiality, substantiality, and agency of the objects being mobilized, and the contingency of their mediation. Second, that it posits the accelerating tendencies of capital as an ontological inevitability, thus discounting resistance to such forces. Finally, that it ignores the human faculty for reason and speculative thought in developing alternative means of political praxis. The solution, it will be argued, is not to abandon metaphysical accounts of the network society, but rather to challenge those accounts that, in exhibiting a crude empiricism, work to justify the status quo. (shrink)

: ‘Ecological civilization’ has been put forward as a utopia, as this notion has been defended by Ernst Bloch and Paul Ricoeur. It is a vision of the future that puts into question that which presently exists, revealing its contingency while offering an inspiring image of the future that can mobilize people to create this future. Ecological civilization is a vision based on ecological thinking, seeing all life as interdependent communities of communities. Humanity’s place in nature is redefined as participating (...) in communities, both human and non-human, including the global ecosystem. From this perspective, the end of life in both ethics and politics should be to augment life through augmenting the conditions for life, that is, through ‘ecopoiesis’ or ‘home-making’. What is involved in this has been clarified by work in biosemiotics and biohermeneutics where life is identified with semiosis, the production and interpretation of signs. Advancing biosemiotics and biohermeneutics, I will argue that living processes can be understood as proto-narratives organizing living processes to advance the conditions for life. They are inchoate in Ricoeur’s sense because they are not reflectively formulated as such but are being lived out. Developing our understanding of the world involves understanding these inter-related proto-narratives, including the proto-narrative that has operated in the creation of the biosphere and semiosphere, and recognizing the potential of human culture as part of this semiosphere to make explicit and re-emplot these proto-narratives. Most importantly, it is to make explicit and further develop the proto-narrative of the global ecosystem to augment the conditions for life. This will involve articulating a new grand narrative of not only humanity but of terrestrial life, orienting human communities at all levels to create and sustain a global ecological civilization. (shrink)

This essay aims to appreciate the influence of the use of aesthetics on the process of confectioning the ἦθος (éthos: “character”) in the civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean. An anthropological approach of the premeditated use of different types of arts or techniques, aiming to provide to the individual an ideal image to be emulated allows the keys to the analytical comprehension of how those societies discovered that the several faculties of the human condition interact with its sensitivity. Printing (...) symbols of the ψυχή (psyché) on the image technically elaborated – the so-called technical virtuosity, being plastically or virtually, as happens in the poets’ action – consists in a normative use of these arts, with the pedagogical intention that virtuous examples can be assimilated by the process of μίμησις (mímesis: “emulation”). The formative potential of these arts is felt indefinitely in time, provoking the same process in individuals which are inside cultural and temporal contexts entirely different from those who conceived them. (shrink)

The article examines the collaborations between the pensionnaires of the Villa Medici in Rome and the members of the French School of Athens, shedding light on the complex relationships between architecture, art, and archeology. The second half of the 19th century was a period during which the exchanges and collaborations between archaeologists, artists, and architects acquired a reinvented role and a dominant place. Within such a context, Athens was the place par excellence, where the encounter between these three disciplines took (...) place. The main objective of the article is to render explicit how the revelations of archeology, actively disseminated by the members of the French School of Athens—the “Athéniens”—had an important impact on the approach of certain pensionnaires of the Villa Medici in Rome. Particular emphasis is placed on certain pensionnaires, who decided to devote their envois to ancient monuments of Greece. In parallel, the article intends to shed light on the methods that helped the pensionnaires-architects of the Villa Medici in Rome appropriate archaeological discoveries concerning Greek antiquities. The article takes, as a starting point, the following hypothesis: to better understand the figure of the architect-archaeologist, of whom Jacques Ignace Hittorff is an emblematic example, it is pivotal to bear in mind that before the second half of the 19th century neither the figure of Hellenic archeology nor the figure of the architect had yet acquired their autonomy. Taking into account that Johann Joachim Winckelmann, in the middle of the 18th century, forged an ideal Greek model, which was criticized during the second half of the 19th century, the article also sheds light on the fact that the revelations of archaeologists have called into question the Winckelmannian image of Greece. Another aspect that is explored in the article is Jacques Ignace Hittorff’s studies concerning the polychromy of ancient Greek monuments, paying special attention to his Restitution du temple d’Empédocle à Sélinonte ou l’Architecture polychrome chez les Grecs. The article also explores how the shifts of the status of philhellenism are related to the mutations of the meaning of travel to Greece. In parallel, it investigates the impact of Greek independence on the ideals of beauty and nature in arts, as well as how Greek independence is related to the intensification of the interest in the excavations of Greek antiquities. (shrink)

Section III of part IV of Book I of Hume's Treatise entitled “Of the ancient philosophy” has been virtually ignored by most Hume scholars. Although philosophers seem to concentrate on sections II and VI of part IV and pay little or no attention to section III, the latter section is paramount in showing how serious Hume's skepticism is, and how Hume's philosophy, contrary to his intention, is far removed from "the sentiments of the vulgar". In this paper I shall (...) first explore Hume's view on ancient philosophy as it is presented in section III, and I shall particularly focus on his discussion of identity and simplicity of bodies. Second, I shall argue that Hume's account of identity and simplicity in terms of qualities is at best unsatisfactory. Finally, I shall try to show that Hume's advice to hold a "moderate" skepticism cannot be taken seriously. On the contrary, Hume seems to hold an "extravagant" skepticism, since he claims that there is a contradiction between our most fundamental natural beliefs, as well as between our natural beliefs and philosophical reasoning. (shrink)

In this second of two essays on the topic of ancient Greek inscriptions, I will briefly explore and discuss the textuality of ritual norms or, 'sacred laws', by looking 1) at the reasons for these ritual norms to have been written down in the first place and 2) how these norms/laws/decrees were able to get their observers to adhere to them. Throughout the essay I have made use of J.L. Austin's Speech Act Theory to better contextualize the meaning of (...) the inscriptions dealt with. (shrink)

This article presents a newly discovered votive inscription found during the course of the 2013 survey conducted at the ancient city of Phaselis and in its territory. The inscription was found where the stairs to the acropolis from the southwest of the theatre end, in front of the west wall of the tower structure give access to the acropolis. This inscription in the Doric dialect, on a limestone block measuring 0.315 x 0.77 x 0.61 m., records a dedication to (...) Athena Polias. The letters 0.03 m. high, exhibit Late Archaic - Early Classical Period features ( - - - - ) and, consequently the inscription can be dated to the Vth century B.C. -/- Phaselis and its Chief Goddess Athena Polias From the earliest times of Athena worship, especially in the Aegean Islands and Hellas, this goddess was the protectress of cities, institutions and mythological heroes and she manifested this function in various ways. In one of the earliest recorded examples she carries the epithet ἐρυσίπτολις (guardian of the cities), and in another example, in a Linear B inscription discovered in the Palace of Knossos on Crete as Atana Potnia (a-ta-na-po-ti-ni-ja), the mistress of the palace. But perhaps the most striking myth relating to this role of Athena is undoubtedly that of the Palladion statue, the reason for the fall of Troy and for defeat in the Trojan War. In this context, Troy could resist the Achaeans for as long as it was protected by the Palladion, but after it was stolen by Odysseus and Diomedes, the city was captured by the Achaeans. Subsequently, Athens, Argos and Sparta, the most powerful Greek cities, as later the city of Rome, in order to obtain Athena’s protection and so to gain legitimization for the expansion of their empires, invented their own myths claiming that the Palladion statue from Troy was brought to their cities. In another myth the Goddess became the protectress of Tegea through giving Medusa’s hair as a protective image to a hero of the city. Athena’s frequently used epithets, Polias (Πολιάς), Poliouchos (Πολιοῦχος), and the epithet the protectress of the Athenians (Ἀθηνᾶ Ἀθηνῶν μεδέουσα), employed as a means of religious propaganda by the city of Athens when it established the Delian League which subsequently evolved into an empire, clearly indicate Athena was regarded as guardian of the cities. Particularly during the Archaic and Classical Periods, it was this aspect of Athena that, politically placed the Goddess amongst the most important of deities with Zeus and Apollo, and she is most commonly found with the epithet Polias. The epithet Polias or similar, refers in particular to the heart of these cities, to their acropoleis, where Athena Polias was usually worshipped. Her temples located on the heights of the cities made her role particularly visible as the main protecting goddess. One of the best examples of this “visibility”concerns the earliest record of the epithet Polias as, although she wasn’t the chief deity of Argos, within the sanctuary of Athena Polias located on Larisa hill an inscription was found which supplies us with the text of a cult regulation which is datable to the VIth century. B.C.. The Anatolian goddess of Malija, equal to Athena (in Lycia), was attested in Hittite texts from IInd millennium B.C.. This goddess worshipped in Lycia, close to the city of Phaselis, is similarly in a relationship with cities and acropoleis. The Inscribed Pillar of Ksanthos dating from the Vth century B.C. records that many acropoleis were seized with the help of Athena ptoliporthos (πτολίπορθος) “Sacker of Cities”. In the same inscription the city of Patara was named together with Malija and it may refer to the Patara of Malija as in the example of the Lindian Athena (Lindos, city of Athena). Moreover, the goddess Malija was named with the epithet Wedrẽñni (regional, municipal) the equivalent of the epithet Polias in Rhodiapolis. During the great colonization movements (750-550 B.C.) the colonists brought the cult of Athena Polias to many Mediterranean cities, as was the case for example for Lindos on the island of Rhodos. As a matter of fact the strongest ties between Lindos and the colonies which Rhodes founded was the cult of Athena. In consequence, these cities offered precious gifts to the Temple of Athena in Lindos as a demonstration of both their veneration of the goddess and of loyalty. According to myth, the city of Phaselis was colonized in 691/690 B.C. by a group under the leadership of Lakios from Lindos and the Athena cult of the mother city was brought to Phaselis. Thereafter the Phaselitai dedicated the helmets and sickles to Athena Lindia upon which was inscribed, “Having taken them from the Solymoi, the Phaselitai offered them to Athena Lindia, when Lakios was the leader of the colonists”. In addition to this, the other evidence concerning the presence of Athena in the city confirms that this deity was the chief goddess of Phaselis. During the Classical, and especially in the Hellenistic Period, depictions of Athena’s owl, of her Palladion and of Athena Promachos are found. As mentioned above, the epithet Polias usually draws attention to a city’s acropolis with the temple of Athena Polias located there. In the case of Phaselis, the find spot of these votive inscriptions, reused in a wall of a tower that was built in defense of the acropolis, provides an additional indication for the localization of Athena’s temple to the acropolis. This temple most probably was on the acropolis where there are the ruins of a columned building and large ashlar blocks possibly indicating the site of a temple; however, due to the dense vegetation and in the absence of excavations, at present this localisation cannot be stated with certainty. Another reference indicating that Athena Polias was the chief deity of the city was the presence of a holy relic in the Temple of Athena, the spear of the hero of the Trojan War Achilles. During his campaign against the Persians, Alexander the Great stayed in Phaselis in the winter of 334/333 B.C. and he left Achilles’ spear in the Temple of Athena at Phaselis. During the Hellenistic Period, Hellenistic Kings were mentioned with the chief deities of the Archaic and Classical periods as were the emperors in Roman Imperial Period. And according with this practice, the boule and demos of Phaselis worshipped Athena Polias together with the deified emperors, known from an honorific inscription for a certain Ptolemaios. Evidence from the Late Roman Period, especially from the IIIrd century A.D., records the Palladeios agons (ἀγὼν Παλλάδειος) were held in the city in honour of the Goddess Athena. Consequently, philological, epigraphic as well as numismatic evidence shows the Goddess Athena was the chief deity of the city of Phaselis from the Archaic Period into the Late Roman Period. As the epithet Polias on this votive inscription indicates, the goddess had a temple which should be located on the acropolis where the holy relic (Achilles’ spear) was kept and where the officials of the goddess conducted their functions. This new votive inscription provides record of the role Athena occupied in this early post-colonisation period of the city’s political and socio-cultural history. Further, it is also a physical document dating from the city’s Late Archaic-Early Classical Period, aiding in the evaluation of both Phaselis and of the wider region’s history of settlement. (shrink)

The Netherlands has been known as one of the pioneers in the sharing economy. At the beginning of the 2010s, many local initiatives such as Peerby, SnappCar, and Thuisafgehaald launched that enabled consumers to share underused resources or provide services to each other. This was accompanied by a wide interest from the Dutch media, zooming in on the perceived social and environmental benefits of these platforms. Commercial platforms such as Uber, UberPop and Airbnb followed soon after. After their entrance to (...) the market, the societal debate about the impact of these platforms also started to include the negative consequences. Early on, universities and national research and policy institutes took part in these discussions by providing definitions, frameworks, and analyses. In the last few years, the attention has shifted from the sharing economy to the much broader defined platform economy. (shrink)

The Olympic Games are a sporting event guided by philosophy. The modern Olympic Charter calls this philosophy “Olympism” and boldly states its goal as nothing less than “the harmonious development of humankind” and the promotion of “a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” The ideas and ideals behind Olympism, however, are ancient—tracing their roots to archaic and classical Greece, just like the Games do. This collection of essays explores the ancient Hellenic roots of Olympic philosophy (...) and explain their application to modern sport. It examines the philosophical heritage of the Games, the ethics implied by Olympic values of sport, the educational goals of sport, the relations between justice and fair play, the political ideals of peace and world community, and modern challenge of multiculturalism as expressed in the philosophical contrasts between East and West. To understand the beauty, challenges, politics, and potential of the Olympic Games, we must first understand Olympic philosophy. (shrink)