Around the web this weekend:
Ross Scaife tells us of some major funding for the EDUCE project he's involved with ... see also this page ...
Laura Gibbs announces her Latin via Proverbs book ...
Durandir is enjoying distance education grad school ...
Irene Hahn tells us about pontifex and pontifex maximus ...
Eric spots a couple of Classical references in the Philadelphia Inquirer ...
Nathan Bauman is reading Homer again ...
Mary Beard comments on recent (and upcoming) docudramas about Rome ...
Troels Myrup gives us a top ten list of Mediterranean sites (with photos) ...
Mischa Hooker comments on a review of a recent Helen novel ... there's also an interesting Boone editorial ...
Chris Weimer translates Catullus V ...
David Parsons comments on Isidore of Seville as patron saint of the internet ...
From the Imperial Rome list comes an interesting link: The Rome Map ... you click on the map and it shows you a photo from the site ...
From Abzu comes notice of:
Fortified Military Camps in Attica
Homer and Dorothy Thompson, Hellenistic Pottery and Terracottas
F. Nicholas Jones, Public Organization in Ancient Greece
New papers up at the Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics page (pdfs):
Socrates and democratic Athens: The story of the trial in its historical and legal contexts.
Josiah Ober, Stanford University
Abstract - Socrates was both a loyal citizen (by his own lights) and a critic of the democratic community’s way of doing things. This led to a crisis in 339 B.C. In order to understand Socrates’ and the Athenian community’s actions (as reported by Plato and Xenophon) it is necessary to understand the historical and legal contexts, the democratic state’s commitment to the notion that citizens are resonsible for the effects of their actions, and Socrates’ reasons for preferring to live in Athens rather than in states that might (by his lights) have had substantively better legal systems. Written for the Cambridge Companion to Socrates.
From epistemic diversity to common knowledge: Rational rituals and publicity in democratic Athens.
Josiah Ober, Stanford University
Abstract - Effective organization of knowledge allows democracies to meet Darwinian challenges, and thus avoid elimination by more hierarchical rivals. Institutional processes capable of aggregating diverse knowledge and coordinating action promote the flourishing of democratic communities in competitive environments. Institutions that increase the credibility of commitments and build common knowledge are key aspects of democratic coordination. “Rational rituals,” through which credible commitments and common knowledge are effectively publicized, were prevalent in democratic Athens. Analysis of parts of Lycurgus’ speech Against Leocrates reveals some key features of the how rational rituals worked to build common knowledge in Athens. This paper, adapted from a book-in-progess, is fortthcoming in the journal Episteme.
Natural Capacities and Democracy as a Good-in-Itself
Josiah Ober, Stanford University
Abstract - A paper on moral and political philosophy, arguing on Aristotelian grounds, that democracy is not only an instrumental good, but a good-in-itself for humans, because the exercise of constitutive natural capacities is and end, necessary for true happiness (understood as eudaimonia), and democracy (understood as association in decision) is a constitutive natural human capacity of humans. Forthcoming, winter 2006 in Philosophical Studies.
Ross Scaife tells us of some major funding for the EDUCE project he's involved with ... see also this page ...
Laura Gibbs announces her Latin via Proverbs book ...
Durandir is enjoying distance education grad school ...
Irene Hahn tells us about pontifex and pontifex maximus ...
Eric spots a couple of Classical references in the Philadelphia Inquirer ...
Nathan Bauman is reading Homer again ...
Mary Beard comments on recent (and upcoming) docudramas about Rome ...
Troels Myrup gives us a top ten list of Mediterranean sites (with photos) ...
Mischa Hooker comments on a review of a recent Helen novel ... there's also an interesting Boone editorial ...
Chris Weimer translates Catullus V ...
David Parsons comments on Isidore of Seville as patron saint of the internet ...
From the Imperial Rome list comes an interesting link: The Rome Map ... you click on the map and it shows you a photo from the site ...
From Abzu comes notice of:
Fortified Military Camps in Attica
Homer and Dorothy Thompson, Hellenistic Pottery and Terracottas
F. Nicholas Jones, Public Organization in Ancient Greece
New papers up at the Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics page (pdfs):
Socrates and democratic Athens: The story of the trial in its historical and legal contexts.
Josiah Ober, Stanford University
Abstract - Socrates was both a loyal citizen (by his own lights) and a critic of the democratic community’s way of doing things. This led to a crisis in 339 B.C. In order to understand Socrates’ and the Athenian community’s actions (as reported by Plato and Xenophon) it is necessary to understand the historical and legal contexts, the democratic state’s commitment to the notion that citizens are resonsible for the effects of their actions, and Socrates’ reasons for preferring to live in Athens rather than in states that might (by his lights) have had substantively better legal systems. Written for the Cambridge Companion to Socrates.
From epistemic diversity to common knowledge: Rational rituals and publicity in democratic Athens.
Josiah Ober, Stanford University
Abstract - Effective organization of knowledge allows democracies to meet Darwinian challenges, and thus avoid elimination by more hierarchical rivals. Institutional processes capable of aggregating diverse knowledge and coordinating action promote the flourishing of democratic communities in competitive environments. Institutions that increase the credibility of commitments and build common knowledge are key aspects of democratic coordination. “Rational rituals,” through which credible commitments and common knowledge are effectively publicized, were prevalent in democratic Athens. Analysis of parts of Lycurgus’ speech Against Leocrates reveals some key features of the how rational rituals worked to build common knowledge in Athens. This paper, adapted from a book-in-progess, is fortthcoming in the journal Episteme.
Natural Capacities and Democracy as a Good-in-Itself
Josiah Ober, Stanford University
Abstract - A paper on moral and political philosophy, arguing on Aristotelian grounds, that democracy is not only an instrumental good, but a good-in-itself for humans, because the exercise of constitutive natural capacities is and end, necessary for true happiness (understood as eudaimonia), and democracy (understood as association in decision) is a constitutive natural human capacity of humans. Forthcoming, winter 2006 in Philosophical Studies.