Based on multiDEVS formalism, we introduce multiPDEVS, a parallel and nonmodular formalism for discrete event system specification. This formalism provides combined advantages of PDEVS and multiDEVS approaches, such as excellent simulation capabilities for simultaneously scheduled events and components able to influence each other using exclusively their state transitions. We next show the soundness of the formalism by giving a construction showing that any multiPDEVS model is equivalent to a PDEVS atomic model. We then present the simulation procedure associated, usually called (...) abstract simulator. As a well-adapted formalism to express cellular automata, we finally propose to compare an implementation of multiPDEVS formalism with a more classical Cell-DEVS implementation through a fire spread application. (shrink)

Despite its long history and stunning experimental successes, the mathematical foundation of perturbative quantum field theory is still a subject of ongoing research. This book aims at presenting some of the most recent advances in the field, and at reflecting the diversity of approaches and tools invented and currently employed. Both leading experts and comparative newcomers to the field present their latest findings, helping readers to gain a better understanding of not only quantum but also classical field theories. Though the (...) book offers a valuable resource for mathematicians and physicists alike, the focus is more on mathematical developments. This volume consists of four parts: The first Part covers local aspects of perturbative quantum field theory, with an emphasis on the axiomatization of the algebra behind the operator product expansion. The second Part highlights Chern-Simons gauge theories, while the third examines (semi-)classical field theories. In closing, Part 4 addresses factorization homology and factorization algebras. (shrink)

In this essay the authors provide arguments that teaching is an art and that teachers can learn much about their trade from a careful study of the performances of other artists. Artists and teachers have the same basic challenge: in order to be successful, both groups have to obtain and retain peoples’ attention. This also holds for popular music artists. Ten female student teachers specializing in the Pre-school and Foundation phases of schooling (four-to-six-year olds), and six lecturers from the Faculty (...) of Education at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, participated in a workshop at a local game lodge. During the workshop, videos of ABBA songs and Mamma Mia! The Movie were analyzed and discussed. The theme of the workshop was “Being an Excellent Teacher: Appreciating ABBA.” The 4D-cycle of Appreciative Inquiry– Discover, Dream, Design and Destiny–was used as a methodological framework to identify numerous positive themes with possible classroom applications from the songs and the film. These themes were then connected to educational theory and embedded in the insights of Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Judy Cramer and other people involved with ABBA. A reflective report by one student teacher about the impact the workshop had on her views of teaching and an excellent class that she presented is also included. (shrink)

Medical ethics in Buddhism involves essentially the application of the wider principles of religious ethics to problems in a more specialized field. The “Four Principles” approach can be only partially successful in the context of Buddhism. This chapter considers Buddhist view on substantive biomedical issues. The topics discussed include abortion, death and dying, brain death and organ donation, and cloning. Buddhism has had a particular interest in the analysis of stem cell research, psychology and neuroscience. Caution must be exercised when (...) drawing conclusions about Buddhist perspectives on bioethics, as there is a risk of inadvertently superimposing Western categories on the discussion. The doctrine of karma and the belief in rebirth make Buddhism distinctive from an ethical perspective, and it is also renowned for its emphasis on benevolence and compassion and a scrupulous respect for living beings. (shrink)

_Buddhist Studies from India to America_ covers four important areas of Buddhist Studies: Vinaya Studies and Ethics, the history of Buddhist schools, Western Buddhism, and Inter-religious dialogue. These are the main areas which Charles S. Prebish has either inaugurated or helped to define; and his academic career as a leading, international scholar, and his significant professional achievements are celebrated within this volume. The geographical and historical scope of the essays in this collection range from ancient India to modern America, and (...) includes contributions by well-known international scholars. The contributors discuss a variety of academic disciplines including philosophy, psychology, history, feminism, and sociology. It will appeal to scholars whose interests embrace either ancient or modern aspects of the Buddhist tradition. (shrink)

Research on embryo donation and receipt continues to grow, highlighting how specific national contexts shape views and experiences. The present article reports on a qualitative study on embryo donation and receipt in Australia. Interviews were conducted with 15 participants: embryo donors and those seeking to donate (6), embryo recipients and those seeking donors (3), people with embryos in storage or previously in storage (5), and egg donors where resulting embryos were donated to a third party (1). A deductive thematic analysis (...) identified four key themes: understandings of embryos as cells, potential children, and/or children; a focus on relationships between “siblings”; importance of language and “family words” in discussing relationships; and extended family members having difficulty understanding the concept of embryo donation. The article concludes with a consideration of the implications of the findings in terms of the practice of embryo donation and the policies that surround it. (shrink)

A key source of support for the view that challenging people’s beliefs about free will may undermine moral behavior is two classic studies by Vohs and Schooler (2008). These authors reported that exposure to certain prompts suggesting that free will is an illusion increased cheating behavior. In the present paper, we report several attempts to replicate this influential and widely cited work. Over a series of five studies (sample sizes of N = 162, N = 283, N = 268, N (...) = 804, N = 982) (four preregistered) we tested the relationship between (1) anti-free-will prompts and free will beliefs and (2) free will beliefs and immoral behavior. Our primary task was to closely replicate the findings from Vohs and Schooler (2008) using the same or highly similar manipulations and measurements as the ones used in their original studies. Our efforts were largely unsuccessful. We suggest that manipulating free will beliefs in a robust way is more difficult than has been implied by prior work, and that the proposed link with immoral behavior may not be as consistent as previous work suggests. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive analysis of the royal and princely courts of Europe as important places of Enlightenment. The households of European rulers remained central to politics and culture throughout the eighteenth century, and few writers, artists, musicians, or scholars could succeed without establishing connections to ruling houses, noble families, or powerful courtiers. Covering case studies from Spain and France to Russia, and from Scandinavia and Britain to the Holy Roman Empire, the contributions of this volume examine how Enlightenment (...) figures were integrated into the princely courts of the Ancien Régime, and what kinds of relationships they had with courtiers. Dangers and opportunities presented by proximity to court are discussed as well as the question of what rulers and courtiers gained from their interactions with Enlightenment men and women of letters. The book focusses on four areas: firstly, the impact of courtly patronage on Enlightenment discourses and the work as well as careers of Enlightenment writers; secondly, the court as an audience to be catered for by Enlightenment writers; thirdly, the function of Enlightenment narratives and discourses for the image-making of rulers and courtiers; and fourthly, the role the interaction of courtiers and Enlightenment writers played for the formulation of reform policies. (shrink)

The progress of electronic health technologies and biobanks holds enormous promise for efficient research. Evidence shows that studies based on sharing and secondary use of data/samples have the potential to significantly advance medical knowledge. However, sharing of such resources for international collaboration is hampered by the lack of clarity about ethical and legal requirements for transfer of data and samples across international borders. Here, the International Clinical Trial Center Network reports the legal and ethical requirements governing data and sample exchange (...) across four continents. The most recurring requirement is ethical approval, whereas only in specific conditions approval of national health authorities is required. Informed consent is not required in all sharing situations. However, waiver of informed consent is only allowed in certain countries/regions and under certain circumstances. The current legal and ethical landscape appears to be very complex and under constant evolution. Regulations differ between countries/regions and are often incomplete, leading to uncertainty. With this work, ICN illuminates the unmet need for a single international collaborative framework to facilitate DSE. Harmonising requirements for global DSE will reduce inefficiency and waste in research. There are many challenges to realising this ambitious vision, including inconsistent terminology and definitions, and heterogeneous and dynamic legal constraints. Here, we identify areas of agreement and significant difference as a necessary first step towards facilitating international collaboration. We propose the establishment of a working group to continue the comparison across jurisdictions, create a standardised glossary and define a set of basic principles and fundamental requirements for DSE. (shrink)

This paper examines the soul-turning metaphor in Book 7 of Plato’s Republic. It argues that the failure to find a consistent reading of how the metaphor is used has contributed to a number of long-standing disagreements, especially concerning the more famous metaphor with which it is intertwined, the Cave allegory. A full reading of the metaphor, as it occurs throughout Book 7, is offered, with particularly close attention to what is one of the most difficult and stubbornly divisive passages in (...) Book 7, 532b6–d1. (shrink)

This paper defends a reading of eikasia—the lowest kind of cognition in the Divided Line—as a kind of empirical cognition that Plato appeals to when explaining, among other things, the origin of ethical error. The paper has two central claims. First, eikasia with respect to, for example, goodness or justice is not different in kind to eikasia with respect to purely sensory images like shadows and reflections: the only difference is that in the first case the sensory images include representations (...) of value properties. Second, eikasia is not the bare awareness of images or simply a label for an error (mistaking image for original) but a kind of empirical, image-confined cognition, and one that has an important part to play in characterising the cognitive abilities of the non-rational parts of the soul. (shrink)

This essay extends the observations made in E. Johanna Hartelius’ The rhetoric of expertise about the nature of expertise in digital contexts. I argue that digital media introduce a scale of communication—many-to-many—that reshapes how the invention of knowledge occurs. By examining how knowledge production on Wikipedia occurs, I illustrate how many-to-many communication introduces a new model of “participatory expertise.” This model of participatory expertise challenges traditional information routines by elevating procedural expertise over subject matter expertise and opening up knowledge production (...) to the many. Additionally, by hosting multiperspectival conversations on Wikipedia, the participatory model of expertise introduces epistemic turbulence into traditionally tranquil encyclopedia culture. (shrink)

The article starts by offering a definition of fake kindness focused on the dissociation between the behavioural components of kindness and the intent to sincerely pay some heed to the needs of others. Using the sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu, this definition is then used to articulate how fake kindness can be conceptualized as a specific form of symbolic violence. Such a view allows explanations as to how and why the prevalence and effectiveness of fake kindness vary according to microsociological (...) norms and values. The generic definition and conceptualization of fake kindness as a form of symbolic violence are then used to discuss how nursing’s enthrallment with the concept of caring and its operationalization as a moral compass likely fosters the growth of fake kindness within the profession. In this view, the institutional enforcement of propriety and well-behaved professionalism is more likely to lead to toxic environments than to healthy workplaces. We hope that being able to understand how professional norms and institutional rules are sometimes turned into social tools to enforce obedience and existing hierarchies can empower victims of those phenomena to resist them more effectively. It might also contribute to increasing the awareness of well-meaning nurses or people in position of authority who have been socialized in environments where fake kindness is normalized. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of the ethical and conceptual relationship between free speech and press freedom. Many authors have argued that, despite there being some common ground between them, these two liberties should be treated as properly distinct, both theoretically and practically. The core of the argument, for this “unbundling” approach, is that conflating free speech and press freedom makes it too easy for reasonable democratic regulations on press freedom to be portrayed, by their opponents, as part of a (...) programme of illiberal censorship. While we acknowledge the important grain of truth in that argument, we try to show how the alternative, “unbundling” approach can also be used to undermine or mischaracterise democratically justifiable opposition to media regulations in despotic regimes. In light of the problems on both sides, we defend a contextually-variable account of the relation between these two liberties. (shrink)

Thinking and acting in favor of sustainable development is internationally recognized; it is necessary but societies and individuals are slow to adopt an appropriate behavior. International organizations such as World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology recommend to opt for frugality, a principle emphasized to avoid over-consumption and consequently the depletion of natural resources. This article thus examines the principle of frugality by proving that it is not necessarily related to consumption as it is understood since the (...) Enlightenment: we have to take into account the Asian perspective that changes the relationship between humankind and nature, first taking into consideration the good of the whole community. I argue that frugality is not necessarily in conflict with economy but certainly challenging it as expressed by the Indian terms Jugaad or Gandhian: a way of thinking and creating new projects that lead to fruitful solutions for the majority. Therefore I intend to provide a positive definition of frugality as a way of creating new projects that lead to fruitful solutions for the majority. (shrink)

In this book the author considers data from both early and later schools of Buddhism in an attempt to provide an overall characterization of the structure of Buddhist ethics. The importance of ethics in the Buddha's teachings is widely acknowledged, but the pursuit of ethical ideals has up to now been widely held to be secondary to the attainment of knowledge. Drawing on the Aristotelian tradition of ethics the author argues against this intellectualization of Buddhism and in favour of a (...) new understanding of the tradition in terms of which ethics plays an absolutely central role. In the course of this reassessment many basic concepts such as karma, nirvana, and the Eightfold Path, are reviewed and presented in a fresh light. The book will be of interest to readers with a background in either Buddhist studies or comparative religious ethics. (shrink)

Part 1 What Do Teachers Need to Know? Part 2 What Makes a Good Teacher? Part 3 Being a Teacher?

In book 10 of the Republic we find a new argument for the division of the soul. The argument’s structure is similar to the arguments in book 4 but, unlike those arguments, it centres on a purely cognitive conflict: believing and disbelieving the same thing, at the same time. The argument presents two interpretive difficulties. First, it assumes that a conflict between a belief and an appearance—e.g. disbelieving that a stick partially immersed in water is, as it appears, bent—entails a (...) conflict between beliefs. Prima facie, there is only one belief, the belief that contradicts the appearance. Second, it is unclear what parts of the soul Plato intends to divide between: some argue that it is, as in book 4, a partition between a rational and a non-rational part; others argue that it is a new partition between a higher and a lower subdivision of the rational part. This paper offers solutions to both difficulties through an analysis of what Plato means by φαινόμενα, ‘appearances’, and δόξαι, ‘beliefs’. It is argued, first, that the relevant appearances are entirely sensory but nonetheless sufficiently belief-like to (a) warrant being called δόξαι and (b) oppose, by themselves, our beliefs; there is no need for a third mental state, a belief that assents to the appearance. A second claim concerns a central line in the argument, 602e4–6, that has served as the primary evidence that the partition is within the rational part of the soul. Those who wish to avoid this conclusion generally resort to alternative, and less natural, translations of 602e4–6. It is argued that this is unnecessary: once we have correctly understood sensory appearances, we see that the standard translation of 602e4–6 in fact entails a division between a rational and a non-rational part of the soul. (shrink)

Harmony is a generally agreed-upon idea in international and diplomatic discourse. A common theme in multiple traditions of thought, Platonist and Confucian among others, it underlies today’s significant investments in musical activism, cultural diplomacy, conflict resolution and peace building. Yet despite this wide currency and long history, the idea of harmony seldom receives more than liminal attention in political theory. In the context of Western thought, an essay written in the 1830s by the French philosopher Jean Reynaud offers a striking (...) point of departure: Reynaud defines diplomacy as ‘the science of harmony among states’. This article, drawing from Reynaud’s text as well from the wider history of music, art and political thought, maps a series of conceptual fault lines that touch on the concept’s function in international thought; the inscription of difference, dissonance, conflict and even war within the idea of harmony; the hegemonic and imperial temptations harmony encompasses and legitimizes; and the theoretical sources of harmony in nature and artifice. In effect, the concept of harmony offers less a blueprint than a forum for imagining peace. (shrink)

Summary‘Among the fine arts, I clearly see something to say only about architecture, sculpture, painting. As for music, dance […], I see nothing’. Tocqueville's observation in the Rubish for the second volume of Democracy in America is not only startling, but theoretically important: it ratifies the liberal (and nowadays oft-assumed) separation between musical life and political constitution. This, however, should give us cause to wonder. While in America, Tocqueville and Beaumont had multiple occasions to hear music in public festivals and (...) private spaces. Though other European and highbrow observers also declared American music to be ‘in its infancy’, music nonetheless played a significant part in antebellum social and political life. Nor was Tocqueville insensitive to sound in his relation to others. Indeed, Tocqueville perhaps saw in the demise of music as the art of ‘making harmony’ a symptom of the democratic era. However, like Montesquieu, Tocqueville refused to consider music a constitutive principle of democratic regimes—including in the context of Ancient Greek political theory. In doing so, Tocqueville sharply dissociated himself from republican political theory, but failed to raise the question of music's contribution to the culture and exercise of freedom in the modern era. (shrink)

The purpose of the present two studies was to investigate whether in framing messages that target salient beliefs of youth, the type of goal framed matter to promote physical activity participation among low-active adolescents. More specifically, the main trial compared the effect of intrinsic and extrinsic-goal framing messages alongside planning to a control condition on low-active adolescents’ physical activity, intention, attitude, and exercise goals, and examined the potential meditational effect of these variables between condition and PA. Low-active students from fifteen (...) classes were assigned to one of these three conditions. PA was assessed using an accelerometer, and the socio-cognitive mediators were measured at baseline and post-test, and the intention was measured again at follow-up. Results showed that compared to adolescents in the CC group, those in the experimental conditions did not do more moderate PA, but carried out more light PA, and yielded an increase in attitude and intention. Mediational analysis revealed no significant effect of the potential mediators. (shrink)

This paper takes a detailed look at the Republic’s Divided Line analogy and considers how we should respond to its most contentious implication: that pistis and dianoia have the same degree of ‘clarity’ (σαφήνεια). It argues that we must take this implication at face value and that doing so allows us to better understand both the analogy and the nature of dianoia.

This paper discusses ethical issues related to social work practice in the area of mental health. It does so via the use of a case study taken from my practice whilst I was on placement. Ethical issues are explored within a practice context that is becoming increasingly proceduralised and risk averse, and where protectionist responses contribute to undermining the rights of service users to self-determination. The paper explores the relationship between utilitarian and Kantian ethical theory and ethical decision-making as well (...) as commenting on the usefulness of an anti-oppressive ethical perspective. (shrink)

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the content discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. Machine or artificial intelligence (AI), might well have the ability to understand, modify, and improve its own source code, carrying it by great leaps into domains of ability that unaided flesh can never hope to reach. AI uses engineered electronic or photonic neural nets operating a million times faster. Uploading need not imply a world of bloated grubs lying in the dark with their (...) brains wired to spreadsheets and simulated worlds. The initial goal of uploaders would be to emulate and enhance the brain, and that requires rich connections to external reality. The artificial system is not merely simulating but actually emulating or replicating the relevant functioning of a human brain. The book shows enthusiasm about the prospects of machine intelligence and mind uploading, and expresses skepticism or concern. (shrink)

Dans la galerie des monstres que l’histoire tératologique de la politique développera, une dimension constamment rémane : la sursexualisation du Prince, la déification de et par la puissance virile. Le membre dressé du Prince devient la métaphore euphorique de l’érection d’un pouvoir, son porte-bonheur. Symbole de sa toute-puissance, lieu privilégié de son affirmation, le sexe..

Harmony is a generally agreed-upon idea in international and diplomatic discourse. A common theme in multiple traditions of thought, Platonist and Confucian among others, it underlies today’s significant investments in musical activism, cultural diplomacy, conflict resolution and peace building. Yet despite this wide currency and long history, the idea of harmony seldom receives more than liminal attention in political theory. In the context of Western thought, an essay written in the 1830s by the French philosopher Jean Reynaud offers a striking (...) point of departure: Reynaud defines diplomacy as ‘the science of harmony among states’. This article, drawing from Reynaud’s text as well from the wider history of music, art and political thought, maps a series of conceptual fault lines that touch on the concept’s function in international thought; the inscription of difference, dissonance, conflict and even war within the idea of harmony; the hegemonic and imperial temptations harmony encompasses and legitimizes; and the theoretical sources of harmony in nature and artifice. In effect, the concept of harmony offers less a blueprint than a forum for imagining peace. (shrink)

Les émotions sont souvent considérées comme un puissant marqueur de genre, jouant un rôle central dans les délimitations culturelles et sociales du masculin et du féminin. Depuis la théorie antique des tempéraments, en effet, le masculin est du côté des émotions chaudes et sèches (colère, fureur, hardiesse, haine), le féminin, du côté des émotions froides et humides (modestie, douceur, crainte, pudeur, compassion, langueur). Dans le monde occidental, on considère aussi que les émotions sont d...

In this paper I discuss the translation of a line in Plato's description of the ‘greatest accusation’ against imitative poetry, Republic 606a3–b5. This line is pivotal in Plato's account of how poetry corrupts its audience and is one of the Republic's most complex and interesting applications of his partite psychology, but it is misconstrued in most recent translations, including the most widely used. I argue that an examination of the text and reflections on Platonic psychology settle the translation decisively.

I offer a reading of the two conceptions of the good found in Plato’s Protagoras: the popular conception—‘the many’s’ conception—and Socrates’ conception. I pay particular attention to the three kinds of goods Socrates introduces: (a) bodily pleasures like food, drink, and sex; (b) instrumental goods like wealth, health, or power; and (c) virtuous actions like courageously going to war. My reading revises existing views about these goods in two ways. First, I argue that the many are only ‘hedonists’ in a (...) very attenuated sense. They do not value goods of kind (b) simply as means to pleasures of kind (a); rather, they have fundamentally different attitudes to (a) and (b). Second, the hedonism that Socrates’ defends includes a distinction between kinds of pleasures: (a) bodily pleasures and (c) the pleasures of virtuous actions. This distinction between kinds of pleasures—some that do and some that do not exert the ‘power of appearance’—allows Socrates to address one of the central beliefs in the popular conception of akrasia, namely that it involves a special kind of unruly desire: non-rational appetites for pleasures like food, drink, or sex. Socrates replaces the motivational push of non-rational appetites with the epistemic pull of the appearance of immediate pleasures like food, drink, and sex. (shrink)

The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed a growing interest in Buddhism, and it continues to capture the imagination of many in the West who see it as either an alternative or a supplement to their own religious beliefs. Numerous introductory books have appeared in recent years to cater to this growing interest, but almost none devotes attention to the specifically ethical dimensions of the tradition. For various complex cultural and historical reasons, ethics has not received as much attention (...) in traditional Buddhist thought as it has in the West. Written by Damien Keown, one of the few experts worldwide who specializes in the area, Buddhist Ethics illustrates how Buddhism might approach a range of contemporary morals ranging from abortion to euthanasia, sexuality to cloning, and even war and economics. (shrink)

Existing predominant approaches within virtue ethics (VE) assume humans as the typical agent and virtues as dispositions that pertain primarily to human–human interpersonal relationships. Similarly, the main accounts in the more specific area of environmental virtue ethics (EVE) tend to support weak anthropocentric positions, in which virtues are understood as excellent dispositions of human agents. In addition, however, several EVE authors have also considered virtues that benefit non-human beings and entities (e.g., environmental or ecological virtues). The latter correspond to excellent (...) character dispositions that would extend moral consideration and care for the benefit of non-human beings, entities, or entire ecosystems. In this direction, a few authors have argued that EVE could be considered non-anthropocentric insofar as it could: (a) promote non-human ends, well-being, and the flourishing of non-human beings and entities; (b) involve significant relations to non-humans. Drawing from different traditions, including ecofeminism and care ethics, we argue for a broader notion of self and a decentered notion of virtues. The broader notion of selfhood corresponds to the “ecological self”, one that can be enacted by both human and non-human beings, is embedded in a network of relations, and recognizes the more-than-human world as fundamental and yet indispensable otherness. We suggest that this broader notion of agency allows for an expansive understanding of virtues that includes a-moral functional ecological virtues, which can be exercised not only by humans but also by certain non-human beings. This alternative understanding of selfhood and ecological virtues within EVE could have several theoretical and practical implications, some of which may enable different types of agencies and transform collective action. (shrink)

The author had had a plan for a kind of melodrama constructed around two orders of motivation. In the foreground of the stage, there was to be a series of realistic incidents, dealing with typical human situations, such as family quarrels, scenes at a business office, lovers during courtship, a public address by a spell-binder, etc. In the background, like a set of comments on this action, there was to be a primeval forest filled with mythically prehistoric monsters, marauding and (...) fighting in silent pantomime. These two realms were to have no overt connection with each other. The monsters in the "prehistoric" background would pay no attention to the everyday persons of the... (shrink)

In Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, the playwright depicts the punishment of Prometheus by the tyrannical Zeus. Zeus’ subordinates understand his tyranny to be characterized by an absolute freedom of action. Yet the tyrant’s absolute freedom as ruler is called into question by insecurity of his position and by his dependence on Prometheus’ knowledge. We find in the Prometheus Bound a model of tyrannical rule riddled with contradictions: The tyrant’s claim to total control and absolute freedom is in tension with a reality (...) characterized by insecurity, impotence, and constraint. We contrast this model of rule with the model found in Aeschylus’ Suppliant Maidens, in which the King, agreeing to be bound by the wishes of his subjects, nevertheless preserves for himself a certain freedom of action that the tyrannical ruler lacks. (shrink)