Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are a new, rapidly-growing class of organizations governed by smart contracts. Here we describe how researchers can contribute to the emerging science of DAOs and other digitally-constituted organizations. From granular privacy primitives to mechanism designs to model laws, we identify high-impact problems in the DAO ecosystem where existing gaps might be tackled through a new data set or by applying tools and ideas from existing research fields such as political science, computer science, economics, law, and organizational (...) science. Our recommendations encompass exciting research questions as well as promising business opportunities. We call on the wider research community to join the global effort to invent the next generation of organizations. (shrink)

_Why Plato Wrote_ argues that Plato was not only the world’s first systematic political philosopher, but also the western world’s first think-tank activist and message man. Shows that Plato wrote to change Athenian society and thereby transform Athenian politics Offers accessible discussions of Plato’s philosophy of language and political theory Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2011.

Rarely have these separate approaches been brought into the same conversation. Education, Justice, and Democracy does just that, offering an intensive discussion by highly respected scholars across empirical and philosophical disciplines.

_Why Plato Wrote_ argues that Plato was not only the world’s first systematic political philosopher, but also the western world’s first think-tank activist and message man. Shows that Plato wrote to change Athenian society and thereby transform Athenian politics Offers accessible discussions of Plato’s philosophy of language and political theory Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2011.

ABSTRACT:A wide range of research uses patterns of genetic variation to infer genetic similarity between individuals, typically referred to as genetic ancestry. This research includes inference of human demographic history, understanding the genetic architecture of traits, and predicting disease risk. Researchers are not just structuring an intellectual inquiry when using genetic ancestry, they are also creating analytical frameworks with broader societal ramifications. This essay presents an ethics framework in the spirit of virtue ethics for these researchers: rather than focus on (...) rule following, the framework is designed to build researchers’ capacities to react to the ethical dimensions of their work. The authors identify one overarching principle of intellectual freedom and responsibility, noting that freedom in all its guises comes with responsibility, and they identify and define four principles that collectively uphold researchers’ intellectual responsibility: truthfulness, justice and fairness, anti-racism, and public beneficence. Researchers should bring their practices into alignment with these principles, and to aid this, the authors name three common ways research practices infringe these principles, suggest a step-by-step process for aligning research choices with the principles, provide rules of thumb for achieving alignment, and give a worked case. The essay concludes by identifying support needed by researchers to act in accord with the proposed framework. (shrink)

Lycurgus' "Against Leocrates" has long been seen as an anomaly in the oratorical corpus by scholars of ancient rhetoric. Its extensive use of quotations from the poets and of personification are two features regularly picked out as especially odd and inexplicable by critics. This paper argues that these and other features of the speech are central to Lycurgus' attempt to persuade his jury to accept his radically un-Athenian political views. In fact, Lycurgus has rejected Athenian approaches to punishment, prosecution, and (...) politics in favor of Platonic views, which bear the taint of the elite philosophical schools. The quotation and the personification are two techniques that Lycurgus uses to craft a "new prosecutorial voice" that will overcome his audience's objections to his elitist and even Platonic political positions. I contend that the whole speech may be read as a study in how to craft a "voice" or form of oratorical self-presentation that will persuade an audience to accept heterodox political views. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Against Writing The Hole in the Argument Spotting the Defense of Philosophical Writing A Sociology of Symbols The Psychological Power of Symbols.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Politics of the 330s Who Was Fighting Whom? What Were Lycurgus and Demosthenes Fighting About? Why Fight over Plato? The End of the Culture War Conclusion.

This chapter contains sections titled: Philosophy in Politics The Case for Influence A Culture War.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Plato's Choice Platonic Dialogues: A Multipurpose Genre The Republic as Theoretical Model Plato Politikos.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Salvaging Shadows The Meaning of Pragmatic Efficacy The Sources of Pragmatic Efficacy The Noble Lie Why Plato Wrote.

The prelims comprise: Half‐Title Page Wiley Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Table of Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Seventh Letter on Writing The Seventh Letter on Ways of Life.

Jan Zwicky's fertile essays expose by contrast the aridity of much contemporary writing about the point of humanistic endeavor and intellectual life. Thinking, in her account, is importantly the work of imagination. The more common focus on critical thinking, in arguments on behalf of liberal arts pedagogy, does put a salutary emphasis on some aspects of thoughtfulness, for instance, use of evidence and argumentation, but Zwicky is right that this approach fails to articulate a standard for synthetic, imaginative discernment that (...) meaningfully grasps the world. Zwicky usefully provides an account of just such a standard. Yet her argument that “other than pointing and hoping, there are no rules, no algorithms, by which human perception of a gestalt may be facilitated” sells the work of teachers short. An alternative case is made by Plato in his representation of Socrates-as-teacher, and most of this article is a case study of passages from the Republic. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Politics of the 350s and 340s The Emergence of the Culture War, or the Man with the Good Memory.

Nineteenth–century scholars assumed that the Athenians as a community punished citizens with death, exile, atimia, and fines and used imprisonment only to hold those awaiting trial, those awaiting execution, and those unable to pay fines.1 As they saw it, brief imprisonment in the stocks occasionally supplemented these penalties, but always as additional penalty–never as a penalty on its own. Barkan saw in the use of imprisonment as an additional penalty the likelihood of general penal imprisonment and used evidence from the (...) oratorical corpus to make an argument therefore.2 His argument seems to have been largely ignored–the nineteenth–century interpretation continuing dominant; and the issue, largely unexplored but for a few glancing references in recent scholarship.3 The issue remains, thus, sufficiently vexed to make worthwhile a restatement of the argument for the use of punitive imprisonment. Also, the evidence provides clues worth setting forth as to why and when punitive imprisonment developed. Indeed, these are sufficient to make an argument about the relevance of the development to Athenian political history. For the introduction of penal imprisonment in Athens proves an extremely important historical moment, marking as it does both the completion of a general will institutionalized and a significant point in the establishment of isonomia. (shrink)

Nineteenth–century scholars assumed that the Athenians as a community punished citizens with death, exile,atimia, and fines and used imprisonment only to hold those awaiting trial, those awaiting execution, and those unable to pay fines.1As they saw it, brief imprisonment in the stocks occasionally supplemented these penalties, but always as additional penalty–never as a penalty on its own. Barkan saw in the use of imprisonment as an additional penalty the likelihood of general penal imprisonment and used evidence from the oratorical corpus (...) to make an argument therefore.2 His argument seems to have been largely ignored–the nineteenth–century interpretation continuing dominant; and the issue, largely unexplored but for a few glancing references in recent scholarship.3 The issue remains, thus, sufficiently vexed to make worthwhile a restatement of the argument for the use of punitive imprisonment. Also, the evidence provides clues worth setting forth as to why and when punitive imprisonment developed. Indeed, these are sufficient to make an argument about the relevance of the development to Athenian political history. For the introduction of penal imprisonment in Athens proves an extremely important historical moment, marking as it does both the completion of a general will institutionalized (in a punishment of consumption of the wrong–doer within, rather than of expulsion from, the community) and a significant point in the establishment ofisonomia. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Discovering a Defensible Kind of Philosophical Writing Imitators vs. Constitution‐Painters The Necessary and Sufficient Criterion of Philosophical Writing.