Athens Victorious examines the notion of freedom in Plato's Republic, the proper understanding of which the author argues is essential for understanding the dialogue's ultimate political message. A close, thorough, and innovative analysis of the section of the dialogue in which various constitutional options are discussed leads to the surprising conclusion that the dialogue is advocating democracy, not some kind of totalitarian state.

Moral Victories is the first book-length treatment of the ethical dimensions of victory in war.

Cian O’Driscoll’s Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Just War covers a vast range of materials, discussing the idea of victory and its relationship to just war theory. The idea of victory raises s...

A difficult question in the philosophy of sport concerns how winning athletes should perform in uneven contests in which victory has been secured well before the competition is over. Nicholas Dixon, the protagonist in the ongoing debate, argues against critics who urge following an 'anti-blowout' thesis that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with running up the score. We engage this debate, providing much needed distinctions, and draw on Aristotelian resources to explore a framework by which to understand competing claims (...) found within the literature. (shrink)

The seemingly endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have renewed the age-old debate over what constitutes military victory. Will the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan be seen as a sign of victory or defeat? Although the nature of warfare has changed dramatically since Clausewitz's On War was first written, this selection from his classic work remains an invaluable source of insight for understanding what it means to achieve victory in war and how to recognize defeat. (...) Princeton Shorts are brief selections excerpted from influential Princeton University Press publications produced exclusively in eBook format. They are selected with the firm belief that while the original work remains an important and enduring product, sometimes we can all benefit from a quick take on a topic worthy of a longer book. In a world where every second counts, how better to stay up-to speed on current events and digest the kernels of wisdom found in the great works of the past? Princeton Shorts enables you to be an instant expert in a world where information is everywhere but quality is at a premium. On Victory and Defeat does just that. (shrink)

Athens Victorious examines the notion of freedom in Plato's Republic, the proper understanding of which the author argues is essential for understanding the dialogue's ultimate political message. A close, thorough, and innovative analysis of the section of the dialogue in which various constitutional options are discussed leads to the surprising conclusion that the dialogue is advocating democracy, not some kind of totalitarian state.

In this paper I take up the task, begun by Lewis and Lewis in their seminal paper on the topic, of offering a theory of holes according to which a hole is simply its hole-lining. I begin by motivating the theory, arguing that it holds interest even absent its original animating concerns of nominalism and materialism, and present desiderata any such theory must satisfy. With this in place, I offer a definition both of a lining and of hole sameness, arguing (...) that these can overcome the most prominent standing objections to identifying holes with linings. Finally, I present a more powerful counterargument in the spirit of Casati and Varzi, and conclude with an emended version of the theory meeting all our earlier desiderata. I conclude by dispelling some possible worries about the nominalist and materialist credentials of my theory. (shrink)

In September 1982 then Bishop Desmond Tutu appeared before the Eloff Commission of Inquiry. After politely explaining the activities of the South African Council of Churches to the government appointed commission, Tutu ended on a defiant note: -/- God's purposes are certain. They [i.e. the S.A. government] may remove a Tutu; they may remove the South African Council of Churches, but God's intention to establish His Kingdom of justice, of love, of compassion, will not be thwarted. We are not scared, (...) certainly not of the Government, or any other perpetrators of injustice and oppression, for victory is ours through Him who loves us.1 -/- Others have also made appeals like this in time of need, and many are bound to continue the practice in the future. However, it is tragically ironic that the institutions and individuals that Tutu singles out as the "perpetrators of injustice and oppression" in his deputation invoke the very same deity in their deliberations. As I shall show in this paper, the founders of apartheid also lay claim to God in their attempts to overcome their sociological and political problems. But the Afrikaners are not alone in their appeal to faith to justify their actions. Many of the early settlers in South Africa also rest their vision of the solutions to the problems of South Africa on their understanding of "God's intention to establish His Kingdom of justice, of love, and compassion." Prominent among those with this vision for Africa are the missionaries. -/- An assessment of the involvement of the missionaries in South Africa is clearly too vast an undertaking for this paper. What I can do here is provide only some indication of the perspective imported by some of these influential participants in the development of the country. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to paraphrase Theda Skocpol’s theory of social revolutions with the use of the conceptual apparatus of non-Marxian historical materialism. In the successive sections of this paper, the concepts of modernization, the nature of state power, an agrarian bureaucracy, and the mechanism of a victorious revolution are paraphrased. This paraphrase makes it possible to distinguish two kinds of agrarian bureaucracies, each resulting in social revolutions with different outcomes. A victorious revolution led to successful modernization in (...) the case of an economic agrarian bureaucracy, but not in the case of a political agrarian bureaucracy. (shrink)

One of the main points of interests in the apocalyptic literature is the salvation of God’s people. The topic is shown from a variety of perspectives. One of them is exceptional and very prominent in the apocalyptic genre – this is God’s victory. The theme of victory is a complex one. It consists of not only terminology and imagery of war, fight, rivalry, but also judgement, competition and kingdom. All of these motifs are being intertwined in the apocalyptic (...) victory of God. The problem of God’s victory can be seen as schematic, which is present in many texts from the apocalyptic genre. Altering variables inside this scheme results in a different outlook on the salvation. It is used to give the shape of the narrative in the text. From the variety of apocalyptic literature, an exceptional place is given to the Apocalypse of John. The theme of God’s victory there, although it uses the Jewish traditions, is rewritten and upgraded to a new unique form. The goal of this article is to investigate how the mentioned schematic realises through different examples of apocalyptic texts and how it is incorporated and redefined in the Book of Apocalypse. What is God’s victory? Who is being conquered? With what means? What does it all mean to the salvation of people? These are the questions, which the author will try to answer in the article. (shrink)

Cian O’Driscoll’s Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Just War covers a vast range of materials, discussing the idea of victory and its relationship to just war theory. The idea of victory raises s...

The domain of sport provides opportunity for development and growth, which is often incremental but can be marked by significant breakthroughs. Using Aristotle’s virtue ethic as a model, this paper explores the challenge of overcoming new obstacles, sometimes reversing bad habits, in the athletic domain. Breakthrough victories in sport are achievements that both reward persistent effort and open new horizons in the pursuit of excellence. They are significant because they seem to hold out a promise for future performance, now that (...) some barrier has been passed. Breakthrough victories are often among the most important and rewarding moments in an athletic career. (shrink)

Contemporary international law separates the international justice of war from the domestic justice of society, but empirically, there is a correlation between democratic governance and military effectiveness, which could have a number of causes. A contemporary reconstruction from _The Seven Military Classics_ of Chinese military philosophy offers potential lessons for how domestic virtues may yield military and geopolitical victory. This chapter reconstructs arguments from the seven treatises into a collective an amalgamated conception of “good governance” that weaves together military (...) strategy and virtue ethics and maintains that good governance at home actually wins wars abroad. A reconstructed classical Chinese conception of “good governance” presents theoretical and ethical challenges, but also offers viable justicial content for contemporary jus ad bellum considerations beyond sovereign self-defense or human rights. It presents a way of instantiating the sprawling conception of human rights that falls short in contemporary discourse. (shrink)

The text reconstructs the protocol of 'victory' as part of the interruption of enmity and establishment of temporary peace. Different understandings of the enemy and enmity imply that victory in war and cessation of conflict can essentially determine the way war is conducted, and that they follow rules of war. Victory is supposed to be a crucial moment that characterizes the ethics of war. Particular testimonies and thematizations of victory in the Orthodox Christian tradition can provide (...) an intro-duction into a potential ethics of war that could ensure a new relationship towards the enemy and killing the enemy. (shrink)

Post-apartheid South Africa is ravaged by crises of extreme unemployment, poverty, and inequality. While the majority who were politically excluded by apartheid can now choose their government through democratic elections, social and economic justice continues to elude them. Neoliberal policies which seek to reduce state expenditure on social services and promote state policies that protect the interests of big businesses at the expense of working-class and poor communities, along with corruption and abuse of power, are the primary causes of poverty (...) and unemployment. However, what is missing in the assessments of social justice since the pre-1994 democratic era is the recognition that social justice organisations have not simply disappeared, but have actually remained involved in social justice struggles. Based on information from in-depth interviews and internet sources, this article records some of the partial victories scored through these struggles, albeit in the context of generalised pauperisation of working-class and poor communities. These partial victories in the era of defeats show that these organisations, although weakened, have not given up the struggle for social justice. (shrink)

In the texts in which Immanuel Kant discusses the principles governing international relations—including texts explicitly dealing with the sources leading states to armed conflict and the circumstances enabling its cessation—he does not directly engage the question “What constitutes victory in war?” This should not be surprising, given that Kant’s treatment of war may be read as consonant with just war thinking for which victory seems an unproblematic concept Yet there are elements in the tone and the substance of (...) his discussion that destabilize a placement of his views as unproblematically part of that tradition. The mordant tone of his dismissal of the Realpolitik guiding “political moralists” suggests a trenchant skepticism about almost any justification offered for leading a state into war. More substantively, an antinomy is at work in the contrast Kant makes, in the two sets of articles for perpetual peace, between a “state of nature” that, construed from the standpoint of the theoretical use of reason, defines the order of international relations as necessarily one of constant war, and the radical transformation of that order, enacted by moral reason in the definitive articles of perpetual peace, into a cosmopolitan order that heeds the categorical imperative “there shall be no war.” In consequence, one may construct a Kantian answer to the question “What constitutes victory in war?” by framing it in reference to this cosmopolitan hope for an international order securing enduring peace. Within the moral horizon of cosmopolitan hope, victory in war—like war itself—is unmasked as morally unintelligible. (shrink)

Recent work on social movement fields has expanded our view of the dynamics of social movements; it should also expand our thinking about social movement success. Such a broader view reveals a paradox: social movements often snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by narrowly targeting authorities with their actions instead of targeting the broader social movement field. Negative impacts from the wider social movement field can then reverse or overshadow initial victories. We distinguish between a social movement’s (...) class='Hi'>victory over the immediate target, and more lasting success that arises from shifting alignments in the broader social movement field. To test the predictive value of the distinction, we compare two very similar student-led social movements, both of which targeted university policies regarding sensitivity to race issues and changes in university personnel. One built a broad coalition of support that extended across its social movement field and was thereby able to institute durable change. The other did not, and despite its clear initial success, this protest movement produced consequences mainly adverse to its preferred outcomes. We demonstrate how pervasive this paradox is with examples from other U.S. protest outcomes and studies of revolutions. The paradox is resolved by focusing on changes in the entire social movement field. We thus argue that achieving, and understanding, lasting social movement success requires attention to the entire social movement field. (shrink)

In light of the enormous suffering brought about by war, war might be justified only if the benefit it yields is significant enough, namely, a clear and durable victory over the enemy. The logic of this argument leads to a Clausewitz-style war of “annihilation.” I argue that the best way to justify the ending of war short of such annihilation is by relying on a contractarian view of jus ex bello. I conclude by exploring the implications of this view (...) to warfare in which no effective social contract is in place. (shrink)

This essay shows how Marxism, despite its atheist pretensions, was influenced by Scripture, particularly the Millenarian concept presented in the Book of Revelation. Marx’s metaphysics described the world as a titanic struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. He predicts this struggle between good and evil will end in the triumph of the righteous, leading to future paradise when humanity returns to its pristine state. Marx contended it was his study of history and ultimately his discovery of the universal laws (...) of economics that allowed him to predict the course of humanity, but I argue Marx’s real source is not history or science, but Scripture. Before demonstrating Marx's Millenarianism, this essay begins with an overview of the idea and describes how the concept was popular among German intellectuals in Nineteenth Century. (shrink)

Gerken's On Folk Epistemology: How we think and talk about knowledge develops and defends strict purist invariantism about knowledge. Along the way, Gerken argues that less-orthodox competitors to strict purist invariantism are plagued by certain heretofore unrecognized or underappreciated difficulties. Given Gerken's own explicit methodological commitments, this defensive component of the book's project is dialectically crucial. By Gerken's own lights, we ought to be persuaded to embrace strict purist invariantism only if it turns out that the strict purist invariantist is (...) better positioned than their competitors to explain the folk epistemological “inputs” to epistemic theorizing. My own goal here is to articulate some reasons to worry that Gerken's defensive efforts are less-than-fully successful. In particular, I argue that we ought to adopt a more expansive and more nuanced conception of the relevant folk epistemological “inputs.” Moreover, I suggest that, at least insofar as we have reason to embrace a kind of qualified methodological preference for theoretical explanations that vindicate our ordinary epistemic practice, we might well have good reason for favoring (certain of) the alternate theoretical explanations of these inputs that less-orthodox views of knowledge supply over the kind of explanations that Gerken convincingly argues strict purist invariantism can offer. (shrink)

이 글은 『칠극』의 맥락에서 현대 의과학 기술의 하나인 보조생식술을 고찰하였다. 초기 가톨릭신자의 윤리지침서인 『칠극』이 현대인의 생활과 유의미한 연관을 가지기 위해서는, 『칠극』의 맥락에서 현대 의과학 기술의 하나인 보조생식술의 시술과정에 수반되는 배아의 생명 침해 문제는 어떻게 설명될 수 있는지 고찰할 필요가 있다. 『칠극』 ‘해탐’(解貪)편이 제시하는 원리와 지침에 의거해보조생식술을 고찰한 결과, 『칠극』의 맥락에서 보조생식술은 인간의 탐욕에 해당하여 허용될 수 없는 기술이다. 그 근거는 첫째, 보조생식술은 인간이 알 수 있는 이치의 범위를 벗어난 지탐(智貪) 과 관련되며, 둘째, 탐욕을 푸는 ‘해탐’의 방안인 ‘평등’의 원리가보조생식술 시술과정에 적용될 (...) 수 없다는데 있었다. 이러한 고찰결과는 회칙 ｢인간 생명｣(Humanae vitae)과 인간 생명의 기원과출산의 존엄성에 관한 훈령 ｢생명의 선물｣(Donum Vitae)의 가르침과 상통하며, 인격주의 생명윤리체계의 인간 생명 보호 원리와도 상통하였다. 『칠극』이 제시하는 ‘해탐’의 방안으로서 ‘평등’원리는 배아의 생명 침해가 부당하다는 인격주의 생명윤리체계의 주장에 정당성을 더해준다. 그리고 ‘평등’원리는 입장과 이해의 대립에서 기인하는 인간 생명침해문제의 정당성을 판단하는 기준으로유용할 것이므로, 인격주의 생명윤리 측면에서 『칠극』이 제시하는실천덕목은 연구될 필요가 있다. (shrink)

How can parents, educators, and clergy work together for the quality of lives for African American children? Mtoto House: Vision to Victory addresses this question by presenting the theories and practices of a faith-based institution called Mtoto House, the "Children's Community." The book also provides a discussion of analyses and implications for parents, educators, and clergy.

The article focuses on a passage from Carl Schmitt?s Ex Captivitate Salus - a book famously written in a Nurnberg prison in 1946 - in which he draws, from memory, on a story derived from Serbian epic poetry, to justify his understanding of historiography, victory, and the figure of the hero. Analyzing the entire Serbian epic poem from which Schmitt extracts the vignette in question, we show how the text of the poem presents a significantly more complicated and messy (...) picture of the figures of victor, victory, and hero, heroism. The anonymous Serbian poet, addressing himself to his contemporary audience, with which he is intimately familiar, really subverts simplistic expectations regarding the heroism and victory of the Serbian hero, Marko Kraljevic. Finally, the article contrasts these complex and at times paradoxical figures of victory and the hero in the poem with their presentation in Carl Schmitt?s writing. (shrink)

The glorious anniversary of the great victory of the Soviet people and their heroic armed forces over the most aggressive armies of international imperialism provides a perspective that makes it possible to see the importance of this feat on the scale of world history, in the vivid light of the favorable influence it has exercised on all the subsequent development of sociopolitical processes on earth.

This article treats representations of victors in the Greek athletic games in the artistic and poetic media of the early classical age, and argues that fifth-century sculptors, painters and poets similarly constructed the athlete as an object designed to arouse desire in audiences for their works. After reviewing the very scanty archaeological evidence for the original victory images, I seek to recover something of the response elicited by these monuments by looking to visualizations of athletes in contemporary vase-painting and (...) literary sources, and most particularly in the epinician odes of Pindar. Poets and painters, I suggest, both place their subjects within an erotically-charged atmosphere which replicates that surrounding actual athletes in the city gymnasia and at the games, and encourage audiences to regard the youthful bodies on display as "spectacularized" objects, sources of both aesthetic and sensual pleasure. The makers of monumental images work within the same paradigm, also prompting the viewer to transfer the sentiments aroused by the real-world athlete and victor to his re-presentation in bronze. Through an examination of the conventions used for victor images, and a close study of the so-called Motya charioteer, I propose that the sculptor deploys techniques analogous to those of artist and poet to highlight the appeal of the athlete's body, and displays the victor in a mode calculated not only to mark him as the alluring target of the gaze, but even to cast him as a potential erômenos. The concluding section of the article investigates the impetus behind this mode of representation, and seeks to place the dynamic between the viewer and the viewed within the context of the early fifth-century polis. (shrink)

This paper discusses the interpretation of an important historical document:IGXII, 5, 608, a victory list from Iulis on ancient Keos. Since its discovery in 1883 it has always been described as a chronologically ordered official victory list of Kean athletes who have won at each of the major games. The surviving portion contains one complete list prefixed by the words ‘these won at Nemea’, and preceded by fourteen other names, which must, following the usual order, belong to Isthmian (...) victors. Since the two lists together name two athletes for whom Bakchylides wrote victory songs, Argeios and Lachon, it has long been used as a means of dating the first pair of poems, as well as the victories mentioned on the inscription not celebrated by Bakchylides. More recently, it has been used to fix the death of that poet to just after 452, in spite of a clear reference to him in Eusebios'Chronicleunder the year 431. It is the contention of this paper that this unique victory list has been misclassified and misinterpreted. It is not a chronologically ordered official victory list; it is rather an honorific victory list in which the entries are arranged by decreasing order of importance. This interpretation, and its various repercussions, destroys many of the currently accepted views about the dating of Bakchylides. (shrink)