PHI 579: Institutions, Change, and Diversity in the Open Society

Rêvez

PHI 579: Institutions, Change, and Diversity in the Open Society Rêvez

PHI 162: Law, Morality, and Authority

Syllabus

Edna Ullmann-Margalit, The Emergence of Norms

...the engineer’s axiom [states] that, if a potentially stabilizing feedback loop is applied with a time lag that is long compared with the natural time scale of the system, it will in fact act as a destabilizing element.

— Robert May, Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems (p.5)

When Plato claimed rulership for the philosopher because he alone could behold the idea of the good, the highest of eternal essences, he opposed the polis on two grounds: first, he claimed that the philosopher’s concern with eternal things did not put him at risk of becoming a good-for-nothing, and second, he asserted that these eternal things were even more “valuable“ than they were beautiful.

— Hannah Arendt, The Promise of Politics (p.10)