Book contents
- Plato’s Pigs and Other Ruminations
- Plato’s Pigs and Other Ruminations
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Note on Sources and Citation
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Debts to Nature
- Chapter 2 Anaximander for the Anthropocene
- Chapter 3 Heraclitus and the Quantum
- Chapter 4 A City for Pigs
- Chapter 5 Mutual Coercion, Mutually Agreed Upon
- Chapter 6 Cynics and Stoics
- Chapter 7 Roman Revolutions
- Chapter 8 Community Rule
- Afterword Works & Days and Then Some
- Notes
- Index
Chapter 4 - A City for Pigs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2020
- Plato’s Pigs and Other Ruminations
- Plato’s Pigs and Other Ruminations
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Note on Sources and Citation
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Debts to Nature
- Chapter 2 Anaximander for the Anthropocene
- Chapter 3 Heraclitus and the Quantum
- Chapter 4 A City for Pigs
- Chapter 5 Mutual Coercion, Mutually Agreed Upon
- Chapter 6 Cynics and Stoics
- Chapter 7 Roman Revolutions
- Chapter 8 Community Rule
- Afterword Works & Days and Then Some
- Notes
- Index
Summary
“A City for Pigs” portrays Plato as a systems modeler of a sustainable society. Plato’s argumentative methods, in the Republic especially, are favorably compared to techniques of computer simulation and to the heuristic objectives of game theory. Plato’s views about social cooperation in the use of common-pool resources, for example, are shown to be strikingly similar to conclusions reached via field studies by Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom in Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (1990). Plato’s own homology, of city and soul, provides a compelling rationale for both individual and collective action vis-à-vis the environmental and social problems we still face today.
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- Plato's Pigs and Other RuminationsAncient Guides to Living with Nature, pp. 91 - 109Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020