Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
The end of the tuna
Many nations have contributed to the Atlantic bluefin’s destruction. Europeans and North Africans do most of the catching and ranching of the fish in the world today. The United States continues to allow bluefin fishing in its waters even though the Gulf of Mexico-spawned stock is considered by many scientists to have entered into full-scale collapse. But it is Japan, the world’s largest bluefin importer, that has taken perhaps the most aggressive pro-tuna-fishing position.
The article presents an interesting question:
How then do we get ourselves out of the Age of Tuna with our moral center and our food supply intact? Can we develop a civilized hunter-gatherer relationship with tuna and indeed with all other fish and reach a point of equilibrium with our last wild food? Can the management bodies that have overseen the collapse of the most magnificent food fish we’ve ever known be trusted to manage what is left in its wake?
Do you care that the tuna will disappear from the high seas? How could we manage the blue fin tuna population so that future generations can still enjoy it?
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Topics for quiz 2 (chapters 2 and 3)
Chapter 2 (Philosophy of Mind)
2.1: Cartesian dualism: The mind is a thinking non-physical substance.
2.2: Logical Behaviorism: MS ---> BhS, where BhS are behavioral dispositions. C/E "Perfect pretender", "Super Spartans." Qualitative content (qualia = the unique, private feeling of our mental states).
Identity Theory: MS ---> BrS, where BrS is the passing of electro/chemical signals from cell to cell. C/E "Nagel's Bat" and "Lewis Pained Martian." (You must be able to grasp and understand these counterexamples and derive conclusions).
2.3: Functionalism: MS ---> FS. According to functionalism, to have a mind is to have the ability to perform certain functions. C/E "Lewis Pained Madman and Putnam's inverted spectrum (imagine a color-blind driver driving like we do, only he inverts green with red). "Turing Test for Intelligence: C/E Searle's Chinese Room. Intentionality (the ability of mental states to be "of" or "about" anything).
2.5: Property Dualism,
... is the view that non-physical, mental properties (such as beliefs, desires and emotions) inhere in some physical substances (namely brains).
Primitive Property (intentionality as a primitive property).
Emergent Property and Downward Causation.
Chapter 3
3.1: Causal Determinism (every event has a cause that makes it happen + laws of nature) and Hard determinism (the doctrine that there are no free actions). Hard determinism assumes that if CD is true, then there are no free actions because as our bodies made up of matter, we must be subjects to the same laws of causation. In class we discussed an argument to problematize HD. If HD is true, then there is no human responsibility: i.e., if we are not free, we cannot be responsible for our actions, (one is responsible if and only if one can make choices).
3.2: Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive.
Soft determinism: Determined actions can nevertheless be free. One "soft" theory is Traditional Compatibilism (Free actions are 1- caused by one's will and 2- not externally constrained). The idea is that you're free provided you are not constrained from the outside. C/E "Taylor's Ingenious Physiologist. In class we discussed how TV can "plant" desires. So in a way is a kind of ingeneous physiologist.
"Hierarchical Compatibilism: First and Second Order Desires; Second Order Volitions. Remember: A first order desire is directed to an object or state of affairs, a second order desire is a desire about a desire, a second order volition is a second order desire one decisely acts upon. Harry Frankfurt's three drug addicts: (Let's call a first order desire: FOD, a second order desire: SOD, a second order volition: SOV) So we get the following:
Wanton addict: FOD, not SOD, not SOV, not free.
Happy Addict: FOD, SOD, SOV, free.
Unwilling Addict: FOD, SOD (only this desire is against his taking the drug, not SOV, not free).
3.3: Libertarianism
Event and Agent Causation. Event---> event or Agent---> event.
Libertarianism holds that agents can cause events. How? remember we talked about the possibility that the mind causes the brain. Libertarianism also holds that one is responsible for one's action only if one does it (one has to act on one's own desire). If the desire is not yours, you're not responsible, ex. one's doing something by being coerced to do it by somebody else.
Radical Libertarianism (Existentialism): Jean-Paul Sartre's kind of libertarianism (known as Existentialism) holds that the self is essentially free. When he says: "L'existence précède l'essence" he means that we exist first, and are "defined" later. Sartre puts it as sucgh: "il n'est rien d'autre que ce qu'il fait de sa vie."
We cope with this heavy "weight" of our own FREEDOM by creating fictitious justifications, what Sartre calls mauvaise foi or "bad faith". We're always responsible for our actions, because even when we think we don't choose, we choose. The only possible constraint is our facticity (the stuff we don't choose, like being born and having a certain name and parents). "La mauvaise foi" in a practical sense means that what counts is the intention (" c'est l'intention qui compte"). Sartre rejects the freudian "unconscious" as well as other forms of determinisms. As he puts it: "L'homme est condamné à être libre."
In Being and Nothingness, Sartre discusses the example of a gambler who wishes to stop gambling as an illustration of anguish as it relates to the past, "anguish in the face of the past". The gambler has resolved, in the past, to stop gambling because he recognizes the toll his habit is taking on his life. In the moment of that resolution, that choice to no longer gamble seemed "a real barrier" between gambling and the one who gambles, between the human being and his freedom. However, in the light of a new moment, minutes, hours or days later, that earlier resolution seems nothing more than a "memory of an idea, a memory of a feeling" (p. 126) when the gambler is presented once again with the opportunity to gamble. Precisely nothing (what Sartre calls "Néant": no previous decision that attempts to put a "barrier" – a something – between a subject and his freedom) stops the gambler from gambling again. He is always free to choose, to gamble or not to gamble. "The resolution is still me to the extent that I realize constantly my identity with myself across the temporal flux." The gambler thus feels anguish in the face of his own freedom. He has finally apprehended the "nothingness" of his own being. He "perceives with anguish that nothing prevents him from gambling" (p. 126).
2.1: Cartesian dualism: The mind is a thinking non-physical substance.
2.2: Logical Behaviorism: MS ---> BhS, where BhS are behavioral dispositions. C/E "Perfect pretender", "Super Spartans." Qualitative content (qualia = the unique, private feeling of our mental states).
Identity Theory: MS ---> BrS, where BrS is the passing of electro/chemical signals from cell to cell. C/E "Nagel's Bat" and "Lewis Pained Martian." (You must be able to grasp and understand these counterexamples and derive conclusions).
2.3: Functionalism: MS ---> FS. According to functionalism, to have a mind is to have the ability to perform certain functions. C/E "Lewis Pained Madman and Putnam's inverted spectrum (imagine a color-blind driver driving like we do, only he inverts green with red). "Turing Test for Intelligence: C/E Searle's Chinese Room. Intentionality (the ability of mental states to be "of" or "about" anything).
2.5: Property Dualism,
Primitive Property (intentionality as a primitive property).
Emergent Property and Downward Causation.
Chapter 3
3.1: Causal Determinism (every event has a cause that makes it happen + laws of nature) and Hard determinism (the doctrine that there are no free actions). Hard determinism assumes that if CD is true, then there are no free actions because as our bodies made up of matter, we must be subjects to the same laws of causation. In class we discussed an argument to problematize HD. If HD is true, then there is no human responsibility: i.e., if we are not free, we cannot be responsible for our actions, (one is responsible if and only if one can make choices).
3.2: Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive.
"Hierarchical Compatibilism: First and Second Order Desires; Second Order Volitions. Remember: A first order desire is directed to an object or state of affairs, a second order desire is a desire about a desire, a second order volition is a second order desire one decisely acts upon. Harry Frankfurt's three drug addicts: (Let's call a first order desire: FOD, a second order desire: SOD, a second order volition: SOV) So we get the following:
Wanton addict: FOD, not SOD, not SOV, not free.
Happy Addict: FOD, SOD, SOV, free.
Unwilling Addict: FOD, SOD (only this desire is against his taking the drug, not SOV, not free).
3.3: Libertarianism
Event and Agent Causation. Event---> event or Agent---> event.
Libertarianism holds that agents can cause events. How? remember we talked about the possibility that the mind causes the brain. Libertarianism also holds that one is responsible for one's action only if one does it (one has to act on one's own desire). If the desire is not yours, you're not responsible, ex. one's doing something by being coerced to do it by somebody else.
Radical Libertarianism (Existentialism): Jean-Paul Sartre's kind of libertarianism (known as Existentialism) holds that the self is essentially free. When he says: "L'existence précède l'essence" he means that we exist first, and are "defined" later. Sartre puts it as sucgh: "il n'est rien d'autre que ce qu'il fait de sa vie."
We cope with this heavy "weight" of our own FREEDOM by creating fictitious justifications, what Sartre calls mauvaise foi or "bad faith". We're always responsible for our actions, because even when we think we don't choose, we choose. The only possible constraint is our facticity (the stuff we don't choose, like being born and having a certain name and parents). "La mauvaise foi" in a practical sense means that what counts is the intention (" c'est l'intention qui compte"). Sartre rejects the freudian "unconscious" as well as other forms of determinisms. As he puts it: "L'homme est condamné à être libre."
In Being and Nothingness, Sartre discusses the example of a gambler who wishes to stop gambling as an illustration of anguish as it relates to the past, "anguish in the face of the past". The gambler has resolved, in the past, to stop gambling because he recognizes the toll his habit is taking on his life. In the moment of that resolution, that choice to no longer gamble seemed "a real barrier" between gambling and the one who gambles, between the human being and his freedom. However, in the light of a new moment, minutes, hours or days later, that earlier resolution seems nothing more than a "memory of an idea, a memory of a feeling" (p. 126) when the gambler is presented once again with the opportunity to gamble. Precisely nothing (what Sartre calls "Néant": no previous decision that attempts to put a "barrier" – a something – between a subject and his freedom) stops the gambler from gambling again. He is always free to choose, to gamble or not to gamble. "The resolution is still me to the extent that I realize constantly my identity with myself across the temporal flux." The gambler thus feels anguish in the face of his own freedom. He has finally apprehended the "nothingness" of his own being. He "perceives with anguish that nothing prevents him from gambling" (p. 126).
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Is animal cruelty related to human cruelty?
In addition to a growing sensitivity to the rights of animals, another significant reason for the increased attention to animal cruelty is a mounting body of evidence about the link between such acts and serious crimes of more narrowly human concern, including illegal firearms possession, drug trafficking, gambling, spousal and child abuse, rape and homicide. In the world of law enforcement — and in the larger world that our laws were designed to shape — animal-cruelty issues were long considered a peripheral concern and the province of local A.S.P.C.A. and Humane Society organizations; offenses as removed and distinct from the work of enforcing the human penal code as we humans have deemed ourselves to be from animals. But that illusory distinction is rapidly fading.The article goes on to make this claim:
“A Study of Firesetting and Animal Cruelty in Children: Family Influences and Adolescent Outcomes,” found that over a 10-year period, 6-to-12-year-old children who were described as being cruel to animals were more than twice as likely as other children in the study to be reported to juvenile authorities for a violent offense. In an October 2005 paper published in Journal of Community Health, a team of researchers conducting a study over seven years in 11 metropolitan areas determined that pet abuse was one of five factors that predicted who would begin other abusive behaviors. In a 1995 study, nearly a third of pet-owning victims of domestic abuse, meanwhile, reported that one or more of their children had killed or harmed a pet.
The opinionator
Check out this New York Times column where well-known contemporary philosophers debate current affairs.
I picked this one, by professor Peter Singer. He writes:
I picked this one, by professor Peter Singer. He writes:
Have you ever thought about whether to have a child? If so, what factors entered into your decision? Was it whether having children would be good for you, your partner and others close to the possible child, such as children you may already have, or perhaps your parents? For most people contemplating reproduction, those are the dominant questions. Some may also think about the desirability of adding to the strain that the nearly seven billion people already here are putting on our planet’s environment. But very few ask whether coming into existence is a good thing for the child itself. Most of those who consider that question probably do so because they have some reason to fear that the child’s life would be especially difficult — for example, if they have a family history of a devastating illness, physical or mental, that cannot yet be detected prenatally.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
This Saturday at 3:30pm: Beach!
Farewell is best with nature: beach, sea, sand and sun.
If you draw a sort of semi-parallel line to Alton Rd. we'll meet around 64th St., near Hotel Casablanca.
What people are (so far) bringing:
Triff: Beer (no Bud or Miller), Middle Eastern food, some water and umbrella.
Karen: Cooler.
Jose: Ice and some food.
Angela: Some food and perhaps another umbrella.
You're more than welcome to bring food stuff (but not too much, since this is neither lunch nor dinner).
If you want to post last minute suggestions, go ahead, the comment option is available!
The koan (2 cases)
A koan should be short and more importantly non-obvious. Think cold shower to the mind. Dadaists used koans, example, the one above.
Here is a good compilation.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Topics for Final Exam M,W,F, 8am class
Chapter 4
1. Qualitative Identity, numerical identity
Animalism; C/A: Siamese Twins, The "transgender" issue, Locke's tale of the prince and the cobbler.
2. Memory Theory: Reid’s Tale of the Brave Officer; Direct and indirect memories; Real memory, apparent memory, quasi-memory.
3. Psychological Continuity Theory. C/A: The Reduplication Problem: William’s Reincarnation of Guy Fawkes; Williams’ Reduplication Argument. Parfit Teletransporter and its implications.
4. Brain Theory. C/A: Parfit’s Division
5. Identity and what matters in survival and responsibility. From section 4.3 we learn that identity does not matter for survival. What matters for responsibility is character.
6. What does it mean to say that the self is "a process."
Chapter 5
Section 5.1
1. Subjective Absolutism: The view that what makes an action right is that one approves of it; Objections: (a) SA makes moral evaluations a matter of personal opinion, (b)impossibility of moral disagreements (one can only agree with the absolutist and the reason is that he believes he's the ONLY ONE THAT'S RIGHT). 2. Subjective Relativism: What makes an action right is that it is approved by that person. Objections (same as above). You must be able to tell the difference between the (the absolutist thinks she's the only one that's right, whereas the subjective relativist believes that many people can disagree and still be right at the same time) absolutist and the subjective relativist.
6. Are there universal moral principles? YES! 1- Principle of mercy (Unnecessary suffering is wrong) and 2- Principle of justice (Treat equals equally).
Section 5.2.
1. Consequentialism is the theory that judges the rightness or wrongness of an action in terms of its consequences. Formalism is the theory that judges the rightness or wrongness of an action in terms of the action's form (i.e., "killing is wrong": the formalist believes that moral actions are objective).
2. Intrinsic (value for its own sake; personhood is an essential value: 1-reason, 2-autonomy, 3-sentience, 4-freedom) and instrumental values (value for the sake of something else):3. Ethical egoism: What makes an action right is that it promotes one's best interest in the long run = PRUDENCE. Counterarguments: (a) Egoist's motivations (if known, the egoist's intentions seem to betray reversibility principle). (b) Egoism is not a socially or politically cogent theory (i.e., you would not vote for an egoist in office).4. Act Utilitarianism: What makes an action right is that it maximizes happiness everyone considered (which means, "bringing happiness for the greatest majority of people"). Counterarguments: (a) Mc Closkey’s informant (b) Brandt’s Heir. In each one of these cases one has violated principles of justice, duty and equality.
5. Rule Utilitarianism: What makes an action right is that it falls under a rule that if generally followed would maximize happiness everyone considered. RU is a better theory than AU. Why? Because if applied, it can solve the problems posed by the previous counterarguments.
Section 5.3.
1. Kant’s Categorical Imperative: What makes an action right is that everyone can act on it (which yields universalizability), and you'd have everyone acting on it (which yields reversibility: Golden Rule)
2. Perfect duty: A duty that must always be performed no matter what. And imperfect duties.
Problems with Kant's first formulation: (a) Hare’s Nazi fanatic (Triff's The Bin-Laden Syndrome).
How do you solve that?
3. Kant's Second Formulation: TREAT PEOPLE AS ENDS AND NEVER AS MEANS TO AN END.
Problems with the second formulation: Problem of exceptions: Some times we have to treat people as means to ends: Broad's Typhoid Man.
Pluralistic Formalism: What makes an action right is that it falls under the highest ranked duty in a given situation.
4. Ross’ Prima Facie Duties. Actual duties: One that must be performed in a particular situation. Prima Facie Duty: A duty that must be performed unless it conflict with a more important duty. You must know hierarchy and each one of these duties as I explained in class: 1- Justice, 2- fidelity and 3- reparation being the first three, because they explain out the remaining ones: beneficence, non-maleficence, gratitude, self-improvement.
5. Why is Pluralistic Formalism better than Kantian theory? Because it allows for exceptions
1. Qualitative Identity, numerical identity
Animalism; C/A: Siamese Twins, The "transgender" issue, Locke's tale of the prince and the cobbler.
2. Memory Theory: Reid’s Tale of the Brave Officer; Direct and indirect memories; Real memory, apparent memory, quasi-memory.
3. Psychological Continuity Theory. C/A: The Reduplication Problem: William’s Reincarnation of Guy Fawkes; Williams’ Reduplication Argument. Parfit Teletransporter and its implications.
4. Brain Theory. C/A: Parfit’s Division
5. Identity and what matters in survival and responsibility. From section 4.3 we learn that identity does not matter for survival. What matters for responsibility is character.
6. What does it mean to say that the self is "a process."
Chapter 5
Section 5.1
1. Subjective Absolutism: The view that what makes an action right is that one approves of it; Objections: (a) SA makes moral evaluations a matter of personal opinion, (b)impossibility of moral disagreements (one can only agree with the absolutist and the reason is that he believes he's the ONLY ONE THAT'S RIGHT). 2. Subjective Relativism: What makes an action right is that it is approved by that person. Objections (same as above). You must be able to tell the difference between the (the absolutist thinks she's the only one that's right, whereas the subjective relativist believes that many people can disagree and still be right at the same time) absolutist and the subjective relativist.
6. Are there universal moral principles? YES! 1- Principle of mercy (Unnecessary suffering is wrong) and 2- Principle of justice (Treat equals equally).
Section 5.2.
1. Consequentialism is the theory that judges the rightness or wrongness of an action in terms of its consequences. Formalism is the theory that judges the rightness or wrongness of an action in terms of the action's form (i.e., "killing is wrong": the formalist believes that moral actions are objective).
2. Intrinsic (value for its own sake; personhood is an essential value: 1-reason, 2-autonomy, 3-sentience, 4-freedom) and instrumental values (value for the sake of something else):3. Ethical egoism: What makes an action right is that it promotes one's best interest in the long run = PRUDENCE. Counterarguments: (a) Egoist's motivations (if known, the egoist's intentions seem to betray reversibility principle). (b) Egoism is not a socially or politically cogent theory (i.e., you would not vote for an egoist in office).4. Act Utilitarianism: What makes an action right is that it maximizes happiness everyone considered (which means, "bringing happiness for the greatest majority of people"). Counterarguments: (a) Mc Closkey’s informant (b) Brandt’s Heir. In each one of these cases one has violated principles of justice, duty and equality.
5. Rule Utilitarianism: What makes an action right is that it falls under a rule that if generally followed would maximize happiness everyone considered. RU is a better theory than AU. Why? Because if applied, it can solve the problems posed by the previous counterarguments.
Section 5.3.
1. Kant’s Categorical Imperative: What makes an action right is that everyone can act on it (which yields universalizability), and you'd have everyone acting on it (which yields reversibility: Golden Rule)
2. Perfect duty: A duty that must always be performed no matter what. And imperfect duties.
Problems with Kant's first formulation: (a) Hare’s Nazi fanatic (Triff's The Bin-Laden Syndrome).
How do you solve that?
3. Kant's Second Formulation: TREAT PEOPLE AS ENDS AND NEVER AS MEANS TO AN END.
Problems with the second formulation: Problem of exceptions: Some times we have to treat people as means to ends: Broad's Typhoid Man.
Pluralistic Formalism: What makes an action right is that it falls under the highest ranked duty in a given situation.
4. Ross’ Prima Facie Duties. Actual duties: One that must be performed in a particular situation. Prima Facie Duty: A duty that must be performed unless it conflict with a more important duty. You must know hierarchy and each one of these duties as I explained in class: 1- Justice, 2- fidelity and 3- reparation being the first three, because they explain out the remaining ones: beneficence, non-maleficence, gratitude, self-improvement.
5. Why is Pluralistic Formalism better than Kantian theory? Because it allows for exceptions
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Your (last) assignment
The Tao doesn't take sides;
it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she welcomes both saints and sinners.- Tao Te Ching
it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she welcomes both saints and sinners.- Tao Te Ching
Thomas Bayrle, Maxwell Kaffee, Oil on canvas (1967).
I surmise that Thomas Bayrle takes Jean-Paul Sartre's metaphor of the cup of coffee in La Nausée as a Pop paradox of the one and the many. Let's talk about this void which calls forth the fullness, the paradoxical coexistence of Tao in both subject and object, essence and appearance. Imagine a situation, which shows itself as something not complete, an event that demands our involvement. The situation appears imperfect, out of joint, sort of what Kenyan artist Ingrid Mwuangi does when she multiplies her own id-entity:
Ingrid Mwuangi, If, digital c-prints mounted on aluminum (2001).
Really?The Tao is like a well:According to the Tao Te Ching, our will to fix things can take us into unexpected detours. Let me explain: Generally, I don't see my will as being impeded by anything other than my desire to act. But in the big realm of overall causation, I'm not alone. My will is differential, i.e., one amongst hundreds of millions of other wills. Seldom I stop to ponder my will as being a very small fraction of an overall sum of (unknown) wills, not only in the here and now, but as -already- established chains reactions which precede my time/space (and of which I'm a part of).
used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
filled with infinite possibilities. (vers. 4)1
Mathematically speaking, what's my will vis-a-vis a higher order of will/differentials? What's the relative limit between my doing and my doing too much? Sure, voluntarism is a well-respected part of our strategy of success. But think about it, how many of the things (we think) we do turn out to be the opposite of what we anticipated?
For more (including your comment), click here.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Some recommended texts
Hindu Philosophy: 1- The Upanishads, 2- Bhagavad Gita, 3- Dhammapada (All by Nigiri Press). 4- Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, 5- The Life Divine (Sri Aurobindo), a recommended text for those versed in Western Philosophy. This is a nice edition of The Lotus Sutra.
Chinese Philosophy: Analects, The Lao Tzu, Zen teachings of Bodhidharma.
Chinese Philosophy: Analects, The Lao Tzu, Zen teachings of Bodhidharma.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Are we not in part responsible for BP's debacle?
This article of the New York Times examines our present ambivalence with technology (particularly after the BP's debacle and the West Virginia Upper Big Branch mine accident).
It's not only energy, there are sophisticated technological financial instruments, linked to our present financial crisis.
Is it that we have put too much faith in technology? Is technology betraying us?
There are three distinct approaches to technology:
Optimistic: technology as a way to improve our condition in the planet.
Pessimistic: technology as a cul de sac, whereby we end worse than we started or (in the worst case scenario) enslaved by it.
Realistic: technology as a viable tool, if used with responsibilty.
Which of these models do you think the recent disasters point to? What should we do to avoid these problems in the future?
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Your turn #3
Good class with a nice discussion on the subject of anger.
For your comment this week, please, go to miami bourbaki. You can comment on my manifesto (which I have fleshed out a bit) or in the "Forked paths" post. Take any of the Buddhist topics discussed in class: dukkha, tanha, sunyata, Four Noble Truths, etc. Be critical, be aware, be yourself.
Remember to become a friend of both PHI 2070 and Bourbaki!
______
By the way, this is the book by Paul Lafargue (Marx's son-in-law) that I mentioned in class (yes, right to laziness, why don't we think more of these things today?).
For your comment this week, please, go to miami bourbaki. You can comment on my manifesto (which I have fleshed out a bit) or in the "Forked paths" post. Take any of the Buddhist topics discussed in class: dukkha, tanha, sunyata, Four Noble Truths, etc. Be critical, be aware, be yourself.
Remember to become a friend of both PHI 2070 and Bourbaki!
______
By the way, this is the book by Paul Lafargue (Marx's son-in-law) that I mentioned in class (yes, right to laziness, why don't we think more of these things today?).
Dhammapada
(Pali: "Words of Doctrine," or "Way of Truth"), probably the best-known book in the Pali Buddhist canon and the most quoted in other Buddhist writings. It is an anthology of basic Buddhist teachings (primarily ethical teachings) in a simple aphoristic style. The Dhammapada contains 423 stanzas arranged in 26 chapters. It also appears in somewhat different versions in Prakrit, Sanskrit, and Chinese, and there are translations in other languages. More than half the verses are excerpted from other canonical texts and include many of the most famous Buddhist sayings; others come from the storehouse of pithy sayings drawn upon by much of Indian literature.The book is popular in Buddhist countries of both Theravada and Mahayana traditions. In Sri Lanka it has been used for centuries as a manual for novices, and it is said that every monk can recite it from memory.