This article assesses whether Hellenistic war-elephants were given alcohol before battle. First recorded in 1 Maccabees’ account of the battle of Beth-Zechariah (162b.c.e.), this unusual detail is supported by the later comments of Aelian and Philes of Ephesus. The idea also recalls a failed Ptolemaic attempt to punish the Jews in 3 Maccabees and in Josephus, and resonates with a longstanding association of elephants and alcohol in popular thought. Unfortunately, despite the recent rise in scholarly interest on war-elephants, this issue (...) remains overlooked. This article reassesses the complexities of our sources and the practicalities of Hellenistic battles. Adopting a comparative approach to contemporary Indian material for this practice, it considers the prevalence of elephants in musth in the Indian epics, alongside the etymological link between this condition and Sanskrit concepts of drunkenness. It argues that this connection may have prompted the idea of giving elephants alcohol before battle, despite its unlikeliness as a standard feature of elephant warfare. (shrink)

This paper argues for the presence in Plato’s work of a conception of thinking central to which is what I call the Transparency View. According to this view, in order for a subject to think of a given object, the subject must represent that object just as it is, without inaccuracy or distortion. I examine the ways in which this conception influences Plato’s epistemology and metaphysics and explore some ramifications for contemporary views about mental content.

This paper argues, first, that biological evolution can be both random and divinely guided at the same time. Next it discusses the idea that the claim that evolution is unguided is not part of the science of evolution, and defends it against a number of objections.

R S Downie; Professions and Professionalism, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 24, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 147–159, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-.

R. S. Woolhouse; IV*—Leibniz's Reaction to Cartesian Interaction, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 86, Issue 1, 1 June 1986, Pages 69–82, https:/.

Parkinson schreibt, es sei nicht klar, daß Alexander selbst von Geburt an Merkmale oder Zeichen des Ortes seines zukünftigen Todes in sich getragen haben müsse, weil der vollständige Begriff von Alexander den Begriff des in Babylon Sterbens enthält. Die vorliegende Interpretation des Prinzips der Vorherbestimmtheit der Geschichte verdeutlicht dies mit Hilfe der bildlichen Ausdrücke, Pläne und Dispositionen und mit Hilfe einer aristotelischen Unterscheidung zwischen "going to be" und "will be" , fur welche ein formaler chronologischer Apparat ausgearbeitet ist. Die Arbeit (...) gibt ebenfalls Einblick in den Gedanken, daB die Gegenwart schwanger mit der Zukunft ist, und antwortet auf Reschers Kritik, daß Leibniz' Metaphysik von Grund auf statisch sei. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that the experience of a poem qua poem is an experience of poetic thickness , i.e. an experience in which poetic form and poetic content are inseparable. I present a critical analysis of A. C. Bradley’s ‘Poetry for Poetry’s Sake’ lecture in Section 1, indicating both the strengths and weaknesses of his conception of resonant meaning. Section 2 draws on subsequent work by I. A. Richards and Peter Lamarque to advance my account (...) of the relationship in question, poetic thickness, understood as a demand made of a poem rather than a property discovered therein. In Sections 3–6 I discuss four objections to form-content unity from Peter Kivy: perfect circularity, ubiquitous unity, the sugar-coated pill tradition, and the defence from tradition. I show that all these objections fail against poetic thickness. I conclude that the experience of a poem qua poem is indeed an experience of thickness, and that poetic thickness is therefore a necessary condition of poetry. (shrink)

This concise, lively introduction to ancient Greek philosophy will help beginning students of both classical studies and philosophy get their bearings within an important yet complex array of names, schools, and ideas. The book illuminates the key period from the sixth to the third century BC, looking at the ideas that engaged the Greeks, in particular those of the Presocratics, the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the earliest Hellenistic philosophers. After chronologically mapping the main figures and their interconnections, _Introducing Greek (...) Philosophy_ focuses on themes especially relevant to philosophy today, including the origins of the universe and its mathematical structures; divine creation versus evolution and natural law; probability theory and the criteria for truth; political debates on democracy, citizen rights, and state obligations; and finally ethics, happiness, and the best way to live. (shrink)

Background: Patient autonomy has been promoted as the most important principle to guide difficult clinical decisions. To examine whether practising physicians indeed value patient autonomy above other considerations, physicians were asked to weight patient autonomy against three other criteria that often influence doctors’ decisions. Associations between physicians’ religious characteristics and their weighting of the criteria were also examined. Methods: Mailed survey in 2007 of a stratified random sample of 1000 US primary care physicians, selected from the American Medical Association masterfile. (...) Physicians were asked how much weight should be given to the following: (1) the patient’s expressed wishes and values, (2) the physician’s own judgment about what is in the patient’s best interest, (3) standards and recommendations from professional medical bodies and (4) moral guidelines from religious traditions. Results: Response rate 51% (446/879). Half of physicians (55%) gave the patient’s expressed wishes and values “the highest possible weight”. In comparative analysis, 40% gave patient wishes more weight than the other three factors, and 13% ranked patient wishes behind some other factor. Religious doctors tended to give less weight to the patient’s expressed wishes. For example, 47% of doctors with high intrinsic religious motivation gave patient wishes the “highest possible weight”, versus 67% of those with low (OR 0.5; 95% CI 0.3 to 0.8). Conclusions: Doctors believe patient wishes and values are important, but other considerations are often equally or more important. This suggests that patient autonomy does not guide physicians’ decisions as much as is often recommended in the ethics literature. (shrink)

R K Elliott; Versions of Creativity, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 5, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 139–152, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1971.

Some statements are called reflexive. For example, the statement : „ This sentence consists of six words”. The reflexivity lies in the fact that the statement refers to itself. Reflexivity in the sense of self-reference can be used systematically as a philosophical method. Usually the use of this method (as I explain in section I) leads to some form or other of scepticism. But in addition, and this is the point of the article, this method can be used as a (...) means of finding certain grounds (foundations). This is argued in sections II-IV by means of an analysis of the „ transcendental pragmatics“ of Karl-Otto Apel. (shrink)

This book focuses upon the perennial question of the existence and nature of an obligation to obey the law. Leading writers have, at one time or another, emphasized considerations such as gratitude, 'divine ordering, ' prudence, contract, autonomy, and utility in seeking to justify, or to deny any justification for, some sort of obligation to obey the positive law. The book provides relevant selections from a sampling of the historical approaches to legal obligation taken by writers such as Plato, Augustine, (...) Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Thoreau, Bentham, Marx and Engels, and Martin Luther King, Jr. These classical discussions are augmented by critical questions and commentary, by independent discussions of the question of legal obligation by a wide range of contemporary writers, and by relevant judicial cases discussing matters such as conscientious objection and civil disobedience. (shrink)

I answer Alvin Plantinga's challenge to provide a ‘proper’ de jure objection to religious belief. What I call the ‘sophisticates’ evidential objection' concludes that sophisticated Christians lack epistemic justification for believing central Christian propositions. The SEO utilizes a theory of epistemic justification in the spirit of the evidentialism of Richard Feldman and Earl Conee. I defend philosophical interest in the SEO against objections from Reformed epistemology, by addressing Plantinga's criteria for a proper de jure objection, his anti-evidentialist arguments, and the (...) relevance of ‘impulsional evidence’. I argue that no result from Plantinga-style Reformed epistemology precludes the reasons I offer in favour of giving the SEO its due philosophical attention. (shrink)

R K Elliott; The Concept of Development: A Reply to Professor Hamlyn, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 9, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 40–48, https://d.

Summary One aim of this paper is to provide an assessment of the recent attempts to interpret the development of Galileo's theory of motion in the late Paduan period 1604?1610. In addition to this a new interpretation of this process of development is advanced. This interpretation is the first that proves able to provide a full account of all the features on folio 152r of volume 72 of the Galilean manuscripts which has been claimed to be of crucial significance. The (...) major feature of the interpretation is that it is the first to account for the relationship between Galileo's theoretical and experimental work in the period 1604?1610. (shrink)

R K Elliott; D. W. Hamlyn on Knowledge and the Beginnings of Understanding, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 14, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 109–116.