BackgroundThere has been media coverage surrounding the dangers of heavy drinking and benefits of moderation, with TV and radio presenter, Adrian Chiles, documenting his experience of moderating alcohol consumption in an online article for the Guardian. By analysing the comments in response to Chiles’ article, this study aimed to explore posters’ attitudes or beliefs toward moderating alcohol and posters’ experiences of moderating or abstaining from alcohol.MethodA secondary qualitative analysis of online comments in response to an article about moderating alcohol consumption. (...) Main outcome measures: Comments in response to a United Kingdom online news article about moderating alcohol consumption were extracted and inductive thematic analysis was used.ResultsFor aim one, two themes were developed; “general attitudes toward drinking” and “general attitudes toward reducing consumption”. These themes reflect negative perceptions of alcohol and issues around changing attitudes. For aim two, three themes were developed: “moderation vs. abstention”, “reflection on past drinking behaviours”, and “current drinking behaviours”. These themes represent posters’ experiences and implications changing their drinking habits.ConclusionOur analysis provides a novel insight into perceptions and experiences of moderating or abstaining from alcohol. Alcohol is embedded within United Kingdom culture, creating difficulties for those who choose to moderate or abstain from alcohol. Our analysis highlights the need for public health to focus on shifting the current drinking culture, through clearer drinking guidelines and a wider availability of alcohol-free alternatives. (shrink)

The object of this paper is, as the title implies, to investigate the relation of Plato’s thought to natural science. More especially, it is intended to examine the widely held view that Plato’s influence, owing to the character of his beliefs, was necessarily and positively unfavourable to the development of natural science, as we know it at the present day.

It is really impossible to say anything worth saying about Plato in general within the limits of a single article. Indeed, the more one studies Plato the more impossible does it become—if the concept of degrees of impossibility may be used in a philosophical journal. The reasons for this are manifold. The first lies in the supreme greatness of Plato as a thinker. Hardly anyone who has made a serious effort to study Plato has escaped receiving the impression of him (...) as probably the greatest thinker of all ages. The difficulty is intensified by the particular form in which his greatness is conveyed to us. One may make a distinction, a relative distinction at least, between different philosophers in this respect. With some, their message is conveyed to us with comparative rapidity, even perhaps on the first careful reading, and subsequent study adds little except in the way of detail. Among these it would perhaps not be unfair to place Hume. Others, on first reading, will appear obscure and difficult, sometimes even repellent. It is only after a much more careful study that their real greatness emerges, and they may go on increasing in stature at every subsequent reading. Such, I believe, to be the experience of the majority of readers with Kant. Plato is almost unique in that he makes his impression in both ways. Almost everyone is captivated by him at first reading, but it is only to those who take the trouble of reading him again and again with the intellectual effort that he himself would have demanded. (shrink)

Is there really such a thing as moral progress? Do we get any better as time goes on? It is a question which must often exercise the minds of those who reflect on moral questions at all. And it is a frequent topic of discussion, both in private conversations and in the written contributions of a good many of our popular philosophers. Of some of these contributions one may safely say that their chief value is as a warning against the (...) dangers of hasty generalization on a subject such as this. And, taking advantage of such a warning, I shall make no attempt to give a final or dogmatic answer to this question. All I can try to do, within the limits of a single lecture, is to disentangle some of the most important considerations that seem to be in people's minds in discussing this question, and to estimate their importance as arguments on one side or the other. (shrink)

To anyone who has been engaged in teaching and studying Plato, particularly the Republic , for the last thirty or forty years, one fact must stand out with special prominence. That is the remarkable increase during that period of the direct applicability of Plato's discussions to our own problems. Thirty-five years ago the concrete situations which Plato had in mind in these discussions, the general assumptions at the back of them, the possibilities for good or evil that he envisaged, would (...) all seem to the student of that time remote and almost unreal, and it required a considerable exercise of the imagination to discover that there were certain underlying ideas in them which had application to our own time. If we wanted contemporary illustrations of the rise of a tyrant we had to turn to some of the most backward States in South America. The idea of a completely planned society existed only in the minds of the writers of Utopias, to whom we were accustomed, sometimes, to say rather patronizingly that they had forgotten that constitutions, grow and are not made. We could study the criticisms of democracy as an intellectual exercise without any feeling that they might be one day applied in practice. How different is the situation now! Many of the possibilities are as near for us as they were to Plato. Many of the general ideas of Plato's day are as readily assumed by us as they were by him. Indeed the difficulty now is greater in trying to gain a sympathetic hearing for the ideas of thirty or forty years ago than for the ideas of the fourth century b.c. (shrink)

I must begin by apologizing for taking a somewhat well-worn subject for my theme. My reason is that I have not yet found a recent treatment of it which is altogether to my satisfaction. Most of them seem to me too often to approach the subject from a point of view which, in a way, expects too much from the study of Plato or any other ancient author, and consequently either makes exaggerated claims for it or fails to do justice (...) to what we really can learn. (shrink)

Time was when the proofs of the existence of God formed an essential part of any self-respecting system of Philosophy. But for many years now this has ceased to be the case. It may be due to the gradual increase of the influence of Kant that the idea seems to have become accepted, tacitly, in the main, but none the less very widely, that proof or disproof of a belief such as this was hardly a fit subject for philosophical discussion (...) at all. At any rate, it is noteworthy how rarely the question is faced directly in the philosophical discussions of the last forty years or so. What we have had, much more frequently, is discussion about how the God of religion might be thought of and what sort of place He might have in reality as conceived in this or that philosophical system. And certainly discussions on these lines have done much to clarify our conception of the Divine, even if they have sometimes seemed to explain it only by explaining it away altogether, or at any rate to present us with the idea of something which, whatever it is, is certainly not the God of any religion. But of recent years I seem to detect a growing readiness to face the question as squarely as the old theologians, whopropounded the first proofs of God's existence, did. (shrink)

Using the analytic framework of normative logic presented in Fisher, Lovell, and Valero-Silva, provided here are five original business ethics mini-cases that may be used to teach and practice case analysis. We have taken the six questions that are used in the analytic framework of normative logic to solve ethical problems and have adapted them to seven steps that can be applied to conflict resolution of mini-cases in class. Then the adapted normative logic model has seven steps: Describe the “fundamental (...) needs of humankind” as they relate to the case, e.g. caring, supporting, reciprocity, fairness, trust; Explain the established norms, values, and laws that can be seen to apply in this case; State in brief the facts of the situation; Examine the network of circumstances that preceded the situation ; Generate at least three alternative positions and actions open to the actor in the case; Speculate on the hypothesized consequences of the different positions or actions the actor in the case may take; and Choose among the alternative positions the actor in the case might take and give your informed and judged reason for making that choice. A suggested answer is provided for one case, which could be reproduced as a class handout for students to examine after having done their own analysis and having discussed the case as a class. (shrink)

Whatthe influences were which led to the development and formulation of the so-called Theory of Ideas, usually associated with the name of Plato, is a question of perennial interest. And the interest has been increased by the vigorous controversy that, during the last ten years, has been conducted round the question of the exact part played by Socrates in the development of this theory. All the available evidence on the question is accessible and familiar to students of Greek thought, and (...) has been worked over many times. But as there is still no unanimity among scholars as to its true interpretation, it may be worth while to go over the ground once more, even if the only result is to confirm some view which has already been put forward and disputed. (shrink)

Whatthe influences were which led to the development and formulation of the so-called Theory of Ideas, usually associated with the name of Plato, is a question of perennial interest. And the interest has been increased by the vigorous controversy that, during the last ten years, has been conducted round the question of the exact part played by Socrates in the development of this theory. All the available evidence on the question is accessible and familiar to students of Greek thought, and (...) has been worked over many times. But as there is still no unanimity among scholars as to its true interpretation, it may be worth while to go over the ground once more, even if the only result is to confirm some view which has already been put forward and disputed. (shrink)

It is really impossible to say anything worth saying about Plato in general within the limits of a single article. Indeed, the more one studies Plato the more impossible does it become—if the concept of degrees of impossibility may be used in a philosophical journal. The reasons for this are manifold. The first lies in the supreme greatness of Plato as a thinker. Hardly anyone who has made a serious effort to study Plato has escaped receiving the impression of him (...) as probably the greatest thinker of all ages. The difficulty is intensified by the particular form in which his greatness is conveyed to us. One may make a distinction, a relative distinction at least, between different philosophers in this respect. With some, their message is conveyed to us with comparative rapidity, even perhaps on the first careful reading, and subsequent study adds little except in the way of detail. Among these it would perhaps not be unfair to place Hume. Others, on first reading, will appear obscure and difficult, sometimes even repellent. It is only after a much more careful study that their real greatness emerges, and they may go on increasing in stature at every subsequent reading. Such, I believe, to be the experience of the majority of readers with Kant. Plato is almost unique in that he makes his impression in both ways. Almost everyone is captivated by him at first reading, but it is only to those who take the trouble of reading him again and again with the intellectual effort that he himself would have demanded. (shrink)

Is there really such a thing as moral progress? Do we get any better as time goes on? It is a question which must often exercise the minds of those who reflect on moral questions at all. And it is a frequent topic of discussion, both in private conversations and in the written contributions of a good many of our popular philosophers. Of some of these contributions one may safely say that their chief value is as a warning against the (...) dangers of hasty generalization on a subject such as this. And, taking advantage of such a warning, I shall make no attempt to give a final or dogmatic answer to this question. All I can try to do, within the limits of a single lecture, is to disentangle some of the most important considerations that seem to be in people's minds in discussing this question, and to estimate their importance as arguments on one side or the other. (shrink)