Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 August 26

= August 26 =

Publication date of An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth
When was An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth published? Our article says 1771, and this is cited to the article on James Beattie by Patricia Kitcher in the second edition of The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. However, Frederick Copleston states in the fifth volume of his A History of Philosophy that Beattie's work was published in 1770. Which of these dates is correct? FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 09:07, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * On the title page of the first edition here, you can see the date given as 1770. There were many later editions of course, so maybe Kitcher is referring to one of those (the second was in 1771). HenryFlower 10:10, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * The edition years don't overlap - the third was 1772, the fifth 1774 and the sixth 1778. 86.131.234.217 (talk) 10:35, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Eleve Consul
What is a "eleve consul" ? I know what a Consul (representative) is.KAVEBEAR (talk) 19:00, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Élève is French for student, so élève-consuls could literally be students, like an intern in modern terms. But they might have more definite powers, more like a vice-consul or a deputy consul. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:16, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That's correct,  Dictionnaire manuel de diplomatie et de droit international public et privé, original edition: 1885. They acted as assistant to a consul under a statute equivalent to internship. --Askedonty (talk) 21:07, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Worth to be noted the author of the source above last is not a frenchman neither the edition is French - French was the lingua franca for diplomacy, and even though the style is a very pure of language the tone of the dictionary gives markedly heavier on protocols than would a comparable French source - of the era. --Askedonty (talk) 15:31, 28 August 2018 (UTC)