Talk:William Godwin

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[edit] Dangers of using the 1911 Encyclopedia

Includes three novels "now forgotten", which includes the quite famous Caleb Williams. Mandel July 2, 2005 18:35 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Anarchists

I'm done reverting, due to the 3RR. But the point wasn't whether he was an anarchist. It was whether we should categorize him as one. There are numerous sources claiming Jesus was the first anarchist, but I'm not about to put that in the top of his article and add him to the category. At present we don't categorize anyone who predate the term "anarchism" as anarchist, because this is a clear example of retroactive naming. As I've already said on List of anarchists, I have no problem with Godwin, Thoreau, et al included on a loose list of anarchists. But a category is very rigid, and I think should be used only very carefully. We don't presently use the category for anyone predating anarchism, and if Godwin is included then we'll have to dig around and do the same for others. I don't think this is a good direction at all. It seems to me an attempt to legitimize Godwin as the first anarchist instead of Proudhon. Sarge Baldy 21:37, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Proudhon was certainly not the first anarchist; Proudhon was just the first person to call himself an anarchist. Godwin is definitely an anarchist. But, it doesn't whether you or I think he's an anarchist. What matters is the sources. The sources say he was an anarchist (I happen to agree, but that doesn't matter). As far as I know, whether or not he was one is not even disputed. As far as I know, nobody seriously claims that he wasn't an anarchist. Everybody knows he was an anarchist, except for you. RJII 01:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

If Godwin was so obviously the first anarchist, why does the 1911 encyclopedia not use the word anarchist or anarchism once in his article? [1] And don't get me wrong, I even like Godwin. And of course he practiced a philosophy which is essentially anarchism. It just leaves debates as to who else we should retroactively apply terms to. Next thing you know we'll have people calling Robert Owen a Marxist and Georg Simmel a postmodernist. I think discussion and arguments to that effect is beneficial, but to definitively label people under terms that did not exist during their lifetime seems POV. Sarge Baldy 01:51, 7 February 2006 (UTC)