Talk:Philosophy

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[edit] Useful tag

This article contains a solid dose of complete nonsense, is full of original research and presents an idiosyncratic, highly dubious view of the topic. Please do not use it as a research source, and please, PLEASE, help to fix it if you are willing and able.

edward (buckner) 11:27, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

This was from User:Rosenkreuz's page. One of the best and funniest editors around. See e.g. this edit. edward (buckner) 11:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Phenomenology section

Started work on this. Consider it "in progress". I will source it from Woodruff Smith's new book on Husserl. I have redescribed phenomenology so it doesn't sound like just any account of human experience, but I will improve the description. KD Tries Again 21:58, 19 February 2007 (UTC)KD

Second draft. I tried looking at the Wiki entry on Husserl, but unfortunately it's not up to scratch - it pretty much ignores Logical Investigations. I tried to summarize the main points of phenomenology, but it may still be unintelligible in such a short space.
By the way, the stuff on hermeneutics is not mine, and it doesn't begin to explain what Heidegger meant by hermeneutics - unlike Gadamer, Heidegger is not primarily concerned with texts. It would take a few sentences to try and clarify it. Shall I do that, or is something we want to lose as insufficiently notable? If we deal with hermeneutics, why not structuralism, post-struc., deconstruction, etc.? KD Tries Again 21:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)KD
I think that recent stuff (post-1960s) shouldn't be included, or at least, not included in the level of detail as the sections currently in place. This would include struct, post-struct, deconstruct, Rorty's neo-pragmatism, etc. Their histories aren't done yet. Poor Yorick 23:27, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Fine by me, but it leaves structuralism up in the air, arguably semiotics too. What about hermeneutics, though? I don't feel strongly that it should be in or out, but it's awkward where it is. Yes, Heidegger leads to Gadamer and Ricoeur, but it doesn't accurately say how or why, I don't know if the explanation deserves the space. KD Tries Again 17:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)KD

[edit] Existentialism

Just started thinking about this. Nietzsche needs only a passing mention. I think it should be structured as beginning with Kierkegaard (using his opposition to Hegel to characterize his complaints about "objectivity"), and then showing existentialism as inherited by many religious thinkers. Most well-known existentialists were concerned with religion: Marcel, Buber, Tillich, Unamuno, Shestov, Beryaev, etc.

Then develop the Jaspers/Heidegger roots into Sartrean existentialism, which is atheistic and which became the most famous branch. Mention Camus and we're done, no? I don't mean to make it much longer, but that structure makes more sense to me. Thoughts? I can source it from the Macquarrie book on existentialism, maybe from William Barrett. I'll see what else I have. KD Tries Again 22:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)KD

Will Barrett uses the common structure of "The Big 4": Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre, which is standard in many existentialist anthologies. The SEP entry uses this standard. Heidegger is already mentioned in the phenomenology section, so only K, N, and S are left, and they get a sentence or two each. For a short section in the philosophy article, the Big 4 structure is enough, I think. The details must go in the actual existentialism article, but which is a mess. Poor Yorick 06:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I've always argued that the Philosophy article should be a set of links connected by a coherent thread. On this view, the section on E. should be a summary of what's in the main article. Don't know enough about the balance between the big 4. On the Existentialism article, I see what you mean. A lot of the detail looks roughly right, but the overall style, and the introduction, are awful. edward (buckner) 10:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
That said, there are some clearly good editors helping out on it right now. The thing with introductions is to wait until the meat of the article is nice and ready, then get the introduction to summarise it. edward (buckner) 10:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Feb 21 draft: I just posted a revised draft of the section. I don't think there's anything there which will be hard to reference. No objection to reincorporating the lost point about existence preceding essence - it just didn't fit my flow, and I am not sure how clear it is without some explanation. I reduced Nietzsche to a parenthesis for the reason given, and omitted further exploration of existentialist literature: both decisions based on length only, and I am happy to expand if that's the consensus. Heck, I'll add Colin Wilson if any wants me to. KD Tries Again 17:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)KD

Interesting draft. I've made some changes for the reasons stated:
  1. I didn't really like leaving Nietzsche alone here, so I added him with Kierkegaard, and refed a Nietzsche as Existentialist scholar, the late Bob Solomon.
  2. Likewise, I didn't like the existentialist stereotype Kierkegaard, so I refed a Kierkegaard as Postmodernist by the preeminent K scholars Matustik and Westphal.
  3. Hegel's comprehensiveness is debatable, so I replaced it with idealist, which is really what K was against.
  4. Refed one of the foremost controversial piece on this matter, Letter on Humanism
  5. Being and Nothingness is Sartre's tour de force
  6. Beauvoir arguably contributed more to existentialism than Camus, so I'll leave both in.
  7. As you've mentioned Christian existentialists, I've added a see also to that article.

Poor Yorick 00:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Community action review on Ludvikus

Regular editors of this article may be interested in participating in the following discussion: Wikipedia:Community noticeboard#Community action review on Ludvikus. Best, Sandstein 06:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

No! We've finally gotten past the personalities and started discussing philosophy. This action has nothing to do with the topic of this page, and threatens to start up again what has at long last died down. Rick Norwood 13:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Congratulations

Congratulations to Edward(Buckner) and K D Tries Again for improving the article. Rick Norwood 13:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know who User:Skomorokh is but he (or she) has done a lot of work in the past few days on Existentialism. I'm not an expert but this diff looks like a very good explanation. I mean, it tries to explain what something actually is, rather than get bogged down in detail, or lists, or nonsense. As I've said before, it's the quality of the articles immediately underneath this one, which are what counts. Perhaps we are finally getting somewhere. (And thanks also for the compliment Rick). edward (buckner) 14:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks ditto. I have some notes with which to spruce up the phenomenology bit later today, and I'll take note of the comments on existentialism too.KD Tries Again 15:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)KD

[edit] Prominence of logic

I started to tidy up the beginning of that section, so it flowed into Phenomenology, then ended up making a number of corrections. Logic seems to come out of nowhere in the discussion of phil of maths, though. I hope somebody can do better with the contributions of Frege and Wittgenstein at the end of the first para. Personally, I would lose the last sentence about Popper; it needs explaining, but why do we want to get into philosophy of science here? I think the section as now written ends with Carnap et al's use of symbolic logic, although it could certainly continue with subsequent developments in logic - not my field. KD Tries Again 17:10, 20 February 2007 (UTC)KD

The logic section was an early attempt at introducing Analytic philosophy. Better to have a short section analytics, mentioning the importance they gave to logic, and no more. I think we are generally agreed we want to keep away from the level of detail this page has aspired to in the past. edward (buckner) 12:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shortening the article?

Hi all. I'm a brand new user just coming to grips with everything, so please bear with me. I found the section entitled 'Philosophical Doctrines' to be somewhat unsatisfactory. As far as I can tell, the sections 2.5-2.8 ('Pragmatism' through to 'The analytic tradition') don't actually feature a clarification/definition of what the doctrine is actually about. I read right through the existentialism section, and found a detailed description of which thinkers founded, developed or influenced Existentialism, but no where did I find a concise sentence explaining exactly what existentialism is. Perhaps each of these sections should begin with a concise definition of the subject matter of the doctrine, followed by relevant material? I know you guys have been working on shortening the article, so perhaps each heading should simply contain an explanation of subject matter (and relevant figures), and leave the detailed subject history for the separate article sub-page? Stringman5 05:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

PS - OK, so the 'Pragmatism' section does feature a concise definition - but it's not the first line of the section, as it is on the sections above (2.1-2.4). Maybe it should be shifted up a bit? Stringman5 05:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi. Ok, I've attempt to add a thesis sentence to the beginning of the article to help explain; and tried to shorten the history from the sections. Any comments would be helpful Poor Yorick 07:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
That looks great, I like it. I am worried that we may have just helped make the article LONGER though, not shorter, but one thing at a time. Stringman5 02:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

As some of KD's recent edits attest, and as some of the recent vandalism indicates, it may be unworkable to try to synopsize all philosophy (western, eastern, north-northwestern, analytic, continental, 4-wheel drive) at the level of detail this patchwork often attempts. The fix would be to have very succinct summaries with links to separate articles on each sub-field, historical period, etc. (Of course, most such articles are almost as dire as this one, but that's a long-term problem: and maybe some of the current sub-sections can be spun into the separate articles.) Does anyone have any clever ideas about large-scale proposals to shorten this article, and get its sub-sections treating subjects at a consistent level of detail? 271828182 21:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I can certainly see what you mean. As things stand, the logic section basically stops in 1928. Meanwhile, the phenomenology section, which I admit hardly does more than gesture at Husserl's work, already seems to give him more prominence than most philosophers on the page. KD Tries Again 21:54, 20 February 2007 (UTC)KD
I'm all in favor of shortening the article, and standardizing the sub-sections so "favoritism" is minimized. Poor Yorick 23:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Agree with all of this. The advantage of sub-articles is that they do not attract cranks. In terms of practical suggestions, why not just delete some stuff? Removing obvious bad writing is an uncontroversial way to do that. Also, given that Indian philosophy is already a sub-article with nothing in it, and since there is a long essay on the subject here, why don't I move that now? edward (buckner) 12:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
OK I've moved the Indian philosophy to Indian philosophy, and deleted the Persian philosophy section as there is already plenty of material in other parts of the encyclopedia. I've left Chinese philosophy for the moment. edward (buckner) 12:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
See WP:SIZE for useful information on how to trim articles down. (A note to anyone reading this, in case of concern: NO MATERIAL HAS BEEN DELETED. Juat moved to appropriate subsections. edward (buckner) 12:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I've completely changed the Medieval philosophy section, which was badly written and inaccurate. A brief summary of what it is about, then a swift link to the appropriate page. Note I have widened the scope of Medieval philosophy to include the Middle East and Byzantine traditions. This is consistent with Hyman and Walsh's treatment. I haven't dared suggest any major philosophers. Academic consensus view, based on length of treatment, is Aquinas, Ockham, Scotus, Maimonides, Averroes. edward (buckner) 12:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually I have removed one bit, which was the introduction to the history section. I've left in the bit about being divided into three periods, which is fairly uncontroversial. edward (buckner) 12:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The article is improving to such an extent that maybe some of the warning tags can be dropped. One thing I would suggest is that when you move a section to a subarticle, you move the appropriate references as well.

Aquinas, Ockham, Scotus, Maimonides, Averroes sounds about right to me. Roger Bacon actually came earlier than William of Ockham, but he was philosophically part of a later group of philosophers, I think, and was not at all Medieval in outlook.

Rick Norwood 14:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Latest improvements

The work on Existentialism has greatly improved on what was there before. However the contrast between the other parts of the article only becomes more glaring. Also the question of how to balance the different parts of the article becomes even more difficult. The bits on existentialism and analytic philosophy occur in the large section called 'Metaphysics'. Whereas these sections partly belong in the history section, partly to 'Schools of philosophy', and what they are really doing is setting the background to 'philosophy in the twentieth century'. I wonder if the phenomenology and existential bits couldn't be put in the Continental philosophy article, which would be written in parallel with Analytic philosophy. Having completed these, we could then make a judgement about how much goes in here. Remember there is still nothing on Idealism yet! Apart from some very strange things, that is. edward (buckner) 19:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The 'Prominence of Logic', inasmuch as it belongs anywhere (probably the bin) belongs in the Analytic philosophy article. I'll tidy up and move at some point. The real difficulty is in summarising all these points in a way that is balanced with the rest of the article. That is precisely why Wiki is v. good at small articles on matters of detail, but awful at handling very general articles. But we are equal to all of this, are we not. edward (buckner) 19:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Agree that the structure is odd. Why should existentialism not be under ethics, for example? I am very open-minded as to where the stuff ends up; just thought I'd throw it at the wall while I had the chance. I do owe sources on the existentialism bit, but won't get around to that until next week. Shouldn't be difficult. KD Tries Again 21:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)KD
Of the (famous) 20th century existentialists, only Simone de Beauvoir attempted at all to derive an existentialist ethics, i.e. The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity, yet they were also classic feminist texts, as well. Existentialism, esp. Sartrean version, as a whole is deeply metaphysical (existence precedes essence, bad faith, etc.), as well as epistemological when discussing Christian Existentialism. Poor Yorick 23:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I guess it's not a big deal, as the question is where the write-up should go, but I thought Sartre and Camus said quite a bit about 'how to live' - to put it crudely. Camus is pretty thin on epistemology.KD Tries Again 16:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)KD

[edit] Pragmatism

I can fiddle around with this next. I don't think it needs "American" in the title. The current version is quite neatly written in comparison with some material, but I think it's actually subtly wrong. It implies that, for the pragmatists, the success of a theory and the theory's fit with reality are two different things. I don't believe that's the case, for Peirce or James at least. They weren't closet correspondence theorists. But I'd better find some cites.KD Tries Again 21:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)KD

[edit] A modest proposal

I think the format: "main article: rubber duckies" right after the section title works better than the format: "See rubber duckies for more information about this subject." as the final sentence. Rick Norwood 22:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

You had me very confused for a moment. Yes, agree. edward (buckner) 08:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re; Kebra Negast

I removed the sentence that claims this is a work of philosophical & religious importance. Perhaps it is in Rastifarian circles, but from my research in Ethiopian subjects for Wikipedia (& having slogged thru this difficult work), it has no special religious or philosophical importance. It is an essay that justifies the claim of the Solomonic dynasty to the throne of Ethiopia, & from the comments of a few Ethiopians on Wikipedia I understand this work lacks even notable religious value (I'd say about the level of St. Augustine's The City of God might for the average Catholic); it has a unique historical & cultural value -- but nothing more.

However, I expect some Rastifarians to insist on restoring this edit. I would expect that they provide verifiable cites for their claims of its philosophical importance -- but I doubt it. I made a serious effort to find any secondary literature on this work, & it was slim pickings: I could find less than a half-dozen published works on the Kebra Negast. -- llywrch 00:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Philosophy and Science

" It is a commonplace view that once a branch of philosophy fully starts following the norms of science (i.e., use of the scientific method), it is no longer termed "philosophy", but "science". [citation needed]"

One possible citation for this is in the introduction to The Dream of Reason. I might do it myself later, but I don't have time at the moment. -- Calion | Talk 19:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Radical changes

I've renamed the section on Idealism, Rationalism &c and brought it up the page. I've mostly added. Beefed up the section on rationalism, including Parmenides and Plato. A new section on nominalism and realism which are strangely not mentioned anywhere else. A paragraph on Berkeley, who is now recognised as the originator of Idealism. A whole section on Hume, in the section on scepticism. This section is now much too long, and needs judicious pruning. edward (buckner) 22:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Three comments. a) The paragraph on Hume would be best framed as a discussion of external-world skepticism. b) Also, I'm not confident that the list-of-three is giving us paradigmatically skeptical arguments; maybe it would fit more comfortably in the Empiricism section. c) The sentence "Fortunately, though reason is incapable of dispelling the clouds, a few hours of company and a good game of backgammon make his sceptical conclusions seem ridiculous." is witty, which makes it probable that it won't last another hour on Wikipedia. { Ben S. Nelson } Lucidish 03:07, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
The whole paragraph needs soem work - the list of three, as you spotted, belongs in the empiricism section, but I put it in late at night. The backgammon part is more or less directly from Hume himself. As you say, it is probably best removed. edward (buckner) 08:07, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
OK I've moved the 'three problems' bit to the rationalist subsection, though it still looks a bit awkward. and I trimmed down scepticism. I removed the bit about induction scepticism, because that is covered by the but on Hume, and moved a paragraph that clearly refers to modern replies, to the end. I was going to remove the backgammon bit, but then lost heart. edward (buckner) 08:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Re: skepticism pruning: good stuff, I think I was overzealous with the writing. Perhaps some quick rejoinders to skepticism might be in order: I'm thinking esp. contextualism, which is (to my mind) the most interesting and plausible response to the skeptic's challenges.
Somebody will (justifiably) remove the backgammon sentence eventually or clock it with a "sounds unencyclopedic" tag, but I will do nothing since I try to err on the side of funny. An actual quote from Hume, though, would be more likely to last. I'll check the Enquiry. { Ben S. Nelson } Lucidish 04:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
This is a fairly good quote (once we trim it): "And though a Pyrrhonian may throw himself or others into a momentary amazement and confusion by his profound reasonings; the first and most trivial event in life will put to flight all his doubts and scruples, and leave him the same, in every point of action and speculation, with the philosophers of every other sect, or with those who never concerned themselves in any philosophical researches. When he awakes from his dream, he will be the first to join in the laugh against himself, and to confess, that all his objections are mere amusement" (the Enquiry, SXII, Part 2) { Ben S. Nelson } Lucidish 05:11, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
It's a good quote, but it's too long. I think I'll just remove the backgammon thing as it does not fit anyway. If you keep the quote safe, we can put it should into the scepticism article, where it belongs. edward (buckner) 08:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
OK I've solved this by summarising Hume's position, then adding a footnote to the quote, and even found a page reference to the 1777 edition! edward (buckner) 08:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Idealism: Should Kant be in this section? He is unlike Berkeley and the other Germans in that he didn't believe the first sentence of the section. He certainly believed that what was real exceeded "mind". But then, if we go back to a "From Kant to Idealism" structure - which would be easier - then the Berkeley material would be out of place. Aside from this question (to which I don't have a ready answer), I'd suggest that the move from Kant's view to Idealism began with Fichte and Schelling. They both lopped off the noumenal, and Hegel followed in their shoes. I could re-jig that bit (although it doesn't help with my first point).KD Tries Again 17:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC)KD
It is unhelpful to talk about Kant in the discussion of idealism, because he isn't the paragon of the view -- part of the point of the CoPureR of course was to refute (mainstream) idealism. But his views are enough of a hybrid that he has been referred to as a "transcendental idealist" (though usually in the context of being called an "empirical realist"). He uses these terms to describe his own view in the critique (A370) { Ben S. Nelson } Lucidish 23:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Branches of philosophy

I've completely rewritten the section on branches, and boldly removed the clean-up tags. I haven't put too many references in, on the assumption that everything I have said is incredibly verifiable, but feel free to challenge it, or to add references. edward (buckner) 09:20, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

PS I haven't removed the top cleanup tag as there is plenty more to do on this. I have already mentioned the 'Identity of philosophy' section which I do think needs a little challenge here and there. It seems a little disconnected and fragmented. If I were trying to summarise what it says, what would that be? Also, some of the references do not support what is there. For example, the citation of Ducasse (an essay, rather dated,that I read with interest) does not obviously connect with anything in that section. edward (buckner) 09:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You are probably in a better position to add references than anybody else. If you use the inline format <ref> A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh, Saunders, 1932, ISBN 1234567890 </ref> it is very quick and easy. As it says somewhere in Wikipedia, if something is incredibly verifiable, then it should be easy to add a reference. Rick Norwood 13:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] edward (buckner) edit

I've enjoyed reading your edit, and agree with the removal of some of the flags.

I note that Aristotle contradicts himself (do I contradict myself, very well, I contain multitudes) in saying that metaphysics is primary and precedes all other investigation, and then saying that logic precedes all philosophy. Poor Aristotle. So much to write, so little time. He always begins well, and then he keeps breaking off -- like Galois the night before his duel -- saying in effect, no time, no time.

In your references, a publisher and an ISBN would be helpful. You can find them on amazon if you don't have the book handy.

Rick Norwood 13:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

All in good time. edward (buckner) 16:24, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Concerning "concerns itself"

It is a telling failing of this entry that it begins with the line, "Philosophy concerns itself with..." Should the entry not begin by indicating something about what philosophy is before proceeding to the question of what it concerns itself with? I might concern myself with the very same things that philosophy does, but that does not mean I am philosophy. I am I, but what is philosophy? FNMF 15:50, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

That is quite correct, and I agree with you. But that was the version arrived at by consensus. edward (buckner) 17:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

The opening I argued for was this:

(literally 'love of wisdom') is an academic discipline whose subject matter is the most fundamental and general concepts and principles involved in thought, action and reality, whose goal is to discover the absolutely fundamental reason of everything it investigates, and whose method is rational enquiry.

which does say what philosophy is.

I like saying what it is and also like the 'academic discipline' part. After that I prefer the ethics/metaphysics etc./logic description, more-or-less as is. I don't think breaking knowledge and reality theory into ever more fine distinctions (as with adding ontology) is useful in the first paragraph. JJL 18:43, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I also support re-inserting the "academic discipline..." bit. (But doubtless that is just an Aristotelian hankering for a genus on my part.) However, I can see how this might have generated fruitless controversy ("how dare you imply that only professors can be philosophers", etc.). 271828182 19:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't doubt it was arrived at by consensus, but in that case the consensus was to avoid the question of what philosophy is. Which is why, if it is a failing, it is telling. I don't claim to know what philosophy is, but if those intending to author an entry on philosophy lack confidence about this question, what does it suggest? The difficulty is obviously the disparate nature of what has been called philosophy—can this diversity find unity under a single definition? Thus, for instance, if philosophy is called an academic discipline, is Socrates then a philosopher or not? He had his own disciples, perhaps, and he practiced his own form of discipline, but is it not stretching things to suggest he had (or belonged to) an academy? Which then raises the possibility: could defining philosophy as an academic discipline mean defining what philosophy is but not what philosophy was? Perhaps it can only be defined as something like the name given to a diverse set of writings and teachings concerned with problems such as what is truth, how to live, what exists, how we can know, etc. Such a definition might not add that much in terms of substantive content, but at least it does not obviously evade the encyclopaedic responsibility to define the thing under consideration. Philosophy may be elusive, but it is surely not impossible to find a form of words which give it a general characterisation. FNMF 21:31, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to the Philosophy page, FNMF. You don't know what a bag of worms you are suggesting we reopen. After months -- months! -- of reverts and rereverts of the introduction, we are finally making some progress on the article itself. This is not the time to revisit the introduction. Come back in a year, when the body of the article is in better shape. Rick Norwood 22:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Rick, no doubt you wish to improve the body of the article, but your suggestion that I "come back in a year" seems to be continuing the evasion manifest in the opening line (and it also seems to indicate that your "welcoming" me to the philosophy page is somewhat disingenuous, but that's by the by). However fraught the editing of this entry has been, I don't believe the problem of the opening is unsolvable, and make a suggestion about the way to go in the above. To simply refuse the attempt seems unwise and unnecessary. FNMF 22:49, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
FNMF, you say "if those intending to author an entry on philosophy lack confidence about this question, what does it suggest". No one here lacks confidence. Those who have an academic background in philosophy are all very confident about the definition of philosophy. But there are a number of editors here with little or no academic background, and they are also very confident about the definition. But unfortunately these two groups do not agree (the non-academics do not like 'academic discipline', e.g.). So it's not lack of confidence. On the contrary, there are two sets of opposed and quite entrenched views that we had to accommodate in the opening. As Rick says, it took months (if not years). Remember, this is Wiki: every editor has an equal right to edit the article, and to have a view on it. All views are the same, and academic credentials count for nothing. So, unless you have a form of words to put forward, I suggest it is left as it is. edward (buckner) 08:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Edward, I absolutely understand what you are saying, that if anything it is over-confidence combined with under-qualification (not necessarily in a credentialist sense) that causes problems. I don't doubt it for a second. Even so, to have an opening that simply reads "Philosophy concerns itself..." as a default/consensus position is a display of collective lack of confidence, insofar as it is a default position. That said, I note that the opening has been changed, precisely in order to address the problem I pointed out—it now at least attempts to say what philosophy is: an academic discipline. Now that said, I cannot help but notice that my comments have attracted a number of responses, not one of which addresses the substance of my comments. I further point out that I did suggest a form of words, not necessarily a final form, but a form for discussion (see the text in bold above), but that this form of words has not been discussed. Nor has there been any discussion of the remarks I made about whether it is a good idea to define philosophy as an academic discipline (see the above remarks on Socrates). Perhaps my remarks were unworthy of response, but I am not convinced that is the reason they have received none. FNMF 10:44, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Ah yes I see it has been changed. Well, obviously I agree with the change, but of course that is the equivalent of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand being assassinated or whatever, setting off a huge edit war of immense proportions, the lights of Europe going off one by one &c. Let's see what happens. edward (buckner) 11:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Syllogism: Philosophy is an academic discipline. Socrates was not an academic. Therefore Socrates was not a philosopher. Are we happy with this? FNMF 12:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Invalid. You have mixed tenses. If Socrate IS not a philosopher, or if philosophy WAS an academic discipline (at the same time Socrates WAS a philosopher) then it is of course valid. edward (buckner) 14:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I am unsure of your point here. Are you conceding that philosophy is an academic discipline but that philosophy used to be something other than an academic discipline? That seems to be what you are saying. If so, then to begin an entry on philosophy with the words "Philosophy is an academic discipline..." seems to be very partial at best, ignoring what philosophy was. This, of course, was my point: what does the word philosophy mean such that it can cover both what you are saying philosophy is and what philosophy was, if these two are different? How is it possible to be happy with an opening definition that appears to exclude Socrates from being a philosopher? The point here seems fairly basic, and I am truly surprised that none of these points has been addressed. On top of which, I note that the entry is back to beginning with: "Philosophy concerns itself with..." This is clearly inadequate, for the reasons I indicated in the above comments, and I reiterate the form of words I proposed for discussion: Philosophy is the name given to a diverse set of writings and teachings concerned with problems such as... FNMF 16:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, the point was simply that the syllogism was invalid. But of course I concede that philosophy was not always an academic discipline, though it was always, I think, a discipline. Can I be happy that it means something different now that it used to a long time ago? (And I mean a long time ago – Plato and Aristotle made it into an academic discipline, and nearly all philosophers after that worked within some sort of academic framework. Notable exceptions were Hume and Spinoza of course, but because they weren't academics for most of their lives does not mean they were not pursuing an academic discipline). Yes. It's the discipline that is academic, not the people who employ it. I don't like 'Philosophy is the name given to a diverse set of writings and teachings ...' because philosophy is not just a set of writings and teachings. It's a technique that must be learned, a method. It is not a set of claims or propositions (as 'teachings' suggests). It is not just 'writings', though it has that meaning. In short, the opening does not exclude Socrates being a philosopher (or Hume or anyone else who practised outside an academy). And the alternative suggestion is not accurate, indeed is misleading. edward (buckner) 17:20, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Well for the record I think you are wrong to speak as though the fact that Socrates lived "a long time ago" made a difference to the question of defining philosophy. And I think your argument defending "academic" is in general tortured. Academic means an academy. Other examples could be cited. Nietzsche, for instance, for whom becoming a philosopher meant withdrawing from the academy (and who, by the way, is utterly neglected in the entry, as are others, despite his and their importance). Nor do I agree that the word "teachings" suggests "a set of claims" rather than a technique or a method: techniques are taught. Nor did my proposal state that philosophy was "just writings." But for all that, beginning with "Philosophy is a discipline that..." is at least acceptable. I do think you are overly concerned with "saving" the technical or methodical aspect of the definition from the threats of wishy-washy "diversity," and that this tends to diminish another important aspect, which is this: philosophy may be a technique, yet it is not one technique, but rather a constantly transforming technique, even the technique of transforming technique. But that is a question not worth getting into here. Your newest version is certainly an improvement, and should be preserved in favour of the alternatives. FNMF 18:13, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I thought it might be obliquely helpful to see how equivalent Wiki articles begin. Physics, biology, botany are defined along the lines of:
"is the science of"
"is the study of"
"is the scientific study of"
Psychology and sociology are both:
"the academic and applied discipline of"
Theology, startlingly, is:
"reasoned discourse about".
We should be able to do better than just "Philosophy is the discipline...", I agree. But it can't be defined as "academic", "academic and applied" is not quite right. I also don't like the "body of teachings and writings" - as I've said before, it needs to be distinguished in some way from literature, poetry, yoga, Zen, etc. As a purely strategic matter, I'd prefer to keep working on the body of the article. It's nothing to do with confidence: any one of us can go and find a serviceable version of a definition without much trouble. It's just a recognition that achieving consensus on any one substantive definition has in the past proved impossible. KD Tries Again 20:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)KD
Surely it's academic. Somewhere an unemployed person is trying to create nuclear fusion in his bathtub, but that doesn't change what physics is. Although phil. can be applied (e.g., bioethics), it's a study conducted in an academic manner even if it is being done by a non-academic. JJL 01:15, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes I agree. 'Academic' strictly means an institution, but has a wider sense that implies scholarly standards. Indeed 'scholar' and 'scholarly' use to have that exact meaning before the rise of the modern universities: careful research, citation, a certain dry style, general care and attention. One can be academic or scholarly without working from within an institution. The contrast that needs to be drawn here is between philosophy as it is popularly conceived ("my philosophy of life ...") and the sort of philosophy that is taught and studied in institutions, but was once carried on outside them (Hume, Nietszche &c). edward (buckner) 16:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
In relation to the above two remarks: (1) philosophy and physics are very different, and to treat them as analogous is false (an "unemployed person" is certainly potentially capable of doing philosophy—Socrates for example); (2) the word "academic" and the word "scholarly" do not mean quite the same thing, and if by academic one means scholarly then why not just define it as a scholarly discipline?; (3) just as "academic" implies an academy, "scholarly" implies a school (in some sense at least); (4) it is a fudge to say "is taught and studied in institutions, but was once carried on outside them"—clearly the institutional aspect is not essential to the definition in that case; (5) it is fine to want to indicate a contrast in order to preserve what you understand "real" philosophy to be, but one must not do that in a way that then excludes "real" philosophy from the definition. I note again that there has not even been one attempt to address this question, which I raised via the example of Socrates. Not only did Socrates not have an academy, nor a school, nor an institution, but philosophy was defined (for him as for other Greek philosophers) by opposition to the Sophists, who precisely did have schools, academies, and institutions. The objection was to the instrumentalisation of the use of wisdom, logos, etc, the rigidification of content and the fact that a comfortable living was being made from their positions (and thus this is a "philosophical" critique potentially applicable to today's academic philosophers). However much one might wish to protect the definition of philosophy from contamination by pseudo-philosophy, the fact is one must have a definition open enough to be capable of application to all "real" philosophers: to Socrates, Anaximander, Augustine, Nietzsche, Cioran, Quine, Heidegger and Deleuze, because whichever of these one personally feels may or may not be a philosopher, an encyclopaedia is not the place to exclude any of these from the definition. The wish to protect today's academic philosophers from this contamination is obscuring sight of what direction the opening must go in, if it is to be generally legitimate. (6) More generally: academic, scholarly, discipline, technique—each of these words is different. They should not be conflated, and if one or other of them is thought to be pertinent to the opening line, it needs to be justifed. I think some of these words are relevant, but saying that philosophy is a matter of technique, or a discipline, is not the same thing as saying it is academic, nor that it is scholarly. (7) Re scholarly, for instance: I do not know whether Nietzsche's style can be described as dry, nor did he feel compelled to cite his sources. No doubt he had discipline, no doubt he had a kind of technique, but most of his writing could hardly be called "academic" in style or content, nor even "scholarly," at least according to the criteria suggested above. Yet it would obviously be wrong to deny him the status of philosopher.FNMF 21:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pragmatism - February 27 revision

I have corrected the section without lengthening it, and provided some sources. I removed the claim that Bergson and Moore shared fundamental assumptions with the pragmatists, as at best controversial, at worst wrong, unsourced, and if right not notable. Cheers. KD Tries Again 20:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)KD

Thanks KD! edward (buckner) 08:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Historical section

This needs work, obviously. That includes work on the sub-articles, of course. I have done Medieval philosophy. I'm also happy to take on Ancient Philosophy (and tidying up the pre-socratics article). That leaves early modern philosophy, and whatever comes after.

Does anyone have expertise in Early Modern?

On what comes after, there are two 'odd ones' in the 'ism' section, namely Phenomenology, and the Analytic tradition. I suggest these really belong in the historical section on twentieth century and contemporary philosophy. Any thoughts? edward (buckner) 08:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kant & Idealism

I've just noticed the question about whether Kant should be in the section on Idealism, given he didn't believe in the opening sentence of the section. Is there any way of rewording the sentence so it would include Kant? Presumably if there is subjective I., transcendental I, absolute I., there must be something they have in common? edward (buckner) 11:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll think about it some more, as I raised it. For me, German idealism starts after Kant, when Fichte and Schelling get rid of the noumenal.KD Tries Again 20:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)KD

[edit] Ontology

There's a bit of toing and froing in the introduction. 'Ontology' is just another name for 'metaphysics' that was introduced later on (17C I think). So no point in adding 'ontology'. edward (buckner) 17:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I've made some small changes. Added 'discipline' but not 'academic', and changed the defintion of metaphysics. It is concerned not so much with what really exists as with what ultimately can be said to exist. edward (buckner) 17:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
This is a somewhat fine distinction for the first paragraph--I might say, lose the ultimately and make these points later in the article (e.g. "Main Branches of Philosophy"). JJL 01:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
(To JJL). First point, 'ultimately' replaced 'really', so no increase in word count (though a small increase in number of letters). Second point, this is not a fine distinction at all. Metaphysics is not concerned with what things exist in the sense that a physicist is concerned with how many sorts of particles there are, or butterfly or stamp collectors. 'Ultimately' is key. Obviously nerve fibres exist, and minds exist. But, ultimately, is there just nerve fibres, or are there minds also? That's v. important, so I recommend we don't lose it. edward (buckner) 10:47, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Ah, Edward. Many of us do in fact make a distinction between the two terms. Here is all that OED has, in its definition of ontology:
The science or study of being; that department of metaphysics which relates to the being or essence of things, or to being in the abstract.
I think it should say more than this (to accommodate such usages as "a lean ontology of propositions and truth values", in which the word is extended to cover an inventory of types of existents proposed by work in ontology). But OED does give the primary meaning, which is the one accorded to it by the majority of contemporary philosophers when they are being circumspect. It is an etymologically supportable usage, for what that is worth. I think the article should respect the difference between ontology and the broader term metaphysics. –Noetica 01:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I think this should be mentioned, but not in the introduction. We are trying to be lean here, and I support JJL in that. edward (buckner) 10:48, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Fine, Edward. If we are not to go into detailed distinctions among terms in the introduction, then we should simply not mention ontology at all in the introduction. Plainly the term is not straightforwardly equivalent to metaphysics, so let's not simply for the sake of brevity say that it is. I note that as things stand ontology is not mentioned anywhere except in the introduction, by the way.
Overall, I like things as they are now: this key term is not in the lead, but it is correctly glossed in the introduction, with a link to Ontology – an article that is itself at least quite serviceable. Anyone reading the present article as it now stands would get no false impression regarding ontology, and would have a way of taking things further. That's not bad! –Noetica 11:15, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I see you have mentioned it in the branches section. That's exactly the right place. However, the article itself is not in very good shape, in my view! edward (buckner) 12:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't want to bog us down with definitions, but notable philosophers would define 'ontology' as the study of what it means to exist, rather than the study of what does exist, no matter how general. Also, I wasn't sure what "precise natures" meant in this contex; I've adjusted it, hopefully for the better.KD Tries Again 16:40, 1 March 2007 (UTC)KD
I can't resist this quote from Isaac Watts' Logick (1725). "Ontology … is what was wont to be called the first part of metaphysics in the Peripatetick schools. It treats of Being, its most general nature, and of all its Affections and Relations. I confess the old popish Schoolmen have mingled a Number of useless subtilties with this Science, and exhausted their own Spirits, and the Spirits of their Readers in many laborious and intricate Trifles … Upon this Account many of the Moderns have most unjustly abandoned the whole Science at once, and thrown abundance of Contempt and Raillery upon the very Name of Metaphysics; but this Contempt and Censure is very unreasonable, for this Science separated from some Aristotelian Fooleries and Scholastic Subtilities is so necessary to a distinct Conception, solid Judgment, and just Reasoning on many Subjects, that sometimes it is introduced as a Part of Logic, and not without Reason". edward (buckner) 19:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Edward:
O sorry, of course you're right. I did that in the branches section, which I mistakenly but not wholly inaccurately characterised as an introduction. You say that Ontology is not in good shape? Well, it is still the natural link to make, isn't it? It is not in bad shape; I stick with my earlier assessment of it as "at least quite serviceable". Finally, nice quote from Isaac Watts! I love to see such things turning up. Here's one that I found, and have used:
Metaphysics not only succeeded physics and mythology in the manner observed, and became as great a fund of superstition, but they were carried still farther, and corrupted all knowledge, as well as retarded the progress of it. Metaphysicians have not been quite agreed about the nature and object of their supposed science. Those we have last mentioned may be called and distinguished by the title, if they like it, of pneumatic philosophers, since their object is spirit and spiritual substance; how ridiculous soever it be to imagine spirit less an object of natural philosophy than body. (Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke; 1754)
KD:
I have no problem with your changes to my initial gloss on ontology. There are many ways to say what needs to be said, and several different possible emphases. We are in accord with OED, the Oxford Companion, and the Routledge Encyclopedia. A useful quick check, yes? Incidentally, though, I intended precise natures to pick out detailed features of entities that go beyond the essential natures that would need to be specified in setting out the broad categories of existence that ontology is concerned with. –Noetica 23:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Interested that the Bolingbroke quote appears to defend a form of Naturalism. I did some Googling and found that he was indeed an early defender of this view. Yet he is not mentioned in any of the Wiki articles that I could find. edward (buckner) 13:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plato vs Aristotle

I would like to make the argument that this article is not worth the electricity it takes to generate it on a computer screen if you writers do not add a section viewing western philosophy as the continuing battle between the ideas of Plato and Aristotle. For more indepth view of this battle please read this article written in the 19th centruy by Heinrich Heine http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/heine-spinoza1.html

in philosophy, mathematics, physics, metaphysics, you always come back to Plato's ideals versus Aristotle's sophistry and materialism. Think of Leibniz vs Newton/Kant/emiricists think of Bertrand Russel vs Godel/Cantor et al. think of any great battle in the history of thought and I garuntee that the alignments of both sides will obviously attract to either Plato of Aristotle's view of the world.

There have certainly been notable philosophers who shared your view, but I think that view should be defended in a specialized book rather than in an encyclopedia article, which needs to present many views in a relatively brief space. Rick Norwood 13:36, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I second that. This article needs to present many views in a short space. Moreover this opposition between extreme realism (Plato) and moderate Realism (Aristotle) is already implicit in this article. I should certainly be discussed explicitly in the Medieval philosophy article, which is work in progress. edward (buckner) 14:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maverick philosopher on Wikipedia

The Maverick Philosopher has an interesting thread on philosophy on the Wiki here. Someone has pointed out the the Faith and reason article is in a terrible way. True enough. edward (buckner) 08:53, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I've taken a shot at Faith and Rationality. I've done something about the spelling, and the worst logical errors. It still needs a lot of work; it's repetitious and unreferenced. Also, the title should be changed to Faith and Reason. Rick Norwood 23:28, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maverick again

The Maverick has taken another potshot. This time at the awful definitions of philosophy. Why is that link there anyway? It's just a selection of arbitrary quotations which, as Maverick points out, have been taken entirely out of context.

I have done some minor editing on the 'Identity' section, including taking the link out, but this whole section needs thinking through. First step: summarise in a single sentence what the section is saying. edward (buckner) 10:34, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I wish he'd rewrite the Heidegger article. I think that's his specialty.KD Tries Again 22:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)KD
This is all the aftermath of Lucaas. I recall being the one to go digging for a philosopher's interpretation of Marx's famous quote, and of sourcing Wolff here at Wikipedia, but heaven knows how it was transmogrified into what's on the Wikiquote page. { Ben S. Nelson } Lucidish 23:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Raciovitalismo - proposal to remove

Not sufficiently notable to warrant its own section in this article. I am sure Wiki has an article about Ortega y Gasset where the material might be better placed (in fact, it duplicates what's in that article, but is also an expansion!). In case it isn't obvious, the implication of retaining this section would be that the article needs a section of equivalent length on each and every philosopher as notable as Ortega. Not feasible.KD Tries Again 22:27, 5 March 2007 (UTC)KD

Yes, definitely remove it. It strikes me as a vanity piece. JJL 23:42, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Nothing against Ortega y Gasset, but considering the large number of philosophers of greater notability who go unmentioned by this article, this entire section should be stricken. 271828182 01:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Agree. Didn't even realise it was there. Only one thing, try not to remove from Wiki any well-written and researched material (I can't make that judgment here). There is an article on Ortega y Gasset, which has less material on that subject than is here. Would it make sense to move some or all of it there? edward (buckner) 12:53, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
One paragraph is taken from the Ortega article. Correction, it's all taken from the existing Wiki Ortega article (or maybe someone moved it there already?). I'll remove it from this article. KD Tries Again 19:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)KD

[edit] Recent Intro. Changes

There's some stuff I like in it, but the first sentence is overly wordy ("broad" and "overarching" for example). Overall I don't feel it's a net improvement. The new last sentence of the first para. captures a useful idea, though. JJL 14:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting that. Here is the diff, by User:Alfakim. I don't like it for the reasons you mention, so have reverted. Which was the sentence you liked? edward (buckner) 15:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
OK I see it. But that thought is already there in the next section. "... there have been different, equally acceptable divisions at different times, and the divisions are often relative to the philosophical concerns of a particular period. " So no point repeating it. We're trying to cut down things here. edward (buckner) 15:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I thought it said more-to-the-point that it wasn't merely the divisions that had changed but the actual focus (foci, I suppose) of the subject. That's an idea that's been batted around here and I thought it was well said in this change. The idea is elsewhere in the aricle but was succintly stated there. The rest I wasn't so fond of. Alfakim, this isn't meant as discouragement. There's been a lot of work on that intro. recently so please don't be surprised if people have strong feelings about it! JJL 17:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, take the point. Shall we put that sentence back in, then? edward (buckner) 08:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, I liked it--if no one else objects, I'd say yes to putting it back in. It might be better starting the third paragraph. I'll try something and see if it flies. JJL 14:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I was planning to make some other changes but had to leave. I think I was going for a clearer definition of what exactly the word philosophy really refers to - if it was too wordy, I can change the style. But I think the content addition was worth it. --Alfakim-- talk 15:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
The phrasing of the current intro has always given me indigestion. In particular, ethics is about the right way to live - not the best way. Is this any better?
"Philosophy is the discipline which studies questions about the right way to live (ethics), the sorts of things which ultimately exist and their essential nature (metaphysics), how we can know things (epistemology), and the correct principles of reasoning (logic)."KD Tries Again 17:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)KD
I prefer the current repeated what... phrasing but can live with this. I suppose 'right' is more correct but don't have strong feelings about it. Is that which a that? I do prefer the discipline over a discipline. I'd be happy to see 'academic' back in there. JJL 19:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with KD. Shall we make the change? edward (buckner) 08:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't object. I recall on the mathematics entry a long debate about whether or not a discipline can study something, but it doesn't bother me to state it that way; rephrasing it tends to be awkward. My ear wants a that for each which above, but I defer to the more grammatically skilled. Again, I like having academic in there, but that appears to be controversial. JJL 14:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

While I do not want to see a lot of time spent on the introduction, after the last year of edit wars, I do agree that ethics is about the "best" way to live, not the "right" way to live. I would favor that one word change, if there is no objection. Rick Norwood 20:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I was trying to define philosophy so that it covered as much as possible. For instance, adding the word "academic" would be wrong as much philosophy isn't like that, e.g. Eastern philosophy. Obviously these clarifications will be made in the article, but the introduction paragraphs should define it from the broadest notion first, and then clarify. I'm going to alter it again now, tell me what you think. --Alfakim-- talk 15:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Meaningless section removed

I removed a section called 'Meaninglessness' - here is the diff. It was out of context (it's not a philosophical ism) and it was, well, a bit meaningless. edward (buckner) 11:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I really dont know what you are talking about I dont see the ism on the end of the analytical tradition. Sartre and Camus's existentialism is heavely into metaphysical meaninlessness. How can you say it is out of context is like saying the whole edifice of existential angst-ie meaninglessness is out of context. If you believe this then why not be constructive and place the entry in a place which is in context. Meaninglessness has a hallowed tradition in Western philosophy at least since Camus's "The myth of Sysyphus" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gamahucher (talk • contribs).

The Analytic tradition is not in the correct place, correct. But frankly, the main reason for removing it was that it wasn't very well written. edward (buckner) 13:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
PS Perhaps you meant Absurdism? As I understand it, that is derivative of Existentialism. But I'm not an expert, and I will defer to the others here who are. My reason for removing it was purely the quality of the writing. edward (buckner) 13:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

if your sole reason for removing it was literary there is an edit where you can sproose up an entry-dont you think removal is just a bit drastic- oh are you removing analytical philosophy if not why not —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gamahucher (talk • contribs).

I couldn't see anything that could be spruced up. It was generally illiterate and content-free. edward (buckner) 16:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

you did not answer my question are you removing analytical tradition if not why not. I really think you are being a bit ridiculous about the entry being illiterate and content free It is written in simple english and outlines the main points of epistemological meaninglessness clearly and consisley without hyperbole or ambiguity. There is nothing wrong with the expression and it is content rich if you cannot understand it i say the problem is not the expresion but you inablity to understand the concepts —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gamahucher (talk • contribs).

Please sign your comments with four tildes (~ ~ ~ ~, without spaces) so we can better follow the discussion. I concur with the removal. The article is overlong in any event. JJL 20:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Unless I misread it, the author (Gamahucher) only cites himself/herself. I have never come across an authoritative source for "meaninglessness" as a notable philosophical doctine or school. I don't think there's even a debate here unless the author can provide independent support for the material, and even then I'd argue it's insufficiently notable for a general article like this.KD Tries Again 14:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)KD

[edit] Early modern period

This needs attention. First of all, does the early modern period extend all the way through the 18th century or not? Would it include Kant? edward (buckner) 09:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

OK (answering his own question) yes it seems so. Googling "early modern" + Kant gives stuff like this. I'll do some work on that section. edward (buckner) 09:16, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
By the way, I did look at the question of Kant and idealism, and I think I know how to fix that section - Kant was an odd kind of realist. I just need time to word it properly. I will get there. KD Tries Again 14:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)KD

[edit] Semi protection

We've had a lot of problems on this page with silly vandalism (Ashley Cole sucking d--k in the Chelsea locker room, that sort of thing). It was much better when they semi-protected it. I'm starting a page here which you can add your name to, and the page you would like to see protected. edward (buckner) 09:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the random vandalism here is worse than most other pages. It's annoying, but easily reverted. I'm not so worried about it. JJL 15:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] JJL's edit

First, no JJL your edit is not uncontraversial. Second, I'm not going to change it, becuase almost (almost!) anything is better than another edit war.

1) To say Philosophy is "the" discipline that studies these topics is to suggest that no other discipline studies these topics. Since logic, at least, is studied in another discipline, mathematics, it is better to say Philosophy is "a" discipline that studies these topics.

2) To say that ethics studies "the right" way to live suggests that there is only one right way to live, and that all other ways are wrong. This is the viewpoint of fundamentalists: The Bible/Koran says it, I beleive it, that settles it. Philosophers usually take a broader view, thus "best" is better than "right". Personally, I would prefer "what are the best ways to live".

If you agree with these points, JJL, I hope you will change the intro accordingly.

Rick Norwood 14:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I too don't want another edit war, and no offense is taken. I see your points. For me, I do think that phil. is the discipline that studies those three(-ish) broad areas; other subjects include some of them (logic in math., ethics in theology, political phil. as a subset of ethics in pol. sci., etc.), but don't consider all of them their subject matter. That was the sense of the that I meant; logic, to some extent, is part of any A&S field of study as one must make arguments for one's theories. As to the right way vs. the best way, to my mind it's inherent in these words that both are w.r.t. some worldview and/or assumptions. 'Best' always raises the question, Best in what sense? But in ethics it seems to me that one is asking about the morally right way to live, whereas best could be interpreted in much more of a Darwinian manner. Frankly, I don't see a big distinction between these terms at the level we're writing for--people consulting an Internet encyclopedia who must be told this.
I was trying for what I hoped were the least controversial aspects of the suggestion made [[1]] by KD Tries Again. Before changing them back, let me ask: What do others think? JJL 15:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it's too controversial. If we take the scope of 'the' to cover all the three beings mentioned (ethics, metaphysics, epistemology) I don't think there is another discipline that covers all these three. It certainly reads better after the modification, in my view. edward (buckner) 16:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Meanwhile, after about 1,000 edits of the introduction, perhaps we could take a look at the rest of the article? I have established that the early modern era in philosophy (not to be confused with the era of the same name referred to by historians) begins with Descartes and ends with Kant. Any votes as to the 3 main ideas that define this era in philosophy? edward (buckner) 16:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Instead of "right way" or "best way," it could be simplified to: "the questions of how to live (ethics),..." To me, more doubtful is the use of the word "ultimately" in the phrase, "what sorts of things ultimately exist." This seems unclear. It sounds like "ultimately" is intended to mean something like "in the last analysis," but it also carries implications such as "at the end of the day," or even "at the end of the world," or what exists ultimately could be thought to mean what exists toward the end, or with the end in mind (in a Heideggerian type of way). Could this not also be simplified, to "what really exists" or "what actually exists"? This would make it clearer that the question is about existence rather than about what is "ultimate." FNMF 16:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I think both FNMF's ideas are improvements on what I suggested.KD Tries Again 14:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)KD
The latest edit is certainly to-the-point. No objection. JJL 14:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Made a slight wording change: from "how to live" to "how one should live." I think this narrows it down, pinpointing the content of ethics a little better, as well as being more readable. FNMF 15:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The three main ideas of early modern philosophy

1) Doubt, and the rise of science 2) The importance of the individual 3) The necessity of a "higher" form of reason than logic if one is to arrive at a religious faith.

The overarching theme of this period was a questioning of the Christian religion never attempted by the Scholastics, the overthrow of the Great Chain of Being, and the revolutionary idea that the rational individual, rather than authority, is the source of knowledge.

Compare these two quotes:

"GOD ALMIGHTY in his most holy and wise providence, hath soe disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich, some poore, some high and eminent in power and dignitie, othres mean and in submission." -- John Winthrop, 1630

and

"We hold these Thruths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Persuit of Happiness. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1776

Rick Norwood 14:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Rick. I was going to put something about the theory of ideas & scepticism, which is your first point. I would have made the scientific revolution the second. Your second refers to the idea that the individual, rather than authority, is the source of knowledge. I had it that arguments should not be settled by authority, but by reason, or the natural light of reason. How does the point about individualism relate to the one about 'natural reason'?
Your third point I didn't understand at all. edward (buckner) 08:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, two out of three ain't bad. My third point is that Christian philosophy did not just roll over and die, but did recognize that the attempts to "prove" the existance of God logically(Descartes's proof, for example) were falacious. I've already given my Carlyle quote. Also see Berkeley, who believed that the observing mind of God makes possible the existence of material objects. Also Chesterton, but he came later, and I suppose is considered modern rather than early modern. Rick Norwood 12:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] why east west not clear

why west philo have long article but east have short article Encyclopedia a-z 08:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Because east stuff was moved into its own section. Possible choices
    • Move the east stuff back in and end up with enormously long article (current project is to trim down this article by moving material into sub-articles)
    • Trim down the west stuff to same approximate size as east
    • Have two separate articles. I think this makes most sense given the disparate nature of the two things (in east there was no word for 'philosophy' until it was borrowed from west). But this has met tremendous resistance in the past. edward (buckner) 08:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
As you know, I think this article needs to include "Eastern philosophy". On the other hand, I do not see any reason why the two topics need to be covered at equal length. That way lies madness, e.g. "Lithuanian philosophy must have as much coverage as Greek philosophy". No. Though I do favor short paragraphs here with links to specialized articles. Rick Norwood 12:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good definition of philosophy

From the Foundation of Mathematics news group. Here. edward (buckner) 08:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Followed your link. It took me to a definition of Bullshit. I assume that is not the definition of Philosophy you had in mind. Rick Norwood 12:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
After reading that post, I was reminded of one class I had where the topic of art came up. As a premise for a larger argument, I said that "Art is nothing more than those crafts that have been created with the intent to be put up for presentation". A well-meaning professor replied: "Yes, but some people might disagree!" As if that really meant anything, or anyone ought to care. { Ben S. Nelson } 14:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Third paragraph

The third paragraph, beginning "Though no definition of philosophy is uncontroversial..." comes across as unencyclopaedic, as a "soapbox" attempt to protect philosophy from religion and superstition. The movement from myth to philosophy, for example, as Jean-Pierre Vernant and others showed long ago, was gradual rather than a rupture, leaving the border between them impossible finally to determine, a fact that might well be thought to mark the form and content of philosophy ever since. How much of later philosophy, whether Aquinas, Augustine, or Descartes, is devoted to religious ends, theologically grounded, etc.? So much of what has historically been called philosophy is hardly distinguishable from theology. The claim that it is "generally agreed that it is a method, rather than...etc." is questionable, and unclear what this is stating, and furthermore is advancing an argument in the introductory section of an entry devoted to a very broad discipline. It seems that the opening clause, "Though no definition of philosophy is uncontroversial..." is an attempt to mitigate the argumentative appearance of what follows in the rest of the paragraph. No doubt these issues arise because of the wish to defend the entry from corruption by those who fail to see any distinction between philosophy, religion, new ageness, etc. This defence is necessary, but I would suggest that this is an ineffective form of such defence, in fact an invitation to further trouble later on with those pushing their own barrows. And it is in fact unnecessary. If a paragraph is needed here at all, between the etymology of the word and the short paragraph about Eastern versus Western philosophy, all it need indicate is that what the word means is susceptible to dispute and to change over time. I am not attacking what is currently there, but am inviting those concerned with this entry to consider whether this is really an effective and necessary paragraph. FNMF 23:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The paragraph you are talking about is the result of exhaustive effort; I've watched the process from Dec '06 until now, and just in that brief time, there was Olympian effort made to get some sanity on the page, and some of the authors are quite good at what they do. If you haven't already done so, review the archives from that period to get some of the background. Richiar 05:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't doubt that effort went in to the paragraph. To repeat myself: "I am not attacking what is currently there, but am inviting those concerned with this entry to consider whether this is really an effective and necessary paragraph." And I am forced to note that the comment by Richiar does not at all address the problems raised in my comment, nor does it argue in favour of the paragraph in any terms other than it was the result of hard work. Editors who argue solely from the position of defending what they've got, without regard to whether what they've got is any good, or whether it can be made better, are not editing to their fullest capacity. I maintain that the paragraph is flawed, for the reasons I made the effort to outline. That the original paragraph was the outcome of effort does not mean it cannot be improved, nor that the effort to improve it should be rejected. FNMF 08:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I consider the paragraph is OK. It is uncontroversial that no definition of philosophy is completely uncontroversial, and so it is uncontroversial that this statement should open the paragraph. And it's not just the new agers who find such definitions controversial. So I think it should stay. As for the reverts by JJL, I looked at them and I thought the additions neither added nor subtracted anything. Thus he was right to revert, on the principle that any changes to the opening whatsoever should be extensively discussed here. I.e. the onus is to defend changes, reverts. I.e. any changes whatsoever may be instantly reverted, without discussion. And any changes that are accepted should have extremely good reasons. That is not unreasonable, given the history of the article. It is also recommended policy in the case of unstable articles. edward (buckner) 08:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
It is no doubt uncontroversial that no definition of philosophy is uncontroversial, so uncontroversial as to beg the question of the reason why it is mentioned at all. I contend that this reason is to mitigate the appearance of controversiality in what the paragraph goes on to state, namely that philosophy's "investigations are, unlike those of religion or superstition, wedded to reason, making no unexamined assumptions." It is this sentence that my arguments addressed. Does anyone truly believe this claim, that philosophy unlike religion makes no unexamined assumptions? This is the sentence that is especially argumentative, and that is especially questionable, for the reasons indicated in my comment above. To point this out is not to threaten philosophy, but rather merely an attempt to approach the question of an encyclopaedic entry on philosophy without being overly defensive about its definition. FNMF 08:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
The initial wording of this paragraph is defensive, and you're right: It's there for the editors, not the readers. It is an indication that the editors have agreed to disagree on certain issues. The paragraph reads better without it...but I believe that removing it would cause more problems than it would solve. The argument here over whether or not unexamined facts exist actually proves that point, doesn't it? Both sides won't be happy with what's in the article unless a caveat is included. JJL 13:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
To quote Bill Vallicella: "Explanatory rationalism is the view that there is a satisfactory answer to every why-question. Equivalently, it is the view that there are no brute facts, where a brute fact is a fact that neither has, nor can have, an explanation. In my view, no philosopher worth his salt accepts brute facts without a fight. Philosophy is animated by a nisus towards total comprehension so much so that a rejection of brute facts is inscribed in its very essence". I.e. no unexamined assumptions. Philosophers do have the notion of propositions 'per se nota' i.e. self evidently true. But they still examine whether the propositions are self evidently true (is it self evident that they are self evident &c). So, the point stands. edward (buckner) 12:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
So you're telling me it's true to say that philosophical investigations make no unexamined assumptions? Not only do I find this a doubtful statement, I would go as far as to say that there has never been a philosophy which did not include unexamined assumptions. Brute facts have a habit of finding their way back in to the most guarded fortress—the brutes. The sentence in question, concerning "unexamined assumptions," is, I fear, unworthy of inclusion in any encyclopedia. As is the whole paragraph. However I leave the entry on philosophy to its worthy custodians. FNMF 13:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I suppose the intention is to say that phil. wants to have no unexamined facts. Of course there is a long history of people 'discovering' facts in need of examination that they have blindly accepted until then. It is a human enterprise, after all. As to leaving the article to others, I'll just say that it truly is frustrating making a document by committee. I have frequently been ready to simply leave the article too; I largely burnt out on Philosophy of mathematics even though the original troll is long since banned (but has a near-record number of sock puppets editing C.S. Peirce). If you can't accept that others simply don't see things your way despite the reasonableness of your point of view, it'll be hard sledding. People here want a good article...but have seen well-intentioned attempts lead to unintended consequences that make things worse, not better. We could probably all write an entry that would receive a higher grade as an essay in an English class...but a collaborative document will always contain compromise language. One can accept that or not. JJL 13:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

JJL, I just want to say that I appreciate your reflecting on the paragraph in light of the above. If you re-read through the contributions I have made to this talk page, I think you will see that they have largely been an attempt to provoke such reflection, with the goal of improving the entry. In terms of a "caveat," as you put it, I do believe the editors are being overly cautious. Trolls may come and trolls may go, and the best defense is an entry that is solid from beginning to end. If a paragraph, or a sentence, or a comma, is not right, better to fix it, or talk about whether or how it can be better. There is no sentence that can be added to an entry that will function to ward off undesirables, except and unless that sentence is really the totemic shield of a group concerned with defending territory. In my opinion that's not the best way to conduct the defence. Editors should be able to agree to the following proposition: a sentence that is there for the editors, not the readers, is necessarily a poor sentence (that is, an unencyclopaedic sentence). Also, and of course, there is a big difference between wanting to have no unexamined assumptions, and what the sentence as written actually says. I don't think a good editor can be happy with the gap between these two. Anyway, all the best with the entry, and keep that spirit of willingness to examine assumptions, even those you may have been operating with until now. FNMF 13:23, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

If you were to read "wedded to reason, making no unexamined assumptions ..." with the scope of "wedded" extending over everything that follows, would you be happier? It is saying that philosophy is wedded to not making unexamined assumptions, in the same way that mathematics is wedded to flawless proofs, even thought many 'proofs' turn out not to be flawless. It seems to me the meaning is obvious, and that any rewording would make it clumsier. edward (buckner) 14:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't believe that the way it is written will be understood by readers as meaning "wedded to not making unexamined assumptions." It seems to me the crucial point that is trying to be made here is that philosophy is dedicated to examining its assumptions. I simply do not believe the sentence (or paragraph) as expressed cannot be improved. If it needs to be there at all (I remain unconvinced). As for the analogy with mathematics, I think this is dangerous territory. Philosophy is not mathematics, and it is not mathematics in important ways. Specifically, mathematics is capable of flawless proofs, and flawed proofs are the exception rather than the rule. Whereas the history of philosophy is a history of mistakes—that is what animates its historical movement just as much as any "nisus." The yearning for philosophical argument to achieve mathematical certainty is one of the many ways philosophers are led into error. Which is not at all to say that philosophers should not strive to avoid error. In this case, the goal ought not be to "save" the sentence at all costs, but to find out what it is that is actually trying to be expressed in the paragraph, then figure out whether it needs expression, then figure out the best way of expressing it. All of which is possible. FNMF 14:15, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving this page

I also suggest that this talk-page has grown far too large, and that a great proportion of it should be archived (perhaps up to the point where the interventions of Ludvikus were brought to a close—in fact, I would suggest archiving everything up to at least section 57, entitled Zoroaster). FNMF 23:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree but I thought there was an autoarchive that did this. Anyone know about this?edward (buckner) 08:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
It's definitely time to archive it. Just archive the whole thing--we can re-open any issue that needs discussion. JJL 13:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Manually archived up to "Useful tag". Autoarchiving is evidently supposed to only be used for user talk pages. { Ben S. Nelson } 14:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opening line

I note with disappointment the reversion without explanation performed by User JJL of my slight modification of the opening line. Perhaps this user feels my adjustment was so obviously poor as not to require comment. I believe, however, that there are reasonable grounds for this change, as indicated in the edit summary. User JJL's action means that not only did he fail to provide a justification for the reversion on either the talk page or the edit summary, but he also effectively denies other users the opportunity to assess or approve (or disapprove) the change. The modification that has been reverted was clearly not vandalism, so to perform the reversion without explanation tends to discourage editors from making the effort to improve the entry. FNMF 04:07, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

See above. I wish the herculean efforts around the introduction could be diverted to making the rest of the article better. edward (buckner) 08:39, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
We disagree on what is an improvement, obviously; I just saw more wordiness. But this is quite common in major articles--the intro. is the result of a long process on the Talk page and changes to it should be discussed there first. This isn't meant as discouragemnt but I understand that it will be taken that way. I don't have a solution for you other than to suggest that you discuss changes here first. I do agree with Dbuckner's repeated comments that we'd all be well-served by focsuing more on the guts of the article. Frankly, I think no big improvements can be made until we re-envision the layout of the article. Section 2 is just a list of ideas that would, in my opinion, better be laid out in a connected historical overview with links to the detailed articles rather than a bunch of almost bullet-style paragraphs. We still don't know just how we want to address Eastern philosophy--saying it isn't phil. in the sense meant here is taken as an insult, and there's no easy way to distinguish the two. Perhaps this page should be little more than a dab page, with users being quickly re-directed to Western phil. or, if they are seeking it, Eastern phil.JJL 13:18, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Incidentally, which section are you referring to as section 2? Do you mean the one one philosophical isms/doctrines? What exactly is wrong with it? edward (buckner) 14:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I meant Philosophy#Philosophical_Doctrines, numbered as section 2 in the Table of Contents. It's a list of isolated ideas that flows poorly between the isms, even if any particular ism is done well. JJL 14:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Out of courtesy I think that it would be excellent to provide reasons when one makes an edit. Only reverts which are obviously in reply to something demented (i.e.: "Hippias was a hippi ass") are so self-evident that they deserve no reason. I don't blame FNMF for being discouraged.
Where can I find the paraphrased quote of "Eastern philosophy isn't philosophy in the sense meant here"? { Ben S. Nelson } Lucidish 13:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't disagree with providing a reason; on the other hand, FNMF has been on this page long enough to understand the issue and I didn't think the point needed to be belabored. The situation was explained to him here, for example. The East vs. West issue has been recurring for some while, and some of the discussion has been archived; but see for example here. It isn't one particular quote to which I refer, but an ongoing issue of people saying the page inappropriately focuses on Western over Eastern vs. saying that they're so fundamentally different and/or that phil. is a Western term and hence they should be separate. It's hard to fairly cover both in one article, in my opinion. JJL 14:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Let me second Dbuckner's point above. For the year or more that we fought over the intro, no progress was made in the rest of the article. Since the intro was finally stabalized, great progress has been made. I think we need to let the intro simmer for at least a year before we revisit it. See you in '08. Rick Norwood 13:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree--a stable intro. has finally led to progress being made (slowly) in other areas of the article. For better or for worse, it's been useful. JJL 14:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Agree too. The discussion over the last day or two illustrates the problem. The article will remain a shambles if we fixate on the introduction. I think the reason is simple: there are a number of competent editors here who can improve the meat of the article with relative freedom because they clearly have the expertise. But everyone has an opinion on the intro.KD Tries Again 16:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)KD

[edit] Final word

Here is my last attempt to improve this entry. Read through the opening. Read that third paragraph. Now read through the opening, skipping from the second to the fourth paragraph. There is nothing in that third paragraph that needs to stay, and the entry reads much better without it. Then the entry proceeds from opening definition, to Greek etymology, to a comment on West v. East, etc. This makes sense. If you have eyes to see, you will see the third paragraph can be ditched without loss. Be bold. See if the sky falls in without the paragraph. It won't. FNMF 14:43, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately I have been forced to draw a number of negative conclusions from the experience of contributing to this entry. A summary of these has been placed on my user page. No doubt it is likely to be frowned upon or dismissed, which is too bad, but in truth it is less an attack so much as a diagnosis, undertaken in the belief that this is the only way to a cure. Happy editing. FNMF 17:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I read it. You're right in many respects but wrong in one important point: We do recognize that this is an unfortunate situation. We do reflect on it--there's evidence in the (archived) Talk pages here--and we do find it regrettable. However, we also recognize that this same 'solution' has been reached on many WP pages and that, to paraphrase Conan Doyle' Holmes, once you have eliminated everything that doesn't work, whatever remains, however unpalatable, must be what does work. Philosophically (in the popular sense), I find the current staus quo very unappealing. Practically, having watched the page be protected from editing, having watched all work on it stagnate while revert wars go on for days, having watched good editors get disgusted that after having worked hard on something deep in the bowels of an article, it now says early on in the article that philosophy is, quite literally, the Mississippi River (as happened on the phil. of math. page), etc., etc., etc., people on page after page after page seem to reach a similar conclusion: If you can't get an agreement on the introduction--on what you think you're talking about--you surely won't have good luck later on in the article; and anyone unwilling to spend the time arguing for his or her change on the Talk page because it's so much more tedious than simply making a quick edit to the article and surfing on has too little invested in the article anyway. (This is how I see your situation. What is your argument against making your case here, as others have done, and as all have been encouraged to do so, including by having the page protected? What makes you(r edits) special?) I don't like what's happening at all as far as what you've referred to; I agree with your points; I just don't have a better idea. Otherwise, your one edit of the intro. would be followed by another small edit, and another, and another, until we have a bloated intro. that says everything and nothing. Yes, this is the tyranny of those who are, as you said, battle-scarred by experience, and that ain't fair and it's an impediment to good things getting done. But it's also an impediment to bad things happening. Eitehr way, please recognize that this is a WP-wide problem, and there are likely thousands of USer Talk pages with complaints like yours. JJL 18:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I read the comments on the User Page, and I am not sure what to draw from them except a request that the editor be permitted to revise the article without interference from anyone else. KD Tries Again 16:35, 15 March 2007 (UTC)KD

[edit] Philosophical Isms (section 2)

JJL has questioned section 2, which is mostly 'isms'. Frankly I think there's a lot worse than that section (but I would say that because I wrote large chunks of it).

I'd agree that it lacks a thread. The sections on Phenomenology and Analytic Tradition don't belong there for a start. They should be in a separate section altogether, on the background to modern (i.e. 20C) philosophy. On the genuine isms, I think there is a need to capture the main things that have divided philosophers since the beginning of everything. Of these probably the most important is the rationalist / anti-rationalist split. This divides philosophers who think there are philosophical truths that it is the job of philosophers to discover, from those who don't think that (Locke, Ockham, Wittgenstein, many others). Then there is the Realist anti-realist split - which is a division of rationalists mainly. (Indeed, rationalist tend to be realists, nominalists tend to be anti-rationalists). Then there are the sceptics.

I could attempt to put a thread around it, but what do we think? edward (buckner) 14:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I know I would prefer to see it have a thread. It's context-less reading right now. At the very least, it needs an introductory section to serve as a lead-in. It could say -ism A was in vogue at time a, then -ism B arose in opposition to it around time b, etc. (This is not the most exciting possible idea, but at least it puts the list in some sort of perspective.) It's an encyclopedia so it's OK if it's dry reading, but what is there now is isolated mini-entries that aren't tied to the whole article in any way. Should there even be a short "Here's why philosophy is full of -isms" paragraph? JJL 17:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, that's a good plan. Though easier said than done. Right now I would like to see progress on the history section, as that's an easy-ish win. We agreed on some key points for the early modern period, it's just a matter of writing them in a nice & compact way. edward (buckner) 19:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit of the day

Here. edward (buckner) 16:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Early modern philosophy

I've removed the 'expert attention' tag as this section is now better. On the short side, perhaps, but it is better!

On the rest, is 'late modern' the right word? Couldn't there be a short section on nineteenth century philosophy, and then much longer section on twentieth century and contemporary philosophy? As I've said before, the sections on Phenomenology and Analytic philosophy belong here, not in the 'doctrines and isms' part. In my opinion. edward (buckner) 08:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I think late modern applies to the period of 1800-1960, roughly Kant's Death to the publication of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and the height of Existentialism. 1960s onward, is the period of contemporary or "postmodern" philosophy. Poor Yorick 08:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Ah yes so it is. Kant to Nietschze, says one site. To 1960, you say? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dbuckner (talk • contribs) 12:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC).
I think late modern ends in 1960 thereabouts because current philosophical debates start in & around 1960.
  • Wittgenstein's Investigations took over the debates in contemporary philosophy with guys like Strawson, Austin, Kripke, and especially Quine with Word and Object (1960).
  • After 1960, Foucault, Lacan, and Derrida took over philosophy from Sartre.
  • Plus, John Dewey is seen as the last major original Pragmatist, and he died in the 1950s, heralding the rise of so-called "neo-pragmatists"

Poor Yorick 23:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no strong feeling on the original question, but hope we don't describe contemporary philosophy as "post-modern".KD Tries Again 15:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)KD
I looked at the articles on mathematics, physics, chemistry, history, and sociology and found the usual widely varying degrees of quality. All had history sections, but some were quite brief, especially by comparison with philosophy's. I would be fine with brief sections on 19th century and 20th century philosophy -- and there are separate articles for each, though both are little more than stubs + lists. In general, I think reduction and condensation is the way to go -- it shortens the article and reduces disagreements over particular points that really belong on more specific articles. On the other hand, I think we are still too close to the last 200 years to put things in proper perspective (where by "proper" I just mean relative to our summary treatment of wide swaths of history as "medieval" or "classical"). We should try to think of some clear way of distinguishing the "doctrines" section from the "history" section. What doctrines and "isms" are really live options with active philosophers working in them today? Idealism is an extremely important philosophical doctrine worthy of mention in any introductory article, but I'd be reluctant to think of it as comparable to the branches of physics that appear in the physics article. "Analytic philosophy" is almost too broad a label to be meaningful, except as a contrast to other, equally broad terms. ... Anyway, whenever I get around to it, I'd like to expand the early modern section just a bit. That last edit was really just a stub and reboot. 271828182 17:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History of Philosophy

A lot of this article (especially the 'Philosophical doctrines' section) features heavy emphasis on the history of the subject, without as much emphasis on describing the philosophical content/ideas of the featured doctrine. I had a bit of a look around, and there is a separate History of Philosophy article. However it is in a bad way, and suffering from a lack of material. Considering that the aim here appears to be shortening this article, I recommend cutting down drastically on the 'history' stuff (i.e. who did what and when, who influenced what, etc.) and moving it all over to the History of Philosophy article (I am specifically referring to the 'Philosophical doctrines' section, but I imagine this could work for other sections too). That way, each doctrine section could feature a few sentences on what the doctrine is about and who the main important people were, and we could have a link somewhere to the article that deals specifically with the history of it all. Suggestions? Ideas? Disagreements? Stringman5 02:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Difficult. I'd say there are some fundamental issues or positions on which philosophers in all periods have been divided about, even if they call the issue a different name. The Realism / anti Realism position is one, Rationalism is another. Those positions do not belong in a history article. By contrast, certain positions or isms define certain historical periods. You might say Idealism is one (as being one which is not found in ancient philosophy, which is well and truly dead today, and which characterises philosophy from the eighteenth to the end of the nineteenth century). I don't know enough to make the judgement about Pragmaticism and Existentialism. On Pragmaticism, my mental map of what is important in the history of philosophy assigns it a very small corner. But this may be a subjective judgment. On Existentialism I don't know enough to judge. Intuitively, it is a position which is not found before the nineteenth century, it is in some sense a reaction to Cartesian scepticism and subjective Idealism, and it is one of those things you would have to understand before you can understand late modern philosophy. On Phenomenology, that is not a position or division (there are no anti-phenomenologists as far as I know), but method. In summary, quite what to do with the 'doctrines' section is a difficult question. Generally, I'm against making hasty changes, and would like to see more discussion. There's some good material in there, it's the organisation that is the problem. edward (buckner) 10:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rethinking complexity of sentence structure.

Admittedly, proposing change in the field of philosophy is to subject oneself to suggestion. However, I wondered how the following change might be viewed. That is, assuming there is in reality a suggestion being submitted for review. This may just be the musings of your own imagination while you are actually involved in a game of polo. Or not.

Original: Though no definition of philosophy is uncontroversial, and the field has historically expanded and changed depending upon what kinds of questions were interesting or relevant in a given era, it is generally agreed that philosophy is a method, rather than a set of claims, propositions, or theories. Its investigations are, unlike those of religion or superstition, wedded to reason, making no unexamined assumptions and no leaps based purely on analogy, revelation, or authority. Of course, different philosophers have had differing ideas about the nature of reason. There is also disagreement about the subject matter of philosophy. Some think that philosophy examines the process of inquiry itself. Others, that there are essentially philosophical propositions which it is the task of philosophy to prove.[4]

Suggested rephrase: No definition of philosophy is without controversy. Historically, this field has expanded and changed in relation to the kinds of questions that were interesting or relevant in a given era. It is generally agreed that philosophy is a method rather than a set of claims, propositions or theories. Unlike religion or superstition, the investigations of philosophy are based on reason, making no unexamined assumptions or leaps based purely on analogy, revelation or authority. Of course, different philosophers have had differing ideas about the nature of reason. There is also disagreement about the subject matter of philosophy. Some think that philosophy examines the process of inquiry itself. Others view philosophy's task as to prove philosophical propositions.[4]Wooster boy 20:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I will again propose that the entire third paragraph be deleted. The entry is far improved without it. I have given the reasons for this above. The paragraph reads like an attempt to forestall unwanted edits, as has been acknowledged by other editors. I do not make this proposal because I want to go on and introduce other contentions, but because it is clear to me that the paragraph is poor. Anyone who reads through the opening of the entry, omitting this paragraph, will see that it reads much better without it. And anyone with clear vision will acknowledge that nothing important is stated in the paragraph, in an entry that is already far too long. And that some of its claims are dubious. This act of concision will only benefit the article as a whole. FNMF 00:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
You wrote: And anyone with clear vision will acknowledge that nothing important is stated in the paragraph. I see that all right-minded people will agree with you. How fortunate for you to be able to unerringly identify the right from the wrong! In my clouded opinion, the initial phrase is awkward but the remainder of the paragraph contains useful ideas that must be stated somewhere. I don't see that the proposed change makes much difference either way, frankly. JJL 02:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the first sentence sounded better as it was. Separating it into several sentences is a good idea, but makes it seem a bit stilted. I like the rest of it though (i.e. the following: Unlike religion or superstition, the investigations of philosophy are based on reason, making no unexamined assumptions or leaps based purely on analogy, revelation or authority. Of course, different philosophers have had differing ideas about the nature of reason. There is also disagreement about the subject matter of philosophy. Some think that philosophy examines the process of inquiry itself. Others view philosophy's task as to prove philosophical propositions.).
On a separate note, I also disagree with FNFM's proposition that we should delete the paragraph outright. However, this is no reason to get sarcastic or construct straw men, JJL. Stringman5 03:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I repeat the comment that there are more important things to be worried about than this obsessive compulsive interest in the introduction. How to handle the 'doctrines' section. How to connect this article with History of philosophy. And so on. See my other comments above. edward (buckner) 10:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I concur with Stringman5 that sarcasm isn't fruitful--please excuse my frustration--and with Dbuckner that it's time to work on other aspects of the article. The reworking of the third paragraph by Wooster boy is something that I have no strong feelings about either way, but wholsesale deletion of the third paragraph would be a loss of useful info.
Having said that, I looked at the German version of this page the other day. I don't read German, but it looks better organized than this one. It's hard to begin writing without a view of the overall structure of the article. Are we happy with the current TOC? JJL 13:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

My vision, like JJL's, is obviously clouded. I think the thrid paragraph adds important information to the introduction. Rick Norwood 12:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The German article. Interesting. The introduction is eerily similar. Philosophy is (Greek etymology – love of wisdom " Liebe zur Weisheit"). Generally speaking, it is the critical-rational investigation of thought itself, directed to a total interpretation or complete understanding of the world. Attempting to define philosophy is already a philosophical enterprise. Philosophy is divided into die Logik, die Ethik, die Metaphysik and die Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorie,

Roughly, there are problems which cannot be approached with the help of the 'usual' (gewöhnlichen) sciences. Such questions what good and evil are, what 'justice' means, whether God exists, whether we have an immortal soul, or what the meaning of life (Sinn des Lebens).

There follows a personal essay in German including the usual stuff such as Aristotle' s quote about philosophy beginning with the sense of wonder. That philosophy cannot be defined and that there are as many definitions of philosophy as there are philosophers. Kant's definition of philosophy. Bla bla.

It has a section on Methods which I think is a good idea. And the history section is much longer than here – but that's because we agreed that the unter-articles would take the strain of that, and the uber-article would be a thread.

Note also " Dieser Artikel wurde in die Liste exzellenter Artikel aufgenommen." Which I assume is the equivalent of a featured article? Overall I have to admit it's better than ours. We can't have that. edward (buckner) 14:43, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Idealism improved, I hope

I promised to amend the material on Kant in this section, as he was not an Idealist in the sense of disbelieving in the mind-independent existence of entities. I was stuck for a while, because reducing the CPR to a couple of sentences is not easy. What I have posted is far from perfect, but I think is roughly true. If we need a cite for "controversial", I do have one - just need to find it.

I then linked into German Idealism with the simple point that Fichte and Schelling dumped the noumena. After that, I found I had to rewrite Hegel - also imperfect, but better I think.

I did lose some things: Schopenhauer - again, not really an Idealist, but do we have space to explain his concept of Will here??? Also the claim that phenomenology rejected Idealism - Husserl's relationship to Idealism way more complicated than that.

Hope it's a step in the right direction. I do acknowledge that there are issues about the structure of the article, but am tinkering with the detail right now.KD Tries Again 15:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)KD

[edit] lookin' good

Actually, I went over the table of contents and also skimmed down the article, and I think it looks pretty good! Certainly, it is astonishingly better than it was six months ago. Congratulations all.

Would the person who put the cleanup tag on in January consider removing it? Rick Norwood 21:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redundant ontology phrase

I noticed a phrase on ontology was placed in the first paragraph by 131.91.216.81 on March 21. Unless there is reasonable objection, I will delete it shortly (a-it comes already under metaphysics, b-there was no dicussion, c-my understanding of the focus is currently in the rest of the article, and d-other similar edits have been reverted lately and so should this for fairness sake). Richiar 20:08, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another definition in another Wikipedia article

I hadn't seen this one before. It's from the philosophy section of the article "Human" [[2]]:

"Philosophy is a discipline or field of study involving the investigation, analysis, and development of ideas at a general, abstract, or fundamental level. It is the discipline searching for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative means.

The core philosophical disciplines are logic, ontology or metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology, which includes the branches of ethics and aesthetics. Philosophy covers a very wide range of approaches, and is also used to refer to a worldview, to a perspective on an issue, or to the positions argued for by a particular philosopher or school of philosophy..."

and so on. Not bad.KD Tries Again 20:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)KD

Not bad, on the other hand it may have been taken from an earlier version of this article! The word 'axiology' is a giveaway. I have a problem with the 'investigation of ideas' bit, which is itself a philosophical position. A realist might argue that philosophy does not investigate ideas, but extra-mental things like universals, substantial forms & so on. edward (buckner) 07:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup tag removed

A week ago Rick Norwood wrote:

Actually, I went over the table of contents and also skimmed down the article, and I think it looks pretty good! Certainly, it is astonishingly better than it was six months ago. Congratulations all.
Would the person who put the cleanup tag on in January consider removing it?

Well, that person has not responded. As one who has been reasonably detached from the article, but a keen observer of it, I too think that it has improved hugely. It deserves the cleanup tag no more than the majority of comparable articles. I have therefore, in the absence of objections to Rick's suggestion, removed the tag. If anyone wants to reinstate it, let them first argue here for its reinstatement. If this is not done, or if a majority here is unmoved by such argument, the tag should not be imposed. – Noetica♬ Talk 07:48, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Excellent work on the article, Noetica. It really needed someone to do an intelligent copy edit. Rick Norwood 12:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Rick, and for your recent work too. I have now changed a few things in the account of Hume's scepticism. I suspect we may have to talk this through here; it still isn't quite right. I have looked again at Berkeley's idealism also, but I don't think there's any matter of content that is contested there. The end material (references, notes, readings, etc.) needs regularising. It is constructed by several different means, which causes anomalies and makes it hard to edit.
– Noetica♬ Talk 23:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible buffer solution for low caching support for browsers.

You could look into the use of HTTP support for Javascript allowing to retrieve and update the cache for each "page" of content, in a buffer controlled PHP script, that handles the MySQL database content. This course of action would need to be applied to the kernel of Wikipedia, this would ensure the limited number of http requests/responces, as it would also make as a bad cause of lagging for precaching http servers (java;tomcat), and maybe a means of crashing the process.

Raw data should be used to process as images for supported browsers and proper HTML parsing, and would cut down on HTTP requests/responces for all of wiki projects. What I mean is by instead of using <img src="" /> as images, you can use src="data:type=png..." or something or other, to store less then 1024 bytes, including icons and small pictures and symbols. --Daemondevel 00:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hume Sweet Hume

Yes, we agree on Berkeley and, yes, I messed up on Hume, though I still think there is some work to be done there.

In your view, do Hume's "probable" and "demonstrative" correspond exactly to "deductive" and "inductive"? Rick Norwood 13:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they do (if I may). Neither the Berkeley nor Hume bits are exactly as I'd have written them, but they both seem to me to be accurate. It would be fair to Hume to expand the bit about ignoring scepticism to discuss his positive ideas about how we come to have the notion of nature as continuously existing, orderly, and uniform. If that could be done in a short space, it would improve the section.KD Tries Again 16:42, 29 March 2007 (UTC)KD

I was thinking of going the other direction, since this article is so long already. In the main Philosophy article, does Hume really deserve more space than, say, Plato? There is a link to Hume, after all, though I must say, having followed a few of those links, once this article is A class, there is a lot of work to be done on the individual articles. Rick Norwood 21:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Rick Norwood, the Humean terms "probable" and "demonstrative" do mean "inductive" and "deductive" (well enough, at least; and note the reversed order).
Generally, I think that material could be removed here and there, with improved linking to more specific articles. And sure, those articles must then be improved. A happy and simplifying solution!
– Noetica♬ Talk 00:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I would caution that emphasis should be put on the "well enough" in Noetica's comment above. For Hume, "demonstrative" means "necessarily true", which is not the same as how we use the term "deductive". A better Hume-to-contemporary lexicon would say: "demonstrative" = "necessary" and "probable" = "contingent". 271828182 03:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to try a modest shortening of a few sections, then. For one thing, important as it is, I think this article spends too much time on the question of whether or not reality exists outside of our mental states, and not enough time on other, equally important philosophical questions. I am often struck by colleagues who doubt the existence of objective reality but believe in flying saucers. Rick Norwood 12:41, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, because we know what a confirmatory observation of the latter looks like. Chuckle.KD Tries Again 18:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)KD

[edit] Brevity is the Soul of Wit

I've tried to shorten one section, and don't think I should go beyond one section at a time. There seems to be a lot of unnecessary repetition in the article as, over time, people have added their ideas without checking to see if those ideas have already appeared in an earlier section. Rick Norwood 13:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible inaccuracies

1. The section on Berkeley now contains a sentence that suggests Berkeley wrote some of his philsophical works in Latin. While he may have written some mathematical works in Latin, I am not aware that any of the well-known philosophical works were in anything but English. 'Esse est percipi' was just a phrase he used.

2. Why is 18C idealism now distinguished from 'Platonic Idealism'. Plato is not generally regarded as anything but an extreme Realist. Of course there was the theory of Ideas, but that is not the same as Idealism. Idealism as such was an innovation of Berkeley's. edward (buckner) 17:58, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Both points are well taken. Do you want to make the change or shall I? Rick Norwood 23:31, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Relation to physics

Hello. I'm one of the editors currently trying to improve the physics article, and I'm attempting to sumarize physics for the lead section. Out of the sciences, philosophy, and mathematics, I'm the least knowledgeable about philosophy; so, could I kindly ask for some help from some philosophers about how they see the philosophy-physics relationship from their side? In short, would it be fair for me to say

Simplistically, philosophy can generally be regarded to be the analysis of ideas relating to nature in some way that physics as a science cannot yet study.

Bear in mind that this sentence is meant to be placed in the lead section and so not be too "involved". I would greatly appreciate all input, including personal abstract definitions of what philosophy is; and anything else that would be worthy to note. Thank you. Krea 03:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


  • I think many philosophers would question whether it is clearly the case that space & time are among the "elementary constituents of the universe". It's also raise a question about how settled it is that it is part of "the nature of the universe" that there are only 3 dimensions of space. From what I see, there is an unquestioned tendency to assume that our conceptual structure is somehow the way it is because it corresponds to the nature of a more "external" universe --JimWae 04:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
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