Talk:Timeline of Western philosophers

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Shouldn't there be something like this at the top of each list interlinking the lists? I think so. gren 21:44, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Timeline of eastern | western | global philosophers

Sure. Have you hit up Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Philosophy yet? -Seth Mahoney 16:28, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Bold, italics, etc... 2 How to fix this page 3 Ooh, what a mess 4 Page has serious problems 5 standard for inclusion 6 Buridan vs. Rand 7 Additional Source for Rand as a Philosopher

[edit] Bold, italics, etc...

Ummm, I'm not exactly sure how this system works... notable to whom? I think muhammad is probably boldly notable... or not a philosopher... (I mean, hadith aren't nearly as philosophical as Qur'an... and that is supposed to be revelation...) I just think it's a degree of point of view... maybe it's this list is mostly right to Americans... but... it's supposed to be an English language encyclopedia... not not Anglophilic right? 04:32, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The bolding makes no sense at all. I suggest it be removed. --142.104.250.115 07:30, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems that the bold names are arbitrary. Every philosopher would disagree about which names ought to be bold. And it seems that the descriptions are also nonstandard and arbitrary.

Collingsworth 06:14, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to fix this page

I propose: 1. Eliminate this condition "The traditionally most popular or noteworthy philosophers can be found in bold." 2 Add the condition that the philosophers name is followed by philosophers categories on wikipedia.

I encourage debate on this proposal, especially 2.

Collingsworth 06:14, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ooh, what a mess

I've been bold, and none of the philosophers are now in bold. The line 'The traditionally most popular or noteworthy philosophers can be found in bold' has been removed.

I noted 'Included are not only philosophers, but also those who have had a marked importance upon the philosophy of the day' and think it's misguided. A timeline of philosophers should only contain philosophers. Among others, I'd remove:

• Riemann, Fibonacci, Cantor, Venn, Gauss (mathematicians)
• Heisenburg, Isaac Newton, Einstein, Max Plank, Copernicus, Euler (physicists / astronomers)
• Darwin, Mendel (biologist)
• Ghandi, Tom Paine (politicians)
• Jesus & Mohammad (religious figures)
• Jung & Freud (Psychology / psychoanalysis isn't philosophy - although I'm open to persuasion on this)
• J M Keynes, von Hayek (economists)
• Luther, Calvin, St Francis (theologians) (NB St Augustine I think should stay for blending Plato and Christianity)
• W. E. B DuBois (sociologist)

And finally, many of the descriptions of the philosophers' works are silly:

• Niccolò Machiavelli - leadership, success by any means, militarism
• Friedrich Nietzsche - nihilism, ultimate skepticism, primacy of the will
• William of Ockham - nominalist, demands necessity of an entity identified before existence, preference of clear arguments over convoluted ones
• Immanuel Kant - synthetic a priori truths, metaphysics of morals, duty morality

For philosophers who are unambiguously members of a school, such as Diogenes, Husserl or William James, the name of the school (as a link) after the name, maybe, but trying to sum up the main interests of Kant or Nietzsche in 6-8 words is not a good idea, I think.

What do other people think? --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 15:33, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

• I've removed some of the more clear-cut cases from the later portions of the list. I'll do a few more if no-one complains about these. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 16:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree (for what it's worth) with most of your list. Some people can't resist heaping praise on their heroes, even in inapropriate places—Jesus and Muhammad got their thought straight from God, which should better than the dabblings of Kant and Aristotle! (Although I would keep Thomas Paine, as he is, in my opinion, indeed a political philosopher; and keep Jung: philosophy and psychology are distinct, but were not always so, and Jung's work does have a philosophical streak.) And please do discard the descriptions; perhaps this will stimulate the actual reading of books (or at least the entire Wikipedia-page), in stead of thinking in six-word definitions of everything. All the best, Jacob 213.93.167.189 15:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm surprised that most of these are still here. If you think they should be removed, then remove them. But for my part, I don't see how small descriptions of the main points in the works of philosophers is destructive. Lucidish 02:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page has serious problems

This timeline is a bit of a mess!

I changed some of the pre-socratic stuff because much of it is basically wrong or Highly disputed -- e.g. attributing "evolution" to Anaximander is a misread and there is a lot of dispute over how to interpret the various arches -- the former attributions seemed to assume too much. Had to change it -- could not leave plain errors here.

Otherwise, the only other change I made was to call George Herbert Mead a pragmatism, as he should be understood.

But there are more problems. In general, the idea of characterizing a philosopher's work with a phrase is bound to lead to mischaracterization.

Also, it would nice to add each philosopher's date as well and a link to their respective wikipedia pages. I could perhaps work on the former.

Qwerty18 03:47, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. It's an exhaustive sort of list, so it's going to take time to change. As a first pass, I'm going to go through the list and sharpen the formatting. When that's done, as a second pass, we can revisit the small descriptions. I like the idea of the descriptions, but if they're misleading or wrong, then that ought to be pointed out. In any case, they should be examined systematically. At that point the NPOV notice can be removed. Agreed?Lucidish 18:21, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] standard for inclusion

to prevent anyone claiming to be a philosopher, this list needs a standard for inclusion. since it is a general list, the bar should be set pretty low, i'd think. so i would say if 2 encyclopedia articles defining one as a philosopher and 50 citations in the philosophers index would clearly be enough for the classics. --Buridan 12:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

If we're going by "all reference types" in the P.index, then it absolutely must be at least as low as 30. Slightly less knowable (but still vital) philosophers like James Mill receive about 31 hits, total. Non-philosophical historical figures like Oliver Cromwell receive 16 hits, which may indicate the lower limits of the threshold.

Also, these are perhaps the first steps toward a good policy for a general standard, but I'd also hope there can be exceptions for those historically uninfluential philosophers who we now know have obvious merit. Lucidish _{{ Ben S. Nelson }} 15:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

It might be that you need 2 standards, one for classics before 1920, which would be probalby based on encyclopedia entries, and another one for contemporary and beyond that is fairly high. That would account for James Mill.--Buridan 16:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Verifiable source of Rand as a philosopher: http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761579630 "Ayn Rand (1905-1982), American novelist and philosopher, whose championing of the gifted individual established her as a controversial figure in 20th-century literary and philosophical debate."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:VERIFIABLE "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader must be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, because Wikipedia does not publish original thought or original research."

So, please provide a reliable verifiable source that she is not a philosopher. 144.189.5.201 22:19, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Buridan, I'm going to just remove all of the descriptive data after the dates since you are now asking for a cite for the verb "created" in "Created Objectivism"- There are many, many valid, verifiable sources saying she is the founder/creator of Objectivism and everyone knows that. But you never respect any sources given and you get away with it. I don't like the tone that this incessant edit warring gives to Wikipedia. What you are doing is just a kind of harrassment. Frankly, I'm disapointed that more people haven't been complaining and that adminstrators haven't taken some kind of action against you by now. Steve 04:25, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

dude, it is pretty clear she did not found or create 'objectivism' as a philosophic doctrine, that was aristotle. her doctrine is not his, so whatever she created isn't whatever it is. i am not harassing anyone, i am making good faith edits and reversions. i am doing it on wikipedia principles, in rands case that is usually npov against rampant promotionism. i've made a thousand of perfectly good edits , and i'm acting under my understanding of philosophy and the consensus of the editors. you on the other hand, jump in, make the change, don't consider that you are not necessarily correct in doing so, and then get upset at people like me who try to maintain some sense of standards. just stop promoting rand and objectivism as more than they are and we are all fine. i don't midn that she is on pages, just as long as what is there is the case and it does not misrepresent the case to the audience. on the other hand, if the philosophy project decides she's out, then she's out. her place in history is her own to make, we don't need to do it for her in wikipedia. --Buridan 04:40, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

For clarification on what she did or did not create, see Objectivism (Ayn Rand). "Objectivism" is the name she gave to the philosophy which she created/derived/wrote/whatever. I suggest we use the word "developed". The Transhumanist (AWB) 05:17, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

the solution is far easier, you just remove her from this page. --Buridan 13:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Buridan, you do not have the consensus of editors. Rand deserves mention as a philosopher, even if she was a bad one. { Ben S. Nelson } _Lucidish 16:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

hey, perhaps you did not notice... i stopped deleting her when steve removed the fictions... as a 'philosopher' it is clear she has some following much like aldus huxley. i wouldn't count either as philosophers, but i'm not going to delete her without sufficient cause. If we get some agreement in the philosophy project about who is and who is not a philosopher, then perhaps she can be deleted or not. --Buridan 17:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. :) { Ben S. Nelson } _Lucidish 03:17, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused. Buridan, you deleted Rand from the List of Philosophy Topics 3 times today. What did you mean when you told User:Lucidish, "...i'm not going to delete her without sufficient cause"? You gave the impression that you were going to wait for an agreement before deleting. I'm also concerned about your statement on the philosophy navigation talk page where you said Objectivism killed 10 million people. Steve 03:47, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

yes you are confused, i agree completely.--Buridan 15:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Buridan vs. Rand

Note: Buridan has been removing Ayn Rand, her philosophy Objectivism, and her books from various philosophy lists around Wikipedia. He has been rather forceful wherever he's done this. See List of basic philosophy topics, List of philosophers born in the twentieth century, Template:Philosophy navigation, Timeline of Western philosophers, and List of publications in philosophy (he removed her books from the list), to name a few. The Transhumanist (AWB) 05:17, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

My view: Rand belongs on the List of philosophers born in the twentieth century, List of female philosophers, and List of philosophical topics (R-Z) because those lists are so heavily populated. Rand clearly does not belong on List of basic philosophy topics or Template:Philosophy navigation because she is not very important to philosophy/philosophers at all. Similarly, she doesn't belong on List of political philosophers because she is neither of historic interest nor theoretical interest to contemporary political philosophers. I'm agnostic about whether she belongs on Timeline of Western philosophers and List of publications in philosophy; if her presence is to be justified on those last two lists, they need to be significantly more populated than they are at present. KSchutte 02:36, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Your approach sounds reasonable, but it is based upon your personal estimation of the significance of Rand. As editors we get to have opinions but can only edit articles based upon WP Policy. WP Policy prohibits using our subjective judgment on who belongs and who doesn't. That is why I keep providing sources that are from accepted professors, journals, encyclopedias, etc. We all could have spent a lot more time on adding value to Wikipedia if we weren't spending so much time on this. Steve 03:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

yes, you could waste time trying to braden listed along side major psychology figures instead of rand besides major philosophy figures. there is no personal judgment in the arguments against rand presented here or elsewhere other than yours and the other pro-randians. if you would stop promoting people, things would go back to normal. --Buridan 04:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Steve, if you persist with that attitude, I'm entirely willing to vote to delete this page (as I've done in similar cases in the past). Objectivity requires that people get added to such lists in an order that at least attempts to reflect the judgments of academia and professional philosophers, specifically. To add a figure such as Rand before much more important figures is only going to make me (and others like me) inclined to delete the whole page. If you want Rand on these lists, do the work to make her presence justifiable. KSchutte 19:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

What attitude are you referring to? I need to understand which comment of mine you are addressing to be able to reply to that part of your statement. If you show me a place where my attitude is out of line, I'll certainly make the needed changes.

• Regarding your statement that you are "...willing to vote to delete this page (as I've done in similar cases in the past)", I would question the validity of deleting all entries because you dispute sources provided for one entry. I believe that would not be a good way to go for two reasons: 1) It diminishes Wikipedia instead of adding to it - losing all the efforts of those who have labored over the page, and 2) it violates the policy of deleting sourced material (certainly you don't believe that absolutely no entry on the page is without a valid source!)
• You suggest that I need to attempt "...to reflect the judgments of academia and professional philosophers" - I have been providing quite a number of sources that are directly from academia (professor emeritus at Berkeley, professors of philosophy at other schools, etc.)
• When you say "...such as Rand before much more important figures..." the words "such as" beg the question under dispute. When you say "before much more important figures" you imply that putting Rand into the timeline takes away another philosopher AND that there has already been some kind of valid, verifiable "importance" ranking done. Neither of those are the case.
• What exactly would constitute doing "the work to make her presence justifiable"? Is it something other than presenting respected, valid, verifiable sources? Sources drawn from the academy.

In no way to I wish to be here in an edit war. My aim is to enhance Wikipedia for current and future users. I love philosopy and the importance it has. I recognize that that there is a valid definition of philosophy as a larger body than what is contained in the bounds of academia. But I have been supplying sources from inside of academia to show Rand's validity (not popularity) by those lights. I also believe that there is no way to resolve this issue if we abandon the framework of valid, verifiable sources, which is why I keep repeating it like some kind of holy mantra. Having said that, I also think that good will and a less exclusionary approach would generate benefits greater than one might imagine. Steve 20:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Sources can be found for millions and millions of people. That there are sources is irrelevant to the appropriateness of their inclusion on such a list. Appropriateness of inclusion is determined by the figures in the present state of the list. In other words, if the list included only Plato, Aristotle, Rene Descartes, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant, it would certainly not be appropriate to add next Judith Jarvis Thomson, despite her qualifications as philosopher. Those who should be added next are people like Locke and Hegel. As it stands, this list (and the list of publications in philosophy) does not have enough figures to make Rand's inclusion appropriate. If you were to add more of the less tangential figures to the list, this would make the presence of the tangential and fringe figures (such as Rand) more permissible. KSchutte 15:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

"That there are sources is irrelevant" is what you state, then you go on to give your POV that Rand is a "tangential and fringe figure" - your argument begs the question. WP Policy is the only allowed way to answer the question - by using sources. You are editing based upon your personal view of Rand and her work. As an editor you should be neutral in that regard. You are not here to "do" philosophy or to "critique" philosophers or their work. Your are here to add, edit, delete in accordance with policy. Briinging your knowledge of philosophy along is good and helpful - but it shouldn't be used to supplant the neutrality policy or the source policy. Steve 16:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

it specifically says what kind of sources count for notability too. that is sources outside of the specific field, let's call that field 'rand studies' or 'objectivist studies'. so you need to find neutral sources. --Buridan 16:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I have posted many neutral sources. About half of the articles in JARS are scholarly, critical looks at Rand's work. In Den Uyl/Rasmussen's collection of articles several are critical (two notable examples being Flew and Matson). You are redefining 'neutral sources' to exclude anyone that writes about Rand. That's like excluding anyone who has written about Aristotle from being a source for Aristotle - not a valid formulation of 'neutral'. There is a difference between a groupie or close associate and a credentialed scholar. Steve 19:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Additional Source for Rand as a Philosopher

IP user 217.172.182.239 deleted Ayn Rand's entry with the comment "not a philosopher" - without a source that is POV. There have bee many, many valid, verifiable sources given in the past, but I'll give another here. Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Ph.D, visiting professor at NYU, writes, "Ayn Rand is one of the most widely read philosophers of the twentieth century." This is in Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, page 1. Steve 18:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

source is biased, and not valid as such.--Buridan 00:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

A respected scholar and professor of philosophy at a major university, a man with substantial credentials, and you dismiss his book as "biased" - you are obligated to show more than your POV statement to justify your continued war on Rand. You are violating WP Policy by continuing to edit war and revert sourced statements. Steve 00:49, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Uh huh... that is not the case. The sole POV here is the Rand promotionists. The neutral position is no rand. --Buridan 21:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Another source would be the anthology of Louis Pojman, "Moral Philosophy: A Reader" (Hackett).

Buridan: I dislike Rand. I think her views are nonsense. I think she's a sloppy thinker, a sophist, an anarchist, and a belligerant idiot. I am very sorry that I even have to put myself in a place where I have to defend her. But she is still regarded as a philosopher, and I would have no integrity as a person if I didn't defend the evidence and sourcing over one-lined quips which express no argument to substantiate a refutation. { Ben S. Nelson } _Lucidish 22:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

We discussed the merits of the undergraduate philosophy textbook as a guide to encyclopedic standards on another article. I think it does provide some weight, but if she was a significant philosopher or even widely recognized, wouldn't she be in almost all, or at least most undergraduate moral or political philosophy texts that deal with her time periods and topics? --Buridan 16:16, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

You are still taking it upon yourself to dismiss as valid sources professors of philosophy at accredited universities, philosophy class textbooks at major universities, article references and more. You offer, as Lucidish stated, no argument to substantiate a refutation.

It is not up to me to decide on the merit of an individual undergraduate textbook by an individual editor, but when it has one article, that no others have, the question becomes does the inclusion of that article have any merit for the whole? either it does, or it does not. --Buridan 00:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not just a single textbook. Bmorton found 3 just looking at his bookshelf. It is a number of professors, a number of articles, encyclopedias, scholarly books, etc., etc. You are asking for some unstated weight of sources that is beyond the requirements of notability and respected, valid, verifiable sources which has already been met several times over. Steve 01:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Here is another source for Rand. Tibor Machan, professor emeritus at the department of philosophy, Auburn University, in his book "Initiative: Human Agency and Society" is describing the position philosophers have taken the on the moral value of thinking as part of his argument for a variant of free will. On page 66 he says, "This idea, that concept formation presupposes the capacity for human initiative, counts significantly against a fully deterministic account of human conduct... When Kant found freedom as the condition enjoyed by the human will, it is because the will is the the engine of intention and reason... Wittgenstein makes the point, too, that it is thinking that makes someone a good human being... this is a conception of human moral goodness that we find widely considered, by Socrates, Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant and especially Ayn Rand." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SteveWolfer (talk • contribs) 02:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC).