Talk:Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge's Taxonomy

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[edit] Paradox?

How is this list of animals a paradox? Shouldn't it be moved somewhere else? Riddlefox 15:12, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

#8, if read right, is close to Russel's paradox. Borges wrote abstract fiction, not philosophical arguments, so it's hard to know for sure if he meant this as a "paradox" per se, or just as a very peculiarly orthogonal enumeration. Still, just sticking it in the category doesn't seem to do any harm. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually, looking through the paradox category, most of the things listed are not really paradoxes. Most seem to be more like "counterintuitive results" or "traps of inaccurate thinking" or the like. So this list is well enough in the realm of "somewhat paradox-like" things. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
What about l? How can the category include itself? --Gwern (contribs) 03:44 17 May 2008 (GMT)

[edit] Article name

Is the name of this article really appropriate? People would expect an article with the name "List of animals" to contain, well, a list of animals (real animals, the ones that are studied in zoology), not... Whatever is in this article, which I can't say I fully comprehend. How about renaming it to "Paradoxical list of animals" or something like it? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 17:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. My first hunch ought to be to go with something like "Borges' list of animals." However, that doesn't work. Borges attributes this list to Franz Kuhn (a real person) who supposedly saw it in some chinese encyclopedia. However, the attribution is certainly fake, and Borges made up the list of his own. But even though I think everyone who is familiar with Borges can agree that the list is fake, its hardly an encyclopedia assertion. So its not clear whether "Borges' list of animals" (as opposed to "Kuhn's list of animals") might be proper.
Basically, it seems like the original suggestion - Paradoxical list of animals - seems to be close to the best. Can anyone think of anything better? --Pierremenard 02:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I confess that I like the whimsical aspect to the list, including the name. Sometime, long ago, there was a List of animals that tried to list real animals (well... these animals aren't "unreal" exactly, just listed at incommensurate levels). Anyway, that was deleted as absurdly overbroad, no doubt correctly. So I think there's no point trying to use this title for some unachievable "list of all the real animals, by species" or the like. Notice that being whimsical isn't the same as violating WP:NOR or WP:V. Borges really did write this story, and a bunch of people really did subsequently refer to it (not just Foucault, but various philosophers and literary people).
Maybe List of animals (paradoxical) would work... I like that a bit better than putting the modifier first. But I still think this page title should redirect to that (or whatever name is used), if so. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

A redirect might be sensible, though I can't say I wholeheartedly support. But regardless of whether a real list of animals should or should not be in WP, I'm pretty sure this is what people will expect, and putting this article under this name is just too misleading and non-encyclopedic. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 07:17, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that is overstated. The Borges story (and references to it in other material) is quite well known, and I have frequently people discuss or write about "that famous 'list of animals'". If I thought there was any chance of a "real" list of animals remaining on WP for any period of time, I'd suggest a disambig notice. But I can't imagine myself voting "keep" on an AfD for a "real" list of animals... so this is essentially the only encyclopedic topic I can imagine us having. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm... let me try something. If you don't like it, we can roll things back. I think that works nicely. Rather than call it paradoxical, which may or may not be the best characterization, I put "Borges" in parens afterwords. Pierremenard is certainly correct that we shouldn't just call it "Borges' list of animals" because of the layered "authorship"... but I think the parens just say it is "associated with Borges", which is certainly true. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:51, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Looks good to me. --Pierremenard 11:37, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. But I certainly don't understand the objection against the real list of animals. Looks encyclopedic enough to me, and we have lists of many other things. There's no need to list every sub-sub-species, which are obviously hopelessly numerous, just the main ones. But I'm not a zoologist, I don't really care either way... -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 09:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm not a zoologist either. But I know that there are millions of animal species, and hundreds of thousands of genera, if not millions. Using a Linnean system to start "from the top" is more manageable, I would think. But it's just a redlink for now. And maybe the "by species" isn't the right disambig, maybe only "by order" or the like. Or maybe by some other criteria (continent?) Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 09:23, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Would it perhaps be more descriptive to name the page after the fictitious encyclopedia in which it appears? "Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge" is a highly distinctive phrase and one intimately associated with the list. It would make linking to this page more intuitive -- the page Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Recognition appears to be a redundant page created in ignorance of this one. James Grimmelmann 03:16, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I've been bold and redirected that page to this one, especially since "Recognition" is an absurd translation of conocimientos. Zompist 05:25, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taxonomy

This is surely a taxonomy rather than a list given that only suckling pigs, mermaids, and stray dogs are specific animals (and none of them designate specific entities). It is also not ordered, which is often a criteria of lists. The page is given as an example in Taxonomy#See also. I'm going to rename it "Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge's Taxonomy" because that's descriptive. Vagary 06:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish original

The article gives the best-known English translation; but I can't help noticing from the Spanish original that it’s a bit clunky. E.g. “those that are trained” is rather awkward for the single-word amaestrados. Would it be worthwhile to include the Spanish? Zompist 05:24, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The link would be great, but not the Spanish text for the English encyclopedia. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:14, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh wait, do you mean just the Spanish original word for that single noun clause? That would be fine, I think. But not knowing Spanish, I'm not going to make that edit myself. Feel free to if you think the English is too klunky. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:35, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Come to think of it, the link I added under References should do, as it gives both the Spanish and an alternative English translation. The one in the main article is the one that always seems to be quoted in English, which is appropriate for an encyclopedia. Zompist 04:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
The awkwardness is part of the appeal; the list is purportedly a translation from the Chinese, after all. EdC 04:31, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Borges list is fictitious

Someone should point out that the list in Borges is fictitious, which Foucault knows, but several people now believe to be an actual taxonomy from an actual chinese encylopedia

see Keith Winschuttle for more: http://www.nationalreview.com/15sept97/windschuttle091597.html

I've deleted the Windschuttle bit. He refers to a respondent at one of his seminars who cites the taxonomy, but it's not clear if the respondent is a believer. Sahlins knew that the taxonomy was false, as we can see from his citing of Foucault (Marshall Sahlins, How “Natives” Think: About Captain Cook, For Example (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 158-163.). So Windshuttle doesn't really have a good argument about belief in the authenticity of the taxonomy, he seems to be arguing more generally against relativism and post-modernism. Who actually believes that the taxonomy is true? If anyone does, more detailed and authoritative references are needed. Comtebenoit 11:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The list is alive and well

A biology teacher at my school (in Finland) showed this list to our class last Tuesday and told us that it's a quaint chinese taxonomy "from the Ming Dynasty" :) guess I'll have to break the truth to her next week ... 88.112.5.177 00:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Letters, not numbers

In the original, the list items are lettered, not numbered. I actually think that's kind of important, alphabetical order being more arbitrary and numerical order more rational and meaningful. Can this list be changed to reflect that? --Rmlucas (talk) 05:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I've done better and replaced it with the quote from my translation. --Gwern (contribs) 03:46 17 May 2008 (GMT)