Wikipedia:Featured article review/Philosophy of mind/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 14:01, 28 February 2007.

[edit] Philosophy of mind

[edit] Review commentary

Message left at Philosophy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

One and two-sentence paras have been added throughout. Reads like a comic book. Needs professional review for 2a and organization. Some content has also been added which I can't verify (given the circusmtamces I can't do much of anything) and much has been removed that IS verifiable, indeed obvious to anyone who actually knows the field. In addition, I never really cared for it in the first place. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 11:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The article feels unbalanced to me. Compared to other areas, the Mind-Body problem is given far too much weight. The epistemology of Other Minds isn't even mentioned, it seems. Other issues that deserve more attention (or at least a mention) include mental causation, action, self-deception, weakness of will, perception, memory, first-person authority and self-knowledge, imagery, emotion, perceptual/conceptual content, and the internalism/externalism debate. There's a lot of decent writing here, but it lacks diversity for such a broad topic. (I'm glad you haven't totally given up on Wikipedia, Mr. Franco. It's nice seeing you here.) KSchutte 05:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Whoah, ease up now. I did most of this work...and it's infinitely better than what was previously there. But you're absolutely right. The obvious solution, I suppose, would be to break off the mind-body section into a separate article and leave a summary with link. Then, expand or create the sections on the other central areas, at least as I have come to see them lately: intentionality, consiousness (qualia, etc), mental causation, psychosemantics (big area right now)and THEORY of MIND. Of course, I can't do much myself at the moment, as I'm cut off every two or three minutes.

PS Glad to know people like yourself are still around and volunteering, Kevin.!! --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Man, the images are just extraordinary!! No, wait a minute....ALL the images are fantastic. It must be this new 19 inch Asus TCO03 LCD 1240x840 monitor!! These engineers are quite something, really. Magnificent, ladies and gentlemen. Good 'eavens. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 11:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The quality of the writing here on the Mind-Body problem is plenty good, and would be great in an article of its own. I think an article this broad should probably mostly just be a series of succinct summaries of the major problems, with links to the articles on each of those problems. (I wish I had the time and resources to do some substantive writing on here.) --KSchutte 01:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Here is the article when the gold star was added. Is that not feature-worthy? Are there active editors of the article that would object to reverting it? (I haven't looked at the merits of each, I'm just asking—the FA is only 10 months old...) –Outriggr § 01:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I just got a note from Sandy about this FAR, and I thought that I would add my two cents. I tend to agree with Outriggr that the damage that Francesco notes could be by and large repaired by reverting to the promoted version. There might be a little improvement that was lost, but this could be addressed by careful reading. On the other hand, the concerns raised about overall balance are also correct; the article is too mind-body problem heavy. Perhaps we can start with a revert, which might deal with FAR, and then work on improving by reorganizing? Or should that valid concern be enough to keep it from keeping its gold star from ten months ago? Unfortunately, I don't have a ton of time myself to work on this right now, but I will do what I can. Edhubbard 00:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I can accept this proposal. In particualar, seeing as no one (myself included for technical reasons) is actually going to DO anything to address the broader concerns about comprehensiveness and so on, but rather just complain about them, I think a revert to FA version would be a reasonable place to start. Telecom has guaranteed (once again!!) that someone will be here to install my aDSL connection by Feb. 6. I can do nothing in the meantime, at any rate. Disappointing though: I though it would have been miraculously transformed into something resembling THE DEFINITIVE ARTICLE on philosophy of mind by this time.

Come one now: millions of people out there and infinite time to work, and yet there are not one or two Jerry Fodors willing to volunteer a bit of time? Anyway, let's be perfectly blunt: if Kschutte, for example, wants to, and is capable of, actually addressing the deficiencies he's pointed out, by himself, in the space of a few weeks of review, then so much the better. If not, then no one else will. May as well revert and wait for me to take a stab at it later. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I live for the day when the wikipedia becomes a more prestigious place to publish than the Journal of Philosophy.  :) That said, Nathan Salmon, Galen Strawson, David Chalmers, and Max Velmans have each stopped by for a bit of wikiediting (or, in Chalmers' case, some talk page contributions), so we can be optimistic. As to whether I'm capable of handling the very defencies I observed, I highly doubt it. My mental health is presently imperiled. KSchutte 20:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Touchè (or is it touché?). I'm glad to know that some of these outstanding American philos have actually found the time to look in and contribute, even if only to correct technical blunders or to give advice. "My mental health is presently imperiled"....In my experience, that's usually a (positive) sign that you're either making some genuine progress toward a significant breakthrough in your studies or research or whatever or a (negative) sign that you've just about had it with the nature of existence and the "benign indifference of the universe". Often too, these two signs are manifestations of the same thing. Anyway, no offense was intended by "capable of". I should have written "has the substantial time and resources, patience, willingness to volunteer, etc..". That was all I meant. Right now,I have enough time and energy, but I don't have a decent and stable Internet connection!! The latter problem will be resolved this week, though. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:07, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Francesco, are you quoting Camus on a Featured article review? We have policies outlawing that sort of thing. Marskell 14:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I understand and repent of this unpardonable trangession. It was way over the line: I violated WP:NCAMUS, WP:NEXISTENT and WP:NQUOTEDEPRESSINGAUTHORS, all at the same time. And just think, I was even tempted to quote Malroux or Celine!! 0-;--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:00, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are verifiability (1c), and comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell 11:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 19:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, and keep working on it. KSchutte 22:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
• Conditional Keep — article cound stand for a copy-edit. I see a lot of misplaced formality. For example:

"The answer of the behaviorist is that mental states do not actually exist - they are just descriptions of behavior, and/or dispositions thereto, made by external third parties in order to explain and predict others' behavior."

I also see some questions asked; shouldn't they be rephrased to statements? A few other issues, such as a problem with listing technique, and a few redundnaices (though these may be needed for precision). — Deckiller 04:41, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm...thereto is pretty bad. I'll take a run through it myself. For anything I don't catch, I'll try to find someone with more professional editing experience to take a look.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:13, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• Nice work so far; prose is almost passable in my opinion. It's a very solid article all around. — Deckiller 10:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep --Davidlud 06:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.