Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy/Before January 2008

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  1. Before Dec 2004
  2. Before Sep 2005
  3. Before Dec 2005
  4. Before Apr 2006
  5. Before Aug 2006
  6. Before Sept 2006
  7. Before May 2007


Contents

[edit] Lack (manque)

Would somebody please look at Lack (manque)? I have absolutely no idea what it means. Corvus cornix 04:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry, no one understands Lacan! Seriously, though, the page is at least accurate, even if not of the highest quality. It definitely needs to be fleshed out and brought down to a level where it can be read by an average reader. Postmodern Beatnik 13:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Philosophical Aspects of Privacy

Question. Which school of philisophical thought would hold closest to the idea that individual privacy is valued above all other societal needs?--Dr who1975 17:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

there is no school in philosophy that holds that position, nor could there be, if one thinks about it a while, and one holds that our lifeworld must be logically consistent. --Buridan 03:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
You misunderstand... I asked "Which school of philisophical thought would hold closest to the idea" I already knew the notion on its own is not tenable as a philispohical school. So which one comes closest?--Dr who1975 06:42, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
ahh, then republicanism as described by machiavelli, montaigne, and pettit, as liberty in their models implies a privacy. --Buridan 10:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] need help with POV article

Please have a look at formal axiology. It's written like an advert for one person, who I suspect is not the only person working in the field. Unfortunately I don't know anything about this topic nor where to begin. Anyone familiar, please have a go at bringing in neutrality. ··coelacan 08:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

{sigh} The "article" reads more like an essay ("concluding remarks," for example), but I suspect we'll have a lot of trouble finding an expert to write anything NPOV on the subject. The reason is that formal axiology is not taken very seriously by anyone other than its proponents, who have a distinct tendency to be a bit... overenthusiastic about it. So we're likely to have only people who don't know or who care too much editing the article. This is unfortunate, since it strikes me as a topic that could truly benefit from a strong Wikipedia article. I can put it on my list, but it'll have to go at the bottom. Here's hoping someone else decides to put in the work faster than I can. Postmodern Beatnik 19:47, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
nominated it for deletion. it strikes me as a topic that is fundamentally about relabeling someone else's conceptions in terms of axiologies then arguing they can be formalized. i'd call it problematic.--Buridan 21:36, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Practicalism

Hello,

as part of the Notability wikiproject, I'm in need of an expert in philosophy for deciding whether Practicalism is notable for Wikipedia. If someone could spare some time to have a look at the article, please add your comments to its talk page. Thank you! --B. Wolterding 12:19, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WTF

So, I guess somebody decided to delete List of living philosophers and academics of philosophy. There goes many months of my work and a somewhat valuable resource for new philosophers. I hate the policies of the 'pedia. KSchutte 02:16, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted via WP:PROD. I will interpret this statement as a request by you to undelete it, and will do so promptly. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 02:33, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Joseph Priestley

I am attempting to write the Joseph Priestley biography article right now; he was a dissenting theologian, scientist, educator, political writer and theorist (in a loose sense) in eighteenth-century Britain. Currently, I have tried to mix in a discussion of his works with his life. Because he wrote on so many different topics, it would be helpful to have some editors familiar with the disciplines he wrote in help me out a bit (I am an English person myself); his discussions of theology and science often involve the major philosophical topics of the century. Anyone familiar with Priestley or with the 17th-18th centuries more generally would be of great help. I think that the reason that there is so little scholarship on him compared to other figures of his circle is because he worked in so many different fields. No one wants to try and tackle all of that! (The page is ridiculously long - 100kb (perhaps from pictures) - the headings should guide any potential helper, though; it is also not it pristine shape - there are still poorly worded sentences - I'm just trying to get the basics of the article set up, then I will go back over the language with a fine-toothed comb.) I will, of course, be willing to help out anyone who helps me in whatever way they see fit. Awadewit | talk 20:49, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of philosophers

Interested parties are encouraged to participate in the deletion debate for List of living philosophers and academics of philosophy. KSchutte 03:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

can't we just get rid of the lists and use categories? --Buridan 21:38, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
If you think categories are as useful, you're welcome to say as much on that page. KSchutte 07:11, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
no, that is a debate for here, not there. that is an afd debate, and the category argument i think is moot in those terms. I think you've done good work getting things together in lists, but i'm not convinced that lists end up as anything other than pov tarpits. afd is also not a place for policy debates.--Buridan 13:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I find the categories to be quite hellish to maintain. Thus, I avoid having anything to do with them (most of the time). - KSchutte 02:42, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD for Fragmentalism

Hi there, this article is being proposed for deletion, is this a real philosophical position described in a badly-sourced article, or is it original research? Thanks for any feedback. TimVickers 15:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About philosophic theory charts

Hi, I looked at this image from the polish wikipedia about Kant's Transcendental idealism, I was thinking in making many of this for philosophical ideas and its author, hope it makes reading here more easy.--Andersmusician $ 15:23, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I think these kinds of charts are very helpful for all levels of readers, and I would note that they are used in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Thanks for taking up this project! Postmodern Beatnik 13:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Should Read Like Encyclopedia Entry

Hi, I first want to thank you for your efforts. I am a philosophy novice, and I think this is great. I am having a real problem with a few of the articles though, and I was hoping you would keep the following in mind:

A few articles are getting very tough to read by the layman. It is supposed to be an encyclopedia; not one man's unreadable treatise of the history of all thought on one minute sub-field of philosophy. Hit the points, but in plainer English. Here is just one of scores of examples from the text on causality: "the asymmetry of the causal relation is unrelated to the asymmetry of any mode of implication that contraposes."

I understand that causation is not a simple concept, but even so an "encyclopedia" entry should be readable and understandable by an intelligent, educated person without philosophical expertise or training. This is also not meant to be a forum for philosophers to debate the subtler points of causality theory to the nth degree. I would love to learn the high points about causality in a way that I can comprehend, but I can't here (although I am a well-read PhD student in a "hard" science at a top-ten university - albeit not well-read in philosophy, causality, or logic, but I should certainly be qualified to understand an encyclopedia).

(One solution to still keep the depth is to drill down with more subtle concepts in links. Check out something like the sections on finance or financial economics; these are huge complicated fields, but the layman can read and read, first getting the overview and then getting more depth as requested. I learned a lot there.)

Again, thanks for your writing. It is very interesting stuff. Just please don't go overboard on complexity and assumed knowledge. Yes, I understand there is a balance here between too complicated and too simple. But even directly compared to other complicated wiki topics (math, physics, etc) the philosophy articles are still the most intractible. Thanks. user:Artman772000 08:17, 28 June 2007 (UTC)artman772000

Oh, I am NOT talking about the free will page or philosophy main page. Those are great.
Actually as an analog example against your argument would be that the article about General relativity is written for physicists, however you are right, there's something we need to do abot it --Andersmusician VOTE 16:50, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Yea, I did make some sweeping generalizations about the topics. And, althouth relativity has a lot of unknown terms, they are very well linked or else not used. And I am prolly biased by the fact that I know so much more about physics and relativiy than about philosophy. But, as you said, my general point about the layman still stands. Thanks. Artman772000 19:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)artman772000

For the record, the relevant style guideline is Wikipedia:Explain jargon. While in some topics (e.g. Arcane mathematics or medical topics), this can be difficult to accomplish, it should be reasonably doable in philosophy articles. Circeus 08:02, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Argument from queerness

Could someone please give some immediate attention to this? The article is so jargonistic it's close to gibberish, and reeks of original research to me. Circeus 08:02, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

hmm these articles can be a little tough for me, we need experts on philosophical subjects. --Andersmusician VOTE 02:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Did someone call for a metaethicist? The information in the article is pretty accurate as is, but I've given the entry top priority on my "to do" list. I should get to it within the week. Postmodern Beatnik 17:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I've always figured that fallacy articles should be reasonably understandable for laymen, but this one is Greek to me. Circeus 21:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
It's not a fallacy article. I'm not sure why the fallacy template was included, and I have removed it. Postmodern Beatnik 16:10, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
It's in the same format as many "argument from" fallacy articles, and it's so uttely incomprehensible the confusion is not surprising. Circeus 19:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I guess you're right. Anyway, I do have a draft in progress. It should be done shortly. Postmodern Beatnik 13:45, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Policy on "Works" Section?

Based on the entries for Daniel Dennett, Robert Nozick, and Charles Taylor, it seems that the "Works" section for philosophers focuses exclusively on books, and not articles. Is this policy, or did this happen because it's just easier to focus on books than it is to track down articles? After all, Dennett's "Quining Qualia" is probably just as "major" a work as some of his books when we look at citation frequency and impact on the debate. Postmodern Beatnik 18:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm still curious as to whether or not anyone has an answer to this question. Postmodern Beatnik 15:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Articles tend to be much harder to track down, particularly for writers several hundred years old. That's presumably the main reason that books are listed almost exclusively. Also, I would guess, most articles are later collected into books, which by definition then include the articles. I would guess the only regular exceptions to this are comparatively recent works, and generally there won't be so much attention paid to these before they get published in book in either the original or revised form that they can be generally not included. However, I doubt very seriously if that is an official policy, just the way things tend to work most easily and effectively in general. John Carter 19:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
There are philosophers who have articles listed among their works, and there are articles about articles. I don't see any precedent, just a tendency to list books. Anarchia 22:00, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contextualism category?

Hey All, Could someone look at the use of [[Category:Contextualism]]? it seems to me to be very broadly applied, including Hypertext, World Wide Web, Dynamical system, Nature versus nurture and David Bohm to mention a few (IMVHO) questionable cases. (note I've made a similar query to the category's creator here. Pete.Hurd 18:30, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of philosophy component types

I found this page while tidying 'Category:philosophy', and can see no useful purpose for it. I suggest that it be deleted. Anarchia 09:47, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hold come what may and Hold more stubbornly at least

As above, I found these pages while tidying 'Category:Philosophy'. Is there any support for shifting the material into the Quine page, and altering the wording on the few pages that link to these ones to briefly explain the ideas? It seems highly unlikely that any decent encyclopedia would have entires with these headings, and as unlikely that anyone reading the few pages that link to these would bother to follow up the links. Anarchia 05:45, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Not sure a merge would work - the content is quite specific. Perhaps put them up for deletion? Banno 22:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Galileo Galilei FAR

Galileo Galilei has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:39, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] about jargonistic articles

Template:Technical Maybe we should tag them with {{Technical}}, for managing our workload on them --Andersmusician VOTE 02:53, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cosmosophy prodded

User:Banno on July 12 2007 WP:PRODed cosmosophy. 132.205.44.5 18:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Speculative reason

Any objection to me renaming this 'theoretical reason', and a redirect being made for 'speculative reason' to the renamed page? (I don't know how to do redirects, sorry). And, yes, the page is diabololical. Anarchia 22:00, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hylomorphism

I made some large-scale additions to the hylomorphism article. If anyone would like to look it over, please do so. (The only part I didn't touch was the latter half of the "Change" section, which I didn't understand. I personally think that part, at least as it's currently worded, isn't helpful to the average reader, but I refrained from removing it: whoever put it there must have had a reason.) --Phatius McBluff 22:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I took a second look, and I understand what the second half of the "Change" section is saying. But it could definitely use some rewording, especially for those who don't know what "bundle theory" is. --Phatius McBluff 22:53, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Philosophy of travel

I have tagged this AfD. Anarchia 11:25, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] paste from article - should be in talk

(I'm placing this here temporarily for visibility)

The importance rating for many of the articles is either obviously misjudged or absent in many cases; something I would like to remedy. I have been reclassifying articles and rating the unclassified articles according to a fairly broad schema.

  • Mid importance: Philosophers, treatises of reasonable acclaim, subbranches, etc. (R.M. Hare, The Meno, Buridan's ass)
  • Low importance: Specialized, lesser known topics

The aim is to rate with respect to the average Wikipedia reader, not specialists- ie Plato would be known by almost all, whereas Wittgenstein would not.

I'd welcome any comments on or help with this endeavor. If you want to or drop a note on my talk page, feel free. Thanks,

The Rhymesmith 07:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Go to:[1] for the criteria. And wouldn't this be better on the talk page? Anarchia 09:24, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I've seen the criteria. I'm just interpreting them, considering how some of the previous interpretations were somewhat odd. I wasn't too sure where to put this, so I figured I'd leave it here for 24 hours, then move it.

The Rhymesmith 20:55, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD for Agnus Serra

Agnus Serra, who is tagged for your project, is currently at AfD. Espresso Addict 11:27, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About PHILOtheory charts (again)

Here's a copy of Cezary M. Kruk (pl:user:W1k0) that he left at my commons talkpage:

[edit] A few doubts

The transcendental idealism chart is nearly finished. I'm not sure of translations of four Kantian concepts:

  • What creates some ideas, for example of God, soul etc. (my translation of Polish term “rozum teoretyczny” is “theoretical reason”)
  • What use time and space to create experience (my translation of Polish term “zmysły” is “senses”)
  • What uses categories to create concepts (my translation of Polish term “rozsądek” is “sense” or “reason” -- I'm not sure which one is better)
  • What creates practical reason, for example the idea of categorical imperative (my translation of Polish term “postulaty” is “postulates”)

Maybe your knowledge of English language or Kantian philosophy is better than mine. If you could help me (strengthen me in my translations or correct them) I'll be very grateful. Use my Polish home page to answer. pl:User:W1k0

Hope you check correct translation of the Transcendental Idealism chart, thanks--Andersmusician VOTE 22:01, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Math v Phil over Logic

Greetings folks,

Over the past few months, I have been working many of the Logic articles. In doing so, I managed to upstart the WikiProject Logic, and the Logic Portal. I have come to realize that the entire Logic component of the Wikipedia is very "math"-centric, and very "philosophy"-deficient. For instance, the article about theorem contained all the mathematical aspects, but the logical definition (the more broad, and fundamental definition) was completely absent. Furthermore, the very organized WikiProject Math has its people monitoring those articles like academic mother ... hens (I was going to say something else). I did manage to get the logical aspect of theorem into the article, but it was only begrudgingly so. Several of these people are of the opinion that "mathematical logic" isn't "logic." Also, the opinion of not wanting anything to do with philosophy, or not understanding the connection with philosophy is prevalent. This has lead to some conflict in organizing the project. There are stubs for "mathematical logic" and just "logic." The latter may be interpreted as "philosophical logic" or as "non-mathematical logic" or more appropriately "logic the math people don't care about."

I always used to think of activism on the wikipedia as somewhat distasteful. However, I am now living thoroughly within the pragmatic realities of this place now; so here it is. I don't think npov tags are going to work in this phil v. math political environment. I would like to request a renewed attention to the logic articles by philosophers, and logicians from the philosophical perspective. Please join with WikiProject Logic, and keep in touch. I had to struggle on theorem, maybe I can have some help by time I get up the strength for lemma (which, after all, is just a theorem not dignified enough to be called a theorem) and others...

Be well, Gregbard 13:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Absolute truth

Absolute truth still has a talk page even though it has been merged with Universality. Is this what usually happens? Anarchia 04:31, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Khalufid's Fork

A {{prod}} template has been added to the article Khalufid's Fork, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice explains why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you endorse deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please tag it with {{db-author}}. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:36, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jean Piaget in project

Hi, I've added Jean Piaget in this project without any rates. Cheers Chrisdel 12:13, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Call for speedy deletion Philosophical Explanation

There are two pages on Nozick's book, Philosophical Explanations both started by User:Rats. They are Philosophical Explanations, which I just changed from 'Philosophical explanations', and Philosophical Explanation. The latter has a note on the talk page by Rats saying that it should be deleted. Anarchia 05:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help with assessing importance of phil articles

I am having problems interpreting the importance assessment criteria. I have had one discussion about whether a book on phil of education should be high, mid or low importance, and have ended up revising some of my own ratings because the criteria descriptions seem to conflict. I have written more on the assessment talk page, but I suspect few people read this Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy/Assessment. Help would be appreciated. I am steadily working my way through the articles and would prefer to just get it right the first time! Anarchia 06:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger of Axiomatic system and Formal system ??

At the moment there is a proposal to merge the articles Axiomatic system and Formal system, which I don't think is a good idea. Could any of you take a look at this discussion at the Talk:Formal system and give your point of view on this subject. Thanks - Mdd 19:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your attention. This discussion is closed and the merger is off. - Mdd 12:28, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alethiology

Is this suitable for wikipedia or should it be in Wiktionary? It needs a few changes - info about epistemology, for e.g. - but, I am not sure if the page is worth having. Anarchia 00:37, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Why not both? You can't fit much of a summary into a Wiktionary entry. — xDanielxTalk 07:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Not worth having. Anyone interested in alethiology would be better advised to go to the "truth" page. Perhaps a redirect from Alethiology to Truth? There should be a wiktionary entry for "alethiology", though, since other dictionaries have them. (Iolasov 22:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Proposed merge of 'Brain in a vat' and 'Evil genius'

A merge of Brain in a vat and Evil genius has been proposed. Anarchia 08:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I removed the tags since the AfD proposal was sparse and inconclusive, and none of the AfD participants (who were most likely unacquainted with the topics) went through with the merge or voiced the proposal on either talk page. I don't think these articles should be merged given the fundamental differences, but if others disagree please direct the proposal to one of the talk pages. — xDanielxTalk 07:34, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Category names that do not correspond to general academic uses

There is a category named "Philosophers of Metaphysics"!! WTF? I have never heard this term used anywhere, in any context, in any of my philosophical studies. Those who are more expert than myself (i.e. professors and PhDs) may certainly correct me if I'm wrong, but the general term is "metaphysicians". It also sounds much more common-sensical and appropriate to the grammatical ear. P of M gives me the willies, in other words. But this may be subjective. Anyway, not that big a deal, but I suggest deletion of cat and replacement with "metaphysicians. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

If google numbers have any value here: c. 220,000 for Metaphysicians and 38,000 for exact term "philosophers of metaphysics". --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
"Metaphysicians" is the correct term. The recent trend of naming new areas of philosophy by "philosophy of..." comes well after metaphysics got its name. - Atfyfe 19:23, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Second that. I'm not a PhD holder, but I don't think I've ever heard someone described as a "philosopher of metaphysics." — xDanielxTalk 04:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I've always thought that it should by "metaphysicists" since "metaphysics" is related to "physics," but I've never heard "philosopher of metaphysics" either. Sadly, the correct term is "metaphysician." Postmodern Beatnik 21:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 'Child' projects of WikiProject:philosophy

Is there a general consensus that it is worth having numerous offshoot projects of Wikiproject philosophy? I could sort of understand having an 'ethics' or 'moral philosophy' group and a 'logic' group, and History and Philosophy of Science overlaps, but needs a separate group. There are, after all, people seriously involved in these areas who do not consider themselves to be philosophers. I can even handle the extra boxes on the talk page - if they are the same colour and nested, they stop looking like an attempt to mimic highway billboards. However, metaphysics and epistemology are surely the core of philosophy. Why would you need separate projects for them? If you do have separate projects, then are there now going to be separate boxes (containing class and impt?) for philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, logic and every other branch of philosophy on, for example, Plato's talk page? Keeping separate projects running also seems like a huge waste of time and resources. Why not focus on the artivcles rather than endless categorising and classifying? Anarchia 22:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

a good point. It is far easier to set up a project than to keep it running, and much, much harder to actualy write stuff. I think it is similar to the "lists" phenomena, where editors produce endless and pointless lists, then argue about who or what should be included. Again, this is much simpler than doing real research and writing. Banno 00:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Categorization helps in the sense like this Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Philosophy. But at start what i would suggest is making only top-importance and high-importance articles categorised, and mid and low are left, and focus on top level articles. Mid and low, only people interested in specific topic may do all the work. Lara_bran 04:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry - I don't understand.Anarchia 06:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
It is start of the project. So what we can do is, first give importance rating only to high and top importance articles and tidy only those articles. But anyone(including me and you) will have interest in some perticular low importance articles, let them improve those articles. But as a project we focus only on top level articles of respective branches. This tidying is important, which includes naviagation templates etc., and will simplify future work. Later we sort even mid and low level articles, after we tidy main article contents. Lara_bran 14:44, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I am finding that working on the discussion side of wp is much easier than research. I have made some researched contributions as well, but I am not an academic. I'm working off of my notes and my own library. So my proper role here is not hardcore reasearch necessarily. I certainly don't pertend you are not correct. Good articles are hard work. My hat's off to all of you.
After reading your comments, I folded some of the features of the individual projects into the philosophy project (membership, deletion sorting, stubs, etc.) We can fold it up even more if that's what people would like. Perhaps the aesthetics, and moral phil people would agree to fold their membership into wp:phil also. (I don't think they would go for that at all in logic). I'm certainly open to moving the nav bar lower, or changing colors, etc. Perhaps we can still place the whole thing as a subdirectory of wp:phil. I'm open to working on anything along those lines.
There is a proliferation of different portals and projects. I was thinking in the long term that there would eventually be ones for each area. From the looks of some of them (particular musical groups?) there is plenty of room. There were a few things going on with the logic project that told me it would be a good idea to set these up. In that area, many of them do not see what they do as anything to do with philosophy. I wanted to bring all of these areas together early. I wanted to make navigating for philosophy people as easy and accessible to those areas as possible. I was also concerned that some new agers would sculpt their own metaphysics portal, etc.
This configuration will result in a propaganda effect. Membership in wp:phil will increase due to people just interested in one or the other area. It will also strengthen the wp:phil by connecting those areas. The noticeboard is a collection of transclusions from each of the projects. I think we can take advantage of that feature in other areas. The various philosophy projects need not all employ an assessment program.
Gregbard 06:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mircea Eliade

I recently added a new section to the Mircea Eliade article, dealing with Eliade's philosophy of religion. See the section here. (Eliade was a historian of religions.) So far, I haven't gotten much feedback. I realize that most people probably don't know much about Eliade, but any feedback (on the Eliade article's talk page) would be appreciated.

I know this is probably more of a request for the religion project's page than for this one. (I left a request over there too.) However, there's been a long-standing "WP Philosophy" tag on the Eliade article's talk page, so I thought some people over here might be interested in helping.

[edit] Political choice

I am probably missing something, but does this page make any sense? The title seems a plausible one for a page. It isn;t sutable for Afd is it? Anarchia 11:41, 17 August 2007 (UTC) looks like original research. afd it--Buridan 12:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion for OR. Banno 13:58, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Banner proposal

This is a proposal to upgrade the project banner to include fields. I have a working prototype at {{WikiProject Philosophy}}. This will allow more assessment abilities at the subproject level. Gregbard 14:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a test of a new banner that assignes articles to one or more task forces. Comments? Gregbard 14:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
If you are trying to shorten template you can do it like this: {{Philosophy|small=yes}} Lara_bran 07:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It was working so well, I went ahead and upgraded it.Gregbard 01:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for automatic banner tagging

This is a proposal to request that a bot automatically tag all articles in designated categories with the {{philosophy}} banner. The banner is designed so the each article may be designated as a part of one or more of 16 fields with a corresponding field:

Core areas:

Major fields:

Major traditions:

Periods:

The proposal is to go to each of the task force pages and designate a set of categories for which the bot will tag all of its articles. It is recommended since the bot only tags whole categories, that the designated categories be substantially related to the field.Gregbard 01:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

You are creating and deleting so many pages that, i will come after everything is settled. Lara_bran 08:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

[edit] Tagging

Shall we or shant we?

[edit] Time frame

How long shall we take to finalize the designation of these categories?

[edit] Notice

Will it be necessary to tag the talk page of each category so as to notify the community of the bot tagging?

[edit] Fields

Shall we designate other fields such as Eastern, Mysticism, Alternative, New Age, Integral thought, Books (or literature), or any others? Remove any?

Gah! I will not be much help with these decisions. I am afraid I would prefer a minimalist approach. I assume that as this is for wiki workers rather than readers, there is no need for a books or literature field, as people are likely to want to work on things in their field rather than 'books', and the other 'fields' will tell them what they need to know. I have similar thoughts about the 'philosopher' field - won't people be interested in people in their field? And, likewise for 'contemporary' - okay, people specialise in Medieval philosophy, for example, but by the time you get to the present, people are focussing on branches of philosophy, not the history of now. I am also not sure why a 'Marx' field is needed, why not include these articles under pol phil? 'Eastern' might be the worng name, but something for people who are not continental or analytic philosophers might be good. These people definitely are active in wikipedia - but don't seem to belong to wikiproject philosophy. Anarchia 09:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I think this bot proposal is completely unnecessary and likely a waste of time and promotion of bureaucracy... just let things be until there is a real problem please. --Buridan 13:06, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I have a general question. Maybe I'm just not seeing something here, but what exactly is this tagging supposed to [i]do[/i]? Who does it help? What does it organize? What is the point? Given that someone is going to have to recognize that an article belongs to a certain category/task force to begin with before the bot can go around tagging things, why not just have that person add it to the task force? But again, maybe I'm totally missing something here. It wouldn't be the first time. Postmodern Beatnik 15:09, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The benefit of tagging, is that we can assess the quality and importance of articles using the data that a bot collects from tagged articles every three days. The assessment page has all the data on philosophy. You can see that there is almost no data broken down into task forces. That is because there are no tags for task forces yet. It could be thousands. That's why I'd like to get a bot to automatically tag all of the articles in the categories listed under scope on the task force pages. Then the collection in each task force will be easily seen. Gregbard 22:50, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Could we just pare them down a little? Ethics, politics and social could even be put together as well... the pol phil in our dept insists you can't do pol phil or social without doing ethics... Anarchia 23:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
@Gregbard - Thanks for the explanation, both here and on my talk page. Sometimes it's difficult to tell what is useful to the project and what is just habitual bureaucracy.
@Anarchia - While ethics, political philosophy, and social philosophy (and aesthetics, while we're at it) are all subcategories of value theory, I'm not sure that they should all be lumped into one category. Yes, you need to have a background in ethics to understand the fundamental building blocks of Rawls' theory of justice and the various objections to it, but you need to have an understanding of postmodernism to understand some of the basic ideas in Habermas' philosophy. That doesn't justify putting them in the same category, however. It seems to me that we just have different categories that have strong connections. Thus is philosophy. Then again, this is from a theoretical stand point. What works best for the project may be totally different. Postmodern Beatnik 04:52, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm wondering exactly what people think is gained or lost by having more or less fields. I just don't think there is any downside to more fields at all. My goal is covering everything. In fact creating an "alternative" field might solve our problem with 'true believers', and 'new agers' etc. They can feel included and the academics can feel reassured of some distance also. It reminds me of the "Free Speech Area" on the Chico State campus: it's not next to the administration building because they don't want to hear it. They put it where it is for a reason. Gregbard 12:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
My reasons are selfish. I found the old system very usable - and made good use of it for tagging, categorising and evaluating articles. I felt like I could do a lot quickly and easily. I hate going to the assessment page now because of the large number of boxes, I can't see many of them on my screen at one time and end up having to hunt for the one I want. I.e. it just takes me longer to find what I want and I find all the boxes unpleasant to look at and search through. As in the first sentence - selfish reasons only. No big deal. Anarchia 21:29, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Incorporating all those fields is for the purpose of preventing a proliferation of banners under many fields. So the collection on the assessment page is just one page. There will be people adding content who categorize it under only one category. By having all these fields we greatly increase our chance of capturing it within the project. Then we may go through and add the additional fields later. This will produce a banner almost the same size as without, but we will have that data. The whole thing is really quite efficient, and one of the best schemes in all the wikiprojects. In most cases the tagging will merely consist of adding the field=yes to an already existing banner which is a nominal change. Perhaps we should do it by hand? Perhaps we should just let the assessment data languish? My goodness, I'm excited to get all the data. At some point we will be able to get a list of most bluelinked articles in each section, redlinks, etc. These will be valuable tools in the future. Please take a look at those categories on each "task force" page. Be well, Gregbard 01:36, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I have placed a notice on the talk pages of all the categories delineated under metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics. This is listed on the pages of each of the task force pages and transcluded onto one page for the whole project. I've already heard from most of the key players in this area, and they are either supportive or ambivalent about it. I will give the discussion some more time to develop, but I am planning on forwarding a request to User:SatyrBot on Monday 10 Sept (after noon UTC) to tag just those four areas, and see how things go. These categories will have all of their pages tagged with the {{philosophy|field=yes}} banner. Please take a look to see especially if any categories are missing. However, keep in mind that they are pared down so as to only include categories in which almost all of the articles belong under WP:PHILO. This is kind of a big opportunity that will pass, so let's make the most of it. Gregbard 12:54, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I have placed the request. At some point, a bot will tag all of the articles in these categories with the Philosophy banner, which now includes the information on fields. The bot is only doing ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, and metaphysics for now. If things go smoothly, we will do the rest later. Be well. Gregbard 14:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Advice needed Category:Metaphysics, Ascended Master and related pages, and Francis Bacon importance rating

I seem to have gotten myself into two intractable disagreements with User:Aburesz

  1. About what fits into Cat:metaphysics. The discussion is at the bottom of the ascended master talk page, and I have put an RfC on it.
  2. About whether Francis Bacon is of high importance to philosophy.

Problem is I have not been involved in an intractable Wikipedia dispute before. Do I just figure it doesn't really matter what is in the category and what the importance rating is? (The thought makes me feel a bit like I have been wasting my time trying to tidy them up these past weeks... nothing like invested energy to make you care about something, no matter how unimportant it is in the grand scheme of things!) Do I ask for mediation or something like that? I have no idea whether that is appropriate in cases like this. This whole thing seems a bit ridiculous. Anarchia 20:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

All of your worries can be alleviated if we show a little team work. In the long term, the academic view can win if we stick together. The importance rating isn't very important in itself, unless there's a pattern across a bunch of pages. Hey, there is an interpretation under which Bacon was highly important to philosophy. I think if it's out of place we will figure it out eventually. Gregbard 02:36, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
I would certainly argue that Bacon is of high importance. While Descartes may have been the first "big name" of the New Science/mechanical philosophy, Bacon is often considered to be the school's founder/originator. Any thorough study of the British Empiricists needs to start with him, and you can't really understand Locke (and thus Berkeley and Hume) without understanding Bacon. Plus, he invented a little known process called "the scientific method." That might be important. ;) Postmodern Beatnik 04:45, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Happy to go with the majority. Still disagree. Few philosophy degrees include more than a passing mention of Bacon. And, I just plain disagree with you about needing to understand Bacon to understand either scientific method or empiricism - do a quick chec on courses on empiricism on the net and you will see what I mean. Yes, Bacon is undoubtedly important for History of science, and even somewhat important for phil of sci - although I wil never include him in any phil of sci course I teach - too much to get through in too little time, but as far as phil in general is concerned, as I say, I disagree. Looks like I am definitely on the out on that one though!Anarchia 06:00, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
{ahem} Not to get snooty, but try looking at courses taught by schools that excel in British Empiricism. I suspect you'll find Bacon there (though syllabi can be misleading). And just to clarify, I don't think you need to learn about Bacon to understand the scientific method. I was just mentioning it by way of suggesting how important he is historically. I stand firm on the point about Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, however. Perhaps you do not need to understand Bacon to understand Empiricism in a "good enough" way, but to really understand the issues and motivations behind later Brits, you're going to need to understand how it all started. You may be able to understand contractualism without reading Hobbes, but you won't really get it (or why later contractualists felt compelled to address some rather odd issues) unless you read his version (as well as the criticisms of contractualism by Hume--but now I'm just demanding perfection). Postmodern Beatnik 03:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Professional ethics

More advice needed, I am afraid. Cat:Prof ethics has a very nice introduction to professional ethics above the linked in pages. At the moment Professional ethics redirects to Code of conduct (or something like that), which is related, but not quite the same. Is it okay for me to cut and paste the info in cat: prof eth, and use it to start a new article prof ethics? I know that doing so will lose the page history, but that is really just one edit, and the person who created it does not seem to have edited wikipedia for a year... Anarchia 06:00, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

be bold--Buridan 14:24, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
yes, go ahead - Professional ethics and Code of conduct are distinct. Banno 08:36, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks - done! Anarchia 10:53, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Ludwig Wittgenstein

Category:Ludwig Wittgenstein was created as a clearly superior replacement for Category:Wittgenstein following the latter's nomination for deletion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 September 5#Category:Wittgenstein. Should we have an epynomous category in this case? Please chime in at the CfD discussion. GRBerry 14:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Could everyone chime in on the Wittgenstein issue? I have proposed that the soft prohibition on eponymous categories specifically make an exception for philosophers. Very often a survey class is a 'philosopher of the week' type of class. The policy change proposal is being discussed at :

Wikipedia_talk:Overcategorization#Rewrite_of_eponymous_category_bit. The Wittgenstein category discussion is at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_September_6#Category:Ludwig_Wittgenstein Gregbard 23:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

And now the discussion has moved to :

Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_September_6#Category:Ludwig_Wittgenstein it is going to be a war about categories from now on unless we change the policy Gregbard 02:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examined Life?

Hmmmm. "The unexamined life" --one of the most famous philosophical phrases of all time-- comes up with scanty results on WP. Examined Life links to a book by Robert Nozick. Seems a shame to neglect this. Any takers? --Dylanfly 17:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I doubt anyone would search for such an article. (You have already proved that wrong!) And I susoect that it would be mostly OR. BUt, I could be worng. What were youthinking would go in it? Anarchia 21:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Entscheidungsproblem

The WikiProject Philosophy template on this article appears twice, with different ratings. I don't find a way to fix this.

Also, I think assigning this important topic "low" priority is a bad mistake. Rick Norwood 14:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a result of the previous arrangement of multiple banners. The current proposal is to unite all of these under one banner with an option for fields. The reason there may be two is that one is a transclusion from one of the formerly specialized field banners, the other is one that was placed there as part of the original philosophy banner. If you see these feel free to delete the specialized one ("moral", "logic2", "metaphysics") There shouldn't be to many out there. I'll take care of them sooner or later. Gregbard 14:50, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Now, how should I bring up the subject of the "low" importance flag? Rick Norwood 15:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I would agree it's not "low", but only perhaps "mid." You should feel free to change or add those. If it's a big change leave a comment. For any big changes, a bot will make a list for people to review at the bottom of the assessment page. Gregbard 15:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Advice (opinion)

Hi guys, I have been being bolder, I promise - I will probably be bold to the point of obnoxious after another year or so! However, I do want advice on this one. Is it worth having as an article in wikipedia? If so, I will recategorise to 'sources of knowledge'. Anarchia 22:52, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

This question cuts across the wikipedia. I'm a cab driver, so who am I to say? Well, there are inclusionists and deletionists of all kinds here. I am of the position that it is more intellectual to be inclusionist. This article already has several contributors. I think it should stay but then, I am very inclusionist. The topic doesn't necessarily seem to fit in an academic encyclopedia vision, but inevitably this topic will improve to an academic level gradually (more gradually for some articles than others.) I have the same view for the unexamined life. I think it would be wonderful if everywhere people use the phrase "unexamined life" it linked to that entry in the wp. Gregbard 02:26, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why are there commercials on the bottom of the Entelechy page?

there are some www adresses referring to a commercial company.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.0.84.68 (talk) 05:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Linkspam removed. Banno 08:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need some backup

I am planning on amending the eponymous category guideline so as to include:

"Persons who are often studied in academia as individuals, such as philosophers, and who may have a body of terminology, or works associated with them such as Category:Aristotle, Category:Søren Kierkegaard or Category:Martin Heidegger are also appropriate candidates for expansion into categories."

This will meet strong opposition from an editor named otto. If I could get some input as to the language, and some support when the time comes, we will avoid some battles later. (Although I am quite proud of WP:PHILO for being the prevailing view on the Wittgenstein issue. Way to go team.)

Be well, Greg Bard 01:32, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Bertrand Russell

This category is only in one category itself, and that one is a mistake - Category:Analytic philosophers, which is a biographical category, sub-cats of which should only contain biographies. Please find some appropriate other categories & then remove the one it is now in. Johnbod 20:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you claiming that Russell was not an analytic philosopher, or that he is was not human? Banno 21:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I worry about you people sometimes. I am claiming that Definite description is not an analytic philosopher. Johnbod 21:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
In that you are quite correct. But I see no reason why the cat for Russell should not contain his major works. On the discussion page at category:Philosophy I have made a suggestion. I suggest we move this discussion there. I worry about us people too. Banno 22:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
No, please read (and analyse) what I say above! Johnbod 22:10, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Johnbod, I have read what you say. I'm afraid I have either lost your reasoning, or I should be VERY worried about you. Please tell me you realize that the category relationship is not transitive. The articles in category X (a subcategory of cat Y) are not necessarily members of category Z (of which Y is a sub cat)? This is the case all over WP. Greg Bard 23:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
That is not the case here. All members of all subcats of Category:Analytic philosophers should be biographies (or lists etc of same). This is wading through sludge, I'll go and do it myself. Cat:Russell should be in Cat:Analytic PhilosOPHY, and doubtless others, but not in Category:Analytic philosophers. God knows how you cope with the back covers of Wittgenstein. Johnbod 00:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
If what you are saying is that the Cat:Russell may not belong under Cat:philosophers, while the article:B.Russell does. That makes sense. However, if you are saying that all the members of all the subcategories of cat:analytic philosophers must also all be only philosophers. That makes no sense at all. Greg Bard 00:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I suggest you look at what is actually there. Whereof .... Johnbod 00:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
It's not a transitive relation. For instance, when running through WP:Chicago's categories, you'll find Category:Chicago railroads, which then has the subcat Category:Penn Central Transportation, which then sends you to Category:New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, and suddenly you're in a whole different part of the country. Greg Bard 00:27, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I (and many others more vociferously) would question whether those categories are correctly set up, but for people category trees (and most other sorts) it really is that simple. All people, nothing else. Everywhere. That is one reason why many people hate eponymous categories so much, because those setting them up tend to include the category, as well or instead of the biographical article, in the bio tree. Johnbod 00:36, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
If that is the way it is supposed to be, then there is no end to the work correcting it. People do not assign categories based on the principle:
  • Y is an X, so Y belongs in category X.
They use the principle:
  • Y is related substantially to X, Y belongs in category X.
Good luck on that. Greg Bard 00:43, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually you will find people trees, and many others, are normally fine. With most abstract trees, starting with say Category:History there is not a problem, as everything fits somehow. But categories with more specific titles should follow that all the way down, and normally do, just like Category:Analytic philosophers does now. Johnbod 00:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aesthetics categoriees

Could someone please take a look at the Aesthetics categories and recent changes? Someone other than me. Please update the task force categories as necessary. At some point we have to choose whether art is under aesthetics or vice versa. Greg Bard 04:38, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

That area is one of my areas of ignorance - sorry. Anarchia 09:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Soren Kierkegaard

I'm afraid someone thinks that the only thing that matters about Category:Søren Kierkegaard, is the fact that it is an eponymous category. It no longer has any connection to the top level philosophy category. Greg Bard 05:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Philosopher cats

Let's see if we can nut this out. First off, the conversation has spread out over several talk pages. I suggest that we use this one to bring the various discussions together. If that is a problem, I'm happy to move this stuff elsewhere.

The problem, as I would summarise it, is that there are a number of editors, who have been actively working on Wiki categories who object to the way that the Philosophy project editors have dealt with categories for particular philosophers. The basis appears to be Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Eponymous categories for people.

It is worth pointing out that this is a guideline, not a policy. Guidelines ought to be followed, except when doing so would detract from the encyclopedia. This is the point made in the template that heads all guidelines, an application of the policy Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. The guideline itself lists several reasonable exceptions, including Category:Alexander the Great. See also my reply to Otho4711[2].

A recent case for deletion was bought against the former Category:Wittgenstein now Category:Ludwig Wittgenstein which can be found at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 September 5#Category:Wittgenstein. This resulted in the page being kept, but re-named. The discussion was overwhelmingly in favour of the use of an eponymous category, and was broad enough to be applied in principle to other major philosophers. I will argue that this case forms a precedent for retaining categories for major philosophers.

One task we might profitably set ourselves is to list those philosophers who already have a category.

Given that we are going to maintain these categories, the problem arises of how they should themselves be categorized. Certainly it is unacceptable to orphan these categories, as was done here[3]. The simplest solution would be to place these in Category:philosophers. This is where I think a user would expect to find them. Banno 08:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] list of philosopher cats

Please extend this list:

Others ????

It is interesting to note who is missing from this list - Socrates and Sartre, for example. Banno 09:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I have added some to the list. The strange thing is... I was thinking of ways to improve Wikipedia, in the course of my day over a week ago. Making a list of philosophers who should have a category for associated articles was one of my thoughts. Then this whole eponymous cat thing cropped up. Talk about twilight zone time! I think we should keep this list of hands-off cats for deletion (and a list for future cats) with the Philosopher task force. Greg Bard 09:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
You've missed Marx, though that is mainly for "personal" articles, as there is Cat:Marxism too. Thoreau is dubious - I have moved the great majority into a new sub-cat for "Works by..", and there is a good template. Really Cat:Kant should go into the larger Category:Kantianism, and I am coming to think all would be better as -isms or "Philosophy of ...". Most of these were not in the relevant philosophy cats, which is to me clearly where people would expect to find them. Johnbod 16:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Interestingly, Category:isms was rejected: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_May_9#Category:Isms. I think the whole prohibition on eponymous categories should be scrapped. Then you wouldn't have to worry about it. It seems an arbitrary choice to say we are going to save on category clutter by banning X type of categories. Find something else to prohibit. Why don't we ban the whole "works by ..." pattern? After all we have literature categories? I think the camel's nose is under the tent here. My goodness. Greg Bard 20:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
The reference you give was to a silly category that merely collected all -isms of all sorts together. I can assure you Category:Marxism is impregnable. Although I am generally a supporter of more eponymous categories, I am finding that the more I look at the way they have been used in Philosophy, the more my stance weakens. Nearly all Thomas Carlyle personal categorisation was on his category, with next to nothing on his own article. That is just wrong. Most of the eponymous categories were in several Philosophers categories, but no Philosophy categories. That is also wrong. Good luck trying to change the policy on eponymous cats, which as you know is not a prohibition. In this case it is not really about category clutter - many philosophy categories are excessively uncluttered - but clarity, and people finding things where they expect them to be. Johnbod 20:45, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I would certainly include the Cheshire Cat. Some of Heinlein's feline characters might qualify, as well. --Trovatore 18:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

John suggests replacing these cats with either "ism" or"philosophy of..." categories. I want to repeat here that this will not always work, as I argued before[4]. But the number of philosophers for whom there is a need for such a category may be quite small. One thing I still don't understand is why there is a prohibition on eponymous cats; what the rationale is. Banno 21:39, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I think Banno has nicely stated the arguments for these cats, here and in other places. I really don't mind very much whether the name cats are put in philosophy or philosopher. I would prefer philosopher partly to keep the cats nice and easy to search through, and partly because a philosopher's interest in a philosopher is going to be intricately connected to his philosophy. So, it seems to me highly likely that if someone is searching through cats for Kant, they will be doing so because they are interested in Kant's philosophy, not how he lived, etc. If they are interested in how he lived, that will in itself be tied up with an interest in his philosophy. The '-ism' or 'Philosophy of' ideas have pros and cons. The 'ism' bit is useful for Kant, because there is a clear ism group, and the Kantianism cat can be nicely linked into the Kant cat. I guess the 'Philosophy of' would work, but it is more typing and you need to sort of think about it sideways to see how it would work (that probably doesn't make sense). In our School's library, we just stick all the Wittgenstein related books, his, biographies, others that relate to his work, under W for Wittgenstein... seems to work... But, it probably means I am biased. P.S. I was kind of thinking of starting one for John Locke before this issue started. Anarchia 21:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
You can't count on that. For example because Aristotle was in P-ers, but not P-phy categories, his cat was not findable through

Category:Ancient Greek culture or Category:Ancient Greek literature, which are highly plausible approach routes. Johnbod 22:39, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Anarchia 23:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The discussion does not seem to be progressing at present. Unless there are strong objections, I am going to re-jig the guidelines at Category talk:Philosophyto explicitly allow for the creation of Eponymous cats, but noting that this should be the exception rather than the rule. This should allow for John to empty some of the cats if he wishes, and provide a grounding for project members to revert itinerant editing. I am also going to add all the cats we found above to the top level of categories:philosphers because: This is a natural place for them; there are so few, they will not disrupt that cat; it will be convenient to have them grouped together, at least while we sort through them; this avoids the ubiquitous problem in in the philosophy cats - excessive depth. Banno 20:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection myself to the existing categories, except as noted, and on this issue I don't think the Project Guidelines will cut much ice at CfR. I do object strongly to the inclusion of general categories in biographical categories. If you want to do this you should raise that issue specifically at CfR, as it is a radical departure from the principle that category trees should only contain material that is correctly described all the way up the line. I think that doing this likely to provoke new applications to delete or rename these categories (not from me), although of course it's possible no one will notice. A much better place to put them would be the "philosophy by school or tradition" category, which at the moment only has a few of them. Johnbod 21:19, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Principle (disambiguation)

It isn't. That is, it isn't a disambiguation page. Fix it! please...or tell me what to do. Just change the name? Yours confusedly, Anarchia 21:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It was moved from Law (principle), which is even less appropriate. Try a stubby merge to principle. –Pomte 22:01, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Continental, Marxism, Critical theory, Phenomenology

I have approached the Wikipedia:WikiProject Critical Theory group to see if they want to be subsumed into the task force organization of WP:PHILO like the other projects. I am not sure how it should be organized so as to be most useful. Currently, I have a potential category list for a combined task force listed under the Continental philosophy task force. Perhaps it could be broken into two task forces in a way that makes sense? One big one? A field for each? (I don't see why not frankly). I stated some goals in the organization at Crit theory:

The goal of the reorganized task forces should be to A) be general enough to cover a significant enough number of articles to merit a task force, B) be specific enough to produce a meaningful worklist for each task force, and C) be a convenient way to organize the content for the editor. Greg Bard 10:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

There didn't seem to be any concerns, so I moved CT into the continental phil space, and added the Continental task force info. It includes everything except Marxism, which I think can stand on its own. Greg Bard 01:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative philosophy task force

I am thinking about creating this task force for articles not easily classified. I am thinking about a place for Mysticism, Ayn Rand, MOQ, Pataphysics, New Age, Esoterism and Integral thought. I think that it is better to have a place for these things rather than let them hang out there. I think we have an intellectual responsibility to deal with the fringe with some degree of respect. Perhaps this task force should cooperate-with/resurrect-the-charge-of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative Views. Greg Bard 10:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

In theory, a good idea. I do see a few problems. One, I personally think Mysticism and the like could be included in the Philosophy of Religion group fairly easily. Two, the bigger one, it would be hard to create a scope definition for such widely-divergent schools of thought, in such a way that the editors working on them would see some degree of commonality between them. If you can think of a way to make it work, though, no objections. John Carter 13:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
You are correct about mysticism, and the goal should be to find a place for these articles elsewhere if they can be properly classified. However, I think what transcends the divergent schools is A) academia's rejection of them, and B) their adherents insisting that it belongs under philosophy. I think we are able to deal with these situations with the WP:PHILO because I think we have a good academic foundation. I think we can sustain any category structure that we decide to set up. I am increasingly leaning toward one of the first two: Greg Bard 09:16, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Popular philosophy
  • Notable philosophy
  • Alternative philosophy
  • Unassimilated philosophy
  • Non-academic philosophy
  • Fringe philosophy
  • Miscelleneous philosophy
  • Unclassified philosophy
A few ideas. Wikipedia:WikiProject Objectivism probably more or less covers Ayn Rand fairly well. MOQ looks to me like it might also fall within the scope of religion, given its ties to Asian philosophy. Category:Pataphysics already falls within the Category:Continental philosophy, and I think could be reasonably managed by that group. New Age philosophy's religious overtones lead me to think that the Religion group might be best able to deal with the subject, having the most experience with many of the terms and ideas involved. Ditto Esoterism. Integral thought could, conceivably, fall in that area as well, or perhaps philosophy of mind, as it seemingly deals with the mental/spiritual processes. I think perhaps some alternative "themes" could be suggested as well. One might be for Occult Philosophy, which I think can be seen as being different from Philosophy of religion, which I have a feeling will deal with either religion-specific or religion-in-general ideas, and less so with ideas which tend to be syncretic and/or "alternative" religious ideas. Another might be Holistic Philosophy, which would deal with mental, spiritual, and physical subjects and their interaction with philosophical ideas. Just a few thoughts, anyway. John Carter 17:47, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I've been rethinking it a bit. I still think something should be done to have a place in the philosophy hierarchy that will capture these miscellaneous topics. However, perhaps a field for Philosophical systems, isms, belief systems, or something that covers some of these more generally. Such a field would include a big overlap of the other fields. However, it would allow us to capture these articles in the hierarchy. Perhaps it is not needed at all, and we just need to try harder to find a place for them in the current structure. I wouldn't put MOQ under religion, as it is more a commentary on morals, technology, and metaphysics that touches on some mysticism, rather than being about mysticism centrally. Greg Bard 01:12, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Philosophers' Football Match

Thought you should know! Johnbod 19:01, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A fortiori

I don't know what exactly makes it into a notable philosophical topic, but apparently it is. The page currently redirects to List_of_Latin_phrases_(A–E)#A, and a previous deleted version doesn't seem relevant either. To be sure, as long as this list remains linked at List of philosophical topics (A-C), irrelevant changes might appear at the project's recent changes lists. So, maybe someone who knows a bit can make a stub and link to it instead? trespassers william 00:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Desire (in Philosophy) & Desire Philosophy

These pages have recently been started by a new philosophy editor who needs help. They overlap a bit with Emotion (which is also somewhat of a mess), and perhaps with other articles. But the idea for the article is probably okay. Could someone with a bit more wikipedia experience than me offer some advice to the editor concerned? Anarchia 20:03, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A call for interdiscliplinary approach

Dear all,

I’m again calling for interdisciplinary approach. No encyclopaedia can afford entries limited within one discipline only if it aims to be a credible reference. And the silence my previous calls were met with does not seem encouraging.

Playing a lip service to findings in neurology (Libet’s findings for example) does not seem encouraging. There is one and one only, concept of consciousness for example. Memory is also one and one only concept. Entries that turn their “blind eye” to this cannot claim a credibility. Sincerely, Damir Ibrisimovic 23:58, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

For a balanced approach, you will need a variety of experts, but I'm sure most experts have better things to do than edit Wikipedia. For others, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Neuroscience#A Notable Absence of Findings in Neuroscience for context. –Pomte 21:42, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Phenomenon

Hello, At WP:PHYSICS, we have reorganized the Phenomenon and Physical Phenomenon pages. Unfortunately, we did not understand the section on Kant, so we left it out and wrote the best section we could for "Use in philosophy". We would value any any input you have for the section as the current section is very small. Here is a copy of the old section:

" Phenomenon has a specialized meaning in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, who contrasted the term phenomenon with noumenon in the Critique of Pure Reason. Phenomena according to Kant are objects of sensible intuition, sensible entities coextensive with appearances. A phunokihjohnonoumenon on the other hand is an object exclusively of understanding; it is an object that is given only to a subject's intellect or understanding, i.e., not given by sensibility. As such, the noumenon and Kant's thing-in-itself (Ding an sich) are closely related; for Kant they refer to the same things. However, they differ in that the thing-in-itself is an ontological concept of an object as it is constituted in itself, while the noumenon is an epistemological concept of an object of a certain mode of cognition, namely intellectual intuition. Both, however, cannot be known. The concept of 'phenomena' relates to the tradition of philosophy called phenomenology. Leading figures in phenomenology - the science of objects as they appear - include Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and influenced Derrida, Deleuze and many other thinkers. Kant's account of phenomena has also been influential in the development of psychodynamic models of psychology, and of theories concerning the ways in which the brain, mind and external world interact."

We don't think the section needs a definition on noumenons or a list of phenomenologists- but it's your decision. You could leave a revision on my talk page or place it directly into the article in a subsection in "Use in philosophy".

Thanks for any input you have time to give, Beast of traal T C _ 20:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal

[edit] Hermeneutic circle

I'm wondering if anyone on this project might want to adopt this article. It makes some important points about the interpretive process in connection to whole-part perceptions and post-modernism but they have only partial cites and probably need some amplification. There is also an unattributed mention of Schleiermacher. Another issue: Aside from an occassional book on semiotics, my reading of hermaneutics literature stopped somewhere around the early 1990's and I think this term might have come into use after that point. I don't know whether the term has enough material to justify its own article or if it should be merged into the Hermaneutics article. Any help from someone familiar with the literature relating to this topic would be appreciated. 06:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ethics articles needed

We are in dire need of some ethics/morality related articles. We have nothing on intergenerational ethics, and I also feel we need something on ethics and evolution. There are two aspects to this: the evolution of morality, and the clash between what people believe is ethical and what benefits their genes the most. I'm not sure what the second case could be titled; some related entries are appeal to nature and naturalistic fallacy, and perhaps social Darwinism, though I'm still confused over this is/ought nature of that school of thought. Perhaps evolution and ethics would be suitable, touching on both the evolution of ethics and the clash between the two. Richard001 10:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear, I hadn't looked at the preview and realized there was an article for the last one. Actually a quick search would have brought it up rather easily, though I was fairly sure I had looked for this before. Evolutionary ethics seems to cover both issues, so I've redirected the other link above. If anyone is interested in creating an article for the former, there's a detailed SEP article on the subject. Richard001 04:05, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contractualism

Someone has copied an essay into Wikipedia as a new article Contractualism. The essay does contain some useful information, but it is weakly referenced, primarily about one form of contractualism, POV and needs wikifying. There is already an article about Social contract theory, but it contains different material at the moment. Any thoughts on what should be done with this new one? Anarchia 06:10, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I find the article to be way too POV for my tastes. We should revert it to a redirect. Perhaps an article on Scanlon's view is worthwhile, but (1) I doubt it deserves the Contractualism namespace and (2) it needs to be NPOV. Postmodern Beatnik 01:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Object theory

The article Object theory needs some attention from a person familiar with the subject. I know that some philosophers have been associated with "object theory", so that some sort of article could be written on the subject. But I don't know that the content currently in the article is actually related to object theory (because I don't know anything about object theory). Expert attention would be helpful. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Visual arts

Is it really helpful to plaster every article on the visual arts with the aesthetics tag, as User:Greg bard is doing? Are you are actually going to be able to do anything useful in the way of patrolling or improving these articles, either in terms of manpower or knowledge? It will be confusing to most people as the visible template just referes to the philosophy project without reference to aesthetics. The Visual arts project should be the primary one for articles without a specific link to aesthetics, and should be added where it does not exist, and should not be left below the aesthetics one. Johnbod 13:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Short answer: yes it is. Please see, Wikipedia:WikiProject_best_practices#Article_tagging. However, I will take your comment under advisement...
Long answer: Not every article in the category was tagged, and it is understood that the tagging will need to be reviewed for over-inclusiveness. Some of this has already occurred. There is more to come. Feel free to remove any that have no relation at all. Given the category selection there should be relatively few.
I don't think it is really very productive to ask if we have the manpower or knowledge to assess the worklist that is given to us by the content of the wp. The goal is to identify those articles within the scope of the project. I am pretty sure that Wikipedia is a going concern, and there are no deadlines that I am aware of.
The wonderful Visual Arts project is certainly welcome to tag any articles they wish, and place the banner in any position they wish. Since it is a zero priority, I will be placing the philosophy banner on the very bottom from now on, just to avoid the complaint of anyone who has a notion that this matters AT ALL.
I get the sense by your portrayal of my actions as "Plaster"-ing that you may have an undue aversion to any tagging at all. That is unfortunate. The aesthetics of banner placement is another zero priority. If it was not, there would be no ability to put together a meaningful assessment program. Maybe someday there will be a "meta" namespace to put all this tagged information from talk pages.
Be well. Pontiff Greg Bard 22:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Modus tollendo tollens

Hey, I was browsing through and I noticed that Modus tollendo tollens didn't make sense, and its history seems to contradict with itself, so I edited it. If an expert can please correct the article, that would be nice. --Dragontamer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.8.128.134 (talk) 21:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Fixed the logic on this page and modus tollens and modus ponendo tollens. I checked this very carefully in multiple places, on line and in the philosophy library here. I have left the modus ponendo tollens article in a bit of a mess though, because I have never used the 'math' symbol system before and dont know how to put in spaces. Sorry. Let me know on the talk pages if you want more references to back up my changes. Anarchia 23:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Folks, I am at a distinct disadvantage because I did not record my sources long ago when I resolved this very question.
Modus ponens (MP) is the most famous one. There will be little controversy over the fact that If P then Q, and P is true, then Q will always be true. However, the original name for which modus ponens is an abbreviated version is "Modus Ponendo Ponens" (i.e. the way that affirms by affirming). This makes sense in English and in Latin: we confirm P, in order to confirm Q. Simple enough.
Modus tollens (MT) is the second most famous one. If P implies Q, and not-Q is true, then not-P is true. The orginal name was "Modus Ponendo Tollens" (the way that denies by affirming). It denies P by affirming P implies Q. Please note that both of the famous ones have "Ponendo" in the middle. This is not an error.
Modus Tollendo Ponens is different. It is the way of affirming by denying. It affirms Q by denying P. It says that if not-P is true, and not-P implies Q, then Q is true.
Modus Tollendo Tollens is the way of denying by denying. It says that if not-Q is true, and not-P implies Q, then P is true. In a sense, you are denying P in order to derive P.
Unfortunately, there are reliable sources that use these terms in different ways. At some point I set out and got to the bottom of it. To complicate matters greatly, MP and MT are also referred to as "Affirming the anticident" and "Denying the consequent." This would be fine except that
P\to(~P\to~Q)
is also called "Affirming the anticident" and
~Q\to(~P\to~Q)
is also called "Denying the consequent."
Even more unfortunate, and more complicated is the fact that different sources refer variously to both a fallacy and a theorem as "Denying the anticident," and the same goes for "Affirming the consequent."
"Denying the anticident" refers to the theorem:
~P\to(P\toQ)
and the non-sequitur type of fallacy:
A\toB, ~A therefore ~B
"Affirming the consequent." refers to the theorem:
Q\to(P\toQ)
and the non-sequitur type of fallacy:
A\toB, B therefore A
Be well, Pontiff Greg Bard 02:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I have found multiple sources in reliable logic books that support the changes I made - I will put them in the relevant articles. I don't at all doubt that people have differed on this one though! Anarchia 03:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New stub, debatable notability

Paul R. Patton was tagged for speedy A7 (failure to assert importance). He is a professor, which is an assertion. Can someone from the project review for notability, and either improve the article, PROD, or AFD? Thanks. GRBerry 03:36, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. He is notable. More info added to make that clear. Anarchia 08:08, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Development of Progressive Judaism - philosophical roots

A new section has been added to Progressive Judaism to discuss the intellectual history of the progressive movement. The discussion I think needs some nuanced exploration of the thinkers. If there are members of this project with an interest in this area, your contributions would be more than welcome. Many thanks, Egfrank 15:17, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gender and Judaism

The Gender and Judaism article has been marked as within the scope of this project.

There is a related article Role of women in Judaism whose development should probably be coordinated/merged/sub-main'd with this article. A topic has been created to discuss this: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Judaism#Gender and Judaism. Best to all, Egfrank 03:50, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pleasure: call for participation

The pleasure article is little more than a stub. It seems silly that we have an extensive article on pain but practically nothing about pleasure. Would members of this project be interested in improving the article? -- Karada 16:30, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Meaning of life

The members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism are considering whether this article should include religious answers to the question as well. There is also some discussion about deleting the article. I imagine any comments from the members of this project might be welcome. Thank you. John Carter 15:19, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notice of List articles

Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).

This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 19:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ludwig Wittgenstein FA review

Ludwig Wittgenstein has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. One Night In Hackney303 16:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Importance in assessments

If something is important to a subproject (work group), e.g. ethics, but not the whole project, what should one rate importance as? Articles are placed in daughter categories as the same importance as the whole project, which doesn't seem very accurate. Is there a way to have a separate importance assessment for a particular work group? Richard001 05:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the interpretation we should take is that if it is at least of x importance to a sub-field, it should hold that importance rating under philosophy in general. I don't think importance-inflation is a problem under this interpretation. There is plenty of room under "top" and "high" to cover a large number of articles and still be meaningful. I think we use the same type of reasoning as it concerns importance and quality ratings as compared to other wikiprojects. Pontiff Greg Bard 12:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Nothing?

So I just created Category:Zero as a subcategory of Category:Integers and Category:Mathematical constants. I'd like to make it a subcategory of Category:Nothing as well, but the latter category doesn't exist! Ideally it would contain most of the articles that are currently held together only by the "See also" section of the Nothing article. It would probably be a subcat of Category:Ontology, and it would likely have some relationship with Category:Nihilism. Before I expend the effort, may I ask for a second opinion on whether these are good ideas? Melchoir 11:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I am open-minded and intrigued by this idea. I would be interested to see where empty set ends up. Pontiff Greg Bard 12:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I think Empty set should be a top-level member of each category, and the same for 0 (number). This would be a slightly inefficient use of the subcategory structure, but still meaningful and useful. Nothing, on the other hand, would be a member of Category:Nothing and not Category:Zero. Melchoir 22:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
On that note, it seems that the French Wikipedia has put Néant in Catégorie:Zéro, but we don't have to follow suit. Melchoir 22:24, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I'm starting it up. Melchoir 22:36, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Classification by century

"It is often called the Age of Reason and is considered to succeed the Renaissance philosophy era and precede the Age of Enlightenment, but, some consider it as the earliest part of the Enlightenment era in philosophy, extending that era to two centuries. <!-- and begging the question why centuries and eras line up at all! Seems likely to be shakey reasoning, unphilosophical even; combines two different methods of classification! Kick that around! Love, user:Fabartus --->"

Dates are bound to be shaky and overlap as to when exactly a philosophy/era (the Age of Enlightenment) begins and ends. But shouldn't there at least be an article defined by the name of the philosophy, as opposed to the century? These should probably still be organized in chronological order, and include within the first paragraph what dates it usually is assumed to cover, but the name of the article should not be the date/century.

--Akako|☎ 19:25, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

What is the article? Anarchia (talk) 01:09, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
17th century philosophy. — xDanielx T/C\R 02:17, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bodymind

This page has been classified as a philosophy article, but it looks much closer to bullshit to me.

....Just take a look and you'll see what I mean. I outlined my problems with the article in detail on the talk page, and have contacted the article's authors to give them a chance to defend/jsutify the article before I move to AfD.

I'd appreciate it if some of you took a look and backed me up. The bastards even went and brought Ponty, Heidegger, Frankl, and Descartes into this mess. --Shaggorama (talk) 05:23, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cognitive closure x 2 !

Please could someone have a look at Cognitive closure.

This is a disambiguation page for Cognitive closure (psychology) and Cognitive closure (philosophy). The former is a one-line quote/definition, while the latter is just one paragraph long !

Thanks. thisisace (talk) 21:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I can see why the second article (psychology) was started. The two concepts really do seem to be different. The other option would have been to have one article with separate sections. If you think this is a better idea, why not propose a merge? Regards, Anarchia (talk) 21:51, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
The psychology article seems to have been created in response to the discussion between me and an anonymous editor bemoaning how "misleading" the philosophy article was for not mentioning the (unrelated) psychological concept. I can't speak to the psychology issue, but the philosophy page has a lot of room for growth and probably deserves its own article. Then again, it is quite common to merge articles with the understanding that they may be split again should one or both grow into its own. As such, I would have no serious objections to a merge. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 01:43, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Meaning of life

With much regret I have proposed this article for deletion, the discussion is here. It doesn't seem possible to have a single article on such a topic that is reliably sourced without its being at best an original research synthesis. There also seems to be difficulty complying with WP:NPOV on the subject. There seems to be no way to determine, for example, what weight to give opinions. A number of articles seem to be dumping grounds for POVs and their pushers, but there doesn't seem to be a practical way to construct a policy-compliant article. If I am wrong in this I could not be more pleased. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 03:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)