Talk:Irrealism/Archive2

Irrealism is a philosophical theory, primarily aimed at an ontological question. Any applications to aesthetics etc. are by the by.

I haven't read any philosophy in a fair while so I'm probably not the best person to make these changes, but as a guide, lets start by putting it in context of Quine and his followers, lets actually describe the theory, a few major criticisms, later developments of it by Elgin et.al. and then perhaps a section on contemporary philosophy influenced by it, e.g. Yablo. --cfp 16:44, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Please add more - jb

"any applications to aesthetics etc. are by the by " is not fair - particularly in relation to Goodman. JB

My apologies... I made a few changes to the article and discussion without first reading the rules on deletion. Cannot correct unfortunately, but added much to the article on Irrealism. Please comment and improve. JB

Goodman certainly had his philosophy of art, and has perhaps had more success in that field even, but despite this, he was principally in the Anglo-American Analytic tradition of philosophy of language, epistemology and ontology. If there were (post-)structuralist (/continental) themes in his writings, they were still presented in the language of Quine. (Personally I think he owes more to Wittgenstein than to the structuralists.)

The statement "had his philosophy of art" tends to belittle Goodman's work in Aestheics. There is no destiction between Goodman's views in "serious " philosophy and his philosophy of art. He viewed the art's and sciences as "ways of worldmaking" ; for more on this, I recommend reading "Languages of Art" --Joseane 14:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

As the article currently stands, if I read it having not read any Goodman I would assume he was another one of those crazy-continental types and stop reading after two sentences.

To be fair to Goodman, I would suggest he was a crazy continental type in Anglo-Amer-Anal clothing.--Joseane 14:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

This sentence in particular makes me balk: "An Irrealist holds the view that all realities are creations deriving from the needs and desires of living beings. As such Irrealism is anti-egocentric, basing truth on sustainability of worlds."

This is a paraphrase - I will supply a quote from "Of Mind..." - I think the gist of the statement is correct.--Joseane 14:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not a philosophy is egocentric is not a criticism you would ever hear leveled at a philosopher in an epistemology lecture at Oxford/MIT/Harvard. Equally even if desire may play some small role in Goodman's philosophy, mentioning it here gives absolutely the wrong impression.

Not sure why desire or intentionality are discussed here - At any rate, see discussions in philo of mind - regarding the egocentric predicament - the problem is also related to Witt. and the private language argument.--Joseane 14:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The article should probably mention his considerable influence on Putnam, one of the most famous anglo-american philosophers of the latter half of the 20th century (I think he taught him/worked with him for a while). I certainly remember writing many an undergrad essay in which I said something along the lines of: "Putnam is ripping off Goodman here."

Well, it's not an article on Goodman - it's an article on Irrealism - so why would we mention Goodman's influence on Putnam, Chomsky or any other non-Irrealist?--Joseane

14:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC) --cfp 18:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the tag "expert" on the subject may be a slight exaggeration...? --Joseane 14:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I moved this discussion to the top as it is most recent - I hope that is not a problem. --Joseane 13:24, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

First a general point, cleaning up past discussions until they are finished is generally a bad idea, and if you move them about you should preserve the formatting (e.g. indentations). The flow of who is replying to what has been lost in the above, which makes it harder for third parties to come in to the discussion. Also you should try to sign the same way each time. (I am assuming JB is Joseane but it's not at all clear.)

I didn't mean to sound rude before, you had asked for comment on your work so far and I was merely stating what I thought needed improvement. Anyway welcome to Wikipedia, sorry for making your initial impression a negative one.

Rereading the sentence I was particularly rude about, I think the second half is actually fine, though should be expanded. Sustainability for Goodman include coherance (and links to coherentism in epistemology should be mentioned), utility, (and pragmatism should be mentioned) and constincey.

Now, in reply to a few points above:

• I was at no point claiming to be an expert. I tagged it with expert as it needs expert attention and I did not for a minute think I qualified. It still does. To rephrase what I was saying before, there is a generally regarded hierarchy of importance and seriousness of the different branches of philosophy. Irrealism is designed to answer the realism question, and thus the article should be devoted to this debate, not least because your answer to this debate will effect every other aspect of your philosophy. As for art and science being treated the same way in irrealism, this isn't strictly true. The goal of art is (something like) "beauty" (call it "artistic-truth" if you must) and the goal of science is "truth" (and Goodman says as much). Certainly both have a use but only one of them will save humanity from an asteroid. Also, again the question of artistic "truths" is secondary to that of scientific ones. How we come to know we are looking at anything needs to be established before we can know whether we are looking at anything beautiful.

• It's not really true that Goodman is a "crazy continental type". There may be certain similarities in the results (though if you read Ways of Worldmaking etc. it's actually not that radical - it definitely isn't the case that anything goes), but the methods are radically different. To be convinced that Goodman was firmly in the Anglo-American tradition you only have to read his earlier works. There was no radical jump from his work on mereology to Ways of Worldmaking. Instead he went via "The Structure of Appearance" which (if I remember rightly) is almost as technical as the mereology stuff, yet contains the prototypes of what would later become world versions.

• I mentioned "desire" above because the sentence immediately after the one I was complaining about mentioned it. Sorry it wasn't clear. (I had intended to quote both sentences.) I'm not convinced the private language argument has anything to do with this. The PLA says that you can't have a private language because there's nothing in following the rules of your language beyond that those are the words you are speaking (if you were speaking a real language then someone else could correct you say). It does not preclude you thinking (wrongly) you have a private language (see anything by Hacker), nor does it preclude private knowledge, as long as there is some way of determining if you have that knowledge. In fact thinking about it again I think calling irrealism anti-egocentric is just plain false. After all in the Structure of Appearance he spends half the book describing how we make (effectively) private world-versions from qualia.

• As for discussing Putnam, you might be right. I was under the impression that Putnam's anti-realism was a descendent at least of irrealism, though I really can't remember the details of his position any more. However Elgin has certainly furthered irrealism and her work is pretty much a direct continuation of each of the strands of Goodman's. Equally someone like Yablo is worth discussing as he was certainly influenced by Goodman's irrealism in particular. (See the Myth of the Seven (I think that's the title) and the discussion of fictional contexts.)

Best of luck. --cfp 20:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your notes on Wiki protocol

I didn’t find your response rude, I hope you weren’t offended by mine.

I’m not sure about the protocol for editing the article – I think there might be about 17 people on the Earth who might find this discussion riveting. Four of them might be in an Italian punk band… We might make bolder changes.

Regarding your first point; Goodman would have argued the pursuit of Science and Art is human understanding. The issue of beauty was somewhat irrelevant to his discussion of Aesthetics. I don’t understand your point about the asteroid. Art might save us from war. For Goodman, Art and Science are very much alike. They develop and change how we “see” our worlds. I would even go further – but that’s another issue.

I think the distinction between Continental and Anglo American philosophy has pretty much evaporated into an historical curiosity. The general themes have merged.

I think your right, mereology did lead to his broader views on worlds.

Would it not be fair to say, that the PLA comes out of a general anxiety over egocentricity. It deals, with what constitutes correct versions in any language game. The criteria for rightness and wrongness for Goodman is found in well-formed world versions and ill-formed ones. The anti-egocentric element derives from the idea that there is no truth correspondence with the way the world is. It has the form of a riddle. Falsity is found in the lack of functionality of an ill formed world version. In other words, failure of the ill formed world version is that it results in a form of catastrophe. This is why Goodman’s irrealism is a brilliant formulation of relativism. Truth is system dependent. Not “anything goes” but rather, some things go and some things flop.

Your thoughts about Putnam, Yablo and Elgin make me realize the article really does need to be constructed along themes. I don’t think Goodman’s version of Irrealism is specific to ontology, epistemology, philosophy of mind and mathematics, philosophy of art. I thought Putnam’s anti-realism derived from Stace’s “Refutation of Realism” so I’ve missed a few beats. But Irrealism is distinct from anti-realism because anti-realists cannot account for the catastrophic i.e. when we’re wrong the universe lets us know but that still does not mean we ever know the real universe.

Let’s ask Stephen Yablo what he thinks. Not wishing to put you off in any way…----Joseane 05:10, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey if you know Stephen Yablo I'd love to know to what extent he confesses to being influenced by Goodman. Having read Goodman though I find it very hard to read Yablo's fictionalism without thinking of it as a formalized version of world versions. I've seen him lecture a few times and always intended to ask him afterwards but I'm generally still in a state of shock from seeing his Sponge Bob Squarepants analogies... I was almost tempted to e-mail Elgin to see if she is prepared to write something for these articles, or to release something she's already written (and holds the copyright to) under the WP license (her REP entry on Goodman would do fine...). I've always campaigned for more academics editing WP but there's both community feeling against it for some reason and academic feeling against it...

Certainly at least where I studied philosophy there were very few people interested in anything Goodman had to say beyond "grue" and his work on metaphor and qualia. But then the philosophy department I studied in was generally somewhat conservative. I would be tempted to aim this article initially at least at an equally conservative audience. If there are Itallian punk bands who think they are irrealist I presume that means that Goodman's been picked up by the (post-)structuralist crowd, but I would presume they can tolerate well reasoned arguments better than Oxford dons can tollerate Derrida.

You may be right about Goodman on Science/Art distinction, but personally I'm still tempted to see science as necessarily prior to art. Being an artistic (partial-)relativist is generally going to get fewer people annoyed than being a scientific (partial-)relativist. I'm still not convinced by egocentricity though. To me saying a position is egocentric has all sorts of intrinsic negative connotations (arrogance etc.) that don't really have any philosophical grounding. Witt didn't have anything against people who thought they had invented a private language. His point was a point about meanings and grammar of the word "language" rather than about possibilities or the arrogance of certain philosophical theories. And you can't deny that Goodman does describe in great detail the construction of an "egocentric" world-version in the Structure of Appearance.

I've just digged out my copy of "Starmaking" which has several Putnam on Goodman articles to see if I can find any grounds for my assertion that his position was derived from irrealism. First, a quote you'd appreciate, but that would make me grumble: "The line between relativism à la française and Analytic Philosophy seems to be thinner than anglophone philosophers think!" (from "Is there anything to say about reality and truth?"). In "Reflections on Goodman's Ways of Worldmaking", Putnam starts with a long defense of irrealist pluralism. He then launches into a discussion of truth: "Truth applies only to versions that consist of statemnts; and in chapter 7 we are told that it depends on credibility and coherence... All this, however, occupies only a few pages in WoW. Perhaps Goodmanhas not yet worked out exactly what he wishes to say on this central issue... The direction in which Goodman's though takes him is the direction of verificationist or "nonrealist" semantics. That is, Goodman is saying, I think, that what we understand our languages in terms of is a grasp of conditions of warranted assertibility and "rightness"; not a grasp of "truch conditions" in the old realist sense." So in summary, Putnam interprets Goodman as a Puttnamite... Then in "Irrealism and Deconstruction" he starts by tentatively suggesting that when you go from one version to another, the meanings of words change, which is basically just rehashed Witt (world-version=language game), then he half changes his mind and says "But whether such a change of use is or is not a change of "meaning" is not a question that need have an answer." (Note to Putnam: reread Wittgenstein... (^_^) ). Then he talks about (dis-)analogies between Irrealism and deconstruction: "Deconstructionists are right in claiming that a certain philosophical tradition is bankrupt; but to identify that metaphysical tradition with our lives and our language is to give metaphysics an altogether exaggerated importance." which is basically why I have a problem with talking about "egocentricity". He concludes basically that deconstructionism could do with taking a leaf out of Goodman's book: "...deconstruction without reconstruction is irresponsibility."

Anyway, I'm supposed to have given up philosophy two years ago, so it's time I shut up...

--cfp 15:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Not sure you can give up philosophy... I'm going to take the week-end off; mostly not to think about all this. We'll actually make changes to the article next week. What do you say?--Joseane 17:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Sounds like a plan. --cfp 18:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I will respond a little at a time to your August 4th entry.

First of all, I think we should move ahead and rewrite the article. There is a case to be made for our combined expertise and until someone comes along to point out our errors, we may as well help the world by improving WP's entry on Irrealism. I suggest we begin with the first paragraph. It's been sitting there for a few years.

1. Is there any reference to Irrealism before it's appearance in "of Mind..." as far as you know?

2. I would like to add "in part" after "to refer".

Do you have any ideas? ----Joseane 21:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems my attempts to delegate sorting this article out to someone else have been foiled... Alak...

OK right date of first mention. The principal exposition of irrealism is the short book "Ways of Worldmaking", first published 1978 which is available in full here: [1] (I'm not entirely convinced this is legal...) This is from the foreword: "Few familiar philosophical labels fit comfortably a book that is at odds with rationalism and empiricism alike, with materialism and idealism and dualism, with essentialism and existentialism, with mechanism and vitalism, with mysticism and scientism, and with most other ardent doctrines. What emerges can perhaps be described as a radical relativism under rigorous restraints, that eventuates in something akin to irrealism." The first chapter is a succinct exposition of his position and was previously published as "Words, Works, Worlds" in 1975, but this doesn't actually have the word "irrealism". "Of mind and other matters" wasn't published till 1984 as far as I can see.

I'd say we want to start with something like the following:

Irrealism is a philosophical position first advanced by Nelson Goodman in "Ways of Worldmaking", encompassing epistemology, metaphysics and aesthetics. Irrealism was initially motivated by the debate between Phenomenalism and Physicalism in Epistemology. Rather than viewing either as prior to the other, Goodman described them both as alternative "world-versions", both useful in some circumstances, but neither capable of capturing the other in an entirely satisfactory way, a point he emphasizes with examples from psychology. He goes on to extend this epistemic pluralism to all areas of knowledge, from equivalent Formal systems in mathematics (sometimes it is useful to think of points as primitives, sometimes it is more useful to consider lines the primitive) to alternative schools of art (for some paintings thinking in terms of representational accuracy is the most useful way of considering them, for others it is not). However, in line with his consideration of Phenomenalism and Physicalism, Goodman goes beyond saying merely that these are "world-versions" of the world, instead he describes worlds as "made by making such versions". It is in this identification of world and version that the core of irrealism is generally taken to lie.

Then I'd probably have sections on Epistemology (coherentism, more on background), Science and theory of truth (comparison to Kuhn, truth for Goodman), Ontology (is Goodman's nominalization circular? is irrealism committed to an underlying naive platonism), Aesthetics (Languages of Art has been sitting on my bookshelf unread for the past 4 years or so, so I'm certainly not the best person to do this) and Irrealism after Goodman (Elgin, Yablo, Putnam maybe some crazy-continental-types).

Finally, another thing I want to jot down here before I forget, I'm 99% sure this book: "Latour, Bruno and Woolgar, Steve (1979). Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts, Sage, Los Angeles, USA." (see Bruno Latour) describes its position as irrealist (in the Goodmanian sense), though it definitely isn't popular with the AAA crowd. I remember being laughed at in tutorials for mentioning it...

Arg Wikipedia's as addictive as crack. The more pages you have in your watchlist the more pages you end up watching. Time for bed me'thinks. I'll start by sorting out the bibliography tomorrow. --cfp 00:48, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

That's just really, really, really good!--Joseane 13:27, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Regarding, "the issue of identifying metaphysical tradition with our lives... giving metaphysics an ... exaggerated importance" I am reminded of the funny little footnote (11) in Problems and Projects; i.e. "...we will no longer have to justify astrophysics by what it may eventually do for the wheat crop." I think these quotes deal specifically with the importance of free research unfettered by practicality nonetheless, I must add that wonderful little bit from Witt. in the preface to P.I., "It is not impossible that it should fall to the lot of this work, in its poverty and in the darkness of this time, to bring light into one brain or another..." World versions have an odd way of interconnecting.--Joseane 15:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Loved the "à la Française" quotation and agree of course. I often wondered about contrasting Sartre's Metaphysics, (i.e. admittedly there are only, what like 4 pages in "Transcendence of the Ego") with irrealism. I would like to suggest the reason for the fascination for Irrealism for Continental Philosophers derives from the admission of the concept of Version Contradiction as well as the element of Systemic Finiteness i.e. every finite system deconstructs by definition. (This does not mean we should all just deconstruct everything and quit - but it is very Goodmanian to allow that finite systems will contradict despite their functionality. This for me is the ultimate assault on Realism) But as a true Goodmanean I would like to say, Realism works best in some Systems, but not in all. --Joseane 16:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm fairly ignorant of what's going on on the other side of the english channel to be honest. The only Sartre I've read has been "as-fiction" and badly misunderstood at that as I was trying to read it in French... Never read any Foucault, Derrida etc. first hand either, though I did read a short book on structuralism I've almost entirely forgotten now. Like I said, it wasn't really given the time of day at my university. As for "Realism works best in some Systems", this is when I start to frown a bit. Witt for example can say that the realists pronunciations are grammatical errors (it is against the rules of grammar to talk of something being "really real" outside the contexts of discussion of a work of fiction, say). Goodman just doesn't seem to have the theory of meaning to go behind something like that. He still wants to say that really the world-versions themselves are actually just mereological constructions out of whatever it might be that "really" exists. He seems prepared to grant "really real" the realists intended meaning, which is really all you need to be a realist: "While I stress the multiplicity of right world-versions, I by no means insist that there are many worlds - or indeed any". I think Goodman does work this out a bit more in later works, but I don't have the will to go rummaging now.

Anyway if you approve of that opening paragraph I'll add it to the article. --cfp 20:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

This is an interesting puzzle. I asked Noam Chomsky what he thought of Irrealism in a recent correspondence, (he was one of Goodman's students.) Clearly, Goodman makes no claim about "the way the world really is" (for most continental philosophers that's just about as post-Kantian as you can get. I say post-Kantian because that's where the big anxiety began to develop i.e. "the copernican revolution" passage in the Critique about how the thing-in-itself must follow the logic of mind led to the question 'how would you be able to tell if you were actually crazy?' (hence Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and the rest of the "oh no - but the universe is a chaotic, random absurd place) Getting back to Noam Chomsky's realism however, as an Irrealist I would imagine saying there are world-versions in which one cannot have the luxury of anything but a "hard core realist" ontology. It is nothing short of garish to claim the "really real" is a grammatical error when faced with suffering. But, it is also correct to suggest we are "stuck" in our individual world-versions and that we only manage a glimpse at the multitude of world-versions around us. (This is very Hegelian - i.e. once you get past the unfolding Spirit blah blah blah the Dialectic and the Absolute - the main point is the thing-in-itself (the way the world really is) and the thing-for-itself (the way we make our perceptions) are not the same thing - which is basically why we are all doing philosophy.

I like your opening paragraph very much. My interest in Continental Philosophy really ends at Sartre. The rest has just seemed to be derivative of the post-Kantian anxiety and lots and lots of Hegel. So I can't really say I know what's what in European Phil. these days. We'll have to leave that to the Italian punk bands.

I'll find you what I consider the most interesting 5 pages in Sartre's work - it's worth the read. Getting back to the article. I'll have a few more minutes to make some suggestions this week re: Languages of Art. I also think we could make some sort of a link to Yablo's fictionalism. Many of the general preoccupations seem somewhat similar. Jeez what time is it?--Joseane 10:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

You see I've always considered the countenancing of this epistemically unreacable "really real" world the core of realism. If you look at the main AAA anti-realists of the 21st century (Witt, Dummett, Putnam) the core of their anti-realism is always in their theory of language/mathematics. For any of these people it is perfectly acceptable to say "colours/tables/thoughts are real", but that statement just doesn't have the meaning the realists wish to ascribe to it. The quote above shows that Putnam interpreted Goodman as actually relying on a similar theory of language, though perhaps he hadn't realised it. I'm not entirely sure what suffering has to do with it. I have no qualms about accepting the statement "there is real suffering in the world" but whereas for a realist saying that sentence is true implies correspondence to the epistemically unreachable really real world, for the Wittgensteinian saying it is true is a way of asserting its correctness within certain language games, and nothing more, and for the Dummettian it implies there are certain scientific tests one could do to satify oneself of its truth (in the scientific sense of truth (e.g. induction results in truth) rather than the realist one). Goodman seems to want to give true two meanings, both a broadly coherentist/Wittgensteinian one, and a realist one of correspondence to something beyond the versions. I have always looked on Yablo as a reductio ad absurdum of the realists theory of meaning. If any form of realism is acceptable, it is Quinean naturalism, so Yablo starts with that, and shows that in inexorrably leads to fictionalism, which is one big grammatical error if ever there was one.

I'm impressed by your correspondence with Noam Chomsky (even if I did never agree with his linguistics and thought politically he was a bit too much like an overgrown student protester). Are you at MIT or is Chomsky prepared to enter into discussions with anyone? --cfp 11:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Lots of great stuff. Most everybody disagrees with me about the following point, so you may as well have a shot re: Realism: To me the overwhelming problem of any realist position is that to make any claim about what's really really really there requires knowledge of what's really there entirely. This is why correspondence doesn't work. I would say Goodman's view of truth is Wittgensteinian Coherentism - truth is correctness or a (wff) in a game or a system or world-version. Regarding your second comment about Goodman, I think something about how we make private world versions out of Qualia imples some sort of direct relation to the the real thingy, but I think (horrors) this looks a lot like Sartre's Metaphysics pp. 98-106 in the Transcendence of the Ego. Sartre's claim is we have a "somewhat Horrific" view of the thingy in what he calls "the pre-reflective consciousness" but are overwhelmed by its infinite nature and take refuge in "the refective conciousness" which invariably limits the thingy to a few vague observations. (See Goodman's obsessions with Maps, Rainstorms, Mountains and molehills.) Is Irrealism just a restatement of Existentialism? Yikes!

Re: Chomsky. Well not anyone, but if you ask him a good question, he will reply. That's why sending a well thought out email to Elgin or Yablo might be the ticket. On another note - too judgemental on Chomsky. His world-version is an alternative though you may wish to disagree.--Joseane 14:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Oops! Did I go too far. I'll work on the article later today...--Joseane 12:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Haha, no no, I was just having a wee wiki-break yesterday after being treated rather unpleasently by some fool on commons. I'll certainly give you "correspondence doesn't work" - see Hume. I would like to interpret Goodman as Wittgensteinian multi-Coherentism. It's certainly how I interpreted him when I first read him, but rereading it now it seems he was a whole lot more confused. I'm not sure about your existentialism comparison. I find the language an immediate barrier to coming to understand what they're talking about. I can understand how tales of prisoners being taken out to die are "horrific" but when they try to apply their pseudo-psychological language to phil my eyes glaze over rather... As for Chomsky I was being deliberately controversial. There's no doubt he's a great man and one of the few promminent American political voices us Europeans can bare to hear... --cfp 15:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Understand that language barrier issue - all that talk about states of consciousness, Dasein, being-for-itself, Weltseele, etc. could make even the most crazy continental philosopher a little more nuts - but on the other hand, there are times I look at the piles of formal logic used to mask a boring old mundane theory that gets us really nowhere... well anyway. Actually, a small adjustment, Irrealism is a happier version - Sartre's view of the overflowing thing-in-itself is a little skewed by his depressive nature. I can just hear him, "A tree - oh my God, I think I'm going to barf! Relax J.P., it's just a frickin' tree! Joseane 18:17, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

What to do about this stuff?

Irrealism is distict from anti-realism though the two concepts are frequently confused. (I think this is true - we don't need a citation here if we say "easily confused". We would have to say why to make the statement interesting and that would probably require a citation.)

What follows is poorly worded and I'm relatively sure Stace's article is too far back in the story to be very relevant.

Irrealist's accept Stace's arguments in his "Refutation of Realism" but claim it is just as coherent to infer there is a “world as it is." Irrealism holds that for the most part it is impossible to know "the given" in “sufficient” detail i.e sufficient to justify a theory like realism but capable of justifying one like Irrealism.[citation needed]

There is a great passage in "Of Mind..." pg. 32, where Goodman discusses Kant's antinomies. I'll put something together with that a little later or on the week-end. (That also shows his Neo-Kantianism and helps explain why the "crazies" (your expression) are so fascinated.

How much of the rest should we scrap or enhance?

User:Joseane|Joseane]] 14:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

If I've ever read that Stace essay I certainly can't remember it now, so I can't comment on that. I would tend towards scrapping quite a lot of the rest. I added {{Fact}} (to add this yourself just type {{fact}}) to the bits I was sceptical about. If you can find citations for them then by all means keep them (you add references by surrounding the reference in <ref>...</ref> btw), otherwise it wouldn't hurt to scrap them. Basically go ahead and make whatever edits you think are necessary. It's complaining this talk page is getting too long so I'm going to archive the older discussions. --cfp 19:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the help on referencing. If you are checking now and then - please let me know what you think of any additions. Joseane 14:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

All looks good. I've been knuckling down to the work (economics) I'm supposed to be doing this summer, so I've really been Wikipedia-ing. Keep up the good work though. --cfp 20:02, 18 August 2006 (UTC)