Talk:Joseph Butler

NPOV

I changed to wordings to try and conform better with a NPOV:

• These two books are among the most powerful and original contributions to ethics, apologetics and theology which have ever been made.

to: These two books are considered by his proponents to be among the most powerful and original contributions to ethics, apologetics and theology which have ever been made.

-and-

• He was an excellent man, and a diligent and conscientious churchman.

to

His admirers praise him as an excellent man, and a diligent and conscientious churchman.

• There are also small stylistic changes that might be considered, i.e. in:

Though indifferent to general literature, he had some taste in the fine arts, especially architecture.

Is general literature an allusion to 'secular' literature, or just a comment on "mediocre" literature therein (which itself is a value judgement)? The proximity of "fine arts", which includes poetry but not architecture, to the best of my knowledge, might also be thought about. The 'indifferent' is fine, but in this context sounds more like 'skoffs' or 'disdains'. These little things are, no doubt unintentional, and I have no real strong feelings about them. Its probably just my bias and misinterpretation. However; the superlative nature of the article in general could probably be toned down a little more IMHO. Khirad 06:01, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Flipping weird

"His proponents?" What a weird article. Did no one consider reading a book? Sheesh. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is online, so no one needs to endure the agony of leaving the basement. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church would do it. Someone at a college might have a subscription to the Dictionary of National Biography. Proponents, my butt. If you're on NPOV patrol, remove the statement that the guy had no literary graces, too, because both are stupid statements. No, Butler is not the most important ethicist in history. No, he is not graceless. This is what happens when LAZY people port 19th century sources because they're PD and then "fix" them without investigating. At least the birth and death dates are correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.186.127.134 (talk) 12:59, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, IP. You're right. I have removed the rather startling eruption of POV and 18th-century-type diction, "They depend for their effect entirely upon the force of their reasoning, for they have no graces of style." And I changed the proponents to followers, to avoid having to read a book. (I'm not sure, personally, that there are any Butler followers around these days, but YMMV.) Bishonen | talk 15:08, 8 February 2010 (UTC).

Typo?

The first sentence in the "Design Argument" section reads "In 1736, he inferred a from the evidence of design:..." Is this a typo? It reads like the subject of the sentence has been deleted. Scheevel (talk) 17:09, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

That section clearly has a couple of missing words. I separated out the death and legacy language into a separate section, but have no time/access to check that error and correct it. Clearly, this article needs work.Jweaver28 (talk) 18:01, 16 June 2014 (UTC)