Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy/Archive 15

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By the way...

By the way, one of the main reasons why WP articles in metaphysics are so problematic is that WP tries to have separate articles for each term/concept, but, in metaphysics, the concepts are so tightly interlinked that you cannot write about one without (just about) equally writing about several others. This is most clearly so when the concepts are opposites, like endurantism vs. perdurantism, for example. By analogy, try writing an article on 'goodness' without mentioning 'badness', 'light' without mentioning 'dark', etc. Stho002 (talk) 08:11, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Often it seems you object to a WP core policy or the overall structure of WP. I understand that you may not like how WP functions or is designed; what I don’t understand is why you think that means you can ignore established rules. Shouldn’t you instead either try to change the rules instead of violate them, or go start your own wiki? JonPF (talk) 14:57, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I object to the overly pedantic adherence to rules, when this results in poor quality output ... Stho002 (talk) 23:37, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Honestly Stho002, it seems more like you want to avoid following rules if they get in the way of you contributing what you want in WP. You seem to place the line for where it is and isn’t acceptable to break a rule for the sake of content rather conveniently.JonPF (talk) 15:25, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Honestly JonPF, I scraped something more interesting and inspiring off my shoe this morning than your speculation above! Stho002 (talk) 01:29, 25 June 2011 (UTC) Hey JonPF, I just noticed something "odd" ... why is it that when I look at your contributions to WP, I only see one edit before you weighed in on this discussion? How many edits do you see, I wonder??? Stho002 (talk) 04:50, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Opposites are often combined in Wikipedia, see (e.g.) A priori and a posteriori. Would you give a few examples of what you mean other than opposites? CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:00, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Fair question. Opposites were intended just as the simplest example to illustrate a more complex point. What I really mean, in this context, is that four-dimensionalism, endurantism, perdurantism, eternalism, presentism, materialism, dualism, idealism, qualia, free will, determinism, identity, personal identity, etc. are all so tightly intertwined in the literature, that trying to write about them separately is problematic ... Stho002 (talk) 23:37, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I do not think there is any strict rule on WP about how to split up subjects in the sense described above. See WP:MERGE and WP:SPLIT. It is up to editors to find a practical way. "WP" is not a thinking being which "tries to have" anything. If there are separate small articles for highly over-lapping subjects such as pairs of opposite terms, that does sound silly, but there is nothing in WP policy that demands this.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm OK with that ... I've actually lost the point of why I started this section, so it probably wasn't important ... Stho002 (talk) 07:51, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Four-dimensionalism - possible redundancy

There are reasons to believe that the article Four-dimensionalism may be either (a) redundant , and/or (b) should redirect to another article, or (c) should disambiguate the term four-dimensionalism and direct readers to the appropriate main articles. See Four-dimensionalism#Elephant_in_the_room_-_possible_redundancy where editors are invited to express their views. — Philogos (talk) 20:29, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

What is "cyberethics"?

The lead to cyberethics didn't define the subject, so I rewrote it. It's better than it was, but it still seems a bit off. Something's lacking. Please take a look. The Transhumanist 06:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Two envelopes problem - logicians needed

The two envelopes problem is usually seen as a paradox in probability or in mathematical economics. However there is also a version "without probability" due to the logician Smullyan. Maybe some folks in the philosophy project have interest in this article. There are a number of competing "solutions" to Smullyan's paradox by logicians/philosophers, generally using ideas from the theory of counterfactual reasoning, and all of them very technical. It is very difficult for a non-expert to give succinct summaries.

The situation: you pick one of two closed envelopes, one of which contains twice the amount of money in it as the other, and both amounts are greater than zero. Smullyan pointed out that you can say both:

1. By switching, I gain or lose the difference in the amounts in the two envelopes, thus whether I gain or lose, I gain or lose the same amount.
2. By switching, I either gain an amount equal to what's in my envelope or I lose half of what's in it; these amounts are different.

How can the amount I gain if I gain both be equal, and be not equal, to the amount I lose if I lose?

Actually, to my (scientist's) mind the paradox merely exposes the inadequacy of common language: write out a mathematical description of the situation and the paradox vanishes. Moreover I think that Smullyan's *problem* is not actually probability-free (though his analysis is). In the beginning of the problem we are told that we pick one of two closed envelopes. The symmetry of this situation and the arbitrariness of our choice is an ingredient which many would formalize using subjectivist probability. This ingredient tells us that we are perfectly indifferent to swapping our envelope (closed) for the other. Neither of Smullyan's two arguments bring this crypto-probability ingredient into play. Their apparent contradiction shows, to my mind, the meaninglessness of the comparison between what you would win if you would win with what you would lose if you would lose. A statement which is meaningless has a meaningless negation and no contradiction results by arriving at both. Is it worth while to pick apart the argument and say where exactly it goes wrong? Richard Gill (talk) 14:09, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Not familiar with this, but the flaw seems glaringly obvious: the statement "these amounts are different" in version 2 is false. Looie496 (talk) 18:18, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

If I have an envelope with 10 quatloos and it is the smaller amount then if I swap I get another 10 whereas if it is the larger I would lose only 5. That's the reasoning anyway. Dmcq (talk) 22:15, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Blaise Pascal at FAR

I have nominated Blaise Pascal for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.--NortyNort (Holla) 03:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

There was a big WP:COPYVIO problem so much of the article needs to be rewritten. Dmcq (talk) 21:59, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost interview

SMasters, our project is quite diffuse, and as a participant for many years, I'm unaware of any central collaboration by project members of note (with worthy exceptions of now-dormant taskforces like the WP:ATF) besides this talkpage. Not sure we are best placed to be your interviewees. Skomorokh 21:49, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

That's fine. We have done interviews with Projects where only one or two editors have been heavily involved. Just answer what you can. The article is scheduled for publication this coming Monday. Don't miss the opportunity to give your Project a bit of a plug. SMasters (talk) 00:38, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Let me second SMaster's invitation. This project's talk page is far more active than some other projects we've encountered. Feel free to share with our readers which things work and which don't work. If people tend to improve articles on their own and only come to the project's page to discuss issues, that's ok. We want to know about it. It certainly won't hurt to get some exposure. -Mabeenot (talk) 22:32, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Help needed at Russell's teapot

I'm trying to improve the article at Russell's teapot (Bertrand Russell's analogy relating to the burden of proof and other matters regarding the existence of God). I've added criticism of the analogy from an article specifically on the subject from a refereed, peer reviewed journal of philosophy. An editor keeps deleting the contribution for POV reasons based on bogus objections. I'm trying to improve the quality of the article. It is currently sourced to popular works by nonexperts - Wired Magazine, the New Republic, Richard Dawkins. Help would be appreciated. Mamalujo (talk) 16:52, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll just note, as a completely uninvolved observer, that the description above does not seem accurate to me. But of course the more expert eyes on the article, the better. Looie496 (talk) 22:51, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I would agree with Mamalujo that help is needed at this article. Because Mamalujo is not trying to help and reach consensus and keeps on editing the article and adding disputed content from non-reliable sources. Regards. Abhishikt (talk) 03:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Artificial consciousness

User is acting aggressively on the article's talk page [1] wanting to replace the official peer-reviewed definition in the article with a definition written by him/herself.

Some of you are admins, so please help. Thank you. Tkorrovi (talk) 13:12, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I asked for your help, but no one came to help me, in spite that the article is in the Wikiproject Philosophy. Tkorrovi (talk) 02:33, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Acting aggresively? How ridiculous. Wanting to replace the "official" definition? How would an admin help you anymore than any other editor?

I think you are extremely off the mark. I am not the first person to question the validity of the definition as not being a definition of AC. The discussion is the necessary step towards resolving the matter by seeking consensus. The definition will be decided by the editors of Wikipedia, be it in your favour or not.

It is not "the official peer-reviewed" definition, it is merely one persons definition of something from a paper which is about synthesising something "were consciousness to be found in an engineered artifact". By its own language it cannot possibly be a definition of AC if it is talking about doing something after it has been found. The definition is the parameters by which the discovery is measured and accepted as being fulfilled. A gaseous expansion is not an explosion unless it fulfils the definition of an explosion.

I really think you need to calm down, have a nice cup of tea, and start examining how you are going about this whole "collegiate environment" and how you see forming "consensus".

To make things more simple, try to lay off misrepresenting my actions as aggression when I simply will not "roll over and play dead" when ordered.

When you give a wiki link to an article, rather than an html link, you can put it like this: [[Talk:Artificial consciousness/Archive 13#Definition]] giving: Talk:Artificial consciousness/Archive 13#Definition.

You can also add the pipe and a description: [[Talk:Artificial consciousness/Archive 13#Definition|the discussion is here]] which gives: the discussion is here

Chaosdruid (talk) 05:01, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I have commented at the talk page. Let me point out that it is unreasonable to post a message here on a Saturday and expect editors to respond within a few hours. Looie496 (talk) 05:34, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Please someone else here help me. I leave the discussion page of that article for now because i'm not willing to participate in the frenzy argument initiated by the said user. So it all would be now in your hands. I wanted to defend the article. I have edited that article for the last seven years. Thank you for reading this. Tkorrovi (talk) 08:13, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

It's hard to wade into a heated argument like this. I hope that cooler heads will prevail here since I'd much rather AC experts hash out an appropriate definition than depend on an admin (like myself!) who is less familiar with AC.

If need be I'll protect the page for a short time but so far it looks like this is just a Talk page argument rather than an edit war so no intervention seems justified.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:41, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Help needed at AfD

There is an AfD here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of years in philosophy. An editor (not me) has volunteered to help improve that set of List articles, but would like some help. Anyone interested should speak up at the AfD. --Noleander (talk) 06:22, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

C.S. Lewis

Was/is C. S. Lewis a philosopher, or of concern to philosophy? I hadn't thought so, but my interest in philosophy is merely dilettantish (and my knowledge of Lewis next to zero) and thus I am not qualified to judge. Why then do I ask? See this. -- Hoary (talk) 00:22, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Not notably. — Philogos (talk) 00:23, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Stephen Palmquist

The article Stephen Palmquist has been proposed for deletion. I can't really tell whether this is someone who should be covered better, or just the sort of CV-style article which is little more than a list of publications. One starting point on such questions is WP:PROF but I don't have any knowledge of the philosophy literature which is why I'm mentioning it here. Kingdon (talk) 01:19, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Also PRODed is Synthetic logic. While I'm not sure whether Palmquist is notable I'm quite sure that (this definition of) synthetic logic is not. It's just classical logic with reversed truth values, not very interesting. CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:26, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree that Synthetic logic (the current wikipedia article) isn't very interesting, but the explanation is incomplete/vague enough that I couldn't really say how it works ("classical logic with reversed truth values" doesn't seem to match what the page says, but like I say, there isn't enough there to try to make sense of it). Kingdon (talk) 01:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

It just isn't notable which is the basic criterion for inclusion in Wikipedia. That criterion means obscurantisms and mad philosophic rantings which people might otherwise leave because they might look stupid for removing something profound can get deleted anyway. We don't have to know if it is rubbish or the outpourings of a great mind that we can't comprehend. Dmcq (talk) 10:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I just had a look on he web for the term and whereas the topic of that article is unnotable there definitely seems to be a topic with the name 'synthetic logic' which is very vaguely related. It probably would be best to delete what's there and if somebody ever wants to they can start a new article sometime with the same name. Dmcq (talk) 10:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The Nature of Mind

Hello, this seems to be the only active philosophy discussion on Wikipedia, so I'm posting this here. I am writing an article for David Armstrong's The Nature of Mind. This is the first article I have attempted to write from scratch, and I'd appreciate it if somebody experienced and knowledgeable could take a look at it so far. There are a few things I'm not clear on:

• Should there be an article on the Nature of the Mind essay separate from an article on the The Nature of the Mind and Other Essays (which doesn't exist), or if they should be together? I've assumed the former, but I'm happy to change that if need be.
• I've tried to follow the guidelines on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (philosophy), but I'm not sure how they apply to individual essays like this.
• Should the publishing history/book infobox (I made one here) of The Nature of the Mind and Other Essays go on The Nature of the Mind page, seeing as the former doesn't exist?
• Categories etc....?

I've also had a go at improving The Need for Roots, if anyone feels like going over that.

So yeah. It would be great if someone could take a look. DrJimothyCatface (talk) 07:11, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Why are you writing about this essay rather than the book "A materialist theory of the mind", or perhaps Armstrong's materialism in general. For me Armstrong was only interesting because of his unqualified materialism. (You want the materialist account? then look up Armstrong). Not that I agreed with much of it. --Logicalgregory (talk) 09:41, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

The general principle is that if other philosophers have given specific attention to this essay, and discussed it by name in reputable articles, then an article about the essay may be justified. Currently the Wikipedia article that you have created simply summarizes Armstrong's views (at too great length, probably). The question is how much there is to say about how other philosophers have reacted to those views. Looie496 (talk) 16:14, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Two articles for deletion

I have nominated Stephen Palmquist and synthetic logic for deletion. See above under #Stephen Palmquist as well as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephen Palmquist and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Synthetic logic. Ozob (talk) 11:34, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Argument

An editor appear more than keen to change the article Argument (which had been hitherto remarkably stable) by changing its lede, its subject and content so that it refers to so-called "world disclosing arguments" and links to another the article, World disclosure. Would other editors care to take a look?— Philogos (talk) 01:20, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

That editor is me. The relevant diff will help, I'm sure, since the article has been reverted. The changes summarized the ways in which different kinds of arguments are evaluated, in other words, content that is already in the article. They certainly didn't change its subject, which is logical argument. They also include links to articles such as classical logic and non-classical logic for further reading.

Why these things would have been deleted, I am not in an epistemic position to grasp.

As for the world disclosure content, it has been in the article (and well-sourced) for a long time. In fact, it used to be much longer, until it was consolidated in the world disclosure article.

What do you mean by "more than keen"? Surely you don't mean bold.

Other editors my all means please look at diff . Note e.g. proposed "An argument is a claim or set of claims supported by one or more defensible reason(s).". Does nyone know RSs saying that the premises of an argument need be defensible (whatever that maight mean)? — Philogos (talk) 17:37, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

How about this source? But you will of course need to know the meaning of the word "defensible." Defensible, adjective: Capable of being defended, protected, or justified: defensible arguments. See new diff. Walkinxyz (talk) 21:19, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I see nothing in [2] saying that the premises must be "defensible". What is your RS for this?— Philogos (talk) 01:10, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Again, you need to know what the word "defensible" means. It means that if an argument is to be judged successful (or valid, or sound), the premises must meet certain criteria of justification. This way of speaking would only be foreign to someone who has never put forward an argument, or doesn't grasp English very well. From the source above, "Logicians study the criteria to be used in evaluating arguments, i.e., the criteria for determining under what conditions a certain set of premises actually guarantees the truth or likely truth of the conclusion [asserted in the argument]." Walkinxyz (talk) 05:27, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that "defensible" should be a part of the definition. If it's sourced the need for defensibility can be discussed later, but most definitions don't include it at all. CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:04, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, you may be right. Removed it from the definition. User:Walkinxyz (not logged in) 174.119.72.51 (talk) 20:34, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

This shows the result of User:Walkinxyz's revised edit. Re the following words inserted in the first sentence

a claim, or set of claims, supported in principle by one or more reason(s), or by evidence that justifies the claim.[1][2] In strict terms, an argument is sometimes defined as

The inserted words (a) avoid using the terms premise and conclusion substituting the terms "reason or evidence" and "claim" respectively (b) say that an argument can have more than one or more "claims" (conclusions). I do not recognise this as the usual definition of "argument", it does not concur with the cited sources. Can anyone prode a RS in support of the inserted words? The phrase "In strict terms, an argument is sometimes defined as" will surely confuse the reader. Do other editors believe that User:Walkinxyz's edit has improved the article?

— Philogos (talk) 22:13, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

This has again been revised in a way that more clearly refers to the sources and includes the terms premises and conclusion. It's important that the article be intelligible to the average reader. Please see talk page of article and keep article discussion there unless it's really necessary to bring it here. Thanks. Walkinxyz (talk) 14:18, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

The current reference to a "set of claims" (i.e. premises are also claims), and the term claim in general, helps to distinguish arguments from reports. It is a less technical term than "proposition." In addition, complex arguments can easily have multiple conclusions. Walkinxyz (talk) 14:28, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

The term "claim" is not the term normally used to define argument. It is not clear what is meant by "claim" (as opposed to meaningful declarative sentence, statement, proposition or judgment. The term argument normally allows but one conclusion, as acknowledged by e.g. [[3]]

1 Multiple-conclusion arguments Ordinary arguments can have any number of premises but only one conclusion.

And complex arguments can be made of multiple, intersecting arguments, each of which have a conclusion. What's your point here? Walkinxyz (talk) 08:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

The article should given the normal use of the terms as used by (the majority of) experts in the field, i.e RSs. Minority views (of RS) can (of course) be set out if noteworthy in an appropriate fashion.

Wikipedia is not an "expert" forum, and nowhere is the criteria for information in articles that they be approved by "experts." Arguments are studied in logic and philosophy. They are used everywhere and by almost everyone, and it doesn't take an expert to recognize the things I'm stating. But apparently it might take someone who dogmatically refers to expert texts, to forget them. Walkinxyz (talk) 08:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

The changes made by Walkinxyx can be seen here Note the article now begins

In logic and philosophy, an argument is a statement that a person makes in the attempt to persuade someone of something, or give reasons for accepting a particular conclusion.

I do not recognize this as the usual definition of argument at all. It is not normal to say that an argument is a statement: it is a set of statements (or sentences/propositions/according to author). It is not normal to say that an argument has to be made by a person. It is not normal to say that an argument has to be made by a person in the attempt to persuade someone of something. Do other editors believe that User:Walkinxyz's edit has improved the article?— Philogos (talk) 03:12, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

It does not aim to be the kind of definition as provided in specialized texts. It aims to be for the general reader. And the definition most certainly does not say that an argument has to be made in the attempt to persuade but that it can do that or give evidence or reasons for accepting a particular conclusion. What is so controversial about that? Walkinxyz (talk) 06:24, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I have updated it again to respond to these concerns, and to simplify the language. Can this discussion really not be kept to the Talk page?

A claim, premise, or conclusion, isn't a sentence or "meaningful declarative sentence" in every case, and the latter terms do not help to distinguish the premises and conclusion of an argument from the report of the premises and conclusion of an argument (e.g. "Jane said that the cod stocks are rebounding again and therefore she thinks that we should start fishing again" is a meaningful declarative sentence, but it isn't necessarily part of an argument). In my opinion, the word "claim" (in the strong sense of making a claim) does help us to make the relevant distinction between an argument and a report of an argument.

Also, if a premise is complex enough, it can be stated in many sentences, some of which are declarative and some of which are interrogative. Or if it is simple enough, both premises and conclusion can be stated in a single sentence (such as Jane's example above). Furthermore, premises may very well be unstated or unformulated, and implicit in an argument, in which case they are not even ontologically "sentences." And conclusions can be stated as imperatives ("Therefore, go to your room!") Walkinxyz (talk) 07:46, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Many of the edits made to this article this year here do not appear to respect the need for a neutral point view. I am particularly concerned with the changes in the lede, including a change in the subject of the article. Do other editors believe that the changes made by Walkinxyz and User:174.119.72.51 have improved the article?— Philogos (talk) 22:49, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Please see the article Talk page for the discussion that has taken place about this so far. In my opinion, the criticism of non NPOV badly misses the mark. Whether or not the article has improved over the last year is, of course, for other editors to decide. Walkinxyz (talk) 05:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

All seek the views of other editors.— Philogos (talk) 05:30, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Jonathan Glover Afd

FYI, Jonathan Glover has been nominated for deletion, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jonathan Glover (not by me). Please chime in pro or con. GcSwRhIc (talk) 15:02, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Relativist fallacy

I'm a new editor. Would someone please nominate Relativist Fallacy for deletion please! It's unsupported slander, nothing more. BlueMist (talk) 18:23, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi there I'm quite new too. I also recognise there can be a problem with this securely defined and very negative term "fallacy" being assigned to loosely defined instances of them. So i made a tweak to the lede which will hopefully survive [[4]]. For myself, the rest of the article already reads as a tentatively put and a useful attempt to explain what is meant by this phrase in conversations. 'hth Lisnabreeny (talk) 12:57, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Lisnabreeny! Unfortunately, it's the title of the entry that is blatantly offensive. It is ingrained bigotry against Eastern, relativist, and modern (Galilean, Darwinian) relativistic scientific thought. This is very much like racism or sexism, held by a billion people, including the vast majority of Westerners, Christians, and even some site administrators! see: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Relativist_fallacy - BlueMist (talk) 12:22, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure where I stand on the validity of the label "relativistic fallacy", but you seem to be taking inordinate offense at it, and not making overt sense in the process. A (possible) bias against a certain abstract philosophical position is like racism or sexism? When was the last time someone was denied a job or the right to vote or attacked in the streets or anything like that just because they espoused relativism? Get some perspective. Also, are you accusing "the vast majority of Westerners, Christians, and even some site administrators" of espousing racism and sexism, or of espousing relativism? The way you word it, it sounds like the former. Either way, it's blatantly untrue.

You also seem to have a very muddled concept of "relativism". Galilean relativism is not at all the kind of relativism talked about in the article in question; nobody appeals to Galilean relativism to say "the Earth may revolve around the sun to you, but the sun revolves around the Earth to me". And Darwinism (itself a loaded term in modern context) has nothing to do with relativism at all. Nor does most of modern science, except in limited technical senses like Galilean relativism or Einsteinian relativism, which are again not what the article in question is discussing. --Pfhorrest (talk) 17:58, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Come on. In good faith i dont believe anyone is meaning to offend anyone, including that 'very muddled' remark. Lets not waste steam on dressing ups and dressing downs. Lisnabreeny (talk) 20:49, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

My view is that the existing article has severe problems, but that the term 'relativist fallacy' is used sufficiently often in reputable literature to justify an article. The meaning taken for it appears to vary: most commonly it is taken to mean either the belief that all ideas are equally valid, or the belief that there is no such thing as objective truth. The article, in my view, should explain how the term is used but should be neutral about whether such usage is valid (i.e., whether it actually is in fact a fallacy). Looie496 (talk) 18:18, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

A problem is -there is no agreement about what fallacys really are, to say what is "really" a fallacy or not!

'What is a fallacy? Researchers disagree about how to define the very term “fallacy.” Focusing just on fallacies in sense ... fallacies of argumentation, some researchers define a fallacy as an argument that is deductively invalid or that has very little inductive strength. Because examples of false dilemma, inconsistent premises, and begging the question are valid arguments in this sense, this definition misses some standard fallacies. Other researchers say a fallacy is a mistake in an argument that arises from something other than merely false premises. But the false dilemma fallacy is due to false premises. Still other researchers define a fallacy as an argument that is not good. Good arguments are then defined as those that are deductively valid or inductively strong, and that contain only true, well-established premises, but are not question-begging. A complaint with this definition is that its requirement of truth would improperly lead to calling too much scientific reasoning fallacious; every time a new scientific discovery caused scientists to label a previously well-established claim as false, all the scientists who used that claim as a premise would become fallacious reasoners.' [5]

But I think we cant help if notable phrases are in themselves open to misuse, except when their articles misrepresent them. Although i am not familiar with this area, the article reads tentatively to me, so i would urge BlueMist to think about what might be added to it in order to clarify the nature of the phrase. Lisnabreeny (talk) 20:49, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, maybe I'll try an argument or two: Absolutism says that P is True; Relativism says that P is true only in relation to Q.

Relativism universally holds in the real world, so far without any known exceptions (only God is absolute, if you're of faith), both subjectively with regard to individuals and groups, and objectively in science (very much including Darwin's theory, where P=species, Q=the changing environment).

Plato did NOT reject relativism. But he did make up the fallacy that "relativism says that everything is true" in the Theaeteus, at the cost of his unfortunate victim Protagoras. Plato implies so much in words, right there. Aristotle copied this caricature to favor his own metaphysics against then superior competition. The article we have is pure BS. BlueMist (talk) 00:50, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

"[Species] are true only in relation to [the changing environment]? What is it for a species to "be true" at all? You're not being very clear. I think you're gesturing at how a species can only be said to be "well-adapted" or some such relative to a given environment, rather than absolutely regardless of environment? In that case that is, like Galilean relativity, not the kind of relativism talked about in the "relativist fallacy". The purported fallacy is talking specifically about truth relativism; about whether something can be true (or not) only relative to someone who believes it (or not). The Earth has a certain velocity relative to the sun and a different velocity relative to the moon, but not relative to what people believe it to be. Polar bears are well-adapted relative to the arctic and poorly adapted relative to the tropics, but not relative to what people believe about them. Etc. --Pfhorrest (talk) 01:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

"Truth relativism" is the moniker for Plato's caricature of Protagoras's subjective relativism (Aristotle correctly called this phenomenalism) in the current literature. I don't want to debate Aristotelianism here. Perhaps elsewhere at another time? I am quite well versed in the physical sciences and Darwin's theory, and those too could be discussed in their proper places.

Subjective relativism and instrumental, methodological, and some other relativisms (but unfortunately not Heraclitus) are well described in the IEP in great articles by Emrys Westacott here and more specifically, here. What you and our article refers to is a deliberate confounding of Protagoras and Heraclitus. It confuses subjective and scientific knowledge: When I say "the coffee is bitter" that is true wrt me and only me (it's relative to me at that time and place and respect), and not wrt the public world, which Plato deliberately claimed. That's about all I can tell you on this subject. BlueMist (talk) 01:46, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

NB The article references the following

• Law, Stephen (2005) Thinking Tools: The Relativist Fallacy, Think: Philosophy for everyone (A journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy) 3: 57-58 y

If the article is based on this text then the title would be justified. If somebody suggest that one of one's beliefs is or is based on a fallacy, then gratitude for the warning rather than taking offense would be surely be the appropriate response. (Yes I know, human nature being what it is, most people would rather die the death of a thousand cuts rather than admit they may have made a mistake.

RFC on identifiers

There is an RFC on the addition of identifier links to citations by bots. Please comment. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:55, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Consciousness

This is a challenging topic for a Wikipedia article, since views vary as widely as could be imagined, from those who do not believe it exists to those who believe it is the most important thing in the universe, and every possible variant. Until recently our article has been in pretty bad shape, incoherently structured and full of cruft. I and a few others have been working it over -- I believe we have now removed most of the cruft and given the article a robust global structure. There is still a good bit of work to be done, though, including to the Philosophy section, which ought to be expanded to discuss a wider range of views. I would like to invite editors who are well versed in the philosophy of mind to take a look at the article and make improvements if there are any that occur to you.

One issue in particular: I have left in the article a section discussing consciousness as viewed in Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism. I think this is probably something worth covering, but I can't evaluate the material and really can hardly understand it -- it doesn't seem very useful to me as currently written. If there are any editors around with special knowledge of the topic, further opinions would be useful. Looie496 (talk) 20:44, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Fallacies

There are some high quality philosophy articles on Wikipedia, but generally I've noticed "fallacies" are in a poor state. Some of these articles in my opinion just shouldn't exist -- they are not terms used by philosophers or in any other field. I have done some "prod"ding and marking for merge. Just now I came across "fallacy of necessity" which looks valid but had what looks like a totally wrong example (see talk page, please correct me if I'm mistaken). This example stood on the page for about three years. There's probably a high benefit-to-work ratio if some philosophically-inclined regular contributor had a good read through of all such articles and did some reshuffling, trimming, and a bit of writing. I'm more of a Wikipedia reader than contributor, so at my pace, it will be a long time. --174.119.182.107 (talk) 01:35, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

So much to do on Wikipedia! It will be longer without you than with you. :) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Unclear article

This article is linked to this project: Dominant group. To me, not an expert, it seems to be a bit unclear. If this is an important concept it would be nice if the meaning was made more clear, besides being a group that dominates other groups. Thanks. BigJim707 (talk) 19:45, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Criticism of Judaism

Discussions as to what the article should and should not contain have restarted on Talk:Criticism of Judaism, and outside comments would be helpful. Please see the archives and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander#Discretionary sanctions for history and active sanctions. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 05:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Natural and legal rights

A while ago, the very sparse and mostly redundant article on Legal rights was merged together with the article on Natural rights into Natural and legal rights, an article comparing and contrasting the two (which is most of what the Natural Rights article was about, while the Legal Rights article was almost entirely redundant with Rights simpliciter). Compare similar comparative articles on rights theory such as Negative and positive rights, Claim rights and liberty rights, and Individual and group rights

Now someone has split off Legal right into a stubby article which, while a bit more substantial than what was there before the merger, still shouldn't be its own article, in my opinion. I think the content added there should be added to Natural and legal rights instead (which needs more weight on the legal rights side of things), and Legal right (or Legal rights - rights articles all use the plural) redirect there, as before.

I invite anyone interested to please join the discussion on this matter at Talk:Legal_right#Split_again.3F --Pfhorrest (talk) 00:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Metadefinition

The article Metadefinition has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Article consists of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH building on a computer science concept better discussed at Metamodeling.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. 202.124.73.181 (talk) 02:34, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Planking

I noticed that the page Planking (fad) is included in this WikiProject, under the anarchism task force. Personally, I find the link tenuous at best - I am not sure it should really be part of this WikiProject. I can see its relevance to Psychology and Sociology, but not Philosophy. ItsZippy (talk) 21:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, this is related to an issue that was brought up here a while ago, but nothing ever happened about it. A while a go we split out the Marxism task force and put those articles into the Socialism project. I had proposed the same type of thing for Anarchism, but I don't want to do it until after they are recognized with the Star of Sophia which I think they deserve. I think in the greater scheme of things there should be a Political Culture project with task forces for Anarchism, Socialism, Fascism, Oligarchy, Corporatism and Liberalism.Greg Bard (talk) 00:31, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I think such a Political Culture project would be great. For the time being, since anarchism is more closely related to that and other existing WikiProjects, and since planking is only distantly related to anarchism, I've removed the WikiProject Philosophy template. CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:09, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree; a political culture project would be a good idea. Thanks for removing the article from this project. ItsZippy (talk) 07:45, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I did start on creating such a project. However there is much to discuss about how it is organized. Wikipedia:WikiProject Political culture. Greg Bard (talk) 08:43, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok, that looks interesting. I'll see if I can help out. ItsZippy ^{(talk • Contributions)} 19:50, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Input requested in article move discussion

Hi. Readers at this page may be interested in contributing to the discussion at Talk:Jeffersonian democracy#Requested move. Thanks in advance for any input. -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:40, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Henry Wallis's The Death of Chatterton, 1856.

Notification of RfC

Talk:Suicide#Image RfC

1. Should Henry Wallis's painting The Death of Chatterton be used to illustrate the article Suicide?
2. Should the article Suicide contain an image depicting suicide?

--Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:27, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

General semantics

On the talk page for the article "General_semantics" I have announced an intention to make major editing changes. In its changed form, the article will present general semantics more as a practice than as a theory. It is not my prerogative to dictate whether or not the philosophy project will continue to incorporate general semantics among your concerns, but members of this project may wish to re-evaluate the inclusion of general semantics following the article changes that I anticipate introducing the second or third week of October 2011. Canhelp (talk) 00:17, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

GA assessment

Just so you know, Irenaean theodicy is currently a Good Article nominee. If anyone wants to review it, I'd be grateful. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:14, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I've also nominated Augustinian theodicy as a Good Article too. Both need review, if anyone is interested. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:08, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to change a section title

There's a proposal to adjust one of the main section titles used in "Wikipedia's contents", which will also affect the order in which the section titles are presented. See Portal talk:Contents#Proposal for main section title adjustment. The Transhumanist 02:26, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Science GA/FA push

An effort has begun to improve science to GA and, with luck, to FA status -- see Talk:Science if you are interested in participating. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Science took its leave from Philosophy about 2600 years ago Mike, you might be hard pressed to find editors able and willing to bridge the two cultures. Skomorokh 12:45, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if that should redirect to The Two Cultures. CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:00, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Biopower

This page is a mess: Biopower. Huge paragraphs of unreferenced text. Unintelligeble sentences. Looks to be the work of a single person. Wouldn't know where to begin cleaning it up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.33.187.117 (talk) 08:03, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Camille Paglia

What is the consensus, is Camille Paglia a philosopher or not? She has been removed from categories and the project tag was removed as well. There are plenty of sources that refer to her as a philosopher, including ones that call her a prominent philosopher. There are also some that claim she is not a philosopher. She doesn't refer to herself as a philosopher, and takes a dim view of the term "philosopher," however I don't think that is a necessarily a determining factor. Greg Bard (talk) 22:29, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Paglia is not a philosopher. I've never even seen a single source that calls her a philosopher, though I suppose some might exist. If anyone has called her a philosopher, that's just a sign of ignorance on their part, and not something Wikipedia should repeat. Still less is Paglia a "prominent philosopher" - that's plain nonsense. You might find some third-rate journalist calling her that, but not a member of the philosophical profession. 203.118.184.129 (talk) 00:33, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, this is good input. I do wish you would log in and identify yourself for the sake of the discussion. Are you the same person that deleted the categories? (I just don't think anyone is going to get mad at you over this, so please.) She certainly has made a lot of commentary on (other) philosophers, and has had close association with several. At some point I would say that such a person cannot escape being themselves a philosopher. Are there a lot of non-physicists, for instance, commenting on the work of physicists out there that are taken as seriously? Greg Bard (talk) 04:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Anyone can write "commentary" on philosophers, whether they are a philosopher or not. Paglia's calling Foucault an "arrogant bastard" was commentary, but, whether correct or not, it's not philosophy. "Commentary" on a philosopher does not equal philosophy. No one is a philosopher unless they write philosophy and/or are recognized as a philosopher by the philosophical profession; you might quibble in some cases about whether someone is a real philosopher or not, but Paglia isn't even a borderline case. 203.118.184.33 (talk) 20:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I will take your anonymous input under advisement. You obviously have a strong opinion. Anyone else have any input? Greg Bard (talk) 20:31, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

We sometimes seem to get people arguing as if Wikipedia articles about a specialised academic subject have to sourced only from specialist sources written by people in the right academic departments, as if we were writing a tribalist academic work. This is not really true. If non-specialists have written about specialists and those writings have become notable, then see WP:NOTE. We are writing a tertiary work which is not limited in subject matter. So if a philosopher has been called a jerk by a non philosopher in a well-known incident, then we can mention it. I am not saying we should and I am not making a comment about this specific case, only the principle involved.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:38, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Converse (logic) vs Conversion (logic)

Please see Talk:Converse_(logic)#Conversion_and_converse for a proposal to merge/redirect. -- 202.124.72.170 (talk) 12:28, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Conversion (logic) has been redirected to Converse (logic). CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:03, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Consciousness at GAN

Let me note that I just nominated consciousness for a Good Article review. I have a ridiculous fantasy of eventually going for FA, so it would be very cool to get a thorough review from somebody who knows a bit of the literature on the topic, if that is at all possible. Looie496 (talk) 23:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Soliciting support for draft WikiProject Bibliographies

Fellow Wikipedians, I have taken the initiative, in consultation with a few others, to draft a WikiProject for Bibliographies. I hope it will be of interest to members of this project. The genesis of this effort has been a recent spate of AfD nominations of lists of publications. For the most part, the articles were not deleted, but that doesn’t mean many of them didn’t need work. A WP article entitled List of subject publications or any list of works, is by any other name, a Bibliography. Bibliographies within WP are specifically identified as a form of List in WP:List, are subject to List notability guidelines and the List Manual of Style. Unfortunately, many of the existing Bibliographies (or lists of publications) are not up to these standards. And there’s a high probability that new lists of publications or new Bibliographies won’t completely meet these standards as well, unless we as a community bring greater visibility to this genre of lists.

So the explicit goals of this draft project are to establish project-level advice for creating good bibliographies, gradually bring the existing set of bibliographies (400+) up to standard and to encourage editors to create bibliographies on topics and authors where appropriate. The goal is not to create bibliographies of everything or on everything.

I think the draft Bibliography project is logically connected to this project and members here would have a lot to contribute. If you are interested in participating, please sign up on the draft project page. If we get sufficient interest, I will move the draft into the Wikipedia space and we can press on. Also, please don’t hesitate to make suggestions on the draft here. I am sure it can be improved, will need some work to comply with Project guidelines and that it will evolve as this thing gets going. Thanks in advance for your support.--Mike Cline (talk) 19:40, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Philosophy of language navbar

Hello everyone, I'm just popping over from WikiProject Linguistics with a quick request: would you mind if I put a link back to WP Linguistics from the Philosophy of Language task force navbar? There is a link to the taskforce from the WP Linguistics navbar, but once a user clicks on it they don't have a way of getting back to WP Linguistics, should they so desire. (Well, there's always the back button, but I digress.) Let me know what you think. Regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 16:39, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. The two are of course closely related, it seems like a good idea for people to be able to navigate between them easily. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:41, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I did add that per Mr S. Please do feel free to customize things to your needs. If you need any assistance just holler. Greg Bard (talk) 18:46, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

That looks good - thanks. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:21, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Wow, you even changed the colour scheme for me :) Thanks! — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 22:24, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Otium

How do I go about getting Otium reassessed to possible B-Class and getting an assessment of "importance"?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 15:33, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I took a look at it and inserted the fields for the tag. That thing looks very good.Greg Bard (talk) 18:18, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! --Doug Coldwell ^talk 18:26, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Don't be bashful about changing those ratings. Greg Bard (talk) 21:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I didn't think I had permission to change those ratings myself. I thought only an administrator could do it.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 23:02, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Any member of the project should feel free to engage in assessments. For assessments higher than B, we should engage in a more formal process such as a check list, and a formal discussion. Greg Bard (talk) 08:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Just a quick suggestion - there are a lot of references at the bottom which are not inline citations. Fixing this would improve the article. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 22:22, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for replies.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 14:14, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Kant & ontological argument

Over the past few weeks, I've slowly been improving the ontological argument article and more recently have overhauled the section on Kant's opposition. I would just appreciate it if someone could read over the section to just check it over - ensuring the facts are right, there's no synthesis, the sources are reliable and the like. I'm watching this page, but if anyone who does this could post on my talk page, I'd find that helpful. Thanks. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 22:39, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this here. I have gone through most of the article and made two minor syntax corrections, up to the end of the Kant section. The last sentence of the Kant section is not good as it is: "As a result, we cannot determine how we would verify God's existence, material concepts, whose existence can be verified." It probably should say: "As a result, we cannot determine how we would verify God's existence through material concepts, whose existence can be verified." I am watching it too now, and the conversation can continue on the talk page there. Thanks again. warshy^talk 13:51, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Importance rating

I'm thinking that Irenaean theodicy could be given an importance rating of middle (up from low), as it is a mainstream response to the problem of evil. Would anyone support that change? ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:42, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I think there are a lot of "low" importance articles that need to be promoted. The general trend should be upwards. The low importance category is full of questionable ones (some of which probably could be removed from wp:philo or even deleted), so anything that isn't somewhat questionable should be moved up.Greg Bard (talk) 22:03, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I think that, unless it is a very minor theory or of little significance to philsophy, it should be at least Mid importance. I'll upgrade Augustinian theodicy too, if no one objects. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 22:24, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that a general inflation of ratings is the way to go. Questionable entries should be removed rather than given low importance.

The topic is addressed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Philosophy/Assessment#Importance_scale, where descriptions and examples are given. Based on that scale, I agree with promoting Irenaean theodicy—it seems to fall between Low and Mid-, closer to Mid-.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:27, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Ideally, there would be no "trending" at all. We would just correctly assess things and that would be that. However to ensure that we don't miss something which can be improved, or whose importance can come to be known with a little evaluation, the questionable ones get a "low" rating. Some will move up, and some will move out. However I do not feel that I should be the lone hasty judge of those sort of things. Almost all of the assessments are ones I gave them. So, I do it with quite a bit of leeway. However, generally they should not be more than one level off. Any change of more than one level (i.e. from "low" directly to "high" or "stub" to "C") will appear on the log. Greg Bard (talk) 23:29, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I didn't even know about the log, where is that? That sounds useful! CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:15, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure about a general trend, but it does seem that a lot of important philosophy articles are rated lower than they should be. To me, an article of low importance might not be familiar to someone with a moderate interest in the a particular area of philosophy; something with mid importance should be familiar to someone interested in that specific school of philosophy; something that is high would be familiar to those interested in any area of philosophy; and those rated top would be familiar to someone with very little background or interest in philosophy. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:53, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is what I mean by things should be "trending upwards." I am very conservative on these sort of things. If it is a newly added philosopher, for instance, I usually add "low" (no one saw fit to add him or her up until this point). Many of them really aren't notable enough, but I would rather we take our time to determine that. I think there are plenty of "stubs" that need to be promoted too. Fast proposes, slow disposes. In addition the "top" level is very empty, with plenty of room for, say, the top 100 philosophers. I think we should be adding more to "top" and make the rest of the evaluation more accurate and meaningful. This also contributes to the "trending." It is good for the project and philosophy in general too to recognize philosophers as important as compared to other fields. (I think we may have a little self-hatred going on there subconsciously, there is no reason why philosophy only has a few "top" importance articles.) Greg Bard (talk) 20:15, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

@Greathouse Oh man! Do you mean people don't know about the log?! I have it mentioned on the front project page as 'something you can do to help the project.' Anytime an assessment banner is newly placed, newly removed, changed by more than one level, or a rename occurs, the change is recorded at: The WP:PHILO log. The same is true for every subdivision, i.e. ethics, metaphysics, etc. One of the things I do routinely is go through them one by one. Please do feel free! Greg Bard (talk) 20:15, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Greg. CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:56, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Could someone look at ontological argument please? I think it is probably high but, as I've recently been improving it, it'd be good to get an uninvolved editor to make the decision. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 20:55, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I think that philosophy can be understood without covering ontological arguments for God, but that a broad understanding of philosophy would certainly require familiarity with, at a minimum, some of the more famous ontological arguments like the Cartesian argument and Anselm's.

The definition of High is "The article covers a topic that is vital to understanding philosophy.".

The definition of Low is "The article is not required knowledge for a broad understanding of philosophy."

So my feeling is that Mid covers it perfectly. YMMV.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:50, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

semiotics of the structure?

The page semiotics of the structure is up for deletion at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Semiotics_of_the_structure Tkuvho (talk) 13:43, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Portal:Arts at peer review

Portal:Arts is now up for portal peer review, the review page is at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Arts/archive1. I've put a bit of effort into this as part of a featured portal drive related to portals linked from the top-right corner of the Main Page, and feedback would be appreciated prior to featured portal candidacy. Thank you for your time, — Cirt (talk) 07:01, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Removal of articles from the project

About 30 articles (so far) have been removed from the project by editor Quisquiliae (contributions). This may be the result of the fact that some of these articles were placed into the project with a generous notion of what the project should be monitoring. Some may be taken out due to the fresh perspective of a relatively new editor. However, I think perhaps the issue could use more eyes on it.Greg Bard (talk) 20:10, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that a lot of the articles removed did have a link to philosophy - they were philosophers (or people who have had an impact on philosophy), or works which have had an impact on philosophy. John Calvin is one such example - he is not described as a philosopher, but his contributions to philosophy, notably the concept of Calvinism has been tremendous. Philosophy is a topic that can cover a vast range of ideas, simply because the "philosophy of" a subject tends to be an important aspect of that subject. Evolution, for example, though primarily a biological topic has had a strong influence on philosophy, including the teleological argument, creationism, the Irenaean theodicy, the intelligent design movement, atheism, Richard Dawkins, to name but a few. For this reason, I would err on the side of keeping something in the project, unless it has had no bearing at all on any school of philosophy. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:16, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

A discussion on the matter has been opened on Skomorokh's talk page, and from comments made by the editor, it seems Quisquiliae lacked an understanding of the task force system, or simply didn't bother to read the articles in question. A comment on Anarky, a comic book character thematically based on philosophy: "We now have the situation where the pitifully few top philosophy articles in Wikipedia include a comic book." Pitiful indeed. I've begun the process of reverting several of these edits, but in respect to Quisquiliae, I am taking a close look at several of these articles to be sure inclusion in this august wikiproject is due. I'm not going to revert the removal of Evolution, but History of evolutionary thought will be returned. --Cast (talk) 22:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I am sure everything will work out just fine. The banner, and the ratings just aren't supposed to be a contentious issue. They are mostly guidelines, and the actual article content is much more important.Greg Bard (talk) 23:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I've also seen a few cases recently where editors have removed the WikiProject Philosophy banner from the Talk pages of (minor) philosophers. I think I've restored them where I've seen it happen, but it's worth keeping an eye out.

Obviously there are cases (like the planking article) where removal is justified, but in general I'd be cautious when I see something taken down like that.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:14, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Apologies for causing disruption. I came to this via this page [6] which lists 'philosophy articles'. It turns out it links to the Philosophy project template on talk pages. I think of a philosophy article primarily as one which actually talks about the subject. Thus Philosophy of mind. Secondarily, as one about a philosopher, namely, someone who engages in or writes or teaches philosophy. Thus Aristotle. It seems very odd to me that an article on Anarky (a comic book character) or the Illuminatus Trilogy (a spoof on conspiracy theory) should be called articles on philosophy.

I believe that Wikipedia has requirements on 'reliable sourcing'. I have many reliable sources on philosophy. I can't source the Illuminatus Trilogy in any of these. I.e. I can't find any reliable source that says it is a work of philosophy. Can someone locate a reliable source that says the subject is part of philosophy, properly so-called? Regards Quisquiliae (talk) 08:50, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

You see? This is what I was talking about "fresh perspective." No need to apologize for disruption, as that is how Wikipedia works, people change things and there is a response to that. You don't have to be bashful about things, but it is always possible that there is someone out there who is not liking your edits too. We can work things out here or on some talk page. The answer to your question is a bit of a long story. At one point the task forces included a Marxism Task Force, which was recently merged into WikiProject Socialism. The Anarchism folks approached WP:PHILO to be covered so as to take advantage of some of the resources of this project in the same way. There is currently a proposal to merge a bunch of Political culture task forces into WikiProject Politics. Perhaps the Anarchism Task Force will move over there and it won't be an issue anymore. However, up until this point I have been interpreting the task force ratings as respecting what the task force level of importance is. If they consider an article "top", then it is "top" for the whole project. That goes for any task force. Usually, since the placement of project tags and the ratings are not contentious at all, we don't require sources to back up these things, but rather reserve that type of thing for the articles. As far as what is and is not a philosophy article the primary categories are listed on the categories page of the navigation bar above. The main categories of articles are Philosophers, Philosophical literature, Philosophical theories and Philosophical concepts. Beyond that there are a lot of Philosophical organizations. However almost every philosophy article can be interpreted as being in one of those categories with very few exceptions. Welcome and be well, Greg Bard (talk) 10:24, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

You say "As far as what is and is not a philosophy article ..." and then talk about Wikipedia categories. My criterion for what is or is not a philosophy article is not whether it is in some Wikipedia category, period. Quisquiliae (talk) 10:31, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

You mentioned Aristotle and Philosophy of mind as examples of a philosophy article, I was just pointing out that Principia Mathematica, Scholasticism, Arete, and the American Philosophical Association would also qualify.Greg Bard (talk) 10:39, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes of course. Quisquiliae (talk) 10:41, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Quisquiliae, there might indeed be a few articles too many in our listing, but best to consider each case and make sure you have a rationale each time. Doing a whole "batch" of deletions will tend to raise concerns (they are not all comic book related), so it is good that it is now being discussed in this forum. Perhaps we should list the ones you deleted and discuss. I think these are all of them, but please mention it if there are more. I will put it in a table format already in case we end up turning this into a bit of a "vote". (We can add columns fairly easily.)---Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:06, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

article	AL comment	Cast reverted?
Talk:List of works by Joseph Priestley		yes
Talk:George Orwell bibliography		yes
Talk:Zhang Heng		yes
Talk:Shen Kuo		yes
Talk:Samuel Johnson		yes
Talk:Maximus the Confessor		yes‎
Talk:Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman		yes
Talk:Learned Hand		yes
Talk:La Peau de chagrin		yes
Talk:Ion Heliade Rădulescu		yes
Talk:Anarky		no
Talk:Transhumanism		yes
Talk:The Illuminatus! Trilogy		yes
Talk:Mary Wollstonecraft		yes
Talk:Joseph Priestley		yes
Talk:John Dee	keep	yes
Talk:John Calvin	keep	yes
Talk:Johannes Kepler	keep	yes
Talk:Hippocrates‎	keep	yes
Talk:Georg Cantor	keep	yes
Talk:Confirmation bias	keep	yes
Talk:Alfred Russel Wallace	keep	yes
Talk:Archimedes	keep	yes
Talk:A Vindication of the Rights of Woman		yes
Talk:A Vindication of the Rights of Men		yes‎
Talk:Rabindranath Tagore		no
Talk:Law		yes
Talk:History of evolutionary thought‎	keep	yes
Talk:Evolution		no
Talk:Emma Goldman		no
Talk:Charles Darwin	keep	no
Talk:Anekantavada		yes

Personally I think some of these probably can be cut?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:06, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

• I originally deleted John Dee because he is well-known as an astrologer and magus and so forth. He is of no interest as a philosopher, and I know of no strictly philosophical works that he wrote. Again, the default should be that where no RS can be cited, the link should be deleted. Quisquiliae (talk) 10:28, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
• Cantor made significant contributions to mathematics and set theory, and also made some (rather eccentric) contributions to the Shakespeare authorship question. But no reliable source lists him as a philosopher. Quisquiliae (talk) 10:33, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Our articles on both subjects mention philosophy amongst the many things they were involved in. If those articles are wrong and you've spent a lot of time checking it (which is not the impression which comes from the large number of links you deleted very quickly) then you should perhaps better approach this problem by first going to the talk pages of those articles?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:30, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Let's just take the article on John Dee. There are only two references to philosophy, namely 'occult philosophy'. 'Occult philosophy' is not philosophy in the modern sense (it means something like 'magic'). A fundamental principle of an encyclopedia is that it should use words in their modern meaning, not some archaic meaning. Otherwise confusion rules. Quisquiliae (talk) 11:54, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I think the word philosophy is inherently difficult to be strict about in cases like this one. Occult philosophy is certainly not orthodox modern philosophy, but when John Dee was alive, things were different. Similar issues of anachronistic standards for others like Archimedes, Hippocrates etc. Philosophy is more than just what post war academic departments of philosophy do for a living.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:01, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

You say "Occult philosophy is certainly not orthodox modern philosophy, but when John Dee was alive, things were different. " Not at all! The two subjects are different now, and were different then. All terms in Wikipedia should be used in their modern sense, otherwise confusion reigns. For example, a modern dictionary does not give archaic definitions unless they are clearly signposted. Quisquiliae (talk) 12:08, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

We are writing an encylopedia which covers everything, not a specifically technical modern listing of definitions. Furthermore, we can not "signpost" these links you deleted except in the articles themselves, for example by adding a word like "occult". These project links are for maintenance purposes, not part of the articles themselves. So this is not a subject where we should be debating too hard about subject or definition related controversies. The main question is just whether members of this project will want to have these articles appearing in the list they want to have over-sight of?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:00, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Sure OK. I'm leaving now, I doubt I will be back. Sorry to have been an inconvenience, I hope no damage done. Regards Quisquiliae (talk) 13:39, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I see no problem with you having raised this and afterall it is quite a low level of inconvenience. I am sure we all hope you'll keep watching the way these things work and try to help again.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:28, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I think there's a danger here of conflating standards and inclusion criteria for the encyclopaedia itself and the back-office maintenance work, that is to say how the John Dee article characterises his contributions if any to philosophy is a question of a lot more seriousness and deference to established sources than whether or not it is useful for WikiProject Philosophy to keep an eye on the article.

As for the list of articles above, some ought to be removed certainly, some of the removals were just silly (A Vindication of the Rights of Men? Georg Cantor?!) but many of the at-first-glance-odd inclusions be accounted for by their relevance to the task forces. Emma Goldman for instance would not likely appear in a compendium of philosophers, but is she relevant to the remit of the Social & political task force? Absolutely. The task forces sharing an assessment scheme with WP:PHIL is less than ideal, particularly due to inconsistent application of |importance= ratings as Greg notes, but it's ultimately just a maintenance arrangement, no big deal. Skomorokh 12:20, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Cantor was not a philosopher but a mathematician, I think. A Vindication of the Rights of Men is borderline. On the point about 'back office', well yes, but the problem is to get a conspectus of how Wikipedia deals with philosophy. Difficult.Quisquiliae (talk) 12:28, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

That's something of a non-sequitur; nowhere in the assessment scheme does it say that the subjects of biographical articles in the project must be philosophers, nor have any of the WP:PHIL asserted as such. Because no-one has set out stringent inclusion criteria for the assessment tagging (not that I'd necessarily encourage such an attempt), what gets included is anything with philosophically-relevant content. Both those articles wouldn't be found in the Philosophy section of a topically-organised encyclopaedia for instance, but are on subjects I've personally come across in graduate-level university philosophy prospectuses.

As for the problem of getting a conspectus of how deals with philosophy – good luck mate. There isn't a master plan or central committee to look up, mostly just the isolated actions of editors pottering about their articles of interest, and a handful of organisers like Greg Bard occasionally trying to put some consistency and order on things. I'd recommend reading the talkpages of the Philosophy, List of philosophers, History of Philosophy articles and so on, although there is a distracting amount of discussion devoted to the fringe demarcation problem. the archives of this page are likely to be most fruitful. You do face a general difficulty in that the answer to the question "What's Wikipedia's attitude to X", where X is a topic that doesn't get much interest, is almost always "it doesn't have one" – although in some cases a dominant ideology or attitude can be discerned. I suspect this is not one of those cases, but good luck to you. Skomorokh 12:47, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I will leave this for now, you have given me plenty to think about. My question is actually "How does Wikipedia deal with X", and not "what is Wikipedia's attitude to X". There is a considerable literature on how Wikipedia 'gets it right' and how e.g. Jimmy's decision in 2001 not to have some sort of overall editorial control was the right one, and Sanger's position the wrong one. It's a question of what 'gets it right' means, of course. My impression is that it is a bit of a mess, but I think you know that. All the best Quisquiliae (talk) 12:55, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Some things are definitely messy. In this case we are dealing with behind the scenes messes. Some articles have much more visible problems, and more help is always welcome.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:28, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

No thanks, too painful. I see that Beyond Necessity has written it up, though. That has a very wide readership in the philosophical community. I mean the actual philosophical community, not the strange variation of it here. (No offence intended). Quisquiliae (talk) 14:37, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I've seen a lot of complicated arguments on Wikipedia made by people disappointed that people disagree with them. Writing a blog and calling it the real world is a little unconvincing :). Working with others is always potentially painful in some way, but it can be rewarding. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:03, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:RANDY Quisquiliae (talk) 15:25, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

(comment)Note that "Beyond Necessity" is known to be the work of User:Peter Damian, a banned user known for evading said ban under a series of sockpuppets and IPs (109.*)... --Ckatz^chat_spy 19:33, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Could I just request that Evolution and Charles Darwin are restored to this WikiProject. I judge project inclusion to be determined by what influence or impact an idea, work or person has had on philosophy. As I said above, Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution has had strong implications for the teleological argument, creationism, the Irenaean theodicy, the intelligent design movement, atheism, Richard Dawkins and more. Evolution especially has a strong bearing on whether God created the world, whether science makes philosophy/religion redundant and whether God should be held accountable for suffering in the world. These are clearly important philosophical issues, which would merit the inclusion of both Evolution and Charles Darwin. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 22:15, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Pardon, but there's nothing stopping you from reverting these removals yourself, and readmitting each to the WikiProject. That said, I would discourage it. Not because I disagree with you, indeed I would push for an overhaul to each article to include more information on their connection to philosophy. No, I would discourage you precisely because there has been little to no information included on that connection. I disagree with the comments justifying the inclusion of certain articles to the WikiProject. The reason why I include Anarky (a philosophical comic book character), the Illuminatus! Trilogy (a philosophical work of fiction) and Emma Goldman (a philosophical activist) in this WikiProject is not because they are tangentially related to some branch of philosophy, but because each has a section explaining what that connection is. That has always been my inclusion criteria for any WikiProject banner or Portal link I add. In order for that connection to have been written, it would have had to first be notable. The notable connection to philosophy is what makes these articles important to this project. Above, Quisquiliae has noted that inclusion should require third-party referencing, a point I agree on, but then fails to recognize that such connections have already been made, and suggests there has been a failure of the greater project that is Wikipedia. I cannot understand this failure of logic. The reason why I did not revert and readmit Darwin and Evolution is because we have an article already explaining the connection of both these subjects to philosophy—the history of evolutionary thought. If the articles on Darwin and Evolution should be expanded so they can be included in this WikiProject, I encourage that each should contain a summary style sub-section explaining the relationship to philosophy, with a Template:Main link to the History of thought article. What say you? --Cast (talk) 23:56, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I know that I can make the changes myself - the reason I did not was exactly because I knew it was already controversial, so wanted to establish consensus. As for your position, I am afraid I disagree - I do not believe that inclusion of a topic in an article is required for its inclusion in a WikiProject. Simply put - that is not what WikiProjects are for. WikiProjects allow editors of like minds to contribute to articles that interest them; they are for editors, not for readers. Therefore, an article should be included in a WikiProject if it is of interest to that WikiProject. This is because members of the WikiProject may then see an article in the WikiProject and, as it is likely to be of interest to them, may then contribute to it. By not including articles in a WikiProject simply because they have not had such a connection written in the article is counter-productive and may produce a vicious circle. An article of interest to a WikiProject which, at present has no link made to it in the article could be improved with the link being written into the article. This is more likely to happen in the article is part of the WikiProject. To take an example, it is true that the theory of evolution has had an impact on philosophy (as I outlined above) and is therefore of interest to philosophers. If we want this connection to be included into the article, being included in the Philosophy Project makes this more likely. A member of this project may see Evolution, note that its link to philosophy is lacking and include it themselves. If evolution is only in scientific WikiProjects, it will only get input from science. The bias towards science and away from philosophy in the article is exacerbated if we then remove the article from this Project, not improved. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 14:40, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I think this is a wonderful discussion. I hope people increasingly take it upon themselves to adjust ratings, add and remove project banners, etcetera. However they really are not very important themselves. They are a good thing to help categorize the article. It is a good thing to get this type of discussion out of the way before making changes to the main article. I go through all the new articles to see which ones to add. I do use the standard that being in the scope of the project means "of interest to the project." So the catch 22 is that, if there is no philosophical content, I don't see any reason to add it to the project. However, in many cases there appears to be at least something there that can be expanded and I do add it to the project. Many of those perhaps do even not belong in the project. The "low" importance category is full of questionable ones, and some that should be promoted. However, I am not so expert as to say which ones all by myself. The log has not been updated since before this whole discussion started. So the the next update should be interesting. Greg Bard (talk) 21:04, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Chinese Philosophy Page

Hello, new editor here so I apologize if I am not doing this correctly. Been reading the Chinese Philosophy page and I am quite dissattisfied with it. Are there standards the Philosophy pages follow for creating big general pages like that? I am just torn between whether the article should be rewritten so it is more a nexus to other pages, or if it should be more like a summary of all of Chinese philosophy or even a history of Chinese philosophical developments. I imagine some sort of connection with standards with the Philosophy projects at large would be helpful?--Shadowy Sorcerer (talk) 09:27, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Greetings and welcome. In general, I would encourage you to be bold and make any changes that you see as helpful. If there are any issues, bring the discussion to the talk page of the particular articles (in this case Talk:Chinese philosophy). There is a formative style guide for philosophy articles. If you have any questions, problems, or if you think there is something that the philosophy project should be discussing, doing something about, or thinking about; please do drop a note here. Be well,Greg Bard (talk) 11:00, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I may have misunderstood. I thought you were saying it wasn't that bad… Feel free to re–tag it, or drop it back down to start–class… whatever you think might help.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 11:07, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

AfD of article in project

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Conservative Christianity BigJim707 (talk) 18:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Could use some input on terms of art.

Hi, there seems to be some contention on how to read http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/40634/atheism#.

Could someone please weigh in on whether the first paragraph is a summary of the article or a strawman argument dismantled in the later development of it. No, I am not joking. Thanks! un☯mi 14:21, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Could you please clarify which paragraph you mean? I doubt that you mean the actual first paragraph, which is simply a definition. Looie496 (talk) 17:02, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I do, in fact. see talk page here - there is a lot of wobble in the conversation but basically seems to center around an unwillingness to concede that atheism is distinguished from agnosticism in not leaving the question of existence open. un☯mi 20:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Proposal of association with the Tetrabiblos and this project

I have recently done a lot of work on the article about Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. This is an the famous 2nd century astrological work and since much of the content has strong connections with philosophical principles I would like to propose the page as one of interest to this project, and include your project banner on the talk page - would that be OK?

The article is currently under review for FA status. Unfortunately it has had mixed reviews and the critical reviewers feel it needs independent assesment from members of projects such as this. The positive reviews have come from members of the Wiki:astrology project and I am sure you can see the problem of having just a few reviews from editors with strong opinions on the subject matter. If anyone here would be prepared to offer a personal assesment for the review discussion, that would be extremely helpful. It has been hard to find editors with good knowledge of the philosophical issues involved who are able to offer assesment concerning the quality of the article and the discussion of its theme. Any constructive criticism is welcome as usual on the talk page too. Hope some of the members here will have a natural interest in this. In any event, please let me know if it's OK to use your banner and associate the page with this project. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 02:03, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

When I see an article with any content dealing with astrology, esoterism, mysticism, or spirituality, (and somewhat often theology), I usually remove it from the project with extreme prejudice. Philosophy requires that its practitioners use a particular methodology, i.e. the use of reason. I think that is does nothing but harm to associate with this sort of thing. I don't wish to lend credibility where it is not deserved, and I do not wish for this project to lose any credibility either. With that said, it may still be appropriate for philosophy editors take a look at the article in question, and perhaps it belongs in the "natural philosophy" category (which is also no longer philosophy).Greg Bard (talk) 02:18, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I understand that natural sense of reticence but this books is pivotal in the undertanding of classical philosphy. It holds enormous historical influence because of the reasoned use of the philsophical principles. Take a look Greg. I can see you don't like the subject (I am having a problem with that) but I would not have proposed this without feeling that it is fitting for your project. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 02:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, the books' author Ptolemy is already listed amongst your indexed list of philosophers, and many other names in that list are mentioned in the article. This book heavily impacted upon their philosophical ideas. Will leave it at that -- Zac Δ ^talk! 02:41, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Acknowledged. It may very well be of interest to the project, so I'm open minded. But, I'm not the one to unilaterally determine that one way or the other. Greg Bard (talk) 02:54, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

When I said "having a problem with that" I meant generally, BTW, not having a problem with you having a problem. A good way to see what I mean is to look at the details at the section which introduced Ptolemy's philosophical argument. "The first three chapters of Book I have been particularly important historically because these give Ptolemy’s philosophical defence against the astrological criticisms made by skeptics." The ideas are explained quite fully. This is historical philosophy of course, not modern philosophy, but the article explains ideas that helped to shape philosophical world-views. It is hard to understand why you would place Ptolemy in your list but have a problem with coverage of the text that presented his philosophical arguments (it wasn't his astronomical text that held the philosophical ideas, it was this one).-- Zac Δ ^talk! 10:00, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

An extreme distinction between astrology and astronomy is a modern prejudice. It's definitely of interest to the history of natural philosophy.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 00:19, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you MachineElf. As it turns out the review process has been archived for now, so I am going to continue working on this and will submit again another time. It did suffer from not having other editors invoved who understood the subject matter, so if there are any members here that are knowledgable about this book's content and historical influence your interest in the article would be very welcome - either editorially now or to offer a review when the article is resubmitted (when that happens next time, I'll make a statement at the start of the process instead of the end). The article is of interest to the history of natural philosophy, there is no doubt about that, but I am aware that the topic of astrology, in any form, rouses strong reactions on Wikipedia. If it's OK I'll add the banner, and if anyone feels strongly averse to the idea, just go to the talk page and remove it. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 01:09, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I went to the article to look it over and see if it should fall under Philosophy or not. Instead I lost myself looking at the article and then the original (in translation)... nice article. CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:45, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that means a lot. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 02:01, 9 December 2011 (UTC)