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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Gregbard (talk | contribs) at 00:14, 12 September 2007 (→Category:Bertrand Russell). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


Template:Wikibarphilo

Lack (manque)

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

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

Philosophical Aspects of Privacy

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

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

need help with POV article

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

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

Practicalism

Hello,

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

WTF

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

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

Joseph Priestley

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

List of philosophers

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

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

AfD for Fragmentalism

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

About philosophic theory charts

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

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

Should Read Like Encyclopedia Entry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Argument from queerness

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

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

Policy on "Works" Section?

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

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

Contextualism category?

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

List of philosophy component types

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

Hold come what may and Hold more stubbornly at least

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

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

Galileo Galilei FAR

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

about jargonistic articles

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

Cosmosophy prodded

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

Speculative reason

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

Hylomorphism

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

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

Philosophy of travel

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

paste from article - should be in talk

(I'm placing this here temporarily for visibility)

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

  • Low importance: Specialized, lesser known topics

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

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

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

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

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

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

AfD for Agnus Serra

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

About PHILOtheory charts (again)

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

A few doubts

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

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

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

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

Math v Phil over Logic

Greetings folks,

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

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

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

Talk:Absolute truth

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

Khalufid's Fork

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

Jean Piaget in project

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

Call for speedy deletion Philosophical Explanation

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

Help with assessing importance of phil articles

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

Merger of Axiomatic system and Formal system ??

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

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

Alethiology

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

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

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

Proposed merge of 'Brain in a vat' and 'Evil genius'

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

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


Category names that do not correspond to general academic uses

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

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

'Child' projects of WikiProject:philosophy

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

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

Mircea Eliade

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

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

Political choice

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

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

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

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

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

Proposal for automatic banner tagging

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

Core areas:

Major fields:

Major traditions:

Periods:

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

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

Questions

Tagging

Shall we or shant we?

Time frame

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

Notice

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

Fields

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Category:Professional ethics

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

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

Category:Ludwig Wittgenstein

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

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

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

And now the discussion has moved to :

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

Examined Life?

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

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

Entscheidungsproblem

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

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

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

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

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

Advice (opinion)

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

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

Why are there commercials on the bottom of the Entelechy page?

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

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

Need some backup

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

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

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

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

Category:Bertrand Russell

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

Are you claiming that Russell was not an analytic philosopher, or that he is was not human? Banno 21:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I worry about you people sometimes. I am claiming that Definite description is not an analytic philosopher. Johnbod 21:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
In that you are quite correct. But I see no reason why the cat for Russell should not contain his major works. On the discussion page at category:Philosophy I have made a suggestion. I suggest we move this discussion there. I worry about us people too. Banno 22:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
No, please read (and analyse) what I say above! Johnbod 22:10, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Johnbod, I have read what you say. I'm afraid I have either lost your reasoning, or I should be VERY worried about you. Please tell me you realize that the category relationship is not transitive. The articles in category X (a subcategory of cat Y) are not necessarily members of category Z (of which Y is a sub cat)? This is the case all over WP. Greg Bard 23:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
That is not the case here. All members of all subcats of Category:Analytic philosophers should be biographies (or lists etc of same). This is wading through sludge, I'll go and do it myself. Cat:Russell should be in Cat:Analytic PhilosOPHY, and doubtless others, but not in Category:Analytic philosophers. God knows how you cope with the back covers of Wittgenstein. Johnbod 00:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
If what you are saying is that the Cat:Russell may not belong under Cat:philosophers, while the article:B.Russell does. That makes sense. However, if you are saying that all the members of all the subcategories of cat:analytic philosophers must also all be only philosophers. That makes no sense at all. Greg Bard 00:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
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