Category talk:Dialogues of Plato/Archive 1

message: This archive page covers approximately the dates between 13 Mar 2005 and 20 Aug 2005.
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Please add new archivals to Category talk:Dialogues of Plato/Archive02. Thank you. Girolamo Savonarola 11:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

message: Naming of articles treating Plato's dialogues seperately is confusing, I propose following renamings (per tetralogy):
:note 1: Since
::works marked (1) (scholars don't generally agree that Plato is the author)
:and
::works marked (2) (scholars generally agree that Plato is not the author of the work)
:might lead to discussion if marked "(Plato)", I'd mark these "(dialogue)", except where these works are no dialogues.
:note 2: This proposition is on Talk:Plato too – I propose to have the discussion here
--Francis Schonken 12:56, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The proposed scheme

message: ===Remarks===
I don't understand why you have created this convention which seems to me both unnecessary and contrary to the conventions already in use. Works should be named by their title when there appears to be no other usage of the name (eg Phaedo), and by standard naming convention otherwise [eg Laws (book) or Laws (Plato book) only in the case that Laws (book) already refers to another work which has higher priority]. That being said, I would imagine most any work named as "Title (book)" would likely have the name priority, being a Platonic work. But this "Title (Plato)" convention in my opinion smacks of bad form and largely unnecessary disambiguation. I respect your work in the Philosophy section, but I beg you to reconsider on this matter. Thank you. --Girolamo Savonarola 23:25, 2005 May 8 (UTC)
Using this quote: "there is no written work of my own on my philosophy, and there never will be. For this philosophy cannot possibly be put into words as other sciences can. The sole way of acquiring it is by strenuous intellectual communion and intimate personal intercourse" (Plato's Letters, No. 7, 341 B-E.), it would be hard to assign the term "author" or "authorship" to any works of Plato, seeing authouship implies writing.  Nobs 16:59, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, here is the crux of the issue, who's going to perform all that??? - please also respect talk pages to be moved coherently, check double redirects, etc, etc --Francis Schonken 07:28, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remarks of Savonarola 

message: I don't understand why you have created this convention which seems to me both unnecessary and contrary to the conventions already in use. Works should be named by their title when there appears to be no other usage of the name (eg Phaedo), and by standard naming convention otherwise [eg Laws (book) or Laws (Plato book) only in the case that Laws (book) already refers to another work which has higher priority]. That being said, I would imagine most any work named as "Title (book)" would likely have the name priority, being a Platonic work. But this "Title (Plato)" convention in my opinion smacks of bad form and largely unnecessary disambiguation. I respect your work in the Philosophy section, but I beg you to reconsider on this matter. Thank you. --Girolamo Savonarola 23:25, 2005 May 8 (UTC)
Using this quote: "there is no written work of my own on my philosophy, and there never will be. For this philosophy cannot possibly be put into words as other sciences can. The sole way of acquiring it is by strenuous intellectual communion and intimate personal intercourse" (Plato's Letters, No. 7, 341 B-E.), it would be hard to assign the term "author" or "authorship" to any works of Plato, seeing authouship implies writing.  Nobs 16:59, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Remarks

message: ====Francis====
Sorry I didn't know about the naming convention for literary works (had been looking for it but didn't find at the time I proposed the Plato scheme). Note however that the scheme you mention somehow has difficulties for these writers from antiquity (and beyond - I think even till about 19th century):
#Writers from Antiquity: there's not always uniformity as to the translation of the title in English - for Latin (etc.) writers, using Latin script, there's not so much of a problem (one can give the title in the original language, e.g. De re publica) - Greek script for article names in English wikipedia doesn't seem all that obvious - or would that be an option?
#Because those antique writers were not inhibited to use the same title for their works, this means the "... (book)" method does not always disambiguate properly, e.g. Republic (book); Apology (book); Histories (book), Letters (book), Lives (book), etc... would be quite meaningless, referring to several authors each of them.
#For writers from antiquity (and later) a single work can be subdivided in several books: Tacitus' Annals; Bodin's Republic, Plato's Republic, etc... all have this structure - makes e.g. "Republic (book)" seem a bit odd for someone acquainted with antiquity, even if reffering to the work of a single author.
#For Plato nearly each of his titles has another meaning: most of his titles are names of persons which already have (or soon might have) a separate article; other works by Plato mostly share a title with works of other authors (Laws; Letters; Republic...)
#Note that the scheme I proposed borrows from naming conventions in classical music (e.g. Symphony No. 1 (Mahler)) - which was the nearest naming convention I could find to solve most of the issues relating to Plato.
For the dialogues which are not in certainty to be ascribed to Plato, I had proposed "... (dialogue)" (instead of "... (book)") as a naming scheme (note that at the time I proposed that, there were already some Plato dialogues marked "... (dialogue)").
"... (Plato book)" appears to me as a very unelegant way to tackle this - at least I'd prefer "... (Plato dialogue)" in most cases but don't think this particularly elegant either; but if this is the agreed naming convention, no problem to change to it.
See also above on this page: this might make you understand better why & how I proposed what I proposed.
--Francis Schonken 08:03, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Replies

message: Sorry I didn't know about the naming convention for literary works (had been looking for it but didn't find at the time I proposed the Plato scheme). Note however that the scheme you mention somehow has difficulties for these writers from antiquity (and beyond - I think even till about 19th century):
#Writers from Antiquity: there's not always uniformity as to the translation of the title in English - for Latin (etc.) writers, using Latin script, there's not so much of a problem (one can give the title in the original language, e.g. De re publica) - Greek script for article names in English wikipedia doesn't seem all that obvious - or would that be an option?
#Because those antique writers were not inhibited to use the same title for their works, this means the "... (book)" method does not always disambiguate properly, e.g. Republic (book); Apology (book); Histories (book), Letters (book), Lives (book), etc... would be quite meaningless, referring to several authors each of them.
#For writers from antiquity (and later) a single work can be subdivided in several books: Tacitus' Annals; Bodin's Republic, Plato's Republic, etc... all have this structure - makes e.g. "Republic (book)" seem a bit odd for someone acquainted with antiquity, even if reffering to the work of a single author.
#For Plato nearly each of his titles has another meaning: most of his titles are names of persons which already have (or soon might have) a separate article; other works by Plato mostly share a title with works of other authors (Laws; Letters; Republic...)
#Note that the scheme I proposed borrows from naming conventions in classical music (e.g. Symphony No. 1 (Mahler)) - which was the nearest naming convention I could find to solve most of the issues relating to Plato.
For the dialogues which are not in certainty to be ascribed to Plato, I had proposed "... (dialogue)" (instead of "... (book)") as a naming scheme (note that at the time I proposed that, there were already some Plato dialogues marked "... (dialogue)").
"... (Plato book)" appears to me as a very unelegant way to tackle this - at least I'd prefer "... (Plato dialogue)" in most cases but don't think this particularly elegant either; but if this is the agreed naming convention, no problem to change to it.
See also above on this page: this might make you understand better why & how I proposed what I proposed.
--Francis Schonken 08:03, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Francis

message: Thank you too... I worked on my scheme proposal some time ago, trying to trigger reactions from other wikipedians (by posting links to this page on several talk pages) - glad finally someone takes the thing at heart too.
I'm aware I should do some effort w.r.t. to the "literary works" naming conventions guideline too - I'm glad you have the intention to dig in that - since this "Plato" naming conventions is quite far out of my usual competences I agree to whatever this results in.
I only started this because the names of articles related to Plato were a complete mess when I arrived here first (... when working on Satie's Socrate ...) - Some were "Plato's Title" others were "Title (dialogue)" and what not...
What I'd propose, if you care to work on this, is that you make a list too, like I did above, of all of Plato's works. Note that this list, if it is agreed upon, traditionally features on the Plato page, all of Plato's works hyperlinked - that's where the creation of new articles on Plato's works usually starts.
A last hint: indeed some of the English titles of Plato's works are particularily cumbersome. The most cumbersome I think the one that is now Republic (Plato) - if you'd have a good alternative for that article title I'd be more than glad - see e.g. politeia, Res publica, De re publica, Republicanism, Republic (disambiguation), Republic, and the 7 (sic) archives of the talk page of that last page of how confusing the usual English title of that dialogue by Plato is. Other (comparatively minor) issues include e.g. the present symposium (Plato) - symposium (Xenophon) ambiguity (note that both of these are qualified "socratic dialogue"); another the maybe yes-or-no by Plato "definitions" and "epigrams" (...which are no dialogues); the fact that some titles in classical litterature are about as "generic" as "symphony" is for a classical composer (e.g. Letters); etc...
--Francis Schonken 10:03, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Francis

message: I understand that you were the first on the scene to propose a reform; it's good that someone made the effort! Here is my revised list as I would like to see it. I have omitted links at the moment. Your Republic example is notable, but again, nothing that cannot be effectively and fairly dealt with via disambigs, redirects, and so on.
Note that I have made all these recommendations in the good faith that these titles are the agreed upon standards. If a work has several potentially dominant titles, please inform first. Non-English titles do not count unless overwhelmingly used over the English ones.
*I. 
**Euthyphro
**Apology - set page to Plato work, with disambiguation link at top of article, which should handle Xenophon fine. Make certain The Apology redirects to Apology instead of being slightly slimmer second disambig. (Though the Xenophon parenthetical is another matter altogether, and my mind is not clear about how to characterize it at the moment.)
***Needs creation of Apology (disambiguation), with the present content of Apology (OK, already performed that "move" operation)
**Crito
**Phaedo
*II.
**Cratylus
**Theaetetus - merge with mathematician, given the lack of info for him found outside the work
*** According to French wikipedia (), Theaetetus is also mentioned in Theodorus of Cyrene (but that appears to be a person not a work).
****Yes, but it seems that the only attribution they give him is that he is mentioned in the work. I don't think that's enough to warrant a seperate page.
**Sophist (dialogue)
***Disambig, or at least "see also"-link at sophism - what happens with sophist page (which is presently redirect to "sophism")?
****Agreed. I left this implied; should have specified.
**Statesman (dialogue) - will need a disambig at Statesman page.
*III.
**Parmenides (dialogue)
**Philebus
**Symposium (Plato dialogue) - also revise Xenophon's accordingly
**Phaedrus (dialogue)
*IV.
**Alcibiades (dialogues)|First Alcibiades
**Alcibiades (dialogues)|Second Alcibiades
**Hipparchus (dialogue)
**Rival Lovers
*V.
**Theages 
**Charmides
**Laches (dialogue) - add disambig to Laches top or make Laches a disambig page entirely
**Lysis (dialogue)
*VI.
**Euthydemus (dialogue)
**Protagoras (dialogue)
**Gorgias (dialogue)
**Meno
*VII.
**Hippias (dialogues)|Greater Hippias 
**Hippias (dialogues)|Lesser Hippias
***see: Stephanus pagination, it uses Hippias minor (that could of course be made a redirect page)
**Ion (dialogue) 
**Menexenus
*VIII. 
**Clitophon
**Republic (dialogue)
***Cicero's Republic is also a dialogue! - so would need to be Republic (Plato dialogue) and Republic (Cicero dialogue), which would give new discussion between the factions that have their preferred translation of the title of the Cicero dialogue (see De re publica, "what's in a title" section)
****Keep with conventions. The ambiguity of titles is adequately mentioned within both articles. I say leave De re publica as it is and Republic (dialogue) go to Plato, if only because that is the traditional English title. (Cicero's traditionally seems to remain in the Latin, since as you note, there is no traditional English title.)
**Timaeus (dialogue)
**Critias - merge with Critias (Plato), as article is minor
*IX.
**Minos (dialogue) - make disambig at top of Minos
**The Laws - make disambig at top that sends them to Laws
***This I think incoherent - would Plato's Laws be the only one with a "The", why not "The Republic (Plato dialogue)", etc - I'd suggest Laws (dialogue) instead
****I have already moved this to Laws (dialogue), but thinking about it again, The Laws already redirects to the article. Apparently no one else does use The Laws! The Republic is only not used because of the plethora of articles which can legitimately lay claim to it. Laws refers to several things. The Laws does not. I'm not averse to moving the article again, but perhaps we should think about it.
**Epinomis
**Letters (Plato) - leave as is, only because the alternative is Letters (Plato letters). See my comments above about musical works' naming conventions.
Remaining works (most of them considered spurious already in antiquity):
*Axiochus
*Definitions (dialogue) - needs to be added to the disambig for Definition, too
**I hadn't realised this was a dialogue
***Do we have further information on it? I read somewhere that Apology was the only Platonic work not in dialogue form.
*Demodocus (dialogue)
*Epigrams (Plato) - leave as is for same reasoning as Letters
*Eryxias
*Halcyon (dialogue)
*On Justice
*On Virtue
*Sisyphus (dialogue)
Furthermore, all links and redirects need to be conformed ASAP to point directly to the new agreed upon name.
:Well, here is the crux of the issue, who's going to perform all that??? - please also respect talk pages to be moved coherently, check double redirects, etc, etc --Francis Schonken 07:28, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  New scheme by Savonarola & comments by others

message: Which of the schemes I think "best" is of minor importance compared to the general principle of "avoiding mess"... which was not avoided by the incomplete introduction of the new scheme:
* Plato#Bibliography still has the old scheme
* Stephanus pagination has never been looked at to implement the new scheme
Of course, Mel has a point there was no real need to introduce the new scheme, and most of all, there was a lack of drawing attention of the persons involved in working on the Plato articles to give their opinion.
Personally, I'd propose to revert to the scheme proposed on top of this page (which is coherent with the links in Plato#Bibliography); and then have a look at the Stephanus pagination article to be made conforming with that scheme too.
Anybody having a problem with that?
--Francis Schonken 07:40, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: ... as happened in our time to Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was ruined with his new order of things immediately the multitude believed in him no longer, and he had no means of keeping steadfast those who believed or of making the unbelievers to believe.
(Of course I have a very bad character to quote such unapplicable quotes just for the fun of it, pfui, shame on me, this is worse than BJAODN) --Francis Schonken 08:07, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with this proposal, and oppose the new naming scheme for the reasons that I've given above. Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 13:49, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Incomplete introduction of new renaming scheme

message: I'm now going to restate Mel's objections (as I understand them):
*minor: links will have to be checked to see if they are redirects or not.
*the "proposed moves" "prejudges" which of the article titles may conflict with articles on characters(i.e. Parmenides)
*the proposal has been insufficiently justified, considering how recently the article titles were changed
If I have mis-stated or left out any of your objections, Mel, please correct me. JesseW 04:08, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mel Etitis's objections

message: :The first is a minor one, though of day-to-day editing concern.  I'd add (I can't remember where I've said this before, I'm afraid — it's out there somewhere) that there needs to be good reason to change the naming system, especially when it has so recently been changed; the criteria are more stringent than if we were deciding in advance how to name a set of as-yet unwritten articles.  As the original moves were made without proper consultation, I think that they ought to be reveresd.
:Girolamo Savonarola's complaint seems to be that, once the issue was made more public, very few people showed an interest, resulting in a rejection of his proposal through "no consensus".  Well, that happens; it would be more productive to go on to something else, rather than trying to rerun the debate (with an RfC that has attracted just one extra person, so that the result can't be altered no matter which side you favour).  Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 09:12, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Further discussion

message: Girolamo, I'm still somewhat confused as to exactly what your proposal is.  I think a statement of the "old" way(Mel?) and the principle(not examples) behind "proposed moves" would clarify things.  I'll take a stab at it, but  please correct it! JesseW 22:23, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The possibilities

message: I've put up the last three articles for formal moves on Requested moves. (These being Apology, Phaedo, and Meno.) All others have been standardized and double redirects eliminated. The Plato article's Tetrologies list of works all link directly to standardized names in accordance with the naming convention, as does the Stephanus pagination article. I have not yet rolled over all links to the standardized article names, but there should be no double redirects left in existence. I will work on changing all links directly to the proper page names in the next few weeks. --Girolamo Savonarola 18:19, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good. If you need further help, just let me know on my talk page. JesseW 19:53, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Latest updates

message: #The previous debates were officially closed (no consensus) by (t) on 24 May; I saw no reason to continue debating an issue that had been settled.  The rather hostile and aggressive tone adopted by Girolamo Savonarola and, to a lesser extent, by JesseW is inappropriate and unhelpful (and puzzling, given the context; why such emotion?), as is the implication that they have been waiting for my reply for two months despite the debate having been closed.
#I have seen no rebuttal of my points, in fact; I still hold, for example, that consistency of naming is of value, especially in terms of editors adding links to other articles.
#I might add that it would have been courteous, at least, to have asked me before moving my comments from the individual Talk pages to this one. --Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 22:30, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mel Etitis' response

message: Do not disambiguate, or add a link to a disambiguation page, if there is no risk of confusion. (Wikipedia:Disambiguation) Phaedo (Plato) should thus be Phaedo, as should Meno (Plato) be Meno. I'm sorry, Mel, but the policy happens to say otherwise. Consistency is of value, I agree. I value the policies set forth, and I'm trying to apply them consistently across the articles. Adding (Plato) to every dialogue is not only ugly, but it sets horrible precedent and completely contradicts the official naming conventions. You disagree with the naming conventions? Fine. Argue about it in policy discussions; I'm happy to respect any changes in policy. Furthermore, if anything, I would think it would be easier for editors to link to Meno than Meno (Plato). And since the one redirects to the other, it's a rather silly point to object to using the simpler one, all other things being equal.
If you have a problem with the comments being moved, you have editing powers too. I thought my reasons were fairly obvious and stated.
Here are the questions we're asking you. 
*State the standard that the article titles (before the "proposed moves") followed, or state that they did not follow such a standard. Francis stated that there was not one to begin with. We are 95% implemented on a standard now. Please let us finish this work or give a good reason why we should completely start over.
*Further explain your objection that the "propsed moves" "prejudge" what articles may conflict with articles on characters.
*I would like to know what system you'd like to replace this all with, what policies support the usage of that, and whether or not you plan to implement it yourself and roughly how quickly you think you can do that.
*I would also like to know why this system, which is so close to being finished now, should be abandoned. Why this particular one should not exist, in your mind.
*Are you willing to concede and compromise, and if not, why and how do you propose that we solve this situation?
*Are you willing to conduct a survey to resolve the issue?
*Are you willing to bring the matter to a mediator to resolve the issue?
I assume from your response here that you count yourself as within the discussion at the moment. So indulge me and allow that we'll presume that you have no further interest in the matter if you do not respond promptly - say within the next week - but continue to edit other parts of the Wikipedia otherwise.
Thank you. --Girolamo Savonarola 02:00, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Questions for Mel

message: The article names need to be consistent and I am not convinced that there is any consensus as to what that convention should be.  I will therefore not move the articles at the moment and have closed the move request.  violet/riga (t) 21:48, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move