Talk:Pathetic fallacy

message: The definition given on the main page is fundamentally INCORRECT - pathetic fallacy specifically presents an (inanimate) element of nature in harmony with a state of human emotion.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.231.242.225 (talk) 04:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

message: The article has "The Israeli people owe it to the Palestinian people" as an example of a pathetic fallacy.  No, bad example.  If "Israel" had been used instead of "Israeli people" then maybe.  But a people can have and often does have a distinguishable (average) intentional stance, or feeling on an issue.  Example removed.  Paul Beardsell 03:50, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad example 

message: :The pathetic fallacy with groups of people may overlap with the group attribution error: assuming most group behavior such as that of a disparate body such as a country is mostly situational, and it is difficult for such an entity to have any coherent disposition.
The above para suffers from the pathetic fallacy.  A country does not have "group behaviour":  A country's people (sometimes) has that.  And, once again, a group can have a joint feeling (=pathos).  Para removed from article.
Paul Beardsell 04:01, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questionable para 

message: I find this without clear meaning:  Other literary uses for pathetic fallacy would be having a certain character exclaim a fact or opinion which coincides in some way to that character, yet they are unaware of it.  And when it is explained to me I think I may fail to see how it is an example of a pathetic fallacy?  Paul Beardsell 04:07, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  What does "coincide" mean here? 

message: I think what the author fails to realize here is that all the examples here are metaphorical. Even the title itself is POV. Critical 02:14, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have responded to this on the logical fallacy talk page, as well as on the pages of the above mentioned users.  It does appear that these pages were as Hu suggests the victim of a tiresome semi-sophisticated troll.  But I wasn't the perpetrator.  This suggestion appears to have been an honest mistake, I consider the matter closed, and it appears that Hu does as well. CSTAR 01:42, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: For the record, the user  Critical ( talk,  contributions), who slapped the "disputed NPoV" sticker on this page, has made his or her first edits tonight (or today) and within less than two hours has attacked eight articles for PoV, including (ironically given the CStar example given on the Logical fallacy talk page), Physical law.  These were the only "edits" (plus weak justifications on talk pages in the same vein as this one).  I don't think the PoV claim has merit.  We may ask if this series of attacks is to be taken seriously.
For the following reasons I am thinking that these pages has been the victim of a tiresome semi-sophisticated troll and the PoV sticker should be removed sooner rather than later, if not immediately.  We may note that  CStar ( talk,  contributions) after making edits, paused during the period user Critical made edits, and then CStar took up responding to these edits after the series of user Critical edits ends, as if there is only one user involved, and the user logged out, changed cookies and logged back in.  Further, user CStar left a note on  Charles Matthew's talk page,  Chalst's talk page, and   Angela's talk page pointing to a supposed PoV accusation placed on the Logical argument page, when in fact no such sticker has been placed.  Perhaps the irony regarding the Physical law page is not so ironic. Hu 05:18, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)
::: I have responded to this on the logical fallacy talk page, as well as on the pages of the above mentioned users.  It does appear that these pages were as Hu suggests the victim of a tiresome semi-sophisticated troll.  But I wasn't the perpetrator.  This suggestion appears to have been an honest mistake, I consider the matter closed, and it appears that Hu does as well. CSTAR 01:42, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: About Users Critical and CStar

message: "Other literary uses for pathetic fallacy would be having a certain character exclaim a fact or opinion which coincides in some way to that character, yet they are unaware of it." called foreshadowing? --Ben 10:25, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Isn't this... 

message: The article was substantially incorrect.  I have rewritten it to conform with the sources cited at the bottom of the current article.  I felt pretty bad deleting so much stuff, but unfortunately it was in the wrong place.  The material about evolution and psychology could go into a different article, maybe? Sills bend 05:19, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Definitely. I just added a digression into allegory, and even that required ignoring "dead". Earlier, I changed the note about pathos to English (empathy) and moved it closer to the lead. 216.234.170.74 07:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  major rewrite - hope nobody's offended. 

message: I quote: "In explaining the greenhouse effect, it is often said that "radiation is trapped", as if radiation was a living animal that can be confined, and escapes if not confined. In reality, radiation is absorbed by the earth and the energy exists as heat, which causes higher blackbody radiation (with a different spectrum)."
Frankly, this bugs me. Saying "radiation is trapped" in no way, no how, implies that radiation is an animal! And it in fact makes perfect sense. If there was no atmosphere, all the radiation would escape! With an atmosphere some is trapped. With higher concentrations of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, even more heat is trapped. 
Also, "In reality, radiation is absorbed by the earth and the energy exists as heat, which causes higher blackbody radiation (with a different spectrum)." doesn't make any sense. It almost does, but doesn't succeed.
:I removed the troublesome paragraph. Remember the Wikipedia credo: Be Bold!  Make whatever changes you feel are necessary to improve the article, consistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Don't be afraid to ruffle a few feathers in doing so. (also remember to sign your edits on discussion pages!) Gregmg 20:13, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  some physics 

message: I removed the citation request that followed this text: For example, the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica abounds in use of the pathetic fallacy even though it is ostensibly a purely factual work.  Citations are not generally needed for widely accepted facts.  Although I'm certainly no literary expert, I've read a number of sources that discuss the frequent use of the pathetic fallacy in the 1911 Britannica. I don't think anyone would argue that the 1911 Britannica was a factual work. Thus, both points seem to be widely accepted facts that don't require a citation. Gregmg 20:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation request 

message: I removed a paragraph that used the example radiation is trapped. At the very least, this isn't the best example. It might not even be an example at all. All other examples I've seen of this literary device employ human emotions or actions. Inanimate objects can become trapped. This paragraph likely added more confusion than clarity, so I removed it. Gregmg 20:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another bad example 

message: The following is the definition from Literary techniques:
:Pathetic fallacy is the reflection of the mood of a character (usually the protagonist) in the weather. A good example is the storm in William Shakespeare King Lear, which mirrors Lear's mental deterioration.
Which is what I always thought the pathetic fallacy meant; it's a shame this is not reflected at all in the current article. I think I see how to get to the above from Ruskin, for whom the PF is not just the fallacy of personification, but personification justifiable because the feelings are so intense that the author, hence reader, and (if appropriate) character have to some extent taken leave of their senses. PaddyLeahy 21:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see no conflict, although the Literary techniques article could benefit from some clarification. The weather certainly has no mood. Mirroring the mood of the protagonist in the weather is simply the typical literary application and does not conflict with the definition provided here. Remember the Wikipedia credo... Be Bold!  Make whatever changes you deem necessary. If you go too far others will modify your edits. Gregmg 04:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone has added "Pathetic fallacy is often the use of weather to effect the attitudes and impressions given from a piece of prose." which I guess is referring to the above - but I am not what it really is saying. -- Beardo 22:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Poetic practice of attributing human emotion or responses to nature, inanimate objects, or animals. The practice is a form of personification that is as old as poetry, in which it has always been common to find smiling or dancing flowers, angry or cruel winds, brooding mountains, moping owls, or happy larks. The term was coined by John Ruskin in Modern Painters (1843–60). --Loodog 02:02, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflicting definitions 

message: I don't think the ikea commercial qualifies as pathetic fallacy. The swedish guy is specifically dismissing personification, and doesn't use any language that ascribes human traits to inanimate object. Saying the opposite of something only implies the thing itself if it is supposed to be ironic. I am going to delete the example.--66.102.196.40 (talk) 16:23, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  IKEA commercial 

message: There is a character called the pathetic fallacy in the fables comic book series (see here).  Should we put a link to that page in here somewhere, and if so, is there a template that would be appropriate to do it? --TruthfulCynic 22:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: A mention was in the article until this edit, apparently. Maybe if it were phrased differently, it wouldn't be considered original research? -Phoenixrod (talk) 05:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fables 

message: However, use of the pathetic fallacy can be a good way to quickly explain complex scientific concepts in an easily understood form.
This is just one of several places where the article confuses metaphor with fallacy.  Should we list "selfish gene" as an example?  I feel confident that Dawkins is not under the delusion that genes are sentient; there is no fallacy, just metaphor. 68.239.116.212 (talk) 16:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for moving discussion here.  I'm clueless on this topic, but it would probably be best if you could find a written resource that backs up this claim.  Then, be WP:BOLD and fix it.  You may also want to consider getting an account. <I>NativeForeigner</I> Talk/Contribs 04:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Metaphor is not fallacy 

message: (From the "In science" section)
"The philosopher Owen Barfield points out we say that two masses are gravitationally "attracted", or that an object "tends" to stay still and not accelerate..."
Neither the word "tends" (nor the phrase "tends to") necessarily imply sentience, so this doesn't really illustrate PF.
-- TyrS  chatties  07:29, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. In fact, I think the whole section on science is poorly sourced and based on the flawed assumption that the pathetic fallacy is interchangeable with simple personification. Perhaps the whole section needs to be removed, or at least rewritten with actual sources. -Phoenixrod (talk) 02:25, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad example #3 (at least) 

message: Current definitions for this phrase, pathetic fallacy, diverge significantly from the original definition given by John Ruskin, who coined the term to help describe the way emotions affect a person’s apprehension of the world.  This emotional aspect of the definition seems to be the thing that especially has been lost.
	An interesting aspect of Ruskin’s definition is that he did not intend his phrase to be confined to misapprehensions involving personification.  For example, Ruskin quotes a poet describing a crocus as “gold” when the flower is, in fact, not “gold”.  Ruskin offered this as an example of pathetic fallacy based on a seeing or describing the wrong color.
	The language has not come up with another phrase to describe what Ruskin was attempting to describe.
	Ruskin's original meaning seems to occur only when discussing Ruskin.  As does George P. Landow, Professor of English and the History of Art, at Brown University in an essay on this website:  http://www.victorianweb.org/technique/pathfall.html
	According to Ruskin a pathetic fallacy describes “false appearances” that can occur when a person is “under the influence of emotion, or contemplative fancy”.  These false appearances can include seeing human attributes in inanimate objects, and also seeing other “untrue” qualities in things.
DocFido (talk) 04:19, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ruskin's definition ... 

message: The claim that “Pathetic Fallacy” is more “allusive”  than personification is difficult to make sense of -- the quality of “allusiveness” in reference to “Pathetic Fallacy” seems to be a radically new idea that doesn’t occur in Ruskin, or the literature since.  So, where did the notion originate?
	It can be traced to a web-page called Webster’s Online Dictionary -- but there’s a problem:  They claim, on the Webster’s page, that they got the information from the internet -- but the source website they refer to doesn’t exist.  (“Domain not found.”) 
 
	Aside from the problem of choosing an authoritative source, if “common sense” is used, a good question becomes:  Is it is it possible to come up with an example or examples to demonstrate the idea that a “Pathetic Fallacy” is more “allusive” than personification?
	I’d suggest that Wikipedia, when it’s possible to make a choice, should rely the best possible source, especially when decent definitions elsewhere are not hard to find.
DocFido (talk) 14:32, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see how it's "difficult to make sense of", it seems rather straight forward. Actually, they say in their extended definition that they got it from WP. That's a problem.—Machine Elf 1735 01:19, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verifying a source ... 

message: The section pathetic fallacy#In legend seems like an odd fit. More animism than personification, much less pathetic fallacy... Perhaps it's missing something?—Machine Elf 1735 22:52, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Xerces 

message: To any regular editor: Someone has done grave damage to the "in science" section, and it should be reverted to a previous version. I came back here to direct a friend to that particular section, which I had read months ago and really enjoyed. It's now been replaced with a bunch of garbled jargon and post-doc philosophy babble, talking about "inappropriate modal force" and "conatus", and is shed of all its interesting examples and history.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.140.182 (talk) 23:33, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  WTF happened to the "in science" section 

message: Dear Spannerjam:
I reverted your edits because they are off topic, and because the introduction, like the article, is specifically about the Pathetic fallacy; the Franklin example was out of place, because it was given undue weight in the Introduction. The mentions of the other types of literary fallacies are thematically incidental to the subject; each has a topic-specific page in the wikipedia, and so are off topic in an article about the Pathetic fallacy; thus, I reverted the irrelevant insertion of "differing" subjects, which usage is, itself, a pathetic fallacy; "different subjects" is the accurate designation.
Sorry, but your grasp of the subject is dodgy, per your own admission in the edit history; thus the corrections. Be a sport, and let us agree to disagree, and so agree to work our respective sides of the Wikipedia street.
Regards,
Mhazard9 (talk) 18:49, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: *Follow-up: it shouldn't be necessary to seek consensus to fix capitalization errors, but since the most recent edit to the article contains other content which I dispute, I'd like input from at least one other editor. Would someone please review the diff and comment here (whether you revert or not)? Rivertorch (talk) 05:39, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

text: Thanks for your insights! Can I ask why your user talk page redirects to an article? Rivertorch (talk) 18:20, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

text: Great. I would have moved it for you but I didn't want to be presumptuous. Rivertorch (talk) 21:08, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The article is about the Pathetic Fallacy. 

message: This article was riddled with errors and with ideas that were "original research" that were not supported by the citation or footnote that seemed to support it.  It also was rambling, and meandering between the historic and current use, it was contradictory, and confusing.  It was a mess.
Plus it had very long regurgitations of Ruskin's essay -- that essay is linked at the bottom of the page anyway.  And which is interesting to read.
I felt that the article needed to be trimmed down to something succinct.  I think this is an improvement.DocFido (talk) 01:55, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trimming the article 

message: There are a lot of topics in here about the conflicting definitions of pathetic fallacy being misrepresented in the article. I did a rewrite of the history to more clearly represent the two definitions and removed a third opinion which was original research. The last topic update on this talk page was in 2013 (10 years ago), so I think this indicates the article is in a much better state now. Lightbloom (talk) 23:48, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definitions