Talk:Philosophy/Archive 19

message: This article contains a solid dose of complete nonsense, is full of original research and presents an idiosyncratic, highly dubious view of the topic.  Please do not use it as a research source, and please, PLEASE, help to fix it if you are willing and able.	
edward (buckner) 11:27, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Useful tag 

message: Just started thinking about this.  Nietzsche needs only a passing mention.  I think it should be structured as beginning with Kierkegaard (using his opposition to Hegel to characterize his complaints about "objectivity"), and then showing existentialism as inherited by many religious thinkers.  Most well-known existentialists were concerned with religion: Marcel, Buber, Tillich, Unamuno, Shestov, Beryaev, etc.
Then develop the Jaspers/Heidegger roots into Sartrean existentialism, which is atheistic and which became the most famous branch.  Mention Camus and we're done, no?  I don't mean to make it much longer, but that structure makes more sense to me.  Thoughts?  I can source it from the Macquarrie book on existentialism, maybe from William Barrett.  I'll see what else I have.  KD Tries Again 22:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Will Barrett uses the common structure of "The Big 4": Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre, which is standard in many existentialist anthologies. The SEP entry uses this standard. Heidegger is already mentioned in the phenomenology section, so only K, N, and S are left, and they get a sentence or two each. For a short section in the philosophy article, the Big 4 structure is enough, I think. The details must go in the actual existentialism article, but which is a mess. Poor Yorick 06:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've always argued that the Philosophy article should be a set of links connected by a coherent thread.  On this view, the section on E. should be a summary of what's in the main article.  Don't know enough about the balance between the big 4.  On the Existentialism article, I see what you mean.  A lot of the detail looks roughly right, but the overall style, and the introduction, are awful.  edward (buckner) 10:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  That said, there are some clearly good editors helping out on it right now.  The thing with introductions is to wait until the meat of the article is nice and ready, then get the introduction to summarise it.  edward (buckner) 10:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Interesting draft. I've made some changes for the reasons stated:
# I didn't really like leaving Nietzsche alone here, so I added him with Kierkegaard, and refed a Nietzsche as Existentialist scholar, the late Bob Solomon.
# Likewise, I didn't like the existentialist stereotype Kierkegaard, so I refed a Kierkegaard as Postmodernist by the preeminent K scholars Matustik and Westphal.
# Hegel's comprehensiveness is debatable, so I replaced it with idealist, which is really what K was against.
# Refed one of the foremost controversial piece on this matter, Letter on Humanism
# Being and Nothingness is Sartre's tour de force
# Beauvoir arguably contributed more to existentialism than Camus, so I'll leave both in.
# As you've mentioned Christian existentialists, I've added a see also to that article.
Poor Yorick 00:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Existentialism 

message: Regular editors of this article may be interested in participating in the following discussion: Wikipedia:Community noticeboard#Community action review on Ludvikus. Best, Sandstein 06:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No!  We've finally gotten past the personalities and started discussing philosophy.  This action has nothing to do with the topic of this page, and threatens to start up again what has at long last died down.  Rick Norwood 13:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Community action review on Ludvikus 

message: Congratulations to Edward(Buckner) and K D Tries Again for improving the article. Rick Norwood 13:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know who User:Skomorokh is but he (or she) has done a lot of work in the past few days on Existentialism.  I'm not an expert but this diff looks like a very good explanation.  I mean, it tries to explain what something actually is, rather than get bogged down in detail, or lists, or nonsense.  As I've said before, it's the quality of the articles immediately underneath this one, which are what counts.  Perhaps we are finally getting somewhere.  (And thanks also for the compliment Rick).  edward (buckner) 14:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks ditto.  I have some notes with which to spruce up the phenomenology bit later today, and I'll take note of the comments on existentialism too.KD Tries Again 15:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Congratulations 

message: I started to tidy up the beginning of that section, so it flowed into Phenomenology, then ended up making a number of corrections.  Logic seems to come out of nowhere in the discussion of phil of maths, though.  I hope somebody can do better with the contributions of Frege and Wittgenstein at the end of the first para.  Personally, I would lose the last sentence about Popper; it needs explaining, but why do we want to get into philosophy of science here?  I think the section as now written ends with Carnap et al's use of symbolic logic, although it could certainly continue with subsequent developments in logic - not my field.  KD Tries Again 17:10, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The logic section was an early attempt at introducing Analytic philosophy.  Better to have a short section analytics, mentioning the importance they gave to logic, and no more.  I think we are generally agreed we want to keep away from the level of detail this page has aspired to in the past.  edward (buckner) 12:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prominence of logic 

message: Hi all. I'm a brand new user just coming to grips with everything, so please bear with me.
I found the section entitled 'Philosophical Doctrines' to be somewhat unsatisfactory. As far as I can tell, the sections 2.5-2.8 ('Pragmatism' through to 'The analytic tradition') don't actually feature a clarification/definition of what the doctrine is actually about. I read right through the existentialism section, and found a detailed description of which thinkers founded, developed or influenced Existentialism, but no where did I find a concise sentence explaining exactly what existentialism is. 
Perhaps each of these sections should begin with a concise definition of the subject matter of the doctrine, followed by relevant material? I know you guys have been working on shortening the article, so perhaps each heading should simply contain an explanation of subject matter (and relevant figures), and leave the detailed subject history for the separate article sub-page? Stringman5 05:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: PS - OK, so the 'Pragmatism' section does feature a concise definition - but it's not the first line of the section, as it is on the sections above (2.1-2.4). Maybe it should be shifted up a bit? Stringman5 05:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Hi. Ok, I've attempt to add a thesis sentence to the beginning of the article to help explain; and tried to shorten the history from the sections. Any comments would be helpful Poor Yorick 07:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That looks great, I like it. I am worried that we may have just helped make the article LONGER though, not shorter, but one thing at a time. Stringman5 02:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I can certainly see what you mean.  As things stand, the logic section basically stops in 1928.  Meanwhile, the phenomenology section, which I admit hardly does more than gesture at Husserl's work, already seems to give him more prominence than most philosophers on the page. KD Tries Again 21:54, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm all in favor of shortening the article, and standardizing the sub-sections so "favoritism" is minimized. Poor Yorick 23:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Agree with all of this.  The advantage of sub-articles is that they do not attract cranks.  In terms of practical suggestions, why not just delete some stuff?  Removing obvious bad writing is an uncontroversial way to do that.  Also, given that Indian philosophy is already a sub-article with nothing in it, and since there is a long essay on the subject here, why don't I move that now?  edward (buckner) 12:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK I've moved the Indian philosophy to Indian philosophy, and deleted the Persian philosophy section as there is already plenty of material in other parts of the encyclopedia.  I've left Chinese philosophy for the moment.  edward (buckner) 12:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  See WP:SIZE for useful information on how to trim articles down.  (A note to anyone reading this, in case of concern: NO MATERIAL HAS BEEN DELETED.  Juat moved to appropriate subsections.  edward (buckner) 12:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  I've completely changed the Medieval philosophy section, which was badly written and inaccurate.  A brief summary of what it is about, then a swift link to the appropriate page.  Note I have widened the scope of Medieval philosophy to include the Middle East and Byzantine traditions.  This is consistent with Hyman and Walsh's treatment.  I haven't dared suggest any major philosophers.  Academic consensus view, based on length of treatment, is  Aquinas, Ockham, Scotus, Maimonides, Averroes.  edward (buckner) 12:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  Actually I have removed one bit, which was the introduction to the history section.  I've left in the bit about being divided into three periods, which is fairly uncontroversial.  edward (buckner) 12:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shortening the article? 

message: The work on Existentialism has greatly improved on what was there before.  However the contrast between the other parts of the article only becomes more glaring.  Also the question of how to balance the different parts of the article becomes even more difficult.  The bits on existentialism and analytic philosophy occur in the large section called 'Metaphysics'.  Whereas these sections partly belong in the history section, partly to 'Schools of philosophy', and what they are really doing is setting the background to 'philosophy in the twentieth century'.  I wonder if the phenomenology and existential bits couldn't be put in the Continental philosophy article, which would be written in parallel with Analytic philosophy.  Having completed these, we could then make a judgement about how much goes in here.  Remember there is still nothing on Idealism yet!  Apart from some very strange things, that is.  edward (buckner) 19:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The 'Prominence of Logic', inasmuch as it belongs anywhere (probably the bin) belongs in the Analytic philosophy article.  I'll tidy up and move at some point.  The real difficulty is in summarising all these points in a way that is balanced with the rest of the article.  That is precisely why Wiki is v. good at small articles on matters of detail, but awful at handling very general articles.  But we are equal to all of this, are we not.  edward (buckner) 19:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree that the structure is odd.  Why should existentialism not be under ethics, for example?  I am very open-minded as to where the stuff ends up; just thought I'd throw it at the wall while I had the chance.  I do owe sources on the existentialism bit, but won't get around to that until next week.  Shouldn't be difficult.  KD Tries Again 21:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Of the (famous) 20th century existentialists, only Simone de Beauvoir attempted at all to derive an existentialist ethics, i.e. The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity, yet they were also classic feminist texts, as well. Existentialism, esp. Sartrean version, as a whole is deeply metaphysical (existence precedes essence, bad faith, etc.), as well as epistemological when discussing Christian Existentialism. Poor Yorick 23:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess it's not a big deal, as the question is where the write-up should go, but I thought Sartre and Camus said quite a bit about 'how to live' - to put it crudely.  Camus is pretty thin on epistemology.KD Tries Again 16:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest improvements 

message: I can fiddle around with this next.  I don't think it needs "American" in the title.  The current version is quite neatly written in comparison with some material, but I think it's actually subtly wrong.  It implies that, for the pragmatists, the success of a theory and the theory's fit with reality are two different things.  I don't believe that's the case, for Peirce or James at least.  They weren't closet correspondence theorists. But I'd better find some cites.KD Tries Again 21:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pragmatism 

message: I think the format: "main article: rubber duckies" right after the section title works better than the format: "See rubber duckies for more information about this subject." as the final sentence. Rick Norwood 22:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You had me very confused for a moment.  Yes, agree.  edward (buckner) 08:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A modest proposal 

message: I removed the sentence that claims this is a work of philosophical & religious importance. Perhaps it is in Rastifarian circles, but from my research in Ethiopian subjects for Wikipedia (& having slogged thru this difficult work), it has no special religious or philosophical importance. It is an essay that justifies the claim of the Solomonic dynasty to the throne of Ethiopia, & from the comments of a few Ethiopians on Wikipedia I understand this work lacks even notable religious value (I'd say about the level of St. Augustine's The City of God might for the average Catholic); it has a unique historical & cultural value -- but nothing more. 
However, I expect some Rastifarians to insist on restoring this edit. I would expect that they provide verifiable cites for their claims of its philosophical importance -- but I doubt it. I made a serious effort to find any secondary literature on this work, & it was slim pickings: I could find less than a half-dozen published works on the Kebra Negast. -- llywrch 00:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re; ''Kebra Negast'' 

message: :" It is a commonplace view that once a branch of philosophy fully starts following the norms of science (i.e., use of the scientific method), it is no longer termed "philosophy", but "science". "
One possible citation for this is in the introduction to The Dream of Reason. I might do it myself later, but I don't have time at the moment. -- Calion | Talk 19:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophy and Science 

message: I've completely rewritten the section on branches, and boldly removed the clean-up tags.  I haven't put too many references in, on the assumption that everything I have said is incredibly verifiable, but feel free to challenge it, or to add references.  edward (buckner) 09:20, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: PS I haven't removed the top cleanup tag as there is plenty more to do on this.  I have already mentioned the 'Identity of philosophy' section which I do think needs a little challenge here and there.  It seems a little disconnected and fragmented.  If I were trying to summarise what it says, what would that be?  Also, some of the references do not support what is there.  For example, the citation of Ducasse (an essay, rather dated,that I read with interest) does not obviously connect with anything in that section.  edward (buckner) 09:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Branches of philosophy 

message: I've enjoyed reading your edit, and agree with the removal of some of the flags.
I note that Aristotle contradicts himself (do I contradict myself, very well, I contain multitudes) in saying that metaphysics is primary and precedes all other investigation, and then saying that logic precedes all philosophy.  Poor Aristotle.  So much to write, so little time.  He always begins well, and then he keeps breaking off -- like Galois the night before his duel -- saying in effect, no time, no time.  
In your references, a publisher and an ISBN would be helpful.  You can find them on amazon if you don't have the book handy.
Rick Norwood 13:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All in good time.  edward (buckner) 16:24, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  edward (buckner) edit 

message: I have corrected the section without lengthening it, and provided some sources.  I removed the claim that Bergson and Moore shared fundamental assumptions with the pragmatists, as at best controversial, at worst wrong, unsourced, and if right not notable.  Cheers.  KD Tries Again 20:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks KD! edward (buckner) 08:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pragmatism - February 27 revision 

message: This needs work, obviously.  That includes work on the sub-articles, of course.  I have done Medieval philosophy.  I'm also happy to take on Ancient Philosophy (and tidying up the pre-socratics article).  That leaves early modern philosophy, and whatever comes after.
Does anyone have expertise in Early Modern? 
On what comes after, there are two 'odd ones' in the 'ism' section, namely Phenomenology, and the Analytic tradition.  I suggest these really belong in the historical section on twentieth century and contemporary philosophy.  Any thoughts?  edward (buckner) 08:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical section 

message: I've just noticed the question about whether Kant should be in the section on Idealism, given he didn't believe in the opening sentence of the section. Is there any way of rewording the sentence so it would include Kant?  Presumably if there is subjective I., transcendental I, absolute I., there must be something they have in common?  edward (buckner) 11:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll think about it some more, as I raised it.  For me, German idealism starts after Kant, when Fichte and Schelling get rid of the noumenal.KD Tries Again 20:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kant & Idealism