Talk:Laozi/Archive 1

message: Removed:
:Lao Zi is the earlest philosopher in chinese history to suggest Islam ie,submission to God which as a Natural Force.Endown from Lao Zi chinese was pratice Islam in their own way.
This is completely incoherent; Islam did not exist in the 4th century BC... 161.142.2.11, if you were trying to say something relevent, please word it more clearly. --Brion 19:51 Sep 3, 2002 (PDT)
:This is not completely incoherent. The writer states Lao Zi's thought suggested (e.g. hinted at) the principles which would--unrelatedly--happen to be the main ones of Islam. As to the second sentence, the person may be stating either (1) By practicing Daoism, Chinese were anticipating Islam or (2) Chinese Muslims have a special "foundation" within traditional Chinese culture that harmonizes well with the teachings of Islam. --Dpr 02:31, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not incoherent at all. Islam means to surrender, submission. So even though it can be phrased in a better way, the meaning is correct.
- well "Islam", on the oxford principle of "meaning is use" definitely does not mean simply submission to god.  i agree that it's incoherent.  you open the koran and the first phrase is there is only one god allah and muhammed is his prophet.  none of that is present in taoism.  by the way you're arguing we can say lao zi also supported facism, communism, anarchism, and possibly any other philosophical school. 24.55.179.175 14:57, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed

message: Someone has put a alot of questions marks in this article. Sometimes the question marks appear in groups of 3 or 4 consecutively, this smacks of unproffesionalism. If you don't know what it means don't throw in a bunch of question marks in brackets using more question marks doesn't make the words make any more sense then using just one.--Mikeroodeus 04:52, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question marks 

message: How you guys feel about me moving this page to Laozi? It gets more hits on google, and, to me anyway, "Lao Zi" is an eyesore. - Nat Krause 09:40, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This had been discussed on Zhuang Zi. Imho, writing Laozi is like writing Oldmaster, not very nice. But i could like to say "the Laozi" as the name of the book he is supposed to have written. gbog 10:07, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm, it doesn't seem like you reached a very firm conclusion on Talk:Zhuang Zi either. This seems to me like something that should be discussed more inclusively, so I'll bring it up on Talk:Chinese Naming Standards sometime when I get a chance. - Nat Krause 09:00, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lao Zi or Laozi 

message: It should be noted that if Lao Tzu were alive today, he would laugh at people taking his words so seriously.
:How do you know? Ajnewbold 00:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: He Would Laugh

message: A link to the Legge translation was added on 14 March 2005, and Jough has now started deleting it, claiming that it's spam. He doesn't say why he thinks that, and he's reverted my replacement of it. Can we accept that, as I've placed it in the article today, it isn't spam (whoever placed it there in the past), and that it should stay? It's the only link to the Legge translation that we have, and even if it was spam to begin with, it seems a pity to cut off our nose to spite our face. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:05, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoever runs PoetSeers.org added a couple hundred links back to their site on any page that was even somewhat relevant. The same content usually exists in other public domain sites, like Project Gutenberg and other places, so there's usually no point in including it twice anyway. But if you feel it's relevant, then it doesn't hurt to include it. It just seems that there's a lot of duplicated content links being posted lately. --Jough 18:47, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Okay, I found the source of the other available Legge translations, and have updated the link. This site also offers the text for download, and is available via a Creative Commons license. Better? --Jough 19:05, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to translation 

message: I've removed the category "Mandarin terms", because this isn't a term but a name (the person who added it also added it to other naems, equally inappropriately). Many names have meanings, but when they're used as names, they shouldn't be treated as phrases (or "terms"). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:23, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category 

message: I don't understand why "Lao Tzu" instead of "Laozi" is used constantly in this article titled "Laozi". I understand there was a lengthy debate about the title of the page, which may have led to weird things, but surely the article should not disagree with the title about the correct spelling, but be consistent and conform to the spelling of the title. Kusma (talk) 04:14, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The overwhelming opinion in that debate above was to keep the more widely familiar spelling "Lao Tzu" and it is still pending in the Requested Moves backlog to move it back. CDThieme 18:22, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not so sure if its "overwelming". Meanwhile, it may be good to change all the names to reflect that of the article title, since they can always be changed back if needed in future.--Huaiwei 06:45, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Why wasn't the entry moved immediately when the decision was made? — Instantnood 16:23, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: RM often has a backlog, and sometimes pages have to wait to be moved for technical reasons. In any case, I don't see the point of changing all the instances of name now just to be changed again. The intro already has multiple forms of the name. CDThieme 00:06, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Looking at the history, the spellings in the article have mostly been the traditonal English "Lao Tsu" for quite a long time. There was sufficient support for titling it that, as I see it, and I think it is time that should be done. Jonathunder 17:19, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The suggested move was rejected. There's no objection to suggesting it again, and seeing what support there is (except that that's likely to attract – again – a number of people whose views are politically motivated). I still think that it's a bad idea, and would argue against any such move, of course. Whatever happens, though, the spelling in the text should be consistent with that in the title. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was far from rejected and I see only a couple of "political" comments, mostly from an opponent of the move. Jonathunder 18:50, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling 

message: Jonathunder, after the above discussion, simply moved the article unilaterlally. I've moved it back; if it's moved again, I'll have to get the article protected, and raise the matter at W:AN/I. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:22, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Illicit move

message: Mel, I was hoping to make improvements to this page on Laozi together with the Taoism page. Understandably the changes made was reverted. I will include an edit-summary with the proposed changes hopefully it will be accepted- Alex.
:Please see the comment on your Talk page and at Talk:Taoism. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While I agree up to a point, there is some rational ground for usage choice: the standard current usage in reputable publications. See above for debate over that (unless it's been archived, in which case, see above for a link to that debate). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are other factors to take into account as well. For instance, the fact that the first Romanized character in tao/dao is more properly an unaspirated T sound than a D sound might be something worth considering in terms of most closely approximating native pronunciation. The fact that most American ears can't (or won't be bothered) differentiating between an unaspirated T and a D leads to unfortunate assumptions about the purpose behind Wade-Giles transliteration style, but I digress: my point is simply that there are other things to consider than mere popularity in whatever circles a given person considers most authoritative. apotheon 12:41, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Laozi Page-improvement 

message: An anon, who has been waging a similar campaign at Sima Qian, insists on removing refernce to modern scholarship concerning dates.  His position is that ancient sources are to be regarded as correct, though he also claims that modern scholars don't disagree with the ancient sources and Chinese tradition ("About Laozi, Sima Qian has given us an account that he was a senior of Confucius, so it is prattle to said that scholars would have placed him in around 4th century BC, not unless it is sourced"; the style and attitude are mild compared to most of his comments). He also claimed: "With regard to Laozi, most scholars do believe that he did existed, I had no idea of what did you meant by a common view, a common view of yours I suppose, he was only mythicise by the later Taoist, in the work of Sima Qian, he wasn't even a mythic figure at all"; again, Sima Qian is taken to be the infallible source, and clear facts about modern views are simply denied and/or brushed aside as irrelevant.
I gave references at that Talk page, which I'll reproduce here:
*"the 'founder' of philosophical Daoism is the quasi-legendary Laodan [...].  According to tradition he was an older contemporary of Confucius, with dates ranging from 580 to 480BC.  Zhuangzi [...] has a more solid historical status" (Charles Wei-hsun Fu, "Daoism in Chinese philosophy", in Carr & Mahalingam [edd] Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy. Routledge, 2001; p. 553.)
*"the early third-century BCE Tao-te ching [...] also known as the Lao-tzu after its eponymous 'author', Lao Tan" (Daniel L. Overmyer, "Chinese religion", in Kitagawa [ed.]The Religious Traditions of Asia. Macmillan, 1987; p.265)
*"Lao-zi: c.570–490BCE?.  Like the Greek bard Homer, it is not clear who Lao-zi was, or even if he existed." (Peter J. King, One Hundred Philosophers. Barron's, 2004)
*"Laozi (dates uncertain; speculation ranges from 600 to 200 BCE) is, we assume, the author of the Daode Jing [...] The figure of Laozi has always been shrouded in mystery" (details of scholarly disagreement over dating of text) "Many scholars, however, dismiss Laozi as mythological or use his name as shorthand for 'the author(s) of the Daode Jing." (Chad Hansen, "Laozi", in A Companion to the Philosophers. Blackwell, 2001; pp77–78)
All four state or imply doubts about Laozi's existence; none of them agrees with a definite date of 6th century BCE.  More sources concerning dates would be useful, but as things stand the anon has given no grounds for removing information from this article except his undue reliance on ancient sources.  At Sima Qian he has found an admin who agrees with him concerning that reliability, and the article has been protected in the anon's version (including a vandalistic removal of half the article, including all the references, external links, categories, interwikis, bibliography, etc.).  I'm hoping that the same doesn't happen here. --Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 09:15, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The anon. has just deleted the above comment, replacing it with a cut-and-paste of the discussion from Talk:Sima Qian.  I've reverted it, but it indicates his approach to the question of discussion. --Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 16:07, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

text: "An anon, who has been waging a similar campaign at Sima Qian, insists on removing refernce to modern scholarship concerning dates." There are holes in your false inferences, which dating are you talking about, as the matter of fact you had yet fail to show any of those scholarly references to modern scholarship concerning dates on your claims. 17:45, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

text: "His position is that ancient sources are to be regarded as correct, though he also claims that modern scholars don't disagree with the ancient sources and Chinese tradition" No; I've pointed out that ancient sources are more correct because they are closer in time to the events in question, which you don't seem to have the slightest understanding of it. IF you insists that many scholars had placed him from the 4th century BC instead of an older contemporary of Confucius, you should had provided your sources, not just mere nagging. There wasn't any of my claims that state modern scholars don't disagree with the ancient sources and Chinese tradition. So I guess this part is just from the naive nonsense you've just posted above. 17:45, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

text: "Sima Qian is taken to be the infallible source, and clear facts about modern views are simply denied and/or brushed aside as irrelevant." Its relevant because scholars generally agreed, since he can give accurately the names of Shang kings which had been confirmed by archaeologists and ancient historians. I don't know what did you meant by modern views simply denied or brushed Sima Qian 's source aside as irrelevant. Even most of what we know about Herodotus's life comes from a late tenth century Byzantine lexicon (which was not a biography to be exact), scholars don't generally dismissed him as mythological, despite how the latter know about his life 1500 years apart from his times is beyond other. Not to mention that Sima Qian even had a biography for Laozi dated from the 2th century BC, plus a few excavations of his tradition work Daodejing dated as early as 300 BC. 17:45, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

text: "All four state or imply doubts about Laozi's existence" No, it shown only one of them doubts about his existence (it is not clear who Lao-zi was, or even if he existed). 17:45, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

text: "none of them agrees with a definite date of 6th century BCE." Yes they do, in fact two of your sources had already provided a definite date of 6th century BCE for Laozi (ranging from 580 to 480BC;c.570–490BCE?). 17:45, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

text: "but as things stand the anon has given no grounds for removing information from this article except his undue reliance on ancient sources." As for the other big claim about my grounds for removing information from this article, it applies to the facts that since you're the one who claims on many scholars had placed Laozi from 4th century BC, you should be the one that show us your sources, and thus not me. 17:45, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

text: "At Sima Qian he has found an admin who agrees with him concerning that reliability, and the article has been protected in the anon's version.  I'm hoping that the same doesn't happen here." Well, this could be another way round, I didn't found the admin by the way. And how the article has been protected twice in the my version is beyond me. 17:45, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anon's removal of information 

message: Per WP:DATE, it is neccesary to use only one method of dating notation per article. This means that there shall not be a split usage of BC, BCE, CE, and AD. Only AD/BC or CE/BCE should be used within one article space. When I arrived at this article, it used both BC and BCE. Though BCE was used mainly in the opening paragraphs, BC was used later in the article (this is before my edits). In accordance with the above Wikipedia:Manual of Style excerpt I provided, only one is acceptable. Since I cannot single-handedly decide which era notation is to be used, it is customary (see Jesus) that both era notations be placed as neutrality until a consensus can be made on one era usage. Now if someone simply reverts my latest edit, this is a violation of the MOS; if someone simply reverts my edits and replaces all the "BC"'s with "BCE", that is again against Wikipedia standards as we need to arrive at consensus prior to a decision. I invite all to discuss which notation shall be used below. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 18:40, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  AD / CE 

message: *Discuss here.
*The article has nothing to do with Christianity, and most modern academic and other serious texts use the BCE/CE form. For reasons of NPoV and good practice, it shoudl be BCE/CE. --Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 20:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion of Era notations