Talk:Nicole Oresme

message: Most of the article smells like original research or Historical revisionism . I call for scolarship concensus among citations like this:
"Based on the musico-mathematical principles of incommensurability, irrationality and complexity, Oresme finally created a dynamic structure-model for the constitution of substantial species and individuals of nature, the so-called "theory of perfectio specierum" (De configurationibus qualitatum et motuum, Quaestiones super de generatione et corruptione, Tractatus de perfectionibus specierum). By means of using an analogy of the musical qualities with the “first and second qualities” of Empedocles, an Oresmian individual turns into a self-organizing system which takes the trouble to get to his optimal system state defending against disturbing environmental influences. This “automatic control loop” influences the substantial form (forma substantialis), already present in the modern sense, in the principles of biological evolution, "adaptation" and "mutation" of genetic material. It is quite evident, that Oresme’s revolutionary theory overcame the Aristotelian-scholastic dogma of the unchanging substantial species and anticipated principles of the "system theory", self-organisation and biological evolution of Charles Darwin."
Take the words "finally created a dynamic structure-model for the constitution of substantial species and individuals of nature", "self-organizing", "optimal system state", "already present in the modern sense", etc. Most of the sentences used only have validity whithin the "modern view" and mostly constitute a revisionism language in order to say that this guy is basically all the scientist between XVI and XXI.
I call for revision of:
-  Claims of modern influence, cited 1 by 1 and with scholarship concensus.
-  Use of modern specific context language from this thories claimed to be "before their time".
-  Claim of anticipation, citing the translation of the works of Nicole Oresme, not by reinterpretation, but by direct citation.
So far most of the claims maked in the article can only be found online as mirrors of wikipedia. I'll be disecting them while i have time for it.
 
190.158.6.164 (talk) 20:30, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: One of the stylistic problems for me, is that Taschow is quoted widely for the guts of the article, although Taschow himself is WP:NN. He should be relegated totally to footnotes until he has his own article. While it may seem necessary to mention him as he is quoted so widely, my thought is that it has detered criticism in the past. "Taschow says that..." Oh, well, if Taschow said it, it must be true, when actually his opinion is not only not worth more than other sources, but maybe worth less! Student7 (talk) 01:01, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

text: I think you're right on.  The writings of Ulrich Taschow have not made any significant impact among historians of medieval science.  The whole section on Oresme's science needs major revision.  Perhaps when I have time....  --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:16, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical revisionism all over the place 

message: I just deleted a chunk of fairly obsolete references that had been added in a block for no apparent reason.  The article needs rigorous going-over to draw on the modern research on Oresme.  As Marshal Clagett once said:
::"No medieval schoolman has been singled out as a precursor more often than the French scholastic Nicole Oresme....  None of these claims is, in fact, true...." (Clagett, Nicole Oresme and the Medieval Geometry of Qualities and Motions, p. 3) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SteveMcCluskey (talk • contribs) 05:56, 1 January 2010
:I must defer to others superior knowledge here.
:Some debunking is certainly justified, though I think a careful reader might have figured out on his own that George Washington could not have thrown a silver dollar across the Potomac, a rather large distance. As they flash in stadiums, "Sign Him Up!" And throwing away a Spanish silver "dollar" wouldn't have been terrifically smart either.
:A bit less obvious for Oresme. Anti-Western debunkers abound, leading to the obvious question, "If Westerners were so incompetent, why did their civilization prevail?"
:As far as "precursors" go, the monk, Mendel, is recognized as the father of genetics (the Wikipedia bio more correctly says "figurehead") though his work was essentially unknown/forgotten until rediscovered in the 20th century. I'll grant you that to be a precursor, one does need direct followers which may not have happened here. Student7 (talk) 22:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the comment.  I quoted that passage here (and in the article) as a cautionary note about some of the excessive claims that have been criticized elsewhere on this talk page.  I have a revision on my "to do" list, but until someone does it, I think the cautionary quotation from Clagett is useful.  --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:20, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: I was just tracking down a reference and I noticed that the publisher of Taschow's book, Avox Media, is apparently directed by Dr. Ulrich Taschow.  This looks suspiciously like a violation of WP:COI.  Since the early edits citing Taschow come from a WP:SPA, User:Nicolas Oresme, which seems to be Taschow, this article needs to be cleaned up.  --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:47, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: In the three years since I made that comment the article has been considerably cleaned up, but Taschow's self-published source remains in the list of References.  Since it is no longer cited in the article, I will remove it, and Andre Goddu's review of it, from the References. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 02:47, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Avox Media = Ulrich Taschow [[WP:COI]]? 

message: Since the pronunciation of Oresme is non-intuitive (the 's' is silent in Modern French), I've added the IPA transcription. I'm not aware of any established Anglicized pronunciation with the 's' pronounced, so I assume the existing sound file  is incorrect. I've removed the link to the file in the article for now. --Iceager (talk) 21:51, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know how it is pronounced in English, but the 's' of Oresme is not silent in modern French, according to . Ceinturion (talk) 15:57, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there is any unequivocal evidence as to how Oresme's name was pronounced.  However, the various medieval spellings of Oresme's name suggest that the "s" was not pronounced.  Grant's extensive biographical sketch (pp. 3-10 of the introduction to his edition of De proportionibus proportionum) lists the following spellings at p.3, n. 2: In Latin Orem, Oresmus, Oresmius, Oremius, and Horen; in French Oresmius, Orème, Oresmes, d'Oresme, d'Oresmieux, Orem, and Orême.  Some of these spellings may be idiosyncratic on the part of a scribe, but the frequency of the dropped "s" in both Latin and French suggests that the "s" was silent.  SteveMcCluskey (talk) 04:16, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: If for one side there is doubt about whether the /s/ was or not pronounced in his time, it seems consensual that it's currently always pronounced in French, and in my opinion this modern pronunciation should be the one given in the article (or, as a compromise, include both forms). —capmo (talk) 06:16, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: If I may add a personal observation; I've heard several discussions of Oresme's work by Grant, Clagett and others, and they didn't pronounce the "s".  There's no way to cite this, but it is a strong indicator of the current scholarly pronunciation of Oresme's name, which reflects the spellings in the medieval manuscripts. Are there any sources indicating a voiced "s" specifically in the pronunciation of Oresme? SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:36, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  SteveMcCluskey's list of contemporary spellings is I think decisive - plainly, the 's' cannot have been pronounced at the time. Since 'how his name was pronounced' must refer to his time not ours, we should use the Grant reference as proof that the 's' was not sounded, and leave the matter at that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:43, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

text: Well, I also can't cite any written reference, but I have asked two native French speakers and both confirmed that they pronounce the /s/ in Oresme. Maybe the scholars cited by Steve are using a reconstructed pronunciation instead of the modern one. Anyway, just by the fact that in modern French there are people who pronounce the /s/ is reason enough for me to have both pronunciations added, in addition to an explanatory note. —capmo (talk) 19:34, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Like fantasme, etc, yes. Well, why don't we say clearly that it seems Nicole O did not pronounce the S in his name, but that modern French speakers generally do? Seems the logical and best answer really. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:40, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation of Oresme 

message: Oresme published ideas in his books about things that were not proven for some time later in history. Some examples of these ideas are as follows: in his book Livre du ciel et tu monde he considers the idea that earth is rotating and the stars are not, an idea not fully accepted until 200 years later by Copernicus; in De configurationibus qualitatum et motuum he creates a coordinate plane similar to Descartes and uses it to solve problems involving distance speed and time, very similar to integration; in De porportionibus propotionum he discusses whether the ratio of the period of two celestial bodies were a rational number, and in doing so became the first person to use fractional exponents. With that said, i believe it is safe to say that Oresme came up with original ideas that were so far before his time that sometimes he even rejected them himself. 
Kazumooo (talk) 19:41, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Whatever the merits of the JSTOR review (it doesn't say much, unsurprisingly, and if the entry was based on the first sentence, that was pretty hopeless), materials on JSTOR are generally allowable, and being behind a paywall is no obstacle - any Wikipedia editor can freely request such an article (or visit a library, or ask an editor who has access). Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:23, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oresme's Work 

message: A character in the web comic Quantum Vibe is named Nicole Oresme.  Algr (talk) 06:16, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nicole Oresme character in Quantum Vibe 

message: The article says Oresme wrote one of the earliest works on economics.  Yet, he is not categorised at the bottom of the page as an economist.  Was he not an economist?  allixpeeke (talk) 19:09, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:Economists]] 

message: I noticed that Oresme's political thought is conspicuously absent from this article even though there has been more than 50 years worth of research on this topic (M. Grignaschi, A. D. Menut, S. M. Babbitt, J. Krynen etc). I would like to add a section on his political thought as outlined by the aforementioned authors. Oresme is not as original as other contemporary authors since he translated and commented Aristotle's moral writings (Ethics and Politics mainly) rather than reforging Aristotelian thought into a new work (like Marsilius of Padua or William of Ockham). His political thinking, however, is quite different from that of other contemporaries who were also Charles V's retainers, so I believe a section on Oresme's political thought would be worthwhile. Maester NoWei (talk) 14:50, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, welcome to Wikipedia.  It sounds like a good idea although, as you mention, Oresme's political thought is not as original as his work in the physical sciences. The usual expectation of good secondary sources applies. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:01, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oresme's political thought 

message: The text indicates a connection between Oresma and Richard Brinkley, but is so garbled as to be incoherent:
"A Richard Brinkley is thought to be an inspiration for the modus-rei description, but this is uncertain." 2A02:908:2612:9300:4842:F308:D86E:1245 (talk) 15:03, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confused Text