Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy/Archive 3

message: Hello! I'm trying to address comments in Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1755 Lisbon earthquake, but the objections are mostly due with philosophical aspects, things that i, as a geoscientist, hardly understand. Could someone have a look? Thanks, muriel@pt 19:54, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I put some comments in the discussion section over there, and will add this to the list of short term projects here. WhiteC 01:27, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Help

message: One thing that isn't clear on the project page is just how one goes about joining a project such as this ... I'm an amateur in philosophy but a pretty good copyeditor -- new to this wiki thing and still learning the standards, but that's a separate question. So do you just dig in and start editing, or what?
--Sturgeonslawyer
: Wikipedia:WikiProjects are more voluntary affiliations than anything else.  "Dig in and start editing" -- and Be bold -- is the best advice; feel free to sign yourself up as a project member, and peruse this and other projects, if you want to get a sense for the work that other Wikipedians feel needs doing. -- Rbellin|Talk 21:20, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just noticed the project and will help when I can - I have a degree in the subject Brookie 16:38, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Joining the project?

message: I think its pretty clear that at most we need two of these three articles.  But do folks think we just need one (A priori and a posteriori knowledge) or two (A priori and A posteriori as seperate entries)?  Anybody have a reason for one or the other?  --Kzollman 03:04, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
:I find A priori and a posteriori knowledge an ugly title. Could it be deleted and summaries of A priori and A posteriori and direct comparison be added to Knowledge? Tim Ivorson 09:51, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done!  --Kzollman 20:06, May 15, 2005 (UTC)
The a posteriori page is woefully inadequate in its discussion of the historical evolution and definition of the term, especially compared to the a priori entry, which includes a (fairly thorough, IMHO) discussion of Kantian/Cartesian utilisation of the word.  I'll do what I can, but it's something to be considered. 216.158.31.195 13:45, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[A priori]]/[[A posteriori]]/[[A priori and a posteriori knowledge]] 

message: First, I'd just like to say hello and thank you to everyone collaborating on WikiProject Philosophy. This is a difficult but worthwhile effort. Second, my focus will be on Aesthetics, so I look forward to hearing from others who'd like to work in this area. Please respond and let me know you're here! If there are enough of us, we could start WikiProject Aesthetics. Finally, I've made an edit to the Philosophy Category page.  Aesthetics was listed under Axiology. However, Aesthetics is not necessarily a  value-based discipline. Many questions in Aesthetics are independent of values, such as "is art for expressing feelings, making statements, transforming the status quo, giving pleasure ...or is art for art's sake alone?" , "what is the nature of the relationships between art, artists, and audiences?" and "how do I know whether I'm experiencing art aesthetically?" As a result, I've taken Ethics out of Axiology as well, not only because it looked funny as a subsection by itself, but also because some ethical theories are not necessarily value-based either, notably the categorical imperative, which is based on duty alone. And then I figured, well, I never once heard the word "Axiology" in my introduction to philosophy courses, so I nixed it as being unnecessary, divisive, and confusing. Sorry for this long comment, but since it was an edit to the category page I thought I might have to explain myself. Thanks again and I look forward to our work. --Slac 04:58, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aesthetics and an edit to the category page 

message: Should the list of philosophical topics be merged with :Category: Philosophy?  Maybe merge isn't the right term, but right now the list has many more entries than the category; it seems like they should include the same articles, and that if one adds the  tag to the end of an article, one shouldn't have to also manually edit the list page. Also, should all philosophy stubs be listed in the "expand" section of the task box?  My guess is that there are too many stubs, and they'd clutter up the box, but if the goal of the project is to make the encyclopedia comprehensive...  Let me know if and how these things can be done, and I'll help if I can.  --AAMiller 1 July 2005 17:28 (UTC)
:The list is long mostly due to my work on it.  We have to keep it because only lists can be "policed".  That is, we can see what changes are made to any article on the list by following the Related Changes link on those pages.  This cannot be done with a Category.  If we want to add all those articles to the philosophy category, however, is a different issue.  If you want to do so you can, but it seems like a lot of work. KSchutte 15:29, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Topic list/category merge?

message: :See: :Category:Philosophy
I have attempted to adapt an existing category framework to the portal style, in the hope that it might be further used in the Philosophy category page, as an adjunct to a future Philosophy wikiportal. Improvements are invited. Ancheta Wis 3 July 2005 11:16 (UTC)
:Nice job!  Do you think there should be some padding between each of the boxes?  Yorick, Jester of Elsinore 2005 July 3 12:49 (UTC)
::You might also have a look at the Auto-categorization methods of Beland and Pearle to help strengthen your content family and its associated category tree. Quinobi 10:42, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Philosophy portal

message: This section is intriguing. For a while there has been a debate at Wikipedia:Avoid weasel terms, and judging by Wikipedia talk:Avoid weasel terms#For and Against the community is divided roughly evenly between those in favour and those against their use. I'm one of those in favour of the guideline. That guideline seems to be unchallenged here - it underpins Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy/Proposal for criticisms, for instance, apparently unchallenged. Why should this be so? Why, if the general Wiki community is divided, is there a consensus about avoiding weasels in Philosophy articles? Or is the Philosophy guideline problematic? Banno 11:11, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
:It seems okay as a guideline, as long as it isn't a hard and fast rule.  Try to avoid weasel terms, but if you can't figure out how to do it, leave them in and let somebody else clean it up.  Of course, it would be nice if nobody ever wrote weasel terms, but realistically that isn't going to happen when anyone can edit articles.  Perhaps conscientious weaselers could just put something on the discussion page for the article like "does anyone know who said this?" or "how can I rephrase <quote>?" Then, after a while someone who cared enough might remove the weaselism, rephrase it or attribute it.  WhiteC 14:33, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Standards and practices