Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy/Archive 1

message: Hello, a question from the Anarchism taskforce. While rating articles for importance to anarchism, we have come across some articles that have existing ratings for importance to philosophy; where there exists a difference in im Max Stirner for example, is highly influential in anarchist thought, deserving of a High rating, but of marginal significance to philosophy (Mid perhaps). A further problem is anarchism-relate articles that are completely unrelated to philosophy, such as Black Bloc - these articles are included in the philosophy categories. For the moment, we are treating importance to anarchism as the relevant criteria for importance ratings, but some clairification/technical tweaks could be  useful. Skomorokh incite 18:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Importance ratings: taskforce or WikiProject? 

message: Hi there. Via a post at Requests for feedback, I've been trying to help a new editor clean up the article he started on Semiotic Matrix Theory (SMT). I've done what fixes I can, but since this is far enough outside my personal area of knowledge, I don't even have enough confidence that I understand it enough to even write a lead to summarize the article. I'm hoping some of you who understand it better can whip it into a better Wikipedia standard. Cheers! —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 00:25, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New article needs some help 

message: This glossary is nearing completion (and is one of the most comprehensive glossaries on Wikipedia), and has only about 80 entries that are missing definitions!  If everyone contributed a definition or two, it would be completed easily.  Please chip away at this objective by chipping in.  The simplest way to provide definitions is to copy and paste them from the lead section of the article of the same name (and then edit them to fit better, reduce wordiness, etc.).  Thank you.  The Transhumanist  04:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't believe you've left out Anarcho-primitivism! Murderbike (talk) 04:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I can't believe you left it out even after you mentioned it! The Transhumanist (talk) 12:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Touché! Will do it now. Murderbike (talk) 02:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool.  The Transhumanist (talk) 07:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

text: A number of the -isms in the glossary are not philosophical.  How was the list compiled? Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 18:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Be sure to post this on the article's talk page - the editors there will no doubt want to know this.  The Transhumanist (talk) 07:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's pretty darn finished right now. With a little bit of love (and a lot of copyediting), I think this page could become a featured list. --Sharkface217 20:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Glossary of philosophical isms]] 

message: I am new to the english Wikipedia and did some editing of Being and Time and commented on Martin Heidegger on the discussion page, but did not get an answere so far. I worte the german articles Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, Letter on Humanism and think I can improve the english ones as well. But I'm no native speaker and often my grammar need corrections and I do some typographic errors, that need to be recheckt. I also would need someone who could look up the english translations for some of Heidegger's terminology. We could archiev a great deal by this work, because as a native german speaker I have "access" to Heidegger's complete works (Gesamtausgabe (Heidegger)), this means also the works that are not translated (yet). So is there anyone here who's interessted in Heidegger and his work and who'd like to work with me? Greetings from Berlin, Germany -- Tischbeinahe (talk) φιλο 08:43, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heidegger: need some help 

message: Hi, Recently we have splited Avicenna article into two article and moved philosophical thought of Avicenna and the effects of his philosophy to a new article, Avicennism. Please check this article and help us with it or add your idea in the talk page. Thanks.--Seyyed(t-c) 11:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Avicenna and Avicennism 

message: Please participate in the discussion of . Uncle G (talk) 18:33, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untangling a knot 

message: I've argued in favor of linking it at Talk:John_Locke#Bennett_link. Having got no response from User:RJC today, I'd like to see others' opinions. Note links to the site are potentially relevant to the articles of thirteen major philosophers and some of their works (maybe more in the future). trespassers william (talk) 02:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is www.earlymoderntexts.com spam? 

message: All but two of the definitions in the glossary of philosophical isms have been filled in!  Be sure to thank Sharkface217 for all his hard work.  He deserves it.
That's right, there are only two terms on there that are missing definitions.
The glossary is now the most comprehensive ism resource I could find on the World Wide Web.  If you know of any that have philosophical isms on it that this one doesn't have, please point them out to me.
No doubt there are still some philosophical isms missing.  If you know of any, please add them in.
The Transhumanist  07:19, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's pretty darn finished right now. With a little bit of love (and a lot of copyediting), I think this page could become a featured list. -- Sharkface217 20:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  It's full! 

message: Can we get a few ethics inclined people to discuss this merge? It's been floating for several months now. Richard001 (talk) 06:49, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging total and [[average utilitarianism]] 

message: There appears to a lack of any topic on the philosophical use of the term "Spiritualism", am I wrong?
I see "[[Spiritual philosophy}" but this refers to "New Age" philosophies, which is not right, and is fairly lightweight. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
I have been working on spiritualistic topics, quite a different form of Spiritualism and started a fairly general page Difference between Spiritualism and Materialism which is basic but I feel accurate enough. Any pointers or assistance is welcome, its already been trolled fairly heavily by the new page patrollers, youngsters with no interest or specialism in the subject at all.
My intention is basically to raise, itemise and broaden the documentation of the use of "spiritualism" to reflect its uses, in totalis. I would ask for a small amount of help from those within the disciplines of ethics, metaphysics and epistemology. In the bigger picture, I would envisage a series of pages on each specialist usage and have already fell on the rocks of those that wish to assert its use for Spiritualism (religious movement) only. An entirely unacceptable limitation in all ways.
My reasoning for using this page as a starting point is that, a) it segues neatly into my other work; and, b) in an environment designed to inform and broaden the interests of a fairly general audience, it is often easier to teach by broad contrasts in the first place rather than specifics that might go over heads.
Criticism welcome. An AfD placed with 9 minutes as I edited, here; . Thank you very much. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 08:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Spiritualism (philosophical use)

message: I haven't read through each one, but it seems very strange that there are two articles on arguments in logic: argument (logic) and logical argument. Going by name alone, and first impressions, they seem to be about the same thing. Is this just a case of people not being aware of the other article, i.e. should they be merged? Richard001 (talk) 05:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arguments in logic 

message: I am looking for other editors to participate in a broad task force to organize Wikipedia's articles on Boolean algebra, propositional logic, and related topics. The current organization is quite idiosyncratic, and has been the subject of discussion before. The initial goal of the task force would be to outline the current structure of these articles (the topics covered by each and how they interconnect) and discuss improvements to this organization. If we are successful we will come out with a proposal that can be announced more widely. 
Participating in the task force would not require a large time commitment. If you are interested, please look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Logic/Boolean algebra task force and add yourself to the list of editors. The page was created under WikiProject Logic only for convenience. I hope that I will be able to gather editors with a wide range of backgrounds to participate. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:00, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Boolean algebra task force 

message: Greetings folks. I am in the middle of a discussion (part one,  part two) with several mathematicians who do not want to identify a set as an abstract object in the lede of the article. They do not see that as important to the concept at all. I am quite frustrated by the strong opinions on the other side. I have a lot of challenges whenever I try to elucidate on any logical/metalogical/metamathematical/philosophical foundations of "mathematical" articles. The prevailing culture of mathematicians are quite active, narrow and rigid about "their" turf. Any help in making the case would be appreciated. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 19:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  a "Set" is an abstract object 

message: Hello. I have stumbled unto Moralistic fallacy through the uncategorized pages. The whole article looks dubious to me. For one thing it defines the fallacy as the opposite of the naturalistic fallacy but it also says: 
:The moralistic fallacy says that because something is morally wrong, it could not be a part of human nature
Now a implies b is equivalent to not b implies not a so this is in fact equivalent to 
:If something is part of human nature, then it is morally right
which of course is the naturalistic fallacy. I think the article is in dire need of competent help. Pichpich (talk) 14:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help needed with [[Moralistic fallacy]] 

message: Could someone from the project check Speculative realism to see whether this movement is significant enough to warrant a separate article? Thank you. Pichpich (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speculative realism 

message: Any comments on my proposed merge of false compromise and middle ground would be appreciated. Richard001 (talk) 05:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: These articles discuss precisely the same thing and only have different titles because their authors used names from competing websites.  The Latin name for the fallacy discussed on both pages is argumentum ad temperantiam, which would be properly translated as "argument to moderation" (though for the sake of English semantics, many would translate it as "argument from moderation").  As such, I would suggest they be merged under either "argumentum ad temperantiam" or "argument to moderation" and the list of fallacies be changed accordingly.  As the list of fallacies tends to favor English translations over the original Latin, I suppose "argument to moderation" might be the better choice.  The currently existing pages false compromise, middle ground, and argumentum ad temperantiam could all serve as redirects to argument to moderation. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 17:03, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another merge 

message: (Crossed linked with Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science & Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy)
The two articles State transition table and Finite state machine are interlinked.  For some reason, the state transition table article is under the WikiProject of Philosophy.  Plus there are certain things not mentioned in the state transition table article, and could use some more complex examples.  The state transition table directly relates to a finite state machine but the article itself seems lacking.  Also, the reference section for the finite state machine article seems highly unusual. --AllyUnion (talk) 23:22, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes it's an interesting observation. Many of the participants of WP:MATH who are involved with the WP:LOGIC did not want to have all these "non-mathematical" logic topics polluting their precious categories, organization etc. Instead of one comprehensive logic project, it was determined to have a split project with a philosophical logic worklist, and a mathematics worklist. So for anything that falls through the cracks, we put it under the philosophy side. It very much does takes the principle "Logic is part of philosophy, and this is part of logic, ergo..." If we don't take that principle then all of the computer science, linguists, etc gets left out. This is the pragmatic reality around here, I wish it were different. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 00:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Clearly some logic material is technical computer stuff (e.g. state transition tables), some technical math stuff (e.g. nonconstructible sets), some is surely academic-philosophical (Kripke possible universes), and some particularly multidisciplinary (undecidability). I'm just sceptical that philosophy wants State Transistion Tables. Can we send our electrical engineering students to you? :-)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by PeterStJohn (talk • contribs) 19:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  State transition table and Finite state machine articles 

message: I've been unable to get any attention on the talk page about this, and I'm unsure if anyone currently takes an interest in the article, but the lead is too short to qualify for FA (or even GA) status. I thought I'd bring it up here before taking it to FAR. Richard001 (talk) 23:20, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to second Richard's request for increasing the size of the intro, but I also would like to ask for anyone who is around to take a look at the series of edits and edit wars by LoveMonkey to the Free will page. Once we get this sorted out, then perhaps we can turn back to more constructive things like getting the lead beefed up. Edhubbard (talk) 16:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Free will]] 

message: I would love to see a comprehensive article on this. I have been trying to put this on the path to GA status, but someone is deleting sections that don't fit a narrow view of the topic, and moving the articles around without regard for the wikilinks etc. Any new input appreciated Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 00:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: To argue that logic (and its cousin, common sense) is OR would be ridiculous.  Otherwise, I have the right to completely alter every astronomy-related page based on reliable sources I have found supporting the geocentric model of the solar system.  Granted, some are centuries old—but they were written by some of the most scientists ever (and besides, Einstein's dead, too).  And others are quite current and referenced in many articles (by foolish "expert" types attempting to refute such an obviously true position). Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 22:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well yes, it's obvious to us, and it should be obvious to anyone, but it seems to be an extant rhetorical device. I'm merely suggesting a source of problems in some logic-related articles stemming from (nutty) rhetoric in the debates at any article's talk pages. Imagine defining a more egalitarian "logic" to go along with "new sciences", such as Creation Science. But maybe this is just my own soapbox. Pete St.John (talk) 22:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Argument]] [[Argument (logic)]] [[Argument (disambiguation)]] 

message: Hi folks, I thought I'd drop a note here because I'm planning on trying to improve Socrates - one day, I'd like it to be an FA - I don't see any reason not to aim for it anyways!
If you pop by there, you'll see (on the talk page) - that I've begun by tweaking the structure a bit, and rewording the first little bit - and that I'm working in a personal 'Sandbox' area, just to have a bit more freedom to tinker etc. - I could certainly use any help that anyone may be able to offer, so thanks in advance! best, Privatemusings (talk) 00:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Socrates]] 

message: Transmission of Greek philosophical ideas in the Middle Ages. Kind of a mouthful, but see what you think. Wrad (talk) 04:20, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New article 

message: See this new article in First Monday; it also contains a list of philosophers we may be missing.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  01:11, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting reading.  Now, how do we enhance our coverage of philosophers working primarily in countries where languages other than English is the daily language?  GRBerry 03:17, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Cull the wikis in other languages? Pete St.John (talk) 03:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Good idea. User:Nihil novi, author of history of philosophy in Poland, would be happy to help with Polish philosophers, I am sure. I am working on stubbing Polish sociologists; I don't know about other languages.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  07:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

text: There is no problem, really. Every one of the names at the appendix have an article! I categorized most of them with :Category:20th century philosophers or the french subcat now. Some are stubs, of course. Anyway, I think it's quite a methodological flaw, to regard cats as salient a navigational aid, as Elvebakk does. How many people really use them that way? trespassers william (talk) 21:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A comparison between Wikipedia and two other Web–based philosophy resources 

message: I turned to Wikipedia to find out whether arguments by analogy and arguments by example are considered sound or valid (not sure which term would apply).  I was disappointed to find that not only do these subjects not have their own articles (despite Wikipedia's many articles on logic) but they're not addressed ANYwhere in Wikipedia!  Or if they are, then it's not easy to find the information.  Can somebody who knows about logic please start articles on "argument by analogy" and "argument by example"?  And in the meantime, can somebody please refer me to a place where a philosophical lay person can read about it?  I know that in informal discussion, arguments by analogy and example are used all the time, but I don't know how the rules of formal logic apply.  Minaker (talk) 06:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is true! I have been meaning to start the following articles as (good) informal reasoning techniques: Relevant difference reasoning, Common thread reasoning, as well as Causal reasoning and Analogical reasoning (also called "reasoning by analogy"). These are all sound reasoning techniques, however they are informal rather than formal techniques, so one still has to be careful in applying them. I suppose one could formulate examples in terms of formal (symbolic) logic. Happy reasoning. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 10:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arguments by Analogy and Example 

message: Hello,
there are currently 32 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of  and may be slightly outdated.)
I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability. 
If you have any questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 15:56, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophy: Articles of unclear notability 

message: There has been a proposal to tell the project banner to split the importance rating tag into importance and anarchism-importance. I guess this is a natural outgrowth of the existence of articles which are quite important to anarchism studies, but of little importance to philosophy in general. My proposal to deal with this is a little different. I would like to tell the banner script to put the anarchism articles under social and political philosophy, but not under philosophy in general. Any thoughts? Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 11:02, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal for next step for wp:philo 

message: There is a discussion on Talk:Intuition about converting the current dab page into a primary topic and moving the dab to Intuition (disambiguation).  Since this concerns Intuition (philosophy), a philosophy-related article, your thoughts on the talk page linked above are welcome.  Thank you. Viriditas (talk) 22:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Intuition]] 

message: The article titled purpose could probably use some attention from someone schooled in philosophy. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:07, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Purpose" 

message: I have just started a rewrite of this article which I feel will have to be fairly extensive. Would appreciate any help anyone can offer.A 44 will get you 99 (talk) 00:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Family resemblance]] 

message: I was just looking at the subjective logic page and was left going "HUH??"  Is there any way we can simplify it and have less formulaic jargon so it makes more sense?  Also it appears to use material from only one author (although several sources by the same author are used).  Should there be more extensive referencing?  Thanks.  Kristamaranatha (talk) 03:16, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Subjective logic]] 

message: How do I get my name on a task force list? Thanks Kristamaranatha (talk) 03:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Some edit to the template must have caused them not to work. I have fixed the edit link for all of those. If you look in the upper right corner of any task force list you will see "v d e". E for edit. Welcome aboard! Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 21:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quick question 

message: There is a dispute going on at Transmission of Greek philosophical ideas in the Middle Ages about POV. Please help out. Wrad (talk) 20:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bias? 

message: I've finally put this up for FAR. There's not a huge amount of work to do but the article is seriously lacking in active contributors to do the work that needs doing. If a couple of people want to join in or at least help maintain it that would be great. Richard001 (talk) 07:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Free will]] FAR 

message: A proposal to add a symbol identifying Good Articles in a similar manner to Featured ones is being discussed: see Wikipedia talk:Good articles#Proposal. Cheers!  Wassupwestcoast (talk) 19:35, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good article icon 

message: The article on the hapless Marilyn Monroe not only finishes with breathless tittle-tattle about some porno flick but also starts off with a breathless listing of her "iconic" statuses. Among these earnestly linked buzzphrases, "cultural icon" seemed particularly bizarre and so I clicked the link. In a word, "ugh". Surely the phrase is "philosophical" in the sense of being the object of investigation of philosophy, and more specifically of a particular work by Harry Frankfurt. Could somebody whose eyes, unlike mine, don't immediately glaze at the sight of words such as "iconic" take a look at this stuff? (I've written comments on its talk page.) 
If this really does seem beyond the pale for philosophy, then ask yourselves why you list Carl Jung among your good articles [sorry!] then feel free to move this somewhere less unsuitable. -- Hoary (talk) 10:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure if "beyond the pale" is the right turn of phrase, but I do think that this is outside the scope of WikiProject Philosophy (Harry's self-indulgent attempt at fame notwithstanding). Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 19:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  cultural iconography 

message: Currently on the Featured Articles listing page of Wikipedia, there is a singular category "Philosophy and Psychology" (rather than listing these as two, separate categories). As I'm sure most people here will appreciate, Philosophy and Psychology are very, very different disciplines, with people who are searching for psychology not necessarily desiring any philosophical information, and vice versa. I have started a discussion here in the hope of granting Philosophy its own, separate category. Please join in! --Aquillyne-- (talk) 01:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please aid discussion about Featured Article categories 

message: Have you guys seen the article on critical philosophy? An absolute mess! I can say without joking that it might deserve a task force all to itself. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 07:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: *I gather that the vast majority has been lifted from Hegel's Logic via The Critical Philosophy. - Bilby (talk) 07:59, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It might be easier to completely remove everything after the second paragraph and begin from there, rather than sort through all of that intractable material. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Critical philosophy 

message: Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:36, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vancouver, British Columbia meet-up 

message: I have set up a page under Countering systemic bias to deal with what I perceive as a tendency for the articles on logic to be heavily weighted in favor of the mathematical aspects, while giving short shrift and even intellectual hostility towards the philosophical aspects. This is an issue I have observed for quite some time, but did not know what to do about it myself. This seemed like the "work within the system" thing to do. Perhaps it will evolve to deal with a general tendency to marginalize the philosophical aspects of other articles as well. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 23:59, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Countering systemic bias 

message: I have been discussing at length a problem with the categories at Wikipedia:Featured articles, being the combination of Psychology and Philosophy into a singular category, when these two subjects are so utterly different and unrelated. I won't repeat the discussion here, but would like to draw attention to it: please comment here! Thanks. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 12:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As someone who shudders everytime I enter a bookstore with a "Philosophy and Religion" or "Philosophy, Spirituality and The Mind" section, I can't help but think we got off lightly here. Skomorokh 13:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured Article Categories Problem 

message: WikiProject Medicine and WikiProject Pharmacology have proposed a collaboration to improve Placebo, an article that is supported by this WikiProject.  If this topic interests you, and you would like to help (in large ways or small) improve this article through collaborative editing, please go to the WPMED project's collaboration page and sign your name (~~~~) to show your support.  The next collaboration will be chosen in about five days, and the article with the most votes from potential collaborators is chosen.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opportunity for Inter-project Collaboration 

message: Within :Category:Rules of inference, Conjunction elimination and Simplification (logic) contain different, though conceptually equivalent, text. Both are also stubs.
:Merged. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 06:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplicate Topics 

message: Someone is requesting comment on the philosophy of logic section of the logic template. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 23:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We could actually use some comment over there. This guy thinks the logic template should delete a lot of these philosophies of logic. Apparently because they weren't very good philosophies. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 20:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  template:logic 

message: Any editor with a broad knowledge of philosophy is invited to take a look at Wikipedia:Vital articles and offer suggestions on how to improve the list of 1000 vital Wikipedia articles, as well as on the process of choosing them. It suffers from a severe lack of attention and POV editing. — goethean ॐ 01:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's very good of Goethean to admit to his POV editing, but I do agree with him that we could use all the help we could get.  Many of the philosophy articles are at issue right now and we could use divergent opinions. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 12:09, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Vital articles]] 

message: Is this the right place to request assessment of an article? Feedback and quality/importance rating from anyone with time to look at Popper and After would be appreciated. Cheers Alastair Haines (talk) 02:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think I'm authorized to give it more than a B with going through GA process. It looks all right to me. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 05:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assessment please 

message: The Kurt Andersen article mentions quintessentialism. What is this and do we need an article about it? Badagnani (talk) 04:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: For a definition see wikt:quintessence. Richard001 (talk) 00:21, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quintessentialism 

message: An important issue in ethics, which I don't know if there is a name for (but there should be!) is the "if I don't do X, someone else will" argument. Similar is the "everybody else is doing it" argument, e.g. USA: "Why should we cut our emissions if China doesn't have to?" and China "why should we cut our emissions if the US isn't going to?" (which happens to form a convenient loop of justification). It's a case where the ethical status of an action is purported to depend on the actions of others (is there a name for such situations in general, if this isn't the only one?). It was mainly the first one I wanted to ask about. I'm interested in what, if anything, has been written about such arguments/situations, and what, if anything, they are called.
By the way, isn't the bot being a bit too aggressive on the archiving? It seems it prunes all but the last couple of threads. I find that underarchived pages are much more prevalent, but I think it's a bit much here. Richard001 (talk) 00:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What you're describing sounds to me like collective action problems, specifically Tragedy of the Commons. --Padraic 14:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it's certainly very closely related to the Tragedy of the Commons, perhaps inseparable. There isn't really much discussion there from an ethics point of view though, is there? It's not even in an ethics category, unless you consider game theory a subset of ethics! I think the philosophical/ethical aspects of it deserve an article of its own (and perhaps one on the essay itself rather than the concept, too), though it's not that surprising we don't have one. We also don't have one for the ethics relating to future generations and the future in general (as far as I'm aware) which basically reflects how little we care about the subject (indeed, judging by the status of future we don't seem to care about the future in the least). Richard001 (talk) 02:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  An issue in ethics 

message: There appears to be a bit of a dispute developing on this page. Grateful if someone could have a look and comment of the various versions.A 44 will get you 99 (talk) 14:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Family resemblance]] 

message: Posted to WT:WikiProject Philosophy, WT:WikiProject Animals and WT:WikiProject Animal rights, discussion preferred at WT:WikiProject Philosophy
I don't think we have a broad article on the place of non-human animals in ethics. There are a few specific articles like animal rights, ethics of eating meat, animal cognition etc, but nothing on the broader issue. Going in the opposite direction, there are articles broader than animals that cover more 'holistic' views, e.g. environmental ethics and deep ecology, though given that most animals are probably not conscious beings that would also overlap with the subject. I guess such an article could be called animals in ethics or something like that. It might also mention the prehuman precursors to morality seen in other animals (which relates to the origin of morality, another needed article), although this is broadening the scope a little more. Richard001 (talk) 04:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Animals and ethics 

message: There is currently a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Christian theology for a group to focus on content related to Christian theology. Considering that that field also falls within the scope of this project, I was wondering whether you would possibly agree to it being set up as a joint task force of both projects. Opinions? John Carter (talk) 17:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be willing to join such a task force. Rick Norwood (talk) 20:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible joint task force? 

message: The expertise of those knowledgeable in the subject of Natural theology would be very helpful both in that entry and on the possibly soon deleted Astrotheology entry.  There is a content dispute that broke out on the second of the two entries, which has now spilled over to the first.  Exactly what natural theology includes and how best to define it are at the heart of this dispute.  Thanks for any help. (Note: I am cross posting this on WikiProject(s):Religion and Christianity).PelleSmith (talk) 21:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Natural Theology and "Astrotheology" 

message: I've been editing the article on Emanuel Lasker, who is generally best known as a chess player and writer. However he also wrote a few philosophical works. I'd be grateful if you could review Emanuel Lasker and correct an yerros or omissions. In particlular, have his philosophical works had any influence? Philcha (talk) 17:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Emanuel Lasker 

message: Hello,
currently, about 2.500 philosophy articles (or 30%) are flagged for cleanup of some sort. Are you interested which articles are affected? I offer to generate lists of these articles; see User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. These lists can either be generated for the project as a whole, or for individual task forces.
If you're interested, please sign up at User talk:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings. --B. Wolterding (talk) 08:30, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I did sign us up for this service. It looks great. You can see the listings at Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy/Cleanup listing. Thank you Wolterding. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 01:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophy articles flagged for cleanup 

message: Hello, I would like to request some help with this article, which is under the scope of this project. I fully sourced it over the past week, and I would like to help it get to GA or FA status. It would be great if any editors from this project could look it over, possibly do some copyediting, and give some feedback in the peer review. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 23:35, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help request: [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]] 

message: See Talk:Judith Butler and Talk:Influence of Judith Butler's concepts. Thanks! Hyacinth (talk) 03:29, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Judith Butler reception: [[WP:SUMMARY|Summary style]] or [[WP:POV fork|POV fork]]? 

message: Leave this section alone unless you wish to contribute to the discussion. The ability to write isn't vandalism except to convenience store clerks, aliterates, and Vandals. I have added footnotes to aid comprehension
子路曰衛君待子而為政 ... [1]
1. Tsze-lû said, "The ruler of Wei has been waiting for you, in order with you to administer the government. What will you consider the first thing to be done?"
2. The Master replied, "What is necessary is to rectify names."
3. "So! indeed!" said Tsze-lû. "You are wide of the mark! Why must there be such rectification?"
4. The Master said, "How uncultivated you are, Yû! A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve.
5. "If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.
6. "When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music will not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot.
7. "Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect."
If, having achieved financial success in an unrelated field, you can be anything you want to be by going on a goddamn talk show and saying you are, then Houston, we have a problem, and it is the problem identified by Master Kong Fu Zi in Analects XII. Wikipedia as a slave republic is doing a lot to create a world of megalothymes [2] stealing the labour of men and proclaiming their expertise in areas in which they have no standing.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.153.108.172 (talk) 13:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed definition for "what constitutes a philosopher" 

message: The following includes bits, mostly from my own posts, taken from the ‘Ayn Rand’ discussion of who is ‘a philosopher’. It has been concluded there that the discussion of the question there needs to be resolved more generally, ie. here. 
I would say the question is important: to be a philosopher’ is desirable to be someone who teaches philosophy or who writes papers on philosophy is much less so. Furthermore, the issue is a general one. roughly the same if we wanted to talk about 'artists' or 'nuclear physicists'. You have to have provided some peer-group recognised work to jump from your day-job (' Mad Max, a lecturer in Fine Arts at Hull University') to the more attractive designation "the modernist painter, Mad Max"... 
But let’s just take the question of being a ‘philosopher’ Wikipedia philosophers, I checked, are a strange group. ‘Most’ but by no means all of the ‘traditional ones’ and hundreds of ‘new ones’. We should be so lucky... 
The judgements being made at the moment are not objective ones, based on ‘sources’ but subjective ones being made on prejudices and biases.
So let’s start with that controversial figure, Ayn Rand - should she be identified as a 'philosopher' - or not? Many comments look at the use of the term - the article itself cites one usage example in the NYT. But this is I think not the standard. Many, many people are called 'philosophers'. It seems anyone with an academic post in a 'philosophy department' can be called 'a philosopher' on WIkipedia. Even a few without - several articles create new 'philosophers' out of people whose status rests solely on editing philosophy magazines, ,or writing articles 'on philosophy' in newspapers, or writing descriptive accounts of philosophy in books. But of course such philosophical pundits and commentators are indeed, widely referred to as 'philosophers'. Wikipedia cannot use this as its standard, or 1. the term means nothing and 2. the term covers far too many people. A list of ‘British philosophers should resemble the list we might find in an encyclopaedia of philosophy. In Wikipedia’s case it does not - it includes a disproportionate number of contemporary writers and academics.
Clearly when someone is designated 'a philosopher' in an encyclopaedia it must be because they have produced a work recognised by a significant number of the community of scholars (not just academic philosophers, but nor is it the general public) as a contribution to philosophical knowledge. 
So , for example, Ayn Rand's claim, I suggest, rests NOT on usage - the footnote [1] on the Wikipedia page referring to her NY Times obituary is quite irrelevant, but on her supposed contribution to philosophical thinking - 'objectivism'. Yet 'Objectivism' is not recognised, as the article accepts, by the scholarly community as 'philosophy' at all. In as much as there is a theory, it is a very old one - egoism, or to be more precise, 'infantile egoism' - the view that the only relevant consideration in taking decisions is the benefit it will bring the individual. 
TallNapoleon responds on the Ayn Rand discussion page that 'Objectivism may be *bad* philosophy (this is my opinion) but it is still philosophy'. But to present a philosophy does not mean you are a 'philosopher'. Many writers present distinctive views of the world which are later described as their 'philosophies' - but they remain writers. Or take Mao for instance. Mao wanted to be taken as 'a philosopher' and wrote many self-consciously 'philosophical' works PLUS he contributed a distinctive new philosophy to the world: 'Maoism'. But no one says of him 'the philosopher, Mao Tse Tung, wrote... blah blah blah - and Wikipedia's entry rightly does not introduce him as a philosopher. 
Rand, like Mao, like many others, presents a 'philosophy' and wishes to be remembered as a 'philosopher'. This, i hazard, is true of just about every academic and quite a few amateur 'philosophers' too. Yet if their ideas are not accepted within the philosophy world (and this after a suitable period of time has elapsed) as sufficiently novel or useful to justify their inclusion in the necessarily limited ranks of 'philosophers' then they should not be included in the ranks of WIkipedia philosophers. If they are, the term, as I say, ceases to mean very much, and certainly does not mean ‘outside Wikipedia’ what it means inside
If we reduce eligibility to be ‘a philosopher’ then we will likely need alternative titles for those no longer to be called 'philosophers'. For instance, there might be 'academic philosophers', or writers specialising in philosophy, or writers whose works present a particular philosophy. (Rand is perhaps best seen as one of this last kind.)
Skomorokh complains that this approach is somehow elitists, and imagines it favours academics - so I should stress very plainly that my view is that academics teaching or researching philosophy should NOT be counted as 'philosophers'. (Skomorokh directs fire at a paper tiger.) 
As explained above, if academics were acceptable, we have a handful of 'historical philosophers' and about one million new ones. Rand and others can certainly join in with other writers-whose-work-has-philosophical-content to this new category. But it would be as Grocuho Marx quipped, a club that if he was allowed to jon, he would no longer want to.
The second point was that if we preserve the term as 'meaningful', we might still want 'very occasionally' to confer it on some new people. 
So then, who will decide? I suggested it should be a judgement made not by the 'general public' but by the relevant expert bodies. That' I guess is where the 'elitism' comes in. So, for example, if works like the Oxford Companion to Philosophy include Rand and treat her as 'a philosopher', we have to follow their judgement, whatever, as TallNapoleon says, we may think of the quality of their work itself. But if such philosophical works do NOT count her as a philosopher (and in this case they do not) then it is no good appealing to newspaper articles and online sources compiled by computers or generalists (as in the sections below, eg Ask the Media: Novelist, Philosopher or Both?
The suggestion already made on this page that, for instance, the Internet Encyclopedia/ Standford  are suitable sources I would dispute that. We should use sources that represent the views of the philosophical experts not anonymous compilers or philosophical browsers affected by considerations of marketing and current celebrity, drawing themselves on unknown sources.
Docmartincohen (talk) 20:16, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Radical rethinking of criteria for 'desirable titles' needed 

message: Please forgive me if I am posting in the wrong location. I am looking for suggestions and input regarding an edit I have attempted to make and defend in an article that is part of the Wikiproject Philosophy. I attempted to place two sentences in the Nietzsche article, in the section entitled "Nietzsche's Reading". The sentences read as follows:
"It is also possible that he read and was significantly influenced by Max Stirner. However, this theory has a long and controversial history and, while such influence cannot be ruled out, it appears impossible to conclusively establish."
One editor on the page suggested that these two sentences gave undue weight to the theory of Stirner influence on Nietzsche and removed them. He or she also suggested these two sentences constituted support for a Fringe Theory. I provided some 20 citations on the talk page. These citations showed that the theory has a long history, a controversial history, and that it has been debated in both popular and academic settings. At least of six of these references showed clearly that the idea that Nietzsche was influenced by Stirner is still current, though it is a view held by a significant minority (including such well known figures as Deleuze).
I do not feel that the inclusion of one sentence mentioning the possibility of influence, and another providing caveats about controversy and the fact that it cannot be established conclusively constitutes undue weight. I also feel that the suggestion that this is a fringe theory is disingenuous. Can anyone provide me with suggestions or guidance here regarding determining whether or not these two sentences constitute undue weight or if they are improperly endorsing a "fringe theory"? --Picatrix (talk) 11:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for input on dispute about inclusion of content in Nietzsche article 

message: As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria and I'm specifically going over all of the "Culture and Society" articles. I have reviewed Fair trade and believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have left this message at this WikiProject's talk page so that any interested members can assist in helping the article keep its GA status. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed, and I'll leave the article on hold for seven days for them to be fixed. I have left messages on the talk pages of the main contributors of the article and several other WikiProjects. Please consider helping address the several points that I listed on the talk page of the article, which shouldn't take too long to fix if multiple editors assist in the workload. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 20:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have also reviewed Gender which falls under this project and have raised several issues on the talk page. Please assist in addressing this issue so that the article can continue to keep its GA status. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 08:13, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Fair trade]] GA Sweeps Review: On Hold 

message: I would like to request discussion of how to establish norms, criteria, or policy about what to include and exclude in and from Wikipedia philosophy articles, with regard to philosophers' criticisms of other philosophers, with regard to the proliferation of separate Wikipedia articles about individual works by philosophers, and with regard to what the reference lists or bibliographies of the philosophy articles should look like.  Iam taking the liberty of copying to here some comments I wrote earlier today with regard to a proposed article for deletion (on Schopenhauer's criticism of Kant) that bear on these questions.  Please forgive me if they have already been discussed or settled during the past 2 1/2 years, since I have not been available during that time and so have missed a lot.
If we had articles on every philosopher's criticism of every other philosopher, Wikipedia would just become a loose mishmash. Should we have separate articles on Hegel's criticism of Kant, Marx's criticism of Hegel, Marx's criticism of Feuerbach, Feuerbach's criticism of Hegel, Marcuse's criticism of Sartre, Adorno's criticims of Husserl, Husserl's criticism of psychologism, Freud's criticism of prior dream theories, Jung's criticism of Freud? This would be crazy. And it would be in contradiction to the nature of an encyclopedia, at least not a general encyclopedia, although a case might be made for it in a highly specialized philosophy encyclopedia. For me the issue isn't about this article in particular, but about the general issue: we need a policy and set of criteria on this with regard to the Wikipedia philosophy domain, and perhaps also social thought. It seems to me that the general policy should be:1) the essence of anything that is an important criticism in the history of thought of one thinker by another should be included in capsule form, i.e. in at most one paragraph, under the article of the thinker being criticized, if it shaped subsequent thought; 2) it should also be included in capsule form in the article about the thinker doing the criticizing if that criticism was important in the development of that thinker's own thought, as was the case with Schopenhauer's criticism of Kant, Marx's of Hegel, Jung's of Freud, and so on; 3) anything over and above that should belong in references or links to specialized scholarly literature on that specialized topic. That's why there is scholarly literature and libraries. Wikipedia can't encompass the totality of scholarly literature and libraries, it's just an encyclopedia. Part of the point of an encyclopedia is to give the reader a general short introduction to a subject and encourage them to follow up any more specialized interest through appropriate references. That's the way all good encyclopedias operate. Any editor who is so impassioned about one philosopher's criticism of another should be submitting a paper about it to a philosophy journal -- Wikipedia can't be a cheap, easy alternative to the labor of submitting a paper to a peer-reviewed journal.
By the way, I happen to think that the same goes for the proliferation on Wikipedia of individual articles about all of the individual works by individual philosophers. For any major thinker, there are only a few works that deserve specialized articles in a general encyclopedia. For example, in the case of Kant, it makes sense for the three Critiques and a few other works; but it doesn't make sense for every individual thing Kant wrote, especially in his pre-critical period. Even philosophy encyclopedias don't have such things. Again, that's where one goes to a library to peruse scholarly literature about Kant. Same for other thinkers. I have several books on Kant which devote short sections to some of Kant's pre-critical writings, and that's appropriate. But Wikipedia is not a scholarly study of Kant or of any other thinker.
And, by the way, something similar is happening in some Wikipedia philosophy articles with regard to references, i.e. people are just inserting books that they happen to like or have read or been influenced by, and we're ending up with unwieldy bibliographies that would be useless to a general reader, because he or she wouldn't even know how to choose among all of these references. An encyclopedia bibliography should be a short list of major classic and recent works that a reader could go to to learn more and to find out about more specialized literature if they're interested. I just did a quick scan, and at this moment there are 66 books listed in the Kant reference section. Because Kant is one of the major philosophers, it is understandable that there should be a substantial number of references. But I doubt if more than two dozen are appropriate in a general encyclopedia article. Jjshapiro (talk) 21:25, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for discussion of norms, policy, and criteria about things to include and exclude 

message: This project's subject has a page in the set of Lists of basic topics.
See the proposal at the Village pump to change the names of all those pages.
The Transhumanist  10:14, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename proposal for the lists of basic topics 

message: This page has or had been doubly archived, and pages like Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Philosophy/Archive_3 created that are not accessible from the archives box up there. The problem is, their contents isn't to be found elsewhere. I didn't look into this, but maybe someone who likes that stuff want to. trespassers william (talk) 20:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  double-archiving 

message: As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level.  The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
*The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.  
*The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.  
*A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.  
Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at :Category:C-Class_articles.  If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages.  The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles. 
Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme.  This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year.  Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:01, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme 

message: Hello all; I am an administrator on the Simple English Wikipedia. Our goal is to present the knowledge, but use simpler sentences ot do so (so that those learning English can also understand it). Our main problem at the moment is that we are a small community, of about 40 named, regular editors. There are many philosophy-related stubs (for example: Causality), but we currently do ont have the knolwedge to expand them. I would therefore like to invite all those that are interested to Simple English Wikipedia. The main difficulty with Simple English is to find easy words (without multiple meanings, if possible) to explain the concepts. I therefore hope to see many of you there. If you want to contact me, please use my talk page on simple, I rarely edit here.  --Eptalon (talk) 16:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've done work on the Simple English Wikipedia, and found it rewarding, but...does anyone actually read the Simple English Wikipedia?  How many hits does it get, compared to the English Wikipedia? Rick Norwood (talk) 19:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to admit I have no idea. We recently hit 32.000 articles (about 20.800 of them have a stub template - Thats another problem we need to solve soon..) - Where are the sources that tell you how many hits for enWP, would they not also list simple? --Eptalon (talk) 19:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello again; it looks like I am the only editor that edits philosphy-related articles; I asked fellow editors to put those articles they think need work onto this list- the list is empty at the time of this writing; What about taking another approach - like was done with religion-related articles: As a Wikiproject you problably have philosphy-related articles you consider more important than others. Since you know these (probably), what about looking that there is a version of them in Simple English wikipedia that you are happy with? (For my part, I cannot help there; my formal education does not include Philosphy at a sufficiently detailed level). These are of course just thoughts.. --Eptalon (talk) 11:34, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Where IS this simple english encycolapedai and an explanation of its reason for being?--Philogo 13:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simple English needs your help 

message: To me, Connotation and denotation looks like a sophomore's rather ghastly term paper. However, I'm definitely not the right person to fix it. Help, please! -- Hoary (talk) 09:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh dear, too true.  Looks like it needs a start from scratch approach. Do we have an "articles in need of attention list" and is it on it? --Philogo 12:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  connotation/denotation 

message: I notice that many Philosophy articles assert the historical primacy of philosophers from India, most recently noted in Philosophy of Language.  The same is true of many mathematics articles.  There is a problem, in that these assertions are almost never referenced.  I hate to just delete them all, but assertions really should be referenced. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you flagged fact/"citation needed"?
That's a good suggestion, but I've seen flagged "facts" stay around for years.  Still, it is probably what I need to do in the future.
Sir Thomas L Heath in Euclid, the Thirteen Books of the Elemants, Vol 1: Dover New York 1956 page 160 draws our attentionto Albert Burk's Zetschrift der deuthshen morgenlansishen Gesellschaft (LV 1901, pp 243-591 and elwhere) translating and writing about Das Apatabba Sulba-Sultra. Heath quotes G Thilbaut in The Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, XLIV, 1875 part 1. commenting on Burk's works opining on the dates and significance of Das Apatabba Sulba-Sultra, and 
"roundly maintains, not only that the Pythagoras' Theorem was known and proved in all its generality by the Indians long before the date of Pythagoras (about 580-500 b.c. ), but that they had discovered the irrational; ; and further that, so far from Indian geomerty being indebted to to the Greek, the much-travelled Pythagoras probably obtained his theory from India (loc. cit, LB, p 575 note)"
Heath, loc. cit.--Philogo 22:30, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  India 

message: I added some further reading to Evidence of absence, a new article, and tagged it for notability.  More comments at Talk:Evidence of absence. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 07:59, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Evidence of absence]] 

message: In doing some work for Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Article Cleanup, I came across the article Aous Shakra, who according to the article was an existential philosopher.  I could not find anything via ghits, gbooks, gnews, gscholar or my libraries EBSCO database on this individual so I added a Prod template.  Posting here for your info.  --Captain-tucker (talk) 09:00, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed deletion - [[Aous Shakra]] 

message: user:Slp1 and I have put Learned Hand up for peer review, prior to a submission for FAC. This was the article planned by a group of Wikipedians as a tribute to Newyorkbrad because, on leaving, he expressed regret that he couldn't now fulfill his plan to bring this article to FA. We would very much appreciate reviews from those with knowledge of philosophy. Hand was influenced by William James and other Harvard philosophers, and the article has a major section on his political and legal philosophy. Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help us with a review. qp10qp (talk) 12:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Peer review/Learned Hand/archive1|Learned Hand peer review]] 

message: C-Class doesn't seem to work for this project's assessment template.  Is this a purposeful exclusion? --Millbrooky (talk) 20:48, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No, we are lazy, non-admins and the template is fully protected. Skomorokh 00:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  C-Class 

message: I recently finished rewriting the article on non sequitur and I believe the articles mentioned here seem to overlap somewhat. They definitely need attention to clean up each page as to properly identify the distinctions between them. I'm not an expert on the field, but it seems like affirming and denying can be seen as fallacies of the undistributed middle, which in turn is a non sequitur. I'd like some input on this from people who've studied this more than I have since I'm getting slightly confused right now. I'd also appreciate it if someone took a look at what I did with the [[[Non_sequitur|non sequitur]] article since that also needs improvement. Vadigor (talk) 20:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Non_sequitur|Non sequitur]], [[Fallacy_of_the_undistributed_middle|undistributed middle]], [[affirming the consequent]] and [[denying the antecedent]] 

message: (Cross-posted from wt:wpm)
Our article on vacuous truth, until April or so of this year, was about the concept that I assume most people here understand as the phrase's referent: Conditionals that are true because their antecedents are false, and universals that are true because the domain of the universal quantification is empty. But then someone revised it so that it now seems to be more about analytic truth, or logically necessary truth, in general. I think this is wrong but I didn't want to just revert a long series of changes. I left a message at the article's talk page but have seen no response. Does anyone have suggestions as to the best way to proceed? --Trovatore (talk) 21:35, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you left a message on the talk page of the person responsible for the changes as well? People often don't watch pages, even those they make substantial changes to. Richard001 (talk) 02:36, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vacuous truth 

message: Portal:Feminism has had a lot of changes and work recently and is currently up for portal peer review. Comments would be appreciated at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Feminism/archive1. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 23:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Portal:Feminism]] 

message: Any comments at Wikipedia:Peer review/Leonardo da Vinci/archive3 would be most appreciated.  It's a vital article, so it would be nice to get as many views as possible.  Thanks. Papa November (talk) 08:22, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Leonardo da Vinci]] peer review 

message: I'm sure Alan Moore has views on this, that and whatever (like many of us), but I'm not aware of any contributions to philosophy or any other reason why he might be in here.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.55.55.235 (talk) 00:35, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've responded to your comments on the Alan Moore talk page, but I'll summarize them here.  Alan Moore is a self-avowed anarchist, and so he falls under the domain of the Anarchist Task Force of WP Philosophy, which is interested in anarchist biography articles.  Moore's philosophical views have also been repeatedly incorporated into his work, which justifies a section of the article being used to explain what his positions are.  Such a section has yet to be developed, but I have it on my list of things to do. --Cast (talk) 01:48, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would submit that having views on a philosophical issue is not enough to merit inclusion in a list of philosophers. Many people have their own points of view of things, particularly where politics is concerned. Quine, Kripke, Plato, Alan Moore. One of these things is not like the other Hairhorn (talk) 07:43, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you completely, but your comments are entirely unrelated.  Alan Moore is not on a List of Philosophers, nor is he included in any such categorization.  The anonymous comment above is referencing the inclusion of the WikiProject Philosophy banner in the talk page of the Alan Moore article.  I've explained that this is due to the fact that Alan Moore's biography falls under the domain of the Anarchist Task Force, due to his repeated espousal of anarchist philosophy in interviews when he is asked about his political views.  --Cast (talk) 01:42, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alan Moore?? 

message: The  Talk page for the Speech Act article lists a great many longstanding problems, and I have just added further serious criticisms.
Much of the article is highly technical and I do not really feel that I'm the right person to correct it, so I'm posting here instead. I'll have a go in a week or two if no-one else is interested. MaherCoen (talk) 12:55, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speech Act 

message: Hello,
apart from the cleanup listing for the main project, recently subscription to cleanup listings were added for several work groups of the project (Ethics, Metaphysics, and Logic). Unfortunately the bot that generates the listings encounters a problem in these cases. 
Because the work groups share their project banner with the main project, the bot needs to identify the articles of the work groups via categories. Basically, all talk pages of articles of each work group need to be in one category, not in its subcategories. (This is well tested and works e.g. for all work groups of Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia.) However, for the work groups of WikiProject Logic, these categories seem to be missing.
To add these categories, it would be sufficient to modify the  banner accordingly. For example, all articles of the Logic work group could be put into . Changes would then be effective with the next data update, probably around end of August or mid-September. 
Would this solution be OK for you? --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:56, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup listings for workgroups 

message: Law has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. -- Vision  Thing -- 18:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  FAR listing 

message: I think someone with administrative powers needs to add the C class entry to Template:Philosophy/Class, given it's been protected from editing and that C class isn't recognised when entered as a class in the template. Bungle (talk • contribs) 22:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophy template C-class 

message: Due to its relation to this project within WP, members might have an interest in this discussion.-- self-ref (nagasiva yronwode) (talk) 19:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Invitation to CfD Category:Pseudoskeptic Target Discussion 

message: I hope this is the right page to ask that, so here's the message I posted on the main talk page:
:Hello, I added some precisions about the French philosopher Georges Palante, translated from the French article, but I'm not sure of the orthography, so it'll be nice if someone could take a look to correct some of my mistakes.
The main task is to only to correct mistakes or words that shouldn't be used on WP. Regards, --Sins We Can't Absolve (talk) 15:05, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Georges Palante]] 

message: Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.
We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations. 
A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible. 
We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Medieval philosophy 

message: Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.
We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations. 
A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible. 
We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:33, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Marxism 

message: Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.
We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations. 
A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible. 
We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Philosophy of science 

message: Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.
We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations. 
A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible. 
We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Philosophy 

message: Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.
We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations. 
A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible. 
We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:35, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Modern philosophy 

message: Michel Foucault has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Thanks! Lesgles (talk) 20:59, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Michel Foucault]] FAR 

message: Recently, a couple of short articles about reasoning and knowledge sprouted, that probably should be merged with existing Wikipedia articles: Evidence of absence and Negative proof.
The debates are in need of attention from philosophy experts.  See:
* Talk:Evidence of absence and 
* Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Negative proof (closed: to be continued at Talk:Negative proof)
--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:40, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brief epistemology and logic articles to be merged 

message: Can someone help me? There is a huge white stereotypes section and only a few meager sections for nonwhites.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by YVNP (talk • contribs) 01:42, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stereotypes page 

message: Would anyone be interested in creating a task force from this project which focuses on 19th century American Transcendentalism? --Midnightdreary (talk) 15:59, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Task force proposal 

message: A request for comment has been made at the Leonardo da Vinci article, which is supported by this WikiProject.  The question for the RFC is "Does the praise in the lead section constitute peacock terminology?"  Please visit Talk:Leonardo da Vinci#Request for comment on style of lead section if you would like to comment. Papa November (talk) 19:56, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for comment on [[Leonardo da Vinci]] article 

message: There is a proposal to redirect Seth Material (an article within this Wikiproject's scope) to Jane Roberts. Please comment at Talk:Seth Material#Redirect to Jane Roberts. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:23, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to redirect [[Seth Material]] 

message: I want you to create a new article or somewhat of a list about Anglo-American Philosophy, which I believe tends to be a little different than Continental Philosophy (so I could give a better exam on contemporary philosophy next week). haha I mean it seriously, I need this --Andersmusician NO 06:27, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you may be looking for our article on analytic philosophy. Regards, the skomorokh 06:40, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: thanks a lot, time to read for me --Andersmusician NO 21:29, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New article propossal 

message: I've placed merge tags on eudaimonia and eudaimonism but I'm not entirely sure how to proceed.  Could an expert take a look at both of these articles and determine the best course of action?  FWIW, eudaimonia was the original article, created in Feb. 2003.  Eudaimonism was created a year later, in Jan. 2004. Viriditas (talk) 09:03, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eudaimonia and eudaimonism 

message: If you can see here, you can see that the topic, Philosophy and psychology, have absolutely no featured lists. So I was wondering if members of this WikiProject can participate in making more lists related to the topic that you guys must be interested in. Thanks. -- SRE.K.Annoyomous.L.24[c] 03:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:Featured lists]] 

message: nominated French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:29, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools FAR 

message: Are there any project participants who are knowledgeable concerning Martin Heidegger? There is a dispute at the article's talkpage over the treatment of Heideggers association with Nazism among other issues that could use informed input. Any help appreciated, Skomorokh 04:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heidegger dispute 

message: SOPHIA (European Foundation for the Advancement of Doing Philosophy with Children)
: 
Can members of this project help improve this stub article? Michael Hardy (talk) 02:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  SOPHIA 

message: Karl Popper's The Poverty of Historicism is currently tagged as having multiple issues. IMHO the article does need work, but I was surprised to see that one concern listed is that the article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Does anybody want to defend the notability of this work? (In that article or its Talk, please, not just here on this page.) -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 04:12, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Done, thanks for the heads up. Skomorokh 06:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Popper/Historicism: Notable 

message: I made a portal for existentialism, Portal:Existentialism, and is not yet complete. Anyone can help finishing it? Thanks! Wandering Courier (talk) 05:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Great idea, thanks for your initiative! I'll take a look. Regards, Skomorokh 06:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  New portal 

message: The article Meaning (philosophy of language) is flagged for deletion.  It was previsued inaccurately  called linguistic meaning to the annoyance the linguists.  It is variously criticised as redundant, PV and OR.--Philogo 00:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning (philosophy of language) 

message: The article God is currently under individual reassessment, which can be found here. Editors are encouraged to participate. Thank you. DiverseMentality 22:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Individual reassessment of God 

message: I'd like to draw the attention of the project to this newly created article, which showed up on my radar screen but is outside my domain, but certainly relevant to the project. Looie496 (talk) 01:38, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Metaphilosophy/quotations]] 

message: The category Applied Ethics is situated under Applied disciplines which may be the correct placement.Since ethics is a part of philosophy would it not make more sense to have it under Applied Philosophy?Just thought I would check on here before being too bold.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Workster (talk • contribs) 09:46, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Applied Ethics 

message: Could project members please look in on Qualia? Article is currently undergoing "a fairly extensive edit" by User:Edmond Wright, who writes on the article's Talk page: "As the editor of the most recent collection in which arguments for qualia has been presented (The Case for Qualia, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2008), I felt that I was an appropriate editor."The account User:Edmond Wright was created on  4 February 2009 and has made several dozen edits to Qualia over the last few days.I've noticed that new and enthusiastic editors often benefit from the advice of more experienced editors. (I have no opinion at all on the quality of User:Edmond Wright's edits so far -- just would like experienced members of this project to take a look.)-- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 13:34, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Qualia]] undergoing rewrite by new editor 

message: What is the perceived benefit of recognizing regular contributors?  This is dangerous at best as it risks creating a situation where the knowledge represented on Wikipedia becomes a reflection of the beliefs of a small group of people, and minimizes the impact of the remaining population and whatever superior perspectives they might have brought to the table.  
Wikipedia is supposed to sample the best ideas of the entire population and not conform to the ideas of a small group of people who insist on patting each other on the back and reverting any edits that a member of their group did not make or agree with.  -Anon
:Your analysis is absolutely correct. The vast majority of WP contributions come from a very small number of people. The best that we can do is hope they are good, and encourage them. Other than that, recruitment is key. Be well, Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 19:29, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Encouragement of Wikipedia ruled by Oligarchy? 

message: Can I get an "amen" about the title of this article, Please. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 05:32, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Philosophy_of_logic_and_philosophical_logic]] 

message: I learned about this fallacy in a Philosophy class at UT, but I can't come up with a reference for it, having long since tossed out my textbook. Anyone here ever heard of it? -- Kendrick7talk 04:23, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Loki's Wager]] 

message: Anyone good with thise topic? Needs a lot of citation and broadening? As a core topic, can it be upgraded on your importance scale? Only two external links of which two are dictionary entries. ~ R.T.G 14:51, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Methodology]] 

message: Kohlberg's stages of moral development has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Articles are typically reviewed for one week. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 18:21, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Sweeps Review of [[Kohlberg's stages of moral development]]