Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy/Archive 2

message: Just to explain myself, I am discussing the organization of other philosophy-related articles on the main page of the WikiProject under General Strategy and Discussion forum. It makes sense that the WikiProject main page is for discussing the organization of other articles, while the WikiProject talk page is for discussing the organization of the WikiProject main page. --Wikiwikifast 04:43, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: General Strategy and Discussion forum

message: Is there a timeline of philosophy or Philosophy timeline article somewhere, listing important events in philosophy?  It'd be nice to see the contributions of Socrates, Augustine, Godel and Kant on a comparative timescale, like it is done in timeline of mathematics Yorick, Jester of Elsinore 23:05, 2004 Apr 10 (UTC)
*Yorick -- that's a great idea. I don't see any such article, and we could definitely use one. There are a number of timelines online -- the Google search is easy, so I'll let you do it yourself if you're curious -- and most good one-volume reference guides have one. Unfortunately, it will be probably be a lot of work no matter what to convert such a timeline to the wikipedia, not to mention a lot of paraphrasing...  —  Adam Conover † 05:08, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
*Excellent idea.  I'd help to work on it.  It really shouldn't be that big of a project, though - once it is started we can add to it as we notice stuff, and hopefully other people will add to it as well.  -Seth Mahoney 19:42, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Timeline

message: (Moved from WP:WPP)
Does it make sense to have a Wikipedia article on Truth? There seems to be no consensus, and Talk:Truth is chaotic as well. --Wikiwikifast 01:25, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Truth

message: (Archived from WP:WPP)
* Larry's Text. Larry's Text is a mess. None of the articles that he wrote are encyclopedaic -- rather, they're all lectures that are aimed at beginning undergraduates. They are thus conversational in tone, and often gloss over serious issues in philosophy. What's worse, they frequently take up space that should be devoted to serious examination of philosophical topics.
**Pages which link to {msg:larry} (Very incomplete -- many partially-wikified articles which still contain verbatim portions of his text have the message removed.)
**Google search for pages containing "larry's text" (liketo to be out of date)
*That's not to dis Larry's contributions: he's said himself that the articles need reworking. Let's see how it goes.
**Certainly not. His articles are quite good as introductory lectures -- in fact, I think they'd make a great wikibook if we collected them together. So what should we do about them? One proposal I've heard is to collect the original versions of the pieces (available through the page history of the pages linked to on Larry's Text) and move them to the User_talk namespace. This would allow us to start fresh without losing good material. i.e., if an article is particularly lacking, we could then include a "for more information see..." link, instead of having a very un-encyclopedaic article as the main text.  —  Adam Conover † 16:59, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)
=== A Larry Layout ===
* Hi folks. I don't know where to start with Larry's texts. Maybe we should probably have a plan of action and review just for coodination's sake.
** Larry's "Introduction to Philosophy" lectures (the motivation to philosophize, introduction to philosophical method, definition of philosophy, philosophical subdisciplines) all seem to have pretty much trickled into the current Philosophy article. So we don't seem to have to worry about them.
** For the Logic lectures, some topics that are basic to the discipline seem to need to be integrated into the "Logic" article, and others separate from it. I'm thinking:
*** Integrate: argument, logical fallacy, argument form, validity, soundness, deduction and induction, syllogisms, extension, intension, ambiguity, vagueness
*** Separate: college logic -- argument form(s) -- cogency -- good argument -- modus ponens -- modus tollens -- disjunctive syllogism -- affirming the consequent -- definition -- genus-differentia definition -- fallacies of definition
:: (In cases where we want to mention a topic and include a small definition into the main article, but also expand it out in a separate article, consider them a part of the "separate" category)
** Metaphysics, same problem
*** Integrate: introduction to metaphysics, metaphysics, ontology, nonexistence, universal-metaphysics, type-metaphysics, class (the section "classes vs. types"), identity and change, essences
*** Separate: being, category of being, abstract, concrete, the existence of physical objects, objecthood, substance theory, bundle theory, mind, problem of universals, Platonic realism, Aristotle's theory of universals
** Philosophy of religion
*** Integrate: philosophy of religion, faith and rationality, theodicy, eternal existence
*** Separate: the nature of God in monotheistic religions -- obviously bad arguments for the existence of God -- traditionally respectable arguments for the existence of God -- the ontological argument -- the cosmological argument -- the teleological argument -- the problem of evil -- the rationality of atheism
** Philosophy of mind
*** Integrate: philosophy of mind
*** Separate: mental event -- mental functions -- consciousness -- the mind-body problem -- reduction -- monism -- neutral monism -- dualism -- dualistic interactionism -- physicalism -- philosophy of perception -- free will and determinism
** Philosophy of language
*** Integrate: philosophy of language, the meaning of meaning, proper names, meaningfulness, naive relativism about truth, truth
** Epistemology
*** Integrate: epistemology, theory of justification, a priori and a posteriori knowledge, knowledge
*** Separate: knowledge, skepticism, the regress argument in epistemology, common sense and the Diallelus
** Ethics
*** Integrate: ethics, value theory, theory of conduct
*** Separate: meta-ethics -- ethical naturalism -- cognitivism -- ethical non-naturalism -- non-cognitivism
** Political philosophy
*** Integrate: political philosophy, the purpose of government, social contract theories
*** Separate: the justification of the state, anarchism and natural law theory -- consequentialist justifications of the state -- libertarianism -- socialism
: Any thoughts? (I reposted the list here because I didn't want to feel Larry's wrath by editing his page.) Lucidish 21:36, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Larry's Text

message: * Hi folks. I don't know where to start with Larry's texts. Maybe we should probably have a plan of action and review just for coodination's sake.
** Larry's "Introduction to Philosophy" lectures (the motivation to philosophize, introduction to philosophical method, definition of philosophy, philosophical subdisciplines) all seem to have pretty much trickled into the current Philosophy article. So we don't seem to have to worry about them.
** For the Logic lectures, some topics that are basic to the discipline seem to need to be integrated into the "Logic" article, and others separate from it. I'm thinking:
*** Integrate: argument, logical fallacy, argument form, validity, soundness, deduction and induction, syllogisms, extension, intension, ambiguity, vagueness
*** Separate: college logic -- argument form(s) -- cogency -- good argument -- modus ponens -- modus tollens -- disjunctive syllogism -- affirming the consequent -- definition -- genus-differentia definition -- fallacies of definition
:: (In cases where we want to mention a topic and include a small definition into the main article, but also expand it out in a separate article, consider them a part of the "separate" category)
** Metaphysics, same problem
*** Integrate: introduction to metaphysics, metaphysics, ontology, nonexistence, universal-metaphysics, type-metaphysics, class (the section "classes vs. types"), identity and change, essences
*** Separate: being, category of being, abstract, concrete, the existence of physical objects, objecthood, substance theory, bundle theory, mind, problem of universals, Platonic realism, Aristotle's theory of universals
** Philosophy of religion
*** Integrate: philosophy of religion, faith and rationality, theodicy, eternal existence
*** Separate: the nature of God in monotheistic religions -- obviously bad arguments for the existence of God -- traditionally respectable arguments for the existence of God -- the ontological argument -- the cosmological argument -- the teleological argument -- the problem of evil -- the rationality of atheism
** Philosophy of mind
*** Integrate: philosophy of mind
*** Separate: mental event -- mental functions -- consciousness -- the mind-body problem -- reduction -- monism -- neutral monism -- dualism -- dualistic interactionism -- physicalism -- philosophy of perception -- free will and determinism
** Philosophy of language
*** Integrate: philosophy of language, the meaning of meaning, proper names, meaningfulness, naive relativism about truth, truth
** Epistemology
*** Integrate: epistemology, theory of justification, a priori and a posteriori knowledge, knowledge
*** Separate: knowledge, skepticism, the regress argument in epistemology, common sense and the Diallelus
** Ethics
*** Integrate: ethics, value theory, theory of conduct
*** Separate: meta-ethics -- ethical naturalism -- cognitivism -- ethical non-naturalism -- non-cognitivism
** Political philosophy
*** Integrate: political philosophy, the purpose of government, social contract theories
*** Separate: the justification of the state, anarchism and natural law theory -- consequentialist justifications of the state -- libertarianism -- socialism
: Any thoughts? (I reposted the list here because I didn't want to feel Larry's wrath by editing his page.) Lucidish 21:36, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Larry Layout 

message: I think that this project could include more of Eastern Philosophy. I recently wrote the first half of Confucianism but this page need peer review and copyedit (as I'm not native English speaker). I guess Daoism, Legalism and many other pages should be included in a project about philosophy. Actually, I'm not quite sure that Chinese thought is philosophical (in a narrow meaning), this is debatable, but anyway it had a major influence on one third of humanity during more that twenty centuries, and thus can't be neglectable. Imho Wikipedia deserves a wider and deeper covering of this domain of studies. What do you think? gbog 05:58, 24 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, as far as Chinese thought being philosophical or not, most philosophy departments have courses on Eastern philosophy, which includes Chinese thought, so I'd at least say that it is considered philosophy.  Anyhow, I agree.  Wikipedia should have more and better articles on topics in Eastern philosophy.  Unfortunately, I'm not really knowledgable enough to contribute, but I'm glad you're willing!  -Seth Mahoney 17:12, 24 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks. If you have some spare time, having a look at my additions on Chinese thought articles could help, because my English is far from that level of accuracy needed in those topics. I'm also wondering if it's possible to create some kind of "msg:Philo" (for now, I don't understand how to create those usefull boxes) and include those articles about Chinese thougth.  gbog 05:26, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Eastern philosophy]] 

message: ** I'd prefer a more stringent requirement: direct citation to a publication must be provided for all "opposition"/"criticism", whether removed to its own article or not.  I think "some would say," "many scholars believe," etc., is too often a cover for individual Wikipedians' own opinions e.g.. -- Rbellin 19:35, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticisms or objections should be linked to a person or group who should be mentioned by name

message: Hey, I've been trying to slightly disentangle the mess someone made of some categories under "Philosophy" (like extending the Enlightenment down to 1920). I'm very busy on other stuff, though (backed into this via work on the French Revolution). I urge the people who have been doing excellent work on this WikiProject to please work sooner rather than later on a category scheme, before one is built by someone on the basis of vague memories of Philosophy 101. -- Jmabel 07:39, Jul 6, 2004 (UTC)
: My bad. Should be fixed now, for the most part.
: Link to the blueprint for a category tree is at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Philosophy/Hierarchy_Draft. I implemented most of it the other day.  Lucidish 16:51, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Fiddling while Rome burns

message: I've added some articles to this category. I found them using search, so I didn't categorise many of them specifically. (Un?)fortunately, others have started adding other articles to the list, some of questionable elegibility (e.g. Karl Marx; a political theorist rather than a philosopher, I would have thought).  Should I continue to find and tag uncategorised articles about philosophers?   Mr. Jones 03:26, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Individuals do work in many fields. And anyway the distinction between a "theorist" and a "philosopher" is remarkably tenuous, especially in relation to most subjects. Lucidish 22:36, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:Philosophers]] 

message: * Sure. And I would not rule out Marx as a philosopher. It is certainly not all he was, but certainly dialectical materialism deserves to be counted in the history of philosophy. -- Jmabel 05:27, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)
:: That is reasonable, but in danger of setting the barrier a bit low.  Where would you stop?  Popular artists, politicians, etc who have articulated novel (or at least little known) philosophical concepts could end up being added; ultimately anyone who has made any assertion about thought.  Could there be a distinction between professional philosophers, those who do it to put their work on a sound basis and those who happen to have made philosophical assertions of note (e.g. famously or influentially).  Any suggestions for names of the categories? Mr. Jones 17:24, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  (Also I should mention that "dialectical materialism" was coined retrospectively by the Soviets, though you may know that already).
* It seems best to consider any significant theorist to be a philosopher, especially if they had interests to a related domain of philosophy. Marx clearly had ethical points, for example. Lucidish 18:04, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is Marx a philosopher? 

message: Joel Feinberg is a contempory philosopher esp. with regards to the law, civil disobedience, capital punishment etc.  Please edit the template to include him as I have yet to figure it out :).  I will add to his article soon. --ShaunMacPherson 08:53, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  People to Add 

message: This has been discussed before .  Two requests:
* First, it is hard to find the original version of the texts, now they have gone through the editors grinder.  I'm looking, in particular, for the original text cited in sense and reference, before I begin work on that page;
* In general, Larry's original texts should be archived at Wikisource (formerly Wikiberg).
Help with finding the sense and reference text mcuh appreciated. ---- Charles Stewart 11:02, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Depends on who does it.  If I were to go about it, it would possibly take ages: I would email Larry, google for en.wikipedia.org pages with "Larry's text" in them, etc, to find the pages, and then laboriously upload the pages to wikisource.  Someone who was editing in the early days might no just where to find a complete list of them, and someone with shell access might be able to upload the texts in a few minutes... ---- Charles Stewart 20:43, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Larry's text revisited 

message: Hey folks; I'm impressed by your work, though I haven't participated myself since my primary base of expertise is in eastern philosophy and you guys are mostly western, but I just started a stub for anti-foundationalism, and I was wondering if you guys could keep it in mind for later expansion and revision. Thanks. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 19:14, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for help