This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
WikiProject Philosophy from Dec 04 through Aug 05
A refresh is probably needed to rejuvenate this project, eh? Yorick, Jester of Elsinore
Hello! I'm trying to address comments in Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1755 Lisbon earthquake, but the objections are mostly due with philosophical aspects, things that i, as a geoscientist, hardly understand. Could someone have a look? Thanks, muriel@pt 19:54, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
One thing that isn't clear on the project page is just how one goes about joining a project such as this ... I'm an amateur in philosophy but a pretty good copyeditor -- new to this wiki thing and still learning the standards, but that's a separate question. So do you just dig in and start editing, or what? --Sturgeonslawyer
I wanted to alert this project to the current state of History of philosophy, since I just nominated it over at Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week Circeus 20:47, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)
Many have toiled on this. I added quite a bit of stuff recently. Would appreciate any additional improvements. Would anyone support this being submitted for consideration as a Featured article ? icut4u
I think its pretty clear that at most we need two of these three articles. But do folks think we just need one (A priori and a posteriori knowledge) or two (A priori and A posteriori as seperate entries)? Anybody have a reason for one or the other? -- Kzollman 03:04, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
The a posteriori page is woefully inadequate in its discussion of the historical evolution and definition of the term, especially compared to the a priori entry, which includes a (fairly thorough, IMHO) discussion of Kantian/Cartesian utilisation of the word. I'll do what I can, but it's something to be considered. 216.158.31.195 13:45, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'm curious about this project's view on the "gooeyness" of a large portion of philosophical writing. Picking up a modern philosophy book by someone like Foucault, Derrida, or Lacan is an exercise in futility for nearly anyone without a degree in Philosophy already, and this problem (though to a much lesser degree) seems to persist here on some philosophy pages. Are you considering trying to clarify philosophy articles to be able to be easily read and understood? WoodenTaco 03:18, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
Surely all the articles have to be dumbed down to a large extent. Not just inorrder to be accessable to philosphical laypeople but also because of the very nature of a wikipedia article i.e. a short introductionary thing, we don't what great big philosopical tracts (do we?). If it were posible to get points across complexly in a short peice then philosophers won't write such long works (or maby they would any way)-- JK the unwise 11:55, 16 May 2005 (UTC) (P.S. I've done a philosphy degree and I can't understand Foucault, Derrida, or Lacan type works :-) )
An aside: I find it odd that people keep classing Foucault with Derrida and Lacan. Derrida is at times willfully obscure, and Lacan probably never wrote a simple declarative sentence after he hit puberty, but Foucault has never struck me as a particularly difficult writer. Some of his works are tough, others are not. For example, the essay on Las Meninas that starts The Order of Things (Les Mots et les Choses) strikes me as pretty straightforward writing. Do people think otherwise, or are they just lumping him in as one more late 20th century Frenchie? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:47, May 17, 2005 (UTC)
Another aside: I find it a bit offensive that clarity is disparaged here as "dumbing down". If a philosopher fails to make themselves understood, it may be an indication that they have failed at their task. Lucidish 16:01, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Leaving it here & there sounds fine. Perhaps something on the Hegel page. I don't think we have a page on philosophical literacy anywhere--I'm not sure whether it would be helpful or not. It seems to me that philosophical literacy implies good argumentative technique, but more importantly familiarity with philosophical terms and arguments that have already been made by famous philosophers.
I think that if somebody who is totally unfamiliar with, say Kant, wanted to understand his arguments, ideally, he would be able to read the page, and follow links to other pages which should be able to help him understand the unfamiliar bits. Of course, he'd have to spend a lot of time following links and reading related stuff, and it would all have to be in Wikipedia articles that don't assume familiarity with something not covered in Wikipedia. And perhaps asking questions on talk pages of obscure articles. But realistically, Wikipedia is just an encyclopedia--you can't expect to gain all expert-level knowledge from just an encyclopedia, regardless of the topic. WhiteC 17:14, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Jeffrey Newman 01:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Prehaps Wikibooks might be a more approprate place for the kind of article you had in mind. Could we expland this philosophy project to writting short guides to philosohy which expland and present in a more guide like style, the philosophy articles we all ready have?-- JK the unwise 07:55, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
First, I'd just like to say hello and thank you to everyone collaborating on WikiProject Philosophy. This is a difficult but worthwhile effort. Second, my focus will be on Aesthetics, so I look forward to hearing from others who'd like to work in this area. Please respond and let me know you're here! If there are enough of us, we could start WikiProject Aesthetics. Finally, I've made an edit to the Philosophy Category page. Aesthetics was listed under Axiology. However, Aesthetics is not necessarily a value-based discipline. Many questions in Aesthetics are independent of values, such as "is art for expressing feelings, making statements, transforming the status quo, giving pleasure ...or is art for art's sake alone?" , "what is the nature of the relationships between art, artists, and audiences?" and "how do I know whether I'm experiencing art aesthetically?" As a result, I've taken Ethics out of Axiology as well, not only because it looked funny as a subsection by itself, but also because some ethical theories are not necessarily value-based either, notably the categorical imperative, which is based on duty alone. And then I figured, well, I never once heard the word "Axiology" in my introduction to philosophy courses, so I nixed it as being unnecessary, divisive, and confusing. Sorry for this long comment, but since it was an edit to the category page I thought I might have to explain myself. Thanks again and I look forward to our work. -- Slac 04:58, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The existence of an Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy is an excellent starting point to develop Wikipedia content on Philosophy. However, as shown I would argue by several attempts to renew this project, a clear structure of topics within philosophy is required to encourage collaboration within areas of interest and expertise. To this end, the Hierarchy Draft is useful, but having two versions of it (without an explanation of the purpose of each) is not helpful. Could those with knowledge/ideas about the overall hierarchy please clarify which version first-time readers should be looking at and perhaps remove or archive the other version?
Perhaps the best way forward for Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy is to determine and define key subprojects within Philosophy on which Wikipedians may wish to collaborate. Let's add to the proposed descendents on the project page under Metadata. For example, an Ethics or Moral Philosophy subproject is needed. I am proposing the latter as it includes the term Philosophy making it clearer that this subproject will deal with formal moral philosophy rather than popular, general or non-philosophical ethics. Other thoughts? - Akiva Quinn 01:15, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Should the list of philosophical topics be merged with Category: Philosophy? Maybe merge isn't the right term, but right now the list has many more entries than the category; it seems like they should include the same articles, and that if one adds the {{Category: Philosophy}} tag to the end of an article, one shouldn't have to also manually edit the list page. Also, should all philosophy stubs be listed in the "expand" section of the task box? My guess is that there are too many stubs, and they'd clutter up the box, but if the goal of the project is to make the encyclopedia comprehensive... Let me know if and how these things can be done, and I'll help if I can. -- AAMiller 1 July 2005 17:28 (UTC)
I have attempted to adapt an existing category framework to the portal style, in the hope that it might be further used in the Philosophy category page, as an adjunct to a future Philosophy wikiportal. Improvements are invited. Ancheta Wis 3 July 2005 11:16 (UTC)
Do you peeps think we have enough support here for philosophy collaborations of the week? I think that might be a suitable way to improve some of our more important articles. Thoughts? KSchutte 18:28, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
I am undertaking to change the COTW around this time each week. I'll just take the one at the top of the list and bung it in, so to get your fav featured, put it in the list. Banno 22:55, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
All changes are reversible, so if you think any of this way off the mark, you are welcome to change it. My aim is simply to make the project more viable by simplifying the processes. Tell me what you think. Banno 11:00, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
This section is intriguing. For a while there has been a debate at Wikipedia:Avoid weasel terms, and judging by Wikipedia talk:Avoid weasel terms#For and Against the community is divided roughly evenly between those in favour and those against their use. I'm one of those in favour of the guideline. That guideline seems to be unchallenged here - it underpins Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy/Proposal for criticisms, for instance, apparently unchallenged. Why should this be so? Why, if the general Wiki community is divided, is there a consensus about avoiding weasels in Philosophy articles? Or is the Philosophy guideline problematic? Banno 11:11, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to set up a template to be used to invite folk who edit well on a philosophy article to joint the project. Something like:
You've edited a few philosophy articles. Have you considered joining the Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy? It is an effort to coordinate the work of Wikipedia who are knowledgeable about philosophy in an effort to improve the general quality and range of Wikipedia articles on philosophical topics. |
This would be placed on the user:talk of potential participants.
Does anyone know of a precedent? Spam? Worth a try? Banno 11:35, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
The title says it all: Are there things that shouldn't be on wikipedia? Should there be any limit to what can go on the site (and I must say, it's been euthanized nicely, but) should there be things we simply will not add? I think you can get where I'm inclining without spoonfeeding it.....yeah, that. Is there a limit? There's so much talk on expanding Wikipedia...aren't there somethings we should intentionally neglect?
HereToHelp 02:02, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Replies (post here):
I'm a user from catalan wikipedia (hi, jmabel!!), I think this project is great: it's well organised, it has a clear list with things to do, it's quite active, it allows to invite people... Congratulations!! You should promote it in other language wikipedias, because there can be users there who can collaborate or take articles from english to translate them. Add a message in respective villages pumps ow however they are called in other languages! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.93.57 ( talk • contribs) 15:33, 22 August 2005
Hello all - I may well be the only person around wikipedia who fits this description, but I know that there are some philosophers who use/think about game theory. If you are one of those, come on over to WikiProject Game theory and join in. Hope to see some folks there! --best, kevin ··· Kzollman | Talk··· 05:37, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
I'm starting to butt heads with User:Ultramarine ( RFAr) over Categorical imperative. I'm hopeful that our discussion will bring agreement, but in the event that it does not (as I fear it may not), I would also like it if more people would take the time to comment and discuss this article. The general questions up for debate are:
For these reasons, neutral parties are requested for commenting, and perhaps we could add this article to the discussion section of the "philosophy tasks" template. -- causa sui talk 22:37, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
WikiProject Philosophy from Dec 04 through Aug 05
A refresh is probably needed to rejuvenate this project, eh? Yorick, Jester of Elsinore
Hello! I'm trying to address comments in Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1755 Lisbon earthquake, but the objections are mostly due with philosophical aspects, things that i, as a geoscientist, hardly understand. Could someone have a look? Thanks, muriel@pt 19:54, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
One thing that isn't clear on the project page is just how one goes about joining a project such as this ... I'm an amateur in philosophy but a pretty good copyeditor -- new to this wiki thing and still learning the standards, but that's a separate question. So do you just dig in and start editing, or what? --Sturgeonslawyer
I wanted to alert this project to the current state of History of philosophy, since I just nominated it over at Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week Circeus 20:47, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)
Many have toiled on this. I added quite a bit of stuff recently. Would appreciate any additional improvements. Would anyone support this being submitted for consideration as a Featured article ? icut4u
I think its pretty clear that at most we need two of these three articles. But do folks think we just need one (A priori and a posteriori knowledge) or two (A priori and A posteriori as seperate entries)? Anybody have a reason for one or the other? -- Kzollman 03:04, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
The a posteriori page is woefully inadequate in its discussion of the historical evolution and definition of the term, especially compared to the a priori entry, which includes a (fairly thorough, IMHO) discussion of Kantian/Cartesian utilisation of the word. I'll do what I can, but it's something to be considered. 216.158.31.195 13:45, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'm curious about this project's view on the "gooeyness" of a large portion of philosophical writing. Picking up a modern philosophy book by someone like Foucault, Derrida, or Lacan is an exercise in futility for nearly anyone without a degree in Philosophy already, and this problem (though to a much lesser degree) seems to persist here on some philosophy pages. Are you considering trying to clarify philosophy articles to be able to be easily read and understood? WoodenTaco 03:18, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
Surely all the articles have to be dumbed down to a large extent. Not just inorrder to be accessable to philosphical laypeople but also because of the very nature of a wikipedia article i.e. a short introductionary thing, we don't what great big philosopical tracts (do we?). If it were posible to get points across complexly in a short peice then philosophers won't write such long works (or maby they would any way)-- JK the unwise 11:55, 16 May 2005 (UTC) (P.S. I've done a philosphy degree and I can't understand Foucault, Derrida, or Lacan type works :-) )
An aside: I find it odd that people keep classing Foucault with Derrida and Lacan. Derrida is at times willfully obscure, and Lacan probably never wrote a simple declarative sentence after he hit puberty, but Foucault has never struck me as a particularly difficult writer. Some of his works are tough, others are not. For example, the essay on Las Meninas that starts The Order of Things (Les Mots et les Choses) strikes me as pretty straightforward writing. Do people think otherwise, or are they just lumping him in as one more late 20th century Frenchie? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:47, May 17, 2005 (UTC)
Another aside: I find it a bit offensive that clarity is disparaged here as "dumbing down". If a philosopher fails to make themselves understood, it may be an indication that they have failed at their task. Lucidish 16:01, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Leaving it here & there sounds fine. Perhaps something on the Hegel page. I don't think we have a page on philosophical literacy anywhere--I'm not sure whether it would be helpful or not. It seems to me that philosophical literacy implies good argumentative technique, but more importantly familiarity with philosophical terms and arguments that have already been made by famous philosophers.
I think that if somebody who is totally unfamiliar with, say Kant, wanted to understand his arguments, ideally, he would be able to read the page, and follow links to other pages which should be able to help him understand the unfamiliar bits. Of course, he'd have to spend a lot of time following links and reading related stuff, and it would all have to be in Wikipedia articles that don't assume familiarity with something not covered in Wikipedia. And perhaps asking questions on talk pages of obscure articles. But realistically, Wikipedia is just an encyclopedia--you can't expect to gain all expert-level knowledge from just an encyclopedia, regardless of the topic. WhiteC 17:14, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Jeffrey Newman 01:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Prehaps Wikibooks might be a more approprate place for the kind of article you had in mind. Could we expland this philosophy project to writting short guides to philosohy which expland and present in a more guide like style, the philosophy articles we all ready have?-- JK the unwise 07:55, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
First, I'd just like to say hello and thank you to everyone collaborating on WikiProject Philosophy. This is a difficult but worthwhile effort. Second, my focus will be on Aesthetics, so I look forward to hearing from others who'd like to work in this area. Please respond and let me know you're here! If there are enough of us, we could start WikiProject Aesthetics. Finally, I've made an edit to the Philosophy Category page. Aesthetics was listed under Axiology. However, Aesthetics is not necessarily a value-based discipline. Many questions in Aesthetics are independent of values, such as "is art for expressing feelings, making statements, transforming the status quo, giving pleasure ...or is art for art's sake alone?" , "what is the nature of the relationships between art, artists, and audiences?" and "how do I know whether I'm experiencing art aesthetically?" As a result, I've taken Ethics out of Axiology as well, not only because it looked funny as a subsection by itself, but also because some ethical theories are not necessarily value-based either, notably the categorical imperative, which is based on duty alone. And then I figured, well, I never once heard the word "Axiology" in my introduction to philosophy courses, so I nixed it as being unnecessary, divisive, and confusing. Sorry for this long comment, but since it was an edit to the category page I thought I might have to explain myself. Thanks again and I look forward to our work. -- Slac 04:58, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The existence of an Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy is an excellent starting point to develop Wikipedia content on Philosophy. However, as shown I would argue by several attempts to renew this project, a clear structure of topics within philosophy is required to encourage collaboration within areas of interest and expertise. To this end, the Hierarchy Draft is useful, but having two versions of it (without an explanation of the purpose of each) is not helpful. Could those with knowledge/ideas about the overall hierarchy please clarify which version first-time readers should be looking at and perhaps remove or archive the other version?
Perhaps the best way forward for Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy is to determine and define key subprojects within Philosophy on which Wikipedians may wish to collaborate. Let's add to the proposed descendents on the project page under Metadata. For example, an Ethics or Moral Philosophy subproject is needed. I am proposing the latter as it includes the term Philosophy making it clearer that this subproject will deal with formal moral philosophy rather than popular, general or non-philosophical ethics. Other thoughts? - Akiva Quinn 01:15, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Should the list of philosophical topics be merged with Category: Philosophy? Maybe merge isn't the right term, but right now the list has many more entries than the category; it seems like they should include the same articles, and that if one adds the {{Category: Philosophy}} tag to the end of an article, one shouldn't have to also manually edit the list page. Also, should all philosophy stubs be listed in the "expand" section of the task box? My guess is that there are too many stubs, and they'd clutter up the box, but if the goal of the project is to make the encyclopedia comprehensive... Let me know if and how these things can be done, and I'll help if I can. -- AAMiller 1 July 2005 17:28 (UTC)
I have attempted to adapt an existing category framework to the portal style, in the hope that it might be further used in the Philosophy category page, as an adjunct to a future Philosophy wikiportal. Improvements are invited. Ancheta Wis 3 July 2005 11:16 (UTC)
Do you peeps think we have enough support here for philosophy collaborations of the week? I think that might be a suitable way to improve some of our more important articles. Thoughts? KSchutte 18:28, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
I am undertaking to change the COTW around this time each week. I'll just take the one at the top of the list and bung it in, so to get your fav featured, put it in the list. Banno 22:55, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
All changes are reversible, so if you think any of this way off the mark, you are welcome to change it. My aim is simply to make the project more viable by simplifying the processes. Tell me what you think. Banno 11:00, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
This section is intriguing. For a while there has been a debate at Wikipedia:Avoid weasel terms, and judging by Wikipedia talk:Avoid weasel terms#For and Against the community is divided roughly evenly between those in favour and those against their use. I'm one of those in favour of the guideline. That guideline seems to be unchallenged here - it underpins Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy/Proposal for criticisms, for instance, apparently unchallenged. Why should this be so? Why, if the general Wiki community is divided, is there a consensus about avoiding weasels in Philosophy articles? Or is the Philosophy guideline problematic? Banno 11:11, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to set up a template to be used to invite folk who edit well on a philosophy article to joint the project. Something like:
You've edited a few philosophy articles. Have you considered joining the Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy? It is an effort to coordinate the work of Wikipedia who are knowledgeable about philosophy in an effort to improve the general quality and range of Wikipedia articles on philosophical topics. |
This would be placed on the user:talk of potential participants.
Does anyone know of a precedent? Spam? Worth a try? Banno 11:35, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
The title says it all: Are there things that shouldn't be on wikipedia? Should there be any limit to what can go on the site (and I must say, it's been euthanized nicely, but) should there be things we simply will not add? I think you can get where I'm inclining without spoonfeeding it.....yeah, that. Is there a limit? There's so much talk on expanding Wikipedia...aren't there somethings we should intentionally neglect?
HereToHelp 02:02, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Replies (post here):
I'm a user from catalan wikipedia (hi, jmabel!!), I think this project is great: it's well organised, it has a clear list with things to do, it's quite active, it allows to invite people... Congratulations!! You should promote it in other language wikipedias, because there can be users there who can collaborate or take articles from english to translate them. Add a message in respective villages pumps ow however they are called in other languages! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.93.57 ( talk • contribs) 15:33, 22 August 2005
Hello all - I may well be the only person around wikipedia who fits this description, but I know that there are some philosophers who use/think about game theory. If you are one of those, come on over to WikiProject Game theory and join in. Hope to see some folks there! --best, kevin ··· Kzollman | Talk··· 05:37, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
I'm starting to butt heads with User:Ultramarine ( RFAr) over Categorical imperative. I'm hopeful that our discussion will bring agreement, but in the event that it does not (as I fear it may not), I would also like it if more people would take the time to comment and discuss this article. The general questions up for debate are:
For these reasons, neutral parties are requested for commenting, and perhaps we could add this article to the discussion section of the "philosophy tasks" template. -- causa sui talk 22:37, 31 August 2005 (UTC)