Talk:Philosophy
The paragraphs giving the definition of philosophy, which open the philosophy article, are taken from the definition of philosophy. Please help keep those two articles mutually consistent.
Moreover, the paragraphs giving an outline of western philosophy are taken from history of philosophy, and the list of philosophical subdisciplines is from philosophical subdisciplines; please help keep those articles consistent as well.
Use the 'once and once only' rule. Move a paragraph to its own page, then have links to that page rather than a copy of it. --Chris
- I didn't write "how?" after each paragraph above. Please don't change talk page comments. That's misleading ("I didn't write that") and rude.
- Frankly, I really don't care much (really!), but I doubt a "once and once only" rule (this is the first I've heard of it) is a good idea. The goal of a good encyclopedia article is to give a comprehensive, self-contained introduction to a subject. Of course, for details, the reader is referred to more specialized articles. But the generalities essential to writing an article on a subject (like "Philosophy") will necessarily be details that can also be found in other articles. If you depend on people clicking through to the other articles, in order to understand what you're talking about, then you will in many cases end up with a very difficult-to-read, and in some cases incoherent article.
- It's worth remembering that the exercise here in writing encyclopedia articles is not merely to catalog information and shove it into its appropriate categories; it is, in addition, to give an exposition of the subject that is clear and accessible to the reader who actually needs the exposition. So, an article called "Philosophy" should be accessible to the person who is (1) generally educated enough to be able to understand what philosophy generally is, but (2) doesn't know what philosophy generally is. To make it accessible, some expository "padding" could, possibly, be lifted straight from articles on subtopics is a perfectly good idea.
- For these reasons I think Wikipedia probably should contain a healthy amount of repetition, even if it occasionally means duplication of effort and even inconsistency. --Larry Sanger (hi all)
I see what you mean. Some wiki implementations let you have your cake and eat it. MoinMoin wiki for example lets you include one page from another. Maybe there is a suggestion box around here somewhere. --Chris
- Ayn Rand was also in this category, with her rationalist philosophy of Objectivism.
I can sympathize with your desire to put that sentence into the history of philosophy section, so let me explain why I removed it. First, Ayn Rand, as she herself would strongly insist, was not an analytic philosopher. Second, she also was not a rationalist, in the sense in which this term is ordinarily used (and in which Rand herself used the term); see rationalism. Finally, and most importantly, I'm sorry, but in terms of historical influence and importance in the world of philosophy--as distinguished from the culture at large, perhaps--Ayn Rand simply does not have the stature of the other people mentioned. This is not to pass judgment on the quality of her philosophizing or the truth of her views, but to make a statement about her influence and stature in the field.
Now, if you were to include Rand, then I would suggest that, in the philosophy article, you should also include such people as Alfred Korzybski, R. Buckminster Fuller, L. Ron Hubbard, and a number of other such people who have done philosophy of a sort, but who are not widely regarded by academic philosophers as important philosophers. This isn't to say that Rand, or these other people, were unimportant hacks--please be clear on what my claim is. Perhaps what is needed is a separate paragraph on "popular and influential philosophers among nonphilosophers" or something like that. The list would also have to include Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper, though, because they too were popular and influential philosophers among nonphilosophers (still are, to some extent). --LMS
- yes, all absolutely true, but Rand has a special claim to fame as the best known moral rationale of capitalism and its inherent opposition to environmentalism - which led to the reconciliation called Natural Capitalism (neoclassical economics applied to optimize energy use). This is quite important - in political economy.
- likewise, Popper is still a major philosopher of science, Russell of politics, and so this group of three (Russell, Popper, Rand) had a serious influence on "neoclassical" law, science and economics - what we live under.
- on the other hand, Alfred Korzybski, R. Buckminster Fuller, L. Ron Hubbard could all be considered to belong to the opposition party - since they all sought unifying notions that were opposed to falsifiability
I would recommend splitting the top level philosophy page into appropriate sections including possibly
- myth
- religion
- western philosophy
- eastern philosophy
- popular philosophy
That Ayn Rand hasn't had much impact on academic thought is unimportant if someone came to the wiki looking for information on Objectivism. (I would put her under popular philosophy though.) The distinction you draw between influential and popular, and that popular philosophers don't belong here, is IMHO a slippery slope. -- ksmathers
How does a 'Philosophical Movement' differ from schools of philosophy, like Platonism or Scholasticism for instance? Are they the same thing? Are they different? -- Simon J Kissane
I've just written a (very short, and highly incomplete) article on Murphys Law. Does it belong in the "popular philosophy" section?
- There is a tendency to line up the continental philosophers with the 'meaning of life' vein in philosophy and the analytical with the 'a priori' vein. It is not clear how justified this move is.
I removed this. I think the person who wrote this is onto something, but the point is not well expressed at all. Analytic philosophers think about the "meaning of life" and continental philosophers engage in at least as much "a priori" philosophizing as anyone else. More importantly, it's not clear to me (and is unlikely to be very clear to anyone else) just what "the meaning of life vein" and "the a priori vein" mean. I would try to reword this, but really, I don't know how... --LMS
I'd like to see some evidence for the following, in the form of examples of philosophers in each "tradition":
- There are two basic veins in philosophical work. One takes the role of philosophy to be purely the study of the a priori (literally, "before experience") and philosophers who work in this vein are involved in the analysis of various concepts, language, mathematics, epistemology, etc. The other role philosophy has taken to have is to decipher 'the meaning of life' or what one 'ought to do'. Philosophers who work in this vein tried to understand our experience, prescribe ethical behavior, etc. Philosophers, especially those in that first tradition, argue that philosophy studies the kind of knowledge that is not given to us in experience.
As a trained philosopher, I've never heard of such a division in philosophy. I imagine that, perhaps, Thoreau and other essayists might be firmly in the second tradition, but very many other major philosophers who are called by the name would be in both camps, it seems to me. --LMS
- LMS -- I don't mean to but in, but I once read a book by someone named Guthrie called The Greek Philosophers and I think in the introduction he says philosophy, or perhaps just Greek philosophy, or perhaps even just Greek philosophy at a certain stage in its development, has/had two distinct strands, the metaphysical and the ethical. I am not a philosopher and hardly even a dilettant, so maybe I am misunderstanding the issue or this book by Guthrie is too popular or out of date, but is it possible that this is the distinction your above interlocutor is refering to? SR
- that seems to me like the division between philosophy and theology - they overlap in ontology but take different paths otherwise - philosophy considers ontology a branch of metaphysics, theology sees it as a methodology for reaching God - a full study in itself and including about half of what philosophers call ethics - which theologians would use to structure their ontology not based on 'what they find' but what they 'ought to do' as you say. then there's cosmology but that's a whole nother kettle of fish.
I made a general update of the philosophy page but nothing terribly important. Someone had put details of the etymology of the term before the definition of the term. In my opinion, we should give definitions first, always (or almost always). Famously, the etymology of "philosophy" does not really shed terribly much light on what philosophy is. I moved Hegel off the list of "modern philosophers" because he's listed as a "nineteenth-century philosopher." I moved "axiology" off the philosophical subdiscipline list, because the term usually used now for that is "value theory," and I added "value theory." --Larry Sanger
I apologise for my english that is not so god, i hope at it will be understandable. I fully agree with the suggestion of ksmathers to do more categories like western philosophy, eastern philosophy and so on. Before Plato and Aristote, it was no philosophy of the being in the world. This have done a real secession between the Occident and all the rest of the world and this secession is still alive and that even if the Occident have colonized a big part of the world. It can seams like a political issue but it's much more as that, it's about the meaning of life that is not the same for an occidental, for an asiatic, for an african and for an amerindian. The other conceptions have a lot more in commun as what the occidental vue of the life after the grecks can have in commun with the other philosophal conceptions in the world. Dominique Michel
Moved from dialectic:
at present, this page is not a page on dialectic. instead it is a footnote to the article, Philosopy. http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Philosophy
There, it is written: "... formulating problems carefully, offering solutions to them, giving arguments for the solutions, and engaging in dialectic about all of the above ..."
now, this may be just what the author intended. However, i suggest it would be better to have simply used 'dialog.'
"engaging in dialog about all of the above"
-- JoaquinMiller
A dialectic is a process in which a synthesis is reached based on the discourse between a particular position or point and it's counter-point.
-- Sam Manila