Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy

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Proposed Changes to Atheism Article

Hi, a series of proposed changes to the atheism article and have been outlined at Talk:Atheism#article_.2F_source_discrepancies, comments would be appreciated.

Duplication of content and general confusion

Please see Talk:Entailment#Duplication of content. - dcljr (talk) 19:55, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

See Talk:Entailment#Merger proposalPhilogo (talk) 21:13, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

logical implication and logical consequence have been merged into Entailment Philogo (talk) 11:49, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The lede of the merged article Entailment has been re-written; The body of the article requires editing to remove duplications, inconsistencies &c..Philogo (talk) 19:23, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I disapprove of this organization. The overwhelmingly prevailing term in the literature for the concept is "logical consequence." "Entailment" and "implication" are forms of logical consequence. This is how I organized the categories. I just don't understand you philogo. You seem to be pretty well read on these topics, but you haven't noticed this? Please look at the titles of journal articles, chapters of books, etcetera and reconsider. Can anyone else given an amen here please?Greg Bard (talk) 19:54, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

No "amen" but you would both do well to re-read WP:OWN, which I think can safely be interpreted to cover article categorization as well. 166.205.136.251 (talk) 20:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

That is a very presumptuous anonymous comment. If there were any real "ownership" issues they wouldn't be manifesting at the philosophy project talk page for everyone to chime in, would they? Furthermore, while I disagree with philogo, there is no notion in my mind that wp:own is a problem with him. I certainly haven't taken any action to counter philogo other than bringing it up on talk pages, so you are completely off base, and your comment requires explanation.Greg Bard (talk) 20:31, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The proposed merge was discussed and agreed at Talk:Entailment#Merger proposal which was and is the appropriate place for such discussions: is that not correct? It should be noticed that other Project groups (Linguistics and Maths) have declared their interest in the article and they are more likely to notice comments on the article's talk page than here. The proposed merge had been discussed and supported without dissent for a long time without anything actually being done. Several editors were involved and no objections to the implemention of the merge have been raised by any of them, other than that of Greg Bard raised above (but not on the Article's talk page). There is now an anonymous proposal to rename the article, but no reasons provided for that proposal; see discussion at Talk:Entailment#Move to logical consequence As I said earlier above The lede of the merged article Entailment has been re-written; The body of the article requires editing to remove duplications, inconsistencies &c... IMHO this is the current priority. Philogo (talk) 20:15, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Defining personhood

Over at Talk:Person, user Walkinxyz and I are having a bit of a debate over how (or perhaps whether?) to define "person" in the opening sentence of the lede. I'm having a bit of trouble understanding exactly what point he is trying to make, and can't think of anything else to say in response that isn't just repeating myself, so I'm hoping perhaps someone here can lend an outside eye to our discussion and help move things along.

Thanks. --Pfhorrest (talk) 03:47, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I think you are likely to go on forever, if you try to find an acceptable definition of “Person” by debate in the discussion pages of Wikipedia. I think an acceptable definition of a person is still a subject of debate in the literature of philosophy. I find three entire books on the subject on my bookshelf: Puccetti, Persons; Williams, Problems of the Self; and Vesey, Personal identity.

and I know of a lot more that do not appear to be cited in the article. However, I have not had time to read the article properly and will get back to you later. --Logicalgregory (talk) 12:00, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

To continue (I had to go to dinner), I suggest instead of talking about persons per sa, you talk about persons as being an area of philosophical debate (like free will and determinism). Something like “in philosophy the concept of a person is the subject of extensive discussion. There are three (maybe more if you can think of them) questions: Are persons human? (Puccetti says aliens can be persons). Are persons physical? (life after death, mind transference etc.) What is it that makes a person the same person over time? (personal identity, self identity)”. I think this approach might be easier. --Logicalgregory (talk) 12:46, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

That seems like the right approach. CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:19, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I think both Walkinxyz and I already agree that something generally like that is the correct approach; I'm honestly not entirely clear on where our disagreement lies, it seems to me like at least one of us is almost completely misunderstanding the other, which is why I'm hoping some outside eyes could look at our actual discussion and see if they can clarify for us what's going on there.

An aside on this general approach though: I am trying to work within the constraints of some past discussions (to avoid re-igniting them).

1. The first thing is making sure to include a mention that many people do commonly use "human" and "person" synonymously, even though few if any sophisticated definition of personhood make that identification.

"If any"? The Frankfurt essay on personhood mentions that in the first two pages! Walkinxyz (talk) 06:00, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

A debate over that identification over at Human is what brought me to the Person article to begin with, as at the time it began by stating that "A person is any particular human being" or some such, which is clearly non-neutral.

1. The second thing is avoiding opening the article with something like "[subject] is contentious and difficult to define", as that sort of vague first sentence is reviled by certain circles here on Wikipedia and I don't want to draw their ire. Instead I am aiming to do like we did at Free will, and open with a statement of whatever narrow scraps of agreement there is between all parties, and then mention that the rest of the details are contentious.

That last point seems to be what Walkinxyz and I are both trying to do, but neither of us seems to like the other's attempt at is, and the discussion about what exactly we dislike and why seems to be getting murky so I'm hoping someone can glance over and try to clear it up.

Thanks again, --Pfhorrest (talk) 01:42, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I have now had time to read the Pfhorrest and Walkinxyz discussion and am impressed by the amount of time and work they have put into this. However, I feel they are spending too much time on the head of the Person article when the body needs attention. Might I suggest that the head of the article be left as it for the moment and that a restructuring be undertaken on the body of the article? Perhaps when the body is improved and expanded it will be easier to see what the head should be like. --Logicalgregory (talk) 05:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I would be happy with any improvements to be made to the body. The debate ongoing there now is because I object to his proposed change to the lede, and he is presenting rather detailed arguments in justification of that proposal, which I believe deserve equally details rebuttals. (I don't feel like it's been much work at all; just thinking and writing are easy and fun to do). So of course I would be happy to leave the lede as it stands; but I don't know how Walkinxyz would feel about that, since he dislikes it how it is.

I'm curious to hear what suggestions you have for improving the body. Bear in mind that we already have some articles like Personal identity (philosophy), and we wouldn't want to duplicate the contents of those. I almost feel like this article should be renamed "Personhood" since that seems to be its main subject; and maybe put a summary-style article at Person with summaries of Personhood, Personal Identity, etc?

Also, I'm not too familiar with how wikiprojects work but a part of me feels this discussion should be happening at Talk:Person rather than here. --Pfhorrest (talk) 07:28, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Yep. Best to put there, and put here, "there is a discussion at Talk:Person about the definition of person and outside help would be useful". PPdd (talk) 01:28, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

As I said, I don't think there would be much of a problem if the article was just about philosophy, so making Person into a summary article with links would be one solution. However, if we want to produce an article that is comprehensible to people with no knowledge of philosophy and who might only be using English as a second language, then the task is more difficult.

I was thinking that it might be possible to develop a template for cases such as this. My idea (which I have not worked through) would be to divide the articles into two sections based on the the distinction between connotation (sense, sinn) and denotation (reference, bedeutung). The first part to deal with what the word person means, the second to deal with instances of reference. The first section of the first part could deal with the etymology and lexicography of the term; the empirical study of its use in literature. The second section of the first part could be the philosophical analysis of the concept of a person; the analytic study of the term. The third section could be special meanings for the term, such as are found in law. The Second part would be concerned with what counts as a person, an alien? a computer? a brain dead human body? The development of a template (be this for the person article on its own or more generally) would have to be a group effort. I have no interest in doing this alone. --Logicalgregory (talk) 08:44, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

(Aside - Did you just say sinn=sense=connotation=meaning and beteutung=reference=denotation=instantiaion=concept=counts-as?) PPdd (talk) 01:35, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I really appreciate that those working on Wikipedia's philosophy project are taking an interest in this. I do agree that we have been spending a lot of time on the lead, and I would say for my part this is because it sets the context needed for the rest of the article, and there are substantial issues that need to be addressed in how such an important subject is thematized. For my part, I am learning a great deal.

Pfhorrest's idea that we make the opening a statement of what we can agree on, is a good one. And I am still trying to persuade him of the merits of my introductory description, because I think that he misinterpreted it originally and overreacted by changing it.

As for the body, I really like Logicalgregory's suggestion for how to structure the article. But I would be wary of the (somewhat contradictory) suggestion that we turn the Person article into just another specialized philosophy article. There is too much at stake in the debates in broader society to do that. At the same time, the recent suggestion that it be merged with the "people" article goes too far in the opposite direction.

Of course there is a very important place for philosophy on this subject and, unfortunately, the "Personal Identity" article does not do the literature justice. A "Personhood (philosophy)" or "Person (philosophy)" article might be good, but only if someone with the relevant expertise wants to dive in.

What I would suggest is that the philosophy section in the person article cover the most salient division in the philosophical debates over personhood first – that is, the naturalistic-empiricist (i.e. Descartes -> Lock & Hume -> Strawson, Parfit) and non-naturalist / phenomenological views (i.e. Heidegger -> Merlau-Ponty -> Frankfurt, Taylor). Then go into some more esoteric views.

What interests me most is actually the second part of the article (what counts as a person), but I would cast it in terms of the contemporary debates around personhood (rather than abstract thought-experiments), especially given that people will probably decide to search for the article based on those debates – e.g. the corporate personhood stuff, the abortion debates (specifically Susan Bordo's fascinating essay "Are Mothers Persons?") and the promise or threat that "transhumanists" bring to the subject. And this is something I am willing to spend some time on, both independently and in cooperation with others. Walkinxyz (talk) 06:00, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

If the term "person" is ambigous (as shown in Person (disambiguation) it may be pointless in having an article which is not about one of the different senses of the term but attempting to be about all sneses simultanously. The assumtion/implication is that all senses of the term have something in common; is there any reason to make that assumption?Philogo (talk) 03:32, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Good question. I would say that what they have in common is an impact on our common understanding; and also the understanding of researchers and social scientists, who are concerned with diverse problems and involved in divergent pursuits, but whose work nonetheless affects each others' disciplines and the lives of ordinary people in general. To use a separate but related example, when someone like Rodney Brooks at MIT uses a definition of living things as "machines whose components are biochemicals", it affects more than just the field of robotics. It affects product design, legal regulations and debates in many other other spheres. So yes, I think there is some value in having an article that is about, if not "all the senses simultaneously", then at least "several senses, independently and in relation to one another, in context". Walkinxyz (talk) 04:31, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

A series of overlapping sets do not necessarily all have something in common, but they have more in common than a disjoint series. Finding a commonality is WP:OR and WP:Synth. PPdd (talk) 01:52, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I have proposed a new structure for the main body of the Person "article". This is in a new section in the discussion page of "person". Hopefully this can start a group discussion.--Logicalgregory (talk) 07:41, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Pfhorrest, regarding your opening question, "WP:Wikipedia is not complete", or some such expression, is a guideline or policy. So if you just sit it out until the techological Singularity takes over all consciousness, the problem will go away, maybe not in platonic space, but here, since there will only be one editor left for a consensus first sentence definition, "I" think (no internal debates, please). You might also want to consult the initial U.S. Consitution, where you can find out what 3/5 of a person is. PPdd (talk) 21:37, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

If the term "person" is ambigous (as shown in Person (disambiguation), (a) if there are reliable sources where it is argued that they all have something in common, then the article should set out the argument citing the sources (b) otherwise it is pointless in having an article which is not about one of the different senses. The belief of an editor that they have something in common is neither here nor there unless they themsleves are a reliable source with publications that can be cited, otherwise the aticle becomes OR. Philogo (talk) 23:57, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Should this discussion be copied to the article’s talk page? Here is a definition that deals with Pfhorrest’s initial talk page alien being, mind-merge, and fetus as partial person examples (which might be jokingly summed up as “3/5 of a Singularity that fell asleep”) – “an individuated unit of consciousness, or formerly active but still potential consciousness, which is recognized by the user of the term as being a unit by its cognitive capacities, which recognition changes depending on the context intended by the user of the term.” But as with any definition, the above definition can again be extended with additional qualifiers, ad infinitum.

MOS’s “define in first sentence” is a guideline. What goes in as the “definition” should be determined by the intended audience of the encyclopedia. A definition so technical that an ordinary user would be lost after one sentence has little value in an encyclopedia.

There will always be a problem of WP”synth and WP:OR in any philosophy project defining first sentence. Logicalgregory’s suggestiong to build the body before the head seems good. (Building the head based on what is in the body means that a person is determined by what is in the body, not the head … oh well, I guess the definition will not apply to persons who are bodyless heads.) PPdd (talk) 01:16, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

• I'm copying this section over to be a subsection at Talk:Person, where additional comments should go. PPdd (talk) 01:54, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

GA review of Stoicism

Hello! I have been reviewing the article Stoicism, which has been nominated for GA. I have placed the review of the article "on hold" because there are some changes that need to be made to the article before I can pass it. I have notified the nominator as well another user who has made significant contributions to the article, but neither of them have been active on wikipedia recently. I was hoping another editor who is familiar with this topic could help this article along. The article is in fairly good shape, and I'd hate to fail it because of minor details. Please see the article's review page for more information. Any help would be appreciated! --Tea with toast (talk) 20:17, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Addressed. Skomorokh 16:52, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Call for comments on recent debates concerning Philosophy article

There is a debate between myself and User:271828182 concerning several points on the Philosophy article and discussion is not progressing well. A compromise should be possible, I think, but things are stuck with compromise proposals being reverted. I think third parties might be able to help a lot in order to bring some common sense and perspective to discussion. Does anyone have a moment?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The debate covers a lot of ground, is there any particular issue that you would like third parties to comment on? --Logicalgregory (talk) 02:50, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

What are the several points?Philogo (talk) 19:25, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Rapid attention and refactoring needed

• Authenticity in art (AfD discussion)

I've identified several sources by credentialled experts. There are probably more. Some rapid refactoring to replace the top-of-the-head content with no sources with a good verifiable stub supported by expert sources is needed. Unfortunately, I don't have the time for another philosophy article kerrzapp. But I've cited the sources for you to just grab the wikitext for, in the AFD discussion, so you can build upon what I've done. Uncle G (talk) 14:44, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The Bad faith article needs help from any avaiable editor; all bad faith in philosophy content was reverted twice

Resolved

The Bad faith article needs help from any avaiable experienced editor; all bad faith in philosophy content was reverted twice. HkFnsNGA (talk) 07:11, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Would you give a diff? There have been a *lot* of recent edits to that article. CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Here's[1] the diff for the revert by Xxanthippie to the NRS and "no philosophy" version (with edit summary - "Reverted 45 edits by HkFnsNGA (talk); ", compared to the recent version. The editor who did the revert is giving time for other editors to contribut under the "construction" tag, so I asked for some help here since the subject crosses so many fields of study outside my area (Sartre and de Beauvoir were influential outside of philosophy). For example, while I was at Stanford for 11 years, and I am friends with SEP chief editor, who told me he mostly wrote the SEP mathematical (realism) article, I will have to do a lot of reading to explain in plain English what "Mathematical philosopher Crispin Wright wrote that J.L. Mackie's view on mathematical realism relegates all discourse on ethics to only be about 'bad faith'." means. PPdd (talk) 20:40, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Even a review under the Wikiproject and a rating of "start class" and "importance low" would help keep the RS content, instead of reverting again to the completely NRS "law only" version. PPdd (talk) 20:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't like doing this, but I've semi-protected the page. Hopefully this gives you some breathing room to get the article in order.

The page is clearly within the scope of this project, though it's not terribly important or central. I rated it as Start-class, Low importance on the Talk page; hopefully even that weak claim will lend some force to the (reasonable) request to include philosophy content. (It's crazy to me that this is even an issue!)

Please don't make me regret using my 'powers'. :)

CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I wrote this article because I never understood existentialism (or phenomenology), especially bad faith, and it's split of the "I" in the cogito argument. I witnessed an interesting hallway discussion about bad faith between ethicist Philippa Foot, and, interestingly, Alonzo Church, about bad faith (Fregean intentional contexts, etc.). I found a curious and interesting similar dicsussion in SEP's (mathamatical) realism article, which I summed up (with a sentence I don't really understand) - "Mathematical philosopher Crispin Wright wrote that J.L. Mackie's view on mathematical realism relegates moral discourse to bad faith. Do you know who here might be able to explain what I just wrote? PPdd (talk) 04:38, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure. While I have background in both math and philosophy, I have never studied the philosophy of mathematics. That quote seems much more about ethics, though, than bad faith per se. CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:25, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I have the same math and phil but not much philmath problem.

Thanks for reviewing the article. I would have rated it start class based on numerous subsections with only a single sentence. I could have written it without subsections, but I think each merits expansion. I actually read all of the sources to write the article. So when I read it, it is intelligable to me. Were there other reasons for rating it start class? Is the article intelligable? Did I get the flow from one section to another correct, so that one leads into another, even though they are very diverse fields? PPdd (talk) 21:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

It has a lot of sections because, as you said, they merit expansion. So the article has a long way to go, hence Start class. I don't think it's a bad article, just a lot less of article than it would (ideally) be.

Unfortunately I don't know anyone -- Wikipedia or real life -- with background in philosophy of math.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:11, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I do know something about the philosophy of mathematics and have read two of Mackie's books (but not the one about morals). I do not think the philosophy of mathematics has got any connection with bad faith. Looks like somebody has confused Mackie's argument about realism (the doctrine that objects and events have existence independent of the mind) with arguments about mathematical realism (the doctrine that numbers have existence independent of the mind). This seems to have been brought about by a careless reading of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on realism, where Mackie's error-theoretic account of morality is compared with Field's error-theory of arithmetic. I do not believe that Mackie said anything about “mathematical realism relegating moral discourse to bad faith”, but one might say that Mackie's arguments against moral realism relegates moral discourse to bad faith.--Logicalgregory (talk) 03:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

It was a careless skimming. I will go back and read it. (My friend, the founder and chief editor of SEP told me he (mostly) wrote that particular article, so its about time I actually read it.) Should I nix the whole section for now? PPdd (talk) 03:21, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I would guess that Mackie is worth keeping (an excellent philosopher in my opinion) but I have not read his work on morals. Its the connection with the Philosophy of mathematics that I think must be wrong. The SEP article says only that Mackie was using (in the context of morals) the same type of argument that Field had used in the philosophy of mathematics.--Logicalgregory (talk) 05:15, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Can you fix the sentence into something intelligable? I "wrote" it by essentially taking words out of the SEP article, which I believed was a correct procedure, but without understanding what I "wrote", like I was a Searle Chinese Room spitting out good Chinese without knowing Chinese. (In fact the whole bad faith article suffers from the same problem, since I wrote it, it likely passes muster, but I don't understand it.) PPdd (talk) 05:28, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes I can put in a quick fix by using material from the SEP article. I will need to change the heading. I need to read the SEP article properly first, but this is interesting because of the highly methodological approach taken by the author. Having read some of it, I am now of the opinion that Mackie's ideas on moral statements are important and well worth including.--Logicalgregory (talk) 06:39, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I look forward to reading your take on it. PPdd (talk) 07:10, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Quick fix done. Phil of Math removed. Mackie put in context and linked to bad faith. --Logicalgregory (talk) 09:42, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. The accuracy has been improved, but I still don't understand the concluding connection to bad faith. PPdd (talk) 15:54, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Just that if you believe that moral judgments are false and you make them you're making intentionally false statements, I think. CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I will add your " , I think" to my list of tools. Pretty tricky stuff, bad faith, huh? PPdd (talk) 18:28, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, certainly tricky stuff.

One of my friends taught me that 'trick' long ago: "As long as I add, 'If I'm not mistaken' to everything I say, it's always right!". :)... I think. :)

CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:31, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I know I am not supposed to modify other editor's comments, but I could not resist modifying your last one. Hope you don't mind. :) PPdd (talk) 19:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

By the way, CRGreathouse and LogicalGregory, I put you both on my userpage "helpful editors" list. If you don't want your names out there, you have my permission to edit my user page and remove your names. Thanks to both of you. PPdd (talk) 03:11, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

Requesting help with Robert T. Craig (scholar)

I created a new BLP article on the communication Theorist Robert T. Craig (scholar) and additional assistance would be appreciated.Coffeepusher (talk) 04:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Teaism

While teaism is in The Book of Tea, I think the concept teaism deserves its own article, just like tea ceremony and tea culture. Even if the teaism article it not part of the philosophy project it still is a tea term and concept. icetea8 (talk) 03:37, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah! It could not be more philosophical than just philosophical. Platonykiss (talk) 18:10, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Is there a tea project yet? Walkinxyz (talk) 20:08, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

If you have ever been to a tea ceremony, you likely noticed that teaism is an acquired philosophy. PPdd (talk) 15:48, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Appeal to Wikipedia Philosophy

In lieu of the outcome of the review process of appeal to nature, i am thinking of a new article called the "appeal to wikipedia philosophy":

Like the prevailing "Appeal to nature" article, it will quietly sustain a following who are convinced of wp:philo's error, without ever having to cite a single philosophy text to establish the claim. This could be even easier than the appeal to nature, as 'appeal to wp:philo.' is a concept not even written of neutrally as yet in any philosophical texts. Although that means it would loose out on discolouring all the seemingly neutral instances of the term written to date, as the 'appeal to nature' fallacy article does quite effectively.

I apologise for this, i seem to be having trouble getting this article reviewed:View AfD - Appeal to nature

Lisnabreeny (talk) 22:00, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I think Lisnabreeny brings up an important point. The first paragraph of the "appeal to nature" article makes "appeal to nature" sound like an established fallacy like "Argumentum ad Verecundiam" (appeal to authority). At least it had me fooled for a moment. But like Lisnabreeny I could not find it anywhere. Perhaps I too was getting confused with the Naturalistic Fallacy which is itself more of a theory than an established fallacy. People at WP philosophy should look at this.--Logicalgregory (talk) 09:38, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I think there should be an article called "appeal to nature", and I think it should be an important topic for Wikipedia philosophy, but if I may… imagine if the article were titled "appeal to reason" instead, and you replaced all instances of "nature" appearing in the article with the word "reason" and the word "natural" with "reasonable".

You would have "Appeal to reason is a fallacy of relevance consisting of a claim that something is good or right because it is reasonable, or that something is bad or wrong because it is unreasonable or irrational. In this type of informal fallacy, reason implies an ideal or desired state of being,[1] a state of how things were, should be, or how they are normally: in this sense an appeal to reason may resemble an appeal to tradition."

The fact is that this doesn't begin to tell us anything about what it is that is being appealed to when we appeal to "nature" or "reason" (or indeed, "tradition"). Both concepts make (perhaps equally) strong claims on human beings, and an appeal to either one shouldn't be disparaged as "fallacies". I would therefore object to the neutrality of this article, and also suggest that it isn't, in fact, what it claims to be about. If any kind of "appeal" can be debunked as easily as the appeal to nature is here, then we should be worried about the very possibility of "appeal" or "grounds" for argument tout court.

Walkinxyz (talk) 20:00, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

If we take the naturalistic fallacy (and I admit it's been a LONG time since I studied it) to be a type of fallacy which assumes that ∀x(Mx ↔ Nx) [where M is a moral predicate eg 'is good' and N is a natural predicate eg 'is yellow'] is either (a) contigently true or (b) necesary true, then an argument which takes "is good" as M and "is natural" would be the so-called "appeal to nature" and a token of the naturalistic fallacy. On this reading of the naturalistic fallacy, token of the falacy are a sub-set of arguments with missing premises (i.e those arguments with missing premises wehere the missing premiss is of the form ∀x(Mx ↔ Nx). It is easy to think of other token of the naturulistic fallacy so defined setting, e.g setting M='is pious' and N='loved by the gods'; M='is good' N='increases net human happiness'; M='is good' N='has no alternative'; M='is good in some society' N='said to be good in some society'; M='is good' N='said to be good by an authority or expert' The question for the Encyclopaedia is whether (a) all or any such tokens of the naturalistic fallacy so defined should have their own article or (b) whether they should be given mentions as examples in the article on the naturulistic fallacy. Really IMHO the naturalistic fallacy so defined is an exemplification of the is-ought gap. Philogo (talk) 15:40, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

A point at issue here is whether an appeal to nature should be classified /described as a fallacy in the Wikipedia. It seems that there is no authoritative body of existing research that will resolve this issue one way or the other. Therefore, Wikipedians are now discussing whether an appeal to nature is a fallacy, and to do this they seem to be making original arguments. But this is original research and is against WP Policy. I shall call this the Wikipedians' Paradox. It goes like this:

The Wikipedia shall contain no original research.

The Wikipedia can classify all new academic work.

Some new academic work has not been classified.

The act of classification is original research.

This is just a rough draft of the paradox, but I think people will get the idea. I have noticed that various discussion pages throughout the Wikipedia tend to drift into original research, it seems there may be a logical requirement to do so.

Is there really a paradox here?--Logicalgregory (talk) 04:58, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

If (a) the naturalistic fallacy as construed in my former comment is a fallacy, and (b) the so-called appeal to nature fallacy is, as argued above, a token of the naturalistic fallacy then the so-called appeal to nature fallacy is a token of a fallacy, i.e it is an example or instance of the naturalistic fallacy. The natural place, I have suggested, for such tokens or examples, would be within a paragraph headed perhaps "examples" of the article nauralistic fallacy. This would be achieved by MOVING the article appeal to nature into the article naturalist fallacy. A redirect would refer readers from the former to the latter. — Philogos (talk) 15:58, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

My remarks above were not directed at Philogos 12 Feb comment. Personally, I would go along with the idea that the naturalistic fallacy is the result of a hidden premise. I would also want to say that the hidden premise is contingent. Now, is it a fallacy? I would want to say it is a mistake, but not a fallacy. I want to reserve the term fallacy for putative forms of reasoning that lead to self contradiction. That's my idea on that subject. In the Naturalistic fallacy article it does not state that it is, in fact, a fallacy, but only that Moore said it was. So I have no problem with that either. However, in the discussion section of the appeal to nature article the various writers seem to be going into areas that are not covered by Moore and his followers.--Logicalgregory (talk) 16:36, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Conceptual model

I undertook some restructuring and made some additions to the conceptual model article. The term conceptual model is used with a fairly precise meaning in data base design and systems analysis, but I do not recall it being used by philosophers. Despite this, the conceptual model article is ranked high importance on the WP Philosophy importance scale. Suggestions and comments would be most welcome here.--Logicalgregory (talk) 11:55, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Rank it low on both imporance and quality (it seems to be alot of OR and Synth, and that's coming from a person whose only true expertise is in the specific field of modeling. Stephen Toulmin used "map" in a similar manner as the article uses "model" (empirical theories as maps - The Philosophy of Science:An Introduction, 1953, chapter iv). I did mathematics for philosophically reinterpreting "error", not as something to be "minimized", but as something to be "optimized" for nonparametric monte carlo bootstraping, and parametric model selection using cross validation as something to be made optimally close to probablistically independent. Mathematicians called this statistics or philosophy, philosophers called it mathematics or statistics, and statisticians called it mathemtics or philosophy. Most in all these fields would rank it "low" on an importance scale for their fields (and rank me still lower). Models more generally, might be considered mid level importance in phil of sci. It might rank higher in phil of mind. PPdd (talk) 16:56, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment PPdd. I think we need to wait to see if there are any more comments before making further changes here.--Logicalgregory (talk) 02:01, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Further comment on SYNTHiness - "Model" in logic, applied math, and statistics, and "mental model" in cog psych and PoMind is certainly "high" on an importance scale for those fields, but are these all ever called "conceptual models"? That said, the article is a good place to SYNTH hang various nonphysical models. PPdd (talk) 02:41, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I once said that mathematicians are like fashion models, over the hill by age 35. Given the SYNTHiness of the conceptual model catch-all aricle, I hope it (or sections of it) does not have an even shorter duration. (Another "conceptual model" is in the following section.) PPdd (talk) 03:54, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Absurdity constraints and metamodels

I don't know if this is the right WProject for this, but I just started the absurdity article, and could use help on a section regarding "absurdity constraints" re metamodels and model transformations in Model-driven engineering. PPdd (talk) 03:49, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Help needed with Wittgenstein and Moore's paradox in absurdity article

In the new absurdity article, the section on Moorean absurdity needs expanding, and I was never very good at paraphrasing Wittgenstein's carefully chosen words. PPdd (talk) 04:03, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Absurdity constants, Suppes, Church, and Currie's paradox

I recall something about "absurdity constants" (not absurdity "constraints") in relations to Suppes' Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Church's thesis, and Curry's paradox, but that is all I remember. Can anyone help with this for the absurdity article? PPdd (talk) 05:39, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Logic

The WikiProject Logic Task List is not being actively updated, but there are many articles in need of attention. Actively updating the task list would help by directing the attention of editors to articles encouraging co-ordination.

• If you are interested in editing the Logic articles, then Add {{User WP Logic}} to your user page. It will automatically add you to Category:Logic task force members. You may also choose to place the Logic Navigation Banner on your user page by adding {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Logic/Nav}} or the Logic Task List by adding {{LogicTasksBox}}.
• Discuss WikiProject Logic
• Discuss the WikiProject Logic Task List
• Update the WikiProject Logic Task List

Philogo (talk) 14:14, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Are my last three posts immediately above better put in the logic tasks force pages? PPdd (talk) 14:45, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I think they are OK where they are. Philogo (talk) 16:47, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

• Does any body know how or where one can get/generate a list of high importance, low/stub standard of articles in category Logic/falling under the remit of WikiProject Logic? — Philogos (talk) 02:48, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Hobbes' "Table of Absurdity" & Phil of Language

In Hobbes' "table of absurdity" propositions are called "absurd," "insignificant," or "senseless". Anyone have knoweldge about this for absurdity article? PPdd (talk) 21:32, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Appeal to Nature

Hi everyone, I've just cleaned up, re-organized and copy-edited the appeal to nature page, and it would be great if an experienced editor could review it and possibly remove the clean-up template.

Thanks. Walkinxyz (talk) 23:39, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion the page is much better now and avoids the problems I was concerned with in my posting on the subject.--Logicalgregory (talk) 02:30, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Notability

There is no Wikipedia article on notability, just a disambiguation page. There is, of course, a page on Notability in Wikipedia, and we all know what an important and controversial issue that is.

It occurs to me that notability is a concept suitable for philosophical examination. Here are just a few issues:

1) Is notability absolute or relative?

2) What, if any, are the logical or epistemological connections between notability and truth?

3) Does notability fall foul of the Argument from Authority fallacy?

4) Is notability transitive?

5) Does notable mean anything more than famous; and if so, what?

6) Does it make sense to say that the Cretan was a notable liar?

Given the importance of notability in Wikipedia it seems that an article on notability per se would be very useful. The problem is that there do not seem to be any notable sources on the “concept of notability”. --Logicalgregory (talk) 03:14, 18 February 2011 (UTC)