Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy

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Proposal for Hylomorphism overhaul

I've come to the conclusion that the article on Hylomorphism is in a rather shabby condition. Thus, I've put together a draft for a revised article and posted it on my user page. As you may notice, the draft discusses only Aristotelian hylomorphism. I believe that the article Theory of forms adequately discusses Plato's hylomorphism (or, if it doesn't, then it should). And, at any rate, when modern philosophers debate the merits of "hylomorphism" as an alternative to materialism and dualism, they're generally talking about Aristotelian hylomorphism. (I, for one, have always heard "hylomorphism" applied to Aristotle's theories, not to Plato's.) In addition, I feel that combining Platonic and Aristotelian hylomorphism into a single article makes things unnecessarily confusing. (Many of the remarks about "hylomorphism" in the current article apply only to Aristotelian hylomorphism, thereby compounding the confusion.) Anyhow, I'd appreciate any feedback on my draft. (Please note that I am not suggesting that we discuss only Aristotelian hylomorphism in an article titled Hylomorphism. Rather, I am suggesting that we revise this article in accordance with my draft and rename it Hylomorphism (Aristotle).) --Phatius McBluff (talk) 07:21, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Help with Dispute Resolution

The humanism article needs some attention from some editors with knowledge of Wikipedia's goals and policies. American Heritage Dictionary gives five widely varying definitions of the term (see http://dictionary.reference.com/dic?q=humanism&search=search ), and for several years, the status of this term on Wikipedia has been:

• AHD definitions 1, 2, 3 loosely grouped under the "humanism" article
• AHD definition 4 briefly mentioned under the humanities article
• AHD definition 5 has its own article at Renaissance humanism and connection to definition 1 mentioned in the humanism article
• Recently, an editor added a disambiguation page to direct readers to the different types of humanism, and added the appropriate hat-note to the article.

Over the past few years, one particularly tendentious editor attempts every few months to change the primary focus of the article, sometimes in favor of AHD definition 4, sometimes in favor of definition 5. Each time, I attempt to respond by showing the common use in best-selling books, news articles, magazines, web sites, and organizations applying the term to themselves is consistent with definition 1 instead. The tendentious editor has proposed moving the article and was voted down, so now he deletes his 3-revert warnings from his own talk page and attempts to create a consensus on other users' talk pages where his viewpoint will encounter no resistance, rather than on the article's own talk page. In general he seems to bring editors into the article who are abusive, argue by putting words into others' mouths, and recite their opinions over and over without providing evidence of verifiability.

The policies I feel the tendentious editor and those he brings into the discussion are breaking are these:

• WP:DICTIONARY: Wikipedia articles should begin with a good definition and description of one topic, however, they should provide other types of information about that topic as well. The full articles that the wikipedia's stubs grow into are very different from dictionary articles.
• Also at WP:DICTIONARY: "The same title for different things (homographs): are found in different articles."
• WP:VERIFY: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true."
• WP:UNDUE: "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: In general, articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and will generally not include tiny-minority views at all. For example, the article on the Earth does not mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, a view of a distinct minority."
• WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: "When there is a well-known primary topic for an ambiguous term, name or phrase, much more used than any other topic covered in Wikipedia to which the same word(s) may also refer, then that term or phrase should either be used for the title of the article on that topic or redirect to that article."
• WP:Naming conflict: "A number of objective criteria can be used to determine common or self-identifying usage: * Is the name in common usage in English? (check Google, other reference works, websites of media, government and international organisations; focus on reliable sources) * Is it the official current name of the subject? (check if the name is used in a legal context, e.g. a constitution) * Is it the name used by the subject to describe itself or themselves? (check if it is a self-identifying term)"

In an attempt to show a most common, most popular, and primary usage for the term "humanism," I've posted top lists of search results of best-selling books, web pages, multiple news sites, magazines, and organizations. In response, my repeated requests for evidence that AHD definition 1 is NOT the most popular use of "humanism" have been met only by occasional single web pages or books that were hand-picked specifically for their biased POV, rather than algorithmically selected for their popularity as Google, Amazon, Alexa, and the other sources I've cited.

Could someone who is familiar with the most popular use of the word "humanism" AND mindful of Wikipedia policies provide feedback? The focus of the article and its definitions have been established long before I came around, as evidenced by the contents of Template:Humanism, Outline of humanism, the categories to which the article belongs (Epistemology, Freethought, Humanism, Humanist Associations, Humanists, and Social theories), and the projects to which the article belongs (WikiProject religion, WikiProject atheism, and WikiProject philosophy). The continued attempts to change the focus of the article fit what WP:DISRUPT calls, "their edits occur over a long period of time; in this case, no single edit may be clearly disruptive, but the overall pattern is disruptive."

Thanks! Serpent More Crafty (talk) 18:23, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Does wikipedia have bias on philosophy articles?

I know that bias is unavoidable, and any system is prone to systemic bias. I guess what I'm really asking, is What should I know beforehand if I suffer burnout after investing many months into WikiProject Philosophy? Wikipedia operates through consensus, which I feel is a good thing. Is this a bad thing, however, for maintaining neutral encyclopedia articles on philosophy? I am a good writer with strong rhetorical skills and copy-editing skills. I quit after I realized I can't be indifferent about allowing Wikipedia to turn a few blind eyes for highly productive, yet quid pro quo editors who simply volunteer in order to plant their "pet lies" into Wikipedia. I guess what I'm asking, is if this niche of Wikipedia is highly ethical? An altruistic editor can never be as productive, nor powerful, as a quid pro quo editor. Wikipedia's survival depends on facilitating pragmatism, but if I were to rejoin, I would never venture outside a specific subset of article content, and would never leave until every article I contributed to became a featured article. 윤리윤리윤리 (talk) 11:56, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Greetings, and thanks very much for your interest in contributing! In response to your question, I would say that the encyclopaedia's philosophy articles are of rather poor quality, not very comprehensive, and in some specific instances controlled by individual editors; there are few articles that are battlegrounds, and I have seen little concerted attempts to maintain biased articles. You might have difficulty attracting collaborators, but I would say you have a good chance of being able to radically improve articles without obstruction if you so chose. Hope this helps,  Skomorokh  12:48, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. I'll try to make one philosophy article into an FA this year because even when I semi-retired, I didn't stop assuming good faith and will just try a new niche. The battleground stuff is egregious, and I never intended to edit an article that was so controlled by a quid pro quo editor that actually did honest and highly productive work for lots of other articles outside of the one or two articles in which he had a conflict of interest. Hopefully, I'll never run into an editor like that if I just volunteer and contribute to an extremely narrow niche of philosophy articles. I'll bite the FA review task from the "To do" tab and make it my priority this month. 윤리윤리윤리 (talk) 15:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

אני חייב להיות אקר אני מבין במחשבים אני יודע מה זה חצי מאקרBold text —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.250.178.76 (talk) 22:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I would say "pet lies" is around 40% of marginially trafficked articles and nearly 90% of any article specific to a small cultural group such as minor Scientology, Jehova Witness, Objectivist, ect. Where only they would care. That's the problem for having a "one stop shop for facts" on the internet. But alas, sometimes the articles are not too bad. Objectivity isn't so favored as a consensus of subjectivity. I guess I agree. The real problem are wikipedians who think wikipedia needs to be consise (It's the fucking internet you retards! If I want to write an article on blue M&Ms and want it to be 8,000,000 words long, who the fuck cares? Is there a lack of space??)and idiots who think SOME sources opinions are inferior to others (their own). Sanitycult (talk) 00:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Just a note that I have cautioned this editor about incivility. I see no evidence of previous warnings, so I don't think anything more needs to be done at this point, although it would be nice if Sanitycult would revise the more objectionable parts of the message. Looie496 (talk) 00:57, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

What's objectionable about it besides my inability to be wishy washy and disengenious? At least people know where I'm coming from and that I can't spell or be gramatical.Sanitycult (talk) 01:18, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of articles dominated by people pushing POVs. Libertarianism (metaphysics) used to be total WP:OR and after many warnings deleted much of it. Now someone has come in with more references, but doesn't feel they really have to ref material so I'm sure a lot of it is WP:OR. Anyway, if anyone wants to take a quick look and encourage the person to better ref their material. Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Carol, this is a complete mis-representation. I clearly said that WP:V and WP:RS apply, in so many words, both on the talk page and in my edit summary. What I disagree with is that the stricter standards of WP:BLP apply (and I clearly laid out why). I also disagree with you to the extent that "references" require superscripted little numbers versus in-text citations, like to books that have their own wikipedia pages already. If your comments are effective in getting some more eyes on Libertarianism, great, but don't come over here and start pretending that people "don't really feel they have to ref material." Come on over and read the whole thing on the talk page. It should be pretty obvious that the person who is complaining about refs has added exactly 0 refs to the article herself, and then complaining that the established editors have made many good contributions to wikipedia, and who are actively working on improving, including refs, etc, aren't doing it fast enough. Edhubbard (talk) 23:38, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually my complaint was someone (who I mistakenly thought was you) writing "In general, editors should try and find references if they feel references are lacking, rather than assuming bad faith." And I do NOT want to become an expert on the topic so thought I'd see if any here. If you look at how bad WP:OR was last time, you can see why there might be concern on this topic. CarolMooreDC (talk) 01:32, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Carol, I apologize then. Sorry for jumping on you. I agree that getting a few more eyes on the libertarianism (metaphysics) page will probably help, and asking you to become an expert in, what is in all fairness a kind of esoteric field of academic philosophy, is not fair. I know that Peter is working to improve the article, and from working with him on previous philosophy articles in wiki-world, I know that he is working to do so within the normal rules of wikipedia. I know that some of my own frustration (and I assume his) is because I do see what Peter and I are trying to do as being a good faith attempt to get the article up to something worthwhile including references and so on, but then seeing the article quickly tagged and so on distracts from (and slows) that project. Peter has a wealth of knowledge on the topic, and is probably one of the best qualified people in the project to work on this article. Unfortunately, the philosophy project lost one of its best (and most contentious) editors when Francisco Franco left the project. He is the one who almost single-handedly brought the Free will article up to FA status, and would have been a great asset for this one too, as it's a sub-division of the Free will article. Another user, Brian Morton has the background to help out, but his Department Chair won't let him until he gets tenure! In any case, let's hope that a few others will help out, if even just by going to the SEP article and adding references where appropriate. Cheers, Edhubbard (talk) 02:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Christian violence

There is a proposal to delete this large, comprehensive article about Christian violence. I am pretty sure the proposal is another religiously motivated one. We could use some rational input at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christian violence.Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 18:37, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

There is already a Christian Terrorism article, so why the hell is this an issue?Sanitycult (talk) 00:19, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

"Large, comprehensive"? It's large, all right, but it's largely a list of disconnected quotes. The article looks far from encyclopedic in its current state. Looie496 (talk) 00:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Perfection

The article Perfection is, well, heterological. On one hand it's a WP:SYNTH of different concepts of perfection; on the other, the ethics/aesthetics/ontology/theology sections are taken directly from one author. The notes section says it best: 119 citation to Tatarkiewicz, and 0 to all other authors combined.

I'm not sure if this is better handled by fire or some gentler method; I leave that to your discretion. But the current state of the article is extremely poor: the article doesn't seem to even merit its C-class rating from your project.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 07:35, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Russian philosophy dispute

There is a dispute about whether Agni Yoga should redirect to Living Ethics or be a separate article, at redirects for discussion. If anyone is a knowledgeable about Russian philosophy or just wants to lend a hand, we could use your help. Thanks.  [ mad pierrot ]  13:54, 13 August 2009 (UTC)