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.

ArbCom decision on Monty Hall Problem: Decision theory

The arbitration on the Monty Hall problem is of interest to philosophers specialized in decision theory, philosophy of probability, philosophy of action, philosophy of science, etc.

The proposed decision contains wording about "complex Bayesian solution" of special concern.

Also, it may be useful to be aware of the language regarding original research versus exposition using secondary sources, which is also discussed on the WikiProject Mathematics's talk page. Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 12:21, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm forever grateful to WP mathematicians for their uncanny ability to write math articles I can read. However they do it, it's fine by me.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 19:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

What is the word for a sentence that is true because it is stated? Its similar to "autogenic".

• What is the word for a sentence that is true because it is stated? For example, my business card says "World's Greatest Braggart". "I am speaking to you." Curry's paradox, "If this sentence is true, than A."

• Is there an article about this? PPdd (talk) 03:16, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Self-evident? Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 19:00, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds similar to a performative verb. Have you tried the reference desk? - 2/0 (cont.) 04:43, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

You are either looking for the term "autological" which describes a word that describes itself (i.e. the word "short" is a short word and therefore autological, whereas the word "long" does not describe itself, and is therefore not autological, but rather heterological.) or you are looking for the term "self-fulfilling" statement (e.g. "This is a formal written notice."). Greg Bard (talk) 21:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Aha! Effect

Would a WikiProject Philosophy editor review Aha! Effect for accuracy and whether it is correctly named? See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Psyc3330 subpages for related history. Thanks, Cunard (talk) 05:38, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Please also review Executive dysfunction (also from the same MfD). Thanks, Cunard (talk) 09:55, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Did you intend to ask this at WikiProject Psychology instead? None of these really have much to do with philosophy. Speaking as a neuroscientist, though, I can tell you that I believe both names are okay, although as an American I personally would have used executive disfunction. Looie496 (talk) 16:51, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the correction and input. I've posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Psychology#Aha! Effect and Executive dysfunction about these two articles. Cunard (talk) 22:39, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Evolutionary psychology RFC

I have started an important RFC here regarding how to integrate the criticism of Evolutionary psychology into the article about that topic, and about how to define the topic itself either narrowly or broadly. Please participate.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:10, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Al-Kindi

An editor has asked for a community reassessment of this article to see if it still meets the good article criteria. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Al-Kindi/1. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Instant

The usage of Instant is under discussion, see Talk:Instant. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 06:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposal for potential broadbased wikipedia religion and philosophy online "meeting"

Yep, that is a long headline. Anyway, the idea is that, starting around the first of April, there might be some sort of broadbased discussion of the religion related content here. A basic page for some ideas of such a meeting can be found at User:John Carter/Religion meeting, although I do intend to create a wikipedia space page for the meeting, or maybe move the existing page. Anyway, it is my hope that there would be one month of general discussion of the topic, and then later a second month for specific ideas and or actions which might or might not be taken up for, perhaps, the next year, with maybe another meeting following a year later.

Anyway, having gotten all the exposition out of the way, I was wondering whether the members of this project believe it might make sense to expand the scope of the meeting to include philosophy as well. Ethics and religious philosophy are both I think "overlap" territories of the two projects, and I don't think it would necessarily hurt to have parties involved in both subjects involved. Thoughts? John Carter (talk) 14:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

This is interesting to me as I will be auditing a PhD seminar on secularism and modernity in the next few months. I think it is a very good idea to include those interested in philosophy in a discussion on religion, since they have been entwined for much of their respective histories. And the centrality of ethics in many religions is indisputable, as you correctly point out. The philosophy of religion is something I have less experience and interest in, but I'm sure there are others who do share that interest. If they have something to offer, great. Thanks for proposing it here.

Political philosophy is another area that is interesting right now with regards to religion, since the political claims of religion have made a resurgence in the last decade, and it is a question how political philosophy should respond to this (apparently) obtrusive and unexpected development.

Walkinxyz (talk) 21:14, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Free election

The usage of free election is under discussion, see Talk:Free election (Polish throne). 65.93.12.101 (talk) 04:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

The Barnstar of Notability in Philosophy

The Barnstar of Notability, For seminal ideas in philosophy, like creating the concept of "notability" in Wikipedia article space. "There is something new under the sun" is true if there is something new under the sun.

The Barnstar of Notability in Philosophy

The Barnstar of Notability, For seminal ideas in philosophy, like creating the concept of "notability" in Wikipedia article space. "There is something new under the sun" is true if there is something new under the sun. PPdd (talk) 09:36, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

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No article on Land Effect or on Robert M. Yost

Yes, that's what it looks like, but what does it feel like?

Above is the SINGLE Barnstar I gave to Logicalgregory, for being the first to conceive of the concept of Notability at WP, on this very talk page. If you are the typical philosopher who wears a red contact lens on your left eye and a green lens on your right eye to work, and if you also have vertically oriented eyes (like a spider), or equivalently, if you rotate your head 90 degrees, you will see the section headers - "The Barnstar of Notability in Philosophy" above as a single image in 3-D. This works because the infinitesimal perspective point at which Descartre located your humuncular soul in your pineal gland is actually a vertical “bi-point”, and is related to the “Land Effect”, and. Robert M. Yost of UCLA. Yost showed the class the Land Effect in his undergraduate Metaphysics, Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind class. He then went on to tell the class about how, in the 1960’s, he was legally given increasingly large megadoses of LSD in a government funded experiment at UCLA, but he noticed no effect at all, no matter how much they gave him. Yost went on to explain how Land invented the Polaroid camera, then went to work for the CIA, which funded the UCLA LSD experiment on him. And if you were stimulated by this to wonder "What is it like to be a bat?", ask Logician Lewis Caroll's Cheshire Cat - "Alice:'I see nothing', Cat:"'My, you have good eyes'". Here, here, does anyone here hear WP:Silence? PPdd (talk) 10:35, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

"What is it like to be a bat" I read that shortly after it was published in 1974. Takes me back to the time when philosophers wrote interesting and amusing papers - not like the boring, by the numbers, and uninformative papers one gets in the journals today. --Logicalgregory (talk) 03:52, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

The Nagel pic is a subtle joke. He isn't talking about how me (a bat) can undertand what it is like to be you (whatever), but its an ethics lecture. PPdd (talk) 05:14, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

First childhood memory

Logicalgregories frank admission of his age above, stimulated me to ask who remembers their first philosophy book.
Since this is a talk page of a WikiProject, not a chat room, if you list your first memory, you then should apply it to how others might improve Wikipedia.
My first one was Hans Riechenbach's The Rise of Scientific Philosophy, when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I don't remember anything in it, except that it made me want more, and that he starts off with an extensive quote of Hegel(?), after which he points out that if the reader is mystified, but after reading it over and over, can speak the laguage, even though he or she doesn't really understand what they are saying, it's because it is utter nonsense. I therefore propose merging all Hegel related articles to be subsections of the nonsense article. (Incidentally, I just missspelled Hans Reichenbach, but my misspelling produces 1,850 results on Google, so I am not alone. (It only produced one result on Google Scholar.) PPdd (talk) 05:31, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Request for input in discussion forum

Given the closely linked subjects of the various religion, mythology, and philosophy groups, it seems to me that we might benefit from having some sort of regular topical discussion forum to discuss the relevant content. I have put together the beginnings of an outline for such discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/2011 meeting, and would very much appreciate the input of any interested editors. I am thinking that it might run over two months, the first of which would be to bring forward and discuss the current state of the content, and the second for perhaps some more focused discussion on what, if any, specific efforts might be taken in the near future. Any and all input is more than welcome. John Carter (talk) 15:30, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

One of the proposals made on the above linked to page is a proposal for, maybe, a joint mythology-philosophy-religion newsletter, maybe similar to the monthly newsletter of the MILHIST project. I do think that, maybe, sending such "news updates" to members of the various projects might help stimulate some more activity, and, maybe, help bring more attention to highlighted articles and topics if they are mentioned there. Also, as indicated there, I have made a specific section for content which we think might stand for new material in either journals or articles, like underdeveloped topics or topics which have recently been controversial. If there were to be a newsletter, maybe, just maybe, we might be able to perhaps get an A-Class review going, and maybe a few other things. Anyway, despite the name of the page (I had to choose one, and I tend to be more active in religion) any input of any kind, on the topics above or any others, is more than welcome. John Carter (talk) 18:25, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

What is the "MILHIST" project? Is there a link to it?--Logicalgregory (talk) 02:19, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I was referring to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News, which is the regular newsletter of the Military History project. It is probably the best organized of all the WikiProjects, and wikipedia has been called the best military history site on the web because of their work, so I'm thinking they're a reasonable model to follow. The Philosophy project could potentially do a similar newsletter on its own, as could religion and mythology for that matter, but personally, given the significant overlap between the three, I thought that maybe having some sort of joint newsletter might be both less work and, potentially, help bring more attention to some of the topics which don't get as much attention. John Carter (talk) 18:56, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

P.S. One of the things being proposed in the meeting is that we might in time write some letters to some relevant journals asking for additional information on topics which we can't find sufficient information or sufficient current information on. If there are any such topics relating to philosophy any of you know, please feel free to list them, and then, maybe next month, we can figure out which journals to send the requests to. John Carter (talk) 20:02, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I was interested in your mention of "new material in either journals or articles" and "get an A-Class review going". Could you elaborate? If you are interested in setting something up to go beyond the no original research limitations of Wikipedia, then perhaps we can talk further. There are other places in the Wiki-foundation where original research can be conducted and published.--Logicalgregory (talk) 07:32, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

One of the sections of the meeting page, Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/2011 meeting#Topics poorly covered in reliable sources is specifically to indicate specific subjects which we cannot find much information or much current information on. The meeting, intended to be for two months, was initially to spend one month gathering data and another acting on it. Regarding this particular subject, come next month, when all the subjects are added, I and maybe some others are going to try to determine which are the journals which are most highly regarded and most directly applicable to the subjects, and write them a letter or e-mail which we hope gets published indicating that we as editors of wikipedia would be very appreciative if material relevant to the subjects would be published, so we could include it in our articles. The A-Class review proposal could be seen as another attempt to copy the Military history project, which does have a specific project-based A-Class review, independent of GA and FA, to determine which articles receive that article assessment rating. I haven't been at all active in the Military history A-Class reviewing process myself, but at least some years ago I was one of the more active editors in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography A-Class assessment process, and think that it might be beneficial if we had maybe some sort of similar process here. My hope would be that these "reviews" might be made by some people who have some familiarity with the subject, which isn't necessarily the case for GA and FA candidates, and that the review might help high quality articles get a bit more attention and input in their final stages of development. John Carter (talk) 20:05, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The "argument" argument

Philogo has been arguing with me and Linsabreeny over on the argument talk page. There are a couple of issues of substance here.

First, he insists that an "argument" in logic and logic alone be the topic of the "argument" page, and even though he admits that logic is also a branch of philosophy, he says he has never heard of a philosophical argument. I believe that arguments in the sense that the article is discussing them can be both logical (that is, employed in everyday discourse, scientific discourse, philosophical discourse, etc. but with specific logical features), and "philosophical" (in the sense of structured, rational argument on important general themes) and that it does us no good here to take sides and say certain arguments are either "logical" or "philosophical."

I have included wording to that effect in the topic sentence of the article and the lead, so as to avoid forking articles for "logical arguments" and "philosophical arguments." Since argument, rational argument, is the medium of philosophical exchange, and since logic is also (but not only) a branch of philosophy, I think this change helps.

(Currently, there is a redirect from rational argument to argument, and there is an important article on "argumentation theory" that is not about logical or philosophical arguments per se, but rather "the interdisciplinary study of how humans should, can, and do reach conclusions through logical reasoning.")

However, Philogo demands that any discussion of argument on that page be confined to formal logic, and therefore any discussion about what the point of an argument is, or its source of validity (e.g. logical truth vs. justification vs. some pragmatic test), or its approach or philosophical method of reasoning, is out of place.

Second, Philogo seems to believe that if an argument can be classified as "deductive" or "inductive" (or presumably some of the other argument types on that page) there can be no more relevant logical features to be explained about it.

Charles Taylor, in his Philosophical Arguments, disagrees – including with regard to transcendental arguments (which are misleadingly named, and not really "transcendental" in any sense). So does philosopher of science Ian Hacking, as well as Thomas Kuhn, John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, Edmund Husserl, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger and many, many others who have influenced or been at the centre of 20th century philosophy.

One of the leading critical theorists today, Nikolas Kompridis has published a book that discusses some of these logical features in depth. It also discusses a wide range of modern philosophical arguments and forms of argument, all the way back to Kant and Hegel. The book is called Critique and Disclosure – as in Kant's seminal Critiques and Heidegger's concept of "world disclosure", an idea which Heidegger considered his own most important contribution to modern Western philosophy.

Using terminology from Heidegger, and other sources that share the same terminology (including dozens of other primary and secondary sources), Kompridis has called a family of these arguments "world-disclosing" (in the ontological sense of "world" – i.e. bearing on conditions of intelligibility). The notability of this subject is indicated in a review of the book published here.

I created a section on "world-disclosing" arguments, that Philogo has been deleting in spite of two editors including myself currently being against such deletion, and in spite of it being extensively sourced and constantly developed.

Philogo believes that a majority view from February (consisting of himself and Machine Elf) supports his deletion of this section, while Linsabreeny and I strongly disagree.

The section has changed considerably since then, including in response to Philogo's own criticism.

Philogo has, in my opinion, been exhibiting behaviour that very strongly suggests a sense of ownership over the page. In my opinion, his criticisms have greatly improved the content I have been adding, but he has refused to comment on the changes, and instead has engaged in a slow edit war by continually deleting it.

If someone could please help out with this, especially on the issues of substance (1. the topic of the "argument" page, i.e. logic vs. philosophy; and 2. the inclusion of a section on "world-disclosing" arguments), it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Walkinxyz (talk) 10:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It's about your section on world-disclosing argument which doesn't need it's own world disclosure article if you insist on including it in the argument article. I agree with Philogo that you should put it in your world-disclosing argument article—just summarize it briefly and link—apparently you and your associate would rather edit war over it. I've had enough abuse from you that I'd be happy to stay out of it if you could stop dragging my name into it, thx—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 14:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I suggested the deletion of this paragraph both here and on the argumenttalk page, and proceeded as agreed - i.e. to delete it. I suggested it be inserted into the article world disclosure in which it may be more relevant. Walkinxyz has declared his intent to "edit war it" but has not siad what he means by that. — Philogos (talk) 03:50, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you're following what is happening. I have not said anything about an intent to "edit war it." Although Linsabreeny did. Indicating that you don't have "agreement." STOP warring over this. Walkinxyz (talk) 00:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

It was indeed Linsabreeny not Walkinxyz who wrote "This seems crazy to me and i will edit war and dispute it.": my apologies. I would be grateful if you would not ascribe views to me: the views are expressed here and the article's talk page. Original discussion on this talk page restored below. — Philogos (talk) 04:24, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

You mean like the view that you've never heard of a philosophical argument?

From the talk page: "Opposed: I know of no use of the term "argument" in philosophy distinct from its use in logic." Your knowledge or lack thereof is not relevant. The sources that I provide – which are not books on "logic" – ARE.

There should be no problem including a topic definition as including "logic and philosophy" even if what you say is true. You are exhibiting an attitude of Ownership and destructive behaviour that is strong evidence of bad faith. User:Walkinxyz (not logged in).

Long story short: Philogo's actions and arguments were not reasonable here, eg. after a pause, he quietly wiped all Walkinxyz's cited and discussed work -in an edit marked minor. I personally think an editor caught doing that should apologise and shuffle off discretely rather than come back with more non-philosophy.

Also, bear in mind that MachineElf followed Walkinxyz here from [a previous article|Appeal to nature]] where he did little else but test Walkinxyz's and my own patience also. So then he thought it entirely appropriate he should get involved with this dispute too.

I'm pretty much out after my previous experience (with m.e.) , except for warring when necessary (no wasted discussion and certainly bloodless), and contributing links and diffs to a proper review of this situation in the wikiproject - if it might ever muster one. If you are an intelligent wikipedian or an admin?, all this is more your concern than mine.

Whatever Walkinxyz managed to make out of the hassle (much of his new content is currently precariously threatened by article subject having been restricted to "logic") - his neighbours have not been helping him at all.

Lisnabreeny (talk) 23:40, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Reality check

(Misquoting T.S. Elliot) Leave your empty forms in ivory towers and participate in Reality! The article sucks (like vacuum of a box filled to the brim with nothing). But this WikiProject rates it as "High importance", and the Version 1.0 Editorial Team rates it as a "vital article". Check it out. The nothing article is also lacking, so check it out, too (checking an empty box does not always mean its then full). PPdd (talk) 16:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Secularism

I've listed this article here because I am hoping to get this up to the status of a Good Article but I need major helping doing so. The article is in really bad shape and needs some major work on it. I wish I can get some editors to work on it and maybe help me because I honestly dont think I can get to GA standards on my own. We can have a standard article for other wikipedia projects to translate from seeing how all of them are not up the standards that we have.

Thanks, The Egyptian Liberal (talk) 04:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Philosophy of perception lede

I consider the recent rewrite of my recent rewrite rather unfortunate. Those interested in the field, please see my remarks: Talk:Philosophy of perception#Lede rewrite (April 2011). Morton Shumway—talk 13:59, 13 April 2011 (UTC).