Talk:Philosophy

Branches of Art

I understand that the branches being considered are modern, however these are not the classical philosophical branches; namely political, mind, language and religion. I believe these should be deleted and the subjects should be only the classical branches, those are mostly what are part of a Philosophical education. Sovereignlance (talk) 03:02, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

20th century philosophers

Current list: Husserl, Russell, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Carnap, Popper, Sartre, Quine, Derrida, Lewis.

Husserl, Russell, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Quine, and Lewis all have at least two independent sources stating they are "major/most important philosophers of the 20th century". That leaves Carnap, Popper, Sartre, and Derrida undersourced. Popper doesn't even have a single source describing him as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, merely that he is an "important philosopher of science". It's been over a week since the editors here agreed on double-sourcing. Shall I go ahead and remove Carnap, Popper, Sartre, and Derrida now? 271828182 (talk) 21:22, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I've never said double sourcing is a preference, I've just said I can accept it if necessary. I would imagine others think in a similar way. What I've said more strongly though is that if there is disagreement likely I strongly suggest have a "keep" bias.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:33, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The Popper citation is still being misread. The SEP says several things, but the last thing it does is say that he is merely a phlosopher of science. It emphasizes that his philosophical work cannot be reduced to his work in philosophy of science. Check it out. Also, without wishing to sink the wheels too far into the mud, I think the line drawn in the sand by User:271828182 is arbitrary. There is an inappropriate insistence on finding just a particular form of words. Looking back, the rejection of Davidson on the grounds that he was one of the most important philosophers only of the second half of the twentieth century seems indefensible. He was only in his early thirties when the second half of the century began - how could he have been important throughout? This is just one example. Given the paucity of sources examined, I can't support rejecting this or that philosopher just because the form of words used by the author doesn't match an arbitrary standard.KD Tries Again (talk) 19:45, 21 November 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again

Fair enough. The SEP entry says Popper is (i) one of the most important philosophers of science of the century, (ii) a political philosopher "of considerable stature", (iii) unusually influential outside of philosophy, and (iv) has an often-overlooked unity of philosophical vision. Nonetheless, I argue that being "one of the most important philosophers of X" is an unworkable criterion, since it would necessitate including figures such as Plantinga, Hick, Fodor, Searle, Davidson, Dummett, Rawls, Nozick, et al. Perhaps (iii) in conjunction with (i) is what separates him from the pack? Maybe, but borderline figures such as Kuhn, Chomsky, or Foucault would then be up for inclusion. As for arbitrariness, well, any criteria will be somewhat arbitrary -- being a "major philosopher of the century" could justify a hundred names -- but given the brevity of the sub-section and the difficulties inherent in any such list in a high-profile article, I am suggesting a fairly strict standard would be the simplest way to limit the sort of open-ended, unproductive edit wars we already find ourselves in. 271828182 (talk) 02:40, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

The quotes are unassailable, but the point is that the author is stressing that it's reductive to view Popper as only a major philosopher of science. But I am not supporting Popper's inclusion as such, just questioning the "strict standard." I fully understand that a lax standard would produce an endless list. But you see, that is exactly the problem with having a list. You're asking for a standard which is stricter - much stricter - than Wikipedia:RS. Fine for the few of us editing here right now, but it's an ad hoc approach which won't remain stable.KD Tries Again (talk) 06:48, 23 November 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again

Not having a list at all seems like an all-or-nothing false dilemma. And every other section of the history mentions the most important philosophers of each period. You may protest, "but not in a list!" but the prose is often little more than a list written as a sentence or paragraph. While I agree that prose is preferable, that would take still more time, and it would seem necessary to figure out who to mention first, before writing the prose. 271828182 (talk) 17:22, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

And many twentieth century philosophers are mentioned in the topic sections - the section on analytic philosophy, for example - and something, however inadequate, is said about their work rather than just that they are "important." I am not going to launch a resistance to what you're suggesting, but I can't really satisfy myself that a solid basis exists for principles like 'being "one of the most important philosophers of X" is an unworkable criterion.' After all, Husserl, Quine, Lewis - they all had very narrow areas of interest. None of them ranged across the subject like Plato or Kant or Hegel. It just happens that an editor here has found what is (arbitrarily) the right form of words.KD Tries Again (talk) 18:38, 26 November 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again

The topic sections are of variable quality, and the choice of topics is rather arbitrary (lumping all of analytic philosophy together is somewhat misleading). Philosophers today may not "range across the subject like Plato or Kant or Hegel", but neither are modern physicists like Newton. Nonetheless, a one-paragraph subsection on 20th century physics should prominently mention Einstein but probably not Bethe. I am trying to reflect what sources say, and if sources single out some 20th century philosophers more than others, that has a place in a sub-section like this. 271828182 (talk) 23:50, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The structure now is definitely confused. Here we are arguing about whether to include certain 20th century philosophers of lesser importance even within the 20th century, and yet there they are in the main theories section as if they are all-time greats. Obviously merging the most specifically 20th century main theories into the 20the century discussion should be able to make more people happy without adding size to the article, and at the same time avoiding the obvious danger of redundancy and of creating a false impression about what the real "eternal questions" are.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:31, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

"as if they are all-time greats" - No, not really. I don't think it was (or is) a rating thing. They came to be mentioned as one or more editors tried to do justice to a discussion of the topic. No bad thing, however imperfect.KD Tries Again (talk) 05:25, 27 November 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again

I do agree with that. I have discussed it above in more detail. My point is that in effect we have two sections about the 20th century, and merging them would avoid some of the debates about how adding a certain person would inflate the article un-duely.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:50, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

271828182, thanks for being bold and making an edit. I am not against people making actual edits, because this discussion has gone a long time. I think you turned the bullet points into prose and reduced the number of people? I think that it at least defines the problems. To me this looks worse, but I'll be interested to hear what others think. It is an amorphous block of text now, which I think should be divided up into sections. However it's overlap with 19th century and main themes also becomes more jarring if you do that. I still propose that if we are going to get rid of bullet points it becomes more urgent to divide up the 20th century and merge in most of the main themes discussion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. The edit was done in haste, so I am not satisfied with it either. But I think it reflects the consensus view of KD and others that prose paragraphs are preferable to a bullet list. Also the edit right now can serve as a stub for further development. (Not that I think the twentieth century section should be lengthier than the other historical sub-sections -- quite the contrary.) 271828182 (talk) 01:37, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

In effect, the 20th century is taking a lot of space now, because a big part of the main themes section is really only about the 20th century. OTOH, I do not think it is strange that the 20th century gets a fairly detailed discussion because (a) it was recent and therefore defines a lot of what is still being talked about today by students and professors and people reading about philosophy (i.e. it is NOTABLE) and (b) the 20th century, while not a great one for philosophy, is a complicated century because philosophy has been facing a crisis and splitting up and/or dissolving into specialist disciplines. ANYWAY, if this is not yet quite good enough for anyone I'd suggest being bold and trying to get it better rather than leaving the job half done. People can always revert you of course but then at least you've shown you're vision more clearly.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:47, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Google Preview

On the internet search engine Google, is a short description of Philosophy, as given by Wikipedia, and the description is the same as the first sentance of the introduction to this article, but at the end, the preview declares the philosophy is "bullshit". Here is the entry: Philosophy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language and it is bullshit. I am unsure of how one would fix such a problem, but I ask for someone to attemt to repair this preview. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.47.70.16 (talk) 19:11, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

All kinds of things on the internet contained material copied from Wikipedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:25, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I think his point is that the Google preview of this article still on Wikipedia is a preview of a vandalized version of this page. Their cache appears to be of the last revision from earlier today, which was vandalized.

Unfortunately, original poster, there's nothing we can do about that, but wait for Google to recache the page, which should be by tomorrow most likely. Sometimes this happens, but time wounds all heels. --Pfhorrest (talk) 22:53, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Lede

Reverted to Revision as of 10:36, December 13, 2010. No case made in discssion ofr insertion of It should be noted that philosophy is not seen by all as contained by rationality, and that philosophy may take the essence of rationality itself as a matter of study. Philogo (talk) 15:50, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

My own feeling looking at your proposal is your wording makes a simplistic, technically wrong and hard-to-understand comment out of what is actually a quite complex point. However the fact that philosophy can involve criticism of rationalism is worth mentioning somewhere in the article if it is not already. Note that no philosophy is not "contained by rationality" even if it criticized itself. In fact philosophy should always contain criticism of itself?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The proposal was not mine but that of User:90.202.85.123; I reverted his edit incorporating these words back to your version as of 10:36, December 13, 2010. (see history). Philogo (talk) 20:08, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry, anyway, that means I don't disagree with your reversion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:41, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh Dear, looks like 90.202.85.123 is v fond of his revision, but not justifying it here.Philogo (talk) 22:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Multiple problems with this proposed addition: (1) it's too vague, (2) it's imprecisely sourced (cf. other references, where the specific is quoted), (3) the proffered references are primary sources rather than the secondary or tertiary sources found in the other references (shall we cite Aristotle or Aquinas's definitions of philosophy?), (4) it's an immaterial addition to the lede (shall we note all the other things some philosopher or another has questioned about the nature of philosophy?). 271828182 (talk) 23:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Quite. I have invited 90.202.85.123 to discuss his proposal on this talk page. Suggest you and .--Andrew Lancaster encourage him to do so Philogo (talk) 00:12, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello there! The citations I have made are direct examples of philosophers working from outside or before the rules of rational argument - this is why it's not necessary to make use of secondary lit. Rational argument is certainly one mode of philosophical discourse, however it is not the only one - I feel this is an important area of philosophy to represent in an article such as this, especially whilst philosophers who disavow the method of rational argument where it is not applicable are mentioned. This is the case in Heidegger's discussion of moods in "What is Metaphysics?" where he explicitly calls doubt upon the suitability of such a mode of engagement with the phenomenon. Phenomenology itself, a whole movement in philosophy, is a descriptive, non-rational method of doing philosophy. As for the lucidity of my entry, I've since clarified what I was getting at - I'm a messy writer from time to time, guilty. 90.202.85.123 (talk) 01:17, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello 90.202.85.123 if it is you; please sign your edits so we know. You do you not appear to have responded to the comments above by Andrew Lancaster and 271828182 and me.Philogo (talk) 01:02, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey again, yes it's me. I've tidied up my addition to the article and would love your feedback, cheers.90.202.85.123 (talk) 01:16, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I do not think the following sentence you have added (never mind how true or well put or referenced)is appropriate in the lede. I think you should post suggested amendements to the lede on this page BEFORE you implement them. (You should be aware that the lede as was was arrived at by consensus among some twelve editors some many months ago and has remained remarkable stable ever since. As I recall it we spent at least a week and maybe 500 comments just on the rationality characterisation of philosophy.) Philogo (talk) 01:27, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

However, philosophy is not seen by all practitioners as limited by the methods of rational argument, and some philosophers see the suitability of such methods of engagement with problems as a matter for investigation.

With respect, it was my understanding when approaching the philosophy page that it was to provide a short summation of philosophy, which must of course be free from over-representing one view to the detriment of another. My intentions were not at all to sully the hard and admirable work of your good selves, but simply and humbly to make sure the lede was not misleading to any who read it. Any breach of wikipedian etiquette was not intentionally malicious, but simply sprang from unfamiliarity - I'm new to this community after all. In any case, happy to be on board! CsmSgn (talk) 01:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Note 271828182 said above it's an immaterial addition to the lede (shall we note all the other things some philosopher or another has questioned about the nature of philosophy?). and Andrew Lancaster said the fact that philosophy can involve criticism of rationalism is worth mentioning somewhere in the article if it is not already. You will see that prior to your edit the lede consisted of just three sentences. It was purposly terse. The second sentence It is distinguished by some from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument The purpose of that sentence was to differentiate Philosophy from other disciplines that might claim to be also be concerned with the matters outlined in the first sentence (e.g. Religion). I think we should revert to the orginal lede, and if you want to argue that the article should make your point somewhere then you should do so suggesting the appropriate section. If we accept into the lede one (metaphilosophical) view then to acheive balance we would have to admit a hundred others!Philogo (talk) 02:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the first practical concern is that if this type of thing is going to be mentioned it should at least be a clear and meaningful sentence. Then we'd have something to discuss. BTW the sourcing is also questionable. Let me put this another way: Would everyone agree that the two cited books of Nietzsche and Heidegger clearly are examples of "practitioners" who are not "limited by the methods of rational argument", and who see the "suitability" of "the methods of rational argument" for engaging "with problems" as a matter for investigation? Is it clear what the "methods of rational argument" even are in this context?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:18, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the first practical concern is whether the lede is reverted. If CsmSgn wants to argue that the article should include his sentence elsewhere he should do so in a new section below saying in what section of the article it should go. I note that Nietzsche and Heidegger are discussed in a section entitled Existentialism.Philogo (talk) 13:55, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it is dubious that this belongs in that section either. Rousseau was the first person to question whether reason was all it was cracked up to be. He influenced Kant, German Idealism, Burke, and Romanticism. From there we get people like Hegel, Nietzsche etc. But that does not mean any of them were not using rational argument themselves when "investigating" the "problems" of reason. So I think that yes, the sentence as it stands is not suitable. Practically I'd say that before discussing what might be acceptable though we should see proposals here on the talk page that actually make some uncontroversial and clear sense. Because philosophy is knowing you are ignorant, in the classical formulation, doubt about its own power goes back to the beginning and it is possible the subject of such doubt might be able to fitted properly in the lead.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure that Rousseau was the first person to question whether reason was all it was cracked; I am no historian but I thought such views were ten-a-penny. As you intimate the matter would be pertinent in the lede only if some philosophers of repute argued with irrationality being the basis and not the object of thier arugument, thus beng a caveat to the seond sentence in the lede. I still however believe that the first practical concern is whether the lede is reverted.Philogo (talk) 15:38, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes and no, and of course this is the problem - how to explain it in such a way that it is meaningful. Like I said, doubting the value of rationality is part of philosophy since the beginning, because philosophy in a sense studies doubts. There are all kinds of doubts about rationality. The doubt about whether it can discover what is true for example. Rousseau's doubts were a bit shocking and special in that doubted that man was even rational by nature, and therefore whether being a thoughtful person could make you unhappy. (Of course non philosophers always said that, but this was a philosopher saying it.) He is the ultimate source of some of the more "continental" and "post modern" angsts. I am not against reverting the lede. The current sentence does not say anything I think can be sourced. It might be intended to mean something else, but then by this stage it would be better to try ideas out here on a talk page and not on the article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:57, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

If it agreed we whould revert, then perhaps you better do it. I did it last time and I am wary of being party to a revert war.Philogo (talk) 16:06, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey again, been away from the computer for a week on yuletide family business - hope you're both having a good one! With regards the idea that to include one metaphilosophical position we would have to include a hundred - does this not stand also for the position that philosophy depends on rational argument? By your own admission, if we include one then we open the floodgates to more. If you do not want the lede to become too complicated then should we include either, at the risk of bias? As it stands the lede misrepresents philosophy as a whole. As mentioned, phenomenology is a descriptive, non-rational method of tackling philosophy - and much Eastern philosophy does not rely on rationality at all. To sell them both with the stamp of rationality is a huge oversight in my opinion. CsmSgn (talk) 13:32, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

As Philogo well knows, this argument has been going on for years! Hi, Philogo.

I fought for the position that if philosophy is by definition rational, then questions about rationality are by definition not philosophical questions, just as questions about whether or not we should accept the parallel postulate are by definition not questions within Euclidean geometry. I took the position that we should argue for rationality within philosophy instead of assuming rationality a priori.

This fight I lost. Have fun. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:45, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

My 2 cents. I see no reason to believe that defending itself is part of what defines philosophy. Philosophy is not like religion, and also for the same reason it is not like any fixed body of axioms and proofs such as found in Euclid. Indeed, when it comes to being critical of itself, philosophy is like the opposite of a fixed doctrine. I also see no way that you can have questioning, arguing etc about any subject as philosophical as rationality/reason itself, which is not philosophical in at least a broad sense.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:51, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Rick. Rick's argument that if philosophy is 'by definition' rational, then questions about rationality are 'by definition' not philosophical questions is apparently of the form if X is by definition Y then questions about Y are by definition not Xish questions which I find puzzling. Can Rick parse this in a way that it is clearly a logical truth? Can Rick give some other examples of arguments of this form? Does he mean (a) If maths is by definition numerical then numerical qustions are by definition not mathematical questions or (b) If music is (by definition) an art then questions about art are (by defintion) not musical questions. or (c) If Biology is (by definition) a science then scientific questions are (by definition) not biological questions. Sorry, I just cannot see how the preceeding three sentences are necessarily true. Perhaps I am just a bit thick, innitPhilogo (talk) 16:27, 22 December 2010 (UTC).

We are not trying to stipulate a "true" definition of philosophy (whatever that would be). This is an encyclopedia, not an essay in metaphilosophy. As such, the lede needs to contain a well-sourced explanation of how the word "philosophy" is used. Heidegger and Nietzsche are partisan primary sources, and as such don't fit Wikipedia policies for preferred sources: just as it would be wildly inappropriate to cite L. Ron Hubbard in the lede paragraph for an article on psychology, or Young Earth creationism in the lede of an article on cosmology. An encyclopedia article does not need to reflect all views, and the view that rationality is optional is a fringe view. WP:FRINGE 271828182 (talk) 20:37, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I do not think this is the right explanation of the problem. If Nietzsche and Heidegger said something clearly and agreed on it, it would be very notable and we could consider it. Comparing them to L Ron Hubbard is just plain weird. Fact is that to distill the words we are talking about from Nietzsche and Heidegger requires a lot of creativity and is not uncontroversial.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:02, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Andrew here. Part of the problem is that people confuse rational with empirical and forget about concepts such as coherence and abduction. Rational is a broad church with many houses, but its opposite is irrational which has no place in philosophy, and never has. --Snowded ^TALK 08:04, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, don't know if this helps, but one complexity to this is though that it is possible to have a rational argument defending not being rational. I think this type of rational argument, found in Rousseau and Nietzsche, is what is causing confusion. Thing is that both these gentlemen knew they were being rational about being irrational, and could not avoid that because they were philosophers. And the problem, they realized, was also a problem for non-philosophers. All mdoern people are basically brought up rationally. Their questions were about whether this is really good.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:03, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Snowded. Every time I see your name, I think, "Where are the Snowdeds of yesteryear?"

To answer Philogo's question, I'll try to be more clear. If philosophy is by definition rational, then a person, usually considered a philosopher, who argues irrationally, as in "The word that can be spoken is not the true word," is not "really" a philosopher. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:43, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Rick: That's quite different to if philosophy is 'by definition' rational, then questions about rationality are 'by definition' not philosophical questions and seems to be of the form If by definition doing X is doing Y then if Z is doing not-Y then Z is not doing X (As in If running is by definition moving quickly then if Z moving un-quickly then Z is not running.). However I am sure you would agree it does allow the possibility of e.g. somebody arguing rationally (not necessarily correctly) that arguing rationally does not necessarly result in significant truth (easy e.g. valid but unsound argument). Wittgenstein seems to argue thus in Tractatus LP. Philogo (talk) 14:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

My thoughts on this matter: the current lede is defining philosophy in terms of its use of rational methodology. But philosophy, being by its nature reflexive, takes its methodologies also as its subject matter; and in that vein the proposed change to the lede is stating that philosophers sometimes question rational methodologies. But that does not contradict the definition of philosophy in terms of rational methodology, for as Andrew says above, the philosophers who question rational methodologies are doing so using rational methodologies... as opposed to, say, painting abstract art "challenging the hegemony of rationality in the modern world" or something, which would not be a rational method of questioning rationality.

The upshot: the proposed lede is true enough, in spirit anyway, but doesn't serve the "balancing" purpose that its contributor seems motivated by, because it doesn't actually add any kind of qualification to the definition of philosophy. It's sort of a tangential aside about some conclusions in one subject area of philosophy, in a sentence about the methods of philosophy (with the confusion coming about because philosophy takes its methods as one of its subject areas), and as such I don't think it belongs in the lede. But maybe something about this could be elaborated upon in Metaphilosophy? (Which, by the way, I still think needs a summary here {{main}}'d to that article). --Pfhorrest (talk) 19:08, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

A thought on this: maybe add a phrase like "While the definition and methods of philosophy are themselves subjects of philosophical debate..." to the beginning of the second lede sentence in question.? --Pfhorrest (talk)

That would need to be sourced. Note that the current lede is quite precisely and robustly sourced. 271828182 (talk) 01:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Nothing could be easier; that sentence is no more than noting "hey by the way metaphilosophy exists". I'm just feeling out for thoughts on this approach as a resolution to the lengthy debate above which seems to have died out without resolution.

A quick first-page-of-Google source, from the IEP article Contemporary Metaphilosophy, which begins: "What is philosophy? What is philosophy for? How should philosophy be done? These are metaphilosophical questions, metaphilosophy being the study of the nature of philosophy..."

"What is philosophy?" and "How should philosophy be done?" are questions about the definition and methods of philosophy if I've ever heard them, and metaphilosophy is a branch of philosophy, therefore philosophy investigates questions about its own definition and methods. --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:17, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, a serious question

Do all organisms inherently have what we would call philosophies? Do you have to call it a "philosophy" (or have a language or anything to even 'isolate' concept at all?) I don't mean a "love of wisdom" (the most useless etymology I have ever come across), but rather a standardized set of beliefs about the nature of the world? Even if they are primitive or not expressed in a human language or anything useful to us at all? I am not some moron saying "I think my cat is a logical positivist" (but if any of you wanna use that as a bumper sticker can I get some money kicked my way from the sales?). But I mean, like, when they teach gorillas to "use" sign language, is it actually developing a set of values about the fundamental nature of life, or are we really just making it act "like us" for, to be quite blunt about it, our amusement? (I'm not asserting that the gorilla would or could or even "should" understand the finer points, but since when did that disqualify any of us "highly-evolved" blobs from allowing the same for ourselves?) So, back to the point: Supposing that language or nuance are not defining characteristics of "thought" or "thought development" or "expression" (i.e., we all know that a dog growling is a sign of displeasure or anger -- even though the way the dog expresses himself is non-linguistic and very simple), do all organisms have philosophies, and does this merit inclusion in the article. 98.247.228.141 (talk) 10:58, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

PS: Yes I understand that the use of the word "standardized" betrays some obvious & inherently human thinking that probably leads, somewhere down the line to logical fallacy if probed or deconstructed enough. Yes yes, very douchey academic talk all around. 98.247.228.141 (talk) 11:18, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Find a serious reference that covers that point and it can be discussed. --Snowded ^TALK 11:25, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Recent edits series of edits by 271828182

I am a little uncomfortable about some reasonably significant changes that have been recently. I know that we have discussed before how the handling of periods or eras in philosophy could be improved but some of these changes seem over-simplistic and actually going in a direction for the worse. Attempts to tweak and adapt have been reverted. I have started some discussion on the above editor's talk page, but discussion has not gone very far so I would like to move discussion here and ask what others think.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:11, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Some notes on periods in philosophy. I consider the following to be a least controversial summary that will agree with almost any source which focuses on the particular periods being discussed:

1. The most basic and broad distinction is either simply between modern and pre-modern philosophy, or perhaps less controversially, between pre-Socratic, post-Socratic, and modern. The turn turning points are Socrates and/or Plato on the one hand and Bacon and/or Descartes on the other.

2. Post Socratic philosophy can be divided many ways, but Hellenistic, then Medieval, then Renaissance (as in the current article) is reasonable as long as it is understood that Renaissance humanism is just a new flavor in this tradition and to include people who made a fundamental break with that tradition such as Machiavelli is going to be controversial. Effectively, classical philosophy in the broad sense survived strongly until the 18th century and over-lapped with modernity. (So trying not to mention this overlap so as to make the schemes all neat is misleading.)

3. Machiavelli is a fore-runner of modernism. He opposed the Socratic approach to reality of taking one's bearings from ideals, arguing that in practice this can lead to bad and not good results, and instead he argued that people should take their bearings from real experiences, meaning that people should also read mainly about things that really happened. This is precisely what Bacon then argued in the bigger scheme of how to study nature as a whole. Bacon named Machiavelli as an inspiration on several occasions, and these connections have been commented on in published studies despite the fact that this early period is not the most popular amongst academics. Machiavelli is certainly not a humanist in any normal sense of the term. He might be chronologically a Renaissance event, but not a typical philosopher of the period.

4. Modernism can be divided different ways, but the key turning points are generally described as (not counting Machiavelli and the "pre-modernists" like Bodin and Montaigne) Bacon and/or Descartes, then Rousseau and/or Kant, then Nietzsche and/or Kierkegaard. But again this should not be over-simplified. The second and third waves represent not so much new doctrines as doubts and debates, and the pre-Rousseauian first wave of modernity still basically provides the core of the fields in modern life: economics, science, politics, legal theory, etc. (That's why these divisions are within modern philosophy in its broadest description, not new eras.)

5. One conclusion out of this which I feel from previous discussions is widely agreed with here is that there are overlaps, and that categories like the above are not meant to be strictly chronological even if there might be textbooks which handle them this way. I feel concerned that recent edits have however pushed for that approach.

Comments?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Since you are singling me out, I will paste my most recent response to your points from my Talk page, to save time:

Your claim that "Machiavelli, Bodin and Grotius are quite obviously mentioned in many works as early modern philosophers", like much of what you have said above, is unwarranted by the literature, at least for the first two. It is silly to accuse me of original research when I am presenting multiple verifiable sources for my edits — reference works from the most prestigious university presses, reflecting the most recent scholarship — while you have presented no sources at all, just empty proof substitute hand-waving about what you regard as "quite obvious". As I said, Grotius does turn up in reference works on the early modern period. If you wish to relocate him to the long list in early modern, I will not object. (I had him there when I was drafting it myself, but moved him when I noticed he was already mentioned in the earlier section, and felt a specific tie to political philosophy was more desirable than the current, temporary laundry list in early modern.) Yes, there are no sharply-cut boundaries in the history of philosophy, but given the current structure of this section of the article — which is by its nature chronological — choices have to be made about where to mention philosophers. I suggest those choices must be guided by verifiable sources, preferably of the reference work variety that WP guidelines suggest. I have given such sources to answer your criticisms. What else do you want?

I, for one, find very little of what you wrote above to be "a least controversial summary that will agree with almost any source" on the history of philosophy. In short, give sources for your claims, not just watered-down Strauss. (I see now where you get your taste for proof substitutes.) 271828182 (talk) 19:23, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

1. Leo Strauss is indeed one WP:RS whose works could be used to source the above. As I did not mention him, you apparently ask for sourcing for some sort of rhetorical effect. Not everything Strauss said was controversial of course, far from it. Is that what you are trying to imply? If so then it would not be difficult to find a source which disagrees with me, given that we already have one that agrees with me. There are not so many recent authors who spent a lot of time on this particular subject, but I think most or all of them basically agree.

2. Coming to your reproduced reply please consider what exactly it is I am calling original research. Just because you find a work which says Machiavelli and Bodin were in the Renaissance, this does not mean you have found a source which says they are uncontroversially categorized as Renaissance humanists, and it certainly does not justify a creative over-simplification of the history of philosophy so that all philosophical movements fit into exact chronologically defined periods. They over-lapped, and some sources write about the Renaissance as a chronological period while others write about the typical philosophy of that period. However, the main theme of your recent edits is to remove any "illogical" signs of this. Please find a source for the way in which your edits seem to be insisting that there were no such over-laps? It is easy to source remarks from all sorts of commentators saying that Machiavelli and Bodin are absolutely untypical of their period, and a foretaste of modern philosophy. If you know anything about this subject you already know that.

3. Please also cease aggressively reverting all my recent attempts to edit this article. Where's that going? Your edits are way too unilateral at the moment.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

1. Regarding Strauss, I will refer the interested reader to Myles Burnyeat's 1985 article in the NYRB: [1] For those without access to its full text, one relevant sentence and its footnote:

Straussians know that the considered judgment of the scholarly non-Straussian world is that, while Strauss’s interpretation of the history of political thought contains some valuable insights, much of it is a tale full of sound and fury and extraordinary inaccuracies. [Footnote: For scathing judgments on parts of Strauss's work that I have not had occasion to mention, in each case by a scholar much respected in the field, it is worth looking up Terence Irwin's review of Xenophon's Socrates (Cornell University Press, 1972) in The Philosophical Review 83 (1974), pp. 409–413; Trevor Saunders's review of The Argument and the Action of Plato's Laws (University of Chicago Press, 1975) in Political Theory 4 (1976), pp. 239–242; and the assessment of Straussian readings of Locke in John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke (Cambridge University Press, 1969), chapter 12. The frustrations that outsiders experience when they try to engage in scholarly discussion with initiates are well illustrated by J. G. A. Pocock's attempt to debate Strauss's Machiavelli with Harvey Mansfield in Political Theory 3 (1975), pp. 372–405.]

The referenced exchange between Pocock and Mansfield is illuminating for exposing the shakiness of Strauss as an expert on Machiavelli.

2. The article doesn't say Machiavelli and Bodin are uncontroversially categorized as Renaissance humanists. As I said above, there are no sharply-cut boundaries in the history of philosophy, yes. That doesn't mean you can move Machiavelli and Bodin into a category where no source puts them (early modern), while removing them from a category where multiple sources put them (Renaissance). Again, you hand-wave about how it's "easy to source remarks from all sorts of commentators" without offering a single source. I've given several. If it's so easy, give some. Please make sure they're not Straussians and they use the term "early modern philosophy" in the sense established by current expert consensus.

3. The sentence introducing the history sub-sections should reflect those sub-sections, which is why I wrote the sentence that way, and I offered multiple sources to back it up. You're the one reverting sourced content in favor of unsourced opinion. I invite interested editors to look at the edits and judge for themselves. 271828182 (talk) 21:05, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Burnyeat, as far as I know, is not relevant to the subject we are discussing. If you can cite Pocock in order to back your case up on the subject we are discussing then please do. Otherwise I think your remarks above are just a distraction. I've been spending a lot of time on Machiavelli articles, and I've used Pocock, Strauss, Mansfield, Marcus Fischer, Rahe, Skinner, and whoever else writes about him, as we should. Would you argue that we should only use Pocock on Wikipedia for anything about Machiavelli? Anyway, though they may emphasize things different ways, they also agree on many things, and no commentator I am aware supports the exact synthesized approach you have put together, and neither do the sources you cite. While academics can get nasty about each other, their disagreements are not always as big as they seem. I think your point 3 is pretty much the real core of your case, and not any real source you have. In other words, I asked you to give a source which disagrees with what I called uncontroversial (given that you already knew sources that agree) but in fact the only one you are using for what I object to is this Wikipedia article itself. You are doing this in the name of making the logical structure tighter. The problem is that reality outside Wikipedia does not have the same tightly logical structure. If there is no simple consensus we have no right to pretend there is one. See WP:NEUTRAL.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Upon reflection, perhaps I should spell out a bit more my understanding of your edits, based on your own explanations on your talk page and in edit summaries, because I have left it in between the lines above. Basically, your main reason for wanting to aggressively insist on removing all reference to Machiavelli, Grotius etc being untypical of the Renaissance, and/or precursors of modernity, and also the reason that you have even argued that Bacon is supposedly only a borderline modern, whose position you have therefore de-emphasized considerably, is simply the years they were active in, and whether they were before 1600 or after, or, as in the case of Bacon, both before and after. That is what I refer to as your only justification being tightening up of the logical structure of the article. Your edits went hand in hand with adjusting the starts and ends mentioned in the titles for the periods involved. It is nothing to do with any balancing of sources. Bacon is not a borderline Modernist philosopher, but recognized by Kant, Hume, Vico, Leibniz, d'Alembert, Rousseau, etc as the philosophical starting point of modern science; and more generally, willfully deleting or obfuscating any mention of how certain pre 1600 authors are seen as precursors of modern philosophy, something you know at least some sources for, has no justification even if it were controversial. (If it were controversial we could discuss how to balance the article, not how to delete all mention of one view.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:15, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

The Burnyeat quote is relevant to show that your offering Strauss as a reliable source demonstrates your view is outside mainstream scholarship. A mystifying aspect of your quarrel: the philosophers named in the Renaissance sub-section have been there for many months (Machiavelli for at least a year). I wasn't initially editing the Renaissance section (which I regarded as mostly satisfactory), I was primarily editing the Early Modern section. Machiavelli, Bodin, and Grotius were all in the Renaissance section before my allegedly "aggressive" edits. All I did was provide verifiable sources for content that was already there. And again, I repeat that you will not find Machiavelli or Bodin discussed in current reference works on Early Modern Philosophy. Check Rutherford, Nadler, Garber & Ayers' Cambridge History, Copleston (who puts Bacon and Grotius as well in the Renaissance), and volumes 4 and 5 in the Oxford History of Western Philosophy. Kenny's New History has Machiavelli in his third volume, but that is because he includes the Renaissance as a whole in that volume. I'm not the one trying to insert a questionable Straussian POV account of "modernity" into a capsule history section of an introductory encyclopedia article. I am trying to improve the article by removing unsubstantiated, vague, clumsily-written POV in favor of clear, concise neutral claims that are amply supported by citations from scholarly reference works reflecting current expert consensus. 271828182 (talk) 06:26, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• If your argument is that anything Leo Strauss would agree with must not be reliably sourced then obviously that argument is not going to go very far. Not only are Strauss (and Mansfield) obviously reliable sources by all WP definitions, but (unsurprisingly!) not everything they would agree with is even controversial to Cambridge School authors. And I have never said that the uncontroversial summary above was based on Strauss and Mansfield. You mentioned them as people who would agree with the summary as part of a remark which, strangely enough was supposedly arguing that I had no source. But for my own part I believe it can be sourced from pretty much anybody working on this period. One of the most recent sources from the Pocock/Skinner approach which contains a lot of commentary which is very much in line with this theme of Machiavelli being a forebear of modernity which you say they disagree with is: Bock, Gisela (1990), Machiavelli and Republicanism, Cambridge University Press {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help). I do not see my attempted uncontroversial summary as "Straussian" and you've not yet given any explanation about why you think it is controversial in any way. You are just changing the subject.
• But more to the point, we are not arguing about fine points or the history of methodological arguments between academics. This article is about philosophy as a whole and only needs a few carefully chosen words for each "moment". So please consider: Pocock and the "Cambridge School" like to emphasize to a controversial extent how famous authors were just products of their time; Strauss and the "Straussians" like to emphasize to a controversial extent the opposite, and they emphasize the importance of big name individuals. That does not mean they disagree about everything, and indeed they do not.
• Your reference to the disagreements between Mansfield and Pocock has no relevance at all to your own personal position that you want to delete reference to the fact that certain people in the 1500s are generally seen as being untypical of the 1500s and precursors of modern philosophy more well known in the 1600s. You are just personally trying to line up reality with convenient dates.
• Your reference to some generalist works which place certain people in 1500s as a time period (and do so in different ways) does not address this at all and is no "canonical" justification for deleting information which can be well sourced and which does not disagree with general remarks about dates. I can not think of a single work about Machiavelli, Grotius, or Bodin which denies the normal argument that such individuals as precursors of modernity and as people who do not fit the normal mold of their time.
• In exactly the same way, your sources can not be used to prove that humanism ended in the 1600s. The year 1600 simply does not have the importance you are giving it with your edits appear to demand. You are effectively deleting mention of the importance of individuals whenever they do not fit neatly in a chronological scheme you are developing. But in fact not fitting in with one's time is exactly what makes some individuals so interesting and important.
• What I have found aggressive in your editing is your knee jerk deletions and reversions of attempts to link anyone writing before 1600 with modern philosophy. I am asking you to give a good reason for these actions or else stop such editing and please if you now understand my point, review what you have done and consider whether it can truly be justified. What my concern basically comes down to is that we should not be distorting sources in order to fit a neat chronology.
• One way to respond in a way which would show good faith would be to actually explain what you think is controversial in my attempt to write a non controversial summary above. I think I could even find talk page postings by you which show that you agree with a lot of it? If your whole point does not come down to just wanting to line facts up artificially with dates, then please show it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:16, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

WP articles should not advance POV or OR. Being a "precursor of modernity" does not make someone modern, or else we could discuss Callicles and Protagoras in the modern section, too. This is a capsule summary of the history of philosophy, not an interpretative essay on who is "untypical of their time" or "what makes some individuals so interesting and important". It's bizarre (but very Straussian, of course) for you to accuse me of "distorting" or asking me to "justify" my edits when all I am doing is sticking to the sources and the facts. Chronology is a fact. Machiavelli died in 1527. Discussing him in a section on 1600-1800 is unjustified. That's not "wanting to line facts up artificially with dates", that's wanting facts to line up with, well, facts. 271828182 (talk) 00:27, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Trying to paint someone as a "Straussian" just because they've read Strauss along with other commentators on Machiavelli is nonsensical and also clearly ad hominem. Anyone who studies Machiavelli should read Strauss and Skinner and Baron etc. I've asked you to cite anyone to back your position. Please let's stick to the problem I actually raised, and not some fake one...

• Your insistence that the sections are purely chronological is problematic and clearly not based on any consensus, because this has been discussed before here. Your sources can not help us decide on whether to work this way because this is an editing question.
• Your claim to be concerned with no wanting to have to go too much in detail in this article would seem to me to be a poor justification for using sections in a strictly chronological way, because this method will distort inevitably UNLESS extra comments are included. That's why I prefer to move pre-modernists from the 1500s to an introductory paragraph in the early modern section.
• But if the sections are going to be purely chronological, and we are going to put all modernists from the 1500s in "Renaissance philosophy" then it is obviously not strange that we would want to separate the authors generally given as exemplary Rennaissance philosophers as such, from those who are not generally seen this way. Right now a very distorted impression is being given which does nor reflect mainstream thinking at all. Deletion of sourced or source-able comments trying to make such a mainstream and obvious distinction are problematic, surely? And this is nothing to do with what your sources tell you. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

271828182, just for example,

• Please give a reference which lists Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas More, Justus Lipsius, Jean Bodin, and Hugo Grotius as forming a recognized category of "secular political philosophers" known as "Reformers" (capital R).
• Please give one which says that this Reformers group all "showed little direct interest in philosophy"
• And perhaps one which says that this group known as the Reformers, even though it includes Thomas More, destroyed "the traditional foundations of theological and intellectual authority" in a way which "harmonized with the revival of fideism and skepticism in thinkers such as Erasmus, Montaigne and Francisco Sanches".
• And why are Erasmus, Montaigne and Sanches being grouped in contradistinction to that other group? Is Montaigne less "destructive" than Thomas More?
• Please give a source which says that Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant are "canonical" in early modern philosophy while Bacon and Hobbes are not. Canonical is a strong word and should be strongly sourced. The source you cite only says the list you call canonical are examples, not even canonical example, of empiricists and rationalists.
• If we are going to be mentioning individuals who were not necessarily philosophers, but just somehow important to philosophy on a purely chronological basis then why are Galileo, Kepler and Copernicus not mentioned?

In short, the categories now implied have become terribly garbled, mixing vague hints about Renaissance philosophy itself (but mainly only its last phase) with all kinds of other things linked because they happened in the 1500s. No reader of this section would be able to get a basic summary of who the typical examples of Renaissance philosophy are because most of the people mentioned are 1500s individuals who are difficult to categorize (Machiavelli and Montaigne are famously so). Averroism is not even mentioned at all for example, and it is implied that Aristotelianism was not part of Renaissance philosophy, only "anti-Aristotelianism". That is wrong. Just because you put up footnotes that does not mean your sources actually justify your edits. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I am also going to supply some easy-to-find but just typical comments of the sort I am sure you already know can be found all over the place, which show how especially Bacon, and only slightly less clearly Machiavelli, are seen as starting points for certain aspects of modern philosophy. The purpose is simply to show that your claims that no one has said such things are simply disingenuous...--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Bacon quotes

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/francis-bacon/

• Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was one of the leading figures in natural philosophy and in the field of scientific methodology in the period of transition from the Renaissance to the early modern era.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/bacon

• adulatory ... assessments were offered by learned contemporaries or near contemporaries from Descartes and Gassendi to Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle. Leibniz was particularly generous and observed that, compared to Bacon’s philosophical range and lofty vision, even a great genius like Descartes “creeps on the ground.”
• The response of the later Enlightenment ... a majority of thinkers lavishly praising Bacon while a dissenting minority castigated or even ridiculed him. The French encyclopedists Jean d’Alembert and Denis Diderot sounded the keynote of this 18th-century re-assessment, essentially hailing Bacon as a founding father of the modern era and emblazoning his name on the front page of the Encyclopedia. In a similar gesture, Kant dedicated his Critique of Pure Reason to Bacon and likewise saluted him as an early architect of modernity.
• no historian of science or philosophy doubts his immense importance both as a proselytizer on behalf of the empirical method and as an advocate of sweeping intellectual reform
• opinion varies widely as to the actual social value and moral significance of the ideas that he represented and effectively bequeathed to us. The issue basically comes down to one’s estimate of or sympathy for the entire Enlightenment/Utilitarian project
• In the end we can say that he was one of the giant figures of intellectual history – and as brilliant, and flawed, a philosopher as he was a statesman.

Bodin

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bodin/

• when historians do not compare Bodin to Machiavelli, they study often Bodin in comparison to those who came after him: Grotius, Althusius, Locke, and particularly Hobbes, Montesquieu and Rousseau

Machiavelli

http://www.iep.utm.edu/hobmoral/

• Machiavelli appears as the first modern political thinker, because like Hobbes he was no longer prepared to talk about politics in terms set by religious faith (indeed, he was still more offensive than Hobbes to many orthodox believers), instead, he looked upon politics as a secular discipline divorced from theology.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/machiavelli/

• Machiavelli lays claim to the mantle of the founder of “modern” political science, in contrast with Aristotle's classical norm-laden vision of a political science of virtue
• Machiavelli has also been credited (most recently by Skinner 1978) with formulating for the first time the “modern concept of the state,” understood in the broadly Weberian sense of an impersonal form of rule possessing a monopoly of coercive authority within a set territorial boundary.
• What is “modern” or “original” in Machiavelli's thought? What is Machiavelli's “place” in the history of Western ideas? The body of literature debating this question, especially in connection with The Prince and Discourses, has grown to truly staggering proportions.
• Thus, Machiavelli ought not really to be classified as either purely an "ancient" or a "modern," but instead deserves to be located in the interstices between the two.

Finally, some sources (albeit only two online encyclopedias). About them: (1) the Machiavelli source concludes he shouldn't be classified as either ancient or modern — which rather resembles where he is currently in the article. So your source flatly flies against your own view. (2) The quote on Bodin merely says who he is commonly compared to, which implies nothing about whether he is an "early modern philosopher". (3) The very first quote from the Bacon article agrees exactly with my view, which you scoffed at only days ago: that he straddles the borderline between the Renaissance and early modern period. The rest of the quotes do nothing but point out that many later figures admired him. So what? You seem to have misunderstood my edit referring to some philosophers as "canonical". I am not saying these seven are the most important and everyone else is an also-ran: I am citing two expert sources who describe the Descartes-to-Kant sequence as canonical, as in a standard set of instructional texts. Adding Bacon, Hobbes, and Rousseau to that list, regardless of what you or I think, isn't verifiable content. So I am going to revert that particular edit. I gave two sources, both use the word "canonical", neither of which you appear to have read correctly.

Speaking which, you have simply misread the paragraph containing Machiavelli.

These new movements in philosophy developed contemporaneously with larger political and religious transformations in Europe: the decline of feudalism and the Reformation. The rise of the monarchic nation-state found voice in increasingly secular political philosophies, as in the work of Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas More, Justus Lipsius, Jean Bodin, and Hugo Grotius.[18][19] And while the Reformers showed little direct interest in philosophy, their destruction of the traditional foundations of theological and intellectual authority harmonized with the revival of fideism and skepticism in thinkers such as Erasmus, Montaigne and Francisco Sanches.[20][21]

This highly condensed summary paragraph deals with two topics, as indicated by the opening sentence: politics and religion. The second sentence concerns political thought. The third sentence concerns religious thought. Thus, the "Reformers" being referred to are Luther, Calvin, et al. (as attentive readers might have guessed from the capitalization). It is not a reference to Machiavelli & co. at all. Really, try not to edit until you have understood what you are editing. As for your challenge to provide a source for grouping Machiavelli et al together as Renaissance political thinkers developing new ideas about the state: I already did. Open the two books cited (sorry if they are not online, you may have to go to a library) and read the pages cited, and you will find all of the thinkers in that list discussed in those pages. Last, again, until you starting raising this fuss, I wasn't editing the Renaissance section. So interrogating me about who is and who isn't mentioned there is bizarre. I've added some references, copy-edited, and re-organized it in the past year, but for the most part I didn't write it. 271828182 (talk) 23:37, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

reply

• Finally, some sources. You've already shown in your discussion above that you know of sources. This discussion is not really about sourcing.
• the Machiavelli source concludes he shouldn't be classified as either ancient or modern — which rather resembles where he is currently in the article. The article mentions, and is correct in doing so, that there are many sources which say Machiavelli is modern. So WP should probably take a position which allows for both sides also, right? And yet you've resisted any attempts to mention any such ambiguity even. You want him described purely as a renaissance writer. Or have I misunderstood your frequent edits to this effect? Please respond.
• The rest of the quotes do nothing but point out that many later figures admired him. Far from it. Many of the quotes insist on his status as the key starting point of modernity. One of the modern quotes also actually equates his legacy with the Enlightenment. That makes him as "canonical" as anyone, surely? (And this does not make it wrong either to say that he straddles with the Renaissance. So do all the early modern philosophers, surely? Not my oft repeated point that these things are not as clean as you are trying to make them.)
• You seem to have misunderstood my edit referring to some philosophers as "canonical". English works in ways independent of your intentions and so if what you write gives a message you claim not to insist on, please change that wording or allow others to do so without reverting them.
• I am citing two expert sources who describe the Descartes-to-Kant sequence as canonical, as in a standard set of instructional texts. Adding Bacon, Hobbes, and Rousseau to that list, regardless of what you or I think, isn't verifiable content. I removed the word canonical because I do not see any reason why WP needs to accept such judgements from single authors or groups of authors. So that takes away that problem and allow us to use more than one source. Your statement that the importance of Bacon, Hobbes and Rousseau is un-verifiable is breath-takingly tendentious. Concerning Bacon, look at the quotes above just as a starter. Are d'Alembert, Leibniz, Kant, and so on really people we can just ignore when they all agree on this?
• you have simply misread the paragraph containing Machiavelli. I quoted it directly and asked for sources. You clearly can't defend it. If the words can however be read as saying different things then please make them less ambiguous or allow others to do so.
• for the most part I didn't write it. Perhaps not, but you are aggressively reverting anyone who tries to change it! As mentioned immediately above you are arguing that someone who wants to change it must not understand it. So your excuse is pretty weak?

I note you've continued reverting all attempts to improve the article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:18, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the issue all along has been about sources. You still don't have any to justify moving Machiavelli or Bodin to the early modern section. The quotes you finally got around to unearthing from two online encyclopedias don't even justify it either, as I already pointed out. You continue to misread what I am defending (e.g., I am not saying Bacon, Hobbes, and Rousseau are unimportant — far from it, as I recently added to the article — but I am saying we can't describe them as "canonical" figures in early modern philosophy in the Descartes-to-Kant sequence without a source). I did defend the paragraph, and added a clarification for inattentive readers (as opposed to making a hash of the concluding sentence). You are wasting time with strawmen: I am not saying anyone who wants to change it must not understand it, I just pointed out YOU didn't understand it, and hence you shouldn't have changed it. 271828182 (talk) 08:37, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of straw men, you are apparently not reading what I write...

• I have tried different compromises which you have rejected, and I have not insisted on Machiavelli and Bodin being in the modern section. I have raised general concerns about this strictly chronological approach but I am willing to accept it if others do. More importantly, even if we use this approach, I have also raised concerns them being presented as if they were typical of the Renaissance when you and I both already know that sources tend to discuss them more as predecessors of modernity than as typical Renaissance writers. It would be easy to explain this in many different ways without adding many words.
• Concerning the word canonical I have argued we should not use that word at all, and also there is no reason why you should be allowed to use your insistence on this word as an argument which "disqualifies" all sources that do not use the word. This appears to be just a subtle way of trying to make sure your favored authors are being used exclusively.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

(1) You and I know no such thing, as you have still yet to give any evidence that "sources tend to discuss them more as predecessors of modernity than as typical Renaissance writers". More generally, an article introducing philosophy is not the place for presenting judgments about who is "typical" of the Renaissance (whatever that means! this is a huge POV judgment) and who is a "predecessor of modernity" (same problems). If you want, introduce such complexities to the main article on Renaissance philosophy. Let's stick to clearly supportable overview here. (2) Let us review your "argument" against the word "canonical": "because I do not see any reason why WP needs to accept such judgements from single authors or groups of authors". WP reports verifiable encyclopedic content, which includes the consensus of experts. You seem to be ignorant of how "canonical" is being used here: it is not a judgment of greatness or importance, but a report of who the usual suspects are in philosophy curricula on the early modern period. If you knew anything about the topic, you'd know that (see Bruce Kuklick's classic essay on the topic in the Rorty/Schneewind/Skinner collection Philosophy in History). 271828182 (talk) 01:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• Yes you have reverted attempts to adjust the impression being given that Machiavelli etc are typical Renaissance philosophers.
• If this is not the place to discuss who is typical, then you should not be insisting on giving impressions about who is typical?
• I have given sourcing concerning the link between Machiavelli etc and modernity.
• More generally, if there is something else you want sourcing for please define it first. If this discussion is really about sourcing concerns then you could have tried to answer my attempt at the beginning of this discussion to ask you to define what you think is controversial. Please demonstrate your good faith and define any sourcing questions clearly.
• I see no reason to use the word "canonical". Why is it so important to you?
• You've demonstrated no "consensus" about who is "canonical" and to demonstrate consensus about something like that is both intrinsically difficult and I think also pointless given that we are trying to be encyclopedic.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:00, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The History of philosophy article solves problems such as these by largely dispensing with citations. This is not my period, so I don't have a dog in the race, but it seems clear that the philosophers under discussion are transitional figures. So long as they are correctly described, does it really matter whether they come at the end of one section or the beginning of the next?KD Tries Again (talk) 17:27, 19 January 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

No I do not think that is a critical point. I have expressed some preferences, but if I am being understood as mainly being concerned with the section in which transitional figures occur that is a misunderstanding. I have been worried by reverts and edits which seem to show an aim of not mentioning transitional figures as transitional figures, in order not to disrupt the "logical coherence" of the article's chronological sections.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:57, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Judgments about who is and is not "modern" are highly controversial, as the whole trend in the history of philosophy against Whiggish history and in favor of interpreting a philosopher in their historical context shows. Just as this article should not hail the Pre-Socratics as exemplifying truly Greek ways of thinking and Plato as foreshadowing Christianity, this introductory article should not take sides in declaring Bacon or Machiavelli as moderns. The Bacon IEP article [2], for example, is full of "on the one hand ... on the other" qualifiers. But you have selectively quoted only the "pro-modern", pro-Bacon judgments, the better to advance your preference. That's POV. As for "canonical", this is a description of the standard sequence of modern philosophy (3 rationalists vs. 3 empiricists). It is historically important and encyclopedic content, especially for an introductory article on philosophy. 271828182 (talk) 01:08, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

My suggestion: since we are editing by consensus, and it doesn't look very likely that the two editors engaged in this lengthy discussion are close to agreement, maybe each of you might post on this page - for discussion - how you think the sentences in dispute should read. This would make it easier for uninvolved editors to participate and help to find a resolution (or, you can both carry on arguing about it of course).KD Tries Again (talk) 05:10, 20 January 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

1. If Bacon, for example, is described in different ways by different sources, then logically we should keep the article neutral. I am not insisting on my preferences, but asking that 271828182 also do the same.

2. OTOH, please note that 271828182's preferences are not sourcing related at all. His main concern is to exclude sourcing that is confusing when compared to the "logical coherence" of the strict chronology he wants the article to be broken into.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:04, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there a brief summary of the issues here?

Is there a brief summary of the issues here? It's alot to read from scratch. HkFnsNGA (talk) 17:28, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Early Modern Philosophy

Might be worth a new section just in case anyone wants to act on my suggestion above. I haven't tried to wade through all the diffs, so I am not taking sides, but this section as I look at it right now loses itself in pointless list-making. Name after name, and really there is absolutely no need to mention figures as obscure as Mersenne and Conway (and many of the others) in an introductory article on philosophy. Show me an introductory book which mentions them. I don't know how long this list has been there or who is responsible - just saying.KD Tries Again (talk) 05:21, 20 January 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

I hope to expand the early modern section somewhat, adding more historical detail (e.g., distinguishing the Enlightenment from the 17th century), while still keeping it appropriately concise for an article introducing philosophy. The list is a bit of a place-holder, and an attempt to not leave anyone out. 271828182 (talk) 10:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• Firstly, please note I posted a last remark in the section above after this one started. Sorry. But I'll leave it there because it is a direct reply. Please do not ignore it because it is relevant.
• Secondly, I agree with KDTA that the lists are idiosyncratic. Given how I've seen discussions about this go before on this talk page I have not even tried to argue for excluding any of the obviously less important figures, because I figure 271828182 will be willing to argue forever and use the methods of then deleting more important people, and adding multiple footnotes which in many cases will not actually support the edits. Life is too short, in other words, so I follow an inclusionist approach for the time being.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:08, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

A particular edit needing more discussion

I won't try fitting my response to this edit into an edit summary. Here is a more detailed response. The edit summary of 271828182 is the Bacon ref is to the IEP article and nowhere says he is of equal stature to Descartes as an initiator of modern philosophy). With this edit, new sourced information was simply deleted. I will revert this for some very basic reasons...

• Firstly and most importantly, the text being deleted does not say that Bacon is the same as Descartes in terms of anything like "stature". I have removed the word canonical and any implication, even through misunderstandings, that we are making or granting such judgements ourselves. This is in keeping with "encyclopedic style". The removed materials only says Bacon and Descartes are both called originators of modern philosophy, and the sources do confirm this much. Please note that such editing decisions can not be trumped by sources.
• Secondly, in fact the sourcing given quotes many leading figures of the Enlightenment as considering Bacon MORE important than Descartes.

If anyone sees a problem in my reasoning then please mention it, but as far as I can see this edit was extremely tendentious and this style of working is very awkward.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:22, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Speaking from overlong experience, it's pointless too. Edits which don't attract consensus won't survive long. I've suggested a way forward to make discussion easier here and get other editors involved. Any better ideas? Let's not turn a content dispute into a tedious edit war.KD Tries Again (talk) 18:41, 20 January 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

That's a bit pessimistic! Sometimes reverts are based on a misunderstanding. The above edit summary is incorrect, and that is why I have tried my hardest to explain here what is wrong with it. My edits have also not been simple reverts by the way. I've tried to tighten sourcing and respond to criticism. So if 271828182 is really going to edit war against that then what can I do about that except give up? I can only do my best to edit in good faith, and honestly I can't feel comfortable with something that makes basic mistakes like implying that Machiavelli is a theologian of the Protestant Reformation, a monarchist, or a humanist (three things which I have with much edit apparently now managed to get changed with 271828182 approval). Nor can I agree with this "canonical list" approach which, in case you have not understood what is happening, effectively currently seems to mean that no one is allowed to add to that passage except 271828182 simply because it contains a "canonical list". Discussion continues.

Concerning your proposal, I don't really see what you mean. What do you propose precisely?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:09, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Lancaster, stop making false accusations. (1) The passage never implied that Machiavelli was a Protestant Reformer or a humanist (you simply misread the passage and I freely invite anyone to read the original to see so) and in any case my subsequent edit clarified it to remove any possible misunderstanding, (2) you seem to be construing "monarchist" in an excessively narrow way for an introductory article if it excludes the author of The Prince, (3) I have clarified precisely what is meant by "canonical" with an extended citation and it is backed now by three expert sources — your false allegation that "no one is allowed to add to that passage except 271828182" is petty character assassination that gives the lie to your painting yourself as an innocent good faith editor here. You cannot delete the reference to the seven authors as canonical in this sense unless you want to say Nadler, Rutherford, and Kuklick don't know what they're talking about. It's not my opinion, the quotes are in the footnotes and are very clear: it's verifiable content referring to expert consensus.

As for your Bacon edit, I reverted your edit because it was (1) incorrectly sourced to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, when the quotes were actually drawn from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (you have silently fixed this egregious error, though I notice you still haven't fixed an obvious misspelling), and (2) you are willfully going beyond what the sources actually say or imply.

Here is the source, from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy [3]:

"The French encyclopedists Jean d’Alembert and Denis Diderot sounded the keynote of this 18th-century re-assessment, essentially hailing Bacon as a founding father of the modern era and emblazoning his name on the front page of the Encyclopedia. In a similar gesture, Kant dedicated his Critique of Pure Reason to Bacon and likewise saluted him as an early architect of modernity." "Leibniz was particularly generous and observed that, compared to Bacon’s philosophical range and lofty vision, even a great genius like Descartes “creeps on the ground.”"

Here is your edit:

The initiators of modern philosophy, are generally described as Francis Bacon, who argued the philosophical case for empirical science as a project for all humanity and Descartes who showed how geometry and algebra could be combined and used within science.

There is a big difference between the source and what you wrote. The source justifies saying, essentially, that some Enlightenment thinkers greatly admired Bacon as a founder of the modern age. That is not the same as declaring that Bacon is generally described as an initiator of modern philosophy on par with Descartes. Also, you are misrepresenting the source: if you read the section [4], the central point is that Bacon's reputation is mixed. "Bacon’s reputation and legacy remain controversial even today," as it says. You have cherry picked only the most glowing verdicts. So pardon me if I continue to revert your edits, it's not edit warring, it's just that your edits are poorly sourced. 271828182 (talk) 00:27, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

1. "Some Enlightenment thinkers?" Actually, the sources I showed, which just happened to be quick and easy ones to find because I could quote from all over the place, that pretty much all the main Enlightenment thinkers thought of Bacon as the founder of the Enlightenment. And the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert itself had him "emblazoned" on the front page! How much more "encyclopedic" can you get? "Canonical" folk, to use your word for them, like Hume and Leibniz, are among the most clear on this. It also shows that some modern secondary sources think the same way, for example saying that what you think of Bacon depends on what you think of the Enlightenment (see the comment about Hegel). Please tell me what type of source would actually be good enough!!

2. Concerning your "canonical list" I'd like to summarize how I understand your position: You are saying that whatever a canonical list means in normal English, this particular way you are using it can be clearly understood if Wikipedia readers just go and make a study of the original sources and how academics sometimes use words. Problem is that your sources make themselves more clear in what they mean than you do. It is you, not the sources, that is insisting on wording which will normally be read to mean something else. Adding more and more enormous footnotes is not a good solution either.

3. I also want to raise a new subject. I believe the build up in footnotes you are doing is tendentious and bad for the article. No amount of footnotes can justify the types of things you are insisting on anyway, because these are editing decisions about wording, format, and due weight. Pretending that there are no sources for anything you don't like, and pretending that you can somehow prove this by just putting in more and more footnotes, is a waste of time.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

For example, let's consider whether the following very long footnote (currently number 38) about the way the word canonical can be used is really suitable for this article:-

Bruce Kuklick, "Seven Thinkers and How They Grew: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz; Locke, Berkeley, Hume; Kant" in Rorty, Schneewind, and Skinner (eds.), Philosophy in History (Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 125: "Literary, philosophical, and historical studies often rely on a notion of what is canonical. In American philosophy scholars go from Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey; in American literature from James Fenimore Cooper to F. Scott Fitzgerald; in political theory from Plato to Hobbes and Locke [...] The texts or authors who fill in the blanks from A to Z in these, and other intellectual traditions, constitute the canon, and there is an accompanying narrative that links text to text or author to author, a 'history of' American literature, economic thought, and so on. The most conventional of such histories are embodied in university courses and the textbooks that accompany them. This essay examines one such course, the History of Modern Philosophy, and the texts that helped to create it. If a philosopher in the United States were asked why the seven people in my title comprise Modern Philosophy, the initial response would be: they were the best, and there are historical and philosophical connections among them."

Isn't that a highly unusual type of digression to load onto an article? Haven't you only put this there as a defensive measure to justify your on-going argument that other editors should not change the word "canonical" (for example to important or notable)? And the reason this is important to you is that you don't want anyone adding information about other figures considered equally or more important by other good secondary sources (such as Bacon or Rousseau)? You're saying that unless other sources actually by chance happen to use the exact same word (canonical) as your sources, they can't be used, right? Which is basically declaring a rule uni-laterally that you know others will find hard to meet. Hence my description of your approach above "what is happening, effectively currently seems to mean that no one is allowed to add to that passage except 271828182 simply because it contains a "canonical list"." It is just a description of exactly what you are doing, and you have no right to unilaterally declare rules like this to other editors in order to exclude other sources.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:30, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Further explanatory note for completeness, just on the logic, in case anyone missed the point: having a well-sourced list of canonical figures does not mean you have a source which excludes other possible lists or other sources, furthermore the sources being cited do not even seek to argue that they are definitive lists. There is no source currently being proposed at all for excluding Bacon or Rousseau from being canonical, in the common sense of canonical as being amongst the most influential and notable figures in 17th and 18th century philosophy. But while that is the clear implication of the wording being insisted upon in the article by 271828182, and the defenses of that wording here on the talk page, actually 271828182 has no source for that exclusion of other information, and that exclusion is the point of disagreement.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Here again, an uncompromising deletion of strongly sourced material. How can such editing possibly be justified?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:55, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

It's justified because you are just ignoring what I have pointed out:

1. Yes, some. Plenty of others simply ignored Bacon. What you wrote just isn't supported by the source: "generally described" ≠ "some (or even many) Enlightenment thinkers". The article is not presenting Enlightenment thinkers' POV on philosophy, it is supposed to reflect contemporary expert consensus. Furthermore, hailing Bacon as a great mind or architect is not the same as what you wrote, viz., "initiator of modern philosophy". I bet you any sum you like that when someone uses the phrase "founder of modern philosophy", it refers to Descartes rather than Bacon on at least a 5:1 ratio — I wouldn't be surprised if it was 10:1, considering that most non-English-speaking scholarship treats him as a marginal figure. So treating them as being of roughly equal significance is flat-out wrong or, at best POV or WP:UNDUE. Either way it's poorly sourced and hence doesn't belong in this article. Essentially, our differences have come down to your wanting to highlight Machiavelli and Bacon as important forerunners of "modernity". I think that's anachronistic, POV, and UNDUE, especially given the extremely compressed and introductory nature of these sub-sections.

2&3. You keep redescribing my edits as though I am sinisterly importing my preferences and judgments into the article, when the word "canonical", and almost the same list, have been there for a long time, well before my edits this month. Again, it's not me, it's not how "I use the word", it's how every serious scholar who talks about the subject uses the word. And that list of names is how they use the word too. Take it up with the scholarship. 271828182 (talk) 22:15, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

1. This is Wikipedia. Your estimate of how many scholars prefer Descartes over Bacon is original research, but also totally irrelevant to what we should be discussing. The problem is that you have NO SOURCE for saying Bacon was NOT a founder of modernity. You are trying to prove this by pointing to sources which do NOT mention him but at the same time you know, you admit, I have shown, and you have deleted, that there are many good contemporary sources, not only old ones, which claim Bacon is even the founder of modern philosophy and also the founder of modern empiricism. According to some of the most important Wikipedia policies we are not supposed to be taking sides when we know that there is more than one mainstream opinion. And this is clearly the case here, as you repeatedly show that you also know. It is also against basic policy to delete well sourced material or reference to well known published positions. Our debate does not just come down to disagreement about these philosophers, but about a blatant breach of WP:NEUTRAL and WP:PRESERVE.

2. What is your obsession to use this word? Why is it so important? I have no problem with scholarly works using it properly in a scholarly context. You are not writing in a clear scholarly context which makes clear which meaning of canonical is active, and you are not sticking to your sources. You are combining them and trying to make them say more than they do. The basis of your position is an example of WP:SYNTH. Anyway, I see no reason why you should revert people who try to swap academic language with standard English if it is possible, which it very often is. How can you justify that?-Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:42, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

1. Your argument is weak: if (let's say) 1,000 sources call Heidegger the founder of German existentialism, and 10 sources call Jaspers the founder of German existentialism, you are implying it is appropriate for Wikipedia to give them equal billing. You are the one taking sides in a controversy, by cherry picking quotes to exaggerate Bacon's importance, when there are sources that marginalize Bacon, just as you are making Wikipedia take sides in describing Machiavelli as modern when many experts argue that reading him as a modern distorts his meaning. My proposal is to not take sides at all and not bill either as "initiators of modern philosophy". So claiming I am involved in a "blatant breach" of WP policy is rubbish. You are the one advancing an aggressive para-Straussian agenda about "modernity".

2. I'm not "obsessed", I'm keeping content that imparts information and is verifiable content (unlike the other list, which is, as we are seeing, unsourced and cause for open-ended controversy). "Canonical" has been there for months and no one complained. You're chafing about it, I guess, because you are importing a value judgment into the meaning that isn't there. To avoid that misunderstanding, I have added a big footnote and rewritten the sentence to clarify. Why are you obsessed with it? 271828182 (talk) 23:30, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

1. "Let's say" that the world is black and white and completely different from the case we are talking about? Or let's stick to reality and say that we are actually not dealing with a situation where the sources agree 1000:1? Above you guessed that about 1 in 6 texts grant Bacon founder status. That doesn't sound like you truly believe it is "fringe" does it? And it must refer to more sources than Strauss right? Actually, a quick google will show a lot of modern textbooks mention both Bacon and Descartes, just like I suggest Wikipedia should. Remember, I am not the one insisting on NOT mentioning what a large number of sources say, you are.

2. That a word was there before is obviously no excuse for stopping editors trying to improve the article, is it? Do you have another explanation? If you say that canonical in this context is not being used in one of its strong and most common meanings, then we should be able to find a compromise quickly by just swapping it for normal English words that take away the misunderstanding? For example, above you have written that "it is not a judgment of greatness or importance, but a report of who the usual suspects are in philosophy curricula on the early modern period". So let's change the wording to reflect that? But then if we do that then both the passage and your defense of it will seem odd won't it?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:18, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

LOL. BTW everyone, the Nadler source which mentions who is canonical, is on Google Books. A few sentences after the quote being mentioned very often above in order to exclude Bacon being called a founder of modernity along with Descartes, it mentions Bacon and Descartes as the two people modern philosophy is generally thought to begin with. Also see the more extended discussion at page 306 which says he "inaugurated" modern science and page 298 which calls him a "founder". There are many different lists in the book which include the same men in the "canonical" list and quite often Bacon is added. Of course they don't all use the word canonical, but 271828182 is correct in saying that the one place a list is called canonical it is just talking about what is normally in textbooks. (Is it therefore even something we need to cite on Wikipedia?) Just sticking to the textbook genre, as apparently preferred by 271828182, Nadler is of course only one such example of a textbook on early modern philosophy which makes the same comment. Editors are invited to try searching "early modern philosophy" and "bacon" on google books. BTW the book also contains a passage describing Bodin as an early modern.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:08, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I congratulate Lancaster on opening a book, even if only virtually, and only courtesy of Larry Page. He continues to show an inability to read carefully, though. For example, the Bacon article does not say he inaugurated modern science, as Lancaster claims, it says he "inaugurated the transformation of philosophy into science", further glossed on the next page as the "conditions of possibility of the emergence of a scientific culture". A subtle difference, but noteworthy, as illustrated by the Edwards Encyclopedia of Philosophy, in its article on Bacon (v. 1, p. 239): "He was by far the most 'modern' of Renaissance thinkers. In the words of one of his biographers, Thomas Fowler, 'He stood like a prophet on the verge of the promised land'". As I've been saying all along: he is a borderline or transitional figure. As for co-billing him with Descartes, see R.S. Woolhouse, The Empiricists (OUP), p. 8: "neither immediately nor ultimately so influential as Descartes". Anthony Kenny in The Oxford History of Western Philosophy (1994) devotes 85 pages to early modern philosophy in a chapter entitled "Descartes to Kant", discusses all seven figures in the canonical list in separate sub-sections, but only mentions Bacon twice in passing (one of those is a photo caption). So I, too, invite editors to search for references to Bacon and early modern philosophy, in Google Books and in just plain books. You will find a mixed reception for Lord Verulam, which is exactly my point, as I said in my previous comment here: "My proposal is to not take sides at all and not bill either as 'initiators of modern philosophy'." Note I am not denying that Bacon is important, nor am I saying he shouldn't be mentioned in early modern. I am merely pointing out that Lancaster's elevation of Bacon to coeval status with Descartes or indeed any of the other six 'canonical' figures (Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant) is an WP:UNDUE distortion of expert consensus. As for "canonical", the word is used that way by the consensus of experts. That's good enough for Wikipedia. 271828182 (talk) 17:54, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I am not going to engage in a game with no end, and fill this talk page up with walls of words. Everyone can click on the links above, or run a google books search, and read what they say at more length than I quoted. It is clear enough, as are other sources.

• If you want this Wikipedia article to say there is disagreement about Bacon, I can see that you can source it, but I am not sure it is a justified editing decision to want to go into a lot of detail. But is that what you are truly proposing? Not so far.
• If you want to try to completely censor the article so that it does not at all mention a major point which is commonly mentioned in mainstream literature over several centuries then I will continue to object. Removing all reference to an easily verifiable and well-sourced and major mainstream position (even if it is not the mainstream consensus position) is "taking sides" and is directly contrary to WP:NEUTRAL and WP:PRESERVE.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:17, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I am not engaged in a game, I am trying to improve this article. Anyone comparing the length of my comments here with Lancaster's will see who is trying to fill this talk page with walls of words. My position doesn't fall into the false dilemma offered above, though, so let me try to explain it yet again: the notion of anyone being "the initiators" of modern philosophy is too vague to waste time pondering, just as WP should not be in the business of deciding who is the greatest footballer of all time, or the biggest celebrity of the 1990s. If we tried to do so, however, it would be wrong-headed to elevate Bacon to equal status as Descartes. I would guess the ratio is upwards of 5:1 in favor of Descartes, so how are we going to phrase that in a way that respects expert consensus and doesn't violate WP:UNDUE? "Descartes is overwhelmingly referred to as the father of modern philosophy, though on occasion English-speaking authors will throw a bone in Bacon's direction"? As I said, it's too murky an issue to bother with, especially in one sub-section of a survey article introducing philosophy as such. Better to talk about more specific and easily verifiable information. It's hysterical to call wanting to get rid of this non-scholarly partisanship "censorship". It's common sense avoidance of WP:PEACOCK. 271828182 (talk) 18:50, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

It is very clear, not murky at all, that mainstream literature concerning early modern philosophy, I'd say all of it, describes early modern philosophy as a deliberate project with founders (either Descartes, or Bacon, or both, or them amongst others) and followers who were conscious of what they were doing. The Enlightenment philosophers engaged in this also described what they were doing this way. It is pretty much one of the most notable facts about the two centuries of philosophy under discussion. Do you really deny this to be so and insist that I am making it up, or that it is some kind of fringe theory? Please justify trying to remove all mention of this basic fact. (I'd say if this section had to be stripped to one sentence it would be pretty similar to the various proposals you have continuously deleted.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:09, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Also note my most recent proposals which you have reverted went so far as to imply Descartes is possibly more frequently cited, although you have not proven it and it would be difficult to prove. When you try to justify your reversions please do not pretend otherwise.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:13, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

BTW the most interesting Nadler quote I think was the one a few sentences after the one now cited in the article, written by Nadler himself, and extending form page 2 to 3. I mention this now because I note 271828182 mentioned only other parts of the book in the response above, and maybe there is a hope people will miss what is going on. It is the passage which asks why "should the early modern period in philosophy begin with Descartes and Bacon" and then goes on to explain that it is hard to explain but "suffice it to say that..." etc etc. In other words this could not be more clear. And this is the same source whose other listing on the same page is being treated as semi-sacred by 271828182 to the point that they can not be added to and nor can the word canonical be adjusted in any way. Will 271828182 claim that Nadler is using peacock words in the case of "begin" but not "consensus"? I don't know, but it is hard to see any way to avoid concluding that 271828182's POV "thing about Bacon" is not looking like anything to do with what sources say.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:45, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

"Founders" and "followers" is about as much a "basic fact" as thinking Milton a more important figure in philosophy than Thomas Reid, that is, it is your imagination, Lancaster. A basic fact is that Descartes is more commonly cited as the "founder of modern philosophy" than Bacon, by a broad margin. Since you are fond of Google:

Google exact phrase search for "the founder of modern philosophy Descartes" = 8,290 results

Google exact phrase search for "the founder of modern philosophy Bacon" = 3 results

Google exact phrase search for "Descartes the founder of modern philosophy" = 2,530 results

Google exact phrase search for "Bacon the founder of modern philosophy" = 10 results

Google exact phrase search for "founders of modern philosophy Bacon and Descartes" = 4 results

Google exact phrase search for "founders of modern philosophy Descartes and Bacon" = 4 results

Google Books exact phrase search for "Descartes the founder of modern philosophy" = 221 results

Google Books exact phrase search for "Bacon the founder of modern philosophy" = 18 results

Google Books exact phrase search for "the founder of modern philosophy Descartes" = 55 results

Google Books exact phrase search for "the founder of modern philosophy Bacon" = 2 results

Google Books exact phrase search for "founders of modern philosophy Bacon and Descartes" = 9 results

Google Books exact phrase search for "founders of modern philosophy Descartes and Bacon" = 8 results

Google Books exact phrase search for "Bacon and Descartes the founders of modern philosophy" = 10 results

Google Books exact phrase search for "Descartes and Bacon the founders of modern philosophy" = 0 results

So I guess I was wrong to say the ratio is 5:1. The ratio is more like 12:1, 23:1, 253:1, or 2763:1.

So you see I am actually being sympathetic to Bacon to not list only Descartes and ignore him. Again, if you really want to include this in the article, how are we going to phrase it? "Descartes is overwhelmingly referred to as the father of modern philosophy over Bacon by a margin of at least 12:1"? As I said, better for WP just to pass over this peacockism in silence. 271828182 (talk) 01:13, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

When confronted with a direct quote from your own source, you report the results of a pseudo-research project you've run based on exact phrases searched on google? I guess you've got nothing worthwhile left to say.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:15, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I never denied that some sources will pair Bacon and Descartes with the vague peacockism "founders of modern philosophy". You, however, have repeatedly said things like "Descartes is possibly more frequently cited, although you have not proven it and it would be difficult to prove." A Google phrase search is not definitive, of course, but is likely indicative of a representative sample on this matter. Certainly it constitutes far more objective evidence than your spotty knowledge and your handful of confirmation-biased selection of sources about early modern philosophy. 271828182 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

In the case of Bacon and early modern philosophy the word founder is not vague or unclear at all. It is what he is frequently described as, and indeed it is how he talked about himself even if he did not use anachronistic terms from the 20h century. Concerning whether Descartes is more cited, I have for quite some time being proposing wording which accepts your position, so please drop the stick and back away from the horse carcass? The google search as you've formulated it is just silly. Most sources, by my judgment, mention both Descartes and Bacon, but the wording tends to become complex in order to leave open various options such as saying that Bacon only founded a certain aspect of early modern philosophy (such as empiricism, the separation of science from philosophy, modern science, empirical science, etc). And indeed the wording I proposed for this article also attempts to keep a lot of options open, as per WP:NEUTRAL. Please do treat WP:NEUTRAL as an important goal of editing here.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:15, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

PS, I find your recent edit a much better compromise and much more accurate compared to previous deletions of all mention of this point. Thank you!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposal Again

Andrew asked me to repeat my proposal. As far as I can see, we are dealing with a fairly short piece of the article. I suggest one of you - or both of you - post your preferred version for discussion to give other editors a fair chance of seeing if a resolution can be reached without having to track back through what is now a very long discussion and an extraordinary number of diffs. This seems to be the way we might reach consensus (as honestly the two of you don't seem likely to reach consensus any time soon. (If the proposal is to have no mention of Bacon, I'm against it, so there's no consensus on that; at the same time I think a number of names really need to be removed as UNDUE.)

I also suggest you might each take a deep breath and look at the following from Wikipedia is not. I do have the sense that you are each marshaling extensive knowledge and effort to defend a difference which really doesn't matter a great deal to an ordinary reader of an introductory article.

A Wikipedia article should not be presented on the assumption that the reader is well versed in the topic's field. Introductory language in the lead and initial sections of the article should be written in plain terms and concepts that can be understood by any literate reader of Wikipedia without any knowledge in the given field before advancing to more detailed explanations of the topic. While wikilinks should be provided for advanced terms and concepts in that field, articles should be written on the assumption that the reader will not or cannot follow these links, instead attempting to infer their meaning from the text.KD Tries Again (talk) 18:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

What the hell, I'd do something like this (although if it was just up to me, I'd take out the list beginning with Galileo because lists don't tell the reader anything:

"Among the founding figures of modern philosophy were Francis Bacon, who argued the philosophical case for empirical science as a project for all humanity, and Descartes, who showed how geometry and algebra could be combined and used within science.[35] Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant were other key philosophers of the Enlightenment period [36][37][38] although influential contributions were also made by Galileo Galilei, Thomas Hobbes, Blaise Pascal, Isaac Newton, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Adam Smith. The period is generally considered to end with Kant's systematic attempt to simultaneously limit metaphysics, justify scientific knowledge, and reconcile both of these with morality and freedom.[39][40]"

Thanks. Comments on what seem to be the key aspects to this proposal...

• Obviously I am ok with saying Bacon and Descartes are both people most often described as the true founders. I've sourced it solidly.
• Then you've stuck with the first grade and second grade list approach of the current article. Not sure I really like it, but I don't have a counter proposal right now.
• For the first grade list, currently known as the canonical list, you've gone with the same canonical list which I have disagreed with because it misses Hobbes and Rousseau, both of whom are at least as important as all the others in that particular list according to numerous authorities. (They are certainly both more typical of "canonical" treatment than Berkeley.)
• Then you have the also ran list but extremely stripped down so that it almost mentions no standard philosophers except the two I suggested moving up to the other list. II am not saying Galileo, Newton, Pascal and Smith should not be there but I have to say that if we are going to have an also ran list then I see no reason making it that short, nor that idiosyncratic. It would be odd if the article does not mention people like Berkeley and Montesquieu, surely? I think that the approach on this list so far was indeed probably a bit too inclusionist, but I think the logical compromise, if that is what you are looking for, is to prune a little less aggressively.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:44, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

The usual trouble with lists. Everyone will agree on a few names, nobody will agree on all of them. And ultimately it doesn't matter because three months from now the lists will look nothing like what anyone decides this week. Personally I don't agree that Hobbes or Rousseau are as important as Spinoza, let alone Kant, but I am sure there are sources supporting a variety of different selections.KD Tries Again (talk) 20:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

You sound a bit pessimistic of trying to find any agreements again! :) Actually I think the sourcing available is not at all as variegated as it is being made out to be. The lists as they were are not far from any fair attempt to make an inclusionist consensus list, and if we are going to have lists, being slightly inclusionist is necessary or else the discussion will indeed just keep going in circles. We are talking about getting the details right and not a total disaster like the discussion about the 20th century section ended up being. FWIW Hobbes was the first Cartesian political philosopher and Spinoza certainly recognized him that way. He was less discussed in the Enlightenment itself because so controversial but most commentators describe especially Locke as someone who worked on the foundation of Hobbes. Rousseau is more of a problem perhaps but the reason is again easy to spot: he was always much more important on the continent than in England. He was a critical inspiration to Kant and often seen as the basic source for all German Idealism. In terms of importance outside philosophy there is Romanticism, and the little matter of the French Revolution.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Again, I'll just add (re: the list) that it is a temporary stub until a prose narrative can be written. I do think adding Milton (!) and deleting Reid is the sort of indefensible edit that makes me doubt Lancaster's familiarity with the basic scholarship. 271828182 (talk) 23:34, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, so now you have something against Milton and we all have to respect that also. The list currently isn't sourced, and you've deleted KDTA's tag to that effect several times. Anyway I consider it as an un-sourced list that can still be tweaked, and I certainly am not intending to insist on Milton. There was a call for the list to be trimmed, so maybe delete Reid and Milton? By the way, Galileo wrote before Descartes, so putting him in as a member of a movement you say was founded by Descartes is a bit odd? I had previously suggested moving him to the Renaissance, but maybe we have not found the right way to handle him yet. I'd say he is like Machiavelli and one of the authors who leads to modernity. (Descartes mentions the Galileo controversy in critical places, but not by name, as a source of his programme. Bacon mentioned Machiavelli, by name, as a source to be thankful for in his. Descartes also wrote critical passages about his programme which were paraphrases of Bacon. All this, as I am sure you know, can be found in modern secondary sources.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:45, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not just my whim. John Milton is many things, but classifying him as a philosopher is a stretch, let alone one of the influential ones of the early modern period. But you did that without justification, in the same edit where you deleted Thomas Reid, one of the most extensively discussed non-canonical figures of early modern philosophy. Frankly, this just shows you don't know the subject. Also, I never wrote or implied Descartes founded "a movement" of which Galileo was a part. I'm the one arguing WP shouldn't be in the "founder of modernity" business at all. 271828182 (talk) 18:03, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Hard to understand then why you objected to me including a comment that Bacon and Descartes are both described as founders of modern philosophy by saying that you did not think the sources I was citing justified saying Bacon had the same status as Descartes? That edit summary, and remarks in above sections about Descartes seem to show that you do describe him as the person normally known as the founder of modern philosophy. Concerning Reid, bring a source to the discussion and live up to the standards you are insisting on for others please.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:07, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Read what I wrote carefully, and that should help you understand. I never wrote or implied early modern philosophy is a "movement". The sentence refers to philosophy in a period of time, which includes Galileo and Descartes and many others. Your treatment of Bacon and Descartes as equally important "founders" or "initiators" of early modern philosophy is not supported by the sources. That said, I don't think WP should take sides in so vague a title at all. As for Reid, I am tempted to paraphrase Louis Armstrong's famous quote on jazz, but you could try the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, under "Common Sense School", for a start, or the Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid. 271828182 (talk) 18:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I didn't tag the list, but I don't disagree with the tag. My suggestion is to keep it minimalist, otherwise you're trapped in the "if x, then why not y?" debate. But I am out of suggestions, so I'll leave you guys to it. Not my period, as I said.KD Tries Again (talk) 18:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

KDTA I think you did tag it. See [5]. Anyway, I have not removed Reid, and I am not re-instating Milton, but I note 271828182 simply refuses to give a source for the list, which is oddly inconsistent given the approach to other points of discussion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:45, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

There's no source for the list. As I have repeatedly said, it was a temporary measure to include everyone I could think of (major and minor), until I got around to a rewrite of the section (a "prose narrative" approach as KD said regarding the 20th century subsection). I did not deliberately remove the tag; it must have gotten lost in the multiple edits. In any case, I don't think it really needs a source, considering how mild the claim of "influential contribution" is, and how major the remaining names on the now much-pruned list are. 271828182 (talk) 19:03, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Hypocritical?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:03, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

No. I've never said every claim in Wikipedia must be sourced. 271828182 (talk) 01:21, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I never made this exact claim but you are still clearly hypocritical. Anyway, can you please justify the inclusion of Christian Wolff? You've now reverted several attempts to remove him during recent attempts to trim the list. The list has been shortened significantly and now lacks many quite well known people including Hutcheson, Vico, Shaftesbury etc. Is Wolff a personal interest of yours? If you are claiming this list needs no sources, then I guess you also need to claim that it is something good faith editors can agree on without difficulty?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:32, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I just pointed out how your accusation is false, so you conclude the opposite. Typical. As for Wolff, again, that you don't know that he (like Reid) is a major philosopher of the period is further evidence that you know approximately jack over squat about the subject you presume to tell others about. To quote the easiest source—Wolff's WP article—"He was the most eminent German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant. His main achievement was a complete oeuvre on almost every scholarly subject of his time, displayed and unfolded according to his demonstrative-deductive, mathematical method, which perhaps represents the peak of Enlightenment rationality in Germany." Anyone who has ever read (e.g.) the first Critique knows Wolff. It is indeed something good faith editors who know the subject can agree on without difficulty. 271828182 (talk) 17:42, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

So the source is Wikipedia? I am not going to argue this one further, but I continue to point to the seeming inconsistency.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Next revert by 271828182

Concerning this revert I note the following reasons for reverting it:-

1. Deletion of any reference to mainstream descriptions of Bacon and/or Descartes as "founders" of modern philosophy is deletion of something which is frequently and consistently found in published reliable sources. The justification has been wholly framed in terms of 271828182's personal preferences. As mentioned many times already it does not matter in WP policy whether a common mainstream position is not a consensus one. The main positions in the field's literature deserve to be mentioned, and selecting "winners" is against WP:NEUTRAL.

2. The reversion back to "The canonical academic sequence of early modern philosophy focuses on..." from the new proposal "Textbooks covering early modern philosophy often focus on the sequence of..." is firstly ungrammatical (sequences do not focus) and secondly in conflict with the explanation and defense that 271828182 has given about the "canonical" wording on this very talk page, which was that "canonical" in this sentence was coming from sources for whom, to use the wording of 271828182 "it is not a judgment of greatness or importance, but a report of who the usual suspects are in philosophy curricula on the early modern period". The normal usage of the word "canonical" is of course in legal or religious contexts for the most holy and unquestioned wisdoms or judgements. 271828182 has insisted that readers thinking that is intended here would simply be wrong. It is therefore striking that 271828182 not been willing or able to explain clearly why such a word with such an obvious possible misunderstanding, needs to be insisted upon in a paraphrase as opposed to a direct quote. The clear implication, given the editing history building up, is that it is intended to mislead and give a different meaning. Indeed, if the canonical wording being insisted upon just means there are lots of textbooks and curricula mentioning these people it is doubtful whether it should stay in the article?

I hope my reasons for reverting the revert are clear but at this point I would very much like other editors to enter the discussion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:36, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to note, I deleted "comparably." Gassendi, D'Alembert and so on might have been influential, but to suggest their influence is comparable to Spinoza or Kant is insupportable. You won't find a mainstream source saying that.KD Tries Again (talk) 18:39, 22 January 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

I don't think anyone is openly arguing that Gassendi and D'Alembert are equally influential as Spinoza and Kant, although I can see how 271828182 is going to come to that: 271828182 added the "comparably" in order to be consistent about the claim that there is no place in this section that is supposed to be about the most influential writers. I'd agree with you that the list of canonical writers sound like they are the most influential. 271828182 insists that "canonical" is supposed to be read by all of us as meaning "appearing most of often in typical curricula" or something like that, and specifically has nothing to do with "importance". Sounds like you also can't read it that way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:50, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

1. I have responded to the "initiators of modern philosophy" above. In brief, it is an excessively vague WP:PEACOCK judgment, and the article can live without it. 2. As noted in my edit summary, the standard use of "canonical" is "a sanctioned or accepted group or body of related works <the canon of great literature>". That's how the word is used here. Nothing holy or unquestioned implied, unless literature professors talking about the canon imply that. I have never mentioned textbooks, however, and the Nadler, Rutherford, and Kuklick aren't textbooks, so I don't see the justification for inserting that word over "canonical", which is plainly used by multiple scholarly sources. Again, if Lancaster objects to "canonical", he is not reverting me, he is objecting to the scholarship. 271828182 (talk) 19:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

If we are not directly quoting then we do not have to use the same words sources use, and we should not do so if they will give a wrong impression. If you claim on a talk page explanation that the word canonical is being used to mean frequently the subject of educational curricula then obviously this explanation should be good enough for the article. Why not?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:02, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Because the word "canonical" is being used in its standard sense (according to Merriam-Webster), it communicates more information, and "textbooks" is neither implied nor stated by the sources. (E.g., in curricula, the sequence most commonly isn't presented in a "textbook", but in the primary sources.) 271828182 (talk) 01:29, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Note, I have responded on point 1, where 271828182 claims to have given an explanation, above.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:17, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe both take a break. The difference you are arguing about is not important to the audience at which the article is aimed. As long as the important names are there, the number of people who care whether they are called "important," "influential," "canonical" or "frequently mentioned in text books as" is probably, well, two. I mean, seriously.KD Tries Again (talk) 22:02, 22 January 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

KDTA, I'd be happy if other editors would examine the problem instead of me but no one has yet waded in above ankle depth. First please note that the disagreement is not quite as you describe. The word "canonical" is only important to one editor, 271828182. I do not mind if that word stays in the article. The problem is that the word is not important as such to either of us except in one very specific sense which effects editing in a larger way. It is being used by 271828182 to define a rule he has set for all editors of this passage: no source which does not use this exact word can be used to add to or modify the list of philosophers in this section. For example if a source says someone was one of the most important, one of the most influential etc, 271828182 argues that this does not mean the same as canonical. If you try to change the word canonical to something more general, it is then that 271828182 argues that the EXACT word must be used, simply because it appears in two sources. Please consider if you find this approach acceptable and comment. The philosophers who 271828182 is trying to demote compared to how they are presented in any neutral and broad overview of reliable sources in the field are especially Bacon, Hobbes and Rousseau.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:24, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

No, that is not acceptable. We do not have to determine who is canonical. All the reader needs from a list is an indication of who the big names are. I strongly suspect the reason other editors are not involved - and indeed I am only ankle deep - is that the content issue here is very easily resolved. There are about ten different ways to say what we want to say, all acceptable. The stand-off between the two involved editors is not easily resolved - hence my disengage suggestion. You may not realise it but (I did a word count), you are past 14,000 words on this issue, which means you've written a forty page book between you (to say nothing of following the links). I think this is out of proportion, which is why I am backing away.KD Tries Again (talk) 17:25, 23 January 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

For the record, I have no interest in "trying to demote" Bacon, Hobbes, or Rousseau. All three are major philosophers of the period and should be included in this sub-section. Indeed, if I recall correctly, around a year ago, I was the one who inserted Hobbes and Rousseau into the (at that time very short) list of "canonical figures". However, in this recent round of revisions, I wanted to source that "short list" more clearly, and found it difficult to justify them, so I moved them a place-holding big list. What I am aiming to include (in a substantive revision of the section) is (1) the, well, canonical modern sequence (Descartes-Spinoza-Leibniz / Locke-Berkeley-Hume / Kant), and then (2) to explain (briefly) how early modern philosophy is a much bigger range of figures and issues than just the rationalism vs. empiricism framework that the British Hegelians bequeathed to university curricula. But, of course, if even preliminary, well-sourced edits meet with such misunderstanding and animus, I am not sanguine about elaborating more informative historical claims. (I have largely withheld my complete revision of the nineteenth century section because it is insufficiently sourced to withstand hostile critics.) 271828182 (talk) 18:10, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you KDTA for your comments, which is apparently helping get a more reasoned response. My concern about the proposal of 271828182 is, to repeat, that by focusing on one word editors are supposedly then not allowed to add from other strong sources concerning especially Bacon, Hobbes and Rousseau. To demote these people on this wording technicality, even though they are frequently cited as absolutely critical turning points, seems silly. To clarify a side issue, I've probably gone to far in trying to guess your intentions above. I do not mean to accuse 271828182 of too much, but the above mentioned "position" itself about this word canonical seems not to be a way of working seems simply to make consensus editing by multiple volunteers impossible. As I described it a few times, you seem to make rules up, possibly with good intentions, and then insist everyone follow them as if they were a policy even if no one else finds the rules to be good ones. The effect, whatever the intentions, breaches WP:NEUTRAL. Anyway, I do not believe that any fair description of recent editing on this article can be described as other editors being strict about the sourcing of 271828182!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:05, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I certainly recognize the "Descartes-Spinoza-Leibniz / Locke-Berkeley-Hume / Kant" axis, whatever we want to call it, and agree it should be highlighted. Bacon is not part of that, but he is surely an important transitional figure. Is there any problem pointing that out? As far as Hobbes and Rousseau are concerned, yes, they're other important figures. It's just a matter of sorting these (and maybe a couple of other) philosophers into the correct two or three sentences. Is there substantive disagreement on what I've said here? Would a compromise be to mention the seminal role of Bacon, then the core (canonical/key/whatever) figures, with Descartes either included with Bacon or with the next set? I do have reservations about the "early modern philosophy is a much bigger range of figures and issues" project; it might well be, but is that what the standard sources say? I am nervous of OR there, but perhaps that is premature.KD Tries Again (talk) 20:52, 24 January 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

Axis is a new word for it. Anyway, this axis is what precisely? According to the "canonical" quotes, it is basically the way that curricula teach the subject. Is that the same a what we want on Wikipedia, i.e. a list of the most notable people and events? I would say that this axis or canon or curriculum is also an approximate list of some of the most notable philosophy in the early modern era, and so as a starting point, not such a bad source for us. (I'd say it kind of summarizes the Cartesian line of philosophy more or less.) We all seem to agree. However this type of list will tend not to fit "transitional figures" like Bacon and Rousseau, partly because they do not categorize well for a curriculum. So we need to supplement it. You seem to be concerned that if you supplement it, the list will explode but I disagree. Bacon has now been handled as a transitional figure, and I think we can do the same for Rousseau near the end of this section. That leaves Hobbes and I've tried to separate him out for special mention which I think is justified because he started the social contract thing which is so important to this period and which should be mentioned anyway. I really can not think of anyone else who would be a challenger for being in that main stream of early modernity. IMHO early modernity is actually a pretty simple subject to summarize, at least if we stick to a summary of what is mainstream. (For example it is clear we are not putting Vico in the list of most important figures, even though some people see him as quite notable. I do think he could be considered for the also ran list but by definition that list should not be argued about too much in my opinion.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 01:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

ends with Kant? Maybe not quite so clearly

Next subject. The early modern sections ends with a sentences which says that, The early modern era is generally considered to end with Kant's systematic attempt to simultaneously limit metaphysics, justify scientific knowledge, and reconcile both of these with morality and freedom. The sources cited are...

• Nadler, A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, p. 1.
• Kenny, A New History of Western Philosophy, vol. 3, p. xiii.

Problems:-

• The sentence might be sourceable but once again seems to be claiming more than a Wikipedia needs to claim. Reading the sources might make sense in the context of those sources. For example Kant is perhaps often seen as the end of a particular dialogue in modern philosophy (or the start of a new one). So there is something notable to be put here, but the wording now seems questionable.
• A practical manifestation of the problem is that people mentioned in the article as typical of early modern philosophy such as Adam Smith are after Kant or unaffected by him. Early modern philosophy in effect continued after Kant, in particular amongst those who accepted Hume's philosophy. (So it might be argued that early modern philosophy's main dialogue closed with Hume on the one hand, and on the other hand those who had come to doubt the modern project even though they were themselves modern philosophers.)
• On the doubters side, I would argue Rousseau was the initiator. Certainly Kant treats Rousseau as a major source for this, and Hume as the person who woke him up. Kant is not necessarily an early modern himself in all sources, but he is generally discussed as someone who brought threads together in a new way. (That is actually how the Nadler source really describes him.) So this question I am raising now also links back to the question I have raised before, which is still not fixed, of mentioning Rousseau as a turning point. I believe people who are turning points are notable and can be mentioned that way, just as they often are in published sources. Sourcing is no problem with anything I am saying here.
• Coming to the sources then, as far as I can see the Nadler citation must refer to page 3, not page 1, and actually Nadler says it ended just before Kant. Nadler calls Kant something new. So this implies he may mean Rousseau was the end or he may be intentionally unclear and be referring to the period as a whole, and the debates therein, which of course featured Hume and Rousseau. (Reminder: the google books link to this book is posted above.)
• The Kenny quote can also be checked online. It actually says that early modern philosophy has two philosophical giants at its beginning and end, Descartes and Kant. This is not the same as defining those authors as the ends, but rather means that they were at the times of those ends.

Instead of me doing anything yet I post my points here and wonder if other editors might be able to tweak the sentence and its sourcing appropriately. As it stands there is no clear source for the sentence, but I do believe something about the key figures (Hume, Rousseau, Kant) in the last phases of the early modern period deserves to be said, just as I believe that there should be mention of the key figures at the beginning. The early modern philosophical period is unusual in the way in which it saw itself as a project being driven by the proposals of particular key individuals. It is still studied that way today, and so there is verifiable justification for this treatment, which is also common amongst sources.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:21, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Kenny describes Kant as the end of the "period," which I take to be the period of the "rise of modern philosophy" per his book title. Nadler's position is less determinate, but he seems to view Kant as the beginning of something new. So how about this?:

"The transition from the early modern era to modern philosophy proper came with with Kant's systematic attempt simultaneously to limit metaphysics, justify scientific knowledge, and reconcile both of these with morality and freedom." (I think that's enough and consistent with the two sources, but one could add:) "Kant's work, indeed, might be regarded as a new beginning in philosophy, rather than simply culmination of what came before (Nadler)."KD Tries Again (talk) 21:06, 24 January 2011 (UTC)KD Tries Again

Seems an uncontroversial incremental improvements, so I hope this can be done. But I keep open the proposal of possibly also adding a remark about the role of Hume and Rousseau in these events. Currently Rousseau is described as if he is in a different level of importance to Hume and Kant.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The claim is about how the phrase "early modern philosophy" is generally used. As generally used, it refers to the period from (approximately) Descartes to Kant. The chapter from Kenny's 1994 Oxford History of Western Philosophy does so. The Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy [6] does so. Rutherford's Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy does so (that was the source of the "p. 1" source, not the Nadler, the many edits must have introduced a misattribution somewhere). Copleston does so also (see his vol. 4, pp. 54ff., and vol. 6, pp. 427ff.) I don't see what the problem is with saying this period is generally considered to end with Kant. I have replaced "end" with "culminate" to avoid implying somehow everyone stopped caring about substance, causation, skepticism, and the rest in 1787. (Also, that is the word Rutherford uses.) I was planning to add sentence describing Rousseau as a seminal early figure in the anti-Enlightenment reaction when expanding this section anyway (that is, replacing the "list" with "prose narrative"), so I have no objection to doing so. 271828182 (talk) 23:08, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'll leave and see what others can come up with.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 01:27, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Updated observations.

• I think just changing to culminate is too much like taking a position in the above question, and the sources are obviously divided. I prefer KDTA's approach. Calling someone a transitional figure does seem to be to be the easiest way to change a potential circular discussion about whether someone is the first or last into a trivial point which is easy to agree upon. Remember we should always be aiming at consensus and neutrality. Of course we can find sources for all kinds of things in this subject.
• I am still hoping to see more about the bigger question about how the end of the period will be described. Hume and Rousseau are obviously critical along with Kant. Other notable figures in this period strike me as Herder and Burke. Some sources describe the Hume-Burke axis (to use KDTA's term) as the one which stayed faithful to the enlightenment while dropping some aspects, while the Rousseau-Kant axis is more critical and therefore, as we see by looking around at more sources, they are sometimes treated as being somewhat outside the main stream of the Enlightenment.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

You keep asserting that the "sources are obviously divided", but I don't see the evidence for that claim. The sources are (as the sentence says) generally in agreement that Kant is at the end of the period. 271828182 (talk) 00:08, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I gave one example only, that being Nadler. Tell me if you want more. BTW note that I say that we can easily choose a wording which makes the differences between sourcing trivial.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:16, 26 January 2011 (UTC)