Talk:Timeline of Eastern philosophers

Mel removed Nishitani Keiji from the list, which seems right since there is no Japanese section on this page (why not? and why no Korean section?), and Mao Zedong, who should be removed if we are adhering to the claim at the top of the page:

The list stops at the year 1950, where it is presumed that philosophers fall into the broader Global category.

The reason given by Mel for removing Mao isn't very good since he's one of the more important Communist theoreticians, and that is all philosophy. Feng Yu-lan has been added by Mel and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was on the list even before that.

Are we sticking to the 1950 rule? If so, how does it work? Anyone born before 1950 is okay? Anyone who died before 1950 is okay? It seems like Feng Youlan, Radhakrishnan, and Mao all should be off this list (and moved to global). Opinions? KSchutte 28 June 2005 17:48 (UTC)

P.S. I'm changing the categories back to make [:Category:Philosophers] look nice. KSchutte 28 June 2005 17:51 (UTC)

Mao simply wasn't a philosopher; he may have been a theoretician (though even that's controversial, I think), but that's not at all the same thing. How are you defining "philosophy"? The 1950 business is more difficult — but issues like that always are. Perhaps more of the peson's life should be before the date than after? Or they should have done their most important work before 1950? As nothing very much hangs on it, we can afford to be liberal in our interpretation.

There haven't been many interesting Japanese philosophers (something that Japanese philosophers are themselves happy to concede), and the few that ther have been are almost all in the modern period. Still, I suppose that Kukai, Honen, Nichiren, Dogen, Hakuin, Nishida Kitaro, Miki Kiyoshi, Watsuji Tetsuro, Tanabe Hajime, and Nishitani Keiji would all be possible, though many of them are less philosophers than religious writers.

I don't know about Koreans (I've never come across a Korean philosopher), but it's undeniable that the current division into just India and China is too limiting. There's something to be said for having a fourth section of "others". Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 29 June 2005 11:01 (UTC)

Is that a little better? If anybody wants some dates or AKAs for most of those people, they can be found on the List of philosophers. KSchutte 5 July 2005 01:39 (UTC)

That's much better (though some of the new additions are very dubiously philosophers rather than religious writers, etc.). I've now tidied the list; there was a mixture of BC/AD and BCE/CE and of hyphens and dashes, and the headings had embedded links. I've also removed the subjective (and often very idiosyncratically applied) business about distinguishing important and minor figures. I mean, the important ones not only included Lao Zi (who probably didn't exist) and the Buddha (who isn't usually counted as a philosopher at all), but omitted important philosophers like Ramanuja and Adi Shankara. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 5 July 2005 10:17 (UTC)

Admittedly, I have a hard time telling the difference between a philosopher and a religious thinker in this tradition, so I just took everybody straight off my list. I figured it's better to have too many than too few. If there is any that don't seem appropriate, I'm not committed to keeping them here. KSchutte 5 July 2005 16:45 (UTC)

You are doing a good job so far... I have a question about the division of Chinese philosophy into time periods: What is the significance of the date 993 CE (as opposed to 1000)? I thought it might be the end of a dynasty, but looking at the History of China article, it didn't seem to match up to anything. WhiteC 00:15, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I was wondering about those breaks as well. I don't really know the reason for them. I don't see why we shouldn't eliminate them altogether and just put people in order (approximate when necessary) by birth in list fashion. I don't know how helpful the other commentary really is. KSchutte 06:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

It's not the case now, but perhaps when the sections were introduced there was a philosopher whose death or birth was 993 (though I can't think of anyone, and I haven't bothered to go back through the history). If subdivisions are necessary (and I tend to agree that they're not), dynasties would be more sensible. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:24, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Since the title of the article is "Timeline of Eastern philosophers", I think that some dates should be left in. But the dates should match up to dynasties, or important events (or possibly just round numbers) and be labeled clearly. At the moment, some eras are labeled, and some aren't. Ideally, the Indian, Japanese, Korean, etc lists should each end up with similar treatment. I am willing to do this, if people think it is a good idea. WhiteC 04:06, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree completely; if you'd do it that would be great. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:24, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, China is (mostly) done. I'll try to order chronologically, and leave those without dates at the end of each era alphabetically--I hope I've got them in the right places. WhiteC 04:24, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

It looks good — well-balanced section sizes. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:53, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for putting in dates and ordering, KSchutte. WhiteC 20:57, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

BC/AD BCE/CE

Two edits on December 4th have to do with changing date format from BC/AD to BCE/AD and back. From what I remember, Wikipedia accepts both of these date formats, but asks that you remain consistent with only one date format within the article. I don't know the policy on actually changing the format from one to the other. However in my opinion it's a waste of time changing from one to the other. Let's instead focus on important matters in the article maybe? --FranksValli 00:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I originally changed the dates from BC/AD to BCE/CE a while before Dec 4th. I had thought that since the article refers to Buddhism far more than to Christianity, that such a change would be consistent with proposed Wikipedia policy. But, having said that, I think it is more important to get facts right than to sweat the petty details, and it wouldn't really bother me whichever way it ends up. It WOUULD bother me if serious work on this article became impossible due to a revert war. WhiteC 02:34, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't just focus on buddism and shouldn't have been changed. That is the reason I reverted it, even if somewhat hasty. Chooserr

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