Talk:Philosophy

Got to get to work on other things now. This article obviously needs to be greatly expanded. In keeping with other CZ articles under development, this needs to be completely reworked as a readable introduction to the topic, for people who actually might need an introduction to it. This means that it needs to be not mainly a big, long list of names, theories, and concepts, and subdisciplines (some such lists are obviously appropriate), but instead mainly an introduction to the subject itself. The effect of reading the article, for someone who didn't have the first clue about what philosophy really is, should be an improved understanding (preferably through some choice examples) of what philosophical problems are like, and how philosophers generally approach them. --Larry Sanger 14:16, 28 January 2007 (CST)

It's interesting that this elderly version of a Wikipedia is better than what's there now. --Peter J. King 05:54, 11 February 2007 (CST)

How to get started in philosophy

I'm not certain that a "how to" section is a good idea in the first place, but this version starts rather oddly. Most introductions to philosophy that I've seen mention the usage of "philosophy" in "everyone has a philosophy" only to point out that that's not what the introduction is concerned with. A perfect example is the introduction to A Dictionary of Philosophy by Flew & Priest:

"'My philosophy is...' [...] It is with philosophy in a second sense that this Dictionary deals."

I'm not certain how bold "be bold" means in this new venture; I'm tempted to remove the section as inappropriate for an encyclopaedia, but it's actions like that which tend to lead to silly editing wars at Wikipedia, so I thought that I'd ask here first. --Peter J. King 17:11, 11 February 2007 (CST)

Feel free to remove it--it most definitely needs to be rewritten, at the very least. I think the sense in which "everybody has a philosophy" here is not the one mentioned in those dictionaries of philosophy. It is that there is such a thing as "folk philosophy" in about the same sense as "folk psychology": people have all sorts of views about the nature of reality (it's all relative!), the standards of knowledge (if I feel very sure, I know it!), what things are most valuable in life, and so forth. These beliefs could be "my philosophy," in a sense different from what you see in "my philosophy about fly-fishing," because they really do concern the same questions that philosophers study. The notion then is that one can view a study of philosophy as the refinement of one's own "folk (or personal) philosophy." --Larry Sanger 17:27, 11 February 2007 (CST)

I see what you mean — in which case it needs more explanation rather than removal (though the "how to" aspect is still a bit unenyclopædic).

I've tried to get some of the editors from Wikipedia to join in here; the main Philosophy article there is a mess (as are many of the other philosophy articles), and the better and more knowledgeable editors were fighting a losing battle against some indefatigable oddballs. I've just seen that one of the former has placed a copy of your PHILOS-L recuitment message (which was how I came here) at his Wikipedia User page. I don't know if that's something that you'd either foreseen or wanted; it might bring in some of the good people, but I suppose it might attract the loonies.

The main problem there probably wan't so much expertise versus non-expertise (though that played a part) as a system that fails to deal adequately with people who have no interest in co-operation or any sort of community spirit of working together on a project. I see that Citizendium hasn't entirely escaped that, but I hope that it has more success than Wikipedia. --Peter J. King 08:30, 12 February 2007 (CST)

I'm afraid we will have to deal with a few loonies in any case--you have to take bad with the good (and then eject the irremediably bad). If someone feels moved to put the note on his user page, I wouldn't stop him.

One way in which I see CZ being different from a traditional encyclopedia (on the recent conception--not on the conception encoded in, for example, Diderot's Encyclopedie) is that it does contain "how to" material. Isn't procedural knowledge just as much knowledge as declarative knowledge? That's what I always thought, anyway. Cf. choosing a dog! --Larry Sanger 10:33, 12 February 2007 (CST)

So this means, in theory, Ludvikus can join Citizendium? Larry, you don't know about Ludvikus, but you can find out by visiting the other Philosophy page. -- Edward buckner 13:50, 12 February 2007}}

Ah, OK, fair enough — I'm too infected by Wikipedia perhaps. I'll recover in time. --Peter J. King 11:58, 12 February 2007 (CST)

Questions: I'll assume Ludvikus represents the prototypical "difficult" person. Is he a potential editor? If not, bear in mind that, well, you are--and you can settle content controversies here (in consultation with other philosophy editors, of course), without constantly having to justify yourself to authors. Then, how long do you think it will take before he is banned here for his difficult behavior? Because, surely, there is no reasonable way that we can simply transfer decisions from the dysfunctional management and community into this new community. That really wouldn't be due process. --Larry Sanger 15:17, 12 February 2007 (CST)

Ludvikus is uniquely difficult. He got banned twice in the month he joined, but has now realised that if he avoids obvious infringements, he can continue with constant low level disruption. No, he would not ever be an editor. Note I have not enrolled as an editor though, glancing at the other editors in the philosophy section, I would probably qualify (I have a lot of publications, although none recent). Is that necessary? I assume that so long as there are a bunch of people who reasonably understand the project, then people who specialise in the constant low-level disruption like Ludvikus can get evicted. Edward buckner 15:32, 12 February 2007 (CST)

Greetings philosophers

Hello Peter, and hello Larry. I'm off in a minute, but just to say I decided to join here. I did manage to prevail over the lunacy regarding the introduction to the Philosophy article at Wikipedia. I am chatting to some of the other (some of them quite good) editors at Wiki to see if they are interested in coming over. Best Edward buckner 13:47, 12 February 2007 (CST)

First impressions

Interesting that the introduction does not mention 'rational enquiry', which we were so determined to get into the WP version!

There is a long list further down which is reminiscent of Wikipedia. I had a plan for the Wiki article to take it thematically, rather than historically, i.e. pull out the central bits of the Western tradition and deal with the history on the way, with a separate purely historical article as a sub-article. Thus, start with Rationalism, Empiricism, Scepticism. Anti-metaphysical cross-currents, that sort of thing.

The family calls. See you tomorrow. Edward buckner 13:58, 12 February 2007 (CST)

This morning

I started off by editing the priority article list by theme, rather than a lot of bullet points. Some odd exclusions in the bio's (William James) and some odd exclusions (William Ockham). I've deleted some I thought really weren't philosophers, though left in Goethe (does he really belong there), and added ones like Abelard, Anselm, a few others.

I think we should encourage a bit more planning in article construction, also in the organisation of the 'philosophy department'. E.g. use links wherever possible in the more general articles, and restrict text in the general article as a mere thread to the more specific ones. We probably won't have the 'personal essay' problem so much here, but need to keep some discipline from the start. Edward buckner 03:27, 13 February 2007 (CST)

The problems of philosophy

I like the idea of kicking off with the big problems. But what should these be? How about a selection of questions that were prominent in each of the main periods of philosophy. This would be a way of introducing the main problems and giving a sense of the history of philosophy via the questions that were perceived as important in each era. (The current history section is very 'listy').

Ancient philosophy: The problem of change, the problem of what things really exist, the problem of whether human beings can ever have comprehension of the things that really exist. The problem of defining 'the good'. (some of these problems are still around in a big way of course)

Medieval philosophy: The problem of Free Will, reconciling Faith and Reason, the problem of individuation (and implications for questions such as damnation of unbaptised infants), universals vs particulars &c

Early Modern philosophy: the problem of the external world, Hume's fork

Modern philosophy: explaining a world without God, logical puzzles (Russell's paradox, the Liar, Godel's proof)

Contemporary philosophy: explaining a world with God back (i.e. resurgence of fundamentalism, naturalism vs supernaturalism), presentism, the problem of consciousness.

Just some ideas. Edward buckner 03:46, 13 February 2007 (CST)

Feel I should apologise for having a tinker with the history section - I am myself guilty of listiness. Felt I should see if this editing malarkey worked (Have never edited on WP or others before).

A barebone thematic approach to the history here may be good, but would possibly have to be careful to avoid obscuring continuities between periods - similar problems reoccur in various forms - and giving the appearance of completeness ('perceived as important' is an important qualifier, but it would have to be emphasised that any such account would miss more peripheral aspects of a period's thought)

Just a wee thought. Look forward to more discussion. --Drew Johnson 10:11, 15 February 2007 (CST)

Actually, you've got an excellent idea, there, Edward. In other words, don't simply list some leading philosophical ideas, but both introduce the history of philosophy and introduce some important ideas at the same time. Have at it, please! The current history of philosophy section is useless, I think, and needs to be scrapped. It doesn't really do anything more than catalog names surrounded by pretty uninformative (and unreadably dull) sentences. --Larry Sanger 10:20, 15 February 2007 (CST)

New introduction

Not entirely sure about the new introduction. It very much sets the tone for what the rest of the article is going to be. It is leisurely compared to what would be acceptable in the Wiki (nothing wrong with that), but we need to think how it would look with everything else completed. And not sure of the wisdom of introductions which say that the subject introduced is basically very difficult and virtually impossible to define, &c. Particularly the second paragraph which mentions the branches without saying what the branches actually are (e.g. that metaphysics is the reasoned investigation of what things can ultimately be said to exist, or whatever).

What should the plan for this article be? The Wiki plan was for a link to all the main articles on the subject, rather than something self-contained. Best Edward buckner 02:26, 27 February 2007 (CST)

Afterthought: I've changed the intro to avoid repeating the key idea, then setting out the paragraphs possible solutions to the definition, which are then rejected. But that leaves the fourth solution (the 'historical' one) hanging unconnected. If we really prefer the third solution (that is it a method) then the third solution should come fourth, and the historical approach third. Edward buckner 02:37, 27 February 2007 (CST)