Talk:Absence of good/Archive 1

Plato
In Western philosophy Plato seems to have started the speculation regarding human perfectability by introducing the idea of a metaphysical good as the ideal to be achieved and the idea of evil as the lack of good, with the human condition being the tension between the two and the struggle to resolve it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.196.248.11 (talk) 11:05, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It is remarkably difficult to attribute this doctrine to Plato, considering how often it is associated with him. I mention Plato in my new revision, but mainly as having influenced Plotinus and Augustine.Thiagovscoelho (talk) 15:49, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Start
This is my understanding of the matter (which may be incomplete), and my belief (which is clearly not objective). It might break some of the guidelines for Wiki articles (even though I was careful to say "if" a lot), so feel free to redo whatever you think you should. --Polyparadigm 07:05, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

''"However, in this case evil is the default state of the universe, and good exists only through constant effort; any lapse or redirection of good will apparently create evil out of nothing."

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatio_boni""''

I would not call this a true statement. If the metaphor of light is viewed as energy, and not confined to a visible spectrum of wavelength. Then it could be stated that evil would be the absence of energy. To my knowledge, there is never an absence of energy, possibly an unquantifiable amount.

There would be an absense of energy for areas where the universe has not expanded yet...

False
This paragraph:

"Our perceptions are based on contrast, so that light and dark, good and evil, are imperceptible without each other; in this context, these sets of opposites show a certain symmetry. But a basic study of optics teaches us that light has a physical presence of its own, whereas darkness does not: no "anti-lamp" or "flashdark" can be constructed which casts a beam of darkness onto a surface that is otherwise well-lit. Instead, darkness only appears when sources of light are extinguished or obscured, and only persists when an object absorbs a disproportionate amount of the light that strikes it."

is false. Whoever wrote it has obviously never heard of interference of light waves which can produce light and dark fringes. 86.139.159.151 (talk) 22:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, that example is still valid. I'm certainly not denying that interference of light waves can produce dark fringes by preventing light from reaching specific aspects of a surface. But notice "when sources of light are extinguished or obscured... In this case, the light waves that would have ordinarily struck the surface and produced observable light were obscured by other light waves that deflected them from their trajectory. Even though other light waves were the cause, it's still a case of deflection, and thus obscuration.  If I throw a football to you, and someone else knocks it away with another football, the throw was still deflected even though it was with the same type of object.

Note: I'm certainly not trying to imply that this viewpoint is accurate; I personally feel that the transition between "good and evil is relative" and "therefore God exists" is too great of a gap for this argument to be valid on its own merits. I just wanted to point out that the specific rebuttal above isn't accurate. Verin (talk) 14:34, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:UE?
WP:CAPS needs fixing here. But also, just wondering; Has this been tested according to Google Scholar/Books to establish that English is not "commonly used" per WP:Article titles? This seems rather generic. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:29, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:46, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Privatio Boni → Privation of good – Per WP:UE. Term very well established in English in English texts, see: "privation of good" Google Books hits. amend to Absence of Good. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. "Absence of good" gets 22,000 post-1980 English-language Google Book results. "Privation of good" gets 1,840. Kauffner (talk) 08:01, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Amend proposal -> Absence of good - the above comment by Kauffner is clearly correct, the "privation of good" is significantly less and not what privatio means in this context. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:42, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Citation Needed:
I have added the citation needed here in the Article Page at: "This Metaphor can be used to answer..."....   St John's first letter was always referred to here in this context, as the earliest source. MacOfJesus (talk) 00:23, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I put in the citation, but it did not take.... !! MacOfJesus (talk) 19:50, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I put in the source, in the next line. MacOfJesus (talk) 20:02, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Whatever was happening here, a Talk-Page comment was inserted into the body of the entry. That comment was "<!.. The earliest source of the use of this metaphor, in this context, is: St. John's First epistle, Chapter 1, verses 5, plus., and is the clearest written source. --   If the problem of evil 'can be answered' in fact, as the foregoing phrase seems to be saying, then the foregoing phrase is a statement of fact and must be supported by accepted written sources.  However, if the problem of evil has not been answered in fact, then one can delete the fact tag aka citation-needed tag, provided that one changes the wording to e.g. 'This metaphor can be used to ATTEMPT TO answer the problem of evil' (block capitals show additions). -->"

I've moved it here.01:07, 14 February 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Talastra (talk • contribs)

Relevance of Taoist Ideas
While I understand the desire to show related philosophical concepts from non-Christian sources, I don't think the quote from Chapter 2 of the Tao Te Ching supports the privation argument, insofar as it doesn't suggest that good is substantial but evil insubstantial--at least not prima facie. I think it would be appropriate either to cite some commentary that explains the connection to the privation argument, or to remove the quote from the Tao Te Ching. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.174.207.66 (talk) 23:43, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Removed something that used to be here
In what may be a controversial feature of my new major revision, I have removed three paragraphs from the article as it existed ["Perceptions are based....out of nothing"], about which it seems that many other people had already complained here. It seemed to me to be clearly original research; there were no citations for it, and the Lao Tzu quotation next to it was irrelevant, since it did not state the privation theory of evil, nor anything related to it, such as that evil is nothing, or that all things are good – the association was drawn wholly by the author, which I think is clearly original research. Thiagovscoelho (talk) 15:52, 11 September 2020 (UTC)