Talk:Philosophy/Archive 32

Conversation about "definition"
Please, let me suggest a conversation about "definition". Starting over with this is a better way to get a consensus rather than one person overwriting another's and waring back and forth. What is this section's intended use? Is it to describe the word "philosophy" or philosophy's symbolism, history or content? Something else? Is it really required? Does describing history and derivation imply definition? Whatever the answers I wonder if it's not simple enough, currently. BradVesp (talk) 11:28, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I moved this to a new section since it is not directly concerned with the arguments for and against the content removals. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:55, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * You don't think this methodology is directly concerned with the content that is in the "definition" section? Logically speaking the arguments for and against are directly contingent on the content which in turn is directly contingent on the "definitions" topic.  Though maybe I'm misconstruing logic.  I've been wrong before.  Also, logic certainly isn't a necessity, just useful at times.  I don't disagree that it should be a different section.  That's probably useful.  My reasoning for it is just different.  I'm sorry, I'm tired and grumpy.  I...  BradVesp (talk) 13:44, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I would say it's rather simple: the section should introduce and summarize the academic discourse on this subject. In this sense, the disagreements between and myself are about what the academic discourse says on this subject. We do not need to become creative and come up with our own ideas about this topic, philosophy's symbolism, or its history. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:59, 21 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Well you are also ignoring the issue of just how long this section should be and the use of the supporting article. Maybe resolve that first? To expand on the point - there are multiple definitions of philosophy and different authors have different ways of classifying them or simply don't attempt that task.  That makes it very difficult to summarise the field.  There is a supporting article with the right title where all of these could be listed, linked to their sources.  So my preference is (i) NO section, just a reference to the fact that definitions are controversial in the lede and a link to the supporting article (looks like BradVesp supports that) (ii) something fairly minimal which does not take any particular classification system per se (similar to what is in there after I cut down the recent insertions (a compromise, but with plenty of scope in the linked article for expansion) -Snowded TALK 15:24, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that it is very difficult to summarise the definitions section and that removing the section (or limiting it to a half dozen sentences) is appropriate. It doesn't seem to be the section in an encyclopedia article for exposition or detail. BradVesp (talk) 16:10, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * We should follow here, as everywhere, the reliable sources. How to define philosophy has been and still is a hotly debated topic. For example, try searching "What is philosophy" on google scholar. There are many book-length treatment specifically on this issue, for example "Hirst, R. J. What is Philosophy?" or "Havi Carel (Anthology Editor), David Gamez (Anthology Editor), What Philosophy Is". For a long article exclusively on this topic, see Meiner Enzyklopädie Philosophie: "Philosophiebegriffe". Phlsph7 (talk) 16:50, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * There are as you say multiple sources, so to treat them properly in this article would be disproportionate. A few sentences (obviously supported by reliable sources) and then the bulk of the material in the supporting article -Snowded TALK 16:54, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

As I said before: "The definition is an important part for most encyclopedia articles. This is especially true when the the right definition is often discussed and very controversial, as is the case for philosophy". Phlsph7 (talk) 17:04, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * And one major third party source simply says that the definition is controversial and the whole of the entry in that Oxford Handbook follows the same pattern as this article - it looks at things like Metaphysics, Ethics etc. It doesn't summarise the various definitions that exist.  That was the objection to the bulk of your additions.  You still haven't responded to the suggestion that all of the content you have created do into the supporting article -Snowded TALK 18:07, 21 February 2022 (UTC)


 * The oxford companion article first gives a method-based definition of philosophy as thinking about thinking, similar variations, and then explains the details of this definition. It later includes topic-base characterizations (topics like nature of the world, justification of belief and conduct of life). It does not include, for example, the difference between philosophy as a science or a non-science. But this topic is discussed in many works on this subject, which justify its inclusion here. Please also keep in mind that the oxford companion article is, like most articles in the oxford companion, relatively short in comparison to articles found in regular encyclopedias and in comparison to our article. So basing your argument on the fact that this particular work does not mention a specific fact is at best a very weak support for excluding this fact from a wikipedia article. I'm sure we could find many contents in other philosophy articles on wikipedia that are not mentioned in the corresponding oxford companion articles. We could probably delete most of the history section of our philosophy article if we used this method for choosing which topics are acceptable. The companion also lacks altogether articles on many of the philosophy subjects covered on wikipedia.


 * I have responded to your suggestion to remove the definition-section altogether by pointing to the various sources on this topic and to its relevance here. Whether these additions fit well in another article is not relevant for whether they should be kept here or not. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:40, 21 February 2022 (UTC)


 * You have responded and I disagree with you (as does one other editor) but I was happy to compromise with a limited set of content. The Oxford Companion doesn't go into definitions, Standford & Brittanica follow the same approach using language similar to what we have in the lede. Kenny and others writing histories don't talk about definitions but describe what philosophy was about in the context of different periods. It is not essential to this article, it is relevant to an article specifically on definitions. The third party material I can find doesn't have a section on definitions, its covers the material in context.-Snowded TALK 19:03, 21 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Could you please provide links to the Stanford and the Britannica article? I can't find a philosophy-article on Stanford and the Britannica article is only an outline with links but almost no content. Which book(s) do you mean by "Kenny and others"? Phlsph7 (talk) 19:12, 21 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Anthony Kenny's four part History of Philosophy (I have hard copy). Stanford I searched on philosophy and definitions and everything was very contextual.  Britannica I searched on Philosophy and it more or less had the same type of content as our lede -Snowded TALK 19:38, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

We need articles on the same topic if we want to draw comparisons. I'm not advocating that an article on the history of philosophy should have a definitions-section. If you browse through random articles on the Stanford encyclopedia and the Britannica encyclopedia, then the fact that you do not find a section named "Definition of philosophy" is meaningless. If you want to make an argument based on an article on the Stanford encyclopedia or the Britannica encyclopedia, please say which article you are talking about (by providing a link, for example), not which search terms you entered in google. Phlsph7 (talk) 19:49, 21 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Honestly you want spoon feeding?  Open EB and look at the article on Philosophy.  On Stanford I did multiple searches and couldn't find anything about Philosophy, only branches of Philosophy.  I didn't enter any search on Google.  It is far from meaningless if those two encyclopaedias ignore it. -Snowded</b> <small style="color: #708090; font-family: Baskerville;">TALK 07:38, 22 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree: it's not meaningless that the Stanford encyclopedia and the Britannica encyclopedia do not have a proper article with the title "Philosophy" like our article philosophy. But I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from this.


 * But maybe we can put these disagreements to the side for a moment. You indicated several times that your main issue is the size of the original section and that you are happy with its current size (or at least that this size would be acceptable to you). My main point is that important claims were removed, which the section should mention. But maybe these claims can be mentioned in a more condensed version of the section, which would fit both our requirements. My suggestion would be to start with the section in its original form, remove details, and summarize to reduce its size. This way, the removal of content is more balanced and organic. Currently, it's at 318 words, the original version was 865 words (pure text without sources). I don't think I can bring it down that low but the original size can be significantly reduced. I would make a corresponding draft, which we can discuss then. But we would need to get to a rough agreement on its final size before I get started in order to avoid the same discussion for the final draft. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:12, 22 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Well I have been trying to find a reliable third party source that could be used to summarise the different definitions that exist but so far without success. There are lots of perspectives on the question (and you cited several of them) but they were partial. As I keep saying, all of them and more would be good in the definitions article where they being listed, not to make a statement in Wikipedia's voice.   I'll carry on the hunt -<b style="color: #801818; font-family: Papyrus;">Snowded</b> <small style="color: #708090; font-family: Baskerville;">TALK 09:24, 22 February 2022 (UTC)


 * If you want less emphasis on the distinction between deflationism and essentialism, that can be done. The article should still mention the distinction, but we don't need to use these specific terms and it will be shorter anyways if the size is to be removed. If you have concrete suggestions on how to better represent the naturalist tradition, we can also include them. Otherwise, I think the offer in my last edit is our best chance at moving towards a consensus. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:04, 22 February 2022 (UTC)


 * There has been plenty of time and no objections or further requests/suggestions have been raised, so I'll get started with the proposed draft. I'll try to provide a more succinct version of the removed content by roughly cutting its size in half. I won't use the terms "deflationism" and "essentialism" and I'll make the role of naturalism more explicit. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:44, 24 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I've been thinking about it. I'm in no hurry for an answer. I'm having difficulty determining how "definition" applies here.  What is a definition, exactly?  You folks seem to be outlining philosophies' genres.  I don't think that's a definition, or if it is it's the definition for that genre, but not for philosophy itself. BradVesp (talk) 13:05, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Were one to describe a river how would it be done? Well, one would say it's water that moves.  One might add more detail and note that it has a course (i.e. a direction).  It's bounded (i.e. defined?) by land on two side. BradVesp (talk) 15:38, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

A definition of X describes what X is, what its nature or its essential features are. Have a look at the sources cited if you doubt that these are how philosophers have tried to define philosophy. For example, form the Oxford companion: "The shortest definition, and it is quite a good one, is that philosophy is thinking about thinking" (see the last paragraph of the draft); or from Overgaard: "Essentialist attempts to define philosophy can be either topical or methodological, but both sorts have their problems" (see the 2nd paragraph of the draft). I'm not sure what the best definition of "river" is. You might be interested in Wittgenstein's "Philosophical investigations", where he goes through a similar exercise in trying to define the word "game". Phlsph7 (talk) 16:53, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

So, philosophy can be defined as "the essence to thinking and reasoning"? It's short, I know. BradVesp (talk) 17:48, 24 February 2022 (UTC) I also like the phrase "composed thinking about a specific topic". I have no source for either definition. They are something I developed in the last two days. BradVesp (talk) 15:52, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * An aside: 1. We humans want more more more, until the glaciers melt and the rivers dry up. 2. The topic lends itself to circular reasoning which can be confusing. BradVesp (talk) 17:48, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Proposed draft
I propose to use the following as our new definitions-section. I summarized the removed contents and cut their size down by half. I included 's idea to have the basic etymological info. I included the passage suggested by concerning  interesting or profound definitions in a slightly reformulated expression. I left the passage on meaning- and understanding-based approaches out, i.e. (4) of the earlier discussion. The terms "essentialism" and "deflationism" are not mentioned. The role of naturalism is made explicit. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:58, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The etymology is in the article's beginning sentence. I didn't notice that before pointed it out.  Including it here maybe redundant, but maybe useful.  We can use a reminder sometimes if it's important enough.  Is it? BradVesp (talk) 17:48, 24 February 2022 (UTC)


 * The first paragraph seems appropriate but better to start with agreement then disagreement, no? I ran a line through the parts I thought are not necessary here (or I was gonna, but there's no strikethrough?), but my decision to do so was based on a cursory reading.  I'm sure some things should return.  Also, I highly disagree with using "spiritual" in the article at all, but especially in the section describing a reasoned approach. BradVesp (talk) 20:29, 24 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I restructured the contents so to make it clear who proposes what. It's possible to start with an agreement, the problem is just that this agreement is not really a definition, it's just a vague characterization. But if that is your main point, I can try to rearrange the contents in my draft correspondingly. Unfortunately, your draft does not mention the deep underlying disagreement at all. It just gives a few arbitrary examples without providing a proper overview of the academic discourse in general and how these examples fit in. It also removes the majority of the contents, which are well-sourced, without explanation. There was already an intense discussion beforehand on which contents should be removed or modified, it might have been better for you to join that conversation, otherwise we would have to start the whole discussion from the beginning again. Phlsph7 (talk) 05:52, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know. I didn't intend to remove all those contents as if it wasn't important.  I only wanted to highlight the parts I thought were important.  I couldn't find a valid editing tool to do that.
 * It's an ancient concept that involves billions, I'm sure it's already started over a couple times and it'll get reworked again. This draft's not going to last forever. BradVesp (talk) 10:53, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah alright, no problem then. I renamed the subsection to clarify that it only concerned the introductory paragraph. I think I'll have some time later today to rework the introduction according to your suggestion to start with the agreements. It's unlikely that it will last forever but if we manage to get a consensus on it for now, that is already something. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:28, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

I'd like it if the definition section looked like a dictionary entry. Butthatsjustme. BradVesp (talk) 15:52, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok, I went ahead and made the changes. The new version has the additional advantage that it needs one sentence less, which repeated that there are disagreements. Otherwise the sentences were mainly rearranged without any significant changes. I left the old version in a foldable section so it can be looked up. For a dictionary entry giving an assorted list of definitions, that's what wiktionary is for. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:35, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll proceed with the proposed change since all the main requests have been implemented and no additional objections have been raised. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:57, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Phlsph7's draft
There is wide agreement that philosophy (from the ancient Greek φίλος, phílos: "love"; and σοφία, sophía: "wisdom") is characterized by various general features: it is a form of rational inquiry, it aims to be systematic, and it tends to critically reflect on its own methods and presuppositions. But approaches that go beyond such vague characterizations to give a more interesting or profound definition are usually controversial. Often, they are only accepted by theorists belonging to a certain philosophical movement and are revisionistic in that many presumed parts of philosophy would not deserve the title "philosophy" if they were true. Before the modern age, the term was used in a very wide sense, which included the individual sciences, like physics or mathematics, as its sub-disciplines, but the contemporary usage is more narrow.

Some approaches argue that there is a set of essential features shared by all parts of philosophy while others see only weaker family resemblances or contend that it is merely an empty blanket term. Some definitions characterize philosophy in relation to its method, like pure reasoning. Others focus more on its topic, for example, as the study of the biggest patterns of the world as a whole or as the attempt to answer the big questions. Both approaches have the problem that they are usually either too wide, by including non-philosophical disciplines, or too narrow, by excluding some philosophical sub-disciplines. Many definitions of philosophy emphasize its intimate relation to science. In this sense, philosophy is sometimes understood as a proper science in its own right. Some naturalist approaches, for example, see philosophy as an empirical yet very abstract science that is concerned with very wide-ranging empirical patterns instead of particular observations. Some phenomenologists, on the other hand, characterize philosophy as the science of essences. Science-based definitions usually face the problem of explaining why philosophy in its long history has not made the type of progress as seen in other sciences. This problem is avoided by seeing philosophy as an immature or provisional science whose subdisciplines cease to be philosophy once they have fully developed. In this sense, philosophy is the midwife of the sciences.

Other definitions focus more on the contrast between science and philosophy. A common theme among many such definitions is that philosophy is concerned with meaning, understanding, or the clarification of language. According to one view, philosophy is conceptual analysis, which involves finding the necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of concepts. Another defines philosophy as a linguistic therapy that aims at dispelling misunderstandings to which humans are susceptible due to the confusing structure of natural language. One more approach holds that the main task of philosophy is to articulate the pre-ontological understanding of the world, which acts as a condition of possibility of experience.

Many other definitions of philosophy do not clearly fall into any of the aforementioned categories. An early approach already found in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy is that philosophy is the spiritual practice of developing one's reasoning ability. This practice is an expression of the philosopher's love of wisdom and has the aim of improving one's well-being by leading a reflective life. A closely related approach identifies the development and articulation of worldviews as the principal task of philosophy, i.e. to express how things on the grand scale hang together and which practical stance we should take towards them. Another definition characterizes philosophy as thinking about thinking in order to emphasize its reflective nature.

There is a lot of disagreement about how philosophy (from the ancient Greek φίλος, phílos: "love"; and σοφία, sophía: "wisdom") is to be defined. Before the modern age, the term was used in a very wide sense, which included the individual sciences, like physics or mathematics, as its sub-disciplines, but the contemporary usage is more narrow. There is wide agreement that philosophy is characterized by various general features: it is a form of rational inquiry, it aims to be systematic, and it tends to critically reflect on its own methods and presuppositions. But approaches that go beyond such vague characterizations to give a more interesting or profound definition are usually controversial. Often, they are only accepted by theorists belonging to a certain philosophical movement and are revisionistic in that many presumed parts of philosophy would not deserve the title "philosophy" if they were true.

BradVesp's draft of the introductory paragraph
The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines Philosophy (from the ancient Greek φίλος, phílos: "love"; and σοφία, sophía: "wisdom") as:
 * 1. the study of the nature and meaning of existence, good and evil, etc.
 * 2. the views of a particular philosopher or group of philosophers.
 * 3. the attitude or set of ideas that guides the behavior of a person or orginization.

Philosophy is characterized by various general features: it is a form of rational inquiry, it aims to be systematic, and it tends to critically reflect on its own methods and presuppositions. Thus philosophy is the practice of developing one's reasoning ability, a practice that aims to improve ones well-being by leading a reflective life. The phrase thinking about thinking is often used to describe the process.

Another approach identifies the development and articulation of worldviews as the principal task of philosophy, i.e. to express how things on the grand scale hang together and which practical stance we should take towards them.

Definitions of Philosophy
Given past controversies I think major rewrites of sections really need to be discussed first. So opening this section. To be clear I think it needs a rewrite and/or a link to another article - the lede and other sections may be enough without this. In fact that would make more sense - just delete the section, link to the definitions article and focus on improving that -<b style="color: #801818; font-family: Papyrus;">Snowded</b> <small style="color: #708090; font-family: Baskerville;">TALK 12:10, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * This:
 * "Many other definitions of philosophy do not clearly fall into any of the aforementioned categories. An early approach already found in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy is that philosophy is the spiritual practice of developing one's reasoning ability.[44][45] This practice is an expression of the philosopher's love of wisdom and has the aim of improving one's well-being by leading a reflective life.[46] A closely related approach identifies the development and articulation of worldviews as the principal task of philosophy, i.e. to express how things on the grand scale hang together and which practical stance we should take towards them.[23][24][47] Another definition characterizes philosophy as thinking about thinking in order to emphasize its reflective nature.[23][33]"
 * seems useful. BradVesp (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 13:32, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello, I saw that you reverted the rewrite of the section "Definitions" with the justification (1) that it is "too radical", (2) that it does not capture the "natural philosophy aspect", and (3) that it is based on "limited sources".


 * As for (1): the content does not seem radical to me, maybe you could point out which specific claims you find radical. You can ignore this point if the "radical" was just meant to express that a lot changed without characterizing the new content itself.


 * As for (2): the term "natural philosophy" was initially used for the natural sciences. The rewrite discusses this topic in the first and the third paragraph. But the point of this section is to define philosophy in general, not specifically natural philosophy.


 * As for (3): the rewrite cites 28 sources. I could have cited more, but I have been accused of WP:OVERCITE in the past, which is why I have held back. The sources themselves are very diverse concerning their authors and their types, like journal articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries. Compared to the rest of the article, it is the best-sourced section.


 * The main reason for the rewrite was that the current version does not define philosophy at all, it just gives different mostly historical subdivisions. This content belongs to another section, like the section "Branches of philosophy". But it is not much help to give a definition of how the term "philosophy" is currently used. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:26, 15 February 2022 (UTC)


 * My suggestion is to delete the section - what is needed is already in the lede. There is an article on definitions that could be developed. And by radical I meant a large scale change without prior discussion. -<b style="color: #801818; font-family: Papyrus;">Snowded</b> <small style="color: #708090; font-family: Baskerville;">TALK 17:30, 15 February 2022 (UTC)


 * If there are no good reasons for your revert, then the material should be restored. The definition is an important part for most encyclopedia articles. This is especially true when the the right definition is often discussed and very controversial, as is the case for "philosophy". The current lead covers very little information of the proposed rewrite, it discusses the topic mainly historically without any mention of the controversy. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:48, 15 February 2022 (UTC)


 * It's perfectly reasonable to revert a major change to allow discussion. Philosophy is already defined in the lede and (in the context of history, schools etc.) in the body of the article.  My general view was that your rewrite imposed a framework that was not sufficiently based on third party sources.  But a lot of that material would make sense in the other article (which can be linked and needs work).  Hence the suggestion to delete the section but link to the other article -<b style="color: #801818; font-family: Papyrus;">Snowded</b> <small style="color: #708090; font-family: Baskerville;">TALK 19:45, 15 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with your revert-major-changes-policy, but that is besides the point. I think I've answered the doubts raised so far, including the objection that the material is allegedly redundant due to being already covered elsewhere. It seems that you are intent to wait a little to see if more doubts are raised. I suggest that we keep this talk-page section to the question of whether the rewrite constitutes an improvement over the previous version. If there are serious considerations to remove the section "Definitions" alltogether, whether old or new, it might be better to discuss this in a new talk-page section. Phlsph7 (talk) 05:44, 16 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I'll go ahead and restore the rewrite since no further justification of the revert has been provided despite explicit requests. The main arguments given here focused on whether the article needs a definition section at all. Such arguments do not support the revert from one version of the definition section to another and should therefore be discussed separately. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:39, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Maybe use a dictionary as inspiration for the Definition section and then use other encyclopedia sections for farther elaboration. BradVesp (talk) 20:43, 24 February 2022 (UTC)


 * , did you ever get a consensus for the changes you made? I see little to no argument. BradVesp (talk) 11:16, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The criticism was only directed at the original version. I suggested a draft with a revised version that avoids all the main objections to the original version. No objections were raised against this revised version since then, which is already almost a month ago. This implies consensus for the revised version, see Silence and consensus. For the details of the objections and the corresponding changes, see the sections Talk:Philosophy and Talk:Philosophy. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:53, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Removal of content on essentialism and deflationism from the section "Definitions"
(postponed RfC)

Is the removal of the following new content based on WP:OR / WP:SYN justified? "Some approaches are deflationist: they see "philosophy" as an empty blanket term that groups various disciplines together for the sake of convenience even though they do not share important characteristics. Deflationism is opposed by essentialists, who argue that there is a set of essential features shared by all parts of philosophy. Various theorists have argued for a position between these two extremes: that the different parts of philosophy are related to each other by family resemblance even though they do not all manifest the same essential features."

The discussion can be found here. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:09, 21 February 2022 (UTC)


 * No. The content is well sourced, see also the quotations. Unfortunately the opposing editor has not specified which particular claim they reject in accordance with What_SYNTH_is_not despite being asked to do so. So far, no sources have been cited that reject the material. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:17, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Premature RfC
An RfC is meant to be called after discussion fails, it is still ongoing. And it is meant to be agreed, not simply issued by one editor who isn't happy that his changes are not accepted. The first issue to resolve is if the section exists (two editors think it should go) and if it exists what its content and length should be. -<b style="color: #801818; font-family: Papyrus;">Snowded</b> <small style="color: #708090; font-family: Baskerville;">TALK 16:40, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I have the impression that the discussion on these removals is going nowhere. I asked you several times to respond to my arguments and to back up your personal opinions with reliable sources but you have failed to do so. I'm not particularly eager to have to go through an RfC so if you are confident that we may reach an acceptable consensus, then we can postpone it. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:59, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I have responded - see above and in some detail. I may not be responding in the way you want, but I am trying to structure the discussion.  The first question is how much content and its nature, not the specific content you want to produce.  Phrases like 'personal opinions' are misreading of the situation on your part.  -<b style="color: #801818; font-family: Papyrus;">Snowded</b> <small style="color: #708090; font-family: Baskerville;">TALK 18:03, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

"Philalethia" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Philalethia and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 9 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. signed,Rosguill talk 19:37, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I can't believe this is one of the oldest Wikipedia pages
I can't believe this is one of the oldest Wikipedia pages and the first one that isn't about Wikipedia itself. 2603:6011:9D44:BC59:F0BF:9810:5920:84C0 (talk) 17:31, 31 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Even cooler, if you go to a random article and then click the first in-article link (not language or a disambiguation or the like) and just keep doing that, you will always end up here. Always. Jackspm10 (talk) 04:00, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Philosophy predates academia and the internet. A PhD is, in abbreviation, "Doctor of Philosophy"; the highest level of academic qualification one can achieve. BradVesp (talk) 15:21, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a well-documented and very interesting phenomenon, known as Getting to Philosophy. I have an interesting theory about how it works. Wikilinks, particularly at the beginning of the page, connect to broader subjects almost without exception. The page summary section, by definition, is intended to explain something in simple terms. As a result, page summaries tend to make use of broader concepts to explain more specific ones, and will invariably contain Wikilinks to those topics. Consequentially, following the first link to be found on any given page will almost always land you on a page that's an order of magnitude more broad in scope. Philosophy is sort of a strange attractor, at least in terms of following the "decreasing specificity" pipeline; in a way, it's the broadest subject that you can possibly have.
 * Interestingly, Promissory Oaths Act 1871 links to Philosophy in just fourteen steps. This is an example of another aspect of the Getting to Philosophy phenomenon-- because everything, everything eventually leads back to Philosophy, then it follows that lesser-known pages, pages with fewer possible interconnections, will reach Philosophy faster. This may seem counterintuitive at first, but highly specific, niche pages-- which you wouldn't normally connect to something as broad as Philosophy-- are actually great examples of the specific-to-broad pipeline in action.   Atomic putty? Rien!  15:54, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Request for "Controversy" or "Criticism" section
Many people have big problems with philosophy. These should be mentioned.
 * What are those controversies? What concerns do you want included? Philosophy is a very wide subject, and your request is too vague. 136.185.133.240 (talk) 17:26, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

posted the following in the article:
 * At Google's Zeitgeist Conference in 2011, Stephen Hawking said that "philosophy is dead". He believed that philosophers "have not kept up with modern developments in science" and that scientists "have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge". He said that philosophical problems can be answered by science, particularly new scientific theories which "lead us to a new and very different picture of the universe and our place in it".

It was removed, but seems fair to consider. BradVesp (talk) 12:33, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * In principle, having some content on criticism of philosophy could be considered. However, most criticism is not directed at philosophy in general, but instead at certain philosophical theories or movements, probably for the simple reason that the term philosophy is so wide that it is difficult to criticize as a whole. As for this particular addition, I think it's uncontroversial that the article on philosophy in general is not the right place for a section on what Stephen Hawking said at the Google Zeitgeist Conference in 2011. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:53, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that all makes sense. Too, Hawking's comments aren't a criticism about philosophy as much as they are about philosophers.  BradVesp (talk) 16:53, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * No. But maybe we could all go work on Criticism of Electricity, Criticism of Clothing, or Criticism of Speech.<b style="color: #0011FF;"> SPECIFICO</b> talk 17:35, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a question that's been long debated by many modern philosophers: what role can philosophy continue to have after the advent of science? Would likely belong in he metaphilosophy section, though I don't know that Hawking's quote would be due. His statement has itself been appraised by philosophers, so maybe. I'm surprised this article, which is practically the foundation for everything else on Wikipedia, is only 43KB (prose). We're extremely far from Featured Article comprehensiveness. DFlhb (talk) 15:32, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

We have to be careful of getting stuck in a word game. A useful distinction which I've seen made is one between philosophy and that which is called philosophy in modern academic categorization. Of course we have to bow to modern categorization to some extent but it is difficult to understand what philosophy is on that basis. Philosophy in universities can refer to lots of different types of academic because philosophy does not bound itself, and can involve any kind of academic. Some of them Hawking might prefer to think of as mathematicians or scientists, others might be considered as mystics by all their colleagues! In other words, if you try to define philosophy in a bounded way, using academic categorization as the guideline, it looks like the "leftovers" after you cut out all the people with an interest in another discipline. Furthermore, the academic perspective sometimes turns the term into a profession. "I am philosopher" can mean "I teach philosophy at a recognized learning institution". Neither of these usages really cover what philosophy means to those who have expertise in philosophy. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:41, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Philosophy
Philosophy is meaning that love of wisdom 103.184.239.100 (talk) 05:51, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

A proposal to accept a modest change in the figureheads under the "series" section.
I would like move that we make some changes in the figureheads under the "series" section. Presently there are two rows with three coulumns each. The third column on the top row has been used for Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. I propose to change the individual placed at the position, namely replacing Nietzsche with the late logician and the founder of the contemporary analytic philosophy, Bertrand Russell.

I am willing to make arguments in favour of making the change. Awaiting responses from contributors and administrators of the page.

Sabyasachi Senapati Sabyasachiv48 (talk) 07:03, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Technically this might not be the right place to discuss such a chance, or at least we should inform other affected pages in the series? FWIW with all due respect I suppose both Nietzsche and Russell, like all relatively recent philosophers (except perhaps Marx?), could be questioned if the criterion is influence. More influential were for example Bacon, Descartes and Hume. But honestly I have no big problem with the current selection. If the aim of the selection was to represent a diverse set of different types of philosopher then Nietzsche is a good choice. It could be argued that Russell is in a logical tradition connected back to Kant (and Hume).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:53, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The criterion is not influence. Criterion is the 2 major shifts in the methodology of Western canon. First Plato, standing for metaphysics, Second Kant for epistemology, and a proposed third for the emphasis on logic and philosophy of language in modern Analytic tradition from my side would be Russell.
 * By diversity, what good does it do to have two figures confined to the same region, namely the German speaking ones.
 * Instead we can treat Kant representing the Continent and Russell, the modern Anglophone philosophy.
 * I didn't get what you meant by "informing other affected pages". Sabyasachiv48 (talk) 16:09, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The criterion is whatever Wikipedians agree upon in a case like this. What I mean by the series is that you are referring to this Template:Philosophy_sidebar. It has its own talk page, and is used by many pages... Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Philosophy_sidebar.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:28, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Sabyasachiv48 (talk) 03:32, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 February 2023
Revert "processing" in the opening sentence back to "systematized study". The link for "processing" is to a limited inquiry method for philosophic study and does not represent philosophy as a whole. (Good website, though) ProofCreature (talk) 11:30, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Done. It's true that "systematized study" is the more common characterization. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:08, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Can I just say that I used to edit this wikipedia page back in 2004 and let me say we've come a long way! -Massanon 2600:4040:5558:6900:530:5114:B566:9954 (talk) 09:15, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 June 2023
"Major European Quantum Physicists, including Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, & Niels Bohr credit the Vedas with giving them the ideas for their experiments.[98]"

The reference provided does not support this line. All the quoted people had nothing to do with experimentation. The line must be removed until a proper citation has been provided. Sai Srikar 12345 (talk) 10:57, 12 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Done - agreed, the claim is highly dubious &#32;- car chasm (talk) 13:32, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Definitions and related terms
Do we want to say anything about the use of the term natural philosophy (or natural philosopher) in this article? The section mentions the understanding of the term philosophy in the pre-modern era, mentioning math, physics, and science, but doesn't mention these. Neither does HoP. If it's undue here or at HoP, then perhaps at Definitions of philosophy, where it isn't mentioned either.

This article doesn't mention intellectual history, and I wonder if it would be appropriate to say something about it. (Again, nothing at Definitions of philosophy.) HoP does a better job, mentioning it both in Definitions and the lead. Mathglot (talk) 16:44, 25 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Natural philosophy and philosophy of nature are older terms that roughly cover both physics and philosophy of physics. "Natural philosophy" is mentioned in the subsection "Other subdivisions" of this article. It might be good to mention the term somewhere in the article "History of philosophy". I'll see what I can do about it.
 * There is a significant overlap between history of philosophy and intellectual history. I was thinking about mentioning this in our section "Historical development" "Historical overview". Phlsph7 (talk) 17:04, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Did you mean, in this article? I don't see a section entitled "Historical development" here, or at HoP, DoP, or IH. Mathglot (talk) 17:17, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Your are right, sorry for the confusion. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:27, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I just saw, the term "philosophy of nature" is mentioned 2 times in the history article in the sections History_of_philosophy & History_of_philosophy. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:38, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Changes to the section "Historical overview"
I think the section "Historical overview" needs various changes and I wanted to get some feedback before I get started. It is excessively long and makes up over half of the total article (3362 of 6406 words). One of the causes is that it includes long discussions of traditions that are not particularly important to philosophy in general. For example, its treatment of "Indigenous American philosophy" is about as long as the entire treatment of "Western philosophy" and almost twice the length of the subsection "Islamic philosophy". In terms of the relative importance of these traditions, this is WP:UNDUEWEIGHT and not supported by the reliable sources. Similar problems affect the subsection "Eastern philosophy".

Sources are another problem. Various paragraphs lack sources. For some of the paragraphs that have sources, their sources do not cover the claims they are used for. For example, Whitehead 2010 mentions Plato but does not support the claims in that passage. For some passages, whole books are used as a source without any indication of the page(s) that would support the claims.

All of these points should be addressed if we wish to get the article to GA status at some point. There are different ways how they could be solved. My favored approach would be to focus on WP:SUMMARYSTYLE and present this section as a brief overview of the main points of the recently finished article History of philosophy, maybe a total of 1500 to 2000 words. Some of the excessively detailed material here could be moved to the corresponding main articles. For example, the section "Indigenous American philosophy" is about as long as the article Indigenous American philosophy and many of the passages from our section could be included there.

Sorry for this rather lengthy post. I would get started with these issues but I wanted to hear what others think. Some of these points were already discussed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Philosophy so I'll ping the editors involved there.

Phlsph7 (talk) 15:34, 25 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I would definitely favor the WP:Summary style approach. Given that we now have a detailed article at History of philosophy, I think there's no question that the history section here should be very greatly reduced, leaving just a "quick summary". Imho, the summary should be no longer than the lead section at HoP, and preferably about half that size, without the need for subsection headers. The whole point of summary style, is to provide a brief overview of a subtopic in the parent article which has a lot of ground to cover, with section-top links (Main, Further, etc.) to the child articles, and that's what we should do here. Mathglot (talk) 16:59, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I would go that far since the history of philosophy is an important part of philosophy. I think someone reading only this article without opening the article "History of philosophy" should get a barebone overview of the main traditions. At least, I would suggest one subsection for each of them. Maybe it could be reduced to 1000 words in total (about twice the size of the lead of "History of philosophy").
 * A related problem is the following: currently, our article does not have section for the different schools of philosophy, like Platonism, Aristotelianism, dualism, pragmatism, existentialism, etc. They are currently discussed in the history section. If decide on a minimal history section then we may have to add a new section to discuss these different schools. It could also work. What are your thoughts? Phlsph7 (talk) 17:25, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * If I understand @Mathglot correctly, I agree. Some of the material in the "Historical overview" is quite detailed and will not be read by someone who just wants to know what philosophy is. Such readers will be better served by a historical overview closer to the overview of "Branches of philosophy" below.
 * The level-2 heads, however, should certainly be preserved. (And maybe some level-3s ought to be level-2s.)
 * My only concern, if someone is going to undertake this, would be to ensure nothing is removed here that is not covered on the subject's main article. Just at a glance, a lot of this material appears to be quite well sourced. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:38, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree, we should move the details we can't cover here to the corresponding main articles (unless they are already covered in detail there). Phlsph7 (talk) 17:48, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @PJW, If by level-2 heads you mean Html level 2 sections (i.e., ) then I agree; and also that nothing should be removed that isn't covered somewhere. And the "Branches" could serve as a better home for some of removed content.
 * @Phlsph7, it goes without saying that "the history of philosophy is an important part of philosophy", but that's not the governing factor, here. As a Gedankenexperiment, please think about how large a section should be devoted to the Normandy landings in our article about World War II, which is organized in summary style. (No peeking... okay, got your answer? Good; you can open your eyes, now.) Answer: one sentence. If you're surprised, don't be; the Normandy landings are covered in great detail in the article about it, and in the context of the parent article it doesn't need to be overstated.
 * This may be an extreme example, but it was to make the point that the importance of the child article isn't what governs the length of content in the parent, and it isn't really a WP:DUE issue either, as would be the case if the child article didn't exist. I think the WP:DETAIL section at WP:SS covers it well. It's hard to pick just one representative quotation from that section, but as a statement of objective: "The idea is to summarize and distribute information across related articles in a way that can serve readers who want varying amounts of details." I think that the HoP section in this article should be short; readers who want more will find it readily from the section-top link. Having a section that is too long, just makes it less likely they'll scroll past it, and ever see the "Branches" section at all. So in my view, shortening the section to less than a laptop screenful, "serves readers" the best, and "serving readers" is why we are all here, right? Mathglot (talk) 18:43, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I usually go roughly by the following metric: for articles on big topics, like this one, I aim at 50-60kB readable prose size (8000-9000 words, see WP:SIZERULE). How this is divided among its different subtopics depends on how important they are relative to each other. The history section is currently by far the longest but it's clearly not more important than all the other sections combined, which is why it needs to be reduced. The 1500 words estimate I gave roughly reflects the importance I associate with this sub-topic relative to the other sub-topics. But, of course, this is a very subjective estimate and I'm sure if we ask 5 more editors, we would get 5 more opinions. WP:SUMMARYSTYLE is also helpful here. But, unfortunately, it does not give us a clear answer on how much we should summarize. I would also be happy to draft a shorter section if there is agreement on this point. Phlsph7 (talk) 19:23, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if I agree with your reasoning, as I don't think the importance of the subtopic is a factor in the calculation once the section becomes a summary, rather than being a full treatment of the section topic. In the context of an article section without an associated child article, I would agree with you; as part of WP:DUE WEIGHT, the size of the section content should be roughly in proportion to the amount of coverage of the section topic in secondary sources, compared to the coverage of other section topics. However, once a new, child article is created from one of the sections, as you have with History of philosophy, the section in question (, in this case), should become a "general summary" of the new article. The importance of the subtopic in the main article is no longer a factor, the way I see it, as the subtopic has its own article, now. I don't see anything at WP:SS that implies that a summarized parent section should be longer for subtopics considered more important. Once it's been expanded into an entire article, just summarize it; what's the point of keeping a longer text in the parent, once we've split it off to spawn a new article? But perhaps this question is better raised at WT:SS, as it has nothing to do with philosophy per se, but with interpretation of the SS guideline.  Mathglot (talk) 00:02, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Your rationale also makes sense. Unfortunately, Wikipedia_talk:Summary_style does not seem to be very active so we are unlikely to get authoritative feedback on such a general issue.
 * The main motivation for WP:SS is to keep the article size managable. Either of our approaches could achieve this. I would prefer a history section that has a total of 3-4 short subsections (one for each of the main traditions, no subsubsections). But I won't insist. Maybe some other people can weigh in. Otherwise we could go with your approach. Do you think that having a very short history section would be a problem for the broadness GA criterion and the comprehensiveness FA criterion? Phlsph7 (talk) 09:00, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * A paragraph or two on each of the main traditions seems entirely appropriate. These would provide a very general characterization of the tradition in a way that also indicates how they differ from one another philosophically, as opposed to just temporally or geographically.
 * As to GA eligibility, if that is you goal, having a section that looks like it is trying to cover the whole history of philosophy, I would guess, is more likely to hurt your chances. The popular histories of Western philosophy that I know are multi-volume (and experts still shake their heads at the treatment of individual figures). You'd be opening yourself up to no end of calls to justify the omission of so-and-so when such-and-so gets almost a full paragraph. And so forth.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 13:54, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Those are good points, but unfortunately, I have no experience with that and have no idea how it would affect GA/FA noms. You could, I suppose, invite participation from there, but I think continuing in the way you have been is probably the better path. You've done very well so far, and also are the one putting in all the effort at the articles, which gives you if not a supervote, at least the be-bold initiative; so I'd say take your best shot, and then let's see where we end up. Mathglot (talk) 16:48, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I support this.
 * Also, I noticed that most of the article uses the ref-tag citation format. This would make it easy for you to just copy material removed from this article into the Talk pages of whichever articles are most appropriate.
 * Best for Wikipedia and easiest for us if there are editors already managing those pages willing to make the editorial decisions about what to integrate into the articles. And If that doesn't happen, we can visit back.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:03, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll soon get started with a draft. You have made some good points about keeping this section as short as possible and I'll try to implement that. Since the history section is only one part of this article, I don't think that the GA/FA norms require a detailed treatment of the subject.
 * That's a good idea about copying the removed material to the talk pages of the corresponding main articles. Ideally, the material would be implemented directly in the article. But if the issue is more complex and the text needs a lot of rewriting, the talk page approach may be better. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:17, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I've made a first draft at User:Phlsph7/Philosophy_-_history_section. I've followed 's advice to have no more than 2 paragraphs per tradition. In total, we have 970 words. I prefer to have subsections for the different traditions. But if we wanted to remove them and shorten the draft, we could reduce Arabic-Persian, Indian, and Chinese to one paragraph each and put everything into the main section. I haven't done any copyediting and some of the references need to be pruned. We could add one image per subsection. Please let me know if there are problems or directly address them yourselves. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:05, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Copyediting done and references pruned. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:30, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I've given it a once-over and made a few edits, all of which I think are minor. If they don't make sense, of course feel free to revert, or raise questions here.
 * Otherwise, it looks good to me. Absent objections in the very near future, I would move from your Sandbox to the article.
 * Thanks for all your work on this!
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 20:10, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

concern about overlap

 * The more I look at progress so far on this little project the more concerned I am. I don't think I have the time or energy right now, but we need to make sure that at least a few editors are watching carefully to try to make sure that we don't end up with too much overlap between the two articles. It strikes me that when we study philosophy we are also studying the history of the discipline to some extent. How do we avoid too much overlap?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:42, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Do you have a specific reason to be concerned about this article? All articles in a Parent-child relationship have the overlap issue as something to be dealt with, and the WP:DETAIL section of WP:Summary style specifically addresses this. How is this little project any different from any other "FOO" + "History of FOO" splits, such as the dozens of "History of..." articles previously linked? Mathglot (talk) 19:04, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I just have a concern that in this case the overlap might be very high if we don't have a clear vision of how the two articles are different. You are right that some amount of overlap is not an issue, but the problems which come from having clusters of parallel articles with very high overlap are numerous. It tends to mean that quality goes down because we don't have all the most suitable editors watching and working on the same article. In bad cases the lesser known article can also become a home for OR and POV pushing. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:04, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't understand what it is you want to discuss here. Currently, Philosophy has 3,110 watchers, and History of philosophy has 207. (Compare Religion: 1,976; and History of religion: 264.) What would you have us do differently at the article(s) here? Mathglot (talk) 00:14, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Are we talking past one another here? Because I share @Andrew Lancaster's concerns here, but I would have thought they supported yours, @Mathglot, above.
 * I suspect I know the least about Wikipedia policy of anyone in this discussion, but the reasons for avoiding duplicate content across multiple articles (as much as possible) seems obvious to me. It makes it unclear to editors where best to share their time and expertise and, likewise, unclear to readers what article they even ought to be looking at.
 * We now have an article entirely devoted to the history of philosophy. So let's commit and make it clear to everyone that is where to go. Watchers who are actually watching will have no problem grasping the situation. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 00:56, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry if anything I said led to any confusion. If the concern means, let's reduce the "Historical overview" section in the Philosophy article down to a brief summary of the new article, then I all for it. Mathglot (talk) 01:02, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * It's possible that we are talking past each other on this point. In the discussion so far, there seems to be consensus that the section "Historical overview" in its current form is too large and needs to be reduced, which would address the overlap problem. The disagreement is mainly about how long the reduced version should be. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:40, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

New section on the influence of philosophy on other fields
I thought it might be good to have a short section on how philosophy influenced other fields. A draft can be found at User:Phlsph7/Philosophy_-_influence_section. It mentions how philosophy acts as a metadiscipline and briefly covers fields like science, religion, law, journalism, business, treatment of animals, and culture as well as a short criticism. It is 630 words long. The length seems fine to me. It could be expanded to cover more fields but it could also be reduced to the essentials if it seems too long. There are still a few things to do before it is ready but it already covers the main points. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:15, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I would strongly consider re-titling this section "Relation to other fields". The influence, such as it is, is in most of these cases highly diffuse and usually indirect. You do not want to give readers the impression that scientists or politicians employ philosopher consultants. (Major exception: bioethics.)
 * Otherwise, it looks good! I made just two small edits. If I was wrong to replace "aesthetics" with "art history", then I would either clarify or remove that item from the list.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 20:28, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That's a good point about choosing a title that does not imply too much. In relation to aesthetics/art history, I used "art" as the last item since the source talks about artists and art critics. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:46, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Problems with the section "Outside the academic profession"
The section "Outside the academic profession" has some problems. I don't think that the fact that some who study philosophy do not work as professional philosophers is important enough to deserve its own section. I've had a look at a few philosophy-overview-articles and none of them have a similar section. A short summary of this point could be discussed in the section "Relation to other fields". The subsection "Women in philosophy" does not really fit in here since some women discussed there are professional philosophers. I think it's worth mentioning that the philosophical discourse was dominated by men and that, despite some positive changes, women are still underrepresented. The gender issue and the professionalization of philosophy could be mentioned in the history section in a sentence or two.

An alternative approach would be to rename this section to "Sociology of philosophy". In that case, we would need to expand the section with a more general overview of this topic since non-professional philosophy and gender are only some of the issues in this discipline. I would favor the first approach since I'm not sure that the sociology of philosophy is important enough to merit a main section. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:40, 6 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree that this section is an unfocused mess. A list of prominent people who majored in philosophy would be of interest to some readers, but it should be its own separate list page, to which we could link at the bottom or something. (A quick search did not turn anything up on Wikipedia, but they are not hard to find elsewhere online. So it would be a simple matter to create one.)
 * As far as I'm concerned the only part of this that needs to be preserved is the section on the historical and ongoing gender imbalance in the discipline. I'd be happy removing the first part and promoting this section up one level—at least until we turn attention to it more directly.
 * (I would support moving it to history, but it is specific to Western philosophy as written. And I, for one, am in no way competent to comment on gender issues in other traditions.) Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:08, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Methods section
This section mostly looks quite good. Someone has taken care to support even non-controversial claims with multiple citations.

I think phenomenology and pragmatism need a few more sentences each, and I think we need to add feminism, which I'm pretty sure most departments consider more important than the others specifically mentioned. (And, contrary to an early proposed addition, I do think it's more of a method than an area: one can approach nearly all philosophical questions from a feminist perspective.)

Experimental philosophy is just a silly fad that I would never propose adding, but I will resist the urge to delete it unless others express support.

I think we're making good progress here!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:22, 6 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I wrote this section a while back and I would be happy to expand it a little. Feminism is an important school of thought but I don't think that it has a distinctive philosophical method. For example, from : Hence feminist philosophical scholarship is not homogeneous either in methods or in conclusions ... Founded in 1982 as a venue for feminist philosophical scholarship, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy has embraced a diversity of methodological approaches in feminist philosophy. And the The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology does not discuss feminism. But maybe this depends on how one defines "method of philosophy". Maybe we could mention feminism in a sentence in the history section on Western philosophy instead.
 * I'm also not a big fan of experimental philosophy. It is mentioned not because its importance as a subfield of philosophy but because it is defined by its unique method. I don't feel very strongly either way so we could also go ahead and remove it. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:58, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I take your point about the diversity of methods employed within feminist studies (to say nothing of its interdisciplinarity, which would need to be emphasized). I guess I was thinking of it as a method in the sense that it is a distinctive orientation or perspective from which one approaches traditional philosophical problems.
 * I would be fine, however, characterizing it as another secondary branch (and, again, emphasizing how intersectional it is).
 * One of the heuristics I am using in coming to judgments about what ought to be included is my read of what departments consider it necessary to cover. This would be extremely difficult to source – and experts disagree! – but, besides my own anecdotal experiences at the departments I've been at, I did used to follow various professional blogs where this sort of thing was discussed all the time. No college or university can not offer introductory and higher-level courses in feminism, and philosophy departments typically want to be at least among those providing them. I don't think being cross-listed with women's studies and informed by sociological research (or whatever) makes it any less significant a part of philosophy.
 * Anyways, I'll do a little research and probably draft something up. We can then proceed from there.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 20:01, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm also not sure how to best include it. One approach would be to discuss "philosophy of gender" as a secondary branch and feminism as a central school of thought within that branch. For example, see the last paragraph of . Phlsph7 (talk) 07:28, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure gender studies broader than feminism (at least at the present) figure largely enough in the discipline to merit a section in the parent article on philosophy.
 * Another possibility that occurs to me, however, is to include feminism as a paragraph in the "Relations to other fields" section. This would make sense because feminism intersects, not only with core fields of philosophy, but also with sociology, medical ethics, political activism, and so forth.
 * Especially if we have even just a short section on women in the field that gets its own head, I think this would be one good way to hit the key points and signal their importance — particularly since we could then Wikilink out to more detailed articles with "See also"s or the like. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:55, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That's also a good idea. I'll see if I can come up with something. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

moving different section to top of article
For a number of reasons, I am moving the section currently titled "The evolution of philosophy" to the top of the article. Some justification and commentary:


 * 1) This is the format of other top-level articles (including the only two with GA status I could find, sociology and astronomy, for whatever that may be worth). Mostly though, I think the convention is widely observed because it just makes general good sense. If anyone is aware of another good article that might in some way be a useful model for developing this page, please do share!
 * 2) The article points out repeatedly (almost defensively) that lots of what was once part of philosophy is now regarded as an autonomous science. This claim is non-controversial and is well-sourced, but, if it appears in the lead (as it does), it ought to be discussed directly. The closest thing I found is this section, somewhat buried at the bottom of the Branches of philosophy section, where it did not really fit anyway.
 * 3) I'm not committed to this section heading. One would usually use "history", but here that needs to be reserved for the history of philosophy as commonly understood. So I went with "evolution". Suggestions welcome or, of course, just go ahead and edit.
 * 4) This section could be greatly expanded, and the article would benefit. But just off-hand, I don't know a good source upon which to base further development (at least not a source that is not a tome). Please share if you do! I don't think we need be concerned about this, however, as brevity also has its benefits. Only a very small number of readers, for instance, care just how and when natural philosophy gave way to the natural sciences we know today. (I do, and I'd love for the article to include it; but I don't think it feels incomplete in its current form.) For these readers, the Conceptions of philosophy or History of philosophy are probably the most important (or else they are here looking for something very specific, in which case I hope they find it).

As always, feedback most welcome!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 20:41, 27 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree that "Evolution" is not a good title. This subsection discusses some ways how philosophy was divided into different branches. For this reason, I think it fits best into the section "Major branches of philosophy". The introductory part of the section "Major branches of philosophy" could be used to discuss the different ways how philosophy has been divided into branches. The material from the subsection "The evolution of philosophy" could be used for that. If we do this, we wouldn't need to worry about its title. But the material would need to be shortened and contrasted with more recent divisions. Phlsph7 (talk) 20:55, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I disagree. (Respectfully, of course!) What is at issue here is the transformations of what "philosophy" has meant over the ages. That is why it belongs, with the etymological information, at the top of the article. What was meant in Plato's time was very different from what was meant at Thomas Aquinas' time, both of which, again, are very different from what is meant in our time. So let's take the reader on an abbreviated version of that journey!
 * The section on Branches of philosophy (probably we ought to drop the "Major" from that head—feels awkward to say/write) is about the current division of the field. If someone wants to write an article tracing the history of philosophical specialization, I would love for that to be out there to link to. But that question of academic history would seem to me outside the scope of an encyclopedia article on philosophy.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:12, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah ok, if I understand you correctly, the main point is to show how the term developed and its meaning changed. In that case, the title could be "Etymology". That would mean that Laërtius's division of philosophy is only used to illustrate that point. The main claim of that section would be that philosophy encompassed various fields of inquiry before the modern period. But today, many of them are considered separate disciplines, especially in the field of "natural philosophy". Phlsph7 (talk) 07:16, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes. I would like to eventually see the section expanded beyond the scope of etymology (e.g., when, and for what reasons, did all of these sciences break out to become independent disciplines?), but that is basically what it is now—and, in my vision of the article, it would remain a central component of even a more detailed version of the section. Changing the head per your suggestion!
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 15:17, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that makes the point of the section clearer. I think you are right that, besides tracing the word roots, the main focus should be on how the sciences broke away, maybe together with a short explanation why. I can look into that. But I'm not sure that the etymology is that important to merrit a lengthy section. Maybe that can be counterbalanced by removing some the claims that don't explicitly focus on etymology, for example, the detailed discussion of Laërtius's division of philosophy. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:52, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The para referencing Sextus Empiricus could maybe be converted to an endnote since it only supports what has already been said without (I don't think) adding anything new.
 * The discussion of the Classical division of philosophy, however, seems very important for a general article on the subject. If anything, I would expand upon what is currently there.
 * Maybe we just leave it mostly be for now to work on parts of the article uncontroverially in need of improvement? Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:08, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Do you know of any good sources on the etymology of the term "philosophy"? There is always the Online Etymology Dictionary. Its entry is relatively short. It explains how the meaning changed from a very wide sense to what we have today. But it does not mention any particular divisions of philosophy. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:01, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * In general, the best source on etymology is the OED, which I cite in this section and below. It's behind a paywall, but I just sent you an email; if you don't have access and want a copy, respond and I will send as attachment. (It prints to ten pages and so I will not post here.)
 * Anyone else who wants a copy, please just ask.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:52, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the offer. I have access to the electronic version of the OED, it contains many specific examples of past uses. Based on it and the Online Etymology Dictionary, I'm not sure how to include the discussions of the divisions of philosophy. I'm not in principle against including them but having a source that explains their etymological relevance would be helpful. I think the discussion of natural philosophy by itself is quite useful. Instead of discussing the divisions themselves, we could point out that natural philosophy was often considered one of the main branches of philosophy and included various empirical sciences that are not part of philosophy anymore. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:29, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * So sorry I did not respond to this! I do not get automatically notified when someone replies to me, and I cannot figure out how to turn that on. (Seems it should be the default...)
 * The issue, though, I think is resolved? Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:42, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, I've implemented these suggestions in my last edits to the etymology section. In relation to notifications: I simply use the watchlist feature to regularly check the changes. To get notification for changes on the talk page, there is also a subscribe button next to the main talk page headings. If you activate it, you get notifications when someone replies to this specific topic. But unlike the watchlist, nothing happens when someone starts a new topic. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:51, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks! I'll do my best with that. If you specifically want my timely input on anything, though, tagging me is probably a good idea. Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:09, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Philosophical progress
I'm moving this here from its place as a subsection of Methods. It makes no sense there, and it is not sufficiently developed to stand as its own section. It's an important question though, and it probably wouldn't take too much work to expand into something that could be returned to the article, or maybe to the article on the History of philosophy.

Philosophical progress
Many philosophical debates that began in ancient times are still debated today. British philosopher Colin McGinn claims that no philosophical progress has occurred during that interval. Australian philosopher David Chalmers, by contrast, sees progress in philosophy similar to that in science. Meanwhile, Talbot Brewer, professor of philosophy at University of Virginia, argues that "progress" is the wrong standard by which to judge philosophical activity. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:36, 26 June 2023 (UTC)


 * @Phlsph7, I'm reviewing Talk discussions and notice this again, which I had forgotten about. The topic seems notable enough to merit inclusion—but not so important as to be necessary. Also, I'm not sure where it would fit in the current TOC. Do you have an opinion? Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:30, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The problem of progress in philosophy gets a short discussion in the subsection "Academic definitions" in relation to science-based definitions. If we wanted to add more on this topic, we could do so in the section "Relation to other disciplines". What do you think? Phlsph7 (talk) 17:42, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'd overlooked that. If someone later wants to expand on the issue, they're free to do so. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:53, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 July 2023
Avicenna in the philosophy article to Ibn Sinna(commonly known as Avicenna) Funny wunny (talk) 10:37, 12 July 2023 (UTC)


 * you certainly are one genius feller Funny wunny (talk) 10:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Sam Sailor 12:40, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * This is apparently a matter of political significance to some people. I would call attention to the fact that repeated efforts to execute a large-scale change away from "Avicenna" have been repeated shot down at Talk:Avicenna.
 * This article should keep out of all that and just adhere to what is standard. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:08, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

adding sample questions to various branches of philosophy
I have an idea that it might make some of these academic terms less forbidding and more accessible to include for each branch approximately three questions representative of the branch. For instance, here is the sort of thing I have in mind:

Epistemology
 * By what method(s) can one acquire knowledge?
 * How is truth established?
 * Can we prove causal relations?

Ethics
 * Are ethics relative?
 * Which is basic in ethics: well-being or obligation?
 * What gives life meaning?

Metaphysics
 * Why is there something rather than nothing?
 * Of what does reality ultimately consist?
 * Are humans free?



We could obviously replace any of these examples deemed dull or marginal. I just had these ones ready to hand in the TOC of an introductory textbook. (The logic textbooks I looked at did not open with questions, but just set down to say what's-what. Something boilerplate about formal inference, and then something more interesting from modal logic or other recent developments could certainly be found and added for logic as well.)

This would also be easy to implement for the current sub-branches listed:


 * Aesthetics
 * Philosophy of language
 * Philosophy of mind
 * The philosophy of science
 * Political philosophy
 * Philosophy of religion

I think this is a great list. (I'm also happy the distinction between branches and methodologies did not break down in the course of editing, which was a real concern.) Although not core, I am inclined to think they merit their own headings. With the possible exception of the last, these are all major fields of contemporary research in academic philosophy. Those that have only a sentence or so need at least a little more, which can be easily found at the SEP and elsewhere. Two representative questions could also be added to these.

What do people think? I could take charge of fleshing out and sourcing branches. We all want to keep these short, but the current version, for instance, says nothing about the philosophy of language one would not simply guess from the name. Those on aesthetics and the philosophy of religion strike me as about the right level of detail. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:11, 5 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Implementing some of those questions sounds like a good idea to make the topics more accessible. Whether to use subsubsections for the different fields would probably depend on how much we want to go into detail. I agree that the level of detail of the paragraphs on aesthetics and philosophy of religion is a good guide for the non-main branches. If we restrict ourselves to roughly one paragraph per subfield then subsubsections would probably not be required and would bloat the TOC. But I don't think there is a fixed rule here and they could be implemented if it seems important. Philosophy of language and philosophy of mind should each get their own paragraph. Various paragraphs lack sources and we would have to check whether the sources that are there support the claims (this is a problem for the ethics subsection). I've already started working on the subsection "Ethics" but it would be great if you could take care of the others. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:14, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Great! Sounds like a plan. I'll leave ethics to you, but get to work on the others in the next few days. My focus will be more on clarifying and expanding (with supporting sources) as necessary than on checking and finding sources for other contributors' non-controversial claims. But I will also keep an eye open for anything that might help out there. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:57, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I've added just the questions listed above. Anyone with a better idea for how to format them, please execute. The obvious thing would be to present as a bulleted list, but I feel this would give them too much visual space relative to the rest of the sections and make them seem more important than they are. The point of this addition is not to define the discipline, but to help someone maybe not even in high school understand what is meant by a term like "epistemology." To say that it "examine[s] putative sources of knowledge" – even with a list of example sources – for instance, is just not going to convey much of anything to many readers. To be clear, I'm not suggesting we write the whole article at the 8th-grade level, just that we don't want to exclude anyone who is curious enough to be reading. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:38, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The questions look fine like this. I'm planning to add some sources for the unsourced claims once you have implemented most of your changes. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:23, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Do you still have bigger changes planned for the contents in the section "Branches"? If you do, I don't want to rush you, so please take your time. I'm planning to implement some fixes and maybe reformulations but it's probably better if we make the bigger changes first. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:03, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @Phlsph7, thanks for checking in. I am still planning to edit/expand the existing coverage of the branches listed as Others.
 * I just realized when I sat down to write them that I actually don't know the fields "analytic" philosophy of mind and language as well as I thought I did, and I wasn't really planning on doing a lot of research just to write one comprehensive paragraph on each. Still, it would be hard to make these any less informative than they are now. So I supposes I should just proceed in the spirit of never letting the best be the enemy of the better.
 * I did not have any plans for the core branches. Let me know when you are done with ethics, and I will be happy to review. I am competent there. Epistemology looks okay, but is maybe sometimes overly technical? Metaphysics needs work, but my knowledge here is pretty much all tied to specific historical figures.
 * Is there any chance you could add representative questions to the logic section? I see that you have done a lot of editing work in this area. The article doesn't need them, but it would be nice to illustrate the relevance of logic as more than the formal manipulation of symbols.
 * Also, just rereading it, it is weird that this section defines deductive logic without defining inductive logic, to say nothing of at least mentioning abductive reasoning. This section also needs more work. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:19, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * In that case, I'll have a look at the other core branches. You are right that the logic subsection needs some work. I'll see if I can add some relevant questions in the process. I currently don't have any more plans for the ethics subsection so your review and possible changes are welcome.
 * In relation to the philosophy of mind and language: the easiest way to do this would be to find an overview source and give a summary of it. For example, general books on "philosophy of mind" often give a short characterization of the field in their introduction section or in the first chapter. If you want, you could just go ahead with your ideas and I would look into that once I'm done with the other core branches. If you are unsure, you could present them first at the talk page. I think it would be good to have one paragraph each. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:00, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @Phlsph7, I should have the Other branches finished quite soon.
 * Also, I had thought that this was all I had volunteered to do, but I see above that this is not what I wrote last week. If you'd like me to also take Metaphysics, I'd be willing to take that as a chance to better inform myself about what folks are doing when they claim to be doing "pure" metaphysics (if that's even what they're claiming).
 * If you would really prefer not to do Epistemology, we can discuss that too. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I've already implemented the changes to the subsection "Epistemology". But it would be great if you could review them. I've also started with the work on the subsection "Metaphysics" and I don't mind preparing the initial draft. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:52, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * There are countless sources here but I found the entry "Philosophy" from the MacMillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy particularly helpful. It is written by Robert Audi and available online at (first article on that page). Phlsph7 (talk) 08:40, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Changes to the section "Branches of philosophy"
The section "Branches of philosophy" is currently made up of 9 subsections for each of its different fields. There seems to be no clear criterion on which fields get a subsection and which ones don't. For example, we have a subsection on political philosophy but not on philosophy of education. I think a better approach would be to have subsections for only a few main branches and have an additional subsection called "Others" for all the additional fields. Each field in this subsection could get a maximum of one paragraph.

One difficulty to get this going would be to decide what the main branches are. Divisions of philosophy are discussed in many sources. They do not 100% agree with each other but there is a lot of overlap. A common division is: ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, logic, and aesthetics. Not all list aesthetics so we could move it to the subsection "Others" as well.

Some sources:
 * : metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, logic, aesthetics
 * MacMillan Encyclopedia of Religion: ethics, epistemology, logic, aesthetics, metaphysics, and ontology.
 * : logic, epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics
 * entry "Philosophy" of the Oxford Companion to Philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics
 * : metaphysics, epistemology, ethics

We could also restore the short text on metaphilosophy to the subsection "Others" and mention Axiology somewhere. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:27, 30 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi, I've been looking into this as well, consulting with some introductory textbooks I have, and also with the websites of various philosophy departments (which don't count as good sources for citational purposes, but definitely are good sources on a question about the internal organization of the field). All of this confirms what you say, which is that there is a lot of (highly confident) disagreement outside the margins of the core areas of metaphysics, logic, and ethics. Most also include epistemology as a field separate from metaphysics, which is fine, but historically quite recent. Aesthetics, the history of philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of science, and feminism are sometimes featured and sometimes not.
 * I propose that we should distinguish just the top three from the rest and clearly note that metaphysics traditionally encompasses epistemology and ontology—even though people now often divvy this up in different ways.
 * I do not know, however, what criteria would be appropriate for selecting among the many secondary areas as worthy (or not) of inclusion. Including something as niche as metaphilosophy, for instance, could really open the floodgates to either a very long, or else just very arbitrary, list. (And I have nothing at all against metaphilosophy. It's just that it's a very small area of specialization that no department even at a large research institution feels they need to have faculty to cover.)
 * If anyone has ideas for how to non-arbitrarily make calls about what deserves to be included, please do share!
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:24, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, and I don't think we need to mention axiology. There is already a mention of value theory, which encompasses it and (I think) is the more common term today. If you have a strong source to the contrary, however, I do not actively oppose inclusion. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:51, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * What do you think about having the following 4: metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, and logic? Your reasoning is right but it's just that epistemology today is so prominent and all the 5 sources I mentioned above have it as a separate main branch. I think we would have to discuss it as a separate field anyways. So the question would be whether this discussion should be as a full subsection or in the subsection "Others".
 * You are right that the new arrangement does not fully solve the arbitrariness problem. But I guess it mitigates it since it is now not about which subsections to include but only about text within one subsection. There is also a little bit more freedom since we can give important fields a full paragraph and mention less important fields only in one sentence. We could mention metaphilosophy in a sentence but it's not particularly important and you may be right that focusing on the more important ones is the better call here. I missed the reference to value theory. With this, we don't need to also mention axiology. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:44, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, I can support this. Since it looks like you have the sourcing worked out, I will leave it to you make the edit.
 * I'm not sure whether a second level of heads under "Other branches" is a good idea or not.
 * Sorry for the delay in my response.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 20:33, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * You already did! Good call. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:20, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @Phlsph7, I've finished at least my first good drafts of the sections now under the head "Other major branches". I also gave subheads to each. The main reason for the first is that we don't want to imply, as we might previously have been doing, that what is included here is at all exhaustive. The main reason for the second is readability. Even at one paragraph each, even on a large monitor, the section was just a wall of text. The extra layer of heads should also help orient people looking at the TOC, some of whom might also want to jump right to phi religion or political phi, for instance. (Also: this might give future editors pause before adding something that is not truly a major branch.)
 * If you don't like the heads, though, I'm happy to discuss.
 * Oh, and I included sample questions for just those that were too expansive to explain in so little space (phi science and religion). I don't think the others need them. But I don't feel strongly either way about adding them.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 23:17, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It's a good idea not to imply that this section presents an exhaustive overview. There are good reasons both for having the subheadings and for not having them. So it may come down to personal preference. We could just keep them as they are for now and restart the conversation if someone complains. I'll have a closer look at the text once I'm done with metaphysics and logic. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:01, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Sounds good! And do by all means edit away when you finish what you're working on. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I rewrote some of the material in the subsection "Philosophy of language" and added some new passages. The main changes were:
 * Start with a rather general characterization of the field (its goals/concepts/questions).
 * Put less emphasis on the modern/contemporary outlook. Philosophy of language was not understood as a distinct discipline in earlier philosophy but there were already many important contributions to it. Since the article is about philosophy in general, a wider outlook makes sense.
 * Put the discussion of particular theories within this field toward the end.
 * I was thinking about making similar changes to some of the other subsections. Before I go ahead with the other subsections, it would be good to get some feedback on what you think of those changes. There are different approaches to writing those subsections and it's not easy to determine which one is better.
 * As a side note: the reference "Wolf 2023" is probably supposed to point to another source. Currently, it points to an article on Kant that does not have paragraphs 1.a-b and does not specifically talk about the philosophy of language. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:39, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @Phlsph7, Your edit reads well. By all means, proceed apace!
 * Oh, and I fixed the Wolf reference. That must have been a cut-and-paste error or something.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 15:20, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

section on Conceptions of philosophy
Two queries:

1) I've broken up the opening section (originally Definitions) into two sections beneath the section lead. The reason for this is that, before launching into all of the competing conceptions of the academic discipline, I think it is important to provide readers utterly unfamiliar with philosophy with a general sense of what philosophy is in a way that helps to make sense of its lasting appeal.

What I found, however, is that it is quite difficult to do this in a way that is not overly essayistic. (Consulting the Introductions to a handful of introductory textbooks did not much help.)

My solution, at least for now, has been to offer accounts from Kant, Russell, and Aristotle.

But I know it is not best practice to lean so heavily on quotes. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on this?

2) In what is now Academic definitions, I can see that it has been a matter of policy not to name any of the philosophers associated with the disciplinary definitions given (even with definitions obviously unique to a single figure from the history of philosophy).

It seems to me, on the contrary, that it would be helpful to readers to offer one or maybe two exemplars. We don't need to do it for each definition or all at once, but what is the benefit, for instance, of obscuring the fact that it is obvious (but only to us!) that it is the late Wittgenstein under discussion?

Thanks! — Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:27, 27 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for making this section more accessible.
 * Concerning (1): It's a good idea to give the reader a general sense of what philosophy is before diving into the details. The quote by Russell sounds helpful and the "think hard & clearly" is accessible. The problem is that there are countless characterizations of philosophy. We could go on for a very long time by just listing the general characterizations given by the most prominent philosophers. That would result in a long section that is based on primary sources. So I would keep the specific references to a minimum. You could try to look at a few regular dictionaries to give a few general characterizations.
 * Concerning (2): I've added Wittgenstein and Quine as examples. More examples are found in the main article Definitions of philosophy. In most cases, the discussed definitions are broad types that are not only associated to a single philosopher. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:19, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I agree entirely that we must not open the door to everyone sharing the definitions of their favorite philosophers. The Kant I would defend as clearly articulating the central aims of the core philosophical branches of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics—and maybe even, indirectly, logic. The point of the Russell quote is to explain why anyone would bother study a question they have been told in advance has no answer. Really the only justification for the Aristotle quote, however, is that it's famous and sounds kind of nice and inspiring. I'd have no problem if someone with something better were to axe it.
 * Regular dictionaries are usually verboten in philosophy, but you are right that this might be an exception. I'll take a look at M-W and the OED.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:48, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I was planning to integrate the following paragraph into the etymology section: On its way into modern English from c.1175 Old French and Anglo-Norman, "philosophy" has acquired, and to some extent still retains, the meanings of "advanced study of the speculative subjects (logic, ethics, physics, and metaphysics)", "deep wisdom consisting of love of truth and virtuous living", "profound learning as transmitted by the ancient writers", and "the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, and the basic limits of human understanding".[30] Its source is the OED but I couldn't find the claims that support them (neither the year nor the quotes). Could you check? Maybe we are using different versions of the OED since mine is not the most up-to-date one. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:40, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, these are direct quotes from the OED, accessed electronically via a library subscription the day I made the edits. Are you maybe in "Outline", rather than "Full entry" view? I don't think they take stuff out very often...
 * In any case, here is the passage in full:
 * Frequency (in current use):
 * Origin: Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly a borrowing from Latin. Etymons: French philosophie; Latin philosophia.
 * Etymology: < (i) Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French, French philosophie (c1175 in Old French; also in Anglo-Norman as philosofie, in Old French as philozophie , phylosophie , phyllosophye , and in Middle French as phillozophie ) the advanced study of the speculative subjects (logic, ethics, physics, and metaphysics) to which study of the liberal arts was regarded as preliminary (c1175 in Old French; now denoting a similar combination of subjects taught in grammar schools), deep wisdom consisting of love of truth and virtuous living (second quarter of the 13th cent.; now obsolete), profound learning as transmitted by the ancient writers (beginning of the 14th cent., rare, now obsolete), ethics (1370–72 in philosophie moral , but apparently not independently used in this sense in French until later (sporadically from the end of the 16th cent.); now obsolete), natural science (1379 in philosophie naturelle , but apparently not independently used in this sense in French until later (17th cent.); now obsolete), alchemy (15th cent.; now obsolete), the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, and the basics and limits of human understanding (1580 in Montaigne), a person's attitude or outlook (1588 with reference to intellectual matters, end of the 17th cent. in general use), deep wisdom founded on meditation and contemplation, which gives a person mental equilibrium and support in time of adversity (1655), the sceptical or rationalist views of thinkers in the Age of Reason (1733 in the passage translated in quot. 1749 at sense 4b), a system of ideas concerning a subject (1835), and its etymon (ii) classical Latin philosophia study or pursuit of wisdom, philosophical thought, particular philosphical system or school of philosophy, view of life, attitude < ancient Greek φιλοσοφία love of knowledge, pursuit of knowledge, systematic treatment of a subject, the study of morality, existence, and the universe < φιλόσοφος Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:40, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking it up. I'll see if I can integrate that paragraph into the etymology section. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:59, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * No problem!
 * A related question: is there any kind of Wikipedia-best-policy reason to have the etymology of the word in parenthesis in the first sentence of the article lead? It's just bad style to open two consecutive sections with the same basic fact. If there isn't some good reason not to, I would cut it from the lead. But I'll defer to you on this. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:58, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is such a policy. There are some articles that do this. I guess either way is possible since the lead is a summary of the body of the article. I'm planing to rewrite some parts of the lead once we are happy with the body of the article so that it better reflects all the changes. Maybe the lead could just mention the direct translation as love of wisdom and leave the rest to the etymology section. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:54, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, yes. That sounds good. The usual problem with leads, in my limited experience, is weird partisan bloat, which somehow this article does not have.
 * I don't have a particular vision for how this particular one ought to read. Totally happy for you to do a rewrite once the article is in good-enough form. I'll then just edit with particular attention to MOS:INTRO. (My own – obviously just anecdotal – experience has taught me that the cluelessness of non-academics about academic philosophy cannot be underestimated.)
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 20:26, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and rewrote some parts of the lead. I also took another look at the article. I did a few copyedits and fixed various reference errors. Do you have any further plans or do you think more changes are needed before we nominate it for GA? Phlsph7 (talk) 16:57, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @Phlsph7,
 * I've given it a once-over, and I think it looks good.
 * One thing I think we should change that I haven't edited myself is the final paragraph. Possibly that would be better at the top of the section? To which the rest is a response? Or just nix it?
 * I'm pro giving criticisms of the discipline full coverage, but this assertion (which, to be sure, is a true criticism) is not even explained. It's a weird way to end the article.
 * Also: philosophers going back to Aristotle consider self-sufficiency a bragging right, not a criticism, as it is here presented.
 * But I have not reviewed its six sources and so have left it be for now. What do you think?
 * In any event, I think you can put in a request for a GA edit. I don't have any big revisions planned, and it will be nice to get a fresh set of eyes on the article.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 23:58, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It's true that the end of a text is sometimes understood as its conclusion and that's better to end on a positive note. However, I'm not sure that this is very important for Wikipedia articles. Another relevant point in this regard is that the later something comes in the article, the less likely it is that a visitor reads it. It would be possible to put that paragraph at the beginning of the section but my impression is that this would give too much emphasis to this view.
 * The passage is not very important so we could also consider removing it. But for comprehensiveness, it would be good to mention criticism somewhere. There was also a discussion on a similar point a while back. If we had a subsection on metaphilosophy, it could be mentioned there. But I'm not sure that metaphilosophy should be discussed as one of the major branches.
 * For now, I tried to reformulate the passage to present the point about self-sufficiency in a more balanced way. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:09, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @Phlsph7, I removed the last sentence because I realized it was sourced to a discussion of the Tractatus and a general characterization of positivism. Basically no one holds these views anymore.
 * If you're familiar with more recent sources advancing similar claims – from metaphilosophy or elsewhere – I would support adding those in its place. I do not, however, think this is necessary for article completeness.
 * Also, a separate issue. You've done more work on this article than I have. I'm more than happy to co-nominate, especially if this might help to more expeditiously secure a reviewer. But if you're putting together a case for becoming an admin or joining a committee or something and it would look better for you to be sole nominator, that's completely fine with me. I'll still be here to help.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:46, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Looks good. I made the nomination. Thanks for the offer, but I don't have any particular agenda for this nomination. With such a general article, having a second pair of eyes to spot and fix problems can be really helpful so the co-nomination makes things easier. Most of my GA nominations take several months before they get reviewed, some even over half a year. So it could take a while before someone picks this one up. Phlsph7 (talk) 20:19, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

a few suggestions for further improvements
These are a few items I did not get around to adequately sourcing for inclusion in time for the GA review, but which I still think would benefit the article:


 * Ethics should include mention of moral psychology. Most of the top-ranked Anglo-American philosophy departments have someone specializing in this area of study, the importance of which seems to me hardly in need of explanation.
 * Another area of specialization to be found in most top-departments is decision theory. I would support the inclusion of this either as an "Other major branch" or in "Relation to other fields".
 * It seems to me that AI would be a great addition to "Relation to other fields". I've lost my (mediocre) reference, but grappling with the implications of generative AI seems like a great example of academic philosophers meaningfully engaging in current political discourse.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 00:22, 4 September 2023 (UTC)


 * These sound like good ideas for inclusion. I'll try to incorporate them but I'm not sure yet where they fit best. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:14, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think moral psychology fits in well in the ethics section: it's difficult to clearly locate it in the division between metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. It seems to me that it is more closely associated with psychology than with philosophy. In the section "Relation to other fields", we could expand on the influence on psychology and mention moral psychology as an example.
 * I had a look at a few overview articles: they don't see decision theory as one of the major branches of philosophy, like philosophy of language or philosophy of mind. According to this source, decision theory had a significant influence on normative ethics, specifically consequentialism. I'm not sure if this influence is significant enough to be mentioned in the ethics section without being considered undue weight.
 * There is the philosophy of AI, but this is not a major branch. The section "Relation to other fields" is mainly about how philosophy influenced other fields. I assume ideas in epistemology and philosophy of mind on knowledge representation and cognition influenced advances in AI. I would be happy to include it but we would need a good source that this influence is important enough to be mentioned here. We could also consider mentioning how philosophers discuss the implications of generative AI. But we have to be careful about WP:RECENTISM. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:58, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Newton and the apple tree
Thanks for adding the image. While I like the image itself, I'm not sure that it fulfills the first paragraph of MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE. The connection seems to be the following: The article discusses (1) and uses (2) as an example. It does not mention (3) or (4). The image caption only alludes to (4). We could try to explain all of this in the caption. But this seems to be a rather big detour that does not directly help the reader understand the topic of the article. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:41, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) physics was part of philosophy
 * 2) Newton was a physicist
 * 3) One of Newton's key ideas revolves around gravity
 * 4) Newton came up with this key idea when an apple fell on his head from an apple tree


 * I like how it shows him actively reasoning about nature. It's certainly more informative than any portrait. You can remove it if you want, but I fail to see the problem.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:46, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I tried to adjust the caption to make the relevance to the text clearer and it understandable for readers not already familiar with the story. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:56, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Lead section rework
Hi, this is to seek consensus on my edits to the lead, as requested by First of all, many thanks to everyone who has recently brought this article to GA status! I offer this rework to follow up on and intensify this success, introducing the topic in a slightly more comprehensive way for new visitors. I hope that any incongruences between this lead and the body can be quickly cleared up. Aside from many minor stylistic adjustments, the major changes and their reasoning are the following:

PAR1 (definition & topics) PAR2 (history & relation to science and culture) PAR3 (branches) PAR4 (methods & applicability) Thank you for spending time on this. -- MA SHAUN IX 04:47, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * 1A Expanding the list of philosophical topics to "the nature of existence and reality, criteria of knowledge and truth, reflection on mind and language, and moral or cultural value". This adds central philosophical terms that come up later in the lead and the body, related to the ones already present. "Value" seemed a bit hard to immediately grasp from the perspective of the average reader; this qualifies it in more everyday terms, foreshadowing the discussion of ethics (moral value) and aesthetics/relativism (cultural value) later in the article.
 * Providing a more well-rounded view of 'Western philosophy', 'non-Western philosophical traditions' and their relation. First (2A), delimiting the role of ancient Greek thought as the originator of the concept of philosophy and the foundation of the Christian, Islamic and modern European traditions. Second (2B): adding mention of the major traditions of African philosophy, Jewish philosophy, and indigenous American philosophy, as well as East Asian philosophy (to indicate not only the core Chinese but also the Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese traditions); mentioning Persian philosophy as distinct from only Arabic/Islamic philosophy (since the Persian tradition is older, although later thoroughly Islamised -- but this is a minor point); and indicating that the interaction between these traditions including European philosophy is ongoing. Third (2C): adding an explanatory footnote on the language and context of philosophy and translation/interpretation, for anyone who might be confused about how a discipline that has such diverse traditions, entangled with very different religions and languages, can begin to be approached (I first drafted this note into the lead itself, but then the paragraph seemed too long; the list of canons in different languages in the note might still be too long, but seemed important to illustrate). Fourth (2D): shifting the narrow designation of traditions as vast and interconnected as Islamic, Indian and Chinese philosophy into a more holistic and understandable view of major concerns that have driven philosophical development across all traditions, while also specifying the relation of these concerns to religion(s) (from the previous mention of spirituality, and to complement the mention of philosophy's historical relation to science(s)). These are big changes, sometimes not ideally matching with the current article body, but their sole aim is for people with no knowledge of ongoing academic debates about the incredibly convoluted historical context of philosophy to immediately get a coherent and plausible sense of its major dimensions and their relations.
 * 3A Specifying that these branches are mainly the concern of contemporary academic philosophy and, in relation to that, adding the history of philosophy. This should be unproblematic, only adding clarity and following nicely from the previous paragraph.
 * 3B Moving logic from the original list to its own special mention in the paragraph, since many have considered it a distinctive field supporting philosophy (as well as mathematics and other sciences). It could be argued to be a branch of philosophy proper but this is not uncontroversial and not in line with the current logic article. The new version allows rooms for both interpretations.
 * 3D Rewording the scope of ethics in metaphysics in terms slightly more relatable for the reader.
 * 34 Specifying the scope of aesthetics for those unfamiliar with the term. Here I would also like to ask your opinion on potentially mentioning the common divide of philosophy into "practical" (ethics and politics) and "theoretical" (logic metaphysics epistemology science and others).
 * 4A On the basis of method, noting the existence of different philosophical schools, with two of the most important examples. Although this does not mirror the article's current structure, the schools deserve mention, to avoid the sense that philosophers within any tradition agree even on basic methods. Another potential place would be in the paragraph on traditions.
 * 4B Making the list of other connected fields slightly more representative.
 * 4C Reworking the last two sentences into a comprehensive concluding one, with mention of the central ongoing role of philosophy as the critique of all established theory and practice. Seemed a good note to end on for the reader to retain the general significance of all they have just read.


 * Hello and thanks for your effort to improve this article. The main reason for your changes seems to be that you think the lead should be more comprehensive. But comprehensiveness is not the goal of the lead. The lead is only supposed to summarize the most important material in the body of the article, see WP:LEAD. If you want to include new information in the article, the right approach would be to work on the body of the article first based on reliable sources. If this contribution is accepted then the new information may be included in the lead as a next step if it really is important enough to be mentioned there.
 * For example, your addition claims that Hundred Schools of Thought is a distinct philosophical methodology important enough to be mentioned in the lead section. The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology does not mention Hundred Schools of Thought as a distinct philosophical methodology and neither does our article Philosophical methodology. If you think that this is a major philosophical methodology then the first step would be to update the section "Methods" with a text explaining how it is practiced. It should cite high-quality reliable sources that make clear that this really is an influential philosophical methodology. If that addition is accepted then, as a next step, a short mention could be included in the lead depending on the relative importance of this methodology.
 * The same goes for many of the other changes that you propose where the content and organization of information in your suggested lead differs from the article. Phlsph7 (talk) 05:46, 25 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the comment . Indeed, I am fully aware of the function of the lead as a concise summary of the most important material in the body. (By comprehensive I do not mean exhaustive, but simply offering a well-rounded initial understanding to the new reader.) The majority of my edits, I hope, are fully in line with this agreed-upon goal. Any that cannot be substantiated by sourced material either already present in or easily added to the body should indeed be left aside. Therefore, I ask that they be treated on a case-by-case basis.
 * The example given (4A) may be such a a case, but you somewhat misunderstand it, probably due to an unclarity in my wording. I did not add that 'the 100 Schools of Thought is a key philosophical methodology', but that it is (alongside the analytic-continental divide) an example of competing philosophical schools distinguished by different methodologies. This information is not new but follows from this place in the article: "In competing attempts to resolve the politically turbulent 6th century BCE, many schools of thought emerged." The significance I have given it in the lead may indeed be improper in that it does not match any assertion directly made in the article, as I have already noted. In that case, yes, a section or paragraph explicitly relating the issue of distinct schools and how this relates to methodology could be added to the article. But there are already many places where different schools and their significance within a tradition or topic is noted, including in the methodology section. The specific example is not essential. (I see now that continental philosophy is never mentioned in the body, nor are major movements such as critical theory and post-structuralism, which indeed seems a needed change. But phenomenology and existentialism, as distinct from analytic philosophy, are listed.) So the mention of schools I propose definitely needs to be reworked, possibly with a few changes to the body, and I would be happy for more input on doing this in the best way possible, as well as input on the other points from whoever is interested.-- MA SHAUN IX 06:28, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The problem of newly introduced claims does not only pertain to philosophical methodology. Many of the claims in the proposal are not found in the article, like the claim that all the listed non-western traditions are older than the Western tradition, the identification of moral value with cultural value, and the detailed discussion of translations between different languages. Instead of trying to fix all these and similar issues, I think the better approach would be to ask what the most severe problems of the current lead are and to make only the required modification: which information plays a key role in our current article but is not mentioned in the lead? The lead stands currently at 302 words. We should be careful not to expand it much further without a good reason.
 * I added a short mention of continental philosophy and postmodernism (instead of post-structuralism). In theory, more schools of thought could be mentioned in the history section, like critical theory. However, there was strong opposition on the talk page to have a detailed history section, see Talk:Philosophy. The problem is that there are too many schools of thought to discuss them all in this overview article. We could add a list but I don't think this is very helpful since we already have the article Outline of philosophy to provide a detailed list of philosophy-related issues. I'm open to suggestions on how to best tackle this issue. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:53, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Women in Philosophy
I thought it should be noted,, that your change here and all subsequent changes to this article by everyone else over this year has been discussed in this article in how it removed all mention of notable women in philosophy from the entire article and all wikilinks to any woman whatsoever outside of a single reference name that is wikilinked. As quoted,


 * Although the intent of the page revision was not to render women invisible, this is one of the fall outs.

Just thought y'all would want to be aware. Silver seren C 22:02, 5 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello and thanks for making me aware of this. I agree that having gender diversity on Wikipedia articles is desirable. I found a way to mention a few female philosophers and to add a picture. However, I fear that we should not set our expectations too high since philosophy is a male-dominated discipline, especially in its historical dimension. This issue is also mentioned in the history section. How the topic is treated in the reliable sources affects how much weight we can give specific philosophers. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I wonder if the 'Relations to other fields' characterises the relation between philosophy and feminism accurately: it seems more evident that feminism has influenced philosophy than that philosophy has influenced feminism. At any rate the relations are two-way, though I don't have a source to hand. (This seems a general feature of that section: relations of philosophy to other fields are characterised as the influence of philosophy on other fields, rather than other fields impacting philosophy.) Dsp13 (talk) 09:41, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * That's a good point, I think you are right that this influence goes both ways. One thing to consider is that philosophy is significantly older than the feminist movement. This means that the influence of the feminist movement on philosophy would be mostly limited to some aspects of 20th and 21st century philosophy. I'm not sure that it would be a good idea to dive into those details for an article on such a high-level topic. Strictly speaking, the claim that philosophy influenced the feminist movement is correct since it does not automatically imply that no influence in the other direction happened. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:55, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Love in it’(showing ownership as a 3-Dimensional entity called the Earth computer)s Knowing is Wisdom
Mintosoares (talk) 08:29, 5 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Going to see if anyone wants me to add that as a new page called being a Philosophier knowing that we can call ourselves “I AM Philosophy” Mintosoares (talk) 08:30, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Polyphilosophy
 * polyphilosophier
 * polymath Mintosoares (talk) 08:49, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Topic
Philosophy is a Human Right to Choose What We Want to Do, Where Our Bodies Belong to Us via The Science of Nature via the Abstract Philosophy of the Universe via the Nature Principle of Human Rights Mintosoares (talk) 08:51, 5 February 2024 (UTC)