Talk:Quietism (philosophy)

Grand Ayatollah Sistani of Iraq
Grand Ayatollah Sistani of Iraq is a follower of the quietist school of thought, despite his indirect but decisive role in most major Iraqi political decisions. Then it is not quietism, is it? A "quietist," but with a covert, behind-the-scenes role in political decisions! A question remains: is this an honest misunderstanding of the meaning of Quietism, or is it a conscious manipulation of the meaning, in order to win a label that confers some perceived value or credibility? --Wetman 20:16, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * A good question. I think the distinction they are trying to make is between "turbans in the parliament" and clerics as leaders.  Clearly Sistani is not going to actually take a position in the government, but he will lead from behind the scenes, even on major political issues.  Whether or not he has an effective 'veto' of sorts amongst Iraqis hasn't really been tested yet. &mdash;thames 22:24, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Doubtless. This entry concerns Quietism, however. Perhaps the concept has not fully penetrated all our contributors. --Wetman 23:15, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm not the one who labeled Sistani or the Iraqi Shia "quietists." This is, apparently, how they are regarded, and quietism's meaning in that context may differ slightly from the meaning applied to Christian/other quietists.  I'd certainly be interested in any suggestions to improve the copy. &mdash;thames 14:38, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Fixed as follows: Sh'ia traditions of non-involvement in politics create anomalies in modern Muslim culture: Grand Ayatollah Sistani of Iraq identifies himself as a follower of the quietist school of thought, despite his indirect but decisive role in most major Iraqi political decisions. Authentic Sh'ia quietism deserves more thorough exploring in this entry. --Wetman 22:38, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay, that's a good compromise text. Thanks for working with me on that. thames 14:25, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, and thanks! clear and fair is good enough! But this article lacks breadth and depth, and I'm too ignorant to provide it. --Wetman
 * This makes no sense!--88.111.119.163 (talk) 17:52, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * This discussion occurred before this content got moved to Political quietism, something completely different from quietism in analytic philosophy. -Atfyfe (talk) 06:35, 7 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with Atfyfe!--79.69.104.119 (talk) 19:32, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Madame Guyon claimed sinless perfection?
I did a lot of searching, and could not find any reliable claim that she actually "maintained that she could not sin, for sin was self, and she had rid herself of self". This quotation, which I found all over the Web, is a parroting of an undocumented statement from The Columbia Encyclopedia (http://www.bartleby.com/65/qu/quietism.html). Chitu 18:43, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Speedy deletion
Only just created this page a few hours ago - I'm amazed that people are trying to kill it off straight away.

In any case, the page is definitely not 'patent nonsense' as alleged. Anybody with an informed view of philosophy could confirm that there are a number of philosophers (active: McDowell/historical: Wittgenstein) who take the view that philosophy should offer no substantive theses (i.e. positive doctrines such as 'the world is physical'/'souls exist' etc.) but should seek instead to explain away apparent philosophical problems by showing that they are just misunderstandings. Austin's Sense and Sensibilia is a prime example of a work of philosophy that shows philosophical problems are the result of abusing ordinary language. I accept that the page is not yet fully referenced (though note links to Wittgenstein, Austin and McDowell) but it is not nonsense. See the article on John McDowell for a reference to quietism (in the first section on Work). -Bosphor 23:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Now added references and more examples. -Bosphor 02:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * If you encounter any similar difficulties, go ahead and leave a note over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy. If we're not all busy, you should be able to get some support. - KSchutte 02:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * An important part of contemporary philosophy. Definitely an article wikipedia needs. - Atfyfe (talk) 03:09, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This really needs expanding, but also some serious editing. How can the genesis of Quietism have been 100 years after Schopenhauer wrote about it? [Brevel_monkey] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brevel monkey (talk • contribs) 01:39, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Because the Schopenhauer stuff was about the other sort of quietism... Banno (talk) 07:03, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Schopenhauer wrote about religious quietism. He described the practice of minimizing willing and craving in order to seek salvation and goodness. For Schopenhauer, denial of willing resulted in goodness and painlessness. This was similar to the original tenets of Buddhism. This article on philosophical quietism as a solution to language problems is totally different from the quietism that Schopenhauier described.Lestrade (talk) 18:16, 16 January 2011 (UTC)Lestrade

Quietism (Other uses)
First, the term "quietism" is probably used in passing to describe a lot of thinkers. So just because someone gets called a quietist once, that doesn't mean they should be mentioned in this entry.

Second, this article is about a specific set of views that arose in western, analytic philosophy in the last 100-years that is widely known by the name "quietism". Obviously, that is not what editors mean when they add "Zen" or "Tao" or the "Grand Ayatollah Sistani" to this entry. If any of those really deserve an entry about their form of quietism, then we need some form of disambiguation (e.g. as we've done for Quietism (Christian philosophy)). They are not quietist in the sense this entry is about quietism.

- Atfyfe (talk) 00:20, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Linked to 'Quietism (Christian philosophy)' in other languages
The linked articles in Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish and Portuguese, at least, all actually correspond to the Quietism (Christian philosophy) article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.17.129.48 (talk) 04:58, 21 August 2016 (UTC)