Talk:Quine–Putnam indispensability argument/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: BennyOnTheLoose (talk · contribs) 23:33, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

It's been quite a while since I studied the philosophy of mathematics, so please bear with me as I'll need some time to refer to sources. Happy to be challenged on any of my review comments. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 23:33, 10 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Copyvio check: got some high percentage matches using Earwig's Copyvio Detector, but looking through the top matches, these are either attributed quotes, or common phrases.
 * Images - all PD or CC. Image quality, captions and positioning are all fine.
 * I made some hopefully uncontroversial very minor edits which you can see in the article history.

Sources
 * All the sources listed appear to be good quality and appropriate.
 * Some editors like to see all ISBN numbers in a consistent format, so optionally you could amend some so that this is the case.
 * Field's Science without Numbers must have been originally published a while before 2016, as I remember having my mind blown by it back in the day.
 * Yeah, of course you're right, should've spotted that when I filled in the details from the second edition. Fixed. Alduin2000 (talk) 11:52, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I think the intro text to the Primary sources ("This section provides..") should be in standard rather than small size.
 * ✅. Alduin2000 (talk) 11:52, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Are the links to copies of Maddy (2005) and Resnik (2005) appropriate? (i.e. are those uploads respecting copyright?)
 * I've removed the links just in case. Alduin2000 (talk) 18:28, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

General comments
 * Any reason why, apart from in the lead, only Bueno and Franklin are directly introduced as "philosopher"? (I think it's helpful to readers to retain the form "philosophers Willard Quine and Hilary Putnam," in the lead. Not sure if it's need elsewhere in the article.
 * I think my initial thinking was that I wanted to show the reader why they should care what the assessment of these people is (they're not just random non-philosophers making claims outside of their area of expertise). This isn't mentioned in the objections section because I thought it probably went for given that the people included there are all philosophers. However, I can see how it may come across as redundant when the context of the article should adequately imply that they are reliable sources here. Removed. Alduin2000 (talk) 11:59, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * People should be referred to only by their surname after the first mention in the body of the article, unless this would cause confusion. (MOS:SURNAME and MOS:SAMESURNAME)
 * Are there any in particular that you think are problematic? I need to check through properly again but it seems like the problem is repetition of Hartry Field and Mark Colyvan? Just want to make certain. Alduin2000 (talk) 12:30, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, those are the only two cases that I can see. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 20:42, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Lead
 * Should footnote a be after "...his criteria of ontological commitment." instead, as this is the first time that the phrase appears?
 * ✅. I've moved the first instance of the note as suggested. Alduin2000 (talk) 12:12, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I think that " mathematical platonism" would more usefully be linked to "Philosophy_of_mathematics#Platonism" than to "Philosophy of mathematics" (MOS:SECTIONLINKS)
 * ✅, except I changed the link to the redirect mathematical platonism instead. Alduin2000 (talk) 12:12, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Background
 * Could wikilink epistemological at the first instance.
 * ✅. Alduin2000 (talk) 16:34, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Overview of the argument
 * "...will observe a mixture of oil and water separate because oil and water do not mix..." - I can see that this is written to avoid close paraphrasing, but I am not sure "a mixture" is quite right if the components "do not mix". Resnik says "combine samples of each" which seems to me to be creating a mixture. Can or should this be reworked to avoid the somewhat jarring mixture of things that don't mix?
 * I've reworded it and think it should be ok now. Alduin2000 (talk) 16:39, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * "Naturalism and confirmational holism together justify that we should believe in science and specifically that we should believe in the entirety of science and nothing other than science." - This (IMO) is written as if it's factual "that we should believe in science and specifically that we should believe in the entirety of science and nothing other than science."
 * The wording is now "Naturalism and confirmational holism accepted together imply that we should believe in science and specifically that we should believe in the entirety of science and nothing other than science." Alduin2000 (talk) 18:32, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Would it be appropriate to wikilink "Mathematization" to "Scientific_Revolution#Mathematization"? Or to a redirect for "Mathematization"? (Maybe not necessary, as the sentence goes on to explain the concept.)
 * My instinct is to say no as I'm not 100% sure whether or not they are using the word in the same way. It seems that the "mathematization" used on the Scientific Revolution page is about the process of mathematics being incorporated into scientific practice and theorizing, whereas it is used by the IEP to be approximately synonymous with the thesis that mathematics is indispensable to science. Alduin2000 (talk) 16:21, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Counterarguments
 * "The most influential argument against the indispensability argument comes from Hartry Field" is, IMO, a fair representation of the source. But I imagine there are different views, so is it worth qualifying this statment e.g. by mentioning Colyvan or The Stanford Encyclopedia in the text?
 * ✅. Now attributed to the SEP. Alduin2000 (talk) 12:17, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Field should be delinked, as he was already linked in the background section.
 * ✅. Alduin2000 (talk) 12:18, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Historical development
 * "introduced by Quine, leading philosophers such as Pieranna Garavaso to argue" - "such as" doesn't quite read right to me. Perhaps "...including Pieranna Garavaso..." or "...Pieranna Garavaso and other philosophers..."?
 * ✅. It now reads "leading some philosophers including Pieranna Garavaso to argue". Alduin2000 (talk) 12:26, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * "The argument is historically associated with Willard Quine and Hilary Putnam but it can be traced back to earlier thinkers such as Gottlob Frege and Kurt Gödel." I wonder if it's worth mentioning some approximate dates here, or adding more to show when some of the ideas were develped. In the following paragraphs, some of the dates mentioned are 1947 for Gödel and 1951 for Quine, which doesn't make Gödel look much earlier than Quine.
 * I've added a date for the Frege quote (1903). It might be a bit more difficult to find secondary sourcing on the time frames for Quine because, as noted later in the article, he never explicitly presented an indispensability argument. I think I remember that one of the sources used in the article lists publications by Quine relevant to the argument but I'm not sure if using that would be interpreting more from the source than is really there. I'll look through some of the sources and take a search to see if I can find any sourcing on this at some point soon though. Alduin2000 (talk) 19:06, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Is is appropriate to bring some of the explanation of "first philosophy" into the Overview of the argument section, where the term is first used in the article body?
 * I reworded to remove mention of "first philosophy" instead, hopefully this is also acceptable. Alduin2000 (talk) 19:29, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * First-order logic could be wikilinked. Perhaps an explanatory footnote too? There's obviously a balance between what's explained within the article and keeping it to a reasonable length.
 * ✅, although the footnote might still be a bit technical. Alduin2000 (talk) 20:06, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Influence
 * "identifies the argument as one of the major arguments" could be "identifies it as one of the major arguments" to reduce repetition.
 * ✅. Alduin2000 (talk) 12:27, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks for your work on this article,. I made a couple fo further very minor changes - let me know if you have issues with them. I didn't read all the sources used, but from what I did read, I'm happy that the breadth and depth of the article are appropriate and that the major works in the area have been considered and fairly represented. I don't think that this type of article can ever be written for a reader with no background in the general area without going into a level of detail that would make it lose focus on the main topic, and feel that the level here is appropriate. As I am satisfied that this meets the Good Article criteria, I am happy to pass it, and hope to see you nominating further articles in the future. Well done. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 13:00, 13 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for making the final small tweaks needed . Hopefully I will manage to nominate more articles in future, it requires quite a bit of work to get articles up to this standard but its very rewarding. Thanks again. Alduin2000 (talk) 14:18, 13 May 2022 (UTC)