Talk:Through a Glass Darkly

Dab page & quotation
I've put a disambiguation page here to get around the problem pointed out on Talk:Through a Glass Darkly (film) and Talk:Through A Glass Darkly (album). I orginally put up the album entry (about a month or so ago) but I'm not going to deny the obvious significance of the film over it. That being said I also reckoned there was possibly some interest in the biblical sense of the phrase (though not from me!) so i put a link to that. I decided to put a disambig page for the moment but if anyone feels differently i'm sure they can edit themselves. --Thetriangleguy 14:25, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a quote that turns up in loads of places, so I think we should put the origin of that quote as central to this page. -Zepheriah 01:53, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I found the following in Plato's Phaedo, translated by Benjamin Jowett: 'Socrates proceeded:--I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of my soul; as people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing on the sun during an eclipse, unless they take the precaution of only looking at the image reflected in the water, or in some similar medium. So in my own case, I was afraid that my soul might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried to apprehend them by the help of the senses. And I thought that I had better have recourse to the world of mind and seek there the truth of existence. I dare say that the simile is not perfect-- for I am very far from admitting that he who contemplates existences through the medium of thought, sees them only 'through a glass darkly,' any more than he who considers them in action and operation.' 87.187.3.96 16:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC).


 * "through a glass darkly" appears to have been Jowett's figurative translation, borrowing from the New Testament phrase. The Henry Cary translation has "for I do not altogether admit that he who considers things in their reasons considers them in their images, more than he does who views them in their effects." Looking at the relevant parts of 1 Corinthians and Phaedo in the Greek, too, the phrase from 1st Corinthians doesn't look like it's quoting Phaedo. 2601:152:4C7F:ECD0:0:0:0:DCBC (talk) 03:39, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

I just stumbled across the same line in Jowett's translation of Plato's Phaedo. The fact that it appears in quotations suggests to me that Plato is borrowing from some earlier source. Ctrl-F-style searching for the phrase (and variants) in Homer and Herodotus on the Internet Classics Archive doesn't reveal anything. Fascinating. --SJR (I also shortened the quotation in the previous poster.)

Meaning
Here's a thought... what if this Wikipedia article included what in the hell "Through a glass, darkly" means? All this lists is the various things that have taken this phrase as their title, not explaining what the phrase is meant to suggest. --Harlequin212121 14:29, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree - and is it meant to mean looking in a mirror, as sometimes suggested (including in this entry), or looking at something through a pane of glass, which seems suggested by the word "through"in the King James Version -- you don't generally look "through" a mirror. In either case, whether we are talking about a fuzzy image in a mirror or a scene seen through a somewhat opaque piece of glass, the idea, presumably, is that in those days, when glass was not as perfect and transparent as now, one would not have seen very clearly in either case. Orlando098 (talk) 23:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Glass Hammer song
Disambiguation pages are navigation pages for material available in Wikipedia articles; they are not intended to be catalogs of all possible uses of a term and should not include content that is not available in an article. If you want the song to be listed on the dab page, then it must have an article, be mentioned in an article about the album, or be mentioned in the performer's or some other article linked to in the dab entry.-- Shelf Skewed  Talk  19:25, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm... not really, the band has an article and it lists the album in the Discography section. Hearfourmewesique (talk) 17:03, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * But there is no mention of the song, which is the title being disambiguated. If users go to Glass Hammer, they will find no information about that song. This is like listing an item in the index of a book that includes no mention of that item. Additionally, information in articles is subject to verifiability and referencing. As navigation pages, disambiguation pages do not use references, so tying dab page entries to actual article material is the best way ensure that the information is accurate. -- Shelf Skewed  Talk  17:16, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've added their discography on Amazon.com, now the reader can easily verify the information. Are we done here? Hearfourmewesique (talk) 18:03, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Again, no. Again, disambiguation pages are indexes to information discussed in Wikipedia, not at Amazon.com. If it's not in an article, it shouldn't be on the dab page.-- Shelf Skewed  Talk  18:34, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Please show me where this is stated. Hearfourmewesique (talk) 18:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:DAB: "Include related subject articles only if the term in question is actually described on the target article."-- Shelf Skewed  Talk  18:44, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This is too ambiguous, I'm putting an RfC tag, let's see what others have to say about this. Hearfourmewesique (talk) 18:49, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * ShelfSkewed is spot on. If existing articles do not contain information that supports an entry on a disambiguation page, then there is nothing to disambiguation. older ≠ wiser 19:52, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This is not too ambiguous. I've commented out the errant entry. If appropriate information is added to Glass Hammer, it can be uncommented. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:18, 25 January 2011 (UTC)