Template talk:Philosophy of science

About "founders" of philosophy of science
(or say, main figures in the forming of philosophy of science)


 * well, as a non-expert, I don't quite know many good review books/chapters on philosophy of science; but, out of 20+ modern philosophers, there must be a few that is leading and influential in the field of philosophy of science. Take this book, Philosophy Of Science: A Very Short Introduction by Okasha, as example: Karl Popper is undoubtedly a "founder" of modern philosophy of science; and he made Einstein's test of general relativity on the solar eclipse a very good example of "falsifiability". And Thomas Kuhn, author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, proposed the famous idea of "paradigm shift". I mean, there must be a few that we should pick out as "founders" (their lifetime period being relatively early) and "recommend" them to the readers, like these two aforesaid.


 * The other reason that makes me do the edits is, why the philosophers are sorted by FIRST NAME? What's the significance of it? And even it be fixed, by last name, is a random name list of Greco-Medieval-Logical-Pyschoanalytical philosophers very reader-friendly? Yeah here's the other thing: I don't know who included so many philosophers, and I'm really curious about why they're here —— I didn't delete any though.

Anyway, so far, my opinion is still to sort them by era and, in modern, by importance, just like in Philosophers of science. SzMithrandir (talk) 17:00, 18 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, sorting by era seems like a more objective criterion that would be less likely to reflect POV (and I agree first name sorting seems strange). With regard to founders, the names you mention - Popper and Kuhn -- are certainly widely cited and commonly regarded, in some way, as classics - though I notice you called Popper a founder of "modern philosophy of science" rather than of philosophy of science in general - which some might argue is an important distinction that should not be oversimplified on a template. Generally this type of category and naming issue is worked out on a main-article related to the template. But in this case it seems that the main philosophy of science article is not terribly helpful, at least in terms of "founders". That is, there are a few whose names are mentioned in text but I don't see them put into any special descriptive category. Your approach of turning to a textbook strikes me as a valid beginning, but the next step would be to create paragraph or two in an article that attempts to identify "founders", and cites more than a single source. After such a paragraph seems fairly stable and solidly sourced, then perhaps its categories could be uploaded, so to speak, to a template.  But remember that those looking at the template can still click on the main article if they want to find particular thinkers who are implicitly "recommended" by being more often mentioned in text. For now, it strikes me that chronology is perhaps the main category that appears in the philosophy of science page -- indeed the philosophers are sorted that way in bullet points -- so it strikes me as a reasonably solid, non-POV sorting that could be done to the template (so in this line of thinking, much of your work can indeed be retrieved/resuscitated, minus the "founders" category; also beware of miscategorizing Spencer...). Regards -- Presearch (talk)


 * ... well, I have to say that, the version you've just made is not very navigable; in fact, almost illegible indeed. Philosophy of ...  is a phrase indicating subfield, and it is a LONG phrase -- a Navibox shouldn't include such a bulky list -- in fact in the Chinese version (that I've also recently edited) there is one hlist dedicated to these philosophies of math/phys/chem/bio/etc.
 * Secondly, in re of sorting the philosophers, please comment based on the discussion above; I really spent some time went over all these philosophers (and unfortunately found no sorting groups among the moderns), and I believe many reader would favour a list that indicates basic chronologies.
 * Thirdly, thanks for your attention, I've just noticed the issues of the "lower rows" (the concepts, "metatheories" and "related"). They're weasel indeed, I admit; but still, any Navibox list of more than 20 or 30 is nothing but merely hallucinator -- maybe not that bad for readers who are familiar with the topic and are actually able to locate the word by the alphabetical order, which is a tiny minority.

Editing these kind of template is really challenging for me; if anyone is a true expert, s/he is very honoured to stand forth and lead. One thing for sure: this template has to be fixed. SzMithrandir (talk) 01:20, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

WP:BRD: no basis in WP:RS for a separate "founders" section
User:SzMithrandir wants to create a separate "founders" section for philosophers of science that in his view qualify as "founders". As already noted above, in order for this section to be anything but the user SzM's POV, he/she must show that there is a basis among WP:RS for such a section. There is no such section on the page philosophy of science, so any attempt to include a "founders" section on this template is simply POV. If user SzM tries to create a "founders" section on Philosophy of Science, that might be a step towards justifying such a section on this template, but for such a section to be balanced, it should have multiple reliable references, and reflect a consensus of those sources. So it cannot be hastily used to justify a "founders" section on this template; it must be allowed to mature and stabilize and alow time for input from multiple editors.

I eliminated the templates' unjustified "founders" section, but user SzM restored it in a reversion. I found his accompanying change log incoherent and incomprehensible. Therefore I will now revert to POV-free version using WP:BRD. User SzM is should now leave the page free of those changes, until resoultion on this talk page, or he/she will risk administrative action due to edit warring.-- Presearch (talk) 01:40, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah, sorry about replying late; I actually misunderstood your previous comment. Now I see what you really mean. Last time (see above) when you said "but the next step would be to create paragraph or two in an article that attempts to identify "founders", and cites more than a single source. ... then perhaps its categories could be uploaded, so to speak, to a template." I didn't capture your intention.
 * So I agree with this principle. I'll get some time to work on philosophy of science. --- Hold on, they don't even have a "History of philosophy of science" section ?! Oh that's gonna be challenging :( .. Maybe I'll start with amending "philosphers of science" section. --- SzMithrandir (talk) 05:33, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I have been working on the Philosophy of science article, and I just added a brief History section you could add to if that's helpful at all. I don't think the article should have an indiscriminate list of philosophers of science at the end (WP:ALSO), so I'm trying to phase that out. Any help you could offer would be much appreciated. This important topic is long overdue for a good article. -Hugetim (talk) 18:43, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Adolf Grunbaum
I have add Adolf Grunbaum few monts ago, and I believe that he is important to be part of this template. I think that it is appropriate to have on list more contemporary philosophers, because it enables navigation through latest views in philosophy of science (and every other area of philosophy) what can be of great interest for the reader. I propose several criteria for philosopher to be included in template: to publish widely on philosophy of science but not only in some very narrow sub field, to generate wide critical attention (not only reviews of books what is standard but also articles, dissertations and monographs) and to win some prestigious award for his work in the philosophy of science (like Lakatos Award or Carl Hempel Award). I believe that Hilary Putnam should be included in the template - in last half century he published dozens of articles in different areas of philosophy of science (from philosophy of time in the crossroad of philosophy of science and metaphysics to intersection of quantum physics and philosophy, scientific realism etc). --Vojvodae please be free to write :) 13:41, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Natural philosophy vs philosophy of science
there seems to have been some confusion about what "philosophy of science" is, which is not the same as "the parts of philosophy we now call science." I've removed much that seems to have been added to this template under that confusion of terms &#32;- car chasm (talk) 04:39, 19 February 2023 (UTC)