User talk:Carneadesofcyrene

Hello!
I just wanted to say hi, as I noticed your great recent addition to Ethical subjectivism. I look forward to seeing your contributions elsewhere on the encyclopedia, as we are sorely lacking in well-educated philosophers to contribute to the philosophy articles. I'll probably check out your YouTube channel, too. (Edit to add: Apparently I already have! But now I've subscribed). If you have any wikipedia-related questions don't hesitate to ask me if you have trouble finding answers; I'm not an admin or anything but I've been poking around here for a decade or two and have learned a few things. --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:51, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the warm welcome! I'm excited to help out. I'll be sure to reach out with any questions. And thanks for subscribing! Carneadesofcyrene (talk) 03:23, 9 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm wondering if I can reach out to you with a question that's not exactly wiki-related. I'm looking for a friendly internet community to casually discuss philosophy with people who have at least some education on the topic, and especially to get constructive feedback on a series of essays / book I've written on the topic. I've had a hard time finding anywhere welcoming so far, and was wondering if you had any pointers. Thanks in advance. --Pfhorrest (talk) 07:51, 15 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi I wish there were a good community I could point you to.  Honestly I don't know any good philosophy communities online for discussion.  Many communities either have a lot of folks with limited education in the subject, strong opinions about particular political/ethical views or both.  Or they are primarily places for professional philosophers to share their published research, with limited discussion.  Though honestly, I have not spent much time looking,  if you find one, please let me know! Carneadesofcyrene (talk) 21:53, 16 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Hey again, I wanted to let you know something I found on this topic, and also ask you a followup question.
 * The thing I found is that the subreddit /r/philosophy is actually a surprisingly civil place to discuss philosophy. It was the first place I found when Googling for one a while back, but their rules seemed stern and intimidating and made me feel that a casual like me would not be welcome there. But when I got over that and tried submitting some of my essays one by one over the past few months, I've found the overall response much less negative and slightly less apathetic than other places I've tried before.
 * You've probably already taken a look at that place, though, and discovered the same thing that I am now: there are a lot of people without much education on the topic there. In their weekly open thread I recently asked for feedback on why my submissions seem to get so little response at all, and the consensus seems to be that they go over the heads of most readers; one person suggested that even just the titles of my threads are inaccessible to "readers without a PhD in Philosophy".
 * Which brings me to the thing I wanted to ask you about since (I think) you do have a PhD in philosophy, and I don't. Is there some appropriate way for someone like me without a doctorate to try to engage my philosophical work with the professional philosophical community? If so, where would I even begin doing such a thing? I don't imagine a peer-reviewed journal would welcome anything from some rando on the internet. And aside from that, my essays are all tightly interlinked into a unified whole, which I expect would be too large to publish as such in a journal, while I don't know if any of the individual essays would be enough to merit any kind of publication on their own separated from that whole.
 * So basically I'm hoping you can point me in some kind of direction for something useful I could do with the philosophy I've done, besides just leave it on my personal website where nobody will ever know it exists. (Which you can find, BTW, from my Wikipedia user page here, if you're interested in seeing what I'm on about).
 * Thanks in advance for any help you can give. And I've been enjoying your videos too. (The recent intro to postmodernism spurred some big thoughts in me about where postmodernists and their nominal opponents fit into the spectrum of philosophical positions within which I've always conceived of my own philosophy, and lead me to writing a rather extensive addendum to the core essay outlining my general philosophical position, addressing that dimension of the philosophical spectrum in a way I hadn't before.) --Pfhorrest (talk) 03:55, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

 * Hi Carneadesofcyrene! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission.  I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Start Page
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Lounge
 * The Teahouse new editor help space
 * Wikipedia Help pages

-- 20:16, Tuesday, March 9, 2021 (UTC)

Razi
Hello Carneadesofcyrene,

Please be aware of Edit warring and WP:3RR.

You seem to be confused in thinking that Razi's works on religion are extant, besides what's written by Abu Hatim. That is not the case; his works are lost.

Currently we have two paragraphs discussing Abu Hatim's work from both sides of the debate. I see no point in adding a third paragraph implicitly relying on Abu Hatim's material while omitting his name and the debate surrounding his work. That's unnecessary and a bit misleading. Wiqi(55) 10:41, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi ,

Thanks for reaching out. A couple of thoughts: first, I agree that there is an edit war on the al-Razi page over his work on alchemy. I have been working solely in the sections on his views on philosophy and religion, and have therefore avoided it. I do not believe any of my edits have been reverted, nor have I reverted anyone else's.

I am not under the impression that al-Razi's works on religion are extant, and I have cleaned up the language to clarify this. I added the third paragraph to the section on Abu Hatim to frame the debate with the information on which various sources agree, before delving into the disagreement. The sources agree that Abu Hatim was an Isma'ili who wrote about a debate between him and al-Razi where Abu Hatim represented al-Razi as a heretic. They also agree that these is a dispute as to the accuracy of Abu Hatim's portray of Razi's views. Where they disagree is whether this is a faithful interpretation of al-Razi or a hostile and inaccurate one.

As it stood before, it was unclear that there was a disagreement on the interpretation of Abu Hatim until you got to the last paragraph. The current framing puts the bottom line up front that Abu Hatim portrayed al-Razi as a heretic, but there is a debate as to whether Abu Hatim is an accurate source for al-Razi, as opposed to leading with one side of the debate. By separating the agreed upon facts from the debate, the reader can more easily understand what is contested and what is not. Without it, it is unclear that Abu Hatim's work portrays al-Razi as a heretic. In other words the point is to have a paragraph for each of the following:


 * 1) What is actually stated in Abu Hatim's work, and the fact that it is disputed
 * 2) The case for the interpretation that Abu Hatim inaccurately portrays al-Razi
 * 3) The case for the interpretation that Abu Hatim accurately portrays al-Razi

Without the first paragraph, it is unclear what Abu Hatim actually said, particularly since the second paragraph is critical of the accuracy of his account. The question is not around what Abu Hatim said, but rather whether his portrayal of al-Razi is accurate.

Feel free to tweak the first paragraph if you think there is a better or more neutral way of phrasing what Abu Hatim says about al-Razi, and the general debate, but I would push against dropping it entirely. Carneadesofcyrene (talk) 12:09, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Regarding your citations
Greetings! I see that you are very proficient in adding sources and you are definitely very helpful. Though please keep in mind; references should be placed after punctuation (full stop punctuation, commas, colons, etc.) and should also be placed inside parenthesis if it references what is inside them. So instead of "According to Bob, Lenin used to hate sandwiches[ref].", it should be "According to Bob, Lenin used to hate sandwiches.[ref]". This might seem rather picky but Wikipedia has high standards of WP:MOS, and knowing the ones about sources will be particularly helpful for you. Cheers. Wretchskull (talk) 14:48, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice! I'm still getting used to the formatting and style. Carneadesofcyrene (talk) 22:02, 18 March 2021 (UTC)