Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greatness


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:24, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Greatness

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No way this can be expanded without violating NPOV. Also, there's no evidence "greatness" as such is a concept of particular significance to philosophy or history, aside from the idea of Carlyle's linked to here, nor does it necessarily make sense to assume that if historians refer to someone as "the Great" they are referencing a consistent, abstract idea of greatness--in fact Albertus Magnus would seem to have earned the moniker for very different qualities than the others mentioned in the article. Chick Bowen 18:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per nominator. I'm not seeing an encyclopedia article here, it's a word to be defined, but it's not really a coherent subject to write about encyclopedically. I could see a disambiguation page or redirect here, if people think it would be useful. --Chiliad22 (talk) 18:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Expanding upon the "the Great" subject would duplicate, note. Uncle G (talk) 19:48, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom and Chilliad. While there are surely lots of people with strong views on "greatness" it is hard to imagine an encyclopedia article about those views.  Dictionaries of philosophy don't typically have entries for "greatness".Markdsgraham (talk) 20:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * On the contrary: Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique has an entry for great/greatness (under the French title of "grand, grandeur", of course).  Uncle G (talk) 04:07, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Voltaire wasn't the only person to document greatness. Aristotle had a bit to say, about "greatness of soul" ("&mu;&epsilon;&gamma;&alpha;&lambda;&omicron;&psi;&upsilon;&chi;&iota;&alpha;" &mdash; often misleadingly translated as "magnanimity"), in his Nicomachean Ethics.  Nietzsche had the odd thing or two to say about "groß" versus "klein".  Emerson wrote "Uses of Great Men". Even Plato got in on the act, in Parmenides. And, yes, Hans J. Morgenthau and Jerry L. Walls (a professor of the philosophy of religion with a degree in philosophy) have written about it, too.  Far from there being "no evidence 'greatness' as such is a concept of particular significance to philosophy or history", there's evidence in abundance if one actually goes looking, some of it dating back two and one half millennia.  Did anyone look?  The problem with this article is solved by writing &mdash; and by writing not in the cargo cultist let's-collect-people-known-as-The-Great-and-hope-that-an-article-magically-arises manner, but by using the actual sources that discuss this topic.  (It should be noted, in fairness, that the current article doesn't do too much of this.  In fact, at the time of nomination it was a verifiable stub. It wasn't hard to find a source supporting the first part of the introduction, for example.)  It is not solved by deletion.  Greatness is good enough for Voltaire et al..  And, with the multiplicity and depths of sources available, it's good enough for us.  This is a verifiable stub, with clear scope for significant expansion.  (I suggest reading Voltaire, for starters.)  Per Deletion policy, we keep those.  Uncle G (talk) 04:07, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not convinced. As you say, "greatness" is not the usual translation of the subject Aristotle discusses, nor do the various other thinkers you cite state that they are talking about the same thing.  Indeed, most of them go out of their way to make clear that they are not--Emerson is interested in exemplarity, whereas Nietzsche in something that exists well outside of any moral sense of the term. Chick Bowen 16:38, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Then you haven't read them. You haven't read Voltaire, if you think that this is purely a concept in morality, since one doesn't have to read beyond the second paragraph of Voltaire to find that it is not.  You haven't even read things like this if you think that "magnanimity" is the translation of Aristotle.  And you clearly haven't read Nietzsche if you think that exemplars isn't what he was talking about, or indeed James F. Conant's commentary on Schopenhauer as Educator if you think that Emerson's and Nietzsche's discussions of greatness are not related.  Go and read what philosophers have actually written on this subject over the past 2500 years.  As I said, start with Voltaire.  Uncle G (talk) 00:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Are the ad hominems really necessary? I have read Voltaire, Nietzsche, etc.  Obviously I take a different view of them then you do.  My main point stands--if they are writing about an Aristotelian concept, then why don't they say so?  They all address Aristotle in depth elsewhere. Your point is just that these various use of various terms are loosely related--I don't deny that.  But are they the same concept?  If you think that loose relation is enough for an article, fine, say so.  Belittling me, however much you may enjoy it, is fine but it doesn't get you anywhere. Chick Bowen 01:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep There are thousands of books on this topic. The nomination's presumption is therefore false. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That a book includes the word "greatness" in the title doesn't really mean it will contain anything useful for an encyclopedia article. 'Author A said Tom Brady had greatness. Author B said Winston Churchill had greatness.' sounds rather useless to me. --Chiliad22 (talk) 03:12, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep There is no shortage of information about this concept.  D r e a m Focus  01:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. There are tonnes of sources. The article needs substantial improvement, but the topic deserves coverage. The book of the title has been cited 270+ times:. Fences and windows (talk) 01:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep a notable concept discussed by historians, philosophers, and other writers. It may be out of fashion today but it used to be much more widely popular.  The first sentence needs to go as it is POV and serves as a general commentary about the topic rather than giving encyclopedic information about it. Sources to satisfy WP:N can be found here and Google Scholar.  See also Great man theory. Once notability is established, the rest is left to cleanup.  Them  From  Space  02:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.