Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Illusionism (philosophy)


 * 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The result was withdrawn by nominator. NAC— S Marshall T/C 14:54, 24 December 2012 (UTC)'''

Illusionism (philosophy)

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This surprisingly old article appears to have started out as a redirect to an article about magic. At some point it was redirected to an illusionism article about art and then finally was given its basic current content from a contributor who has neither before or since made any further contributions, nor provided any sources. Essentially this is a mix of lacking notability, verifiability, and possibly a case of original research. The term ‘illusionism’ is itself a rhetorical device used in many different contexts (just look at a Google ‘books’ search). I could only find two standard g-search results using ‘Illusionism’ with the article's definition and both appear to be a reflection of the Wikipedia article. Buddy23Lee (talk) 23:39, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 *  Undecided  The American Heritage dictionary has an entry for it " In Philosophy: The doctrine that the material world is an immaterial product of the senses." Likewise, the Dictionary of Philosophy by Dagobert D. Runes has this definition, Illusionism: The view that the spatial-temporal external world is merely a veil of māyā, a phantasmagoria. Not only is everything illusion, deception, appearance, but existence itself has no real value. ( Schopenhauer.) I'm on the fence for notability, but as a philosophical term this is verifiable.  Them From  Space  03:53, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * That's something else. Uncle G (talk) 14:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep per Uncle G, who just gave me quite the lesson in article rescue.  Them From  Space  19:34, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Free will. The idea that free will is an illusion is already discussed in the article Free will. You could argue it is a notable topic (e.g.) and if someone wanted to expand this, I'd suggest renaming to "Illusionism (free will)": the term seems to have other meanings in other branches of philosophy. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:31, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * That's something else, too. Uncle G (talk) 14:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh look! I get to do another philosophy article.  I didn't have to Kerrrzappp! this one, though.  That is because the single-edit contributor was pretty much entirely right.  Your searches for sources would have fared better, Buddy23Lee, had you had the nous to read the books whose titles told you that they were about philosophy and free will.  The Oxford Handbook of Free Will is there for the taking, for example.  Smilansky's thesis is right there in the books and journals, discussed both by him and by various other professors of philosophy over the past twelve years.  And this article is a stub with good context that has ample scope for expansion, since it has far from exhausted even just Lenman alone on the subject.  Uncle G (talk) 14:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Good point Uncle G, for I only held enough scant nous to realize that putting this article up for deletion created a substantial chance of inspiring some industrious gent such as yourself to further develop it in a way that its aging template messages could never do. This is always preferable to having a pathetic article deleted, but either way. I must say sir, good work! You surpassed my expectations. Now that it’s been expanded I have no impetus to keep the bid for deletion and will retract it. Thanks again everyone. :) Buddy23Lee (talk) 20:13, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 22:34, 18 December 2012 (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.