Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Limiting case (philosophy of science)


 * 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. It appears that there is agreement that the term is somewhat notable, and what remains to be done is a matter of editing, preferably by subject matter experts.  Sandstein  11:12, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Limiting case (philosophy of science)

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WP:DICDEF. Dennis Brown &#124; 2¢ &#124; WER  15:09, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi! I created this article because I was looking for that definition and it was hard to find. Wikipedia usually has everything. But if it is not good for helping students, what is it good for? The article can grow. I'm sure about that... --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 18:32, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * http://www.Wiktionary.org might be a better place for a dictionary definition, the dictionary equiv of Wikipedia, same Foundation, same login, etc. Dennis Brown &#124; 2¢ &#124; WER  18:41, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, less known by millions. But anyway, my main point is that I think this particular phrase deserves an encyclopedic article. I can expand it if you want (but I'm not going to do it if you delete it, hehe). Regards --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 19:17, 17 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I think everyone can win here. If we transwiki to wiktionary, and then soft redirect to wiktionary while Damián A. Fernández Beanato is writing his encyclopaedic article, then once it's written he can submit it to AFC with a view to replacing the soft redirect with the freshly-written material.  That way, we don't have a dicdef in the mainspace, but someone who looks this up on Wikipedia can still get to the information, wiktionary gains a definition it doesn't currently have, and a new article can be written without any bad feeling.— S Marshall  T/C 20:51, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with that if you want to do that. Dennis Brown &#124; 2¢ &#124;  WER  20:54, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 11:23, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi again, fellows! I'm going to include an extra paragraph in a matter of minutes. If that is not enough for the stub status, then we can proceed as S Marshall suggests. Thank you! BTW, you can call me just Damian! --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 02:00, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hello yet again. The article has now three illustrative paragraphs. I think it meets the criterion to be considered a stub now... You can tell me. Thanks! --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 02:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete This philosophical definition seems to be inconsistent with the use of "limiting case" in mathematics and theoretical physics. Should we be documenting such a rare and strange use of the phrase? I would say not. Dingo1729 (talk) 16:23, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is a legitimate article on a subject needed for students and specialists in this field. Dear Dingo, I bet you are not in this field. It's not "rare and strange" at all. In fact it is basic jargon in this studies. Perhaps you are not familiarized with the philosophy of science... that would not be a basis for asking the deletion of a specialized science article.--Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 22:26, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete; and I'm not so sure that transwiki is a good idea. I am unable to verify that this term, in this sense, finds much use in the field, or indeed outside of the cited paper (which is the only reference). That paper, by Laudan, is clearly an important paper in the philosophy of science, cited more than 900 times at Google Scholar - but the term "limiting case" does not appear to be an important feature of that article. I can only see the abstract and the first page, but the term is not mentioned there. Other papers following up on the Laudan original also don't seem to pick up on the term. As this article's author admits, the definition was "hard to find." I conclude that it is not currently a well established enough term to have an article here or a definition at Wiktionary. --MelanieN (talk) 00:26, 23 June 2014 (UTC) (Changing my opinion based on seeing the whole source.)
 * I'm a bit perplexed by the trouble you and other users are apparently experiencing finding the sources, and I wonder whether something weird is going on. Perhaps google's filtering the European results differently when Americans do a search?  In any case, the full text MelanieN couldn't find is here, but would interested editors please also peruse this source which is more focused on limiting cases in the philosophy of science.  This source isn't really about limiting cases but does give us a beautiful one-sentence example ("Physicists agree that classical mechanics constitutes a limiting case of relativity theory", second sentence of the abstract), while  this source adds nothing to what we already know but does provide useful corroboration.  (Sorry, essentially the same information is repeated several times.  I've found it helps to have quantity as well as quality of sources when notability is in doubt.)— S Marshall  T/C 00:57, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep or transwiki. Thanks for the link to the full source article, S Marshall; it changed my opinion. A long and dense but interesting read. Laudan does eventually get around to using the term in the article, and he discusses it at some length. (He mostly discusses it to play down the concept; he doesn't seem to think that the "limiting case" phenomenon occurs all that often.) More to the point, he didn't create the term; he attributes it to others, and discusses the way others use it. So I conclude this it IS a legitimate term in the philosophy of science, even though as Dingo notes it's kind of a weird use of the word "limiting." (I would have thought that "limited case" would describe it better than "limiting case"; maybe it's a translated version of the original concept? but in any case it does appear to be the term they use.) The definition provided in the subject article is very technical and hard to follow; a more layman-friendly definition might be something like this: "In the philosophy of science, a "limiting case" theory is an earlier theory which becomes incorporated into a later, broader theory; in other words, the earlier (limiting case) theory proves to be a special or limited case of the later theory." That's based on my own understanding of what they are saying, since their jargon can be impenetrable. If some of the earlier sources that Laudan mentions (Watkins, Popper, Post, Krajewski, Koertge) could be found and incorporated into the article, I think this could remain here. The example that S Marshall provides (classical mechanics and relativity theory) could also be included. If it isn't expanded in this way, a single-sentence definition such as I have suggested could be put at Wiktionary, since I conclude that the term does find recognition and use in the philosophy of science. (Maybe my problem was that journals like Erkenntnis, Synthese, and the Rutherford Journal are not well indexed at Google Scholar.) --MelanieN (talk) 02:32, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * P.S. I should make it clearer that I am only in favor of "keep" if the article 1) gets additional sources and 2) is substantially rewritten in simpler language to be more comprehensible to the average reader. Otherwise I favor transwiki. --MelanieN (talk) 06:46, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment. That example (classical mechanics and relativity theory) was already included in the article. --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 04:15, 23 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment This a mess. There used to be an article Limiting case which covered the phrase's accepted meaning in mathematics (and theoretical physics). Beanato renamed that article and created the new article Limiting case (philosophy of science). He must believe that the two meanings are distinct (else why two articles?). If you read carefully you will see that Laudan's definition is indeed (somewhat) different. But he claims that this is what physicists mean. So I think this is a misunderstanding by Laudan or simply carelessness. I agree that "limiting case" is a phrase in common use in mathematics and science. I don't know whether it is really used in this slightly distorted form in the philosophy of science. Philosophers have a tendency to use words without any clear or consistent definition. (Beanato had to search hard for any definition). I would like to return to the status quo ante with a single article based on the clear mathematical meaning. If anyone wants to add a sentence that the phrase is used by philosophers in whatever way they think they use it, that would be OK by me. Dingo1729 (talk) 02:41, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I doubt if combining them into a single article would work - since the philosophers seen to use the term in a very different (almost opposite) way from the mathematicians. --MelanieN (talk) 02:52, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Are philosophers really using the term consistently in this way or is this just Laudan? And how do we handle the fact that he claims that this is the way physicists use it when they actually don't? Dingo1729 (talk) 03:09, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment. At least I can assure you that we use it all the time at the University of Buenos Aires. --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 04:22, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Laudan cites half a dozen other people at least who seem to use it in exactly this way. And I don't see him talking about anyone other than philosophers of science. (Like most phil of sci writing, this seems completely detached from the way working scientists talk.) --MelanieN (talk) 03:34, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I was going from the article which says "Following Larry Laudan, scientists use this phrase in the sense that...". Maybe that's just a problem with the article. I'll change "scientists" to "philosophers" and see if that sticks. Dingo1729 (talk) 03:45, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I found the claim in the Laudan paper (on page numbered 39) about scientists using the term in Laudan's sense. Though I really don't want to get into the swamp of "this reliable source says something which clearly isn't true". Dingo1729 (talk) 04:12, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Sometimes we confuse what we would like science to be with real scientific work :) --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 04:19, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I would say that "following Larry Laudan" is a mis-statement. Laudan makes it very clear that he is citing the work of others when he uses that term. He introduces the term by saying "John Watkins, a like-minded convergentist, puts the point this way: It typically happens in the history of science that when some hitherto dominant theory T is superceded by T1, T1 is in the relation of correspondence to T [i.e., T is a 'limiting case' of T1] (1978, pp. 376-377). ... Numerous recent philosophers of science have subscribed to a similar view, including Popper, Post, Krajewski, and Koertge. (15)" Laudan then goes on to disagree strongly with the word "typically," and to argue that in fact this kind of situation is not at all the rule. If the article is making it sound like this is Laudan's idea, I think that is a total distortion of his point. (Also I think it should say "philosophers of science" even if the source says "scientists".) --MelanieN (talk) 04:34, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed, Melanie. It was my wording mistake, changing it now. --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 04:37, 23 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't think "limiting case" has been mistranslated at all. I think it makes sense in perspective and context.  Imagine you're a scientist who's formulating a new theory.  There's an old and well-tested theory that's demonstrably fairly accurate, but your new theory is wider in scope, so you intend to subsume/replace the old theory.  When you're formulating your new theory, the need to duplicate the effect of old theory constrains the range of new theories that are available to you.  So it's a "limiting case" for our hypothetical theory-formulator.  I don't know if I've explained that every well... does it help to clarify?— S Marshall  T/C 11:14, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * No, but it doesn't have to make sense to me; it only has to make sense to the people who use it. --MelanieN (talk) 11:47, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi, S Marshall. It is something along the lines you explained. The older theory is not simply replaced, it is subsumed conserving its theoretical referents (the unseen entities that it postulates). One of the reasons I created the article for was precisely because in other languages we say "limit", not "limiting" case, so a student needs to know how it is said in English. --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 15:00, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi again, fellows. I introduced Melanie's proposal for a simpler language lead paragraph. I'm now going to find more references, as she requested. Thank you. --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 14:11, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Added ref. on "limiting case" as used by Karl Popper. --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 14:54, 23 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 11:05, 25 June 2014 (UTC)




 * Keep The topic is notable — see The Philosophy of Science, for example. It's not clear to me why their jargon is limiting case rather than limited case but that's by the way.  Note also that the vague wave to WP:DICDEF in the nomination is quite inappropriate:  "One perennial source of confusion is that a stub encyclopedia article looks very much like a stub dictionary entry, and stubs are often poorly written. Another perennial source of confusion is that some paper dictionaries, such as "pocket" dictionaries, lead editors to the mistaken belief that dictionary entries are short, and that short article and dictionary entry are therefore equivalent."  Andrew (talk) 12:02, 25 June 2014 (UTC)


 * The usual mathematical (and scientific) usage would be special case. Limiting case (to a scientist/mathematician) would be when the you can't just substitute in values which give the earlier theory, but you get it when you take a limit (most often when something tends to infinity, but there are other cases when a value of a parameter makes the equations invalid, but taking a limit works). My best guess is that some philosopher misunderstood the words and the mutated usage didn't die. Dingo1729 (talk) 16:29, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Probably, but anyway that's the phrasing in English. In Spanish we say "limit" (límite) case. --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 23:18, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Dear Dingo, are you maintaining your vote, which is (other than the nominator's) the only one in favor of deletion? --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 23:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I should change my vote but I simply can't bring myself to do it. The problem is that this situation is contradictory and idiotic. The discussion here has clearly shown that when a philosopher of science says that something is a limiting case then it will never be a limiting case so far as a scientist is concerned. And the converse is true too. A limiting case for a scientist will never be a limiting case for a philosopher of science. When a philosopher says that a scientist claims that something is a limiting case (as in one of the references), God knows what we should think. I keep hoping against hope that someone will come along and say that the definition in the article is not the universally accepted one among philosophers. So I'm coming away from this with the firm belief that this group of philosophers of science are too lazy and ignorant to learn about science, or the basic vocabulary in the subject they are loftily philosophizing about. I'm going to take this off my watchlist. The whole thing is just too irritating. And I'm keeping my delete vote in the hope that the world comes to its senses. Dingo1729 (talk) 04:01, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi again, dear Dingo. I'm afraid to say that this definition is indeed "the universally accepted one among philosophers". I want to believe that we are not "too lazy and ignorant to learn about science", as you said (hehe). But please don't be irritated, the same words can be used in different senses in different contexts, that doesn't necessarily mean that there is something fundamental that we philosophers of science are not grasping. :) --Damián A. Fernández Beanato (talk) 23:26, 3 July 2014 (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.