Talk:Knowledge/Archive 2

Hello Vontheri and thanks for looking up the page numbers. But the recently added paragraph on knowledge in the Qabalah However still has various problems. For example, I don't think that the claims that knowledge is a corruption of divine, whereas the sephira for wisdom (known by the Hebrew word "chokmah") and the sephira for understanding (known by the Hebrew word "binah"), are distinguished from knowledge and are viewed, unlike knowledge, as being related to actual truth. Knowledge (Daath) is viewed as having no true qualities of its own are found in the sources. They seem to be even contradicted by the Regardie 2000: The Qabalistic Sephirah of Daath is the conjunction of Chokmah and Binah on the Tree of Life, the child of Wisdom and Understanding -knowledge. Is it a sephira or not? Does it contrast with wisdom and understanding or not? Many of the characteristics ascribed to Daath in the article Da'at are again very different from the ones mentioned here. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:59, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your message, and for inviting discussion and clarification first instead of automatically reverting. It's always nice when an editor raises objections civilly, as sadly so many editors are not so civil. I apologize that I had mistakenly put the incorrect page number the first time; I had copy-pasted the reference from another article where the same book was also used as a reference so that I wouldn't have to type it all out again, and I didn't realize that I had forgotten to change the page number. First of all, note that the article Da'at seems to be primarily dealing with the concept in Kabbalah, which is similar to, but distinct, from Qabalah. (The word "Qabalah" does not appear even once in the Da'at article. Perhaps a new section should be added to that article to describe the differences in how Daath/Da'at is viewed in Qabalah as opposed to Kabbalah.) The section I added to the knowledge article is describing the concept in Qabalah, not Kabbalah. Although there are various ways of transliterating the word from Hebrew to Latin characters, "Daath" seems more common in Qabalah, whereas "Da'at" is perhaps more common in Kabbalah. It is important to understand that in Qabalah, it is not unusual for various seemingly-contradictory beliefs to be held simultaneously. It is a belief system that is very complex and often difficult to comprehend.

Daath being a "corruption of the divine" can be inferred from, "and remembering in what sense the Bible speaks of the verb 'to know,' we gather that the root of the trouble was an imperfect apprehension of creative power - towards the 'darkly splendid world wherein continually lieth a faithless depth,'" on page 33 of the Israel Regardie reference. An "imperfect apprehension of creative power" is essentially a "corruption of the divine", no? Also the fact that the reference speaks, on page 34, of Daath coming from "Lucifer", implies that it is a "corruption of the divine." But I acknowledge that perhaps a different wording, something that sticks more closely to the wording used in the reference, instead of "corruption of the divine" could be better.

As for the part saying "Knowledge (Daath) is viewed as having no true qualities of its own", this can be found in the Colin 1991 reference on page 252 in the quote, "Daath has no manifest qualities and cannot be invoked directly."

Daath is NOT a sephira. Note the quote from the Low, Colin (1991) reference which explicitly states, "Daath is *not* a sephira; it is a hole." Daath is viewed in Qabalah as being a "false sephira". Although interpretations of concepts in Qabalah can be radically different depending on the source/individual Qabalah practitioner, the view that Daath is a "false sephira" is, as far as I am aware, universally held. This could be different in Kabbalah; I don't know.

It can be inferred that knowledge is distinguished from understanding and wisdom by the fact that the are represented by different sephirot (or false sephira, in the case of knowledge.) Qabalah teaches that literally everything can be ascribed to one of the sephirot, or to one of the paths that connect the sephirot. If they were considered to be the same thing, then they wouldn't have separate locations on the tree of life. Given that it is not explicitly stated that knowledge is less related to "actual truth", I won't object if you want to remove specifically the part that says "and are viewed, unlike knowledge, as being related to actual truth."

So, to conclude, I agree to changing the wording from "corruption of the divine" to something else, and I agree to removal of the part that says "and are viewed, unlike knowledge, as being related to actual truth."

Please let me know if you still have any questions or if I have failed to adequately address your concerns.Vontheri (talk) 15:09, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Also, in regards to Daath being a false sephira, and not an actual sephira, the Regardie source states on page 71 "The horns spring from Daath (Knowledge) which is not, properly speaking, a Sephira" Vontheri (talk) 15:13, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation. In relation to Kabbalah vs Qabalah, see : qabalah: a variant spelling of kabbalah. It seems to me that various claims made in the paragraph are based on personal interpretations and fall under WP:OR or WP:SYN. Since Kabbalah belongs to Jewish mysticism, it should probably be discussed in the 3rd paragraph of the subsection "Religion", which deals with the Jewish tradition. I would make it a little shorter since it has not the same importance as other traditions. We should also leave out controversial claims where the different sources disagree. What do you think about adding the following sentences to that paragraph? I think the claims in it should be covered the sources cited (the reference to the American Heritage Dictionary is needed for the first sentence). The other details would probably fit better into the article Da'at.

The ancient Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbalah sees knowledge as an important element and refers to it as Daath. It seeks to decipher hidden knowledge found in the Hebrew Scriptures. To this hidden knowledge belongs the idea that the divine reveals itself through 10 emanations, known as sephirot, and that knowledge is the 11th sephira, sometimes also seen as a false sephira.^[1][2][3][4]

Phlsph7 (talk) 16:10, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

References

Phlsph7 (talk) 16:10, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Despite what that dictionary says, "Kabbalah" and "Qabalah" are not typically used interchangeably. Kabbalah belongs to Jewish mysticism, but Qabalah does not. Note that Wikipedia has separate articles for Kabbalah and Qabalah, as they are different things. "Qabalah" refers to the western esoteric/occult tradition, whereas "Kabbalah" refers to the Jewish practice. The different spellings (along with the spelling "cabala", which is yet a third thing) are sometimes used interchangeably, but the different spellings are typically used to distinguish different belief systems, especially among those who actually practice one of the three different belief systems. It shouldn't take much time at all to search on Google to learn the different implications that the three different spellings (Qabalah, Kabbalah, and Cabala) have. This link may help as a start. (See quote on that link: "Because the teachings in these three different traditions diverged in some important places, people have come to adopt a unique spelling for each so it’s clear which tradition the writer is referring to. Generally speaking, the original Jewish tradition is Kabbalah with a “K”; Christian Cabala is spelled differently and starting with a “C,” while the Western Hermetic tradition spells Qabalah with a “Q.”) The dictionary you mentioned may describe the different spellings as synonyms, and they sometimes are used interchangeably, but they are usually only used interchangeably by those who are not especially well-versed in the topic.

The writing you suggest might be fine to add to the part of the article regarding knowledge in Judaism, but Kabbalah (the Jewish tradition) and Qabalah (the western esoteric/occult tradition) are definitely not the same thing. I would want to leave it to someone more versed in Kabbalah (as opposed to Qabalah) to say what would or would not be appropriate to say about the view of knowledge in Kabbalah for this article. I'm sorry, but I don't think what you wrote really describes knowledge as it is viewed in Qabalah -- It doesn't say anywhere in the references I gave that knowledge is "an important element", for example, or that it seeks to decipher "hidden knowledge." It seems that what you wrote is using the definition of "knowledge" as the word is commonly used, and not as the word is used within Qabalah -- and the whole point of explaining the concept of "knowledge" in Qabalah, or in any other belief system, is to distinguish it from the common usage of the word, no? It is used as a translation of the Hebrew word "Daath" in Qabalah, which is not necessarily identical to the common conceptualization of "knowledge" in English. Also it should be clarified that "sephirot" and "sephira" are singular and plural versions of the same word, as it is unlikely that someone unfamiliar with the concept would be able to immediately infer that.

(Note that, although the title of the book for the MacGregor Matthers reference is "The Kabbalah Unvieled," the book contains the quote "I have adopted the form Qabalah, as being more consonant with the Hebrew writing of the word." and uses the spelling "Qabalah" all through-out the book. My understanding is that at the time that book was written [1912], the different meanings of the two spellings were just beginning to be distinguished.)

As for the length of the paragraphs, they should be as long as is necessary to adequately describe the concept within the given belief systems, without giving undue weight. The views of knowledge within the major world religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc.) should certainly take precedence over things like Qabalah or Gnosticism, but unless there is an extreme difference in length (for example, if Qabalah had five paragraphs and Judaism had one paragraph), then whatever number of words/sentences is necessary to describe the concept within the given belief systems should be how long the paragraph should be. The paragraph I added for Qabalah may be longer than the paragraphs for many of the other belief systems/religions, but I don't believe it is substantially longer, and it was longer only because it required more words to succinctly describe the concept. I don't think that a paragraph being a sentence or so longer or shorter than another paragraph is important; that is not a *substantial* difference. The amount of information is what should matter, not a slight difference in word count. Sometimes a few more words are simply necessary to explain one concept as opposed to another concept; that doesn't mean that concept is more important. Note that the paragraph for "Gnosticism" is approximately the same length as the paragraph for Islam, and is longer than the paragraph for Christianity, but I think we could both agree that Christianity and Islam should deserve more weight than Gnosticism. However, the difference is not significant, and the paragraphs receive the length necessary to adequately explain the concept. So the same should be true for a paragraph to describe knowledge in Qabalah.

Within Qabalah, daath is always viewed as a "false sephira." This may not be the case in Kabbalah, I don't know, but I am not aware of any source that states that it is not a false sephira within Qabalah.

Also, may I ask which specific claims you are referring to with "We should also leave out controversial claims where the different sources disagree."?

Thanks.Vontheri (talk) 18:54, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Also, could you please clarify what you meant by "I think the claims in it should be covered the sources cited (the reference to the American Heritage Dictionary is needed for the first sentence)."? I have read over it several times, but I don't understand. What are "the claims"? And what is "it" in "the claims in it"? And what is "the first sentence"? The first sentence of what? Sorry, I was just confused. Vontheri (talk) 19:56, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, the paragraph is not intended about Kabbalah in general but about a more narrow strand (associated with the Hermetic tradition) that is to be clearly distinguished from the Jewish and the Christian forms of Kabbalah. I don't think that such a narrow subject merits inclusion in a broad-concept article on knowledge in general. And your comments imply that knowledge is not even an important element in this tradition. There may be better places to include your ideas in other Wikipedia articles that deal with topics more closely associated with this tradition. Likely candidates might be Da'at and Hermetic Qabalah. With some adjustments, the material could be added there. As a side note: many of your comments are very long. Being concise may be better for talk page exchanges, see WP:TEXTWALL and WP:TLDR.

Explanation of my earlier comments:

• "We should also leave out controversial claims where the different sources disagree" for example whether wisdom and understanding stand in contrast with knowledge or not.
• "I think the claims in it should be covered the sources cited (the reference to the American Heritage Dictionary is needed for the first sentence)." this refers to my earlier proposal of how the material on the Kabbalah could be included. The proposal starts with The ancient Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbalah.... The "claims" are statements made in the text of this proposal.

Phlsph7 (talk) 09:04, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Again, Kabbalah and Qabalah are not the same thing. Qabalah is not a type of Kabbalah; they are different, albeit related, things. This is why "Qabalah" is not a section within the article "Kabbalah", but is its own article. I'm confused as to how you think that it would be okay to include information about knowledge in Kabbalah, but not knowledge in Qabalah. I'm not aware of one being especially more mainstream or common than another, with the exception that Cabala is definitely more obscure in modern times. I included it in the article knowledge because there is a rather specific and unique view as to what "knowledge" is within Qabalah. Gnosticism is included in the knowledge article, and if anything, it seems Qabalah is more commonly practiced in today's world than is Gnosticism, although there is some overlap and cross-influence between Gnosticism and Qabalah. I started to also add information about knowledge in Kabbalah to the paragraph about Judaism, but decided against it, because I don't feel myself informed enough about Kabbalah, and I generally only write information on Wikipedia about topics of which I feel well-versed.

My comments are as long as necessary to describe what I am trying to describe, but I will attempt to be more concise.

I don't see that any of the sources disagree as to whether or not knowledge stands in contrast to understanding and wisdom. The sources all seem to agree, as far as I can tell, that daath (knowledge) is, at least in some way, a path that connects binah (wisdom) and chokmah (understanding), and that it is different from wisdom and understanding. Can you point out anywhere in those sources that says otherwise?

How would you feel if the part about knowledge in Qabalah is shortened to "In the western esoteric belief system of Qabalah (see also: Kabbalah), emanations of creation are symbolized in a diagram known as the "tree of life." Each emanation, or aspect of creation, is represented on the tree of life by a circle known as a sephira (plural: sephiroth). There are ten sephiroth. Knowledge, known by the Hebrew word "daath", is viewed as an eleventh "false sephira", and is considered to be a hole left by the fall of Adam from the Garden of Eden.(the three references go here)" with any other information being added to other articles? Would that be an acceptable compromise? That would also exclude anything that you feel is not agreed upon between the different references. Although my preference would be to include something about how knowledge contrasts with wisdom and understanding, because Qabalah treats them as distinct, whereas in other contexts they are sometimes used as synonyms, especially "understanding" and "knowledge" are sometimes treated as synonyms outside of Qabalah. Vontheri (talk) 14:55, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

The shortened version suggested in your last edit is an improvement over the current version. However, I'm still not convinced why a minor tradition in which knowledge plays no important role should be included. The comparison with gnosticism fails for two reasons: (1) knowledge plays a central role in gnosticism and (2) the fact that gnosticism actually is included does not entail that it should be included. This is a problem for many articles that contain a section called "Religion": everyone wants their favorite religion to be included. This can lead to the section growing and growing until editors decide that the section is too bloated and that only the principal religions should be mentioned while everything else is removed. Since it seems unlikely that I've convinced you I suggest that you make the change you suggested and we'll see sooner or later how other editors feel about it. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:46, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I will make the change right now.

I agree that it could potentially become a problem where many minor religious traditions are added, making the section too bloated. However, my Wikipedia philosophy (see my user page for a longer explanation) is that, the vast majority of the time, more information is better than less information, and page clutter and bloat can best be remedied by reorganizing things, instead of by deleting information that could be useful to someone. In order to avoid this problem, I am going to divide the "religion" section into two subsections, "Major World Religions" and "Minor Religions". I hope that will help to alleviate any concerns. If you prefer it as it was before, as only one undivided section, then please feel free to change it back. Hopefully other editors can give input as well. (Also, I notice that knowledge in Buddhism is conspicuously missing.) Vontheri (talk) 17:15, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I removed the "Major World Religions" and "Minor Religions" headings as a questionable division, since the so-called minor religions in question don't seem to me to be very separate from the so-called major ones. (Also, by the way, headings should be in sentence case per MOS:HEAD.) I agree with Phlsph7 that the Qabalah information is very esoteric (you can also read that as a pun if you wish) and is, as currently written, peripheral to the subject of this article. Regarding Vontheri's "more information is better than less information" philosophy, keep in mind that you can always create a subsection about knowledge in the Hermetic Qabalah article if you find this article's coverage insufficient—"all the info" doesn't have to be in this particular article. And if knowledge isn't important enough in Qabalah to be discussed in the Hermetic Qabalah article, then I wonder why it is important enough to be in this overview article! Biogeographist (talk) 19:16, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for joining the discussion. I'm fine with removing the headings that I added; they were just an attempt to avoid potential objections by organizing things further. I'll keep that in mind about sentence case; thanks for informing me.

As for your objection, the word "knowledge" doesn't appear in the article for Christianity (except for in a quote in a reference), either, but I doubt many would argue that Christianity doesn't have a place in this article. (Note that the Qabalah article does, however, contain the word "Daath", which is translated as "knowledge" in English.) The article for Hermetic Qabalah is quite short, and there are many rather elementary aspects of Qabalah that are not even mentioned in its article. When I mentioned that about the sentence "The ancient Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbalah sees knowledge as an important element and refers to it as Daath." in Phlsph7's proposal, I wasn't trying to imply that knowledge isn't an important concept in Qabalah, but I was just pointing out that that claim didn't appear in the citations as far as I can see. The word "important" implies a positive connotation, whereas Qabalah views knowledge in contrast (and, in some ways, comparison) to wisdom and understanding, and knowledge is not necessarily seen as a source of highest truth. "Notable" would be a more fitting word, in my opinion, instead of "important" for this context. Knowledge is notable within Qabalah for the unique perspective on exactly what "knowledge" is, and it is impossible to adequately explain "knowledge" within Qabalah without comparing and contrasting it with "understanding" and "wisdom".

I agree that most of the information should belong in other articles, such as Qabalah and Daath, but I think at least a sentence or two about knowledge in Qabalah has a place within the knowledge article, because of the specific and notable ways that knowledge is viewed within Qabalah, and because of how Qabalah has had a great deal of influence on many new religious movements, new age, occult, and many other philosophies/ideologies/religions that have influence in modern culture and society. Vontheri (talk) 21:25, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Re: the word "knowledge" doesn't appear in the article for Christianity (except for in a quote in a reference), either, but I doubt many would argue that Christianity doesn't have a place in this article. Frankly, I would be fine with removing all the paragraphs about each brand-name Abrahamic religion. What each of them says doesn't seem original to me. "It's good and it comes from God." Yeah, I get it, do we need three paragraphs to say that?

Re: it is impossible to adequately explain "knowledge" within Qabalah without comparing and contrasting it with "understanding" and "wisdom". I agree that seems to be important, so I added a clause about that based on what you've said about it. Please check it to make sure that what I wrote is accurate according to the sources. Biogeographist (talk) 22:06, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for adding that. I don't think the sources exactly say that it is necessarily undesirable, just that understanding and wisdom are more related to higher/spiritual truth, and knowledge more "earthly" in nature. I made a slight change; let me know how it looks to you. Vontheri (talk) 22:41, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Looks better. Thanks! Biogeographist (talk) 23:40, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the recent changes re-import 2 problems already pointed out in earlier versions: (1) the claim that knowledge contrasts with understanding and wisdom seems to be refuted by one of the sources (Regardie 2000 pp. 33-4: The Qabalistic Sephirah of Daath is the conjunction of Chokmah and Binah on the Tree of Life, the child of Wisdom and Understanding -knowledge) and (2) the claim about the relation to truth (or the lack thereof) is not supported by the sources.

As for some of the other side notes: it's true that not mentioning Buddhism is an important oversight and that the paragraphs on Abrahamic religions do not contain very "original" claims. I'll do some research to see if I can do something about these points. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:22, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I removed "which are, unlike knowledge, associated more closely with deeper, spiritual truth", which Phlsph7 said is not supported by the sources. (I haven't read the sources myself.) Phlsph7's complaint that knowledge doesn't contrast with understanding and wisdom doesn't seem especially relevant, since even in the cited passage the terms are differentiated for the purpose of discussion. If you think "contrasted with" is too strong, you could replace it with "differentiated from". Biogeographist (talk) 14:05, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

My main point was that the strong contrast between knowledge and wisdom/understanding in our previous version is not reflected in the cited source. But I agree that these terms are not identical either. In its current form, it does not matter much whether we use the term "contrasted" or "differentiated". Phlsph7 (talk) 17:49, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

In "The Golden Dawn", speaking of Daath, it says, It acts as a self-evolved link between the higher Genius, on the one hand, at peace in its Supernal abode, and, on the other hand, the human soul bound by its Fall to the world of illusion and sense and matter. Not until that self-consciousness and acquired knowledge are turned to noble and altruistic ends, so long will sorrow and suffering be the inevitable result. (Note that "the Supernal Abode" or "the Supernal triad" refer to wisdom (Binah), understanding (Chokmah), as well as the highest Sephira (Kether), which is usually translated as "crown.")

As for an earlier claim that was objected to, that knowledge "has no true qualities of its own", that can be found in Little Essays Towards Truth by Aleister Crowley (which is not one of the original three references I used) DAATH —Knowledge— is not a Sephira. It is not on the Tree of Life; that is, there is in reality no such thing and And these five principles culminate in a sixth, Daath, Knowledge. But this is not really a principle; it contains in itself the germ of self-contradiction and so of self-destruction. It is a false principle: for, as soon as Knowledge is analysed, it breaks up into the irrational dust of the Abyss.

That belief is held simultaneously as the belief, (quote from Little Essays Towards Truth) DAATH. Knowledge, child of Chokmah and Binah in one sense, in the other the empty and structureless condition of Choronzon. Thus, (Regardie 2000 pp. 33-4: The Qabalistic Sephirah of Daath is the conjunction of Chokmah and Binah on the Tree of Life, the child of Wisdom and Understanding -knowledge) does not actually refute what it, at first glance, appears to refute. (Note that the author Israel Regardie was the personal secretary of the author Aleister Crowley, and the two even lived together for a length of time.)

Little Essays Towards Truth gives descriptions of Binah and Chokmah which clearly stand in contrast to its description of Daath. For the sake of brevity, I will only quote only one small section where they are both being described together, which is hopefully enough to show that they are contrasted with the way Daath is described. Referring to Binah and Chokmah: For She is omniform as Love and Death, the Great Sea whence all Life springs, and whose black womb re-absorbs all. She thus resumes in herself the duplex process of the Formula of Love under Will [...] Yet let it not be forgotten that though She be love, her function is but passive; she is the vehicle of the Word, of Chokmah, Wisdom, the All-Father, who is the Will of the All-One. And thus they err with grievous error and dire who prate of Love as the Formula of Magick; Love is unbalanced, void, vague, undirected, sterile nay, more, a very Shell, the prey of abject orts, demonic: Love must be "under will.

I would go on, but for the sake of brevity I will not. Hopefully those quotes help to elaborate and explain. As it is, I am content with the current version of the paragraph about Qabalah in the Knowledge article. I am fine with either "contrasted" or "differentiated." I will also add Little Essays Towards Truth as a reference to the paragraph now. Vontheri (talk) 19:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Is there some way to suppress the {{Artificial intelligence}} navbox that is transcluded in the excerpt in Knowledge § Artificial intelligence? This article is not part of a series of articles on AI, so that navbox shouldn't be transcluded here. Biogeographist (talk) 16:20, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I moved the template down to the History section on Knowledge representation and reasoning, which made it go away on this page - if there's pushback on that, we can always remove the "Excerpt" template that's pulling it in and replace it with a summary of the lead. - car chasm (talk) 16:43, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm considering to prepare this article for a featured article candidacy at some point. I think it would fail the comprehensiveness criterion in its current state because it leaves out some central topics. One point is that the article may need a short overview section of the history of knowledge. Another is that the article currently discusses skepticism but has very little information on other schools of epistemology, like rationalism and empiricism. An in-depth discussion would not be appropriate for this type of overview article but some more information would be preferable. It would also be good to have more information on knowledge management. This could maybe be combined with the discussion of knowledge representation at the end of the article.

At some points, the article gives too much detail. For example, the subsection Knowledge#Other distinctions has 7 subsubsection. I think a lot of summarizing could be done here. The text on philosophical skepticism is also quite detailed and could be shortened to leave more room for other schools of epistemology. These changes would ensure that the article does not grow too much overall despite the suggested additions.

I think it's not a good idea for featured articles to use excerpts, especially if they are from stubs like Meta-knowledge. So they would have to be replaced with regular text. Various other technical changes would be needed but they would mostly be minor changes.

I was hoping to get some feedback on these ideas and possibly other suggestions. I still have to do some research to work out the details. After that, I would slowly get started to implement them one at a time. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:19, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

@Phlsph7: You mentioned wanting to expand information on other schools of epistemology, like rationalism and empiricism. I would question the need for this, as the framing of rationalism versus empiricism as "schools" of epistemology seems too scholastically didactic and historical/outdated for an up-to-date general article on knowledge. Skepticism is different, because it is (considered abstractly) the antithesis or denial of knowledge. It may be true that the section on skepticism is too detailed, but I would advocate that skepticism here should not be considered one among various historical "schools" of epistemology (which is a framing that belongs in Epistemology) but as a more basic negation of some claim to knowledge or the possibility of knowledge. In short: there's no need in this article for a discussion of more "schools" of epistemology. Biogeographist (talk) 18:35, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I just started my research on this point so your timing is optimal. There are sources that use this approach. For example, see chapters 2 and 3 from Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction. But there are various other sources that don't. For example, the articles on epistemology from the Stanford, Routledge, MacMillan, and Internet encylopedia of philosophy do not have a prominent discussion of these additional schools. So it may be justifiable to use this approach but by no means necessary. One idea I had was to have them all as subsection of the section "Sources of knowledge":

• Sources of knowledge
  • Empiricism
  • Rationalism
  • Skepticism

The current text in that section would stay as it is and these subsections would come after that. But I'm not yet convinced that this is the best approach. Maybe the better path would just be to avoid this bigger change and only get the size of skepticism section down a little by summarizing. Phlsph7 (talk) 19:00, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't see why the sections on rationalism and empiricism would be necessary, and your response doesn't provide any justification for them. Discussing them as separate schools seems outdated, too scholastic (in the pejorative sense) for a general article on knowledge today. The two terms roughly correspond to different sources of knowledge (reasoning and sensory experience), but why separate those sources into competing "schools"? Mario Bunge, for example, argued in many books that rationalism and empiricism as schools or doctrines are outdated, and that anyone doing factual research today is a ratio-empiricist (or ratioempiricist). On the other hand, Bunge had to discuss the outdated schools or doctrines in order to make his argument (for example, Section 15.2: "Philosophies of Knowledge", in Epistemology & Methodology II: Understanding the World, D. Reidel, 1983; Chapter 12: "Intuitionism, Empiricism, Pragmatism, and Rationalism", in Finding Philosophy in Social Science, Yale University Press, 1996; and other books). So that's one answer to my question: One would need to include sections on rationalism and empiricism if one wanted to argue that they are inadequate doctrines, or at least to describe their strengths and weaknesses and to allow readers to reach their own conclusions about their adequacy. But those motives presuppose that the rationalism versus empiricism issue is still a "live issue" today that is important enough for this article, and that it wouldn't be better to sidestep the whole scholastic discussion, which is what I doubt. Biogeographist (talk) 19:48, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I think you make a convincing point. I'll follow your advice and focus on the remaining issues. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:33, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed until now that in March 2023 Phlsph7 started using {{multiref2}} to separate multiple short citations in ref tags in this article. In the rendered HTML, the {{multiref2}} template puts each short citation in a separate list item with the following CSS style: margin-bottom:.5em. To my eye (and this may be matter of personal taste?) this is far too much white space between short citations, especially given that the standard spacing between reference list items is margin-bottom:.1em, if I'm not mistaken. In other words, the display style is not compact enough. It seems to me that {{multiref2}} is much better suited to separating long full citations instead of short citations.

I propose that instead of using {{multiref2}} to separate short citations in ref tags we use semicolons instead. The difference can be seen in the second and third examples in Help:Shortened footnotes § Bundling citations. So, for example, the first instance would change from

<ref>{{multiref2 | {{harvnb|Peels|2023|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=acCpEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA28 28]}} | {{harvnb|Heydorn|Jesudason|2013|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=6QDqPIsiEXEC&pg=PT10 10]}} | {{harvnb|Foxall|2017|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=HSE6DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT75 75]}} | {{harvnb|Hasan|Fumerton|2020}} | {{harvnb|DePoe|2022}} | {{harvnb|Hetherington|2022a|loc=§ 1a. Knowing by Acquaintance}} }}</ref>

which renders as^[1]

to

<ref>{{harvnb|Peels|2023|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=acCpEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA28 28]}}; {{harvnb|Heydorn|Jesudason|2013|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=6QDqPIsiEXEC&pg=PT10 10]}}; {{harvnb|Foxall|2017|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=HSE6DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT75 75]}}; {{harvnb|Hasan|Fumerton|2020}}; {{harvnb|DePoe|2022}}; {{harvnb|Hetherington|2022a|loc=§ 1a. Knowing by Acquaintance}}</ref>

which renders as^[1]

This use of semicolons followed by a period after the last short citation also seems more stylistically congruent with the {{sfn}} template, because each single instance of {{sfn}} is terminated by a period in the reference list, whereas references that use {{multiref2}} are currently not similarly terminated.

If there is consensus for this change, I am willing to do the conversion of the existing references. Biogeographist (talk) 18:23, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

It seems opinions are divided on this issue. As far as I know, there two good ways to address this issue. The simpler one is to replace template "multiref2" with "multiref". It uses separate lines for citations but in a compact way. The second way is to use the sfnm template. It puts all citations into one line. I dislike it when there are many citations since it can get confusing. Implementing it would be more work since the syntax is different. I don't know if your suggestion would be a vialble solution for all devices. As a first step, I implemented the multiref-solution. Does that work for you? Phlsph7 (talk) 18:34, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I can live with {{multiref}}. Thanks. The appearance of {{multiref2}} was driving me crazy. Biogeographist (talk) 18:40, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Although ideally {{multiref}} + semicolons (or periods) + terminal period after the final short citation would make the style most consistent with {{sfn}}. Like this.^[1][2]

1. [1]

   Hetherington 2022a, § 1a. Knowing by Acquaintance. sfn error: no target: CITEREFHetherington2022a (help)
2. [2]

   • Peels 2023, p. 28 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFPeels2023 (help);
   • Heydorn & Jesudason 2013, p. 10 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHeydornJesudason2013 (help);
   • Foxall 2017, p. 75 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFFoxall2017 (help);
   • Hasan & Fumerton 2020 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHasanFumerton2020 (help);
   • DePoe 2022 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFDePoe2022 (help);
   • Hetherington 2022a, § 1a. Knowing by Acquaintance harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHetherington2022a (help).

Biogeographist (talk) 18:52, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Personally, I wouldn't object. However, I haven't seen this style in other articles while the styles of multiref/multiref2 and sfnm are common. Some FA reviewers can be quite particular about the citation style so by going either with multiref or sfnm, we would be on the safe side once the article is ready for a nomination. Phlsph7 (talk) 19:03, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't matter which style other articles use. All that matters per WP:CITEVAR is that there is a consistent established citation style within this article. FA reviewers have no right to unilaterally impose, as a condition for FA status, their own preferred citation style on an article that already has a consistent established citation style. Personally I don't see anything consistent about having most short citations terminated by a period but a few not so terminated. Biogeographist (talk) 19:35, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I think you are right: consistency within the article is the key factor here. To that end, I bundled all the remaining references using the multiref template. Feel free to implement your suggestion. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:11, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

One alternative for the point you mentioned would be to remove the period after the sfn-citations by replacing them with "<ref>{{harvnb ... }}</ref>". Phlsph7 (talk) 10:42, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

@Phlsph7: I think that's a good idea, so I made the suggested replacement from {{sfn}} to <ref>{{harvnb ... }}</ref>. The latter is how I used to create shortened footnotes before I discovered the {{sfn}} template. It required manually naming repeated references (handled automatically by {{sfn}}), but that was easy to do since only 9 refs needed to be named.

Another issue that I noticed while doing the replacement is that many shortened footnotes have unnecessary location info, unnecessary because the same location info is in the full reference. The only instances where the location info is needed in the shortened footnotes is when the location is a subset of the location info in the full reference. I will strip all unnecessary location info from the shortened footnotes unless you can think of a rationale for them that I am overlooking? Biogeographist (talk) 16:48, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. Some references, like Allwood 2013, p. 69–72, Anthropology of Knowledge, repeat the chapter title even though the full reference template already includes the chapter. This is not the case for all location infos, as in Hill 2009, § Idiosyncratic Views of Knowledge. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:03, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Ceoil, would you mind elaborating your justification for this revert? I dropped the matter during the FAC review, but as written it misrepresents Foucault's basic position (especially when juxtaposed with the preceding sentence). For instance, from the SEP article:

On Foucault’s account, the relation of power and knowledge is far closer than in the familiar Baconian engineering model, for which “knowledge is power” means that knowledge is an instrument of power, although the two exist quite independently. Foucault’s point is rather that, at least for the study of human beings, the goals of power and the goals of knowledge cannot be separated: in knowing we control and in controlling we know.

Thanks! Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 23:33, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Your additions were overly verbose and added little...."the nature of"..."examined what he analyzed"..."By way of"?? Ceoil (talk) 23:39, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps consider restoring the change and editing for clarity? Otherwise, if this is your only objection, I will probably revert and make an effort to do so myself. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 00:22, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

The onus should be on the editor introducing old fashioned and tortured prose. Ceoil (talk) 00:30, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Not really sure how to respond to that, but I will restore my edit and then attempt to reword in a more accessible (modern?) prose style. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 00:45, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

If I understand it correctly, the change is based on the claim that the original passage misrepresents Foucault. I don't see how the sentence quoted above supports this claim since our formulation is rather vague and does not mention Bacon. One simple solution could be to restore the original formulation and replace the phrase the extent to which knowledge is power with whether knowledge is power or the extent to which knowledge and power are intertwined or something similar. I assume this would solve Patrick's concern while also addressing the prose concern. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:54, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

"Knowledge is power" is something you tell kids to try to get them more interested in school. I imagine that it is also frequently repeated in some business classes. Foucault's point, however, is not just that power and knowledge are entwined, but that they follow a "logic" (my word, not his) independent of any human intention at any level, individual or institutional. I don't think this is captured by your original formulation or the slightly modified version here. It is, however, supported by the SEP article. Go ahead though and revert if you want. I've spent too much time on this in the review, and am tired of debating it at sentence level. Please tag me should you want any further input (though I imagine you have had more than enough!). I'm unfollowing for at least the time being.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:47, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I share this again here because the FAC review is quite long and more folks will see this here than will read anything in the archives there. I cite only myself. If for any reason this is not appropriate, please revert on your own authority and explain on my talk page. I'm only sharing what I think might help improve the article.

At this stage, I am mostly (if not completely) satisfied that the article does everything that it accepts as within its scope at the FA level. I am entirely unsatisfied, however, with respect to what I take to be the arbitrary and artificial restriction of this scope to (for the most part) the concerns of analytic epistemology. To elaborate:

• In a response yesterday, with reference to R. J. Bernstein's presentation of pragmatism, I made the case that analytic philosophy cannot be accepted as the philosophical authority on knowledge; there is another family of theories that must also be covered. I believe, at minimum, that this requires its own subsection as a definition.

• I think that, in addition to a section addressing my concerns in the prior bullet, the Definitions section should have as its first subsection something about the "knowledge-how" to, for instance, walk and converse in a natural language. Way more people (basically everyone who has had a baby) care way more about this than they do about anything professional philosophers have to say about anything. I am sure that developmental psychologists, pediatricians, and other researchers in this area use a different terminology than philosophers, but this should still be included with relevant wikilinks if for no other reason than this sort of knowledge is the precondition for all of the other more sophisticated sorts of knowledge discussed in the body of the article.

• I am embarrassed to have missed this until now, but how is there no discussion of knowledge of what is right, what is moral, what is just, how best to live, et cetera? Someone writing an overview of analytic epistemology can excuse themselves from addressing such issues on the ground that these issues are better discussed under the separate heading of metaethics. A general article on knowledge, however, cannot take recourse to such an artificial excuse.

• I continue to believe that individual self-knowledge deserves its own section. Even if this is not reflected in the indices of non-philosophical sources in the terms a philosopher would prefer, this is a huge issue in the psychotheraputic project. A section on this would also provide an opportunity to briefly discuss knowledge of others. It is a not uncommon theme in modern and contemporary literature and film that a protagonist discovers that they don't "really" know their spouse, or that they never "truly" knew a deceased friend or relative. So this could also be a nice occasion to mention the knowledge afforded by narrative art (even though I do not believe that this should be required for FA status).

• I still think that a FA on knowledge needs a section on the various ways that apparently neutral or objective knowledge is sometimes anything but. I concede, however, that I have not made a knock-down case for the inclusion of anything specific. I'm not going to make any non-minor edits to the article while it is under FAC review. If, however, you would like me to edit what little is included about Foucault, I would be happy to do so—subject (of course!) to reversion, should anything be deemed for any reason not an improvement to the article.

In my first post to this discussion, I expressed considerable reservations (or, if you prefer, outright confusion) over what might constitute a "comprehensive" treatment of such a general issue. It has come to my attention, however, that there is an emerging consensus to replace this language with what is already policy elsewhere in terms of being unlikely to benefit from further additions.

I believe, however, that this article would benefit a great deal from the attention of editors approaching it from the perspectives of developmental psychology, speech or physical therapy, or pedagogy—among, I am sure, many other relevant disciplines. This is actually what I would most like to see.

Don't be shy about pinging me about any of the above that you would like to work on, but upon which you would be interested in further context from me. By default, however, I would encourage everyone to just be WP:BOLD!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 00:14, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

This is just to check in and test the water; for I'm not sure when I might actually get to this, even if it finds support. But how would involved editors feel about me creating sections on probably the following areas: something from pragmatism and hermeneutics for the Definitions section, a new section on psychological self-knowledge, and a section on knowledge of norms/ethics/morality/right? If I were to do this, I would cite everything to high-quality sources, but (with the possible exception of the first) could not make any claim to an appropriate level of comprehensiveness. (It would be a small research project on my part, but I might also be willing to see what I might be able to turn up in the literature on developmental psychology to supply a stub section on basic knowledge-how such as walking and talking, also for the Definitions section.)

The idea would be to create space in the structure of the article that might invite more knowledgeable folks to make small, incremental contributions without having to take on a whole project. I think this could help to improve the article along the lines of the FAC results, but such underdeveloped sections could also jeopardize GA status, which I have no desire to do.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions (as always!) most welcome —

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 02:44, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

The main danger I see is WP:UNDUEWEIGHT since wide-scope articles like this one shouldn't have sections on every single philosophical tradition. As discussed here, this type of decision should be based on the weight given to the topics in overview sources. The overview sources that I'm aware of don't support these additions. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:21, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I was only offering out of a sense of obligation after having pressed for them during the FAC. So I will happily take this as a free pass to leave the work to others.

Also, since it wasn't promoted due to doubts about the adequacy of its governing overview sources, I'm not sure why you're bringing them up in this context. Multiple editors agreed that the article would benefit from additional perspectives, notwithstanding the impressively high-standard at which it covers what it does.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:26, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

@PatrickJWelsh: If you want to add something from pragmatism and hermeneutics, consider adding it to Definitions of knowledge; the "Other definitions" section there starts with a short paragraph on pragmatism. That article is linked in a couple of places in this article.

Note that there is already an article on Self-knowledge (psychology). I'm not sure why that article is not linked at the first occurrence of "self-knowledge" in this article, in the first paragraph of Knowledge § Others, which is a paragraph about self-knowledge. Did you overlook that paragraph, or is there some reason why you think the article needs a new paragraph on self-knowledge?

Regarding your wish to have a section on knowledge of norms/ethics/morality/right, you said: Someone writing an overview of analytic epistemology can excuse themselves from addressing such issues on the ground that these issues are better discussed under the separate heading of metaethics. A general article on knowledge, however, cannot take recourse to such an artificial excuse. I don't understand why this would be an artificial excuse. I think it's perfectly reasonable to cover this subject in the Moral epistemology section of Metaethics. I would want to see some overview sources that treat moral knowledge as an important category of knowledge to justify including such a section in this article.

By the way, note that there is an article on Epistemic cognition, about the psychological study of "people's beliefs regarding the characteristics of knowledge and knowing". I mention that because you are interested in developmental psychology. Biogeographist (talk) 18:42, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Biogeographist,

Thanks for the response! If I add something about pragmatism and/or hermeneutics, it would be as another definition. (Noticed just before posting that your suggestion was actually to add it to another article, not the first section of this one.) The reason I propose such an addition is that I think the article is too quick to accept propositional knowledge as the paradigm case of knowledge. This is appropriately qualified elsewhere in the article, but at present the lead and the first section of the article are concerned almost exclusively with propositional knowledge. If that is the kind about which there is the most to say, I have no problem with the article giving it the most attention. I would just like the article to start from a broader perspective and then narrow in focus (in whatever way is determined to be most appropriate).

I did not overlook the paragraph on self-knowledge in Others, and I have no problem with it as a concise account from a philosophical perspective (as it is explicitly presented). What I am suggesting would improve the article would be an account from a more psychological perspective, that is, something addressing the challenges of knowing one's own individual self. I am not, however, qualified to write on this.

With respect to the normative stuff, I agree that it does not belong in an epistemology article. But I think there is a strong case that it should be addressed by an article on knowledge in general. With respect to the use of overview sources for articles of extreme generality, you might have a look at this discussion, initiated by Phlsph7, in case you have not already noticed it. I'm not sure it's going to result in any sort of generalizable consensus, but quite a few folks have chimed in from various perspectives. On this specific issue, however, I do believe there should be discussion before any attempt at implementation.

All that said, in the absence of a consensus, I am going to hold off on any major edits in order to avoid even the appearance of having opposed the nomination in order to impose my own views on the article. I am re-following, however, to participate in any further discussion that might emerge.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:21, 8 April 2024 (UTC)