User talk:Phlsph7

This is to let you know that Cognition has been scheduled as today's featured article for 15 July 2026. Please check that the article needs no amendments. Feel free to amend the draft blurb, which can be found at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 2026, or to make comments on other matters concerning the scheduling of this article at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/July 2026. Please keep an eye on that page, as notifications of copy edits to or queries about the draft blurb may be posted there. I also suggest that you watchlist Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors from two days before it appears on the Main Page. Thanks, and congratulations on your work! Z1720 (talk) 00:27, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

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Thank you today for the article, introduced: "Cognitions are mental processes that deal with knowledge. They are a pervasive part of mental life, encompassing psychological activities that acquire, store, retrieve, transform, or apply information. This is a level-4 vital article with over 400,000 page views last year."! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 04:58, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Normativity has failed. See the review page for more information. If or when the reviewer's feedback has been addressed, you may nominate the article again. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Z. Patterson -- Z. Patterson (talk) 03:05, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Premise is under review. See the review page for more information. This may take up to 7 days; feel free to contact the reviewer with any questions you might have. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Z. Patterson -- Z. Patterson (talk) 01:26, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Normativity is under review. See the review page for more information. This may take up to 7 days; feel free to contact the reviewer with any questions you might have. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Generalissima -- Generalissima (talk) 15:05, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

I would have brought this up on the article's talk page, but you are the main (if not sole) contributor and you are the only one opposing the edit.

Could you explain what exactly is the problem with this edit here (and the one previous to it)? For starters, I believe that the description in the image caption is very vague, for example, what exactly is "pragmatic governance"? This is why I viewed "founder of modernity" as a very specific claim, and one supported by a source of NM specialists (and a quote in the reference). For the latter claim about the "ends justifying the means", that is a sentiment which all scholars of Machiavelli note is a sentiment that, textually, he never uttered. One does not even need academics to know this, as it is something anyone can figure out by reading the primary sources. Considering that the scholars in the original edit are not specialists in the topic, and also that scholars are not perfect and it is possible that they can sometimes be lazy and not do simple due diligence, I view that my edit should, at the very least, be considered instead of just discarded via a quick edit summary. I assure you that I have more sources that support my reasoning than what is already offered. Care to wager? Plasticwonder (Cat got your tongue?) 17:05, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi Plasticwonder and thanks for bringing this to the talk page. The image is placed right next to the discussion of realism, so the image caption should discuss in what sense Machiavelli is a realist rather than present Machiavelli-related information that is irrelevant to the text. Maybe we can find something more concrete that fits these requirements. What about Realism is closely associated with Niccolò Machiavelli's emphasis on power politics and the pragmatic pursuit of self-interest.

As I understand it, the expression "The end justifies the means" is a paraphrase of Machiavelli that is sometimes mistakenly presented as quote from Machiavelli. Our current text does not attribute it to Machiavelli as quote. It just uses this principle to describe Machiavelli's philosophy. I think that part is correct. For example this book has a full chapter on this aspect of Machiavelli's The Prince, titled "The end justifies the means: end-orientation and the discourses of power".

Concerning your suggestion, the expression "the founder of modernity" is too general and I don't think that it is widely used in this overly broad sense outside the context of political philosophy. The expression "the founder of modern political philosophy" is more commonly associated with Machiavelli, but it is also associated with Hobbes (e.g. see and ), so we have to qualify it in some form and can't simply state it in wikivoice. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:41, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

You know, I never thought of it from your perspective, and this makes total sense. Thank you for your gracious reply! Plasticwonder (Cat got your tongue?) 14:12, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Premise has been placed on hold, as the article needs some changes. See the review page for more information. If these are addressed within 7 days, the nomination will pass; otherwise, it may fail. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Z. Patterson -- Z. Patterson (talk) 23:45, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Premise has passed; congratulations! See the review page for more information. If the article is eligible to appear in the "Did you know" section of the Main Page, you can nominate it within the next seven days. Please also consider reviewing somebody else's nomination to help keep the backlog down. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Z. Patterson -- Z. Patterson (talk) 01:45, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

I was goïng to check out your FAC for well-beÏng and, well, I was too late! Congrats on the promotion! sina pali e lipu pi pona mute a. toby ^{in solidarity} 04:39, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm glad that it worked out in the end. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:45, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Normativity has passed; congratulations! See the review page for more information. If the article is eligible to appear in the "Did you know" section of the Main Page, you can nominate it within the next seven days. Please also consider reviewing somebody else's nomination to help keep the backlog down. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Generalissima -- Generalissima (talk) 10:25, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

This is to let you know that Well-being has been scheduled as today's featured article for 25 August 2026. Please check that the article needs no amendments. Feel free to amend the draft blurb, which can be found at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 2026, or to make comments on other matters concerning the scheduling of this article at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/August 2026. Please keep an eye on that page, as notifications of copy edits to or queries about the draft blurb may be posted there. I also suggest that you watchlist Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors from two days before it appears on the Main Page. Thanks, and congratulations on your work! Z1720 (talk) 15:27, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

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Thank you today for the article, introduced: "Well-being is what is ultimately good for a person. It is a measure of how well life is going for someone and serves as a central goal of many individual and societal endeavors."! - It's nice to know a TFA author just by looking at the article title ;) - Amazing what you accomplished since this announcement, Truth even! - I have a FAC open, in case of interest. My story remembers a pictured DYK of 15 years ago, with a pic I took ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:42, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you today for Dualism, introduced as "a family of views proposing a fundamental division into two separate principles or kinds. Dualist views span many domains and disciplines, including theories such as mind–body dualism about a sharp divide between mind and matter, ethical dualism about good and evil as antagonistic forces, and epistemological dualism about a fundamental gap between experience and reality."! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:57, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

This is to let you know that Dualism has been scheduled as today's featured article for 29 August 2026. Please check that the article needs no amendments. Feel free to amend the draft blurb, which can be found at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 2026, or to make comments on other matters concerning the scheduling of this article at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/August 2026. Please keep an eye on that page, as notifications of copy edits to or queries about the draft blurb may be posted there. I also suggest that you watchlist Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors from two days before it appears on the Main Page. Thanks, and congratulations on your work! Z1720 (talk) 22:39, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

On 30 June 2026, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Premise, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that a faulty premise can turn a whole argument into a fallacy? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Premise. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Premise), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to nominate it.

 — Amakuru (talk) and TechnoSquirrel69 (talk) 00:02, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Just wonderful work. I spend years scribbling about minor people and objects but you write the aticles that a thousand clever children will pour over in decades to come. Thank you. No Swan So Fine (talk) 21:21, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi No Swan So Fine and thanks for the feedback! Phlsph7 (talk) 07:18, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi there, I don't want you to be caught off-guard as I have resubmitted the article to GAN. I have to taken your review comments and put in a couple hours worth of work to get it better suited. I know there will likely be some small issues, but there shouldn't be anything glaringly bad to fail it immediately now. If there are, definitely let me know. Cheers! Conyo14 (talk) 02:57, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

@Conyo14: Thanks for the changes, the sourcing looks better now. Good luck with the renomination. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:10, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi, I would generally advise against starting a review before the nominator has done their QPQ. TSventon (talk) 15:15, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

@TSventon: Thanks for the input. I haven't run into this type of problem before, but that's probably a good idea to be on the safe side. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:09, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

The winners of the 2026 Core Contest are announced 🎉. A huge turnout that resulted in one of our trickiest deliberation sessions. The judges (Aza24, Femke and Casliber) would like to thank everybody who joined and congratulate the winners!

• First place (and a prize of £120) goes to Vigilantcosmicpenguin (talk · contribs) for his dual efforts on Flatbread and Tortilla! One, formerly an unsourced list-like article, and the other, once a poorly sourced and spotty overview, both now number 250+ citations from an impressively academic source pool. We particularly commend the efforts to globalize content, treat the topics comprehensively and thoughtfully select illustrations. Both articles (one now a GA) are of a uniquely high quality amid the often underserved food topics on Wikipedia. Bravo!
• Second place (and a prize of £100) goes to Phlsph7 (talk · contribs), a Core Contest regular who has once again shown a mastery of big topics, with his dual efforts on Agnosticism and Premise—both now GAs (one, with a review by our first place winner!). With immensely thorough sourcing improvements, alongside carefully nuanced text on these often misunderstood topics, both articles are a pleasure to read.
• Third place (and a prize of £80) goes to MCE89 (talk · contribs), whose improvements to the Heard Island and McDonald Islands article have led to a triumphant FA declaration. The incredible balance of detail between human, geographical and flora-fauna elements is a great achievement, and sets a high standard for future island articles.

If you wish to start or stop receiving news about The Core Contest, please add or remove yourself from the delivery list. – Aza24 (talk) 02:30, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Congratulations! BorgQueen (talk) 11:32, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Hello. Thank you for taking part in this year's Core Contest and congratulations on your win. Could you please write to me at karla.marte@wikimedia.org.uk to coordinate your prize. I may have your address from last year, just making sure it is is till the same. Best wishes, Karla Marte(WMUK) (talk) 09:42, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Semiotics has passed; congratulations! See the review page for more information. If the article is eligible to appear in the "Did you know" section of the Main Page, you can nominate it within the next seven days. Please also consider reviewing somebody else's nomination to help keep the backlog down. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Freedom4U -- Freedom4U (talk) 18:06, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

On 13 July 2026, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Normativity, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that practical normativity covers what people should do, while theoretical normativity is about what to believe? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Normativity. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (Normativity), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to nominate it.

EggRoll97 ^(talk) 00:03, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

13:40, 2 July 2026 diff hist +292 Reality →History: consistent reference style 13:34, 2 July 2026 diff hist +348 Reality →Sources: add source 13:33, 2 July 2026 diff hist −416 Reality →Sources: remove duplicate source 13:33, 2 July 2026 diff hist −179 Reality →Sources: remove duplicate source 13:31, 2 July 2026 diff hist +850 Reality →Sources: add sources

Please refrain from taking multiple edits when one would suffice.

No but seriously, jk and thanks for updating the article "Truth". — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-39801-28 (talk) 23:32, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback on the article Truth. Regarding minor edits, see WP:MINOR. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:43, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Truth has failed. See the review page for more information. If or when the reviewer's feedback has been addressed, you may nominate the article again. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of ScrubbedFalcon -- ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 15:09, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi, back in 2011 I attended a WikiConference in Bristol, UK. User:Johnbod spoke about how Wikipedia was great for topics with a small, well-defined literature but was not doing well for abstract concepts. Having a Philosophy PhD and writing about theoretical psychology, I struck a similar note in my talk; I said that articles like Perception or Happiness will never be good because Wikipedians will never agree on the boundaries of the relevant literature. I hope this context explains why I am delighted to be proved wrong and why I'm completely in awe of what you have achieved and are achieving with articles like Normativity, Cognition, Truth, and the others listed on your userpage.

So, the question (which has multiple aspects): Is there a process you use with overhauling an article on such a topic? Do you ever have difficulty balancing philosophical, empirical, and even religious/spiritual literatures? When I rewrote Confirmation bias, what helped me was a recent textbook chapter and a review paper. Those two sources provided an organising structure that helped me find and summarise other sources. Do you work similarly from a guiding source, or a particular kind of literature review? How do you identify "the literature" on a topic like Mind or Truth, and apportion the weight of different literatures? Thanks in advance for any response, MartinPoulter (talk) 21:30, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi MartinPoulter and thanks a lot for the feedback! I agree that Wikipedia is better suited for smaller and well-defined topics. The problem with broad topics is that so much information is relevant in some sense that it becomes difficult to decide what to include and how to organize it. For this problem, WP:PROPORTION and WP:SUMMARYSTYLE are among the main principles.

Regarding the method for overhauling an article, a lot of preparatory work goes into understanding the topic before I make any changes to the article. I usually start by compiling a long reading list, focusing on overview sources that aim to cover the topic at large rather than specialized subareas. In the case of mind, I look for books with titles similar to encyclopedia of the mind, companion to the mind, handbook of philosophy of mind, what is the mind, the nature of mind, the mind: an introduction, as well as encyclopedia articles titled mind. If the topic spans several fields, such as psychology and philosophy, one has to make sure that all major disciplines are represented in the reading list.

Next, I go through them to see how they present the topic and divide it into subtopics. Given the number of sources and the length of some of them, it's not possible to read everything cover to cover during preliminary planning. Many of the longer works have helpful general introductions, section introductions, or conclusion sections that summarize the most important points. If one already has a good familiarity with the topic, one can get a broad picture of the field by reading the articles and the most important parts of longer works, and by comparing tables of contents. While doing this, I try to figure out what the main points are, how to subdivide and condense them into a few main sections, and how to deal with disagreements among the sources. Once I have the basic section structure and a sense of what belongs in each section, I outline my proposal and the problems of the current article on the article talk page and I usually implement the changes section by section. The overview sources often don't have enough information for each individual section, so I typically need to consult additional sources specifically dedicated to the section topic. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:38, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

On 20 July 2026, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Semiotics, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that semioticians interpret the waggle dance of honey bees as a text? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Semiotics. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (Semiotics), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to nominate it.

—TechnoSquirrel69 (talk) 00:03, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

	The Writer's Barnstar
	Great job getting Semiotics promoted to GA/DYK. One of the best articles I've seen in a long time! The way you are thorough in an encyclopedic tone while also using a wide range of reliable sources is incredible. Morogris (✉ • ✎) 19:28, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi Morogris, thanks for the barnstar and the kind words! Phlsph7 (talk) 09:44, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I've seen how much time and devotion it takes from users like you and Noleander to take a vital article through FAC, and yet I found myself reflecting on this after attending a seminar where the speaker, along with our teachers, remarked that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone and therefore should not be trusted. If only they were aware of the internal processes and the amount of time—and back-and-forth—involved in FACs.

Moments like these do make me question the worth of the work we put in here. I look forward to your thoughts. Best, MSincccc (talk) 15:12, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi MSincccc, if the speaker and teachers mean with "should not be trusted" that you should not cite Wikipedia when writing academic texts, then this is probably a good idea. Wikipedia plays a different role in the knowledge ecosystem: it is more an accessible gateway to knowledge than a final scholarly authority. One reason why effort to improve article quality matters is that many people read Wikipedia articles: even articles on minor topics have significantly more readers than the average academic paper. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:49, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Truth is under review. See the review page for more information. This may take up to 7 days; feel free to contact the reviewer with any questions you might have. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of ErnestKrause -- ErnestKrause (talk) 13:08, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

I think I did enough work on British, French, and German philosophy articles that they deserve the "C" rating, and the same for the American philosophy article to deserve the "B" rating. While not finished and "FA" level, if you get a chance, I would appreciate your opinions on any of them. Especially if I have forgotten anyone in two continents for 2000 years.

Also, after my review of your premise article, I have a light reading recommendation. I don't blame you if you don't have the same interest in crime as I do, as it's full of tabloid hysteria and violence, but, if that can be put aside, solving a crime from the armchair seems to me quite an underrated instance of applied philosophy. In my humble opinion, the blog Solving Jon Benet does what it says. I fear the blog's author has passed on. Cake (talk) 17:12, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi MisterCake, it's nice to see the progress on those articles. If you are looking for more things to do, they all have many uncited paragraphs, so you could add citations. They all also have relatively short lead sections, which could be expanded to better provide better summaries.

With this type of overview, it's easy to miss philosophers. Some candidates to consider:

• British philosophy: Alfred North Whitehead (is mentioned by name but probably deserves more content), Mary Wollstonecraft, Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Anscombe, and R. G. Collingwood

  I'm not sure how to deal with Irish philosophers in this context

• French philosophy: Luce Irigaray
• German philosophy: Walter Benjamin, Max Weber, Ernst Cassirer, and Niklas Luhmann
• American philosophy: John Searle (is mentioned by name in a list but probably deserves more content), Susan Haack, and Christine Korsgaard

Phlsph7 (talk) 09:31, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you very much. You are right for example like the German article needs several more sources. And Anscombe, for just one example, is obligatory. I made an article for Irish philosophy, so we were on the same page there. I am not sure whether to classify it as British philosophy or its own thing (a similar problem arises with Austria and Germany). Berkeley, Boyle, and others are regularly a part of British philosophy. It is not only the Anglo-Irish. Every article I have seen on British philosophy starts with Eriugena. Yet, Ireland sans Northern Ireland is not Britain. What I may need to do is say British philosophy encompasses the British isles, rather than simply Great Britain. I am also debating with myself how, and whether, to include Benjamin Jowett for the British. And also, Erasmus for the German. Not to mention the further one goes back in time, the larger the number of subjects which were considered philosophy. Cake (talk) 17:49, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that Jowett and Erasmus are essential. I would stick to what the term philosophy means today. Otherwise, these articles may turn into general intellectual history. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:17, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I think avoiding mere intellectual history is good advice I will try to keep in mind. However, Luther and Newton, while not strictly speaking philosophers, nonetheless having influential "isms" shows the worry. Perhaps the best example I have is the paragraph on Franklin in the American article. One surely has to mention the Society founder and 'America's first philosopher' overseas, but then one has to shed a kind of chronological snobbery and anachronism which would not count him as a philosopher, as is mentioned prior to those facts. So I tend to include natural philosophy and theology when it seems relevant. I managed to squeeze Jowett in, and I go back and forth on Erasmus. He and Cusa are the typical Northern Renaissance philosophers. Duerer's portrait of Erasmus is one way to show his influence was not confined to Holland. Indeed, supposedly, a Mennonite relative of mine on the way to America from Germany circa 1700 had with him on the boat a Bible and some Erasmus. He has a stronger case than Kierkegaard or Wittgenstein to be called a German philosopher, so it seems to me, yet they were already included. Cake (talk) 22:08, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I think Luther and Newton can be included to the extent that they are relevant to philosophy. For example, Luther's Reformation and translation of the bible probably fall more in the field of general intellectual history. Instead, I would focus the discussion on Luther's philosophy of religion, such as the faith-alone doctrine and the criticism of reason to arrive at theological truths.

German philosophy can mean philosophy in the German language, so Wittgenstein should be fine. The inclusion of Kierkegaard is more controversial. Instead of having a separate subsection, it might be better to discuss him only in places where German philosophers were influenced by him or responded to him. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:16, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Nowhere near finished of course, but I think I have a "skeleton" of an article, or a filing cabinet where any new philosophers have a place to go, for American, British, French, and German philosophy. I also tried my best to do Irish philosophy. I sure hope the article isn't deleted per the talk page. My fear is it gets deleted, the information gets absorbed into the British philosophy article, and then that article becomes unwieldy and has to be split apart - but now there's precedent that it shouldn't be split apart into Irish philosophy. So we get something like "British philosophy before 1650" instead. The Scottish philosophy article seems to me legitimate, yet it seems even more difficult to trace than Ireland. Cake (talk) 16:30, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

The most coherent treatment would be a unified article on British and Irish philosophy. However, I don't think that this combination is commonly used in reliable sources, so we shouldn't treat it as an established topic. If we just follow the sources, having separate articles for each is probably the better idea. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:06, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

I have a 8-volume (really 4, 2 per book) Cambridge Encyclopedia of Philosophy from the 1960s, which was basically the standard thing for students pre-SEP (Edward Zalta runs the SEP, Paul Edwards ran the Cambridge), and it has a several page long article on British philosophy (by Anthony Quinton) which also contains the Irish, Scottish, and so forth (Welsh? All I can think of is Russell). However, I think if we incorporate the wealth of knowledge from the internet and the past 60 years, and even just different scholars back in those days, those will (and have) quickly split off. A good example is the post Locke pro and anti deism section in the British and Irish pages. Burke and Toland are mentioned for the British, yes, but they are one among several, while they can be the focus of an Irish page. And it does not mention Skelton. I also gave the example of the ability to focus on Boyle vs. Bacon/Newton. So, I guess I respectfully disagree. I think the most coherent treatment is a British philosophy article which obliquely references the Irish and Scottish philosophical traditions, with those treated in their own articles. I am a "splitter" rather than a "lumper". I appreciate your comments on the Irish philosophy page, and hope I don't sway you one way or the other. I also left an interesting comment there about DeMorgan, and on the Scottish philosophy talk page I also got a bit of unexpected pushback. Cake (talk) 22:49, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

I wish I knew more about Schelling (German) and Bergson (French) so I could make their sections more understandable. As an amateur wiki historian, I also wish I knew more about Llull and Ramus. Not sure why Llull is a Protestant influence, other than using his native tongue, it seems the usual medieval Neoplatonic mysticism. It influenced Ramus, who is both logician and protestant reformer, and is competing with the likes of Newton and Luther for needing to be mentioned even if the topic were the philosophy of Burkina Faso. Every country has a gap in its history filled by a Ramist. Cake (talk) 18:03, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Approaching 9,000 words with the German philosophy article. I hope the fact that it includes "Austrian philosophy" as well (and in the Middle Ages, Dutch philosophy too, basically the whole Holy Roman Empire), allows me some room up to say 10,000. Forgive me for not figuring it out myself, but is there some wikipedia guideline on a history article for when to put birth/death years (and hyphen) by a person's name? Cake (talk) 19:23, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Some information is found at MOS:DOB, but it's more about how to include dates then when. For history articles, it's usually relevant when something happened. Having the dates in parenthesis when a person is introduced for the first time is an easy and non-intrusive way to accomplish this. While 9000 words is probably defensible for an article like German philosophy, I wouldn't push it too far, see WP:SIZERULE. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:50, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Another option is to split off Austrian philosophy into its own article and make those sections smaller. It seems to me things like an upperbound of 9,000 words mean wiki is designed for 'splitters' instead of 'lumpers'. Brentano's school was in Austria Hungary, not Germany, and so includes Poles and such. However, there would be the issue of what to do with Wittgenstein. I haven't even covered Switzerland, and I don't intend to leave no room for future edits! Another idea is to remove middle names. That could save some space on a German philosophy article. Cake (talk) 18:46, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

If we understand German philosophy as philosophy in German, then it should be fine to include Brentano. An alternative approach would be to summarize more: cover the same topics but in less detail. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:00, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes, of course, that is always the first option. But I felt I've been as brief as I can, even if it seems longwinded at parts. For example, I don't even talk about Wittgenstein's private language argument other than obliquely, as I can't imagine covering it in this article. I've also been liberal in my use of footnotes. For example, Solomon Maimon probably deserves a section, but I used a footnote instead. Hopefully I can keep it hovering around 9,250 as it is now, and then send it to the guild of copy editors and see if they can find any fat to trim.

On Brentano, I think he would have to be mentioned, but he could be mentioned much more briefly if there was an "Austrian philosophy" all its own. "Austrian philosophy" redirects to him on the German philosophy page. I was able to say more about him on the "analytic philosophy" article. Even if we support the Anschluss and include Austrians as just "East (Austria) Germans" Brentano's followers includes non Germans, such as Poles, and the rest of Austria-Hungary. Mach is also similarly Austrian. The trouble would be Wittgenstein's fame, I submit. If there were an Austrian philosophy article, it would be Mach, Brentano, and Wittgenstein (and the Vienna Circle). And indeed, one could cover them in the detail they deserve. Brentano's whole intentionality quote should be there. Wittgenstein's whole private language argument should be there. But I think the Germans want to claim him. At least, it seems to me. Maybe it would be my chance to talk about Otto Weininger.

Also, notice with the German philosophy article, going back to the founding of universities, and the prior medieval period, Prague, Austria, and Alsace, i. e. the Holy Roman Empire, are all considered part of German philosophy. There is also the issue of Switzerland. Geneva is French philosophy (see Voltaire, Rousseau), but Zürich is German (see umlaut). Alsace is Swiss, French, and German together (French since WW1, Alsatians tend to have a French first name and a German last name, said with a French accent e. g. "Jacques Pfessinger" said "fess awn jay" or something). So I hope all this justifies the extra 250 words I might need. There are names I haven't mentioned. Cake (talk) 18:51, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I managed to shave down the German philosophy article to around 9,000 words, at least until someone adds more. It is nice how the contemporary sections for the American, French, and German are done as 'schools' or big names, but I have trouble doing the British that way. Can you think of any contemporary British schools of thought or "isms", other than Swansea and panpsychism? And should I dedicate a whole section to Parfit or something instead of how it is done? I appreciate your insight. Cake (talk) 22:30, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

I assume you are talking about the section "20th century and beyond" in the article British philosophy. Currently, the main division into "Analytic philosophy" and "Contemporary times" mixes organizing principles: "Analytic philosophy" is a tradition or a way of doing philosophy, while "Contemporary times" is a chronological subdivision. One fix could be to change the title to "Early analytic philosophy". A different approach could be to cover the section based on areas of philosophy. To avoid having too many subsections, you could combine related ones, such as "Logic and philosophy of language".

You currently have one sentence on Parfit. It may be acceptable to expand on that a little, but I'm not sure that a full subsection is justified. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:01, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Good idea about putting analytic on the header for contemporary, though I tried to emphasize it in the body. My question is about how best to do the subsections for contemporary Britain. Every other era and every other region has the subsections as a big name philosopher, say Kant, or a school of thought, say German idealism. I don't like the inconsistency. But I struggle to do contemporary Britain in a way other than by field. Swansea and panpsychism are the only schools I can think of, and I doubt Parfit or Williamson, et al, deserve a whole section. So I was asking if anybody does, or if you know of more contemporary British schools of thought. Cake (talk) 20:42, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

I don't think you can boil it down to a handful of schools that would make a good organizing principle. Using general topics or areas to subdivide is a valid approach. However, the subsection currently has too many subsubsections and some are quite short, so I would suggest combining some to reduce the number. For example, the subsubsection "Philosophy of science" has currently only two short sentences.

Another thing to consider is that the article currently claims that all of British philosophy since the 20th century has been analytic philosophy. For example, the label does not fit particularly well for R. G. Collingwood and Whitehead's process philosophy is also not a good match. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:20, 18 August 2026 (UTC)

That is true. It was hard to consider where to put, say, Collingwood. British idealism is rightly covered in the 19th century, but he was in the 20th. The early 20th century doesn't really have anywhere to put him. Anachronism seems forced on the article. The best one can do is present him as a sort of foreshadowing of the contemporary rejection of logical positivism by talking about art. A lot of times, the first, or first few, philosophers of a historical subsection are those who could not be mentioned from the past era. Probably rightly so, the German article even in the 1800s section is stuck in the 1780s for a while. Also, doing the dates without spaces between the dash saves a lot on the word count, so I hope that is not seen as naughty. Cake (talk) 10:39, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

I saw you removed the term "analytic" from the section title, which takes care of the concern. This way, Collingwood can stay where he is. By the way, the article runs into issues with MOS:SANDWICH at several locations. One solution would be to move all relevant images to the right. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:31, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

The tip to avoid sandwiching was quite helpful. A number of articles I edited suffered from it. I recently dumped a lot of sources on the French philosophy article. Your thoughts would be appreciated. Cake (talk) 16:04, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

The arrangement of the images looks better now and the additional sourcing is also a big improvement. A few observation:

• For an article with 8967 words readable prose size, the lead section is quite short.
• I would remove the expression "extremely" in the second lead sentence so that the tone remains neutral.
• The start of the first paragraph of the body of the article is quite abrupt and it may be unclear to the reader why this is discussed. Maybe start by saying that French philosophy originated in the medieval period and then explain how the Romanization of Gaul and the works of Gennadius of Massilia fit into this.
• By my count, there are a total of 98 sections/subsections. This is a lot and some are only a single sentence long. You could look for ways to reduce that number by merging some sections.

Phlsph7 (talk) 13:16, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for any suggestions. I added a sentence to hopefully explain the talk of Gaul. Too big a lede and one will run afoul of 9k words of course, but I added a word or two there as well. Got rid of 'extremely diverse'. On top of 'extremely' seeming unencyclopedic, terms like racial diversity and biodiversity have me prefer that term in other contexts, say biology or social sciences. I also tend to need to "un-split" or lump an article once I have done enough with it. I found 5 headers I could part with. I had Weil as a subset of her teacher Alain, then another editor preferred Weil and Alain separate, as Weil is better known. So I combined them again, this time with Weil first and without a subset relation. Cake (talk) 15:06, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

Congratulations, Phlsph7! The article you nominated, Agnosticism, has been promoted to featured status, recognizing it as one of the best articles on Wikipedia. The nomination discussion has been archived.

This is a rare accomplishment and you should be proud. If you would like, you may nominate it to appear on the Main Page as Today's featured article. Keep up the great work! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) via FACBot (talk) 23:05, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

congrats! Dracophyllum 01:01, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi Phlsph7,

There is an ongoing Request for Comment (RfC) at Wikipedia:Good article nominations/August 2026 RfC, which you may be interested in because in the past year, you have nominated or reviewed more than one good article nomination. This message has also been sent to all subscribers to the Good Article Gazette. The RfC contains many proposals (33 at the time of writing), which are split into the following categories: nominators, reviewers, reviews, volunteer roles, reviewing initiatives, and others. However, you are more than welcome to add any proposals of your own that you wish to put to the community.

By the end of September, all the proposals will have been closed by an uninvolved editor, either as a consensus for one of the options or with no consensus. At this point, editors will be invited again to develop these proposals into coherent policy and implement them.

Thank you for your contributions to the good articles project, and I look forward to your input! (in solidarity), JacobTheRox^{(talk|contributions)} 16:03, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Truth has failed. See the review page for more information. If or when the reviewer's feedback has been addressed, you may nominate the article again. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of ErnestKrause -- ErnestKrause (talk) 12:47, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Truth is under review. See the review page for more information. This may take up to 7 days; feel free to contact the reviewer with any questions you might have. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Generalissima -- Generalissima (talk) 13:48, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Technocracy is under review. See the review page for more information. This may take up to 7 days; feel free to contact the reviewer with any questions you might have. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of ThaesOfereode -- ThaesOfereode (talk) 19:07, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Truth has passed; congratulations! See the review page for more information. If the article is eligible to appear in the "Did you know" section of the Main Page, you can nominate it within the next seven days. Please also consider reviewing somebody else's nomination to help keep the backlog down. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Generalissima -- Generalissima (talk) 08:28, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

Congratulations on the Good Article push. Thank you for applying your talents to the article. I need to watch your page so I can learn! Regards, --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 16:04, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

Hi Ancheta Wis and thanks for the feedback! Phlsph7 (talk) 17:13, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

On 23 August 2026, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Truth, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that philosophers discuss whether truth is correspondence between statements and facts, coherence among beliefs, or something else? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Truth. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (Truth), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to nominate it.

Gatoclass (talk) 00:02, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Hell @Phlsph7 hope you're doing well. I’m disappointed that the article was failed so quickly without giving me sufficient time to address and improve the issues you raised. I understand that you have to follow the review guidelines, but it feels unfair to have the article failed after only a short time without giving me a reasonable opportunity to work on the concerns. Thanks for taking a couple of minutes to review and fail the article. -25 CENTS VICTORIOUS ^🍁 14:23, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Hello 25 Cents FC, thanks for raising the issue, and sorry about the disappointment. Despite your improvements to the text, the article had a large number of uncited paragraphs, including a full section without any references, which conflicts with the GA criterion 2b. The GA quickfail process is used for cases where an article is a long way from meeting one of the criteria, which helps avoid overly drawn-out reviews. However, you can always restart the nomination. Just make sure to address the raised concerned, for example, by adding the relevant sources and confirming that they directly support the statements in the text. Good luck with the renomination. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:27, 24 August 2026 (UTC)

September 2026 Backlog Drive | New pages patrol
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:49, 24 August 2026 (UTC)

Hi, I just want to congratulate you on getting well-being to featured article status. I absolutely love it when such general concepts get promoted. You're behind quite a few of them! Such concepts often go mentioned very frequently but are hard to actually write about in their own right. Thank you for your amazing contributions! Wreaderick (talk) 13:14, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

Hi Wreaderick, thanks for the feedback! Phlsph7 (talk) 16:14, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

Congratulations, Phlsph7! The article you nominated, Premise, has been promoted to featured status, recognizing it as one of the best articles on Wikipedia. The nomination discussion has been archived.

This is a rare accomplishment and you should be proud. If you would like, you may nominate it to appear on the Main Page as Today's featured article. Keep up the great work! Cheers, David Fuchs (talk) via FACBot (talk) 23:05, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

• Congratulations on the FAC promotion! Aoba47 (talk) 02:03, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Hi Phlsph7,

I saw that you removed my addition of this diagram with message "remove recently added image: thanks for the suggestion, but the image is confusing without a proper explanation and it does not reflect the standard contemporary meanings of those terms".

I had thought that using Venn diagrams shows the subset relationship of the sets more clearly for more visually inclined readers. Can you please suggest how the caption can be modified to give a proper explanation without being too long?

While the meanings have changed, I've noted that it pertains to Peirce's example. I'd be glad to draw a new version reflecting current usage. What changes could I make in this regard?

Thanks for your feedback, cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 09:48, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Hi Cmglee and thanks for raising the issue. I'm not sure that there is a concise way of explaining this. You could start by explaining the different visual elements: there are black-and-white, green, and yellow dots; there are areas in green, brown, and gray/white (their labels in the image are too small to make out at this size); there are the symbols "+" and "->"; and those elements are combined to form three sections. You would also need to add a source to support the claims about Peirce's example.

Another problem is that this is not how the terms deduction, induction, and abduction are standardly defined. So this image is likely to confuse readers, even with a good explanation. It could be helpful for articles dedicated to Peirce in particular, such as Charles Sanders Peirce, but it's probably a bad idea for other articles. I'm not sure that Venn diagrams are particularly suited to visualize the differences between the contemporary meanings of these terms.

Is there a specific reason why you created a new template? The more standard approach would be to upload the file to wikicommons as a regular image (svg files can be uploaded to wikicommons). Phlsph7 (talk) 12:10, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I agree about the dots being unclear. I was also not particularly happy about them. Perhaps making them bean-shaped makes it clearer. It would be difficult to make the labels larger without interfering with the sets or using a legend. Other diagrams such as maps are also not legible in thumbnail size, and readers are expected to click on them to see them in the Media Viewer.

Charles_Sanders_Peirce#Modes_of_inference already references the book at Wikisource but I can readd it to the caption.

I think creating a template for images used on several pages lets one update its caption etc at one place, instead of hunting down every page using it. The file is on Commons; the template just defines the thumbnail with customisable parameters and its caption.

Cheers, cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 12:55, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Your good article nomination of the article Technocracy has passed; congratulations! See the review page for more information. If the article is eligible to appear in the "Did you know" section of the Main Page, you can nominate it within the next seven days. Please also consider reviewing somebody else's nomination to help keep the backlog down. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of ThaesOfereode -- ThaesOfereode (talk) 10:48, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

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Thank you today for Agnosticism, introduced as "a position that questions the existence of God or the divine. It is often contrasted with theism and atheism and is typically understood either as a personal attitude that suspends judgment or as the general view that God's existence is unknowable."! - I see that more TFAs are on their way ;) - I brought Geles Cabrera to the same page. My next topic worked for the philosophy of law (what's there was mostly written by others), - if you have the time please if it makes sense. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:30, 9 September 2026 (UTC)