Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy/Archive 23

I saw that we lack an article on "History of philosophy". This seems to me an important oversight. We had an article earlier. But it had various issues and was eventually merged into the history section of the article "Philosophy" 7 years ago. The corresponding discussion is found at Talk:Philosophy/Archive_30#History_too_long. The normal setup would be to have a detailed treatment of the topic in the article "History of philosophy" instead of only a short overview in the history section of the article "Philosophy". I'm thinking about writing the article "History of philosophy". But this would be a lot of work so I was hoping to hear what others think before I get started.

@Snowded, Fgnievinski, Frenditor, Andrew Lancaster, Nimit, and CircularReason: (pinging some of the editors involved in the original discussion) Phlsph7 (talk) 13:51, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I think it would definitely be a lot of work, but if you are willing to do it, I for one would definitely support it, and read it as it progresses. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 16:14, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to fill out the body just by poaching references from other pages, you would only really need a dedicated bibliography to deal with the big, overarching developments from one school of thought to another. Everything else would only need a general summary of major figures and movements. If you start working on a draft I would be more than happy to pitch in with style fixes and such. Orchastrattor (talk) 18:19, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

One of the books I've studied in detail on the subject is:

• Richard H. Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1979.

I don't know if this item is part of your bibliography or not, but I thought I could maybe suggest to include it too. Thank you, 16:23, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi warshy and Orchastrattor and thanks for your feedback! It may take a while before I have something to present. But your help in reviewing, fixing styles and the like would definitely be welcome! I've only done a short initial literature review and I've found a few sources that may be good for the general overview.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} Popkin 1979 is not as general but it could be useful for various sections so I'll see if I can get my hands on it. Phlsph7 (talk) 19:44, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

The main problem that springs to mind here for me is how we define the scope, present everything in a coherent picture, and keep it within a reasonable length - I think it's possible to write a coherent article on the "History of Ancient Greek philosophy", or the History of Western philosophy, or "History of (Insert country, language, religion here) philosophy" - which often does end up being 80% of the "X philosophy" article, anyhow - but trying to shove a bunch of different distinct/disjoint traditions together in one article seems counter-productive, at some point we've just made poached and summarized versions of articles that don't even relate to each other. Also, if we're not careful, because the history of Western philosophy is much more thoroughly studied (and it's the type species of what "philosophy" is), it will be very hard not to prevent it from dominating, which will probably result in somebody throwing a (somewhat justifiable, perhaps) Template:Global on it.

I'm also not optimistic that there's much to poach much from other history pages, a lot of them are full of WP:OR, and most of the citations that exist go to EB1911, other PD sources, or Bertrand Russell, which, yeah, are all technically WP:RS, but I wouldn't trust anyone of those if they contradicted any more recent source, which they frequently do - the history of philosophy as a discipline has mostly taken off in the last 50 years and if the older sources contain any information on a particular subject it's usually now widely considered to be wrong. If you want to improve our coverage of history of philosophy, those individual pages are probably the best place to start, any of the pages in the subcategories of Category:Philosophy by period or Category:Philosophy by country would probably benefit from a rewrite.

If we also want an article with the title History of philosophy, why not focus on the History of Philosophy as a discipline instead, similar to the History article, rather than giving the history of every kind of philosophy? If we also want to write an article that just covers all the events in philosophy, I think a list or a timeline is probably a better format. Timeline of Western philosophers and Timeline of Eastern philosophers don't seem to be in great shape but they might be a good starting point. - car chasm (talk) 19:49, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Also I'd definitely second the recommendation of HOPWAG as a source, from experience it's a fantastic starting point for research on basically any topic it's covered so far - citing the podcast itself might get a bit hairy if other people don't realize Adamson is an expert, but he also adds a bibliography to every episode of what usually end up being the best WP:SCHOLARSHIP sources that exist for any given topic from the most widely cited experts in the field. - car chasm (talk) 20:10, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

You are right that there are many challenges to writing such a general article. And discussing some of them before diving in is helpful. The scope is defined by the reliable sources, i.e. whatever they say is important enough to be included in the history of philosophy. The idea behind writing specifically this article rather than working on timelines is that this is a really notable subject: there are countless books about this specific topic. So not having an article on it seems like a significant lack. If people can write coherent books on it, maybe we can also have a coherent article on it. But the problem of incoherence is real and I'm not sure how to best deal with the issue of having disjoint traditions. I'll keep that in mind while reading the sources to see how they handle this issue.

My idea was to cover it in traditions (Western, Indian,...) and each tradition by periods where applicable (ancient, medieval,...). This is roughly how the reliable sources approach the subject. Balancing the traditions will be a challenge since the Western tradition is significantly bigger and more influential. For example, Grayling 2019 starts with the Western tradition but has a separate part dealing with the different non-western traditions.

I'm also skeptical about poaching information from other articles. Not so much because the idea itself is bad but because I'm not sure about the quality of those articles. As for the size, I'm planning to stay below 60 kB readable prose as per WP:SIZERULE but this can be difficult to plan ahead. Thanks for the HOPWAG-recommendation. I've only had a brief look at it but I'll give it a more detailed read now. Could you expand a little on what you mean by "History of Philosophy as a discipline" in contrast to "history of every kind of philosophy"? Phlsph7 (talk) 20:40, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Sure! by "History of Philosophy as a discipline" I mean an article that provides an overview of the academic field of study itself, (history, methods, scholars, major debates, etc), possibly starting with some early proto-examples that predate academia, then working chronologically through the academic discipline starting with works like Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy and working it's way to the present.

I found a few sources that seem like they cover the topic.

This is admittedly different than the content of a textbook with the title "History of Philosophy" - which might be a good reason NOT use the title "History of Philosophy" for this sort of article, if we think it would cause too much confusion. Admittedly, now that I've dug up some sources, it does seem that Historiography of philosophy is another valid term for "History of Philosophy as a discipline" that can be used to distinguish the two. That article is currently redirected to a strange place, but what I was describing seems like it would probably fit with that title.

So on second thought, it's an article that we probably should have, but I now don't think it should be titled "history of philosophy" - never mind on that front. - car chasm (talk) 04:05, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. This is probably not the main topic of "History of philosophy" but many of the points you make could and probably should be included somewhere. The main bulk of the article would be about the philosophical theories themselves. But it would be a good idea to clarify what is and isn't meant by "history of philosophy", what role it plays, and what methods it uses. Maybe a section called "Background" could include some of these points. The sources you mention are quite relevant to this. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:36, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

@Phlsph7: yes we probably need something like that. It could eventually take some load of this article, and some others, although is not necessarily the initial aim. Carchasm's proposal also seems reasonable.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:00, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I'd strongly recommend adopting summary style. One could easily split section Philosophy#History over the redirect History of philosophy, leaving behind an automatic {{excerpt}} of the lead only. Then, the new article's lead could be improved, so as to include a summary of all subsections. We should just avoid having History of philosophy duplicating and competing with Philosophy#History -- or, worse still, with all of Philosophy. fgnievinski (talk) 01:20, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello fgnievinski and thanks for bringing up the relation to the section "Philosophy#History". I agree with you that this section is too long in certain ways. For example, its treatment of "Indigenous American philosophy" is about as long as the entire treatment of "Western philosophy" and almost twice the length of the subsection "Islamic philosophy". In terms of the relative importance of these traditions, this is WP:UNDUEWEIGHT and not supported by the reliable sources.

My idea was to finish the article "History of philosophy" first and then use summary style to see how the section "Philosophy#History" can be improved and shortened. But that could take a while. I'm not sure that your idea concerning the lead excerpt works since having only the 3-4 lead paragraphs for the section "Philosophy#History" might be too little given its importance to the topic. In terms of the article "History of philosophy" competing with the section "Philosophy#History" or the article "Philosophy", did you mean WP:CFORK? This has to be handled right and I would value your input. But I don't see a problem in principle. It is common for other articles, as in Science and History of science as well as Mathematics and History of mathematics. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:43, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Indigenous American philosophy is a good example of what might go wrong when WP:SS is not followed: section Philosophy#Indigenous_American_philosophy competes -- and surpasses -- the corresponding main article. fgnievinski (talk) 23:43, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Regarding these points above:

The main problem that springs to mind here for me is how we define the scope

I thoroughly agree; duplication or excessive overlap might be something to watch for.

But we don't see eye-to-eye on this point:

trying to shove a bunch of different distinct/disjoint traditions together in one article seems counter-productive, at some point we've just made poached and summarized versions of articles that don't even relate to each other.

I would say they relate to each other under the rubric of "philosophy"; if we can have a WikiProject about it that is about a a bunch of different distinct/disjoint traditions, there's no reason we can't have an article as well, and I think we should. The articles History of mathematics, History of architecture, History of medicine, and History of religion all span millennia, cover the entire globe, and include vastly different traditions, and I don't see how "History of Philosophy" is any different. Clearly it should be designed as a parent article in summary style, with individual summary sections topped by a {{Main}} template to the first-level child article which covers the section topic in greater detail. My main concern is whether the top-level organization should be generally chronological, with thematic subsections within time period, or thematic at the top level. I think either way could work, and a look at how the hundreds or thousands of "History of ..." articles do it might offer some guidance. Mathglot (talk) 20:20, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the input! The most common organization found in the reliable sources is to have different parts for the different traditions and treat each tradition chronologically. For example, this is roughly the approach found in Grayling's "A History of Philosophy", in the "A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps"-series, and in Smart's "World Philosophies". The more specific books treating just one tradition also tend to be organized chronologically based on a periodization that fits that tradition best, like Kenny's "A New History of Western Philosophy" series or Mou's "History of Chinese Philosophy". But, in principle, it could also be organized thematically. Phlsph7 (talk) 20:49, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Just to give a short update, I started a draft at User:Phlsph7/History_of_philosophy. It is still in a rather crude state. Many sections are blank. What is there is unedited and has maintenance tags. It may need to be rewritten later and require shortening. It's probably easier to address these points once the draft is closer to completion. In its current state, it shows roughly the direction in which this is going. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:07, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I have another update on the draft. It has now referenced text in all its sections. Warshy already helped with grammar but there is still a lot to be done. I'll try to address the issues in the next few days but others would also be welcome to join in. Most of the text is still unedited and needs to be checked for grammar, spelling errors, repetitions, style problems, and better formulations. It stands at 68 kB readable prose size. It could be reduced a little but it is not too bad given the scope of the topic. The lead has currently 640 words, which is a little too long and should be reduced to around 500. The article has some wikilinks but many are still missing. Some wikilinks are to disambiguation pages. It also needs "main"-templates for all the major sections. There are various reference errors and a few "citation needed" tags. Some of the references need to be bundled. The article also needs categories. I would be interested to hear about other potential issues and improvements. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:18, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Phlsph7,

I am not in general a fan of histories of everything (in philosophy or elsewhere), but, just skimming, I am impressed. Do tag me if you would like me to review material on late 18th-to-20th century European philosophy when you have a penultimate version or have posted to Wikipedia.

Just one minor content note for now: this cranky review by a leading scholar of 19th-century German philosophy might merit a couple sentences: https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/nineteenth-century-philosophy-revolutionary-responses-to-the-existing-order/. (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, btw, more than meets Wikipedia Good Source requirements.)

And one minor note on format/presentation: So much text! I am sure you are planning to do this already, but I want to reinforce the importance of breaking up the blocks of text with more subheads, images, or whatever. Otherwise readers will flee immediately and your work will be (almost, at least) for nought.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:46, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

@PatrickJWelsh: Thanks for all the ideas! Images would be important to make the article a little bit more appealing. You are right that various paragraphs are too long and should be split up. I'll have to see where it makes sense to add more sub-headings without bloating the table of contents too much.

I had a short look at the review article you mentioned. It seems to be quite critical of the "standard curriculum" of Continental Philosophy between 1840 and 1900. I don't want to give too much emphasis to the "non-standard curriculum" but mentioning some of their ideas would help make our section more well-rounded, like the role of the materialism controversy, historicism, and neo-Kantianism. I'll have a look at where I can fit this in.

I'll definitely get back to your review offer for the 18th-to-20th century European philosophy. I'm currently going through the text section by section to copy-edit and in some cases rewrite the material. I'll let you know when I finish the Western section, maybe another day or two. Except for some final touches, it should be ready then. Phlsph7 (talk) 20:12, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

@PatrickJWelsh: I've finished revising the text itself in the section "Western". But there is no hurry in case you are busy now or you want to wait for the final version. I hope to have the article ready for mainspace in about a week, including images, wikilinks, and the like. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:47, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I read over the ancient Greek portion and made a few copyedits, but I think it's in really good shape overall. One thing I noticed is that I think this line as its phrased now might be a bit misleading:

Arabic-Persian philosophy proved influential for Western philosophy. During the early medieval period, many of the original Greek texts were lost. They only became accessible in the later medieval period thanks to the preservation and transmission by the Arabic-Persian intellectual tradition.

The Greek texts were lost to Western Europe, but they were preserved in the Byzantine empire, though the Latin translations of the Arabic did spur an interest in retrieving the originals. But your current text makes it sound like possibly the original Greek was lost completely, when it's actually the other way around; only a very slim minority of originally Greek texts survive in Arabic translation, most of the Greek philosophy we have comes from Greek-language manuscripts. - car chasm (talk) 06:59, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate your help with the copyediting. I reformulated the passage about the Greek texts to say that they were "not available in Western Europe". Do you know whether the term "Classical era" is commonly used specifically for the philosophy after the pre-Socratics and before Hellenism? I made a short search but I didn't find much. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:46, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

I think it's somewhat common, looks like philpapers uses it for their category on the subject, and its mostly in line with Classical Greece, although many presocratics lived well into that time period. The only other term I see for the period is "Socratic" which also might work, but I've also seen "Socratic" used for the immediate circle around Socrates, or for only the minor schools like the Megarians and the Cyrenaics. - car chasm (talk) 01:44, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I'll leave it as it is for now but it sounds like "Classical" and "Socratic" would also work. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:21, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I went ahead and published the draft on the article page. Please let me know your thoughts. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:42, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

User:Buidhe has nominated Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:44, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

I've been doing some work on the main philosophy page, and I discovered this outline, which initially seemed like it could be useful in making decisions about what should be included and prioritized (or not). The closer I looked, however, the more questions I had. I posted these to the Talk page, but it seemed worth calling attention to here as well.

If it's just an issue of WP:BOLD, I have no problem making at least a few of the changes I suggest on my own authority. But I wanted to check first to see if there was some principle of organization I am not aware of.

I suggest it is probably best to conduct any discussion on the Talk page, to which I link above, so that any discussion is preserved for the record where others who look will be able to find it.

Thanks! – Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:47, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Project members may want to leave their input at Template talk:Philosophy sidebar#Averroes?. Aza24 (talk) 23:02, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

There's a discussion about moving the article Witchcraft to Witchcraft (classical) and moving Witchcraft (disambiguation) to Witchcraft instead, at Talk:Witchcraft#Requested move 19 July 2023. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 06:41, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Renaissance has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 03:02, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I wanted to get some feedback on what the editors here think about using AI models, such as ChatGPT, to create philosophy stubs by summarizing reliable sources. Recently, I have been experimenting with how to use AI models to improve Wikipedia. There are many dangers involved since AI models were not designed for Wikipedia and often don't follow its policies. For example, if one asks ChatGPT to write a Wikipedia article on a certain topic, it produces text right away. However, the produced text often contains unverifiable or false information (so-called hallucinations). The produced text also lacks references. If one asks ChatGPT to provide references, it generates a list that often includes non-existing books and academic articles. For more details, see WP:LLM.

Current AI models do much better at summarizing text. So my idea was to give it the text of a reliable source and tell it to produce a summary of it. Of course, this only works when using an appropriate source that gives a balanced overview of its topic. Summarizing a full source is not possible with regular ChatGPT since the amount of text it can process is too limited. However, it is possible by using other variants, such as gpt-3.5-turbo-16k. Summarizing instead of producing new text mitigates the problem of hallucinations. But it introduces another problem since the produced text can contain close paraphrases of the original article. I tried to avoid this problem by including a second step: I used GPT 3.5 again to reformulate its original summary. Further steps needed are a human review of the output (to ensure compliance with Wikipedia policies) and to wikify the raw text output (add wikilinks, categories, short description,...).

As examples, I created the following 3 drafts for articles that we are currently missing: User:Phlsph7/Boundary (philosophy), User:Phlsph7/African Sage Philosophy, and User:Phlsph7/Philosophy of childhood. The sources they are based on are https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/boundary/, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/african-sage/, and https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/childhood/. The drafts are not perfect for various reasons. One issue is that each one is based on a single source. Another issue is that they don't follow all Wikipedia guidelines. See, for example, MOS:RELTIME in relation to User:Phlsph7/Philosophy of childhood. And, as stubs, they are far from comprehensive. However, if human editors were to create stubs on these topics, their text would probably also have certain problems. I didn't check every single claim in the drafts but all the main claims are supported by the sources. WP:EARWIG catches a few stock expressions but I don't think that this amounts to WP:CLOSEPARAPHRASE. I was curious to hear from other editors: do you think that, despite their drawbacks, these stubs satisfy the minimal requirements to be published as articles? If not, what kinds of changes would be necessary? Or do you reject the idea of using AI summaries for stubs in general? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:04, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi Phlsph7, I can see the idea, but personally I would be very skeptical about stubs produced from LLMs (for all the reasons you already state!). The biggest problem is the time to check the output - a bare minimum would be high levels of scrutiny for text-source integrity and possible copyright violations, but even then there is always the risk of details being missed. At the same time, the amount of effort that editors would have to put in for this level of scrutiny seems like it would not be much less than simply reading a wide variety of sources and writing a stub/draft themselves. So the benefit doesn't seem so great to me.

Another problem is that the use of a single source is not ideal as it may cover things in an idiosyncratic way (even good sources like the SEP may decide to treat certain topics in a way that is different to standard presentations). Editors would also have to check that there are other reliable sources available so that WP:GNG is satisfied. All this extra searching and checking would make any possible time/effort-saving even more marginal.

It seems to me that LLMs are better used for more limited changes such as suggesting copyedits, improvements to structure, clarity, etc. which can more easily be checked by editors. Saying all that, this is just my own opinion, and I think probably this is a question for a broader venue rather than here. Surely the question of "should we have LLM produced stubs on Wikipedia at all" should be answered before the question goes to specific wikiprojects. (Sorry if there have already been some broader discussions on this that I'm not aware of!) Alduin2000 (talk) 12:40, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Alduin's first point about a human being creating stubs costing much less effort than meticulously checking AI-written stuff, which will have subtle problems and require consulting sources anyway. Surely the question of "should we have LLM produced stubs on Wikipedia at all" should be answered before the question goes to specific wikiprojects. Agreed ... I also would vote "no" in that larger discussion FWIW: It creates a ton of work for human editors to check. Yes, human editors can also make mistakes creating stubs, but (1) AI (i.e., a human using AI) can generate stubs much faster than a human editor unassisted; I worry that if AI summaries become a norm or even accepted, misinformation and close paraphrases will overwhelm human editors, leading to the overall degradation of WP's average reliability. (2) AI-written prose is unaccountable; no one can ask an editor, "Why did you choose this wording?" in a talkpage discussion. The AI "chose" it.--MattMauler (talk) 13:14, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

@Alduin2000 and MattMauler: thanks for the feedback and explaining the concerns. I think you are right that, with this method, reviewing would take up most of the time when creating a stub. How much depends on the quality of the AI summary. If it is of a low quality then it may take more time to fix the draft than to write a new one. But if it is of a high quality then it could also save time overall. As for accountability: this always comes down to the editor who decides to publish it. They have to review it or ask other editors for help before publishing the draft. The relevant question for the editor would be "Why did you accept this wording suggested by the AI?". WP:GNG is also a good point. This should always be checked before getting started with the summary.

Concerning the general question should we have LLM produced stubs on Wikipedia at all: there has already been an extensive discussion at WT:LLM concerning how LLMs may and may not be used. The opinions are all over the place, ranging from general ban to no additional regulation needed besides the current Wikipedia policies. The current version of the proposed policy WP:LLM reflects a rough middle ground. I don't think that the method I proposed would violate it. But there is currently no specific policy in place regulating LLM usage on Wikipedia (besides established policies governing topics like bot usage and semi-automatic editing).

To be honest, I'm not 100% certain either whether creating stubs this way is a good idea overall. There are important dangers but it could also be a great opportunity to expand Wikipedia. It may be a good idea if we can find a way to avoid the dangers or at least minimize them. As I see it, one of the key points is whether publishing stubs created following this method would overall improve Wikipedia. For example, is it better to have no article on the topic of boundaries in philosophy or this article? The same goes for African Sage philosophy and philosophy of childhood. That is the reason why I asked the question here rather than in a more general place: someone with a philosophical background is required to assess the quality of these drafts. Do you think that drafts like these satisfy the minimal requirements for stubs? Phlsph7 (talk) 13:57, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Alduin and Matt, I think this is a case where the risk highly outweighs the reward - given the time to check an article, and the potential for this going wrong, I'd say we shouldn't do this, because it's not going to save good-faith editors any time.

When it first came out, I had ChatGPT generate an article on a topic I was familiar with that I knew didn't have a wikipedia article yet, that was obscure enough that it wasn't going to be in the training data. The output read like an entirely well-researched article with proper style and formatting, except for the minor problem that nothing in it was factually accurate. I'm worried about something similar here - I've seen ChatGPT subtly distort the meaning of text that it summarizes and invent outright fictions, but I think a larger risk is a summary that just doesn't say anything, in a way that's not readily obvious to someone already familiar with the topic.

For example, is it better to have no article on the topic of boundaries in philosophy or this article?

I'd say it's much better to have no article, I don't think the summary here actually tells you what a boundary is! This is supposed to be a summary of the SEP article? It's removed all of the pertinent information on the different types of boundaries, it just says the distinctions exist. At best it's an outline you could use to quickly go to the most relevant parts of the SEP article itself, but it doesn't stand independent of it.

In the case where it does say something substantial, on non-realist vs. realist theories of boundaries:

Realist theories regarding boundaries acknowledge the challenges and puzzles associated with them, considering boundaries as ontological entities

what it says is horribly mangled. Do non-realist theories not "acknowledge the challenges and puzzles associated with them", as this sentence implies? I'm pretty sure the opposite is true - Realist theories affirm the existence of boundaries as ontological entities despite the challenges and puzzles associated with them, which this sentence has inverted.

Meanwhile, in the time it takes to read that article over and diagnose what's wrong with it, someone could write a stub (or even start-class) article summarizing the topic instead. - car chasm (talk) 16:07, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for having a look at the draft. Short reply concerning the sentence Realist theories regarding boundaries acknowledge the challenges and puzzles associated with them, considering boundaries as ontological entities.: I'm sure that this could be stated better. It is supported by the following sentence in the SEP article: We may accordingly distinguish two main sorts of theories, depending on whether one is willing to take the problems at face value (realist theories) or to bypass them altogether, treating boundaries as fictional abstractions of some sort (non-realist theories).

I haven't done much work on stubs so I will rely on the feedback of others. I'll put the project on ice since all the responses so far were negative. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:22, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Philosophy of science has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 23:16, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

It’s gotten very long and technical so I’m proposing it be split. Relevant talk page discussion. ~ Argenti Aertheri^(Chat?) 22:38, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I did a heavy edit of this article to give it a coherent TOC. It remains a total embarrassment, but I hope now that it is at least easier to improve.

If you support this, please #Support here or—hey!—just edit away with whatever you've got.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 23:25, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

We'd love fresh views to move the discussion forward at Nonduality (spirituality) at this particular talk-page section: Nonduality (spirituality)#Bold move. Thanks! Wolfdog (talk) 00:25, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:National identity#Requested move 12 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 08:18, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Argumentation theory#Requested move 23 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. —usernamekiran (talk) 15:22, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi everyone,

I am posting to inquire whether there is anything we can do to help correct the wide-spread abuse of these fields in the Philosopher Infobox template. Well-meaning editors add just more and more figures not supported by the article, which undermines the express purpose of the template: "to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article."

Discussions like this, for instance, are just a waste of everyone's time. People who want to add figures should add them to the article in an appropriate place with supporting citations; or, if they aren't comfortable editing, they can instead make a request or open a discussion on the Talk page with the same information.

Please find below a transcluded discussion from the template Talk page. All opinions and ideas most welcome! — Preceding unsigned comment added by PatrickJWelsh (talk • contribs) 22:37, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Please see the discussion at Template talk:Infobox philosopher § Influences/influenced. (I replaced the transclusion template with this link since the discussion is starting to get lengthy and there was no link here for contributing to it—better to just click the link to read and contribute.) Biogeographist (talk) 20:04, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

There is a discussion at Talk:Harm_reduction#I_have_removed_links_to_specific_service_providers,_agencies,_clinics regarding the inclusion of a harm reduction services provider by name in the article. Graywalls (talk) 00:56, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I looked at this and did offer an opinion. But I only even clicked through on the assumption that it would be somehow related to philosophy, which it was not.

In the future, would you mind reserving this board for issues related to this WikiProject?

Thanks, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 15:17, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Speaking of which, I announced it here, because I noticed the article was listed as of interest to WP:Philosophy. If editors in this project do not find it is appropriate, maybe it ought to be taken out? Graywalls (talk) 20:01, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I will leave your question to any other editors who know more about this side of Wikipedia.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 20:44, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

This has had an original research tag for a while. Does anyone feel there are valid merge targets (perhaps back to Critique of the Kantian philosophy ) or whether this spin-off is valid and needed? My knowledge is not sufficient to make any bold actions. JohnmgKing (talk) 11:58, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Aside from being about 85% direct quotes, I don't think that one 1909 source establishes notability for inclusion in Wikipedia as its own article. If there's anything of value that could be moved to the article you mention (its own many problems notwithstanding), that would be appropriate. But I don't know whether this should be considered a merge or just the salvage of a paragraph worth of stuff from an article that probably will not survive nomination for deletion.

Thanks for bringing this up.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 13:50, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Patrick, I've listed it at AFD, hopefully someone will either rescue it, or it'll be cast into mount doom.JohnmgKing (talk) 15:55, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

This stub article just came through AfC and was done up by Justin Weinberg himself. Posting here in the hopes that some non-connected contributors have something to add, or are interested in watchlisting the article to make sure it stays WP:NPOV. -- asilvering (talk) 01:05, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Editors might be interested in a discussion I started at Wikipedia talk: Notability (academics) #proposal for modification of guidelines.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:43, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Your help may be needed on Talk:Lucretius, regarding part of the article that may be falsified information. Renerpho (talk) 19:41, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Hello, a lot of work has recently been done to fill out and source the linked article, and it deserves some more eyes on it for copyedit and polish. Remsense聊 13:54, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi all, just wanted to flag up a discussion I've started at the section above regarding inclusion criteria for Template:Social and political philosophy—some extra pairs of eyes would be welcome to avoid just arguing the toss. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 16:17, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia has no article on Fairness, just a disambiguation page. I have a draft underway, but it needs some philosophy. BD2412 T 03:03, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi all, a bit of a strange situation here. Last year, an editor named Darylprasad was banned for their work on philosophy articles. Somewhat uniquely, they didn't engage in vandalism or spreading hoaxes, they wrote articles which were extremely detailed and well-cited, but to an inappropriately extreme extent. The principle articles they worked on (with diffs of before the edits were removed) were Proclus, Plotinus and Neoplatonism. I really think that there is a lot of content which is still usable, if trimmed and consolidated immensely. Each three of these articles is currently C-class, and it would be a shame if so many possible improvements were lost to time.

I'm wondering what philosophy-inclined editors think of this, courtesy pings to Phlsph7, PatrickJWelsh and Cinadon36. At the thread that banned this user there were accusations of OR. This is perhaps observable in the philosophy sections (although I've really not looked into this at all), but in the Biography section of Proclus, for instance, the citations are all to scholarly sources, and if adjusted/tweaked could become could possibly improve the current biography quite a bit. Aza24 (talk) 07:32, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I had short look at the version of Neoplatonism before it was reverted. It has a readable prose size of 170 kB, which is way beyond the recommendations of WP:SIZERULE. I randomly picked the section on Hypatia. The sourcing seems to be fine but I didn't do any spotchecks. Usually, I would expect this type of section to explain what her views on Neoplatonism were. However, this section is mainly an account of her life. Maybe these details could be used in another article but I don't think they belong into this article.

If the case is similar for other contributions of Darylprasad then I assume something could be done with them. However, it could be a time-intensive process to figure out what to use, where to put it, and to do the spotcheck to ensure that the sources actually support the claims. From the denied unblock requests at their talk page, I get the impression that the problem was more with the editor's behavior than with the sourcing. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:21, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Aza24, thanks for pinging me. I believe the text should only be reinstated by editors who review the sources. Reintroducing portions of his work blindly, without consulting the sources, would be a mistake. It is preferable to maintain a C-rated article than to risk creating a fraudulent GA article. Cinadon36 10:53, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

A two-part proposal:

First, I would like to nominate @Phlsph7 to be awarded the Star of Sophia.

This is merited most of all, I believe, by the tremendous amount of time and work they have put into bringing the main Philosophy article up to FA status. Not so many months ago, the article was in sorry shape indeed (e.g., ). They have also raised Logic to FA status and contributed to many other philosophy articles besides. Furthermore, in all of my interactions with them, they have demonstrated the kind of collaborative spirit that exemplifies Wikipedia at its best.

Second, I propose that, after this, we officially close out the Star of Sophia, which would simply be to make de jure what appears to have been de facto the case since at least 2015. This is too small of a community for us to be regularly voting on the quality of one another's edit histories.

Thanks for your consideration!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:08, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't have that article on my watchlist and so hadn't noticed Phlsph7's work there, but I have seen enough of Phlsph7's good work elsewhere to support the nomination. It appears that according to the rules I'm not allowed to vote because I'm not on the project participants list, but I have edited many articles within the scope of the project.

@PatrickJWelsh: Why phase out the Star of Sophia when you have just reactivated it and have implicitly endorsed its value by nominating someone for it? I hadn't heard of the Star of Sophia before, and now that I know about it, the award seems to be a good way to show off what good editing looks like and to inspire other editors. Perhaps the award faded away because people stopped talking about it here; the last time it was mentioned on this talk page was in September 2011. If someone asked for nominations here on this talk page every six months, it would regularly remind editors about the reward, and since it only takes three votes to bestow the award, the fact that this is a small community may be no obstacle. (That claim can be tested by whether three people vote now for the obviously worthy Phlsph7.) Perhaps during one six-month period there would be no nominations, but I don't see a problem with that: if there are no nominations, just wait another six months and ask again.

Would anyone like to take responsibility for posting a biannual (or otherwise periodic) Star of Sophia nomination request message here, starting, say, six months from now, in June 2024? Biogeographist (talk) 21:13, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Biogeographist,

If others want to revive the award, I have no objection to seeing how that goes. I'm all for Wikilove! My only concern was that it would be really crumby for someone to be nominated and basically just receive the cold-shoulder from the rest of the group. You're right, though, that three is a low bar. As long as we nominate responsibly, it's not likely to be an issue.

Another benefit that had not occurred to me until reading your post, is that this could help bring attention to good work that was otherwise not even on some of our radar. Which is always encouraging to see.

Also, we might want to expand voting eligibility to folks like you who are active in the project, but just haven't bothered to add your name to that list, which to the best of my knowledge does nothing more than add a category to the bottom of your user page. Just off-hand, though, I don't have a proposal for what kind of language to add in order to best capture this.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:44, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Getting L1 and L2 vital articles through FA is tough because of their scope, and valuable because of their visibility (144k page views for Philosophy in the last 30 days and 63k for Logic). It's a star well earned. --RL0919 (talk) 22:12, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I concur. It is a well deserved recognition for all the work that Phlsph7 has been doing in the entire Philosopy area. He also thought of, wrote, and published the huge new entry History of Philosophy His contributions are just amazing. Well deserved, Kudos!! warshy ^(¥¥) 22:25, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, that is three votes of enthusiastic support! (Or, four, if you count the nominating editor.) I am going to operate on the assumption that no one cares about the weird project "membership" requirement so long as the editor has been sufficiently active to make an informed assessment of another's work. Which means the award has been bestowed!

Unfortunately, however, the original creators of The Star of Sophia neglected to add it to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Wikipedia_Awards. It's easy to pull up the image, which is named star_of_Sophia.png, but I can't figure out how to create the actual template.

Is there any chance someone else here knows how to do that? It would be kind of lame just to add their name to a list that almost no one knows exists. We need something that looks like the other WikiProject awards to post to the user talk page.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 05:04, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I created a {{Star of Sophia}} template. Follow the instructions in the template documentation to place it on the recipient's User talk page. --RL0919 (talk) 07:15, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks, @RL0919! The only instructions I could find were barely even instructions, and my efforts to copy markup from other awards generated only a complete mess. Yours looks great.

All to all, I just posted it on behalf of the community to @Phlsph7's talk page. I took the liberty of composing copy for the award myself. But don't be shy about editing if you see fit. It's from all of us!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:56, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the nomination and all the support. This is a great honor! Phlsph7 (talk) 08:45, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Edit: Two proposals about philosophy sidebar of possible interest on its talk page, rather than here, as originally posted. Sorry, all, for the mix-up! Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:38, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Here's another philosophy template that could use some improvement, specifically the layout rather than the content: {{Asian philosophy sidebar}}. See more at: Template talk:Asian philosophy sidebar § The layout of this sidebar could be improved. Biogeographist (talk) 16:44, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Kantian ethics has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:27, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Divya Dwivedi, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Beccaynr (talk) 00:06, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Power: A New Social Analysis has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:40, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I just created a stub article for philosopher Gary L. Watson. Thriley (talk) 22:12, 21 December 2023 (UTC)