Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Philosophy/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 30 November 2023 [1].

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Philosophy

Nominator(s): Phlsph7 (talk) 10:08, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Philosophy is a systematic, rational, and critical inquiry that discusses general and fundamental topics like existence, reason, knowledge, value, and mind. It spans several millennia and historically included the individual sciences. Thanks to PatrickJWelsh for the fruitful collaboration to get this article to GA status, to Thebiguglyalien for their detailed GA review, and to Cerebellum for their recent peer review. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:08, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Support from AK

• I think this is a bit above my pay grade, but I'll try to review this well. At a first glance, excellent article; the list of references alone made my head spin, must have been a ridiculous amount of effort to write all this. AryKun (talk) 17:44, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
• "But they...the term" I know this is grammatically correct, but it still reads weird to me. Maybe replace with "However"?

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• "Major branches of philosophy" → "The major branches of philosophy"?

  One difficulty here is that not all philosophers produce exactly this list. For example, a few include aesthetics as a major branch. Without the "The", we leave it open whether there are other major branches besides those listed here. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• "Presocratic philosopher" should be Pre-Socratic and would benefit from a link. Also later in the article.

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• A lot of duplinks and terms linked at second or third instances; for example, most of the major branches are mentioned but not linked in the first section.

  Done. I'm not 100% clear on how to best handle duplinks that occur in different sections. According to my interpretation the current formulation of WP:DUPLINK, one link per section is acceptable. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• "et alia" needs a link; also, isn't the form et al. more common?

  This is discussed in SilverTiger's comments. I think "et al." is used in the short citations but I don't know about cases where it is used in the regular text. I'm not sure that it should have a wikilink since this is not a concept discussed in the article but merely an expression used to discuss other things. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• "the sciences" Linked to the wrong term.

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• "Influential traditions...African philosophy." → "The most influential traditions in the history of philosophy are Western, Arabic-Persian, Indian, and Chinese philosophy. Other philosophical traditions include Japanese philosophy, Latin American philosophy, and African philosophy."?

  I wouldn't object to your suggestion. But this was already discussed in Fritz's comments below. The fear was that this type of expression implies a ranking and should better be avoided. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• "shaped by the encounter with Western thought" → "shaped by encounters with Western thought"?

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• "resolve the politically turbulent 6th century BCE" → "resolve political turbulence during the 6th century BCE" Also, the sources seem to place the "political turbulence" in either the 8th or 5th century BCE, depending on whether you're referring to the Spring and Autumn period or just the Warring States.

  Done. The text mentions the 6th century because that is when the Hundred Schools of Thought emerged. I added a source for the date and I reformulated the passage to avoid implying that the date states when the turbulence itself emerged. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• "produced new forms of Buddhism" → bit repetitive, maybe "diversified into new forms"?

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• You use the ", for example," construction frequently; I feel like the first comma should be a colon.

  I reformulated a few. I think starting the expression with a colon would be possible but is not required. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• Really nice work, nothing else that I have comments on. This is a really nice overview of the major topics of philosophy; of course, it doesn't go very deep into any topic, but I feel like that's a consequence of the fact that we're trying to fill essentially a library's worth of subject matter into 5,000 or so words. There's nothing factually incorrect that I could see at a first glance, but that's with the caveat that my knowledge of philosophy is limited to the level of an introductory college course. AryKun (talk) 14:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

  Hello AryKun and thanks for taking the time to review the article! I implemented most of your suggestions and left a few comments. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Review by SilverTiger

I have to concur with AryKun, this article must have required a ludicrous amount of time and effort. It's also outside of my wheelhouse and above my paygrade, so here goes nothing.

• The lede and the first section are fine, though I think you should mention and give a brief explanation of what a school of philosophy is in the lede.

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:54, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

• "et al." should be italicized.

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:54, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  I believe this is mistaken. More to the point, it is standard to use "et al." only when there are more than three authors. (Although not Wikipedia policy, which I cannot find on this question, see here.) If the latter two authors are to be excluded from mention in the body of the article, then I believe it should instead say "and others" per this. Or, if we're going to keep the Latin in the body of the article, it should be spelled out in full (unless it is inside a parenthetical).

  In short, I think the article should either list all three authors or else find some way of avoiding this complicated stylistic issue that has nothing to do with the content or accessibility of the article. I am not sure what the best call is, however, and so I decided against making an edit myself.

  Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:08, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  You raise a valid point and I'm not sure which guideline to follow here. The guideline MOS:FOREIGNITALIC you cite states that foreign terms require italics but makes an exception for "phrases that have been assimilated". The alternative would be to spell the three names out. Some style guides recommend using "et al." starting with three authors while others require more than three authors. Maybe someone with a better MOS-knowledge can solve the confusion. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:41, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, if we keep the Latin, it should be spelled out as et alia with the italics. Latin abbreviations such as "i.e.", "e.g.", "etc." and so forth do not receive italics and should not normally be used outside of a footnote or parenthetical when there is a perfectly suitable English equivalent. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:54, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:10, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

  et al. is always abbreviated and italicized in formal usage; I do not think this article should deviate from that. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 17:29, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

  I asked this question at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#"et_al."_or_"et_alia"_with_or_without_italics. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:57, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

  There seems to be consensus that the short version is more common. Opinions are a little divided concerning italics but it seems there is a slight preference for having no italics. This is recommended by most style guides. I restored the original version. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:34, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

• You tend to use "like" frequently, to the point that it sometimes feels repetitious.

  I was able to cut down the frequency. There are still quite a few left but I hope it's managable now. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:54, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

• I see no overt issues in History of philosophy.
• Italicize modus ponens.

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:54, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

My initial, very slow read-through was (a) informative, and (b) revealed no major issues except that you never really explain what a philosophical school is, when schools are mentioned multiple times in different places. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 20:24, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

@SilverTiger12: Thanks for the feedback and the actionable recommendations. I hope I was able to implement them. Please let me know if additional points catch your eye. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:54, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for taking so long to get back to this, but I see no further issues. Support. Good luck, SilverTiger12 (talk) 01:31, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Support

During the peer review I reviewed this article in accordance with the FA criteria and all of my concerns have been addressed. --Cerebellum (talk) 09:21, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

• Thanks a lot for taking the time to perform the peer review and for your support! Phlsph7 (talk) 09:57, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Query for the coordinators

• Question: I helped Phlsph7 bring this article up to GA status. Am I allowed to weigh in here to support or oppose the FA nomination? My assumption was no, but this suggests it is okay as long as I declare my involvement when I do so. If it is permissible for me to participate in such an official capacity, I will hold off for another week or so to see what other editors have to say—then I will review the FA criteria and read the current article against them in order to weigh in for or against. Otherwise, I am happy to just follow the proceedings and comment as appropriate on what others have to say. Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:48, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  Hi PatrickJWelsh and thanks for offering to review. As I understand it, just writing your own review comments and improvement suggestions should not be a problem. Maybe one of the @FAC coordinators: could clarify whether, in addition to that, you are also allowed to vote. Your comments would be highly appreciated either way, with or without a vote. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:48, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  While you are certainly allowed to vote, it probably won’t be given much weight considering your extensive involvement in the article's development. On the other hand, if you assisted the nominator in elevating it to GA status (as in if you were a co-nominator), the possibility of being a co-nominator here as well could be considered, but that’s obviously for you two to decide. FrB.TG (talk) 18:57, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  Hi @FrB.TG, thanks for clarifying. That makes perfect sense and seems like a good policy. @Phlsph7 did invite me to jointly pursue the FA nomination, but I declined because I was not willing to do my fair share of hunting around for ISBNs and the like. (Another concern was not to sabotage someone else's hard work by taking a hard stand against a reviewer whose requests, in my considered judgment, were misguided—as, for instance, I was basically prepared to do when our GA reviewer seemed to suggest that it was inappropriate for Wikipedia to say that it was wrong to discriminate against women. NPOV, give me a break! I don't want that dude's approval.) Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:13, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

@FAC coordinators: I wanted to ask whether I may start another nomination. This nomination was started 25 days ago. It has 4 supports, it has passed the source review, and there are no unaddressed issues at the image review. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:57, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Phlsph7 Go ahead. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 21:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Shapeyness

Wow, this is a great example of a massive topic being successfully compressed into an effective overview article. Here are a few comments, I may come back and add more later too. Shapeyness (talk) 17:22, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for all the detailed and thoughtful observations! I've responded to and implemented a few and I'll get back to you once I've addressed the others. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:30, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

• Etymology: No comments here, this is all interesting and on-topic - I like the depiction of Newton's thought process here :)
• General conceptions: Here I have some worries about due weight. This sub-section seems devoted to particular philosophers' general views on what philosophy is, but I'm not sure how they were chosen. Of course, they are all historical greats, but there are many great historical philosophers and we couldn't give all of their individual views. Do overview sources tend to highlight these particular examples? If not, then I think probably the two subsections here should be merged with some substantial trimming. I'm not sure if there are sources that make these types of links, but perhaps some details on these philosophers' views could be kept to illustrate broader viewpoints. For example, Kant seems to define philosophy in terms of subject matter while Socrates and Russell define it in term of process or an intended outcome. I think framing things in terms of broader trends or ideas and using these as examples is better for due weight, and provides better confidence to the reader that these are examples chosen for a particular reason. Of course, push back if you think there are reasons to keep, or to do things in another way!
  • @Shapeyness, this also came up during the GA review, and I certainly see the point. The problem, to which I could find no better solution than the current section, is that, based on an unscientific survey of popular and textbook introductions to philosophy, authors pretty much just defer the question to the entire book. There is no single definition that adequately captures the practice. Hence my recourse to editorial judgment as to what might best serve the reader.
  • That said, I quite like your distinction between subject matter and process. Anything that counts as philosophy in the sense that is the subject of this article must be a balancing act between the two. (This to exclude, on the one hand, fringe podcasters and lunatics on the subway platform and, on the other, folks engaged in what are now recognized as distinct scientific disciplines.) For FA purposes, though, we would need to find a solid source to back this up.
  • Whatever the solution – if this section is, indeed, agreed to be a problem – I do think it is important to provide a general definition of the subject, distinct from its etymology (love of wisdom is lovely, but uninformative and probably outright misleading) and its various competing academic definitions. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:44, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  I think your concern is valid and I'm not sure how to best address it. As I see it, the basic gist of this subsection is to give the reader a general idea of some accessible aspects of philosophy without providing a precise definition. One minimally invasive solution would be to make this subsection not so much about these individual philosophers but use them instead as examples. Applied to Kant and Russell, this could be:

  Philosophers ask general and fundamental questions. For example, 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant identifies four questions that encompass the task of philosophy: "What can I know?"; "What should I do?"; "What may I hope?"; and "What is the human being?". The active exploration of philosophical questions can help people identify and overcome prejudices. According to Bertrand Russell, "The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason."

  If this type of solution is acceptable then I could see if I can come up with something similar for the paragraph on Socrates. A more invasive solution would be to merge the two subsections, remove the paragraphs on Kant, Socrates, and Russell, and try to reintroduce some of their points as examples in the other paragraphs. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:17, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses PatrickJWelsh, Phlsph7! If there are sources that discuss some general aspects of philosophy like this (subject matter vs process was just an example that came to mind, I agree with PatrickJWelsh we need good sources here!) and some you can use to link those to these examples, or perhaps even just discuss them in the context of conceptions of philosophy, then I would be happy with the less invasive approach. Although I think care should be taken here not to overstress particular viewpoints just to fit these philosophers' ideas, other examples could also be used if they better illustrate what RSes tend to focus on. (Btw, I'm not saying using these examples would do that, I haven't really read any general sources on this, just something to consider!) Shapeyness (talk) 13:52, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

I decided to use a different approach since I am not aware of a good overview source that would link these examples. I tried instead to provide a concise summary of the gist of these paragraphs to give a general conception rather than mention the individual philosophers and their examples. I moved Kant's example to the paragraph where the division by content vs method is discussed. The resulting subsection would have been a little too short so I merged the two subsections. Please let me know if some essential parts were removed so we can explore ways to include them in the new setup. I'm also open to restoring the subsection-structure and some of the examples if they can be linked to good overview sources. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:58, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

I oppose this change.

It makes the article less accessible to readers, especially those with no background knowledge—and it does so for no other reason than to satisfy Wikipedia criteria intended to serve its readers, almost none of whom are at all aware of the distinction between articles with the plus icon and those with the star icon.

For what it's worth, the mentions of Socrates and Russell both cite to introductory texts, and the Kant material is so famous that such a citation could surely be adduced were this actually somehow helpful. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:58, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Let's see if we can find a compromise to have both the concrete examples while not giving undue weight to one particular position. I found a way to include the examples of both Socrates and Russell. I also restored the subdivision between of "General conception" and "Academic definitions". Kant's questions are still there but they were moved to another paragraph. If it's important, there may also be a way to move them back to the subsection "General conception". Phlsph7 (talk) 09:07, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

This seems a lot better to me, I prefer this to removing the section altogether. I have no problem with this if it is also ok with PatrickJWelsh. Shapeyness (talk) 12:50, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, sorry for the belatedness in my response, but this version is good with me.

(Background: I was once conscripted to oversee the philosophy table at a sort of informational fair where incoming students could learn about different departments and courses of study. A young woman approached and asked, rather tentatively, "What is it?" I started by saying that this itself is a philosophical question. She literally backed away. I don't think she said a word.) Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:59, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

• Academic definitions: Science-based definitions usually face the problem of explaining why philosophy in its long history has not made the type of progress seen in other sciences This is true, but some philosophers believe that philosophy does make progress, maybe this can be reworded so that it doesn't state this as fact

  I think there is a minimal consensus that philosophical progress is at least different from the typical progress usually seen in the sciences. I reformulated the sentence to emphasize this point without implying that there is no progress. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:30, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

• There are also some lone sentences and short paragraphs here that could be combined and perhaps reordered

  I merged the last paragraph into an earlier paragraph. Maybe the paragraph on linguistic therapy could also be merged but there are also advantages to keeping it separate as a distinct position. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:30, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  • @Shapeyness, this is also mostly my doing. Although I most naturally write in long paragraphs composed of long sentences, I make a conscious effort in the opposite direction for Internet content. Especially considering how many people are reading this stuff on their phones, I think that readers are well-served by shorter paragraphs than would be appropriate for a print publication. If, however, other editors do not find this reasoning compelling, by all means, condense away! Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:44, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
• Another definition characterizes philosophy as thinking about thinking. This emphasizes its self-critical, reflective nature. This seems to be a repetition of the point at the beginning of the General conceptions section.

  The general thrust is the same. I had the impression that it makes sense to include it here as a separate conception since the precise formulation of "thinking about thinking" as a definition is often mentioned. The text in the subsection "General conception" is weaker and only characterizes the self-critical attitude as one of the features of philosophy. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:30, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

• History: this section in particular is one of the best examples of providing a condensed overview. I can't speak to the other traditions, but the Western philosophy section seems all good to me. Any temptation to add more details would probably snowball so I think this is the right level of detail here. One thing I will mention is that Japanese philosophy, Latin American philosophy, and African philosophy are all mentioned but not discussed - would a short discussion of these be worth adding or do you think that would be undue / add too much extra content?

  Condensing the huge traditions down to a few paragraphs was really the main challenge here. I think adding a sentence or so for each of the addition traditions would be defendable but I'm not sure that this would be an overall improvement since their impact is significantly smaller. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:30, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

@Phlsph7: On the section you added in response to #Fritz, I added a little bit of extra detail. Hopefully that is ok with you and not excessive, feel free to revert or alter any of the changes! Shapeyness (talk) 16:59, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

@Shapeyness: Your addition helps close the temporal gap between the periods. I made slight adjustments to the timeline to reflect how it is presented in the cited sources. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:13, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

• Branches: This is also a very good section, here are the only nitpicks I could find! This is a very small one but This idea is rejected by foundationalists, is it better to frame this as a response or a proposed solution than a rejection? I'm not sure foundationalists would reject the validity of the problem itself.

  "This idea" was supposed to refer to the idea that all beliefs require justification. But I see now that this is confusing since this idea is mentioned two sentences before. I implemented your suggestion, which avoids this problem. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:30, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

• Virtue theorists judge actions based on the moral character of the agent who performs them - I'm not sure that this is true. Bad people can do good things according to virtue theorists, my understanding is that the morality of an act is judged based on whether it is (a) in alignment with a particular virtue, i.e. it is the type of thing a virtuous person would do, or relatedly (b) it develops virtue within a person, e.g. if you make a habit of sharing, you will become a more generous person by nature. This idea is correctly described in the following sentence.

  I agree that this sentence could be misleading if read without considering the following sentence. I slightly reformulated it. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:42, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

• An influential intuition in the philosophy of mind is the distinction between an inner world of experience of an object and the existence of this object in the outer world. This seems confusingly worded to me - do you think this would be better? An influential intuition in the philosophy of mind is that there is a distinction between our inner experience of objects and their existence in the external world.

  Yes, that expresses it better. I removed the "our" form your suggestions. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:42, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

• Methods: Some of the earlier paragraphs are quite short and could probably be combined. I also think empirical views such as experimental philosophy or naturalism should probably be mentioned here. For reference, 60% of philosophers accept empirical methods in the most recent philpapers survey and 32% accept experimental philosophy (this is more controversial though with 36% rejecting). In general, my impression is that naturalistic and experimental philosophy is covered in most metaphilosophy or philosophical method textbooks/overviews, I can find examples if useful for assessing due weight.
  • @Shapeyness, "naturalism" is an extremely contested term. Even Hegel, arguably the idealist par excellence, has been labeled a naturalist in recent academic literature. I'm also extremely skeptical of "experimental philosophy", most of which in my experience is just sloppy social science that only demonstrates what only a professional philosopher would ever think to question in the first place. If there is good evidence that the field has developed in the past ten years, however, I would be happy to revise my assessment. So, while I do not wish to diminish the significance of these discussions, I am inclined to keep them out of such a high-level article. (Oh, and thanks for sharing that survey!) Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:44, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  An earlier version of the article had a short passage on this. It's true that methodological naturalism and experimental philosophy don't reflect a typical approach to philosophizing but for the sake of comprehensiveness, I wouldn't be opposed to include a short mention. What do you think of the following:

  Methodological naturalists place great emphasis on the empirical approach and the resulting theories found in the natural sciences in contrast to methods that focus on pure reasoning and introspection. Experimental philosophy follows methodological naturalism and tries to answer philosophical questions by gathering empirical data in ways similar to psychology and the cognitive sciences.

References

• • Fisher, Eugen; Sytsma, Justin (20 November 2023). "Projects and Methods of Experimental Philosophy". In Bauer, Alexander Max; Kornmesser, Stephan (eds.). The Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3-11-071702-0.
  • Fischer, Eugen; Collins, John (24 April 2015). Experimental Philosophy, Rationalism, and Naturalism: Rethinking Philosophical Method. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-50027-8.
  • Knobe, Joshua; Nichols, Shaun (2017). "Experimental Philosophy". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved 4 November 2023.

  Phlsph7 (talk) 12:53, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with PatrickJWelsh that experimental philosophy is more questionable / contentious than many of the other methods traditionally used in philosophy, but I do think it (and empirical methods more broadly) are an important viewpoint that should be included. This is my own personal view, but more importantly I think it reflects the coverage of RSes. I would support the paragraph proposed by Phlsph7 if other editors don't have any problems with it. Shapeyness (talk) 13:52, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

If the article implies that philosophers are generally dismissive of empirical data, that is a falsehood that must be addressed. On the fraught nature of "naturalism," however, just follow the Wikilink above. The term is borderline meaningless.

Experimental philosophy is the only approach in the above-linked survey that more respondents than not consider bogus. It is good that this philosophical endeavor has its own article, but I cannot see how there is any reason to bring it up here. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 20:24, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

I added a short passage. I removed the part on experimental philosophy and reformulated the contrast to avoid implying that other philosophy is in general dismissive of empirical data. I used the term "methodological naturalism", which has a more specific meaning than the wide term "naturalism". Phlsph7 (talk) 08:49, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't mind leaving out experimental philosophy if empirical methods and methodological naturalism are included to some extent. Shapeyness (talk) 13:05, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

• Relation to other fields: Historically, philosophy is often considered the "mother of all sciences" since most of the individual sciences formed part of philosophy until they reached their status as autonomous disciplines this idea has already been covered a few times by this point in the article.

  I'm not sure how to best handle this since it is important in this context but also a repetition of what was said earlier. For now, I shortened the sentence to the bare minimum. It could be removed altogether but that might mean that readers who skip other sections miss it. C (talk) 09:42, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

  • @Shapeyness, I have only responded on points of disagreement. Your review here, however, is carefully thought and highly attuned to nuance. Many, many thanks! Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:44, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Here are a few more comments, these should probably be the last ones. Once again, feel free to push back on these - I may be quite busy until next week but will try to respond to any comments. Shapeyness (talk) 21:03, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• I've read through some comments in other sections and agree with PatrickJWelsh that it might be better to expand on the Greek/Roman paragraph in the academic definitions section (and possibly cut the Wittgenstein sentence). It seems strange to mention Foucault and Hadot without talking about eudaimonia as a purpose of philosophy, or movements such as Stoicism.
• Western history: this might be a bit nit-picky, but I don't think postmodernism is confined to continental philosophy (and depending on how pedantic we want to be, I'm not sure it's really a "movement")
• Do you think there is room to discuss briefly some of the main views on the analysis of knowledge? This could be a short sentence on e.g. reliabilism, sensitivity to truth, and/or knowledge first epistemology, maybe virtue epistemology. My only worry is that this area of epistemology is introduced but major views are not presented (JTB is not a commonly held view).

  • For the responses, see below. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:41, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

  • @Shapeyness and @Phlsph7:

• Two points in favor of mentioning Stoicism: (i) the article is good, and (ii) a superficial version of the doctrine has currency in recent self-help/managerial literature. So let's point readers who might be interested in the direction of something better!

  I added one sentence on Stoicism and eudaimonia. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:41, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

• I strongly support the removal of any mention of postmodernism without much stronger sourcing. The primary reason for this is that, to my knowledge, none of the famous philosophers categorized as postmodern accept that designation. (Even if, yes, I do understand that it serves as a useful catch-all for the mostly French philosophers operating under the influence of Nietzsche against a horizon defined by Heidegger—more or less.) The secondary reason (and hence the strongly) is that this term is frequently deployed among anti-democratic conspiracy theorists, some of whom directly or indirectly promote political violence. So why not just go with post-structuralism, which captures much the same group of thinkers without feeding into misrepresentations of academic philosophy that possibly contribute to real harms?

  From Grayling 2019: Continental philosophy ... is associated with ... trends and movements ...: ... postmodernism .... I followed your suggestion to change it to post-structuralism and added a corresponding source. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:41, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

• I'm neutral on Shapeyness's other suggestions: on Wittgenstein because I can see both sides of the argument, and on the epistemological schools of thought because I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to have a view.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:05, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• I added one sentence on alternative definitions of knowledge. I left the Wittgenstein sentence since without it, we would have a one-sentence paragraph and merging this sentence into another paragraph was rejected before. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:41, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm less busy than I thought so will finish off the review with some comments on sources for criteria 1c and 2c. Shapeyness (talk) 15:10, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

• The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps sources are not formatted consistently

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:08, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

• In general, source dates are not formatted consistently, even for sources of the same type - they vary between just year, year and month, and full date

  I defaulted to just year. I hope I got all. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:08, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

• Chapter / section titles are not formatted consistently - some are sentence case and others are title case, my understanding is they should all be the same regardless of how they appear in the sources. I didn't see any problems for book titles but they should also be formatted consistently.

  I'm only aware of title case for book titles. Chapter and section titles are currently spelled as they appear in the works. I'll ping @Gog the Mild: since they gave me some notes on this topic earlier. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:08, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

• Some books have a location (e.g. London) and others don't

  I removed all location parameters. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:08, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

• The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy is missing Oxford University Press as a publisher

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:08, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

• Banhatti 1995, is this a high quality reliable source? I'm not aware of Atlantic Publishers and can't find anything on Banhatti from a quick google. Same for Shivendra 2006.

  Atlantic Publishers is an Indian publisher. This is a problem with many non-Western publishers: it is often questionable whether they can be considered high-quality and whether it might be better to replace them with high-quality sources from Western publishers. I replaced Shivendra 2006. In regard to Banhatti 1995, I found the following high-quality sources that cite it: [2] & [3]. I can also look for a replacement if this is not sufficient. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:57, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

  These search results may be helpful for the publisher. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:37, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• Bawden 1904 - this is a very old source, surely there are more up-to-date sources for this (the IEP is already being used)

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:57, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• Blackburn 2022 and Blackburn 2008, I assume these are both Simon Blackburn - one has a middle initial and the other doesn't - not sure if that is too important but thought I'd point it out. Same for Daly, Chris vs Daly, Christopher and Dowden, Bradley vs Dowden, Bradley H.

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:08, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

• Crary 2013 - doi not found

  This is the doi provided by https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/transcript.9783839424629.321/pdf. I removed it since we already have an ISBN. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:11, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• Hindson & Caner 2008 - this doesn't seem to be a high quality RS to me

  I replaced it. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:57, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• Ichikawa 2011 - it seems quite strange to cite a book and a review of that book for the same information, why not just cite the book? The same for Riedel 1999.

  For both: the review is freely accessible online, while the book isn't. For Ichikawa 2011: the key information is contained on the cited page 9 but some of the additional information is spread around, so several pages would have to be cited while the review supports the passage in a more concise manner. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:11, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• Kenny 2009 & 2018 - is there a reason these are cited separately? Also, minor point, but the Kenny sources should probably be ordered chronologically

  Their page numbers don't match. I would have to do some digging to see where the 2009 information is contained in the 2018 version. I ordered them chronologically. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:11, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

  If they are just different editions but same information in each then I would stick to whichever edition you used / had access to. Shapeyness (talk) 19:19, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• Oglesby et al. 2021 - is this a high-quality RS for philosophy?

  I replaced it. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:57, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• Quine 2008 - not sure if this source is needed when other better sources are already being used

  I removed it. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:57, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy - some have Routledge as a publisher, others don't

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:11, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• I made some minor changes, hopefully they are all ok

Thanks for all the work addressing my other comments! A few more that I missed before. Shapeyness (talk) 14:24, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• SEP - some have editor listed, others don't - the way the editor is listed is also inconsistent with other books etc. in the bibliography, not sure if it's to do with the citation template being used

  The pages on the individual SEP articles don't list any editors so I removed them. The inconsistency could be in cases where there is no author listed. For example in Lagerlund 2020, Lagerlund is listed as editor but there is no official author since cited page is not part of a regular chapter but is found in the preface. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:04, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• Nagel 2006 and Pojman 2009 - should these have an entry / chapter?

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:04, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• Sider et al. 2013 - I believe this is an edited collection - is a specific chapter being cited?

  Done. Thanks a lot for all these helpful observations! Phlsph7 (talk) 18:04, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks Phlsph7! I'll just wait for the title formatting issue to be clarified and then that should be it. Shapeyness (talk) 19:24, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

  Sounds good. I've asked the question at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Should_title_case_be_used_for_book_titles,_article_titles,_chapter_titles,_and_section_titles?. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:00, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

  There seem to be no exceptions for chapter and section titles. I implemented the changes, I hope I got everything. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:59, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks for all the work Phlsph7 (and PatrickJWelsh)! I tried to give a particularly thorough review for this given the importance of the article and everything I can think of is now resolved. Support. Shapeyness (talk) 20:27, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks for your detailed and thorough analysis and the many improvement ideas! Phlsph7 (talk) 08:22, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

  @Shapeyness: Seconding @Phlsph7! The article and its nomination have benefited greatly from your close attention and suggested edits. Many thanks! Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:49, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks PatrickJWelsh, glad my comments were helpful. Shapeyness (talk) 18:56, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

• Hi Shapeyness, I was wondering if you felt in a position to either support or oppose this nomination? Obviously, neither is obligatory. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:54, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

  @Gog the Mild: it's hidden behind a few more recent replies, but I've supported above already. Shapeyness (talk) 19:29, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

So you have. Thanks for helping me out. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:25, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Image review

• There's a significant amount of whitespace in the Etymology section

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:10, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

• File:Plato_by_Raphael.png is missing a US tag. Ditto File:Nietzsche1882_smaller.jpeg, File:Konfuzius-1770.jpg, File:Avicenna_(980_-_1037).jpg, File:Half_Portraits_of_the_Great_Sage_and_Virtuous_Men_of_Old_-_Confucius.jpg, File:JohnStuartMill.jpg, File:Aristotle,_Metaphysics,_Incunabulum.jpg

  Done for all except the image File:Avicenna_(980_-_1037).jpg. This image already has the text This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1928.. Is this sufficient or does it additionally require the template "PD-US-expired"? Phlsph7 (talk) 10:10, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

• You are correct, I had missed that. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:30, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

• File:Gandhara_Buddha_(tnm).jpeg is missing a tag for the status of the original work. Ditto File:Aristoteles_der_Stagirit.jpg, File:Avicenna_Portrait_on_Silver_Vase_-_Museum_at_BuAli_Sina_(Avicenna)_Mausoleum_-_Hamadan_-_Western_Iran_(7423560860).jpg. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:54, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

  Done for File:Gandhara_Buddha_(tnm).jpeg. I asked at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#License_tags_for_photographs_of_original_works for help with tags of the others. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:10, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

  @Nikkimaria: Done. I added a license tag to Avicenna's image and I replaced Aristotle's image with File:Aristotle_Altemps_Inv8575.jpg. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:53, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

• @Phlsph7 and @Nikkimaria, the image of Butler in the final section hangs over into "See also" in a way that looks weird on a full-sized monitor. I tried shrinking the image, but that didn't help so I left it as is. Is there a good solution for this? For I do think that we should keep the image. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:11, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

• Phlsph7 has added a clear tag, but IMO that looks worse. The image could just be moved further up. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:16, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

For now, I added a clear-tag. This is also not ideal since it creates an empty space for some display devices. An alternative would be to move the image further up but this could separate the image from the relevant paragraph depending on the display device. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:17, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Ah, it seems you responded faster than me. I tried moving the image up one paragraph. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:20, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

What about using this one instead: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JudithButler2013_(cropped).jpg? We could also probably shave a line off the caption. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:35, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Or this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Judith_Butler_(2011).jpg? I don't like it as much as a photo, but it's landscape oriented, which would almost certainly resolve the issue. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:40, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I used the cropped image. It should help since it has less height. It could still cause problems for some display devices but I hope it is managable now. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:12, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Viewed full-screen on a 27" monitor, there appears to be about one extra line space between the closing text of the section and the beginning of the next. I do not find this distracting, however, and don't consider further tweaks necessary. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:25, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: Does the article pass the image review? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:31, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

File:JudithButler2013_(cropped).jpg is missing evidence of permission. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:52, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

The source-field asserts that the photo was directly provided by Judith Butler. Is that sufficient as evidence of consent? Phlsph7 (talk) 09:17, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

That page refers to personality rights, which is a different issue from copyright. commons:COM:VRT outlines the process for copyright permission. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:01, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

The original image on which our cropped version is based has evidence of permission. I'm not sure how to handle the cropped image itself so I asked at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Volunteer_Response_Team/Noticeboard#Evidence_of_permission_for_a_cropped_version_of_an_image_whose_permission_has_been_confirmed_by_the_VRT. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:24, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

According to the feedback I got from the noticeboard, there seems to be no problem with the permission of our image. Please let me know if any additional tags should be needed. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:53, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: Do you consider the issue concerning File:JudithButler2013_(cropped).jpg solved or are there more points to be addressed? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:28, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I'd suggest linking to the VRT ticket from the image description page. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:16, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:58, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I saw that the edit to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JudithButler2013_(cropped).jpg in which I added the link got reverted by a VRT member. I assume it is because adding permissions is the responsibility of the VRT and because the earlier noticeboard discussion resulted in the conclusion that no additional permission statement is required. Personally, I agree with the argument presented in that discussion. Do you consider this point essential in order for the image review to pass? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:34, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

No, but I'm not convinced that rationale makes sense. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:00, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: You could articulate your concerns at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Volunteer_Response_Team/Noticeboard#Evidence_of_permission_for_a_cropped_version_of_an_image_whose_permission_has_been_confirmed_by_the_VRT and I would be happy to implement your suggestion if there is consensus for it. Are there any other issues that need to be addressed for the image review? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:04, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Fritz

• Drive by comment (I may give the article a more in-depth read later): I think that the History section could use an additional subsection, for the mentioned "other influential philosophical traditions". It looks like the claim that Western, Arabic-Persian, Indian, and Chinese philosophy are the main tradition derives primarily from Grayling's book, but (while I am absolutely not an expert) I am somewhat dubious of this 'ranking'. I'm not advocating that every tradition have an equal amount of article space, but a subsection for "Other traditions" could at least cover the central historical aspect of Japanese, Latin American, and African philosophy, and give some more worldwide coverage to the section. Please let me know your thoughts! Fritzmann (message me) 18:38, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

  Hello Fritzmann2002 and thanks for your first review comments. I would try to implement your suggestion if there is consensus on this point but there are some considerations that make me hesitate. A key point here is WP:PROPORTION and WP:UNDUEWEIGHT. It is very easy to find overview sources that give a narrower perspective on the history of philosophy than our current section. A great example in this regard is the 10-volume Routledge History of Philosophy, which focuses exclusively (or almost exclusively) on Western philosophy (which is understood in the sense of including certain forms of Arabic-Persian philosophy). Scharfstein 1998 is a little bit broader: he dedicates the whole first chapter of his book to explaining and defending the claim that there are only three great philosophical traditions, the Indian, the Chinese, and the European. I found it tricky to find wide overview sources that give a broader outline of the history of philosophy than the one we have here. It's often necessary to use sources from adjacent fields, such as comparative philosophy or world philosophy. For example, Smart's book "World Philosophies" covers many additional traditions. However, he justifies this by using a very wide definition of "philosophy" that is not typical of how philosophy is usually defined. It goes well beyond systematic and rational inquiry by encompassing traditional worldviews, including myths of origin and ... proverbial lore.

  I'm not sure if you find these points convincing and I don't want to impose my own view here. Shapeyness in their comments above also asked a question similar to yours. If there is consensus between the two of you that adding such a section would be an improvement then I would give it a try to see what I can come up with. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:27, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

  Aren't we falling into the trap of Eurocentrism and English language source centrism by that logic? TheUzbek (talk) 20:51, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. I implemented the suggestion, which I hope solves the problem. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:59, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

  By the way, I reformulated the passage in question. As I see it, there is always an implicit "ranking" that decides what needs to be included in the article, what could be included, and what is not important enough to merrit a detailed discussion. But maybe you are right that this shouldn't be made too explicit. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:37, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks for your well-argued response; it's very clear you have a strong understanding of the subject matter! I think the one other concern I had is that those other traditions are just sort of name-dropped and then not elaborated upon within the history section. Even if those three just got a single combined paragraph that is basically a summary of their lede in their respective articles, that would more than satiate what I am looking for as a reader. Again, not at all a requirement and just my two cents - I would also be interested to hear input from other reviewers on the matter. Fritzmann (message me) 13:08, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

  I agree with Fritzmann, a small subsection for "other traditions" with just a single paragraph or two would be enough. There are due weight concerns but I think they are outweighed by concerns on the other side over providing a global perspective (WP:WORLDVIEW). Shapeyness (talk) 15:42, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

  I made a first attempt at implementing this suggestion. I hope this is roughly what you had in mind. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:57, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

@Fritzmann and Shapeyness: any come back on this? No need for any, I'm just checking. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:57, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Source suitability review

Spot-check upon request and warning that given the sheer width of the topic, only an expert can really judge whether there aren't any major omissions. Reviewing this version, I notice that a large number of § aren't followed by a space. Source formatting is unusual but that doesn't need to be a problem. Retrieval dates are not applied consistently. Are there no non-Western sources besides Jha, Meenakshi and the Economic and Political Weekly? I am not sure that Baggini, Julian; Krauss, Lawrence as well as Britannica are a good source for such a topic? Speaking of Britannica is not consistently formatted. Dowden, Bradley H. (2020). is apparently unused. I am not sure that the Routledge source needs to say "www.rep.routledge.com". OUP Oxford and OUP ought to be standardized to one or the other. Quinton, Anthony Meredith lacks a bullet point. Of the sources I know, they all seem to be suitable for a FA. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello Jo-Jo Eumerus and thanks for doing the source review! I hope I managed to sort out all the formatting and consistency issues. I used the template multiref2 instead of the more usual sfmn mainly because it uses a new line for each bundled reference rather than putting them all in one line, which can get confusing if there are many references. I added retrieval dates to all reference templates that use a URL parameter. Please let me know if there are others that also require it. After a short random look through some of the sources, I encountered the following non-Western authors: Jonathan Chimakonam (University of Calabar, Nigeria and University of Pretoria, South Africa), Fainos Mangena (University of Zimbabwe), Antonio Cua (Filipino Chinese), Tu Wei-Ming (Chinese), and Licheng Ma (Chinese). There should be many more and I could have a more thorough look if this is a concern.

I removed the source "Baggini & Krauss 2012" since the claim is well supported by the remaining sources. As for Britannica, I agree that it is not ideal for in-depth claims on very specific topics. However, this is not so much of a problem for this article since it doesn't go into depth on any specific point and has mostly the goal of providing a broad overview instead. I tried to avoid using Britannica as a standalone source by having it in addition to other sources of the same claim as an accessible alternative for readers to consult. If you have the impression that it is not appropriate for a certain claim then I will try to find an alternative.

Dowden 2020 itself is used several times. The error message comes because I added an earlier version to link it to an ISBN. The 2020 version is freely available online and the page numbers refer to this version. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:51, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I see that there are many non-Western authors, but are there also non-Western publications/publishers? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:23, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I was not aware that your point was focused on the geographical location of the publishers rather than of the authors. You are right that most of the sources used in this article are published by Western publishers. The main reason is that these publishers globally dominate the field of high-quality academic sources written in the English language on philosophy in general, including non-Western philosophy. If you have a specific source that you would like to see included in the article then I would be happy to take a look at it. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:23, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

No, I don't have any specific source in mind, just a general observation. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:59, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Does the article pass the source review? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:35, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Looks like Dowden 2020 needs to be fixed, it throws a harv error for me. Probably because there is another template there, Dowden 1993. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:12, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I think the harv warning comes from a user script. I added the parameter "|ref=none" to the 2nd template, which seems to have solved the problem. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:28, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Then it's a pass, with the caveat that this isn't a topic on which I have much familiarity. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:41, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Comment from UC

Perhaps fittingly for the subject, I worry that we've become tied in terminological knots in the section about definitions of philosophy. To me, the latter two paragraphs (about philosophy being a form of therapy or an exercise in self-improvement) strike me more as statements about what philosophy does rather than attempts to form an all-encompassing definition of what it is -- a bit like you might say "running is a form of outdoor therapy", "God is love" or "a dog is man's best friend": nobody would seriously argue that "man's best friend" is even trying to be sufficient information to explain to an unfamiliar outsider what a dog is. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:08, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

You are right that whether these paragraphs express definitions of philosophy in the strict sense is itself a philosophical question. Overgaard et al. 2013 consider the question "What is philosophy" and discuss philosophy as a form of therapy as one of the answers to this question in contrast to other answers, such as philosophy as a form of science. Banicki 2014 talks of "philosophy as a kind of therapy" and of "the therapeutic model of philosophy". One consideration in this regard would be whether the features in question are considered essential aspects of philosophy rather than merely accidental features that philosophy just happens to have. For example, is it essential to philosophy that it aims at curing certain (linguistic) maladies? In any case, the positions discussed in these paragraphs are influential characterizations of philosophy that should be discussed somewhere. It seems to me that this section is the most fitting place to do so. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:51, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Agreed that these things need to be discussed somewhere. I wonder if the answer is to have a subsection on the functions of philosophy - which could then have (for example) some material on the role of philosophy within society (I immediately thought of the Greek idea of the kaloskagathos - a man both beautiful of body and cultivated of mind), as an adjunct to other fields, and so on. I do feel like the definitions section loses focus some time in the last three paragraphs and has moved, without really stating it, from what philosophy is to what philosophy does. If nothing else, those last two paragraphs tread lightly indeed and may be on the wrong side of brevity versus comprehensiveness UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 18:56, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't see the problem with defining something in terms of its aim. The case of philosophy as a spiritual practice of self-improvement goes back to Greco-Roman times (would it be worth incorporating a Wikilink to Stoicism, which is the most obvious example?) and has been taken up by recent philosophers who are themselves the subjects a considerable scholarly literature.

I feel less strongly about linguistic therapy as it is so strongly associated with a single 20th-century figure. It seems like a nice addition the article, but its case for being encyclopedic at this high level is debatable.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:10, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

As a step towards a compromise, I merged the last two paragraphs into one to give less emphasis to the therapy-conception of philosophy. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:01, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate work towards compromise, but these two forms of "therapy" are wildly different. One aims to bring the practitioner into sync with the rational structure of the cosmos by way of living according to the rational principles uncovered by way of philosophical reflection and spiritual exercises. The other aims to liberate just those who have confused themselves into being upset about philosophical problems that are actually just confusions about how language works. Does any source actually treat these as different approaches to the same thing?

I support restoring the previous version. Or, if for some reason the length of these paragraphs relative to those preceding them is actually an issue – which I really do not think that it is – then we could cut the Wittgenstein paragraph and add another sentence or two to the other mentioning a couple Ancient/Hellenistic philosophers by name.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 14:58, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

They are surely not the same thing, they are merely related as forms of therapy. For now, I replaced the expression "closely related" with "related" to not overemphasize the connection. Personally, I don't see a problem with the original version. I would go ahead and restore it unless others see it differently. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:29, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Only @UndercoverClassicist appears to object, and we should certainly allow a few more days, but they have possibly abandoned that objection in view of our comments. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 15:34, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I haven't, but that need not be a problem: I haven't offered a review and so it's merely a suggestion. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 22:42, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

If you are aware of a good overview source that makes this precise distinction between the definition and the functions of philosophy and provides a detailed discussion of those functions then I would be happy to read it. I'm not sure that it's always possible to draw such a clear division between what something is and what it does. Some things may be defined by their function or by what they do. This could be true for philosophy. In our current article, the section "Relation to other fields" was intended to cover some of the expansion ideas you mentioned. Phlsph7 (talk) 19:12, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

"Central description"?

According to the article's Information page[4], the "Central description" of this article, unlike the "Local description", does not capitalize the first word. I don't know if this is an issue, however, because I can't find the former in either the article or the project sidebar and don't know where on Wikipedia it appears. Is this something that should be addressed? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy&action=info

I think the central description is taken from wikidata, in our case https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5891. I'm not sure about their rules, but comparing it with a few other items, lower-case seems to be standard. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:11, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Okay cool. I have no experience with Wikidata. I only brought it up because it looks like a stylistic inconsistency, but I couldn't figure out where it was coming from or in what contexts it might be displayed. It seems, though, like we should probably just leave it alone. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:30, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Guerillero

I will sign myself up to some work on the formatting and reliability of the citations, but not spot checks. Maybe some thoughts on completeness, but Adamson is on 6 volumes of his History of Philosophy and we haven't even passed the Renaissance. I suspect he will do 6 volumes just on what is traditionally covered in an undergrad Modern Philosophy class. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 22:05, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look at the sources. Adamson's A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps is a huge undertaking indeed. I'm not sure how many volumes are planned in total. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:32, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

• [13] uses a primary source but [12] does not although both have direct quotes. Cite all direct quotes of primary works to your favorite translation or edition.

  Done. I didn't spot any others. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• Regenbogen 2010 and all other non-English sources should include a lang= flag

  Done. I hope I got all. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• I am used to "et al." in italics, but I will let the MOS specialists tell you if it is common enough to be upright.

  The short answer is that opinions are divided but style guides tend to favor no italics. For the long answer, see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#"et_al."_or_"et_alia"_with_or_without_italics and SilverTiger's review. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• History seems well balanced to me over all. There is a strong temptation to make it 90% western and 10% "eastern", but the major traditions makes sense to me.
  • I might mention the critical traditions (Marx, Feminism, etc) in the Western philosophy section since you introduce Marx vis-a-vis China in the article and that seems off to me.

    I found a way to mention Marxism. Feminism has its own paragraph in the section "Relation to other fields". Phlsph7 (talk) 12:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  • I would retool the Latin American section to cover the traditions of Indigenous North Americans as well.

    Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• I have some worry that outside of the History section the article is pretty much pure-Western Philosophy. Can you weave in anyone from another traditions

  I don't think the presentation is pure-Western since the topics covered are not restricted to Western philosophy. I tried to follow how high-quality overview sources present the different subjects. For example, overview sources on epistemology in general (not specifically on Western epistemology) usually do not mention things pramanas even though they are discussed in Indian philosophy. But they mention sources of knowledge that are discussed as pramanas in Indian epistemology, like perception, inference, and testimony. In this sense, the territory they cover does not exclude Indian epistemology. We could explicitly introduce the term pramana. However, given how the overview sources treat the subject, I think this is not a good idea. The same overlap is there for the other fields as well, such as the existence of matter and souls discussed in metaphysics.

  A different approach would be to use examples from other traditions. For instance, we currently use utilitarianism as an example of consequentialism. We could replace it with a discussion of mohism. But the influence of utilitarianism and mohism is orders of magnitudes different, which is why this probably would not be a good idea. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• The quality of the sourcing is incredible. Very well done. I might push you on the following sources:
  • Zack 2009, because it is your only pop work in a sea of academic ones

    I replaced it. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  • EB Staff articles

    They are not ideal for sourcing in-depth claims on a very specific subject but I don't think this is a problem here given that we are trying to provide a broad overview and that they are accompanied by additional high-quality sources. If some specific instances are not appropriate for the claim they support then I would try to find alternatives. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• Maybe it is because my upper-levels were done in feminism, critical race theory, standpoint epistemology, queer theory, etc., but it feels like it was given the short end of the stick.

-- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 20:17, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

• In regard to feminism, see above. For the others, I think there is not much we can do here about these relatively recent developments given that we are trying to cover a discipline stretching over several millenia. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, you are probably right. I think I did more contemporary philosophy in my BA than most. Your comments all seem to be reasonable. I have a few more comments:

  • Relation to other fields reads as choppy to me due to the short paragraphs. Further, "In the field of politics, philosophy addresses issues such as how to assess whether a government policy is just." should be in the politics paragraph.

    Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:58, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  • Can you find a better source for the claim about Gandhi claim than a UN observance?

    Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:58, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  • Law can join the epistemology at work paragraph

  -- In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 13:32, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  • I moved to science instead since both paragraphs concern the relation to epistemology while the work paragraph is about ethics. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:58, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Rjjiii: Comments

I think it's fantastic that you're bringing these broad topics up to GA/FA standards. I have not participated in a Featured Article Candidate discussion before, so I won't support/oppose. Logic is the part that I'm most familiar with, so I'll focus entirely on that section.

Source spot-checking for this version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy&oldid=1184786104#Logic

• [107]: Verfies the source and no close paraphrasing. Really solid summary of someting that is kind of complicated in the sources' phrasing.
• [109]: The term "modus ponens" is used beginning on page 367 in Dowden; it's very clearly laid out on the cited page (p. 103) in Velleman, so good use of multiple sources without WP:OR. The example quoted is from the other cited page in Velleman (p. 8). In addition to using high quality sources, this is about the way deductive reasoning is introduced in college-level Intro to Logic classes.
• [110]: The sources verify the article and there's no close paraphrasing. Again a good summary of something with complicated language in the source texts.
• [113]: Vleet (2011) seems to verify the whole paragraph on its own.

I'll try to come back soon to comment on the prose, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 07:03, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello Rjjiii and welcome to FA process! Your knowledge in the field of logic is appreciated and I'm looking forward to your prose comments. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:33, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Starting from the top:

• The piped link would be more clear to me if it was "correct reasoning".

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:22, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• The first paragraph is clear except for this sentence, "In this way, it formulates exact criteria and methods based on the structure of arguments to determine whether they are correct or incorrect." I think that "formulates exact criteria and methods based on" could be shortened down to a single verb like "examines" without losing any meaning to nearly all readers. If there is some nuance in the current wording, it's not clear to me.

  I slightly tweaked your suggestions to include the term "exact criteria" since formal logic is mainly interested in general criteria of validity rather than whether a specific argument is valid.

• "analyze and evaluate" Would the single verb "assess" cover both?

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:22, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• "However, this support is not as certain and does not guarantee that the conclusion is true." The "is not as certain and" seems redundant.

  That's true, I removed it. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:22, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

And a couple of comments from other sections of this FAC page:

• I find "et al." to be the common form and appreciate the change.
• Regarding the bundled citations, the way you've done it has a benefit for accessibility. Bundling citations into lists either with bullets (*) or a template that generates html lists, will allow screen readers to parse the short footnotes as separate items. Template:sfnm could one day be updated to make use of this, but currently it does not.

Good luck, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 01:22, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the helpful comments! Phlsph7 (talk) 10:22, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Drive-by comments by Gog the Mild

Recusing to comment. Leaning oppose.

• In the image gallery at the top of the page, I am a little unhappy that all three of the non-Western philosophers are on the second row; it sends an unfortunate (not so) subliminal message.

  The rationale behind the current arrangement is the following. One way to divide philosophy is in Western and non-Western philosophy. So it makes sense to group the philosophers together in one row each. In regard to philosophy in general, Western philosophy has been more influential than non-Western philosophy. So it makes sense to have it in the first row.

  One alternative would be to arrange the philosophers chronologically: Buddha, Confucius, Plato, Avicenna, Kant, and Nietzsche. However, Plato is much more important in the field of philosophy than Buddha and Confucius. So it might be a good idea to keep him in the first place. Maybe there are other organizing principles that avoid this problem. In any case, the sidebar is used in many articles and there were already several discussions on who should be included on the talk page. So we would have to start a discussion there first and get some input before making any changes. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:39, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

I am not commenting on who is displayed, just on the order they are displayed in. If there is a discussion you could point me towards where this is discussed, and ideally agreed, that may be helpful. That the current order is based on the perceived importance of each in the field makes me more uncomfortable. I assume there is a HQ RS which so ranks them? Gog the Mild (talk) 14:43, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

It seems there is a misunderstanding here but I'm not sure who is misunderstanding whom. According to my understanding, the current order is not based on the perceived importance of the individual philosophers. They are sorted by association with Western and non-Western philosophy: Plato, Kant, and Nietzsche belong to Western philosophy. Buddha, Confucius, and Avicenna belong to non-Western philosophy. This way, we have two rows of images: the Western row and the non-Western row. The philosophers within each row are sorted chronologically: Plato was born before Kant and Kant was born before Nietzsche; Buddha was born before Confucius and Confucius was born before Avicenna.

It shouldn't be a problem to provide reliable sources for their association and their birth dates. There were talk page discussions on who should be included but I'm not aware of discussions on the order in which these philosophers are presented. I appologize if I'm talking past the point you were trying to make. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:25, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Gog is quite right to raise this, and to feel uncomfortable with the current division. Comments that intimate western philosophy is more important than that of the East is mildly eyebrow raising, and does not alleviate that discomfort. To get as close to a random list as p[possible, I suggest either aphpabetizing them, or possibly chronologically. Unfortuantely, what would be perfect—{{Random slideshow}}—is not an option open to us. MOS:ACCESS, you see. ——Serial 20:25, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello Serial and thanks for your input and your suggestions. I think the claim that some philosophical traditions have been more influential than others is not controversial. Maybe pointing to some high-quality reliable overview sources can alleviate the discomfort caused by contempating this idea. I just had a look at the entry "Philosophy" in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy: correct me if I'm wrong but it seems to discuss almost exclusively Western philosophers. I also tried the entry "Philosophy" in the MacMillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy with the same result. If you know of some high-quality reliable overview sources on philosophy in general that paint a very different picture then I would be interested in looking at them.

Plato is often considered the most influential philosopher so it would make sense to consider an ordering principle that makes him come to the first position. A chronological order would make Buddha come first. This could be surprising to readers. For example, I didn't spot a discussion of Buddha in the two overview articles mentioned above but they both discuss Plato. In the alphabetical order, Plato would come last. Phlsph7 (talk) 21:16, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I suppose the natural question, then, is why images of the Buddha, Confucius, and Avicenna are displayed at all... ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:22, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree, this would be the more relevant concern than the question of whether the current order of images is biased. I don't think they are included because they are among the 6 most influential philosophers overall. The main argument for their inclusion is probably that non-Western traditions should also be represented and the images in question each depict one of the most influential figures within their tradition. For related discussions, see Template_talk:Philosophy_sidebar#Justification_of_additions and Template_talk:Philosophy_sidebar#Averroes?. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:24, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Third-party comment: I've commented in an existing (if not especially active) discussion at Template talk:Philosophy sidebar#Picture shouldn't be a gallery. The image isn't appropriate for the navbox in general, regardless of the ordering. If the image is removed from the navbox, there could still be a lead image or gallery in this particular article. For example, a two-by-two gallery containing Buddha, Confucius, Plato, and Avicenna, could represent the four major traditions that are discussed in the subsections of Philosophy#History. --RL0919 (talk) 17:25, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the input! It's probably better to have the main discussion at Template talk:Philosophy sidebar#Picture shouldn't be a gallery rather than here. I'll post an update here once we've reached a conclusion. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:42, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Short update: I removed the image from the sidebar and added it as a lead image instead. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:55, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Another thought: I think the inclusion of Nietzsche is an odd choice, as he has not been nearly as influential as either Plato or Kant. Western philosophy is often divided into three periods: ancient, medieval and modern. The current display has an image of an ancient philosopher (Plato), two modern philosophers (Kant and Nietzsche) and none from the medieval period. Might I suggest replacing Nietzsche with an influential figure from that period? Thomas Aquinas feels like the obvious pick. Other influential philosophers from the period include Duns Scotus, Anselm of Canterbury and William of Ockham. Tkbrett (✉) 16:03, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree, Aquinas would be a solid choice. What do you think of the following? Phlsph7 (talk) 17:04, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Philbar 5.png

I note in passing that this does nothing to address the concern I raised to kick off the discussion this image. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:38, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I've made my case for the current order but I don't want to impose my view. The following has a chronological order. Would that be acceptable? Phlsph7 (talk) 18:41, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

It would. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:24, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Philbar 6.png

I think the updated image is better. I can't say I share the concern of the original drive-by comment. Tkbrett (✉) 17:57, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

• "It provides an interdisciplinary perspective and studies their scope and fundamental concepts." I am unsure what "their" refers to. Is it possible to clarify or rephrase?

Gog the Mild (talk) 16:16, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

• Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:39, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

• I had originally posted two points which I saw as readily fixable with a view to then closing the nomination. As the discussion has become rather more than a drive by it seems appropriate for me to recuse and allow one of my fellow coordinators close it. Not least because as the article stands I am unconvinced that it meets criterion 1d and so have indicated that I am leaning oppose at the head of this section. Obviously I am open to being convinced otherwise, but have not yet been. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:38, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

  I think MOS:PEOPLEGALLERY, while not binding is persuasive as to why a gallery might not be a good idea. I would honestly prefer nothing in the leade to cherry picking 6 philosophers. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 20:56, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree on both points. But while that is my preference, it is not something I am going to oppose over. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:20, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I concur that having no lead images would solve various problems, like the ones we have been struggling with here. If there are no objections, I would go ahead and remove them. Phlsph7 (talk) 21:39, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I implemented the suggestion. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:38, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Gog, does this resolve your concern? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 18:54, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Ian Rose:. It does. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:40, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Support

I co-nominated this article for GA status with Phlsph7 just this past August, and so it largely goes without saying that I approve of the overall structure and coverage of the article. There is more discussion on these matters than anyone would want to read here and in the article Talk page and its archives.

To this I will just add that I am quite impressed with the way that they have handled the issue of balancing Eastern and Western traditions, which I flagged prior to FA nomination (skip down halfway) as probably the biggest challenge, and one for which there is no perfect solution. To the best of my ability to assess, they seem also to have done an admirable job of bringing everything into compliance with all the niceties and finer points of Wikipedia style.

Much gratitude as well to everyone else whose edits and comments have contributed to making this such an excellent article!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:57, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

@PatrickJWelsh: Thanks a lot for your support, your countless valuable contributions, and your guidance in getting this article FA-ready. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:37, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 23:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.