Talk:Philosopher/Archive 1

Q. What constitutes a 'legit' philosopher?

This doesn't really pertain to the article exactly, but I really am unsure as to what the term 'philosopher' really denotes. I'm sorry if my questions seem naive or stupid.

But I was wondering; is there a concrete definition of the term 'philosopher.' Is philosopher a term, like 'artist,' that doesn't have a satisfactory criteria to determine who is and who isn't one?

I notice below on this talk page someone brought up the issue of whether or not Ayn Rand is a 'real' philosopher. One user argues she isn't because she "didn't publish her ideas in a generally accepted format, instead writing only novels with philosophical overtones and a limited audience outside of her adopted home country." another person says she is a philosopher but that she hasn't had an influence on "academic philosophy."

And I also am confused about contemporary philosophers VS ancient philosophers. Socrates is regarded as a philosopher and yet none of his work has survived, any mention of him in other works could easily be interpretive or exaggerated. So is Socrates a real philosopher? And do we hold contemporary philosophers to a different standard? Would someone born in the '70's have to have a degree and be a published writer to be a real philosopher?

So, I guess my specific questons would be:

1) What would be a 'generally accepted format" to publish your ideas (outside of a novel, like Rand did)? Journals? Academic papers?

2) Does one need a philosophy degree in order to be considered a philosopher (further: Did the famous ancient philosophers have any real "credentials" to claim themselves as philosophers, what qualifications did they have? Were any necessary?)

3) Is there an actual criteria of skills one would need to possess in order to be considered a philosopher, or could anyone ostensibly call themselves a philosopher and have no mastery of logic or language?

4) Does one have to follow the traditional "schools of thought" (e.g. deconstruction, infinitism, etc.) or be part of a philosophical movement to be considered a philosopher? Or is that decided by peer review, post facto?

You've asked a mouthful, but let me do my best.

1) Journals and academic papers are a good start, but typically modern philosophers write at least one full-volume works, like Sartre's Being and Nothingness, where they elaborate their philosophical system in great detail. This process also involves anticipating and overcoming obvious objections to the given system, establishing why its premises were chosen, and exploring the consequences of that system.

2) These days, yes, you need a degree (actually, you need a Ph.D.) to be considered a philosopher - even "worse", most of the time you need to be published and working in academe. I'm unaware of anyone in the 20th century who has been "accepted" as a philosopher that doesn't meet at least one of these criteria (a few figures like Gandhi are borderline; they may get consideration because of their major letters and speeches subbing in for published works, but they're largely seen as political figures rather than philosophers). Now, you could call any guy on the street who's claiming to have deep thoughts as philosopher, but you wouldn't get wide agreement on the term. Then again, if Oprah called the SAME guy a philosopher, we might have wide agreement, but not among those who we'd already consider philosophers. As far as those non-academic characters are concerned, time appears to be the only real test. Have their ideas been sufficiently important as to merit response by later philosophers? Both Socrates and Ayn Rand pass this test, but in Socrates case the responses are far more profound - when Plato is the tip of an iceberg, it may be the mother of all philosophical chunks of ice. So I hope that shows why Ayn Rand's status as a philosopher is under debate, but Socrates' is not.

3) I can't think of any list of skills that would constitute being a philosopher - an ability to think critically is key, but it's too broad and doesn't even begin to describe the diversity of approaches and subject matter.

4) Being a philosopher or not isn't necessarily decided by contemporary peer review - but it's the most common way, as I explained in response to 2). Being part of an existing philosophical movement is definitely NOT a criteria, however - many of the greatest philosophers started new philosophical movements which were radical departures from what came before. Nietzsche is an excellent example of this, as is Socrates. In fact, Ayn Rand's work can be characterized as following from Nietzsche and Aristotle, with some economic philosophy thrown in for good measure.

I hope those responses helped. Rycanada 03:40, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Eastern

Do we want eastern philosophers mixed in with the Western ones, or in a seperate section? Kwertii 01:29 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Eastern philosophers really inhabit a completely seperate philosophical arena, up until about the last 150 years or so. I think they should be seperate, but I definitely think that the existing list needs to be cleaned up and shortened, so we have only the most important ones (to bring it in line with the Western list). Rycanada 03:43, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Order

Should we list the philosophers in alphabetical order last-name first, or first name first? I prefer last-name first, it makes it easier to see that the order is alphabetical. Any preferences? -- Simon_J_Kissane

I don't have a strong opinion. You have a good point. But two relevant considerations are that others have made lists of people, and they didn't list last names first (so you're being inconsistent in format with others on Wikipedia), that listing last names first is apt to confuse newcomers into thinking that we'll want in titles to put last names first. Welcome, anyway, Simon J Kissane, whoever you are.  :-) --LMS

Well, I already changed it to be in that order; if anyone wants I can swap it around again. -- Simon J Kissane

Islamic

Someone added Avicenna a second time (in the wrong part of the alphabet). I'm correcting; I'm also adding the full and properly-spelt names of several Arabic philosophers (Avicenna = Ibn Sina, Averroes = Ibn Rushd). If anyone knows the appropriate convention for alphabetizing these (starting with the Ibn or the Sina?) please correct them.

Arabic?? Avicenna was Persian and Averroes was Spanish!

Yeah, but both were Muslim and wrote almost entirely in Arabic. At any rate, their placement as Eastern Philosophers is awfully problematic. As the entry on Eastern Philosophy states, "In the West, the term Eastern philosophy refers very broadly to the various philosophical systems of East Asia." As you accurately (if only in the strictest sense) pointed out, these two are hardly from East Asia. I am going to add an "Islamic Philosopher" entry.--69.143.128.152 02:12, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Come to think of it, doesn't the whole list unnecessarily replicate the List of philosophers page? I think if this page is to be useful, it should discuss what it is to be a philosopher; philosophers' idea of the role of the philosopher in society (Plato's philosopher king vs. Socrates' gadfly), etc.. --Max power 02:33, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am 100% behind this idea. Rycanada 21:38, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Templates

Hi all, I just added the templates to the Popular Western philosophers section; if someone doesn't like the look this creates, could they at least please use all the names in both templates, or alternately update the templates, with the exception perhaps of names like Ayn Rand (Contemporary philosophers are just those that are either alive or passed away within the last two decades)? It's a bit awkward having templates that name influential philosophers, which do not coincide with a list of "popular" philosophers. PS Since Avicenna and other Islamic philosophers are more relevant to Western philosophy, I moved them there, though we could also create a list of Islamic philosophers instead. -- Simonides 21:16, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

announcing policy proposal

This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view. In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Whatever. FranksValli 17:25, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Ayn Rand not a philosopher?

I'm not fan of Ayn Rand, but some anonymous user removed her from this page - (Ayn Rand is hardly a philosopher). I think she obviously is considered an influential philosopher. Doesn't she propose some sort of atheistic objectivism, coupled with a defense of self-centered actions, etc? FranksValli 17:19, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Allegedly, she is almost unheard of outside of America. Also, many people refuse to call her a philosopher because didn't publish her ideas in a generally accepted format, instead writing only novels with philosophical overtones and a limited audience outside of her adopted home country. --24.131.209.132 17:29, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I can see how the outside of America idea might be at least some grounds for argument, but as for unconventional ideas - Socrates wrote nothing at all and yet is considered a philsopher. FranksValli 20:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The kookiness of Rand's ideas hardly sets her apart, since that's hardly a rare condition among philosophers, but since her influence on academic philosophy has been next to nil, she doesn't really deserve a spot in the "influential western philosophers" series. A more expansive List page of philosophers should most certainly include her, though. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MUrielw (talk • contribs) .

As stated above, she's essentially persona non grata in North American academic circles (unless you count business and engineering undergrads) which is definitely a mark against how influential she has been in the field. Rycanada 03:05, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Article status

This article should redirect to philosophy. We already have a List of philosophers. — goethean ॐ 23:10, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Plus the article looks terrible. Porcher 18:24, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. Rycanada 21:39, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Um....what exactly is this.....creature??--Lacatosias 16:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC) I don't know here to start in trying to improve it. I don't know what it means.--Lacatosias 16:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I put the article in the "Major Overhaul" section for the philosophy wikipedia group. I'm going to wait a week, see if it gets any help (like many others, I don't know where to start) and if we don't see anything, I'm going to throw it into the deletion process. Rycanada 16:55, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it's simply too broad. It's somwhat like trying to construct an artcile called "scientist" but even more open-ended and problematic in trying to pin down like "Artist". I suspect someone started out wot the intnection of writing anout the concept "philosopher" and then relizing the overwhelming, if not impossible, nature of the task, started to list all the philosophers in varous catgories. But we alreay have more than enough lists I think. Do what you think is best.--Lacatosias 17:15, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, {{prod}} isn't quite the way to do it; let's just redirect to philosophy. There's no content being lost, right? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:39, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Now there's just 2,121 incoming links to deal with, including 112 that are now double-redirects from Philosophers (whoops, now it's 113!). I wonder if there's a free bot around? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:46, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Redirect is correct, I think. I only intended to get the process moving forward. I'll help out with the links when I get back on the computer later in the day. A bot would be nice though.--Lacatosias 09:15, 5 March 2006 (UTC)