Talk:Definition of philosophy

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Attempt of minimalistic definition of Philosophy: facilitating adaption of coherency in a communication system e.g. human language, e.g. to changing properties of it's capacity of representation, under the struggle of not having omnipotential representation capacity.

Wikipedia is not the place for original research and is hence not the place to present or argue for idiosyncratic notions of what philosophy is. I'm not saying your definition is incorrect; I'm just saying it's idiosyncratic to you, and therefore doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. --LMS

Wikipedia is also supposed to be in English. --LDC

Of course, you can put it in the essay page. --Ray G. Van De Walker

Where's the essay page??

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I'm wondering why definition of philosophy was moved to philosophy? Philosophy and its definition are two distinct topics, in about the same way that biology and its definition are distinct topics. In each case, the former should be a general-level article (among other things) introducing the discipline, while the latter should be an article discussing the concept of the study, or what distinguishes the discipline from other disciplines. Discussions of what philosophy is often go into a lot of detail that probably doesn't belong in an article about philosophy. Does the person who moved the article disagree? --Larry Sanger

The move means that philosophy currently has a link to itself, but no one so far seems to have noticed.. -- Sam 20:08, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The original merger is presumably because they're really not distinct topics. An article on Philosophy is going to end up defining it. A more general entry, like "metaphilosophy", or "philosophy of philosophy", however, seems to have more room for conceptual disagreements and that sort of thing. Lucidish 01:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

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(Note: non-expert at work) While the arguments toward a separate page for the definition of philosophy are compelling, the current content is really only a synthesis of text from standard (albeit major and authoratative) reference works. This topic would benefit from a fuller description and interpretation of the quoted text. Berian James 10:47, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd point you to Lucidish's comments above. Looking over the material on this page, there is nothing substantial (aside from citations) that is not already on the main Philosophy page (even if it is in garbled form), and anything more interesting really does belong on Metaphilosophy, which is, right now, fairly paltry. The only raison d'être for this page, in my opinion, would be if some one were willing to put in the effort to cite some more detailed work(s) in this area. Ig0774 06:20, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I wrote this page (in current version). The point was to show that there is a consensus in otheravailable reference works, and that if we are writing an encyclopedia we should not be a million miles away from how other works define philosophy. Dbuckner 08:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I suppose that's reasonable enough — especially since its included in a reference from the Philosophy page (at least for now). It might, however, be preferable to merge some of these citations into the main philosophy page — not that this is likely to put a rest to the arguments there about the definition of philosophy. Oh well. Ig0774 10:51, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

It has been demonstrated amply, with citation (on other talk pages, see the Talk:Philosophy archives), that this page has been POV pushing by ommitting relevant citations from reputable sources. Namely, Simon Blackburn's comments. Copied and pasted from Philosophy: "However, these points are called into question by the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, which states: "the late 20th-century... prefers to see philosophical reflection as continuous with the best practice of any field of intellectual enquiry."" Until he has been added, this wiki simply fails in its goal. Lucidish 02:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. Lucidish 04:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PHILOSOPHY I KNOW NOT WHAT - BY WITTGENSTIEN

PLS CAN U DISCUSS THAT SUBJECT AND EXPLAN WHAT IT MEANS

Probably belongs in an article on Metaphilosophy, which is incidentally also where this wiki belongs. Have added merge tag. Lucidish 04:33, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

Do not merge. This page is not really metaphilosophy. As Dbunkner points out above, it is really just a list of definitons from standard reference works. None of this can be considered metaphilosophy proper. In short, in may belong more aptly on Wikitionary. Ig0774 05:37, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Merge. The topic really is metaphilosophy, even if it's mere definitions. Definition is a part of the scope of things in which metaphilosophy would like to deal. Regardless, this issue is not just lexical, but also factual. For there is a dispute among primary sources about the "meaning" of philosophy. Lucidish 16:37, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Merge. Same topic as far as I can see. — goethean ॐ 17:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment. I don't think there are enough votes here for a consensus, but this issue is still alive. Lucidish 17:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

There are two sorts of philosophy, Greek and Modern. Greek philosophy is a branch of shamanism. The goal of philosophy here is to 'know yourself', which means to know yourself as a soul, not a physical body. This involves a shift of consciousness, and happens when one overcomes the irrational soul's clinging to the body - hence the need for moral development. It leads naturally to the faculties of the rational soul, which is spiritual knowledge, for example the perception of the forms, and the knowledge of higher wisdom - sofia. In modern western terms, there is no higher wisdom, no soul, no shift of consciousness. The context of philosophy must therefore change, and be limited to an intellectual process, involving thinking about things. This sort of shift is well seen in definitions like that provided by Garth Kemmerling (http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/p5.htm#phiy) 'Literally, love of wisdom. Hence, careful thought about the fundamental nature of the world, the grounds for human knowledge, and the evaluation of human conduct.'

(Note Garth Kemmerling allows 'fair use' of his pages, and I take the above use to be fair according to the Stanford definition)

Aniksker 11:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New material regarding merge

As a new participant to the discussion, I have to say that I do not believe enough intellectual content has been developed in this Talk on Merge/Do Not Merge to make a proper decision yet. I offer a bit of new material to think and talk about before making a decision.

Fact 1) Currently, there is a wiktionary "definition of philosophy" which claims to document the same objective as this page, namely to answer the question, "What is Philosophy".

Subservation 1) The wiktionary definition is succinct yet broad. It covers other common usage definitions other than philosophy as an "academic discipline". "Philosophy as an academic discipline" seems to be the sole topic of this article. As a minimum, it would seem to me that this article should reference that Wiktionary definition [1]. Also this article should likely make clear that it is addressing only the first component of that Wiktionary definition.

Fact 2) Currently, there is an article called [Metaphilosophy] which claims to document the same objective as this page, namely to answer the question "What is Philosophy?".

Subservation 2) This "Metaphilosophy" claim and the different result that it obtains is potentially falsifiable. This may not be the sole question of "metaphilosophy". "Metaphilosophy" is itself a neologism that is likely lacking a true consensus in definition, therefore it may be distracting the debate about [Philosophy] itself. As a minimum, given its supernumery nature, I would hope that "meta" would at least imply a somewhat broader scope than simply asking "What is"! This seems to me to be a very naive and underdeveloped approach to the grandiose prefix, "meta".

Fact 3) Currently, there is an article called [Philosophy] which also claims to document the same objective as this page, namely answer the question "What is Philosophy". This claim is particularly apparent in its opening paragraph, to which this article refers, and also in a section near its end that is currently entitled [Philosophers on Philosophy].

Subservation 3) Again there are two different end states here within the self-same article, owing to different approaches. The latter is an appeal to historical authorities that are labelled "philosophers" as selected by someone supposedly sufficiently authoritative to select the appropriate representation to answer the question at hand. On the other hand, the opening paragraph was ostensibly forged through a process of Wikipedia consensus carried out in the Talk:Philosophy page. I would suppose if one doesn't believe in that process, one should not be participating in Wikipedia.

Fact 4) Currently, this article exists.

Subservation 4) Based on its own contents and statements, this article seems to exist primarily as supporting documentation for the opening paragraph of the main article [Philosophy]. If that is the case, then shouldn't it properly be part of [Talk:Philosophy] rather than a standalone article?

Fact 5) The article is well-formed in that it follows the rules of a Wikipedia article and cites its references, which appear to be reasonably good references.

Subservation 5) That being said, it seems the article itself is quite selective, in terms of both time and space, in its choice of authorities for the proposed definition. Therefore I certainly understand where the complainant is coming from, that this article borders on being a POV support tactic for the opening paragraph of [Philosophy], although I would say that it is a particulary interesting, intelligent, and well-formed POV support tactic.

Conclusion: Based on my observations and subservations above, I would argue that this well-formed article should be removed in its entirety, and placed within the Talk section of [Philosophy] as some well-formed but certainly challengeable material that goes towards supporting the opening paragraph of that main article. Alternatively we could "have at it" in this article, bringing forth a number of alternative definitions and supporting material for the "Definition of Philosophy"!

Questions? Comments? ThreePD 16:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)