CZ Talk:Philosophy Workgroup

This is the Discussion Page for the CZ:Philosophy Workgroup

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Welcome!

November 7th

er.. looks like we need the YEARS too - it's a bit like the Marie Celeste here isn't it? What happened to all the editors! No matter, I guess we'll make contact eventually...

I'm just going to start working through the core philosophy pages, adding and enhancing them, not removing material unless ABSOLUTELY and 'UNCONTROVERSIALLY' wrong!

Actually, at least slightly controversially, for Aristotle's fans, I just adjusted the intro to that page, for example. Nonetheless, I think it makes the page work better as a whole. There's oodles to do, and I am going to rely on my access to material in a mini enclopedia I edited, which the publishers printed on the basis that authors could reuse content at their own discretion later. Please don't accuse me of self-promotion - the content has to be sourced, and if it ain't my work I can quote, it's going to take a lot longer. A lot of the best material is essays by contributors - I will contact them individually, to see if they are okay with CZ having extracts.

Early days, though - comments please!

Martin Cohen 23:52, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

January 10

Welcome, philosophers!

We've recently posted a call for participation to PHILOS-L and PHILOSOP and are happy to see all the new arrivals.

Some notes:

• Philosophy could use some work. I started rewriting it but it's not anywhere near finished, and I would be happy to have lots of help. Many other articles need work, too. Dive in!

• Many of the articles you see linked under "All Articles" and "Top Articles" above are not "CZ Live," i.e., they're inactive. You are strongly encouraged to scrap these and start over, or else to improve them radically (they need it). If you don't see the "Category:CZ Live" tag on an article, you can assume that no one here cares about it. (These articles were uploaded from Wikipedia, somebody then tagged them or made some very minor change, so they were not deleted in January's mass deletion of Wikipedia-sourced content. No one would care if you wanted to delete all the articles that have not been worked on here on CZ!)

• In short, be bold.  :-)

• Hey, you professional philosophers showing up: please send a CV and a Web link tending to show your bona fides to personnel@citizendium.org and ask to be made an editor. Details here at the bottom of the page. Someone will respond within a few days.

• It so happens that we are looking for a lead editor for philosophy, tentatively to be called "Chief Area Editor," to help push things forward on several fronts in the Philosophy Workgroup.

• Just to be clear: speaking for myself, while I have a Ph.D. in Philosophy, I do not claim to be lead editor, or an editor at all, of the Philosophy Workgroup. That's just because I'm so far away from doing anything like serious research in philosophy.

Thanks again for joining us and I hope to see your work on "Recent changes" soon!

--Larry Sanger 12:12, 10 February 2007 (CST)

I've just joined CZ and I can see there are a few gaps in the key list of philosophers - I've added half a dozen or so to the 'bio' list just, and intend to quickly fill those gaps! I propose to start with the WP version, compare it with standard reference works and my own notes. Actually, it should be possible to get basic pages up very quick here - the aim then is to raise the quality, and avoid the pitfalls of WP where irrelevant material is allowed to proliferate making the biographies unwieldy.

Martin Cohen 12:35, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Anyone for a bit of hurt?

I'd like to see a sort of cycle of articles about Pain as a feature of Citizendium. The philosophy aspects are crucial to an understanding, and all other general internet reference works treat it quite poorly. If anyone is interested or would know where to place it in your list of priorities, it would be appreciated. --Christo Muller (Talk) 18:17, 16 February 2007 (CST)

Philosophy and the economics of climate change

Readers who are interested in climate chamge economics need an understanding of its underlying philosopy. In particular, an understanding of the choice of the discount rates used by the Stern Review and others depends upon an appreciation of what is meant by utilitarianism and by the idea of agent-specific ethics. The CZ article on the former is only a stub,and there is nothing on the latter. The purpose of this message is to tempt a qualified philosopher to fill that gap. Failing such a response, I may put foreword a draft myself, - writing as an interested amateur.Nick Gardner 06:04, 28 August 2008 (CDT)

Well, I'm still waiting for the philosophical illuminati to send me notice that I'm a fully qualified philosopher, but in the mean time I'll try and improve utilitarianism --Tom Morris 11:45, 28 August 2008 (CDT)

I am impressed. Is there more to come? Nick Gardner 14:22, 28 August 2008 (CDT)

Hullo Nick - honestly, I don't think its that complicated. There are very sound, practical issues involved in Climate Change economics, and only a few universal philosophical principles apply. You should certainly feel free to go ahead. Martin Cohen 12:17, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Philosophy of Spinoza

I'm working on an article called "Philosophy of Spinoza" and was wondering if there are any experts who can help me with it. I'm a non-academic (but read a lot). I based the philosophy of Spinoza on serious scholars such as Henry Allison and Steven Nadler. I tried to get the latter to help me edit it, but he wasn't interested, unfortunately, and objected to me quoting his book "Spinoza's Ethics: An Introduction" extensively (via email). So I removed the quotes and references and put things in my own words. The idea of the article is to make an intelligent introduction to Spinoza's philosophy for high school or college students. I put lots of pictures in it to try to make it visually beautiful. I've since learned that the Elwes translation of Spinoza is not the best, since it's somewhat old, and that a Curley or Shirley translation is better; so I'll try to get a copy of one of these translations and update material when I get time. Another issue: the article is perhaps too long and may need to be split up. Here's the tentative version: Philosophy of Spinoza. Wondering if its ready for prime time and if anybody is interested in working with me on it?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:01, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not that knowledgable on Spinoza, but I had a brief look through the article. First off, no offence to Larry, but the picture and example has to go. There's enough weird animus towards CZ without us going and comparing Larry to the creator of the Universe! And I'm not sure what the image of Francine Jordi adds to the discussion. Call me a cynic if you like, but it just seems like an opportunity to show some female chest. I'd be a little bit more conservative with the images, but otherwise it seems okay. I'm not sure where we can rustle up Spinoza experts from. —Tom Morris 00:41, 17 February 2010 (UTC)