Template:Did you know nominations/Pre-Socratic philosophy
- The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was: promoted by Desertarun (talk) 18:53, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
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Pre-Socratic philosophy
... that a common feature of the pre-Socratic philosophy was the attempt to explain the Kosmos without invoking theism?Barnes p16-17 : "Still less was it a series of events determined by the will- or the caprice - of the gods. The Presocratics were not, so far as we can tell, atheists: they allowed the gods into their brave new world, and some of them attempted to produce an improved, rationalized, theology in place of the anthropomorphic divinities of the Olympian pantheon. But they removed some of the traditional functions from the gods. Thunder was explained sCientifically, in naturalistic terms - it was no longer a noise .6 INTRODUCTION made by a minatory Zeus. Iris was the goddess.ofthe rainbow, but Xenophanes insisted that Iris or the rainbow was in reality nothing but a multicoloured cloud. Most importantly, the Presocratic gods -like the gods of Aristotle and even of that arch theist Plato - do not interfere with the natural world. The world is orderly without being divinely run. Its order is intrinsic: the internal principles of nature are sufficient to explain its structure and its history. For the happenings that constitute the world's history are not mere brute events, to be recorded and admired. They are structured events which fit together and interconnect. And the patterns of their interconnections provide the truly explanatory account of the world.ALT1:... that preeminent philosopher Karl Popper traced the roots of western civilization to pre-Socratic philosophy?In an important article Back to Presocratics (1958), Karl Popper writes: "There can be little doubt that the Greek tradition of philosophical criticism had its main source in Ionia ... It thus leads the tradition which created the rational or scientific attitude, and with it our Western civilization, the only civilization, which is based upon science (though, of course, not upon science alone". Source: Original text can be found in Vamvacas 2013, as in article.
Improved to Good Article status by Cinadon36 (talk). Self-nominated at 09:29, 1 June 2021 (UTC).
A long, recently promoted good article and I don't disagree with that decision. I have two small suggestions on the article content: the statement "The pre-Socratic intellectual revolution liberated the human mind from the mythical world and initiated a march towards reason and scientific thought that yielded modern western philosophy and science.
" might come off as tendentious to a general reader—DYK articles must be neutral—and would probably benefit from having an authority for that claim stated in the text itself, and (very minor) footnote 140 with the David Sedley comment needs tidying. Similarities detected on Earwig are just shared citations from the looks of it. I do just have a couple of problems with the hooks:
On ALT0, (1) Some straightforward stylistic points: "the" needs to be deleted from "the pre-Socratic philosophy", and "cosmos" should be spelled normally since it just redirects to cosmos anyway and isn't explained as being something substantively different from the English term.
(2) More generally, though, I think the word "theism" might be misleading: theism has modern baggage and refers to a kind of belief system, but Barnes's point is more straightforwardly that they (and "even ... that archtheist Plato") don't refer to the intervention of the gods in their accounts of nature.
(3) Optional suggestion. For general reader interest I think it would be worth including Barnes's argument on the previous page that this is the earliest instance of this kind of thinking. This is already noted in the article ("The pre-Socratics were the first to attempt to provide reductive explanations for a plethora of natural phenomena.
") Taking account of all that, I would propose a hook like: "... that pre-Socratic philosophy included some of the earliest attempts to explain the cosmos as an ordered system without reference to the gods?".
ALT1 looks OK, but instead of the perhaps POV phrase "preeminent philosopher" I would simply say "the philosopher", and "Western" in "Western civilization" should be capitalized and the phrase linked to the article at Western culture. I'd prefer ALT0 if adjusted per at least (1) and (2). Phew! —Nizolan (talk · c.) 20:15, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks @Nizolan:, and I must admit your points have troubled me during reshaping the article. As for your first suggestion, on the "pS intellectual revolution", I wouldnt be happy with attributing it to a specific scholars, since they are widely held by the field's scholars. But you are right, it is an opinion and not a fact, so I applied this change.[1] On Sedley, I removed the note, I am not really fan of having "hidden pieces of info" in the notes. Since his opinion is not the mainstream, I kept it out of the article.[2]. I am not an expert in style, so, I follow blidly all suggestions regarding this matter- removed "the" from "the presocratics"[3] Oh! you meant form the hook! lol! Yes, your suggestion is much better. I like it. As for ALT1 suggestion, I also agree on ALT1---> "that philosopher Karl Popper traced the roots of western civilization to pre-Socratic philosophy?. I also lean towards ALT0. Thanks again Nizolan! Cinadon36 07:10, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
- ALT2: "... that pre-Socratic philosophy included some of the earliest attempts to explain the cosmos as an ordered system without reference to the gods?"
- ALT3: "... that the philosopher Karl Popper traced the roots of Western civilization to pre-Socratic philosophy?"
Thanks Cinadon36, I wasn't suggesting that it was actually a tendentious viewpoint, just that (speaking as someone involved with academic history) phrases like "march towards reason and scientific thought" tend to set off alarm bells sometimes, justifiably or not. Since you've agreed, I'm approving the two reformulated hooks above, with a preference for ALT2. —Nizolan (talk · c.) 21:09, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
