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User talk:Dominic Mayers/Archive 1

< User talk:Dominic Mayers
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Archive 1
Although some prefer welcoming newcomers with cookies, I find fruit to be a healthier alternative.

Hello, Dominic Mayers II, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like this place and decide to stay.

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Problem of Induction

Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

It seems fine. Mcc1789 (talk) 18:12, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I am glad to have your opinion. I will move it in the talk page of the article, where it definitively fits. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:16, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

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Falsifiability

Latest comment: 2 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

@Dominic Mayers II: Greetings! I saw that you have worked vigorously on Falsifiability and, from what I can tell, I think you can soon nominate it for GAN. Before doing so, I noticed that some notes have text but are not referenced. Another thing is that I see some sentences structured as a question, which is discouraged on Wikipedia. I would be willing to help you improve the article and perhaps help you get it to GA if you're interested. Cheers. Wretchskull (talk) 14:53, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your remark about some notes with no reference. One in particular was problematic before this recent edit. The reason I give no reference is because it is a general simple fact from Logic, but this was not so much the case before the edit. Which other notes without reference are problematic? I am not looking for GAN at this time, but I definitively want this article to be a good one. So, your comments or edits are welcome. Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:46, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
@Dominic Mayers II: apologies for the late response. I would love to help you improve the article. One of the biggest issues that I see persist in the article is the use of non-encyclopedic text. For instance, Wikipedia uses a neutral tone but also passive voice, which is extremely important. Regarding other issues, using words like we/us/you, using questions, etc., is not allowed on an encyclopedia, and it would be greatly appreciated if you could fix these issues (taking a look at MOS:WTW is also useful). Apart from the writing style, I'm somewhat confused as to why the references are not numbered but instead alphabetized, but I guess that is up to you. Cheers. Wretchskull (talk) 17:51, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
@Wretchskull: you are welcome to edit the article. I am primarily concerned about the content and less about the form. In the content, I include what is implicit in the tone and the style as required to have a neutral article. In particular, the use of "we" in which "we" means the editors clearly does not respect WP:NPOV. In the same way, any use of "you" that would suggest that Wikipedia (or the editors) are interacting with the readers is not neutral. However, I have not seen any of this in Falsifiability. For example, consider the following sentences originally from Banno:

Suppose we want to put the hypothesis that all swans are white to the test. We come across a white swan. We cannot validly argue (or induce) from "here is a white swan" to "all swans are white"; doing so would require a logical fallacy such as, for example, affirming the consequent.

Clearly, the "we" in these sentences does not refer to the editors. I cannot see that it breaks NPOV or any of the core content policies. It could very well be that is nevertheless not an encyclopedic style, but I prefer to focus on content and the core policies. Feel free to edit the article if you think the style needs to be improved. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:30, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Religion and philosophy request for comment

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Talk:Scientific evidence

Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

At this point you may want to notify the talk page of the appropriate Wikiprojects (WT:WikiProject Science, WT:WikiProject Philosophy, and WT:WikiProject Skepticism) and ask for the opinions of other editors. Biogeographist (talk) 15:39, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

The principle is to first discuss as much as possible on the talk page so that the position and arguments of all parties are presented in the clearest way possible. When we do not see any possible progress, we ask help. This is particularly important for RfC, but to optimize the usefulness of people in these wiki projects, the same principle applies. In this line of thought, it will not be useless that that you summarize again your view in the article talk page. In fact, it might restart the discussion, if I feel that I can add something to what you write. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:53, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
In particular, something bothers me. The original argument for the split was not the different scopes, but two different focuses. One article was supposed to focus on rigorous scientific methods and the other covered the same topic, but with a more relaxed focus. I believe that before asking help, the discussion around this original argument should also be included in a summary, because it may come back. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:05, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Empirical cycle

Latest comment: 2 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I just discovered something that could use your criticism: Empirical research § Empirical cycle. Sourced to a practical theology textbook. Biogeographist (talk) 15:31, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

The reference is weird. However, De Groot has indeed written on the subject in Adriaan D. De Groot and Spiekerman J. A. A. Methodology, Chap. 1: The Empirical Cycle In Science and when you read it, you see that "induction" is defined as the step where the hypothesis is written and there is no claim that some inductive logic justifies that step. This book is cited a lot. The view point presented is attributed to an author, so no WP rule is violated in an obvious manner, even though the use of the term "induction" would need to be explained so that the content match with the source. Again, the reference given is weird. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:53, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

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Please do not put your comment within the comments of others. They must go after the signature and usually at the bottom of the section.

Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Its a subsection, with its own header.Slatersteven (talk) 08:13, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

It in fact created a very bizarre and confusing chronology of debate as we are trying to discuss two different issues under the heading of one of them.Slatersteven (talk) 08:15, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

To anyone reading this, Here is the edit that Slatersteven is talking about. You can see that I kept his comment in the same section and that it was misplaced within my comment, not preceded by a signature that ends it. What Slatersteven means and I understand that is indeed confusing is that I used two subsubsections within my comment. To avoid the confusion, I should have used paragraphs with a bold title, using '''. It's obvious from the context that it is what these two "subsubsections" were meant to be. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:14, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Alois Höfler has been accepted

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NPA

Latest comment: 2 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

If you continue to violate wp:talk and comment on me and my actions rather than content I will take you to ANI. Stop trying to use ad hominem's to dismiss my concearns.Slatersteven (talk) 16:23, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

I can support all my claim concerning you with diffs. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:33, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

I wish it were more

Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
  The Mediation Award
For efforts above and beyond the call of duty, no one has ever deserved this more. Thank you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:33, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Persecution of Christians

Latest comment: 2 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

I answered your message on my talk page and for some reason it did not send a ping. I don't know why. This is the second time in the last week. Anyway, perhaps you would be willing to read it and get back with me. Thank you for your efforts. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:17, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

I have opened a new ANI [1]. Jenhawk777 (talk) 15:14, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

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Fixed your talk page archiving

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Hi! I took the liberty of fixing the auto-archiving settings at the top of this page. Please note that you currently have the maximum archive size set to 999999 threads, which basically means /Archive 1 will grow indefinitely. I'd recommend setting it to a more sensible value. The most commonly used value is 150K (150 kilobytes), which is usually a good intermediate between getting too many archives and them becoming too big to handle. --rchard2scout (talk) 11:24, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

ANI

Latest comment: 2 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

  There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Slatersteven (talk) 15:02, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Dominic Mayers, please stick to the topic on talk pages. Drmies (talk) 16:43, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Drmies: You are right. I lost sight of the context after being accused in some notice board. The talk page was not the place to react to that. Besides, in the notice board, one said that the person who accused me was personalizing a simple content dispute issue, a second asked for reference to the discussion and a third one came to the talk page and said that he could not find what was the issue. So, thus far, it seems considered an empty accusation. The only valid accusation is yours, because I wrongly reacted to this previous accusation. Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:44, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

  • Dominic, I appreciate your note. Take care, Drmies (talk) 01:10, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

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Feedback request: Religion and philosophy request for comment

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Sources broad in scope

Latest comment: 2 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hey Dominic Mayers,

I agree with this comment where you express the desire to have sources that are "centred on the subject". See this discussion I had with another user. Basically in order to determine weight we use sources who "broadly" cover the subject (meaning their scope is the entire subject or something close to that). Because using sources focused on a specific aspect is bound to give distortions. Today's mainpage article is Climate change, it only gives about 2.5% of all words to climate change denial (which includes contextualizing the information). Islam, which used to be a featured article, gives only 2 sentences or 0.2% of all words, to terrorism. Barack Obama gives no space to Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories. This because scholarly sources that cover these topics broadly don't give much/any space to these subtopics, so why should we? VR talk 16:05, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Exactly my point. We are not alone to realize that. I don't know if you read French, but the essay fr:Wikipédia:Pertinence_d'une_information is very good on this subject. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:43, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

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WP:NPOVN thread

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My suggestion is that we collapse (hat) - with your agreement - the thread from and including your reply to Каракорум at 17:29 (UTC) to the end. I don’t think the spat between us is edifying for anyone. DeCausa (talk) 21:37, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Crusades

Latest comment: 2 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Wasn't certain whether my last post answered your question, or you need anything more? Norfolkbigfish (talk) 17:54, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Norfolkbigfish, my comment was not meant to say that you, as someone who defend the scope, should be more specific. My point is that a counter reply, should be even more specific than that. In other words, we should move toward concrete content, eventually to something that can be represented in a diff. I cannot do that myself, because it's not my expertise, but I don't need to be a violinist to recognize when someone plays well violin. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:02, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Thank you, and agree. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 18:18, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Appreciate your efforts btw, it is hard work sometimes Norfolkbigfish (talk) 18:51, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

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Comment copied and pasted

Latest comment: 2 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

Quick heads up that this comment you made has been copied and pasted into several places on wikipedia:[2][3][4]. I'm not saying there's a problem here. But if my comments were being copied and pasted across different boards on wikipedia, I'd wanna know, so I'm extending to you the same courtesy. And as a courtesy, I'll also ping the person whose doing the copying and pasting @Bookku:. VR talk 15:09, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Since original discussion is still open, even a to and fro discussion between me and Dominic Mayers may lead other users to original discussion and will become like forum shopping so I did not intimate. In the main discussion @ Talk:Minar e Pakistan where it was concerned decision making related I presented Dominic Mayers's view in very transparent manner on my own (though I would have difference of opinion about the example) . I hope that explains.
Thanks.
Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 15:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
I did not see yet the contexts in which it was copied and pasted. These pastes and cuts could be inappropriate, depending on the context. However, I am very proud of this comment by itself in its original context. It could be improved a lot by noting that it does not have to stop at the subject of rape: if we don't have any objective rule, the article could be flooded with different kinds of "logically" relevant content and totally lose its focus. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:41, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation, Bookku.VR talk 15:49, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
This is just for information:

@Dominic Mayers and Vice regent: Sorry, I was unaware that discussion @ WP:NPOVN has been already archived @ this archive page on 3rd December 21 itself.

As such @ Talk Minar e Pakistan I have come up with encyclopedic tools for Dominic Mayers's point "Which objective criteria to establish relevance can be devised?". Since Dominic was uninvolved in Minar e Pakistan related discussion as of now I do not expect any response there but I will invite him @ future article talk pages wherever I will take up the topic. Unless he does not want invitations.

So anyways now on I will give attribution wherever I will use and I will intimate Dominic Mayers for the same.

Thanks for bearing with me.

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 15:25, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification.VR talk 16:01, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

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Concern regarding Draft:Naive Falsificationism

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Those antecedents

Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hi. I'd like to explain why I think "those" and "those things" are different in recent changes to the Wikipedia:Requests for comment‎ page.

In "Here's how to do those", "those" is a pronoun and thus requires antecedents. The antecedents need to be nouns that are in the text, preferably immediately before. In "those things", "those" is an adjective modifying "things", so no antecedent is required; all that is required is that the reader be able to tell from the semantics of the text what things are being referenced.

In this text, the things are ending an RfC manually and extending an RfC, but the text doesn't contain any nouns for those; it just refers to the actions with the verbs "end" and "delay". It's easy enough for a reader to reason out that the "things" are the actions indicated by those verbs, but for the antecedent of a pronoun, reasoning isn't allowed; actual nouns have to be present. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 00:37, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to you, I learned one more thing today. Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:22, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

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I removed the IP from the page you linked at VPT, as it is a highly visible noticeboard. It appears you may have made other logged out edits, if these are personally identifiable to you and you want them suppressed please drop a request to Special:EmailUser/Oversight. Note, a logged out edit all by itself that doesn't specifically identify you probably doesn't need suppressing or dealing with if the content of the edit was also mundane (like a generic user warning, random vandalism reversion, etc). — xaosflux Talk 14:20, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Yes, sure, it happened in the past that I was not logged in and forgot to log in, but how is this relevant here? For sure, I did not do a login between this edit and this other edit. If you tell me that Wikipedia or the Firefox browser can silently pass you from a logged out to a logged in status, then I will accept the possibility that I was logged out for some technical reason other than me logging out on purpose, because I did not do that, and then silently logged in. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:35, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
@Dominic Mayers on every single edit your logon cookie has to be checked - if for any reason that fails to check the server will think you are not logged in. It is extremely hard to troubleshoot this sort of thing after the face, as the client state has certainly changed since then. Usually when I've seen something like that happen the cookie has just expired or otherwise become invalidated and the user continues to be logged out until they log back on again. phab:T50657 from almost 10 years ago goes in to some of the background of the problem and possible efforts to at least present a warning message (this is not currently solved). In almost all cases if you manually log out, you will stay logged out until you log on again. Logging on again can sometimes be "automatic" if you have certain browser settings/extensions that remember your credential. Hope that background helps a little, sorry I don't have a better response. — xaosflux Talk 15:14, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Thank you. You and the technical people at Wikipedia are doing a great job. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:26, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

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You may care to give your opinion at d:Talk:Q9471? (I learned about this at Talk:Epistemology § Articles around épistémologie/epistemologia/epistemology). Biogeographist (talk) 14:05, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

@Biogeographist: it might be useful to make en:epistemology more compatible with fr:épistémologie and your recent edit goes in that direction (and it might not be a coincidence). I am currently working on fr:épistémologie. The first difficulty was to define the concrete scope of the article, because « épistémologie » could have a lot of different scopes. My attitude is to respect as much as possible the current content of the article, which is very large, even though JTB is not part of it. With @D Cat laz: and others it was decided that the article should be some kind of big « disambiguation » article that covers all the meanings of the word. Practically, to match with the content of the article, I could only make sense of this by interpreting « meanings » to include all philosophies presented under the name « epistemology » or « épistémologie ». This approach also matches perfectly with the tendency of Wikipedians to add their preferred philosophy under the title « épistémologie », perhaps because this title seems to refer to the modern way of doing philosophy. This approach to determine the scope is a bit artificial, because, for example, if Popper did not use the word « epistemology » to describe his view on objective knowledge (Epistemology without a knowing subject), it would not have been admissible in the scope. But it is simple and it works. It addresses directly the difficulty that we face. I mean, if we decide to restrict the scope using some conceptual criterion, then some will complain that their preferred philosophy was not included because of a bias in this conceptual criterion. Would you think that this approach could also work for en:epistemology or, if not, for an article with a different title in en.wp? Note that we indirectly include in the scope philosophies that have influenced some usage of the word. For example, even though Kant did not use the word « epistemology » it is in the scope because Russell himself attributes the concept to Kant, but it is explicitly in the scope indirectly as an influence. There is a question whether there should be a separate section Historical context. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:54, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes, my recent edit to Epistemology is not a coincidence. I was thinking about it after your comment at d:Talk:Q9471, and when D Cat laz mentioned the existence of de:Épistémologie, I noticed that de:Épistémologie was linked to d:Q30748859, which is also linked to fr:Épistémologie historique, and I wondered why there is no corresponding Historical epistemology page in en-wiki, and then I noticed that it already exists, but only as a redirect to French philosophy § Philosophy of science. (Other redirects to that section can be seen here.) But surely there deserves to be a separate article in en-wiki on the subject as well as a section in Epistemology. (Historical epistemology is not limited to the French, although the French historical epistemologists are the most famous.) So my edit was a baby step toward improving historical epistemology in en-wiki.
As for Epistemology and fr:Épistémologie, I am not sure that en-wiki needs to borrow the approach you are taking at fr-wiki because the same compromises may not be required here. It would be better to start with what exists in Epistemology and to fill in the holes, with an eye toward fr:Épistémologie. For example, in Epistemology § History of epistemology there is nothing about the 20th century even though we are two decades past that century. Biogeographist (talk) 20:03, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Ok, but then I am curious how you define in a simple manner the scope of en:epistemology. It seems to me that you should meet the same issues in en:epistemology than in fr:épistémologie, because to have the flexibility that you seem to require, you lose at the same time a clear criterion. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:09, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
It is one of the oldest articles on en-wiki, with 20 years of history. The current version is the scope, I guess. If you want to narrow the scope, you cut material, and if you want to broaden the scope, you add material. If you have doubts, ask first on the talk page. Is there a reason why such a piecemeal approach wouldn't work? Biogeographist (talk) 20:17, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
I am not against a piecemeal approach. On the contrary, I believe the best criteria require a piecemeal approach and discussion in the PdD. Still some rational is needed, just because it makes it easier for the readers. A very natural rational can be used, which I now describe. In Wikipedia, especially in philosophy, it is important to attribute the different perspectives to their authors, which we could call the fathers or founders of the field. It's difficult, especially for recent fields, because it is typical that the authors attribute their new field to great philosophers of the past. A typical example is Russell uses of epistemology that he attributes to Kant. Scholars argue that this is non sense when we consider what is new in the field : the extensive use of logic to try to explain mathematics and even sciences. Russell believed in some form of inductive logic. He actually gave axioms for his inductive view. They were apparently not considered useful, because we don't hear much about them, but the basic approach of building philosophy on logic remained. It is called analytic philosophy. This was certainly not a contribution of Kant. The case of JTB is even weirder. It's funny that this recent baby of the analytic approach is attributed to Plato. Apparently, the more it is recent, the more it is claimed to come from far away in the past. This is also, of course, much criticized. Here is an extract from The Analysis of Knowledge in SEP :

Much of the twentieth-century literature on the analysis of knowledge took the JTB analysis as its starting-point. It became something of a convenient fiction to suppose that this analysis was widely accepted throughout much of the history of philosophy. In fact, however, the JTB analysis was first articulated in the twentieth century by its attackers.

Anyway, the point is that it is some times difficult to find the true fathers of a field, but it is possible to have good ideas about it. It is important to do that, especially in Wikipedia, because we never present perspectives as truths in Wikipedia. They must be attributed to their authors. Besides, it is much more interesting and informative for the readers and it helps them to make their own judgment. This provides a natural criterion, because the flow between perspectives can now take into account this information. We can use what the authors say. For example, once it is clear that the JTB concept was introduced by Gettier, then we can use the fact that he attributed it to Plato. The influence of Plato could have been due to a misreading of Plato by Gettier, but it was still there. In other words, concepts can get connected at the conceptual level as it is seen in the sources (usually in a more significant level than the connectjon Gettier-Plato). This criterion requires a lot of judgment and, as you suggest, there is always some piecemeal aspect to it. The bottom line is that, if we don't have this, because perspective are presented as truth instead of attributed, we still need some rational, even if it is a rational that requires a lot of judgment within a piece meal approach. In fact, if you don't have a natural criterion, combining the different views may very well be original research because the link between them is novel (not so natural) or a violation of wp:proportion because wikipedians selected what they liked the most. I am not saying that the criterion that I suggest is ideal because it is objective and simple, but it is the only one that I could find that matches with the content. Dominic Mayers (talk) 21:54, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
This criterion requires a lot of judgment and, as you suggest, there is always some piecemeal aspect to it. Without good judgment by knowledgeable editors, an article can get ugly fast. I've seen this happen often with undergraduates assigned to edit articles as part of a college course. Sometimes they do a surprisingly good job, but usually they create a big mess because they don't know the literature well enough and have other judgment problems. Biogeographist (talk) 02:30, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that this is the criterion that is currently used in en:epistemology or that it is not, at the least not entirely, but it is the only criterion that you intend to use to improve the article? Dominic Mayers (talk) 02:44, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
No, what I said wasn't a criterion, I was just commenting in a way perhaps not directly relevant. Carry on! Biogeographist (talk) 03:12, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
In the falsifiability paper, the link with Lakatos is strong and clear, because Lakatos explicitly refers to Popper and Popper explicitly refers to Lakatos. A link between Popper and Bachelard would also be possible, even though Popper never referred to Bachelard and, I suspect, Bachelard never referred to Popper, because the link was made by others, for example in this paper. In that last case, the link is centered around pedagogy. It's not pertinent, unless pedagogy is the context. These examples illustrate two points. The first point is that it was important that the view presented by Lakatos is attributed to Lakatos, for neutrality, but also because it identifies well the view. A view could be stated in a similar way as Lakatos's view, but still be very different, because it is the view of someone else. It's not for nothing that philosophers almost always identify a philosophy by naming its author. So, the first point is that attributing a philosophy to its founders is almost necessary to determine if it can be included and how it can be included. The second point is that we need to understand the sources to know how the different philosophies are related. It's a piecemeal approach in the following sense that it depends on a good understanding of the sources. I am just saying that ultimately the links as described in notorious sources is the natural criterion to determine the scope of an article : the different parts of the articles must be connected in a pertinent manner by sources, which again is only possible if the views are correctly attributed. What the whole article says must be included in what the sources together say, including the links (as defined above) between different parts. I would even say that a nice article should have a single central point and every other points should be related to that point as in the sources (with links as defined above). So, my question was do you think this natural criterion is respected in en:epistemology? Or are you saying that, it is not respected, but this is the only criterion that you consider using to improve the article. I admit that I am considering using a different criterion in fr:épistémologie based on usages of the word in a philosophical context, irrespective of actual conceptual connection (as defined above) in sources. The only connection would be that they are all conceptual usages of the word « epistemology » or the word « épistémologie ». It's a bit superficial, but it is simple and it matches with the reality that wikipedians care a lot about the words themselves. The original idea that was discussed with others is that this article would be like a big disambiguation article for the different usages of épistémologie and epistemology. It seemed a natural manner to respect the current content of the article. Dominic Mayers (talk) 04:22, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
I looked through the archives of Talk:Epistemology, and, leaving aside some of the more nonsensical or naive comments, there is not very much controversy about what the content of the article should be. People often questioned how the article relates to other articles, but in general people do not seem to be very interested in different uses of the word "epistemology"; there is consensus that epistemology, or theory of knowledge, is a broad subfield of philosophy that studies knowledge.
I noticed that in Talk:Epistemology/Archive 5 § POV claim about the historiography of epistemology, on 26 August 2021, you said: I don't think it is sufficient to have an history section. I believe the overall organization of the article should give room to all views, even those in the past and I am sure that we will see that they are still discussed by contemporary philosophers – they are not really obsolete. This seems similar to what you said above. To this opinion, I would say the following:
It is possible to differentiate between philosophy and history of philosophy, and between epistemology and history of epistemology. The former is a more plain exposition of concepts and propositions and methods, while the latter is a history of those and of the people who created them. Some people prefer to do philosophy with a lot of history of philosophy included: this is a more historical style of philosophizing, which at the extreme becomes pure history of philosophy. The opposite is a more conceptual style, which at the extreme becomes formal philosophy, e.g. formal epistemology. Recently "integrated history and philosophy of science" (IHPS), which combines philosophy and history of philosophy and history of science, has become popular, but something like IHPS was always mainstream in French historical epistemology. IHPS overlaps with epistemology, but among English-speaking analytic philosophers there is a preference for a more conceptual style of doing epistemology that does not overlap with IHPS. Such people who like a more conceptual style of philosophy probably would be opposed to organizing the en:epistemology article in a historical style. For this reason, it is probably necessary to retain something like the current organization in the en:epistemology article with sections on history, concepts, schools, and domains of inquiry in epistemology. That allows editors with preferences for different styles of philosophy to see their preferred style represented. But all of this is just my guess; it could be discussed with other editors at Talk:Epistemology. Biogeographist (talk) 15:16, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that there are many ways to look at philosophy and epistemology. It's good to have an open mind and acknowledge these different perspectives as you do. A key point in my way of looking at this is that philosophy is sufficiently reflexive that these perspectives can be attributed to philosophers. In fact, as for any perspective in philosophy, the only way to clearly identify them is to name their authors. The point here is that these perspectives about philosophy and the way to do it, etc. are, in my view, only points of view just like any other points of view. When we organize a wikipedia article, we organize these points of view. We should not confuse a choice of global organization for an article with one philosophical perspective. It's nothing more than a way to organize points of view. It may happen that it will match to some degree with a philosophical perspective, but we don't care and its not a criterion. I already explained what I believe is a natural criterion and it applies to all points of view identified with their founding fathers. including perspectives on how to do philosophy. Perhaps, if you understand a bit the natural criterion that I discussed above, we should try to see if it is respected and how it is respected by en:epistemology. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:32, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
I basically agree with what you said. If you are motivated enough to do an initial evaluation of en:epistemology sometime using your natural criterion and to write a brief report at Talk:Epistemology, I will give feedback to the best of my ability. I am not motivated enough to initiate it myself, honestly! Biogeographist (talk) 16:58, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
My concern is that, if I combine my criterion with the principle of proper weight, my analysis might have consequences that you will not like. In my understanding of this other principle, a point of view might have a large weight in an article, if it is clear that it's the subject of the article (and this article still contains opposed views to avoid POV fork). Perhaps, the large weight given to JTB in comparison to other well known approaches was done under the influence of the philosophical perspective in which we don't care much about history. But, in my criterion, we don't care and we only look at the different POV. When we combine this with proper weight, the only explanation is that the subject of the article is JTB. By the way, the JTB analysis is often presented under the title « epistemology », as in SEP and IEP. This is great, because it is consistent with my opinion that nice articles that are concise and easy to follow often have a central point of view and other points of views that are related. What you might not like is that, in that case, no point of view should be added in the article unless it is connected to JTB as can be seen in some notorious source. The other option, but that is a big change, is that some point of view other than JTB becomes central, but then JTB must be reduced to a short mention: most sources centered around Descartes, Kant or any other philosophy does not even mention JTB. In that other direction, perhaps because JTB is more recent, there is almost no link. The bottom line is that we need a rational. A rational that requires a piecemeal implementation is fine. The rational could be that the subject is JTB under the title epistemology. This is fine. The subject could be centered around another well identified point of view. That would also be fine. It could be a rational as the one I propose. This is also fine. But, we need a rational and we must apply it in a consistent manner. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:56, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
I'm not worried that JTB would need to be the central point of view of the article. I know there are plenty of other points of view in English-language epistemology literature. It doesn't matter whether the other points of view are in SEP or IEP. They are in survey textbooks and general edited collections on epistemology, which as tertiary sources have just as much weight as encyclopedias.
The most general rationale is already in the Wikipedia guidelines: aim for NPOV. How close the article gets to the ideal of NPOV depends on who is editing the article and how much they know. For example, historical epistemology was not mentioned in en:epistemology presumably because, before I added it, no editor had come along with knowledge about historical epistemology and the motivation to add it. In my edit, I didn't cite a general tertiary source on epistemology, but I could have: there is a section on historical epistemology in The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, but I don't think that section is very good, so I didn't cite it. But I could have pointed to it if anyone had challenged my edit. The rationale for an edit is given either in the edit summary or on the talk page, either at the time of editing or when challenged by another editor. An explicit rationale is good etiquette but is not required unless challenged by another editor, a bit like burden of proof. Biogeographist (talk) 21:27, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
I did not meant that one should give a rational for every edit. I meant that when the scope is discussed in the talk page, some rational must be given. If you are telling me that there should be no need to discuss the scope in the talk page, then I am lost. This being said, you seem to say that you do not object that the rational is that JTB is the central point. Then it's great. This indeed explains the emphasis on JTB. Now that we have this rational, we can check that the article is consistent with it. My point is that we need a rational for the scope that is consistent with any emphasis in the article and once we agree on a rational, we must be consistent with it. I am not saying that the rational cannot evolve and that every slight modification of the rational needs to be discussed. It's not like that, because the rational needs to be applied in a piecemeal manner anyway. But sometimes we need to explicitly discuss the scope and then we must accept to discuss the rational. Dominic Mayers (talk) 21:44, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
That's fine, as long as "we have to" does not necessarily include me. (There is some ambiguity about who "we" refers to, since I am your interlocutor here.) "We" would include whomever is editing the article. I have the freedom to walk away and not care if I wish. Biogeographist (talk) 21:59, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
I decided to take some vacation. Good luck ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dominic Mayers (talk • contribs) 01:30, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
It's wise to take a wiki-vacation sometimes. I didn't mean that I am not interested in the rationale for en:epistemology, but it looks like a very big project, perhaps too time-consuming. I'm not sure I can commit to a big project. That is what happened with me at Falsificationism: we were going to write an article, but it became too much work for me. I had to walk away. In part this is because I am a perfectionist: I want to do something to high standards, or not do it at all. If it starts taking too much time, I have to stop because it cuts into my off-wiki life. Biogeographist (talk) 20:59, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Well, maybe it would not be a big deal, if we were only to discuss amongst us, but maybe it would be. I feel that you haven't tried a bit. You haven't even commented my statement that the basic rational (that could explain the current content) is the emphasis on JTB. The subject would be the usual analysis of knowledge with the JTB style, but with some historical context (Descartes, etc.) which makes it different from SEP and IEP, but still oriented toward JTB. Maybe you even disagree with the idea of fixing a rational of this kind, but then we are in a simple disagreement. Dominic Mayers (talk) 21:18, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't think the current article has an overall coherent rationale centered on JTB. It is dominated in parts by JTB, but JTB is absent in other parts. The sections are very disconnected. It is a patchwork of contributions by different editors.
A talented and motivated but very JTB-focused editor recently wrote Definitions of knowledge from scratch, and called JTB the "traditional" definition of knowledge. I changed all the instances of "traditional" in that article and argued why that word was wrong at Talk:Definitions of knowledge. I did something similar at Knowledge: if that article does not define knowledge as JTB in the very first sentence, it is partly because of my efforts. But I couldn't fight the amount of weight given to JTB in those articles because I didn't have the motivation to completely rewrite them, and because others can rightly say that what John Dewey called the "epistemology industry" is flooded in English with publications on JTB. A pretty strong argument can be made that JTB is the "standard" definition in the English-language "epistemology industry" of the past few decades, as much as I dislike it. Biogeographist (talk) 21:54, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I understand, but I have an approach to address that issue: instead of fighting the emphasis on JTB, just move backward toward JTB (without removing the idea of pertinent historical context, etc.), but then make it clear that it is JTB and just give the whole picture, the story straight, to the readers. If it's done right, it could very well be the best way to put JTB at its right place. OK, maybe you care about the title "Epistemology" and feels that it should not belong to JTB. This fight around the title, that is the fight that would consider not worth it. Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:10, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

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If I remember correctly, you said once somewhere that you don't like inline footnotes. Have you considered using list-defined references in your edits to Epistemology? Perhaps it could make the work a little more pleasant for you. For example, I used list-defined references in Idios kosmos (just a stub). Biogeographist (talk) 22:42, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

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This is my response to the IP that signs DM. I agree with your understanding of world 3. In particular, I agree that the laws in world 3 are not the actual laws of nature that control world 1. I consider Popper's world 3 as a very important notion that captures within it a notion of knowledge that has not the inconvenient of subjective knowledge, because it is intersubjective or objective due to a material requirement. Not all knowledge in World 3 is like that, but I am referring to falsifiable knowledge and its associated material requirement. In my view, this is the most important part of world 3 and I will argue now that it is close to the ancient Greek notion of unshakeable, stable, etc. notion of knowledge, especially as seen in the Stoic notion of katalepsis in opposition to doxa. Important : this is not a view that I argue to include in any article, unless some notable sources also presented it. Don't react too quickly : I know very well that Popper says that we only have tentative knowledge and that it is most likely false. I will argue that there is something fundamentally and permanently true in well corroborated falsifiable knowledge and that, therefore, this part of Popper's world 3 is not so far from Plato's world of Forms. The key point is that this falsifiable knowledge is required, by definition, to correspond to some technologies. This association with technologies is postulated. It is a part of an abstract model of falsifiable knowledge. It gets corroborated with experiments, but it is postulated independently of these experiments. This level of abstraction is important in my argument, because it is only at this abstract level that we can make a connection with Plato's world of Forms. The next stage in my argument is the connection between this abstract well corroborated falsifiable knowledge and the subjective knowledge that scientists can have about it. In my argument, scientists typically have a limited understanding of that abstract knowledge. For example, before Einstein, we wrongly considered that classical mechanics was also valid in high energy or high speed phenomena. Yet, we know that somehow there was something true about classical mechanics, which is still true today and will remain true for ever. That abstraction corresponds to an abstract (partially) unshakeable knowledge that we can consider, under some abstraction, as a kind of Platonic world that is very close to a part of Popper's world 3. It is not Plato's world of Forms, because it is not the complete laws of nature under the world 1 of particulars, which interestingly Plato viewed as unreal appearances in opposition to the world of Forms, which was the only thing real in his philosophy. It is not fully unshakeable, because its relation with the totality of knowledge changes. I propose that it corresponds to the katalepsis of the Stoics. The close connection discussed in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy between techne and katalepsis (and techne and episteme) and the associated material requirement for that abstract knowledge implemented through technologies corroborates this view. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:23, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

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