Talk:Pseudophilosophy

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[edit] Chomsky 2093 edit

New edits should be put at the bottom of the page, because that is where people look for them. People do not, in general, reread the top of the page[dubious – discuss].

Richard Dwarkins is a prominent thinker and published author. Rick Norwood 12:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing this page.

I took the liberty to refactor the section in the interest of the discussion. All the posts pertaining to the resolved issue are in this section, the actual discussion is below. |dorftrottel |talk 16:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Leave this alone!!!! If you can show me a Wikipedia rule that states that new comments go at the bottom then fine. Otherwise cut it out.

If you are convinced that comments at the top are read last then leave this alone. And if you are so concerned with order then move it rather than deleting it. It is only a comment.

There is no rule about this, only a guideline. The guideline does not encourage editors to delete comments that to not comply with a guideline!

Note to Gkochanowsky

I made the same mistake you made when I first came to Wikipedia. I assumed that something posted at the top of the Talk page would get read first. In fact, no experienced Wikipedian reads a Talk page from the top down[citation needed], they start at the bottom, where they expect new posts to be. If you want your post to be read, post it where people will read it. Rick Norwood (talk) 18:47, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

-- Be that as it may. If the person screwing with my comments wants their comments to be left alone they should extend the courtesy to others. And if they think it so important that new comments be placed at the bottom then they should move them there rather then deleting them altogether. The actions of that person are rude and inappropriate. Gkochanowsky (talk) 22:06, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

What I think is rude and inappropriate is moving your comment from the bottom to the top of the page. It is also in violation of the talk page guidelines. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Layout. Consequently I will once again remove your comment. If you want to put it back, put it at the bottom. Misodoctakleidist (talk) 00:53, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

If you think it belongs at the bottom then put it there. Deleting is very rude, moving is much less so. Gkochanowsky (talk) 14:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

The page was becoming very big, so I archived the majority of old and very old threads. Incidentally, this means that until the next time the page is archived, your thread will at least very close to the top. I hope this resolves the issue, so that fruitful debate can continue. |dorftrottel |talk 14:09, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Does the term Psuedophilosophy beg a demarcation problem?

The term psuedophilosophy begs the question, 'How can you tell legitimate philosophy from illegitimate philosophy?' And if you can't tell the difference does it matter if you can't? Should you care about any philosophical pronouncement?

If someone presents a philosophy for ulterior motives why would this automatically turn it into pseudophilosophy? Wouldn’t the actual philosophy have to succeed or fail on its own merits independent of the motivations of the philosopher? How exactly do philosophers separate philosophy from psuedophilosophy? Is there a "philosophical method?" If so then what is it? Do recogonized philosophers agree on a "philosophical method"? If not then what does this say about philosophy? And why should anyone care about philosophy or pseudophilosophy? Gkochanowsky 14:05, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

How do you tell real whipped cream from coolwhip? People with good taste can tell the difference. Similarly, people with good sense can tell philosophy from pseudophilosophy.
So you are saying that philosophy like coolwhip is just a matter of taste? Some people prefer coolwhip over whipped cream. Gkochanowsky (talk) 16:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
In part, it is the existence of a canon. Because it is impossible to read what everybody wants to write and call philosophy, people turn to textbooks or encyclopedias to find out which philosophers have made the cut. Most people don't make the cut. It isn't fair, but nobody has come up with a workable alternative.
Cannonical bodies of knowledge should be automatically suspect. It presumes some sort of corner on "TRUTH". As if there is nothing more of importance to be learned or discovered. Like fuzzy logic. (Philosophy was blindsided by that one.) Gkochanowsky (talk) 16:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
In part, it is showing a knowledge of what other people have written down through the ages. Most pseudophilosophers put forth ideas that they think are new when in fact they are old, ideas which they think are profound when in fact they are trivial.
So rediscovering previous philosophy is pseudophilosophy? If that were the case then most of the philosophers that ever existed would be pseudophilosophers. Gkochanowsky (talk) 16:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
In part, it is writing well. Most pseudophilosophy is drivel.
I fail to see how writing has anything to do with it other than how well the point gets across. Perhaps good writing is essential to argue a point but so what? There are libraries full of well presented arguments for points that people would now recognize were just flat out wrong. Gkochanowsky (talk) 16:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Motive does not usually play a part. In fact, for all the glib talk about motive, it takes a person years of psychotherapy just to understand his own motives. Other people's motives are almost always a mystery.
I only bring up motive because IIRC somewhere in the article motive was claimed to be a consideration for the classification of purported philosophy into the pseudophilosophy category. Gkochanowsky (talk) 16:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Why do people care about philosophy? Why do people pick scabs? The fact is that many people do care deeply.
I understand that, but why should people care about philosophy? Does it build strong bodies eight ways? Better than say mathematics, art or plumbing? Gkochanowsky (talk) 16:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Rick Norwood (talk) 16:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I also bring up a philosophical demarcation problem because philosophy appears to think that it is important for science. If they think that then why hasn't philosophy applied the same standards to itself? And what better place to bring it up than in an article that purports to be about pseudophilosophy. Gkochanowsky (talk) 16:57, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

It would be original research for Wikipedia to define philosophy. What we need is some sort of criteria we can use to differentiate philosophy from pseudo-philosophy for the purposes of this article. I think a good test would be whether it is stocked in the philosophy section of university libraries. If something claims to be philosophy, but is not usually stocked in the philosophy section, then we could assume that it is pseudo-philosophy. Misodoctakleidist (talk) 03:27, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Misodoctakleidist's suggestion is the correct one, of course, and the only one possible for Wikipedia, because it is the only way to avoid original research. Gkochanowsky complains that canons are unfair. I noted that fact in my original comment. Just as democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others, a canon is the worst way to decide what constitutes philosophy except for all the others. There are many books. Nobody can read them all. If we read at random, we read mostly worthless trash. If we read best sellers, we read mostly worthless trash. And so we tend to read the books that, for whatever reason, people kept on reading and talking about one year, ten years, two thousand years after they were written. Plato made the canon simply because philosophers still read Plato. Why philosophers, who these days are mostly academics, though there are exceptions? Because people still read Mein Kampf, but philosophers have rejected it from the canon. Unfair? Of course. But instead of just complaining about the canon, suggest an alternative. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:39, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Gkochanowsky, I have to agree with Rick Norwood and Misodoctakleidist. Please remember that this article talk page is not for general discussion of the subject, but only for discussing improvements to the article. Secondly, it seems you are trying to argue against having an article on the concept. But, necessary improvements to the article notwithstanding, according to Wikipedia's notability criteria the concept warrants inclusion because it has been discussed extensively in reliable secondary sources.
Here's the result of only a bit of superficial googling:
Whether or not philosophy can be seperated from pseudophilosophy is completely irrelevant for us. We are an encyclopedia project, not a publisher of original thought. Pseudophilosophy as a concept is notable and warrants inclusion. Beyond that, there's only the question of how best to improve the article. |dorftrottel |talk 13:50, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
You are quite right that wikipedia is not a place for original research. Be that as it may, any attempts by philosophers of the philosophical "cannon", such as it is, to demark philosophy from psuedophilosophy would be legitimate sources for the wikipedia article. Then perhaps some of the more notable non-canonical attempts. Not that I know all that much about philosophy, but from what little I know, demarking just about everything else has been more important to the canonical philosophers than demarking philosophy itself. As such this article may not be able to avoid some original research. Gkochanowsky (talk) 16:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
If reliable sources exist for such a "demarcation" between philosophy and pseudophilosophy, by all means, go ahead and include them. But if not, please keep in mind that we must only include what has already been published (in reliable sources, not e.g. blogs). If something hasn't been published, we simply cannot include it, i.e. if no one has written about any specific aspect of that dividing line, we cannot include it. Our articles are simply summaries of what has been published about a subject in reliable sources. They are organised into plausible aspects (i.e. means sections) and should give due weight to all relevant aspects. Fringe opinions e.g. are of decidedly lower importance. |dorftrottel |talk 16:52, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
As such most of the current article would not qualify. All I see are examples of claims of pseudophilosophy of one philosopher of another and what is most interesting is that the dispute as far as I can tell are between philosophers that are not considered to be pseudo philosophers. Shouldn’t the cites be of classifications of pseudophilosophy that are considered by at least the majority of canonical philosophers to be illegitimate? As such at best this article illustrates the use of the term pseudophilosophy as an act of name calling among philosophers and not a term to be taken seriously. And as such makes one wonder if the term philosophy should be taken seriously either.

If this were a discussion of science and pseudoscience there would be a wealth of well known examples of pseudoscience that are widely considered by legitimate scientists as pseudoscience and would not be obvious cases of mud throwing.

Perhaps the opening paragraph of the article should make plain that the term pseudophilosophy as used by philosophers is mostly an act of name calling. Gkochanowsky (talk) 18:24, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed the article suffers from a great deal of borderline OR and missing references. One way to go about it would be to "stubbify" it, i.e. to throw out all doubtful material, so that it can be properly rewritten from there. |dorftrottel |talk 19:03, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal Cod philosophy

  • Seems to me make sense to merge the short 'cod philosophy' article in here - may mot be exactly the same topic, but 'pseudophilosophy' seems to include 'cod philosophy'. Anarchia (talk) 04:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  • agree Cod philosophy seems to be a neologism that is catching on. It is too useful to delete, but not common enough for its own article. Sadly, if there is a merger, then the fictional reference will have to go. On the other hand, after the merger, the discussion of cod philosophy should be expanded. In particular, who coined the word? Also, after the merger it should be mentioned that some cod philosophy is pseudophilosophy, some not. Also, a distinction needs to be made between real cod philosophy (hobo philosophy such as in "Don't take life so seriously, it ain't nohow permanent.") and non-philosophical folk wisdom on the one hand ("A stich in time saves nine.") and urban legend on the other (moon landings are a hoax). Rick Norwood (talk) 17:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I've merged it into the lead - if anyone wants to expand the mention of cod philosophy in this article, feel free to do so. Terraxos (talk) 16:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mysticism

I had added this under "Accusations of pseudophilosophy in academia":

"Excursions into mysticism are generally frowned upon by academic philosophers. A notable example is the nonacceptance by academics of Robert M. Pirsig's Metaphysics of quality, an experience described in his two books Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila: An inquiry into morals. The mystical explanation, the academic philosopher laments, invariably is to accept at the same time p as true and not-p also as true. Interestingly, the later philosophy of both Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger, each the most prominent figure in his philosophical tradition, was criticized for devolving into mysticism."

It was tagged, and subsequently deleted. I do not believe the question of whether or not appeals to mysticism are considered pseudophilosophy is a controversial one. I thought the entry on the matter was a neutral one.

I would be fascinated to know exactly what pov it is supposed that I portrayed. I think it is right and good that academic philosophers frown on mysticism for the sake of a rigorous standard. At the same time I think one may find mysticism convenient for one's own personal understanding of things (...path, religion, etc). I also think that the story by Pirsig is probably the most popularly known example of an "Accusation of pseudophilosophy in academia."

I don't know what I think about the criticisms of Wittgenstein and Heidegger. I would like to know more about it (perhaps from a future contributor). So if it's pov, then it's purely unintentional.

I think the topic of mysticism as pseudophilosophy deserves some mention. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 04:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC)