Hello philosophers

[Larry Sanger]

Wikipedia's philosophy articles are pretty poor, some biographies notwithstanding.  Where are you interested in starting?  Personally I'd like to give "philosophy" and "definition of philosophy" an overhaul, but of course that doesn't mean I'm calling "dibs."  This is a collaborative project.  So the really interesting question I suppose is: what should the article titled "philosophy" accomplish?  We need to be able to agree upon that if we're going to develop that article collaboratively.

[Ori Redler]

Wikipedia's philosophy articles are pretty poor, some biographies notwithstanding.  Where are you interested in starting?  Personally I'd like to give "philosophy" and "definition of philosophy" an overhaul, but of course that doesn't mean I'm calling "dibs."  This is a collaborative project.  So the really interesting question I suppose is: what should the article titled "philosophy" accomplish?  We need to be able to agree upon that if we're going to develop that article collaboratively.

Perhaps a good start would be to mark some sub-sections within philosophy that are more managable in terms of getting some results (e.g., logic, Aristotle, logic fallacies, biographies of ancient Greeks, 18-19 century Germans, etc.)...

[Beau]

A category or 'subject' that has always interested me is the very concept of reality.
The question in a very basic form is:  Was something always here?
                                              or:  Was something created from nothing?
               and the logical third part:  Is anything here now?

[Beau]

A basic concept and perspective point of contention of philosophy is that of 'Good' and
that of 'Evil'. These concepts of 'Judgement' usually flow from famlial, community and
religious models and are thought to have 'absolute' values, even if exceptions exist for
convience.

[Bei Dawei (Dawud)]

I'm interested in philosophy (enough to get a doctorate in it, anyway), but for this you want the equivalent of about a hundred philosophers working on this. Let's say fifty articles covering famous names like Plato; and then a bunch of topical entries like ethics, metaphysics, etc.; and then summaries of basic texts like "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"...

Even for a subject in my direct field, the amount of time this would take is extremely daunting. The bibliographies alone would take days to type in.

[Larry Sanger]

Not to worry; we'll have many more philosophers in time.  We haven't started recruiting yet.  I could easily send mail to PHILOSOP and PHILOS-L, but I'll wait until January, to achieve maximum impact.

--Larry

[zavious]

Foucault talks about philosophies and proffessions becoming increasingly compartmentalized or 'niche'. One question about this or any topic is how specific or general you would like it to become. I agree that Wikedpedia has allot of crap regarding philosophy. However for the lay person it is a good place to start.

 I spent years trying to track down some obscure very specific writings on a particular form of yoga. I was elated when I finally found it last night.

[Duncan Spence]

Hello ...

I would like to offer my "expertise" in this department.

The "what is philosophy?" question is surely an historical one. What philosophy is is rather dependent on where it is situated.

(A project such as this one should in my opinion recognise this - lest it become in a certain sense ideological. In any case, the philosphical answers that have been offered to the "what is philosophy?" question would be implicit in the collection of articles about "philosophy" just as an idea of what history is would be implicit in a collection of articles about history.)

Nevertheless, there remain certain universal themes and issues. It is surely these that are of interest. Articles thus on any philosophical matter would surely be welcome, as would articles on philosophers and philosophical movements.

.

[Duncan Spence]

Another thing ... it would probably do the image of philosphy no harm if the articles presented at Citizendium were concise, sparsely worded and immediate.

Admittedly, complex matters often require substantial expositions, but even the most complex of issues can if necessary be expressed adequately without verbosity in a few paragraphs. Or at the very least, this should be the challenge to contributors.

Of course, more biographical pieces should be as long as necessary ...

[Larry Sanger]

Duncan,

For what it's worth (you should know that in saying this sort of thing, I am not writing in my capacity as editor-in-chief or even as a philosophy editor, but just as a philosophy author), I agree with what you say about making an explanation of what philosophy is at least in large part a historical explanation.  It can't be entirely historical simply because no one will be able to get a clear idea without some ahistorical generalizations.

As to conciseness, I would distinguish between clarity and concision, on the one hand, and sheer quantity of information, on the other.  These are two distinct dimensions.  There are some admirably clear and concise philosophy books.  Ultimately, there is no reason for us to aim at articles of the length of a desktop encyclopedia; after all, frequently people want more information.  As with so many Web 2.0 projects, CZ (and its users) will benefit from its "long tail."

[Russell Johnston]

It's worth noting that one reason, and perhaps the primary reason, why Wikipedia's philosophy articles are less than stellar is that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (operated on more Cit-like principles) is so very good, and so frequently updated, that it would be very difficult to surpass them, and truly add something to what's available on the internet. (I'm not familiar enough with the alternative, at http://www.iep.utm.edu/, which Google prefers to comment on its quality.)

Philosophy may not be the most obvious area to try to take over in Cit's early stages, since it's one of the few areas where there is no vacuum to fill.

[Larry Sanger]

We'll certainly have to work hard to do any better.  The question really is whether collaboratively written articles are potentially better (particularly when the collaborators are experts) than excellent articles written by well-qualified individuals.

We'll know in a few years, perhaps.  My hopes are, frankly, not particularly high, but there are some reasons to be optimistic, I think it's worth a shot.

[Mark Thakkar]

One way of avoiding CZ's apparent redundancy in the face of the Stanford Encylopedia might be to focus initially on areas which the SEP hasn't yet covered (for instance, anything listed without a linked article at http://plato.stanford.edu/projected-contents.html).  That way we would be using the mobility of a wiki to complement an existing resource – starting with the "long tail", if you like.

Mark.

PS.  Apologies for posting as a non-citizen; I emailed to apply for citizenship a couple of days ago, but haven't yet had a reply.

[Jason "Electrawn" Potkanski]

SEP seems to be a subset of what CZ is trying to do. Dr. Sanger and Edward Zalta should probably exchange some friendly emails.

-jtp

[Larry Sanger]

One way of avoiding CZ's apparent redundancy in the face of the Stanford Encylopedia might be to focus initially on areas which the SEP hasn't yet covered (for instance, anything listed without a linked article at http://plato.stanford.edu/projected-contents.html).  That way we would be using the mobility of a wiki to complement an existing resource – starting with the "long tail", if you like.

Mark.

PS.  Apologies for posting as a non-citizen; I emailed to apply for citizenship a couple of days ago, but haven't yet had a reply.

Little fear of redundancy, since SEP is aimed at professional philosophers, whereas CZ philosophy articles will, for the most part, be comprehensible to educated non-philosophers.

SEP seems to be a subset of what CZ is trying to do. Dr. Sanger and Edward Zalta should probably exchange some friendly emails.

-jtp

I talked to Zalta last year--we had a little mutual admiration society going--but I'm not sure exactly how we can help each other.