Talk:Pluralist school

not sure

the artical says that "It can also be said to have included the Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus." I'm no expert but I belive that since they held the belief that there was one form of matter rather then many they would certanly not be part of this school. —jfry3 (talk) 02:33, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

added source. is it not fair to remove the lack of citation templates then ? (Blake Peter (talk) 12:51, 14 June 2018 (UTC))

Deletion Proposal

It's true that this term is seldom used and represents what could be called a rare classification, but it does seem to be used enough to warrant a listing. Teishin (talk) 16:52, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

@Teishin: - do you have a reliable source to back up those claims? I see plenty of references to "pluralism" as a label that modern philosophers have applied to their understanding of the philosophers who were opposed to the Eleatics (e.g. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Philosophy) but I don't see any evidence that there was ever a "Pluralist school" as such in the ancient world. - car chasm (talk) 17:14, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Carchasm, Phil Bridger had already reverted your deletion and provided a source as a rationale for doing so. I subsequently raised the discussion above, as when there's reverting going on usually a discussion is needed. It should be noted that in this context "school" has multiple meanings. It's often used to represent a categorization created by later scholars for a phenomenon that would not have been recognized as such at the time. Teishin (talk) 12:08, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

When I do a search on this subject I get plenty of hits https://eds.s.ebscohost.com/eds/results?vid=1&sid=b10ee180-a219-4b85-a7f3-01a82b412e05%40redis&bquery=presocratic+Pluralist+school&bdata=JmNsaTA9RlQmY2x2MD1ZJnR5cGU9MCZzZWFyY2hNb2RlPUFuZCZzaXRlPWVkcy1saXZlJnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d The claim that there's no "evidence that there was ever a "Pluralist school" as such in the ancient world" would not seem to be true. That the article needs improvement does seem to be the case; that the article warrants deletion because it is about a non-existent subject seems to be mistaken. Teishin (talk) 14:48, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Teishin: I don't have access to EbscoHost - do you have a doi or two that supports that claim? I know that there are early modern scholars who tried to fit everything into "schools" and there are modern "pluralist schools" but that doesn't mean they existed in the ancient world. I'm planning on taking this to AfD, but I won't if you have reliable, recent sources that there really was a Pluralist school that ancient people were aware of, and that modern scholars agree wasn't an invention of the later commentators who wanted to fit everything into successions of philosophers. I see nothing in the sources I have on presocratic philosophy except an argument in the Oxford Handbook that says it didn't exist and that attempts to classify philosophers into schools was incorrect. - car chasm (talk) 17:29, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Carchasm, Editors with sufficiently sizable amounts of editing history have access to the Wikipedia Library https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/users/my_library/ . You seem to me to be wanting to engage in original research by questioning whether this school "existed in the ancient world." That's not our job. This is a term used in the literature about schools that existed in the ancient world. The argument you cite from the Oxford Handbook would seem to be a good addition to this article; however, that argument would not seem to be support for your proposed deletion of this article. If anything, it's support for keeping it. Teishin (talk) 17:59, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Teishin: - have a look at the difference between original research and research on WP:NOR some time. It looks like you might have an incorrect idea on what "original research" is. Research, that is, using multiple independent reliable sources, is a core part of writing wikipedia articles. - car chasm (talk) 18:10, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm familiar with that page and see nothing there that contradicts what I said. Why don't you address the point I brought up? Wouldn't that be more productive than telling me to look at WP:NOR and telling me that I have "an incorrect idea of what 'original research' is. Research, that is, using multiple independent reliable sources, is a core part of writing wikipedia articles."? Teishin (talk) 19:32, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

That sounds very much like an argument for not having an article on Pre-Socratic philosophy. Such philosophers were obviously unaware (unless they had very reliable crystal balls) that they were Pre-Socratic. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:47, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

This is largely correct also - "early Greek philosophy" is slowly becoming a more "correct" term than "pre-socratic", though I suspect "Pre-socratic" will be the WP:COMMONNAME for a while to come. But modern scholarship is generally far more skeptical of the existence of a specific "pluralist school" per se, as compared to a more coherent group such as the atomists or pythagoreans. - car chasm (talk) 03:37, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Factual accuracy

I've tagged this page for factual accuracy - the "pluralist school" does not exist as far as I can tell, which is why I redirected this page to Pre-socratic philosophy. The sources cited in this new creation of the page do not support any of the claims made for the existence of a pluralist school, so i believe it should either be sourced appropriately or redirected. - car chasm (talk) 03:18, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

the anaxagoras SEP article also doesn't mention pluralism, which is remarkable, but probably reflective of the extreme lack of acceptance of the "pluralist school" among modern academics - car chasm (talk) 03:21, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Neither Guthrie nor Kirk and Raven mention a pluralist school either. - car chasm (talk) 03:59, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

(I've since re-redirected the page due to a lack of independent sourcing establishing notability) - car chasm (talk) 03:59, 20 August 2023 (UTC)