Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of publications in philosophy

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Withdrawn by nominator. Discussions regarding inclusion criteria are proceeding on the article talk page. Non-admin closure per WP:DPR. Serpent's Choice 06:33, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of publications in philosophy

This AFD nomination is the culminated result of a dispute over the inclusion and exclusion of certain works based on inherently subjective criteria. At this point, I have wiped the entire article due to it being source free (anyone may do this according to WP:CITE). There will never be sources available to verify that a particular philosophical work is "important," a "breakthrough" or the "latest and greatest." I'm afraid there is nothing to do here except put this dog to sleep. Simões (^talk/_contribs) 07:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm withdrawing the nomination. This may be workable if we go by notability as opposed to the current, unverifiable criteria. Simões (^talk/_contribs) 04:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I am going to revert to the article with content so people can see what it did contain. Many of the entries have their own article, so they can be judged to be notable and important. Also AfD is not an answer to a content dispute. --Bduke 08:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I prod -ed this over the holidays but people disputed it. I agree, there will never be any accurate standard for this list and like a few other philosophy lists, it ends up being filled with non-philosophy every 3-6 months and starts a revert war which usually the philosophers give up on in a few weeks, thus this list had a category of disputed materials... so a list, including things that should not be on the list. it should be deleted. it is also generally uncited, those materials that are cited do not have reliable, unbiased sources. The majority does not need cited if you stay in the history of western and eastern philosophies, but it is never those additions that become edit wars. --Buridan 13:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Delete, on the one hand this is useful information, on the other it is neither complete nor does it have all notable works, which could only be a very long list that nobody bothers to read. Additionally we have the problems pointed out by Buridan which does not make it easier to be in favor of this list. I suggest someone start a philosophy wiki for this type of information. Alf photoman 14:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Merge any content you can to relevant articles then delete Madmedea 14:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is a useful list and it should be kept. I don't believe that the "importance" of a philosophical work is unverifiable, there are many renowned texts that have attempted to compile a list of the most important philosophical works. Take for example, the Great Books series. The solution here is not to throw out the whole list, but to define a strict inclusion criteria that limits the list to important works and offers a way to verify them (e.g. identified as an important work of philosophy by multiple, notable philosophers and taught at multiple colleges and universities is a quick and unrefined example). GabrielF 16:18, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
keep The nomination apparently ignored the warning on the deletion template that "the article must not be blanked, and this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed" Further, the nominator misunderstood WP:CITE, which reads "If it is doubtful but not harmful to the whole article, use the ^{[citation needed]} tag to ask for source verification, but remember to go back and remove the claim if no source is produced within a reasonable time; If it is doubtful and harmful, you should remove it from the article; you may want to move it to the talk page and ask for a source, unless you regard it is as very harmful or absurd, in which case it shouldn't be posted to a talk page either. Use your common sense." There is no provision for blanking a page that one thinks unsourced. To blank at all in face of a contentious issue seems inappropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs)

As for philosophy, to remove content & then propose for debate does not show an objective attitude. The nominator stated on the edit summary for the article, "I don't expect sources to ever be possible for any of this, but it will be interesting to see if anyone comes up with something" ; To remove the list and then challenge for sources to it, does not seem very logical. I have no involvement in the page, but this does not seem a very philosophical way of dealing with problems. The List of important publications in biology shows how selection can be done in an objective manner. DGG 19:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Wikipedia ought not to be a bibliography, and it is not a directory. Stuff like this is what library catalogues are for. Agent 86 19:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions. -- SkierRMH 20:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I only commented above. I now support keeping as GabrielF but the inclusion criteria need to be agreed. Since many of the entries do have their own article, I suggest that be one criteria for being on the list. The second should be an argument on the talk page for sufficient notability that an article could be created or a cite from a clearly highly reputable source that states the entry is a significant publication. Comment on DGG's point above. The nominator did not blank the page. He just removed all the entries, leaving the intro paragraph and the external links etc at the end. --Bduke 21:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Philosophical books with their own Wikipedia articles need only have sufficient sales to meet notability criteria. This has absolutely nothing to do with the importance as a work of philosophy. The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer would be eligible under such a criterion. This problem may be addressable by "a clearly highly reputable source" vouching for it, but there is nothing that establishes what "a clearly highly reputable source" is. That is, of course, unless you just mean anyone who is relevantly credentialed (i.e., has a Ph.D. in Philosophy), which makes it no restriction at all (The Simpsons and Philosophy meets this standard). Simões (^talk/_contribs) 22:09, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - I agree with your first point, the presence of a wikipedia article is not in itself enough to justify inclusion in this list. As to your second point, the trick is to find a good inclusion criteria. We can set the bar very high by only including works that have been identified by multiple, notable sources as important to a particular branch of academic philosophy. We might even say that if there's any serious doubt about a particular publication's notability, don't include it. The point is that we can devise an inclusion criteria that will keep out the dreck. This page isn't the place to hammer out what that inclusion criteria should be, but if we agree that such a criteria is possible than we should keep the article. GabrielF 23:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - If that were possible, I doubt this would be proposed for deletion. However, what has come to passis that there are minoritarian groups in philosophy who can dig up enough citations from minor works to claim the work is major or influential. Since there is no such thing as a negative citation, people cannot make the inverse argument, so we have cited verifiable sources of what amounts to highly dubious works. Then...we go look up the authors of these sources and it is usually a very small network of people, or the citation does not represent the claim, or related issues. Believe me, if the problems of philosophical inclusion were solvable, they would be solved, however on wikipedia a vocal minority can outweigh anyone, so unimportant works will always end up on lists of important works. This usually causes an edit war.--Buridan 14:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, this would be far better handled by a category. Pointless listcruft aside, what is "philosophy" is also often a judgment call, or original research. Seraphimblade 19:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, Buridan and Simoes make claims that these lists will be populated with the Simpsons or Snoopy, but what was improperly wiped included publications by Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Lock, et. al.

Lists are handy for users to see groupings, to inform their searchs, to link to articles. That is why they are here. It is one of the valuable advantages to an electronic encyclopedia.
The need for total perfection, or of absolute correctness of an extreme exclusionary approach doesn't serve well for lists or categories. It is in the articles themselves that we should be rigorous and critical. To go overboard on deleting entries from lists or categories is just an unnecessary kind of censorship.
Notability is a sufficient standard. Words like 'important' or 'major' should be avoided in criteria or titles.
Sources aren't needed where there is good will and there no objections to an entry. Where there is a request for a source, then it can be supplied or the entry dropped.
There are always people who think any list is too long. If it begins to grow to too large, break it into sub-sections.

Common sense says to ignore wild calls to get rid of every page whose every entry can't be sourced beyond the objections of every editor - especially in contentious fields like politics and philosophy. Common sense says not to kill a whole page because someone might put Snoopy or the Simpsons on it. Same thing for worries that a page might grow too large. If we don't exercise common sense we will be walking Wikipedia backwards, loosing one page after another. Steve 00:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. It would be easy to use verifiable criteria to decide who counts as a philosopher (covered in reliable philosophy survey texts as a philosopher, published a paper in a philosophy journal, etc. ) and what makes a book by a philosopher notable. Certainly these criteria should be narrow in scope and only include notable publications by philosophers. But with such criteria I think this would meet all the WP guidelines for lists, and so it would probably just get recreated in this form it were deleted. One caveat: the "mostly read by analytic/continental" part seems unverifiable (even in principle) to me; I think it should be removed. CMummert · talk 00:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC))[reply]
- There is no WP standard for what makes a philosophical publication notable. Simões (^talk/_contribs) 00:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - There are criteria for what makes a book notable in general; the list could contain notable book by philosophers, with a verifiable definition of philosopher. CMummert · talk 01:01, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Wikipedia:Notability (books) is only a proposed guideline. And even if we go by it, philosophical books can be notable without being important to scholarly philosophy. The above-cited example of The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer is both notable as a well-selling book and is the work of multiple people who are indisputably philosophers (they hold academic appointments in university philosophy departments). Simões (^talk/_contribs) 01:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - But there is still WP:NOTABLE, which says "a topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, reliable published works, whose sources are independent of the subject itself." That standard would be fine. If the book about the Simpsons actually is a notable philosophy book by notable philosophers, then its inclusion on a list of such books is no cause for alarm. CMummert · talk 01:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        It is some cause for alarm, say... if the same principle is broadened, because the real issue ismore that there is no way of adequately distinguishing philosophy from non-philosophy and ideology. --11:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Delete. The nominator may not longer stand by his nomination, but it makes, to me, excellent sense -- this is potentially endless list that might far more usefully be a category. Robertissimo 15:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

People say it will get endless, but it rarely is a problems. Categories aren't nearly as useful. Why throw away something that many users find very useful? Steve 16:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Delete. This list will always be a major source of edit wars, and is unlikely to become sufficiently long/detailed to be reliably informative. I know of no references that could give this list acceptable (i.e., non-arbitrary) citations, (though the London Philosophy Study Guide is a good attempt). The list probably is no more useful at informing one of the important philosophical publications than the lists of philosophers is, and at least those lists can and do have thorough references. KSchutte 19:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I think a version of this list might be acceptable if it were significantly reformatted. One could, say, just copy content from the list of philosophers over here and then give the philosophical works of each figure side by side with the figure's name. I'm not sure if anyone is willing to put in the amount of work that would require. KSchutte 19:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Here is the problem with getting rid of the list: Where else will users (which includes people new to philosophy) find a list of publications in philosophy by topic? A list of philosophers with their publications tagged on like baggage wouldn't work that way unless you relist each philosopher in each topic section they wrote for but just with the books appropriate to that section - not likely to happen. And one can always see a bibliography by philosopher by just going from a philosopher list to their article. I think the approach to reducing edit wars is not found by getting rid of all philosophy lists. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SteveWolfer (talk • contribs) 21:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

One can get this information from sources that aren't prone to edit warring and vandalism. Hell, if this page were just a set of links to such uneditable sources, it would probably be useful. KSchutte 00:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.