Talk:Wikiphilosophers

Temporary layout

As the main page looks now, it is only a start. My plan, should more people participate in the project and should more pages be created, is to organize the main page by, say, philosophical fields (as to metaphysics and ethics) under which the topics will then be included. I am also thinking of some sort of weekly or monthly topic that appears on the main page for inspiration to think about and write about.

If more people would like to think about the layout of the main page and subpages, feel free to join the discussion! Kind regards, S. Perquin (discuss • contribs) 20:36, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Doubts and issues

The project is new so one shouldn't expect too much. There's several issues however:

• It seems to be only about topics and structured by topic. But there's many other ways to structure it that one may expect, like overall philosophies (e.g. ethical philosophies) that for instance relate to or can be applied to many topics.
• It doesn't integrate with philosophy articles on Wikipedia.
• I'm not sure what the value of having essay type articles linked next to topics with the username would be. People don't read it and there's not really much dynamicism or structure. For example, a username is not really informative about whether it would be interesting to read.
• This would become more problematic if there are many articles for a topic, would one go through these one by one?
• Even if one does so, what then – express support or debate it on the respective talk page? It doesn't make much sense as is.
• There's not really a way to interact, e.g. oppose or scrutinize other people's articles. It's just the ordinary rhetorics that is hardly put under scrutiny and wins by e.g. sounding right or seeming good at first glance for example.
• One way to interact would be using the templates of Wikidebate and maybe integrating with that. But I find them far inferior to Kialo which has more features, a better UI and is structured.
• People can just make up things and claim things without any explanation and/or supporting data/sources, this is also the case on Wikidebate, for example see When we die we go to heaven, so our consciousness persists there at Will we lose our consciousness after we die?. This is not an argument, certainly not a logical/coherent one – it doesn't even include a scrutinizable explanation without data for why that would or just could be the case.
• It does not really have the collective intelligence features that Wikipedia and other wiki sites have, and as structured debates have. It's really exciting to use, a useful resource, or widely read. One idea would be to add a feedback section below each where people can put the things under scrutiny and then articles on the topics pages have sortable metadata on how supported, how flawed, and similar things other users find them. That's also problematic in several ways. Another idea is that these pages can be used for texts for users' conclusions from structured debates since these only support rating and adding or moving arguments rather than detailed conclusions that consider the complexities and summarize things. Maybe I'll try something like that and such could then be linked from the respective structured debate (maybe also for longer-form versions of brief arguments included there).
• Lastly, I find the examples currently there to be more or less pseudoscience that e.g. gives undue weight to not-very-reasonable or in philosophy minor subjects like "Past lives" and makes absurd unbacked/unexplained claims like it makes sense that one has had earlier lives and will have later lives or Assuming there is a heaven this probably rather repels serious philosophical contributions, discourages this to become a site of philosophical thought (rather than mystical / religious ones), and I don't know how one would currently best criticize / scrutinize these.

I'm not saying the project is fundamentally flawed and doesn't have potential – maybe these things can be addressed and sufficiently solved. Prototyperspective (discuss • contribs) 12:43, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailed response! I appreciate that you take the time to thoroughly address the doubts and issues regarding this project! I will address each point in your list individually.

• The purpose of the project is for people to express their own philosophy and thought process on their own page, related to the subject it covers. This does not necessarily need to be supported with sources, as it is essentially original research (which is allowed on Wikiversity). The intention is not to explain or list existing philosophical movements, as Wikiphilosophers is meant for new philosophies by new thinkers. Almost all philosophical ideas have undoubtedly been explored by others at some point, but that does not matter. The main goal is for people to summarize their own ideas based on their own research (for example, through experiences, what they have read, their analyses, what seems logical to them, what feels logical to them, etc.), preferably briefly, so others don't have to read lengthy texts.
• Indeed, it does not integrate with philosophy articles on Wikipedia. This is because Wikiphilosophers is intended for new ideas that don't necessarily need to be on Wikipedia. Therefore, specific philosophical movements or philosophers do not need to be covered on pages on Wikiphilosophers.
• You have a point there. I don't know how it could be better organized. An article by a user is really a personal essay that no one should edit (except that others can respond to the personal article via the discussion page). Perhaps a very brief summary of what their idea entails could be provided next to each username on the subject page itself.
• I'm sure we can come up with a solution for that if the project reaches a point where many people are involved.
• On the discussion page, the idea is to ask questions (preferably using the Socratic method) that can make the writer of the personal page reflect on his or her ideas. This way, ideas can be further developed, and the writers might even be convinced to radically change their viewpoints. In this way, you engage in a dialogue and help someone better understand and improve their ideas.
• Critiquing articles can be done by asking questions, I believe. If you ask good questions, you can "corner" your opponent, so to speak. It's not a matter of winning or losing - it's about exploring other people's ideas with an open mind and genuinely wanting to understand these viewpoints. I believe that no one can truly know anything. People who think they know things are sophists rather than philosophers. What is knowledge? What makes an argument good or bad? Science? But scientism is also just a philosophical idea.
• We can indeed create a template for Wikiphilosophers. Good idea! We just need to think about how we should design that template.
• What is logic? That which is logical to you may not make sense to another and vise versa. And why would you need sources? Philosophy is essentially about open-minded thinking about how things might work, I think. You could indeed mention scientific research to support some of your ideas, but I don't think it's necessarily required. On Wikidebate, I did come across a rather unusual argument - It is the best religion in the world. at Which is the best religion to follow?. Such an argument is actually nonsensical to me.
• A feedback section or using pages just for conclusions are good ideas. I had something like that in mind as well, but I'm not sure how best to implement it.
• Personally, I find it very logical that we have had past lives and that there will be future lives. If you have any questions about this view, you can always ask them on the discussion page. Please keep it to one or two short questions at a time so that I can think them over and provide a well-considered answer! This also gets me thinking! But I think that metaphysics is also an important part of philosophy, and that has a lot to do with esotericism and spirituality. By the way, I don't believe in a heaven as described in Christianity or other religions. I have my own ideas about an afterlife.

I hope that I can think through these things together with others. I believe it will work out well, but we do need more people to join the project and contribute their thoughts! In any case, thank you very much for your feedback! Kind regards, S. Perquin (discuss • contribs) 14:43, 24 July 2024 (UTC)