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Philosophy

One again we have a serious problem with Simonides. For one, in violation of Misplaced Pages policy, he is still reverting nearly every single edit to this article (as well as to others that he is attempting to take ownership of.) His dozens of recent edits have destroyed the work of many previous contributors. His edits today have unilaterally reverted a number of changes I made (changes that re-introduced specific definitions that were agreed upon by the consensus of many contributors to Misplaced Pages) Repeated instances of this behaviour will have to lead to him being banned. RK

Secondly, Simonides is again inserting his POV rants against what he incorrectly understands to be "Western society". For the last two years many people worked to develop an accurate consensus on the terms "Analytic philosophy" and "Continental" philosophy", yet Simonides has deleted them, and unilaterally inserted his own (incorrect) definitions of the word. That violates both NPOV policy and Misplaced Pages protocol. RK

Thirdly, there is an inherent flaw in Simonides' way of categorizing philosophical traditions. He is confusing ways of approaching philosophical problems (such as "Analytic philosophy" and "Continental" philosophy",) with bodies of an ethnic group's literature. Let me explain: Analytic philosophy refers to a way that a philosopher would approach a philosophical problem. "Islamic philosophy", "Hindu Philosophy" or "Jewish philosophy", however, does not refer to a way that one would approach such a problem. Those latter terms simply refer to the body of philosophical literature that has been created over the centuries by those respective peoples. For instance, "Jewish philosophy" simply refers to the collective body of literature on philosophy written by Jews over their history; it does not refer to a specific way of approaching philosophical problems! In fact, much of medieval rationalist Jewish philosophy is a direct predecessor to analytic philosophy, while other parts of Jewish philosophy are what we now recognize as continental philosophy. The same is true for Hindu and Islamic philosophy. There is no one "Jewish method" of philosophy, no one "Hindu method" of philosophy, etc. The very idea is ludicrous. But since Simonides is hysterically reacting against what he perceives to be persecution from "the west" he is creating out of thin air "non Western" ways of thinking. Frankly, that's racist. Human beings from all cultures and nationalities have developed the same wide array of approaches to problem solving. When we have a section on philosophical problem solving, we need to discuss the many approaches, and leave race and ethnicity out of it. RK 13:32, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)

I suspect, but I may be wrong, that S. suffers from the arrogance of youth. S. is a difficult character, true enough. But then so are you, RK. Some might even say I am a bit rude at times. One has to assume we all have the best intentions towards the encyclopaedia, and perhaps S. is still working out how it works. He hopefully will eventually realise that attempts to control the content of articles are futile, and start to seek compromise. There is already some evidence of this – take one of his versions from a week ago and compare it with the latest, and you will find a few changes in the content. For example the initial anti western phrasing of the introduction is gone. The main issue I think is that the aggravation that has built up on philosophy is stopping others from engaging in editing. Most people will avoid an argument if they can, so why bother editing when one knows one’s work will be so quickly removed or re-edited? I’m happy to take part of the blame for the agro, but I have apologised for my initial remarks – they were intended as jovial, but were not taken that way. Banno

I have stated before that I think the article should be predominantly about the tradition of philosophy that started with the Greeks, since I think that their critical approach is what separates philosophy from other enterprises, and is what once gave philosophy the primary place in academic discourse. That other traditions are called ‘philosophy’ is more about their content than their method. I agree that the division of the topic on geographic grounds is rather silly; it also implies a certain paternalism towards non-western traditions that might be counter to the intent of those who make the division. But let’s just to see what sort of article results.Banno 23:44, Jul 31, 2004 (UTC)