Talk:Jeremy Bentham/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about Jeremy Bentham. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

How Does One Stuff a Skeleton?

The Auto-icon section claims that Bentham's "skeleton [was] stuffed out with hay and dressed in Bentham's clothes." It seems to me that only the ribs would hold any of said hay. It's not known to me whether the skeleton was saved at all, but I imagine it was his skin that was saved. Perhaps someone cares to do the due diligence to confirm. Czrisher (talk) 22:39, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree that probably needs a bit revision. The auto-icon is comprised of Bentham's skeleton, wired so that it sits upright, with a wax head. Those are his clothes, and his own hair was threaded into the wax head. The skin wasn't saved (although there is, apparently, a piece of Bentham's skin at the Wellcome Gallery). The real head is stored in controlled conditions at UCL's Institute for Archaeology. There's more here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/who/autoicon — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.40.154.69 (talk) 12:00, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I have changed "stuffed out" to "padded out", which I hope is a bit clearer. As I understand it, there's a sort of shaped pillow, which is what is actually stuffed with hay, which fits around the skeleton; and the clothes go on top of that. GrindtXX (talk) 18:41, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

"Usury"

The introduction to the article says:

He advocated individual and economic freedom, usury...

The term 'usury' is a negative one, and even advocates of commercial lending wouldn't use that term to describe their views. It raised (in my mind at least) the question of whether he was against usury, or pro-lending. Therefore does anyone know what his actual views were and can clarify the introduction? RossMM (talk) 19:20, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The reason someone saw fit to use the word usury is in reference to Bentham's published Defence of Usury (1787); and the reason Bentham used the words was that the statutes restricting the interest rates moneylenders could impose were still known as the "usury laws". Bentham was opposed to these laws, and in favour of a liberal monetary policy and a completely free trade in money (thus taking Adam Smith's free trade arguments further than Smith himself was prepared to do). I think, in the context of the lead, this is probably adequately covered by "economic freedom", so I propose simply to remove the word "usury" (which I will do now). However, I'm no economist and don't fully understand the arguments and issues, so if anyone else wants to clarify this further, either in the lead or better still in the "Economics" subsection, please go ahead. GrindtXX (talk) 19:44, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense on stilts

The above redirects to this article, but the article doesn't contain anything relevant about that term. Is this the work of some pranksters at work? --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:39, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see the problem. I searched for the exact term "nonsense on stilts", which is why the search didn't provide any hits, as the term is given as "nonsense upon stilts" in the lead. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:41, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Good catch. I have now created Nonsense upon stilts as a redirect, which probably wouldn't have prevented your initial confusion, but might help others in future. GrindtXX (talk) 21:34, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Section on Animal Rights (vs Animal Welfare)

As a proponent of utilitarianism, it is doubtful that Bentham proposed 'rights' for animals. Indeed, bentham famously called natural rights (for humans and therefore presumably non human animals also) 'nonsense upon stilts'. What behtham did do is suggest that the ability to suffer rather than rationality is the basis for bringing Animal Welfare into the sphere of moral consideration. I am certainly not a philoshopher nor an expert on Bentham, however, can I suggest that teh secion on 'animal rights' be changed to something along the lines of 'animal welfare'. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.124.108.146 (talk) 10:30, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

"Rights" does not necessarily imply "natural rights". Many people advocating rights for people and/or animals would agree that natural rights are nonsense upon stilts.Troyp (talk) 22:44, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Bentham and literature

This section contains only one sentence: "The national poet and man of letters of the recently liberated, and divided by the Treaty of Berlin, Bulgaria Ivan Vazov refers to Bentham in his 1881 poem „Дипломираните“ (in English: "People with Diplomas")."

This sentence is unclear. It definitely appears to say that Vazov refers to Bentham in the poem cited, but what is the rest of the sentence? The most sensible parsing seems to be that Ivan Yazov is the Bulgarian "poet and man of letters" who represents or champions "the recently liberated" and those "divided by the Treaty of Berlin". The sentence needs to be rewritten comprehensibly and concisely. I haven't done it, since I'm not sure of my interpretation. I'll leave it to someone more familiar with Vazov.

Possibly, the claim that the poem „Дипломираните“ refers to Jeremy Bentham should be supported with a citation, since it only refers to "Bentham" (although I don't know of any other historically relevant Bentham). I couldn't find one myself, but then I don't speak Bulgarian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Troyp (talk • contribs) 05:53, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I think there must be a comma omitted after "Bulgaria". Yazov is the national poet and man of letters of Bulgaria; Bulgaria is recently liberated and divided by the Treaty of Berlin. I will make it a bit clearer, but I will leave your "Citation needed" tag in place. GrindtXX (talk) 18:50, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

What is "UCL"?

The generally accepted standard in publication is that the first time an acronym is used it be spelled out, yet "UCL" is used in the introduction with no explanation. In fact, it is used numerous times throughout the article with no explanation. One can make an educated guess that it stands for University College of London, but is "educated guessing" the standard Wikipedia shoots for? Perhaps in some corners or circles UCL is a commonly recognized acronym, but if Wikipedia aspires to be a "global" encyclopedia, they should meet a global standard of clarity and understanding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:6000:D443:2000:F88C:77E6:6A52:B9C7 (talk) 14:44, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

University College London is named in full seven times in this article (excluding notes), and is wikilinked in five of those cases. In the vast majority of cases where the UCL initialism is used (including at the first mention in the lede), the name has been spelled out in full only a sentence or two earlier, or, in one case, in the section title. You're right: there are circles (many of them) in which "UCL" is a commonly recognised initialism, and it is now invariably used by the institution itself in all external communications – a comparable US example would be MIT. Like practically everything on Wikipedia, this article could use some tweaks in the interests of clarity and consistency, and if you want to have a go, feel free. However, I really don't see a major problem here. GrindtXX (talk) 18:04, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

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Hat note on Lost character

Is a hat note merely about a TV character's pseudonym sufficiently useful? Presumably anybody looking for the character and arriving here would know to go to the TV series or somewhere associated with it? Wikiain (talk) 05:46, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Note removed by User:Fried Gold on 2 December 2018. Wikiain (talk) 03:52, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Autism

This new round of discussion about retrospective determinations of historical figures who enjoyed enough evidence of autism shows why there should be a WP category (and maybe an accompanying article, however brief) to describe such retrospective determinations. After all, the dead have no lawful protection against such claims, though they should be held equally to the same WP standards applied to living figures (see U.S. presidents) as well as those who are dead (see same). Retrospective determinations should rely on the historic evidence seen through the diagnostic criteria today as much as clinicians rely on the same criteria as well. Achieve that level of certainty, and a resurrected category would be helpful, wouldn't it? After all, autism has been with humanity since the beginning. Why not recognize that certain historic figures were likely autistic.174.23.138.83 (talk) 14:42, 28 November 2018 (UTC)