Template talk:Social philosophy

Topic order

Perhaps the topics and names should be listed alphabetically instead of chronologically? Or maybe both? I'm not sure either is a good idea, I'm just curious if that would help people who know the name but not the history of philosophy (ie, where the person would stand in the order). The fact that it's chronological isn't immediately obvious as is. If there was a way to switch between alphabetical and chronological sorting (a technical possibility), that might be best. I think it should be seriously considered. Just my 2¢. I'm not sure of how that would be implemented in Wikipedia. Thoughts on either the usefulness or practicality on such an update? Anyone?  CKBrown1000 ^talk  18:16, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

revert

Regarding this revert, we're not supposed to have links to WikiProjects from the article namespace (this template is meant for us in the article namespace). The article namespace is meant for the readers not the editors. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 13:27, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

First of all, our readers are our editors. Secondly, there is no policy against providing inter-namespace links. There are a lot of templates that have these. Please don't remove them. Greg Bard (talk) 14:05, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Emmette Hernandez Coleman, but have compromised by keeping the main link to the task force. the recent changes and discussion links are excessive. Frietjes (talk) 19:02, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Notable Philosophers

I'm creating this section to house discussion of whether particular individuals are noteworthy enough as philosophers to be included in this template. Below I've bolded the figures I'm removing and italicizing those I think would be good candidates for removal, but am leaving for now:

Saul Alinsky - Known as a community organizer, not a political philosopher. Although he contributed a popular book for grass-roots organizing in the US, setting the bar there would permit the inclusion of too many similar figures.

B. R. Ambedkar - Mostly known as a politician, not a thinker. He did have a sizable academic output so I'm not removing him today, however this would put him on par with dozens of other academics with arguably more influence in the field.

Jawaharlal Nehru - Predominately known as a politician, not a political theorist. His continued inclusion would require the inclusion of innumerable intelligent and well-read politicians from the world over.

Milovan Djilas - Primarily a political dissident. He does have some theory credentials, but his literary output is not particularly philosophical in style or substance.

Robert Michels - Although a credible addition as an intellectual, he does not seem notable enough to deserve inclusion in the template compared to many who are absent and more influential.

John Ruskin - An accomplished and successful writer and thinker, but not really known or widely influential for his political or social writings.

There are a few other contemporary thinkers who I would hesitate to include because it opens the floodgates to dozens of other equally prominent contemporary academics, but for now I've left those theorists in the template. 2607:FEA8:620:4F2:40BF:E5D1:F77F:BE40 (talk) 00:53, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I would actually suggest that Nehru should be here, because he was an important Indian political theorist in his own right and not merely a politician who wrote some political theory. I haven't readded him though. Some (randomly selected) books that discuss Nehru in depth as political philosopher are Indian Political Thought by Sharma and Sharma; Jayapalan's Indian Political Thinkers, and Donald Smith's Nehru and Democracy (not on GBooks). He would be a similar case to Mao, though probably less prominent overall. —Nizolan ^{(talk · c.)} 21:55, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Additions

Just noting for the record that I've expanded the template significantly, splitting the Renaissance and 17th century as a separate category from "modern philosophers" and populating (mainly) the medieval and early modern subgroups with notable thinkers. My main sources for determining who to add were mentions on general pages on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (e.g. the page on Chinese political philosophy) and in The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (for medieval and early modern). Otherwise, in a few cases, I added people just based on my intuition on who I'd expect here (e.g. Bernstein, Vico). Happy to discuss any of my additions. One problem for earlier thinkers is that in many cases their articles don't even mention their contributions to political philosophy, or do so only obliquely: for example, Zhu Xi. I've generally avoided listing these for now. —Nizolan ^{(talk · c.)} 21:50, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Obscurity

@Trakking: I agree with removing vanity placements like Yarvin etc but for earlier periods could you clarify what specific criteria you're using to decide whether an author is too obscure? Looking through your edits you seem to have removed a number of very prominent authors (most recently Ammirato and Botero, but looking further back also notably Accursius, John of Paris, Hostiensis and Bosanquet). —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 08:43, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I am judging them by their articles, which have extremely low page-views and haven’t been translated to many other languages. In short: these philosophers are obscure and people don’t care about them. The list is extensive as it is. We need to put quality over quantity. Trakking (talk) 09:53, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

@Trakking: If the problem is just the length of the template then perhaps a better approach would be to split this into period-based templates? A judgement of obscurity should be based on reliable sources rather than things like Wikipedia page views or subjective judgements about whether people care, which are not mentioned anywhere at WP:NAV (an article with poor linking will of course have lower page views). The latter approach also tends to discriminate against premodern and non-Western thinkers, which indeed seems to have happened. Ideally the value of including particular figures should be based on their own merits ("does this help the reader in reading up on related topics?" per WP:NAV). A good way of judging that, as Nizolan suggested, is prominence in standard secondary works—for history of political thought, things like Skinner's Foundations, the Cambridge History of Political Thought, Meinecke's Idea of Reason of State, etc. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 10:15, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

If their article is dead and non-existing in most languages, that is a perfect indicator of the nullity of the philosopher. The list could be further purged of lesser known names, but it is acceptable as it is. We do not want to muddle the list with a plethora of obscure people, as this disturbs the viewers who want to navigate the history of social and political philosophy. Trakking (talk) 10:47, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

@Trakking: Who's "we"? I don't see a previous discussion on this topic on the talk page and, looking at the edit history, your gatekeeping comes off as very WP:OWN-y. "If their article is dead and non-existing in most languages, that is a perfect indicator of the nullity of the philosopher": No, it's an indicator that Wikipedia doesn't cover the topic adequately, and topic navboxes are not meant as showcases of high-quality articles (ideally every article on whatever topic could be a GA). Generally we (Wikipedians!) follow the lead of reliable sources, not whatever happens to be the status of individual articles on Wikipedia, especially with more marginal topics that attract few editors anyway like medieval political philosophy.

Looking at the pageview analytics I don't see a convincing pattern in the names you're choosing to keep or delete either. I would recommend either working out some objective criteria or splitting the template like I suggested above. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 16:13, 14 November 2023 (UTC)