Talk:Philosophical theory

Original research, or neologism, or neither, or both?

I couldn't find the term "Philosophical theory" in any of the following publications:

• Encyclopedia of Philosophy (MacMillan 2006)
• Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998)
• Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (2nd edition)
• Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (1994)
• Philosophical Dictionary (by Brugger and Baker, 1967)
• Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion (by william L. Reese, 1996)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

I also looked up "Theory" in the above publications. Where it appeared at all, it referred to "Scientific theory" and not to the context presented in this article.

In this article, the term "philosophical theory" is being touted as a catch-all for life stances, religions, world views, and ideologies. It also included in the lead sentence the terms "belief system" and "a philosophy" as synonyms - I've removed those already.

I'd really like to see some reliable references that this term isn't a neologism, and on the claims this article makes, and I'd also like to see sources that verify the title as the most common term for this.

The Transhumanist 03:26, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

You may be right in your analysis Transhumanist. My thought in designating this article was that there is a difference between scientific theories and non-scientific or "non-empirical" theories, and this should perhaps be the title and category. My thought was that even though the "theorems" of a non-scientific theory are are non-empirical, they are still statements, and therefore ideas, which make them "philosophical." I have posted more on the discussion of deleting list of philosophical theories. Be well, Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 21:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

We need to establish that the term has an official (or widely accepted) definition, and then present references for it.

I tried to create a designation for these too. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of philosophy component types. That was a simple list that included, you guessed it: philosophical tradition, philosophical movement, philosophical school, philosophical position, philosophical theory, etc. - most of which showed up as redlinks. Now you know why your article caught my attention.  :)

The Transhumanist 00:55, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Without regard to any scholarly debate about what is and is not a "philosophical theory" I created this page and the category with the prima facie understanding of "philosophical theory", i.e. theories about ideas, contrasted with scientific theories about observable data. If we decide that the organizational scheme changes, we may also decide to delete this page (or merely redirect it to "philosophy"). I would support that. However we need to decide if "non-empirical theories" or "non-scientific theories" is an acceptable move for the category. I don't like "non-scientific" because it is negative and will lump in "conspiracy theories" with "ethical theories" etcetera. This is why I originally liked "philosophical theory." Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 01:14, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

There are 2 issues here...

The first issue is the article's title.

Is "philosophical theory" a verifiable notable topic? (I believe so - I checked). But is it the most common name for this? Does "philosophical theory" and "a philosophy" mean the same thing? Doesn't the term Category:Philosophies include belief systems, philosophies, life stances, religions, world views, and idelogoies? Those are the types you included in the article. "Philosophies" came up on Google 7,960,000 times, while "philosophical theories" came up only 149,000 times.

I am mainly interested in the degree to which the words match the idea, rather than google hits, etcetera. I think all of the various belief systems, isms, philosophies, etcetera are just more imprecise ways of saying theory and that we have a chance to get it right here on the wp.Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

But in Wikipedia, while categories for classes of things are in the plural, article names are in the singular. That would be "philosophy". But, since "Philosophy" is already the name of the academic subject, another title is needed to designate the context "a philosophy". Philosophy (specific) would work. Note that "specific" isn't part of the term, it just helps explain the context. Wikipedia's naming guideline states: "If there are other articles with the same name, then the title should include a disambiguator in parentheses, unless the article concerns the primary topic for that name." See also WP:PRECISION#If the two titles usually have a different meaning.

If "philosophy" fits and works for you, keep in mind that makes it eligible for a hatnote at the top of the Philosophy article, because it shares the same name and is in the same field. Something like:

For the context "a philosophy", see Philosophy (specific). For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation).

It of course would be included on the disambiguation page as well.

All of the various subfields of philosophy have a theories category metaphyical theories, epistemological theories, theories of language , of aesthetics, of mind, etcetera. I think it is working well to categorize many otherwise hard to categorize philosophy articles. I don't think philosophy (specific) is going to work out at all. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

What are the synonyms of "philosophical theory"?

What are the types of philosophical theories?

The article states: "Philosophical theories may take the form of a life stance, religion, world view, or ideology." Do all of the topics in the categories you just mentioned belong to one of these forms? If not, what other forms are included? The Transhumanist 02:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The second issue is the content.

The definitions provided should be backed up by strong references. This article looks like it is going to be a core page. Keep in mind that the article philosophy is one of the most revised pages on Wikipedia - nobody can agree on the definition, and it has been changed thousands of times. The same thing could happen to "a philosophy". So we need to be clear what types of things are included under this umbrella term.

I hope you like my suggestions above. I've removed the prod tag, because the topic is notable and the solution to the articles' problems can be solved by renaming and editing (and the discussion has moved in that direction).

The Transhumanist 01:19, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I pretty much stay out of the debate about the philosophy article. I think they have things covered over there just fine. I think it is unfortunate that the talk page there is busier than WT:PHILO. At some point I would like to have a consistent format for things. I was even thinking about adding a "theories"" task force under literature and philosophers. Would you be interested in such a task force for organizing things?Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

My main concern is whether or not "philosophical theory" is the most common name for the topic of this article. Most of the definitions I could find via Google present it as synonymous with "philosophical doctrine", which in turn is presented as synonymous with "philosophical school", "philosophy", etc. "Philosophy" is a much more prevalent word than "philosophical theory", and if they mean the same thing, we'll have to change the article's name.

Here's Webster's dictionary entry for "school".

here's "doctrine".

The entry for "philosophy" seems to be very similar to the above. "A system of philosophical concepts" and "a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought <the philosophy of war>".

Webster's definition of "theory" doesn't seem to tie into philosophy at all. And there is no entry for "philosophical theory".

Britannica's Outline of Knowledge in their Propaedia volume classifies the various types of theories in philosophy under "Philosophical Schools and Doctrines". Underneath that title, "doctrines" isn't used again, just "schools" and "theories" (in the titles of different sections).

Have you gathered any references on the facts you presented in the article?

The Transhumanist 04:01, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi - worth saying that the idea of a philosophical theory has major resonance within the work of Quine and David Armstrong: while the former claimed that philosophical (specifically ontological) theories are continuous with the theories of natural science, the latter claims that rival theories on metaphysical subjects should be settled by appeal to a "scorecard" which reckons up successes in inference to the best explanation on either side. This page should also link to issues regarding decision processes between philosophical theories - e.g. Ockham's razor and Joseph Melia's discussion of quantitative and qualitative economy in ontology. Would have tries to edit it myself but looks like the main content is locked at the moment! Howdood (talk) 01:23, 8 September 2012 (UTC)