User:Larry Sanger/Larry's Text
The following is a list of links to articles that were, at least in early versions, a series of introductory
subdisciplines of philosophy, with a few exceptions (e.g., philosophy of science and aesthetics are omitted). This material will require radical reworking and general wikification to become appropriate for Wikipedia. I'm now in the process of wikifying this myself, but I certainly invite help with this. --Larry Sanger
Note, November 25, 2002: A few of these articles have been edited and maintained by me, but most of them have been tweaked here and there by others, unfortunately often not to the benefit of the article. I've pretty much let them go however other have wanted them to go with no input at all. This is fine with me, though, for now. I'll go back over them if and when I have time. --Larry Sanger
Table of contents:
- 1 Introduction to Philosophy
- philosophical subdisciplines
- 2 Some Rudiments of Logic
- genus-differentia definition -- fallacies of definition
- 3 Metaphysics
- identity and change
- 4 Philosophy of Religion
- the rationality of atheism -- theodicy
- 5 Philosophy of Mind
- free will and determinism
- 6 Philosophy of Language
- meaningfulness -- naive relativism about truth -- truth
- 7 Epistemology
- common sense and the Diallelus
- 8 Ethics
- meta-ethics -- ethical naturalism -- cognitivism -- ethical non-naturalism -- non-cognitivism -- value theory -- theory of conduct
- 9 Political Philosophy
- the purpose of government -- libertarianism -- socialism
OK, here's the deal:
- I know a lot of this sucks. It is written to get the general concepts across to Ohio State undergrads. Yes, some of what I've written might be outright wrong, and most of it can be tightened up considerably. If you want to help me do that, don't bother replying to something I've written here. Just make the change you think is necessary, please.
- I have taken actual stands on certain issues. I'll be de-opinionating these entries, of course.
- I'll be rendering the prose a little more formal, less lecture-like.
- I have (temporarily) saved the text in section-sized chunks, but as I wikify I'm saving it in even smaller chunks.
- Since these are lectures, I refer to myself, the students, Ohio State, readings, other lectures I've given (hence, other parts of the wiki) and other stuff that shouldn't belong on the wiki. Of course, I'll be removing all that.
- I have saved the sections on pages with titles describing their content. Ultimately, perhaps, the titles will be changed (rendered in AVFree Linksstyle), and the entirety of a certain page will sometimes be split up and put on other pages.
- Finally, you might not like my style, and you might think that I don't present the issues reliably enough, and otherwise feel that this contribution is not exactly a boon to Wikipedia. If that's the case, you can feel free to replace what I've written with your own golden prose; I'd just appreciate that you convey roughly the same information that I do (i.e., you cover the same topics and say the same (true) things I have to say about them). If these textbook entries are placeholders before better stuff comes along, that's perfectly fine by me. The lectures are long since over and they aren't my professional work--they're basic explanations for undergrads. So I won't mind, really!
I think that's it for now. Any comments or questions?
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