Talk:Introduction to Philosophy

Active Approach
I think this book gives some great background on philosophy, it has good information but lacks any diagrams or pictures and is relativly dull other than that good job Wikilife (talk)

-- Honestly, I am working on this book as I push through my own side-studies of philosophy. Ever more I am finding it harder to put philosophy in a context of a text book. More and more I am seeing that it is something that you have to do and experience. So, while making this I had the wrong premises in mind, and I apologize for this action. I plan on working on the Wikiversity level of Philosophy. I fear that a text book will only fall short on giving a description of philosophy unless to be given set of readings of what philosophy is and reflections on them. I wish to all the best of luck with this book. --Destrogal 18:54, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I am taking a new approach on this. The old version of this text was completely incomprehensible and strayed far from what I would consider an introduction. Although this is the first step and there is much to be edited, I would like to continue working in this manner until the end of each part. Afterwards, it would be easier for me to edit. That is, when I have more time to take in each idea and pay more attention to its own attention to the subject. Also, I will be trying to transform these discussion pages into a comprehensive discussion on Philosophy.

In addition, I would like to keep many articles and work from them, but there shouldn't have been a simple posed questions: What is philosophy? Why study philosophy? -- These are junk. We should explain the nature of philosophy to begin with. Where it came from, how it is interpreted, who started it, etc. If anyone has an objection, please email me at destrogal@gmail.com --Destrogal 21:09, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Old comments
I agree with the other comments. Also, I think the structure of this book needs to be re-worked. There should be a number of subsections, as each current section is quite large in scope. The arrangement itself could use a little re-arrangement, which I'll gladly get to when I have a chance. The links are fucked, they'll all have to be changed from basic pages (why would there be a wikibooks/philosophy_of_religion ??) to links "within" this book, e.g. wikibooks:introduction_to_philosophy:philosophy_of_religion. Ugh. --Daniel April 29, 2004

Why is there no mention to aesthetics? KIZU 09:14, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The introduction mentions a commitment to logic but there doesn't appear to be a logic section

In the various philosophy courses I've taken, philosophy is typically decomposed into logic, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and sometimes political philosophy.

--Matt 15:12, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

I enjoyed it
Is there a way to get a word printout of it?

Alex


 * Glad you enjoyed "Introduction to Philosophy".
 * I am the author of 'Existentialism', 'Ulitiarnism' (ugh), and 'Philosophy of Mind'. (Also 'Pragmatism' but it isn't piped as yet).
 * You can get individual bits and make a Word printout yourself.
 * (Working from MS Word to the Wiki format and vice versa is covered with hidden pitfalls).
 * All you need do is cut and paste the content as well as the editing history.
 * Thank you, EuropracBHIT 02:20, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

'Ulitiarnism' - do you mean 'utilitarianism'?

Well, I've added logic, and also aesthetics, as people seem to be asking for this. I might get round to putting some material under 'logic', but I don't really know much about aesthetics. Perhaps 'logic' should go at the top? But I'm not a pushy person, so won't put it there myself unless given much prompting to do so. --212.56.114.4 17:20, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC) --publunch 17:21, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I see that 'Introduction to Philosophy' is listed as 'struggling'. I sometimes feel like I'm the only person struggling with it. Please tell me that this isn't true or I'll go and find something else to do. When I start trying to write about things, I begin to realise just how patchy my knowledge is. --publunch 17:02, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

References section
Do we really need a references section? Personally, I feel that it confuses things, since we can cite direcly into the article using endnotes. Besides, the page doesn't seem to be getting filled at all, and serves as more of an embarassment than a section. IMO, it will confuse people, since they'll have to go back and forth between two different pages...I say we scrap it and do everything in the article itself, with a separate ==References== section. -[[User:Frazzydee|Frazzydee|&#9997;]] 03:57, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * well, as the link doesn't go anywhere, I'll remove it. Refs can go in individual chapters I think.  Maybe there is a need for general refs to general works, like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  But as the link doesn't go anywhere, I'll remove it or comment it out for now.

--publunch 16:53, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Classification?
Should Existentialism, Buddhism, and Transcendentalism be placed under ethics? They all have ethical components and implications, but they are not all about ethics. I don't know where they belong, but they don't belong under ethics.


 * Perhaps a "Philosophical Positions" section or something similar should be added to capture things like this, as well as things like postmodernism, nihilism, etc.. Not sure what the best way to go about this would be. Should it be it's own section? Does it fit under an "Introduction to Philosophy"?

--moonty 21:46, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion
Hello! I found your book really interesting but you could simplify your Wikibook. I'm not saying that it isn't OK but you can classify and edit the text a little bit so that it looks easy to understand for you as well as for the user. And one more thing, you can edit the complexity also, so easy naming, classification is available and understanding is easy. --Mastermind 007 13:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Page cleanup
There are two pages in particular that I would strongly recommend that interested individuals help out with to try and fix up. I've been going through the orphaned page bin, and I discovered some modules that IMHO are better written than the content that is associated with this Wikibook. At least give it a chance and perhaps merge all of the content together to see what might become of it. See these two pages:


 * Introduction to Philosophy:What is Epistemology
 * Introduction to Philosophy:What is Ethics

make sure you mark the source pages for speedy delete when you are done with them. --Rob Horning 15:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

A section about divine command theory
I think that it would not be such a bad idea to include sections about divine command theory and cultural ethical relativism. These are both well-known and respected moral theories. Perhaps a divine command theory section could describe morality from the viewpoints of various religions.

-Strongbad 03:28 UTC