Talk:Q9471

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Autodescription — epistemology (Q9471)

description: branch of philosophy studying the nature and scope of knowledge
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Link Between Q9471, Q116930361 and Q2560959[edit]

@Mandorake, @Epìdosis, I have seen that you removed the links between several articles in different wikis around those entries. In some languages (including French, Spanish and Italian) épistémologie/epistemologia does not have the same meaning as the english epistemology=theory of knowledge but is closer to the meaning of philosophy of science. Those articles should be separated. As for the links to Q9471 in those languages, it should be with gnoseologia (theory of knowledge in those langages) or theory of knowledge. D Cat laz talk 15:08, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@157.193.240.185:, the articles were separated according to the titles. How local Wikipedias choose to approach content is independent of the meaning of titles. Mandorake (talk) 00:31, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean the meaning of titles ? the meaning of épistémologie in French is closer to philosophy of science than it is to epistemology in English. D Cat laz (talk) 12:46, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
More than that, I don't see any reason for instance de:Erkenntnistheorie should be link with something else than fr:théorie de la connaissance... There is a huge contradiction here D Cat laz (talk) 12:49, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, epistemology is epistemology, regardless of language. If the French Wikipedia chose to approach the matter differently, it has nothing to do with the semantics of the word. Secondly, you changed these links from epistemology to gnosiology without any prior consensus, and even acknowledging the error, you didn't withdraw the motions, created a useless item even after warning and you still come here to defend your wrong version. Mandorake (talk) 14:56, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean it has nothing to do with the semantics of the word ?
It has everything to do with it !
What I am telling you is that fr:épistémologie in french doesn't have the same semantic meaning as fr:théorie de la connaissance ans that the true equivalent to en:epistemology in english is fr:théorie de la connaissance (which is also a translation of de:erkenntnistheorie that is linked to this item btw)
I has previoulsy linked the fr:épistémologie to other wikipedia that have an article with the same meaning... This item that I suppose you deleted was for this purpose... D Cat laz (talk) 14:25, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You made these motions without prior consensus, I returned them to the status quo. It's the last warning: if you revert again, you will be subject to blocking. Mandorake (talk) 16:40, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A threat is never a nice way to start a discussion D Cat laz (talk) 09:38, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion started here. Mandorake (talk) 14:10, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I mostly edit Wikipedia, and I am not an expert on how categorical disputes are typically resolved on Wikidata. But I will note that Mandorake is wrong to say that First of all, epistemology is epistemology, regardless of language. In French fr:épistémologie has a different semantic range than en:epistemology. For example:

The English word "epistemology" is equivalent to the German term Erkenntnistheorie or to the French expression "théorie de la connaissance" (theory of knowledge). It takes knowledge as a general category whose specifications are respectively common and scientific. But when the French word "épistémologie" first appeared, it was defined as a synonymous for "philosophy of science". The new discipline was specifically dedicated to scientific knowledge and explicitly rejected the idea of a common knowledge. There is no continuity, but an "epistemological break" ("coupure épistémologique") between science and common sense, which is a kind of ignorance more than a special sort of knowledge. Indeed, as Gaston Bachelard and his followers argued, we should rather talk of a simple doxa, whose productions are misleading or empty ("l'opinion pense mal, elle ne pense pas"). Nevertheless, at the very moment the philosopher Émile Meyerson noticed that "épistémologie" meant "philosophy of science" in French, he added that his own intellectual position was in accordance with the English "epistemology" or the German Erkenntnistheorie ... – Frédéric Fruteau de Laclos (2017). "The meaning of 'epistemology': science, common sense and philosophy according to Émile Meyerson". Kairos: Journal of Philosophy & Science, 19(1), 36–67.

Although D Cat laz is correct that the French and English words are often understood to have different semantic ranges, D Cat laz is not necessarily correct that there is a problem here, for at least a couple of reasons:

  1. The terms are clearly cognates, and it's not clear that their semantic ranges are so different that their presence in one Wikidata item will cause confusion.
  2. The boundaries between the supposedly different areas of study of knowledge are not unquestionably distinct and uncontroversial, as can be seen in the passage I quoted above where French philosopher Émile Meyerson is said to have been more sympathetic with the scope of the term en:epistemology; another example of a dissenter is Canadian philosopher Barry Allen, who has criticized English-language epistemologists for having too narrow a view of knowledge (which is quite different from the quoted passage above that portrayed the English term as broader than the French term: Allen says, more or less, that the field of study that goes by the English term isn't even as broad as it should be!). The boundaries between fr:épistémologie and fr:théorie de la connaissance and fr:philosophie des sciences are not completely settled and indisputable.

Given this intellectual state of affairs, is there really a problem with the status quo? I doubt it! However, this Wikidata item probably should at least have another Property:P460 ("said to be the same as") pointing to fr:théorie de la connaissance. Biogeographist (talk) 20:29, 28 April 2023 (UTC) and 14:02, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Support, keeping the status quo. Mandorake (talk) 20:59, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why we should prefer something that is just about right because it is "close" to the exact correct version.
It might be rather suprising for an english wikipedia user to read in en:epistemology"it is important to note that the French term épistémologie is used with a different and far narrower meaning than the English term "epistemology", being used by French philosophers to refer solely to philosophy of science." and then to see that the related item to this article is nevertheless fr:épistémologie.
Another suprising fact ; de:Erkenntnistheorie is not linked to fr:théorie de la connaissance which it is the litteral translation and cover the same meaning.
This is not an imprecision but a mistake which should be corrected D Cat laz (talk) 09:58, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
D Cat laz said: de:Erkenntnistheorie is not linked to fr:théorie de la connaissance which it is the literal translation and cover the same meaning. But if you read the whole articles of en:epistemology and de:Erkenntnistheorie and fr:épistémologie and fr:théorie de la connaissance, they all talk about basically the same issues: for example, they all talk about Descartes and rationalism. It is a problem of French Wikipedia that they have two overlapping terms (fr:épistémologie and fr:théorie de la connaissance) where German and English only have one. We can't connect fr:épistémologie to en:philosophy of science because French Wikipedia also has fr:philosophie des sciences. This leaves fr:théorie de la connaissance as the "odd man out". Biogeographist (talk) 11:37, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I fail to see your point of view which seem completly english langage centered. But just because a word as the same root as an english word, doesn't mean that it has the same meaning as in english.
fr:épistémologie doesn't have an equivalent in english, but this happen often when comparing langages and is one of the reason deutsche wikipédia as an de:épistémologie article (please do not link it to Q9471 instead of de:Erkenntnistheorie) D Cat laz (talk) 21:38, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@D Cat laz: We agree that en:epistemology and fr:épistémologie do not have the same semantic range. We disagree about whether they are so very different that it is completely nonsensical that they are linked via Q9471: you think it is nonsensical, and I don't, for reasons already given. I am not opposed to replacing fr:épistémologie with fr:théorie de la connaissance in Q9471, since that would make sense too, but I am not convinced that such a change is necessary. Perhaps someone else can provide more convincing reasons than you have provided for a change.
If French Wikipedia would first merge fr:philosophie des sciences into fr:épistémologie, then the balance of considerations definitely would change and it would make more sense instead to link fr:théorie de la connaissance in Q9471 (with en:epistemology) and to link fr:épistémologie in Q59115 (with en:philosophy of science). But that merge has not happened yet, although it was already proposed by you in January 2023 at fr:Discussion Projet:Philosophie#Les articles Épistémologie et Philosophie des sciences sont proposés à la fusion. And since your merge proposals related to these pages failed at French Wikipedia, it appears that your position is not shared by editors there either.
As for de:épistémologie, it is already linked to fr:épistémologie historique via Q30748859. So I don't see a problem with the status quo there either. Biogeographist (talk) 23:19, 29 April 2023 (UTC) and 00:56, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, I noticed that the first quote in fr:q:Épistémologie is a quote from the great Jean Piaget (Q123190):
l'épistémologie, en première approximation, comme l'étude de la constitution des connaissances valables, le terme de « constitution » recouvrant à la fois les conditions d'accession et les conditions proprement constitutives. — « L'épistémologie et ses variétés », pages: 3 à 61, Jean Piaget, dans Logique et connaissance scientifique, Collectif, éd. Gallimard, 1967, chap. 1, p. 6
That quote from Piaget would make perfect sense in en:epistemology; it is not different in any way from a discussion of epistemology in English! And that is the first quote in the French Wikiquote page fr:q:Épistémologie! Biogeographist (talk) 00:56, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Who could have imagined... Mandorake (talk) 01:41, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I do not know much about these QXXX pages and what they do. I am more interested in the articles themselves. I am not even sure what this discussion is about. However, I can discuss en:epistemology and fr:épistémologie and compare them. The first thing that strikes me regarding en:epistemology is that it's very much different than the epistemology entry in SEP or the corresponding entry in IEP, which I believe represent a modern academic view on epistemology in the anglo-saxon world : the view that epistemology is the study of knowledge as justified true belief or something along these lines. However, despite what is being sometimes claimed, the notion of epistemology is not so uniform in English and en:epistemology illustrates that. Because wikipedia articles are under the influences of many contributors from different countries and cultures, it is not surprising that en:epistemology includes many perspectives, while having an emphasis on knowledge as justified true belief. A similar situation seems to prevail with fr:épistemologie. In its current status, it is certainly not representative of the classical french epistemological approach, which is in someway at the opposite of the English justified true belief approach. The classical French epistemological approach does not have a general philosophy of science, because it starts from the point of view that every science needs a different perspective. It emphasizes the existence of a rupture between common knowledge and scientific knowledge and ruptures between any two sciences. Kuhn is often cited has having somehow rediscovered these ruptures. This classical French approach is certainly not adopted in fr:épistémologie. In this situation, we cannot rely on general definitions to compare en:epistemology and fr:épistémologie. Instead, we must look at their actual content and be pragmatical. Clearly, as pointed out by Biogeographist, there are important overlap between the two articles. However, the emphasis on justified true belief is certainly at the opposite of the situation in fr:épistémologie : there is nothing at all about justified true belief in fr:épistémologie. Therefore, in one way, Biogeographist is correct and, in another way, D Cat laz is correct.

I would support the creation of articles that almost perfectly match between en:wp and fr:wp, but also I believe there should be one article in en:wp that corresponds to the classical justified true belief approach and one article (or many articles) in fr:wp that correspond to the classical French epistemological approach. Here is a solution. The french wikipedians should work to have high quality articles about épistémologie, etc. which the english wikipedians could not resist from translating in english. Conversely, the english wikipedians should work to have high quality articles that french wikipedians could not resist translating in French. In this way, the problem is solved. This is only half a joke. Really, the quality of the articles is quite low on both sides and that contributes a lot to the problem, because it is often difficult to say what is the subject of the article by looking at its content and there is no incentive for any side to match with the other side. Dominic Mayers (talk) 04:38, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Dominic Mayers. I basically agree with you. As you may imagine from our previous discussions on English Wikipedia, I am not a fan of the JTB tradition in epistemology, which may help explain why I don't agree with D Cat laz that the French and English pages should in principle be different. English Wikipedia already has en:Justified true belief which is a perfectly adequate place to talk about the JTB tradition. Biogeographist (talk) 10:20, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A contribution from Italy[edit]

Hi, from about 20 years ago I worked on the Italian items "epistemologia" and "filosofia della scienza". It became soon clear that the Italian word had not the same meaning of the English "epistemology"; I found a lot of references that the Continental meaning of "epistemology" was restricted, when compared to the meaning adopted in the Anglo-Saxon world. No problem, I corrected wikilinks, agreed with other users and the different meanings remained separate. In "epistemologia" I tried to report the philosophical reflection on science, while in "filofofia della scienza" I considered the philosophical reflection internal to the science, this reflection is plural, e.g. "philosophy of physics" or "philosophy of mathematics". Only in "filosofia della scienza" I found that ethics of science should be considered internal to it. ... Now the conflict returns, there are users thinking that every wiki should be coherent with en.wiki. Maybe the power of English language will preevail, but personally I do not agree with this prevalence. I checked French, Spanish, Italian, German and all these view epistemology as the philosofical reflection on science. An interesting separate case is the Greek version, that tries to give account for the different positions by using different words. Maybe we could start from Hellenic version. There is a suggestive reflection by Galimberti that seems to me important, it sounds like this "knowledge of philosophy is not democratically distributed in the world: almost all significant contributions came from Greece or from Germany, all the rest are details". My suggestion is to start with German and Greek version. One note: "Genetic epistemology" by the Swiss Piaget appears using the word epistemology in the Anglo-Saxon way. Truman (talk) 09:50, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Truman Burbank said: there are users thinking that every wiki should be coherent with en.wiki. I have never heard that argument, and nobody is making that argument here, certainly not Mandorake (see above), who is a native Portuguese speaker. I agree that the words en:epistemology and en:épistémologie have different semantic ranges, but the use of the word in each language is not so internally homogeneous and distinct that linking them is nonsensical. And Jean Piaget is a native French speaker, so why would you call his épistémologie "Anglo-Saxon"? It's not. For example, Piaget's Psychogenèse et histoire des sciences is about the history of science like much of the mainstream French epistemological tradition. Let us not succumb to the en:narcissism of small differences (it:narcisismo delle piccole differenze)! Biogeographist (talk) 16:31, 2 May 2023 (UTC) & 16:44, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, for the reasons that Filippo92CT said in this response, that quote from Galimberti is absurd. Biogeographist (talk) 19:28, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a question of the prevalence of English, it's a mere semantic question, the difference of which is not so striking as to separate the items (that's why I said that "epistemology is epistemology, regardless of language"). In this case, a mix between "gnosiology" and "epistemology" was being proposed, which clearly does not make any sense. Mandorake (talk) 19:41, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Dear @Mandorake, if with "a mix between "gnosiology" and "epistemology" was being proposed, which clearly does not make any sense", you refered to my proposal to make it explicit in the Italian version of the entry "Teoria della conoscenza" (Theory of knowledge, literally; epistemology in English) that other names of this field of inquiry are "Epistemologia" and "Gnoseologia" I sincerily beg you to explain why it does not make any sense. I can assure you that in current Italian, "Teoria della Conoscenza", "Epistemologia" and "Gnoseologia" have broadly the same semantic extension. 2603:8001:D300:9367:CB:DCA:BFB1:3BD5 02:15, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I didn't log in. The last comment is mine. Filippo92CT (talk) 02:17, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Biogeographist, I don't see why @Mandorake being a portugese speaker should prevent him from having a particular opinion on wikidata arrengment...
You agree that en:epistemology and (I am guessing fr:épistémologie) have different semantic ranges and yet you oppose linking en:epistemology and fr:théorie de la connaissance which have the same semantic range. That defies logic. ...
...
Note continuation : About Jean Piaget : en:Genetic epistemology is indeed a theory of knowledge so that is why Truman is rightly saying that Piaget use the term épistémologie in an Anglo-Saxon way.
...
@Mandorake, it:gnoseologia is the " filosofia che studia la natura della conoscenza."... While the it:epistemologia focuses on "conoscenza scientifica". gnoseologia is used as many langages as synonymus to theory of knowledge i.e. epistemology in english.
Please... At least have the curiosity to check the articles you are refering to... D Cat laz (talk) 07:48, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Filippo92CT, you weren't even participating in the discussion until two days ago, there's no way I'm referring to you. Just look at the discussion, which suddenly turned to "fr:théorie de la connaissance" and "fr:épistémologie", and I am the only one to mention gnosiology and the other iw here because these terms were moved without consensus, I just returned to the status quo. About D Cat laz, that's what I said in the comments above, I won't repeat it, please don't distort my words. Obviously, if it were up to me, everything would revolve around pt.wiki (why should I defend en.wiki?) but I didn't use that argument. Didn't you understand that I'm mediating the discussion? It's not up to me to decide what's correct and what's not, but if you want to make any changes here, you need consensus from the whole, that's how Wikidata works. Mandorake (talk) 10:11, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You didn't use that argument, that argument was maid by @Biogeographist on your behalf...
About you "mediating the discussion"...
You said "mix between "gnosiology" and "epistemology" was being proposed, which clearly does not make any sense." this is a citation from you ? You opposed the link of fr:théorie de la connaissance to Q9471, and now (as I understand) to articles such as it:gnoseologia, es:gnoseologia or pt:gnoseologia.
Please don't pretend being mediation here while making those claims about what should link or not to Q9471 ? Be honest about your intentions as otherwise it will harm the quality of the conversation. D Cat laz (talk) 11:12, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You didn't use that argument, that argument was maid by @Biogeographist on your behalf... Be honest about your intentions Quote a sentence written by me that I have said that I support changing the status quo. Mandorake (talk) 11:34, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That sentence you are citing what meant to refer to yout sentence "Obviously, if it were up to me, everything would revolve around pt.wiki (why should I defend en.wiki?) but I didn't use that argument"
The rest of my answer was refering to you saying : "Didn't you understand that I'm mediating the discussion ?". Indeed I don't think you are mediating anything but rather strongly defending a position D Cat laz (talk) 11:52, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, if you think I'm "strongly defending a position", quote it. What do I want to change? Mandorake (talk) 12:00, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I will just copy part of my previous response : You said "mix between "gnosiology" and "epistemology" was being proposed, which clearly does not make any sense." this is a citation from you ? You opposed the link of fr:théorie de la connaissance to Q9471, and now (as I understand) to articles such as it:gnoseologia, es:gnoseologia or pt:gnoseologia.
Do you understand that you are having an opinion here ? D Cat laz (talk) 12:48, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't make sense because you arbitrarily changed it without any consensus and still haven't justified changing each item. Or were you talking about pt.wiki and the like? It's not my invention, I'll say it again: quote a passage in which I defend something different from what already exists. You who want to change, not me and not Biogeographist. Mandorake (talk) 13:56, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
D Cat laz said to me: yet you oppose linking en:epistemology and fr:théorie de la connaissance which have the same semantic range. I think you misunderstood me. I don't oppose linking those two articles, I just don't prefer that over the status quo. As for Piaget, we simply disagree about him: I say there is nothing "Anglo-Saxon" about his epistemological books like Logique et connaissance scientifique and Psychogenèse et histoire des sciences. Biogeographist (talk) 12:52, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Linking the closest lexical cognates[edit]

Everyone please notice that there are currently three properties Property:P460 that link Q9471 (epistemology) to Q2560959 (gnosiology) & Q116930361 (theory of knowledge) & Q59115 (philosophy of science). So in the ontology of Wikidata, it is now represented that for some people, some of these terms are interchangeable. Biogeographist (talk) 12:52, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Biogeographist what is the current logical thinking that is used to classify the different wikipedia articles in those items ? D Cat laz (talk) 12:55, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The closest lexical cognates are linked via interwiki links. French Wikipedia seems to be the wiki that has the most trouble here in relation to interwiki linking, since it is unique in having the three separate articles fr:Épistémologie & fr:Théorie de la connaissance & fr:Gnoséologie. This causes a clash in which one article (fr:Théorie de la connaissance) is left without any interwiki links. French Wikipedia would perhaps be in a better position in this regard if its editors had approved your merge proposals, but they didn't. Biogeographist (talk) 13:36, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay so the logic here would be to link fr:théorie de la connaissance with nl:kennistheorie, de:erkenntnistheorie, if you agree furthermore, I will do the necessary corrections. D Cat laz (talk) 13:43, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't agree. de:Erkenntnistheorie begins: "Die Erkenntnistheorie (auch Epistemologie oder Gnoseologie)". So you can't use de:Erkenntnistheorie to choose which of fr:Épistémologie & fr:Théorie de la connaissance & fr:Gnoséologie is linked to Q9471. Biogeographist (talk) 13:52, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is not what I implied. I propose that nl:kennistheorie, de:erkenntnistheorie will be linked to Q116930361 according to your logic of "The closest lexical cognates are linked via interwiki links" D Cat laz (talk) 14:21, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What would you link to Q9471 from nl-wiki and de-wiki instead of nl:kennistheorie & de:erkenntnistheorie? Biogeographist (talk) 15:00, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing. Is there a need for something to be linked here ? D Cat laz (talk) 15:13, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, nl:kennistheorie & de:erkenntnistheorie both say that epistemologie is a synonym. So there is no need to remove those links from Q9471. You can't add nl:kennistheorie & de:erkenntnistheorie to Q116930361 without first removing them from Q9471, and there is no consensus for their removal here. Biogeographist (talk) 15:25, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As I think about it more, I see that linking nl:kennistheorie & de:erkenntnistheorie to Q116930361 instead of Q9471 could be an acceptable solution. I don't see a reason to oppose it, and it does better follow the principle of linking the closest lexical cognates. Will the other participants in the discussion give their opinion? Perhaps we should wait a couple of days, and if there are no good opposing reasons, we can link nl:kennistheorie & de:erkenntnistheorie to Q116930361 instead of Q9471. Biogeographist (talk) 16:03, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@D Cat laz: Perhaps there is no need to wait. Just make the change and see if others accept it. Biogeographist (talk) 16:18, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a problem. Mandorake (talk) 16:33, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Per the principle of linking the closest lexical cognates, I just moved the following links from Q9471 to Q116930361. Let me be the one who is reverted this time if someone disagrees!

Biogeographist (talk) 16:59, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

it's a way better state than it used to be (it's not a stew anymore !). Let's hope it will also satisfy other wikis and thanks for having made the modifications to the items D Cat laz (talk) 20:08, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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