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Wiki Education assignment: Information Literacy and Scholarly Discourse

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 June 2023 and 26 July 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lemonsc27 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Chorton2233 (talk) 17:04, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction to social and political philosophy

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Meaning,types and important 105.113.41.38 (talk) 12:14, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of the last section.

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It may be best to omit the last section, as it appears somewhat disjointed. The "list of political philosophers" link alone is adequate. StarkReport (talk) 01:10, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have incorporated the information in the list into the article. Trakking (talk) 09:13, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for integrating the list's content into the body. The article feels more cohesive and reads much better now. StarkReport (talk) 14:19, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Changes to the article

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I was thinking about implementing changes to this article with the hope of moving it in the direction of GA status. Major parts of the article are currently unreferenced. Additionally, the article has the maintenance tags 1x excessive quote and 4x citation needed.

In its current form, the article's title should be "History of political philosophy" rather than "Political philosophy": the readable prose size of the history section is over ten times as long as the readable prose size of the rest combined. We are in a curious situation where this history section is almost three times as long as the corresponding history article, which it is supposed to summarize (see WP:SUMMARYSTYLE). A better approach would be to move all the historical details to the history article and leave only a concise summary here. This would leave more space here to discuss other issues, such as the definition of political philosophy and its relation to similar fields (like ethics, political science, and social philosophy). This could also cover the relation to political theory: various reliable sources claim that it is a distinct field, so we can't simply state as an uncontested fact that it is a synonym.

Overview sources often discuss basic concepts (like justice, equality, liberty, rights, authority, political obligation, and legitimacy), which would also be good here. There could be one section dedicated to the main schools of thought and ideologies (such as liberalism, conservatism, socialism, communism, anarchism, totalitarianism, individualism, and communitarianism). Another prominent topic in overview sources is methodology, which should probably get either a section or a subsection.

There are more things to consider, but they can be addressed later since the ones mentioned so far will already involve a lot of work to implement. I was hoping to get some feedback on these ideas and possibly other suggestions. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:27, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Trakking, since someone else is actively doing a lot of work on the article, it would be a much appreciated courtesy to discuss such large-scale changes before implementing so many at once. More consistent use of descriptive edit summaries would also help to explain your bold decisions. I have not reverted anything because I don't want to get caught in the middle of this. But I wouldn't blame someone else for initiating the WP:BRD procedure. Thanks, Patrick 🐈‍⬛ (talk) 17:37, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. Thanks for your comment. I did not make any bold decisions; I simply incorporated the older sections on political ideologies into a newly created section on the same exact topic. The only relatively bold edit I made was removing a paragraph on the political spectrum as it did not belong under a heading about distinct ideologies, although it could be re-added somewhere else in the article. Also—I shortened a few older paragraphs, one of which had been added earlier by myself (the Austrian School). I greatly appreciate the contributions made by Phlsph7 and have barely made any changes to their additions. Trakking (talk) 17:57, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay! It looked like a lot to me, but I've been known to misread diffs—especially when a lot of material is being moved around. But here's to hoping all interested contributors can collaborate amicably! Cheers, Patrick 🐈‍⬛ (talk) 18:35, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Trakking and thanks for all your work on this article! As discussed in my initial explanation above, a key issue with the current section "History" (and with the material you moved from it in your recent edits) is that it contains many historical details that are too specific to include in this type of overview article. As I understand it, our article should provide a very condensed overview of the most important schools of thought and leave all the details to child articles. For example, looking at overview sources on political ideologies like Vincent 2010, Moseley § 3., and Gaus, D'Agostino & Muldoon 2013 § Part II, they do not treat Christian democracy and capitalism as the main political ideologies (probably in part because capitalism is more an economic system than a political ideology). I'm open to expansions of the content I added, but given the breadth of the topic and the limited space here, we have to be very selective about which information we want to include. There may be other potential issues with your changes, such as sourcing concerns, presenting populism as a major philosophical perspective, and ending the history section with Romanticism as the latest development.
My idea for addressing these issues was the following: Since our history section has too many details and the main article History of political thought has too few, it would make sense to move most of the content there (see WP:SS). This may be better than the alternative of keeping everything here but radically cutting it. The history section here would then be replaced with a concise summary overview. I've already started with a draft but it will take me some more time to finish. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:27, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Phlsph7. Thanks for your excellent work. This article was quite a mess before we started cleaning it up. I am interested in improving it in all ways possible, since political philosophy and the history of political ideas are my main areas of interest. To answer your comments:
  • I agree that capitalism is more of an economic theory than a political ideology and ought to be removed from the list. Yet, the Austrian School and Objectivism are influential ideologies of capitalism. How about incorporating parts of it into the section on classical liberalism and libertarianism while removing the rest?
  • Concerning the last point—do you think we should make Libertarianism a subheading under Liberalism, and Marxism a subheading under Socialism? Would it make the article easier or harder to navigate? Or maybe we could just condense these parts of the article and incorporate them into the section on the overarching ideology.
  • Christian Democracy has been the major political ideology of Western Europe since World War II, making it worthy of inclusion. Anarchism is fringe and obscure in comparison. However, I agree that we ought to limit the list to the most notable ideologies in accordance with scholarly sources.
  • Populism vs elitism has been one of the most central themes of political philosophy ever since Plato criticised democratic majoritarianism and advocated the rule of a philosopher king. Ideas such as popular sovereignty and elite theory are major topics within the discipline.
  • Ending the history section with Romanticism is logical, since all the major ideologies were born during the same era (around year 1800). The former "Modern era" section was centred around modern political ideologies. However, there are other issues with the History section, as you mentioned.
Overall I agree with your take on the article. We ought to keep it short and sweet and limited to the most notable ideas, themes, and people. I appreciate all the improvements and I am hoping for even more! Trakking (talk) 16:37, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think your suggestions about a condensed summary of capitalism and Marxism, possibly in subsubsections, could work. I'll see if I can come up with something.
The reliable sources that I'm aware of, like the ones mentioned above, all discuss anarchism as a major political ideology but none discuss Christian democracy as a major political ideology. I'm not against an explanation of christian democracy in some form but I feel uneasy about presenting it as one of the main ideologies discussed by political philosophers even though our sources don't. You are right that there are many Christian democratic parties in the Western Europe, but that does not automatically mean that this is a major category in political philosophy.
Are you sure that the specific term "populism" is used in the wide and influential historical context you suggest? Both Scruton 2007 and McLean 2005 give a much more narrow definition of the term. Our article Populism associates this stance primarily with modern/contemporary politics. Many overview sources don't even mention the term, like Knowles 2001, Moseley, and Tuckness & Wolf 2016.
Would you mind if we restore the previous section structure with subsections only for a handful of the most important ideologies? This structure had a subsection called "Others" where each other view that should be mentioned gets between a few sentences to one paragraph. I think this approach does a better job at showcasing relative WP:WEIGHT and avoids lengthy lists of subsections. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:53, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent recommendation moving the smaller ideologies—feminism, communitarianism, environmentalism, republicanism, and perhaps also Christian democracy—to an "Others" section. That way we can keep them (for now at least) while giving them a subordinated place. I have seen a similar structure in works on political philosophy, where the major ideologies are presented first and then some "Contemporary" or lesser known ideologies follow. I will go ahead and execute this move.
You are correct that the term populism may not be well-established from a historical perspective. Maybe "elite rule vs popular rule" is a better subheading. The idea, however, is indeed very central to the topic. Trakking (talk) 18:24, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Language section

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Although the unsourced material provided by User:于星 was correctly removed, the topic of language could have some space in this article. A cursory Google search (and Google Scholar search) revealed the following sources:

JasonMacker (talk) 18:24, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't currently have a view on what place language should have in the article. On the Xing Yu volume, however, please see the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_381#Cambridge_Scholars_Publishing. Patrick 🐈‍⬛ (talk) 18:47, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the link. I incorrectly thought the publishing agency was affiliated with Cambridge University. In any case, I'm not familiar enough with the subject matter to find relevant, reliable sources. I'd suggest leaving it out of the article for now. JasonMacker (talk) 19:05, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am Xing Yu. I am sure that I have created a theory of political philosophy of language, which should be a big progress in the growth of political philosophy. As I am no longer teaching in the university, I have no way to announce the birth of a new theory in this field. But I can indicate that Liberty Fund, an educational foundation based in Indiana, United States, held an academic meeting, discussing one of my books about the political philosophy of language in May 2024. The proposition of that meeting is An Economy of Words: Adam Smith and the Political Philosophy of Language. You can search the related information online. This entry of Political Philosophy should be updated to reflect the current knowledge of political philosophy. If this entry fails to display an important area of research in political philosophy, it is incomplete. But I should say that I am the only one who delves deep into this area in this world, the editors of Wikipedia should consider if they can do something very special in this case. 于星 (talk) 20:26, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For inclusion in Wikipedia, academic work needs to be published by peer-reviewed journals or by an academic press—and also, in many cases, to have inspired a secondary literature published by the same.
I hope you find that you like it here and that you use your expertise to improve the encyclopedia. Wikipedia, however, is not a platform on which to promote your own original ideas (however brilliant they may genuinely be!).
Regards, Patrick 🐈‍⬛ (talk) 20:49, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can you ask some political philosophers to write something about the role of language in the formation of the state for this entry? The role of language in the formation of the state is something missing in the description of political philosophy. Editors should be responsible for providing the entry of high quality. The academic community should be proactive in searching for the new theories of political philosophy in support of the academic development because sometimes the creators of new theories are helpless as self-recommendation is not welcome. I believe that the academic community is slow to learn the academic progress because new theories or knowledge tends to be overlooked or ignored for a long period of time. University professors always discuss the same theories of political philosophy for a long period of time without disclosing any new major theory and this entry of political philosophy reflects the same trend. 于星 (talk) 22:42, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You've certainly convinced me that the subject (language in political philosophy) is an area of academic research and could have a section in this article. But keep in mind that Wikipedia's policy on Verifiability requires us to report what secondary sources say about the subject. Although we can't use your books directly, do your books contain secondary sources published by reliable sources that discuss the topic? We could use those directly. JasonMacker (talk) 23:05, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What I can say is that one book about this subject matter is: The Routledge Handbook of Social and Political Philosophy of Language, edited by Justin Khoo and Rachel Katharine Sterken, 2021. This shows that there is the study of the political philosophy of language. I do not believe that the book mentioned above says something about the theory I have created because I am an isolated independent scholar and my books are seldom known by the academic community except that in May 2024 Liberty Fund, a publisher and a think tank in Indiana, held an academic meeting discussing An Economy of Words: Adam Smith and the Political Philosophy of Language, and my book Language and State: A Theory of the Progress of Civilization, 2021, was set forth as a reference book for this academic meeting. I got this book republished as a revised edition under the title A Political Philosophy of Language and State by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2025.I did not study in America or the United Kingdom and my books cannot be published by any university press in America. So I let Cambridge Scholars Publishing publish this book. This publisher is not predatory. I think that the academic community is building a theory about the role of language in political philosophy. But I firmly believe that I have made a breakthrough while other scholars did not. 于星 (talk) 23:24, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is another book: Thomas Ricento, Yael Peled and Peter Ives, eds., Language Policy and Political Theory: Building Bridges, Assessing Breaches, 2015. Maybe you can ask one of these editors to write something about language in political philosophy. 于星 (talk) 23:41, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I respect your policy and you do not necessarily mention my books or any content of those books. 于星 (talk) 23:48, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello JasonMacker and 于星 and thanks for your explanations. You are right that the concept of language is relevant to political philosophy but I agree with Patrick Welsh's concerns about reliable sources and WP:PROPORTION. Language it is not one of the main concepts discussed by political philosophers at large, compared to other concepts like "government" and "political power", which is why dedicating a full subsection just for this specific concept violates WP:BALANCE. For example, the overview sources on political philosophy in general that I'm aware of, like "The Bloomsbury Companion to Political Philosophy", "A Companion to Political Philosophy. Methods, Tools, Topics", "The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy", "This Is Political Philosophy: An Introduction (Tuckness & Wolf 2016)", and "An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Wolff 2006)", don't have separate sections on language. To address the concern about the discussion of language, I added a passage to the paragraph on power to explain the role of language without overemphasizing this particular aspect compared to the rest.

As a side note to Xing Yu: it seems that you have a Wikipedia:Conflict of interest since you want to popularize your own philosophy by adding references to works you published. At the very least, you need to WP:DISCLOSE this on your user page. I suggest that you don't make substantial edits to pages where you have a conflict of interest. Instead, you can make talk page suggestions and let other editors decide. But given that your publications are considered either self-published or published by predatory publishers, they probably can't be added as references. Also keep in mind that the purpose of articles like this one is to provide a balanced overview of a tradition that is several millennia old and includes countless views and schools of thought. The purpose is not to popularize recently conceived views that have not yet established themselves as widely-discussed positions. While popularizing your philosophy is a valid enterprise, Wikipedia is not the right place for this. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:39, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your explanation. I understand the policy of Wikipedia. 69.166.114.43 (talk) 13:54, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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