Talk:Timeline of philosophers

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What's the basis for the chronological placement? Dewey, for example, was doing philosophy in the late 1800's, but he's not listed until relatively far into the 1900-on section. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 22:26, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The way I see it, it goes vaguely according to the first years of popularity of the philosopher - the "breakout" moments of their careers. But of course there's a lot of wiggle room since many philosophers do significant work throughout their lives, and that can't fit nicely into 50-25 year intervals. Chomsky, as another example, will be listed during the 50s, because that's when his first widely regarded work in linguistics was published; but of course he's been philosophically active his entire life.

If I sound tentative about this, it's because the listing comes from another source linked at the bottom of the page (philosophypages.com). I've overhauled the listing, included first names, short summaries, and other philosophers, so copyright shouldn't be a concern. But the parsing by eras hasn't been changed. If you find names that don't make any sense, please tell me and I'll modify it, or you can go ahead and modify it.

Lucidish 23:18, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It's not that I feel I'd do a vastly better job than currently, I'm just yearning for some more systematic way of doing this. Ideally something that I can do with existing wikipedia articles and, at most, a calculator ::grin:: -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 23:30, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Heh heh. Well, true. But I don't see much alternative... listing them by birth date or death date seems a bit weird.

Oh, you seem to have a pronounced interest in Eastern Philosophy, could you help me out in organizing the timeline of Eastern philosophers?

Lucidish 00:11, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I feel like such a stumbling block, but...

I really don't mean to be needlessly critical, but I have a concern about the bolding, etc., to denote importance. There are a lot of competing P'sOV in philosophy, and for each one of them, any mapping of importance and unimportance other than their own is going to be fundamentally flawed. I wouldn't be averse to short blurbs describing the importance of particular philosophers for particular groups, or even color-coding to indicate the various significances. Would people be open to either of these, or have other ideas? -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 00:57, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Oh, sure. I'm open to any improvements you like. Think of what I'm doing as a first draft; whatever happens to it later is fine with me (so long as it's reasonable and true). After all, I recognize that though it's clear that Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle are bigwigs in the Western tradition, it isn't quite as clear whether Schopenhauer is more popular than Bentham (or what have you).

Lucidish 02:26, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

East, West, Global

Seeing as how this list is getting a bit unweildy we might have to make separate pages for east, west, and global lists of philosophers.

Lucidish 02:38, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Also...

I figured out something that was bugging me. As it stands, this isn't a timeline of philosophy; what it is is a "List of philosophers by various arbitrary units of time". ::grin:: -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 04:54, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Well we have to agree to disagree on a lot of things. It's not exactly arbitrary, per se, it's just, ah, vague. You're right that it's a list of philosophers, and not of philosophies, and I'll own that goofup.

Lucidish 17:20, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I didn't mean "arbitrary" in a bad way. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 20:35, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Oh, that's fine then too. Lucidish 23:55, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)