Talk:Aristotle/Archives/2024

Era

The current academic norm in philosophy, as elsewhere, is use BCE/CE rather than BC/AD. The article should be changed to reflect the practice of these high-quality sources. For instance, just online, see both [1] and [2].

Also, it is contextually inappropriate to place ancient figures on a timeline expressed in the language of a religion that did not yet exist.

More generally, although Wikipedia policy is agnostic on this decision, it makes sense to use non-exclusionary language when possible.

Further discussion can be found here. I am also placing a note on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Philosophy.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:43, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

So you are saying "BCE" is Greek, and not anachronistic? What do you think defines the "common era"? The movements of stars? I find it very hard to understand how people get worked up about either option. Count me with the agnostics. There are more important things in life. There are even more important things on Wikipedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Totally fine to be agnostic! I thought nothing of it when I made the change as part of a series of edits in December. Whatever the outcome, it would just be nice to have a consensus on record to help avoid future exchanges like the one linked above.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 20:20, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Cherry picking sources that happen to use BCE/CE rather than BC/AD does not equate to a "current academic norm", but even if BCE/CE were the academic norm, this does not translate to a valid reason to employ them on Wikipedia. We do not have a guideline specifically encouraging the use of euphemisms that may be considered academic norms, but we do have a guideline WP:COMMONNAME which prefers using terminology most commonly used, as determined by "prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources". BC/AD are commonly used, and arguably are more generally understood by the population at large; this Ngram data shows BC/AD as more prevalent. They are also the terms that arose organically as part of the slow, cumulative development of the year numbering system of the Julian and Gregorian calendars, whereas BCE/CE were created specifically as an alternative to the pre-existing organic terms because of Before Christ/Anno Domini's perceived religious offensiveness; Wikipedia is not censored for terms deemeed to be "offensive" to religious sensibilities or otherwise. Also, saying that it is "contextually inappropriate to place ancient figures on a timeline expressed in the language of a religion that did not yet exist" is no more a convincing argument than saying we shouldn't write the article using Modern English since it "didn't exist yet", or even BCE/CE since they didn't exist yet either. It is no more "contextually inappropriate" to use BC/AD on Aristotle as it would be to use Wednesday (a term meaning Woden's Day) or January (a term meaning month of Janus), terms that are also "in the language of a religion". English Wikipedia uses various standards such as Modern English, Arabic numerals, and the Gregorian calendar (which employs BC/AD as part of its year numbering system); there is no more "exclusion" in using BC/AD than there is using any other Western, English-language standard. In terms of a desire to not use "non-exclusionary language", I would argue that "Common Era" is more exclusionary than Anno Domini because it makes an explicit POV declaration that the Christian-derived Gregorian calendar year numbering system should be the "Common" era, to the exclusion of all others, rather than BC/AD which are simply the Gregorian calendar's organically-determined English-language demarcation terms tied directly to the objective reason for which the era begins 2,023 years ago.— Crumpled Fire • contribs • 20:23, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I cited to the two freely available, peer-reviewed online encyclopedias of philosophy that you will find linked at the bottom of basically every philosophy article on Wikipedia.

Also, I am hardly claiming that the more current terms are perfect. They are just a small improvement that is extremely easy to implement. So let's! You are making this way too complicated.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:00, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I see that PatrickJWelsh has also gone to The Plato talk page and the WikiProject Philosophy talk page but, as WP:FORUMSHOP says, "Raising essentially the same issue on multiple noticeboards and talk pages, or to multiple administrators or reviewers, or any one of these repetitively, is unhelpful to finding and achieving consensus." And PatrickJWelsh is the only one who needs consensus, because WP:ERA says what Crumpled Fire says and since the earliest edition of this article that I can find has BC. Also PatrickJWalsh's claim that BCE/CE "seem to be standard in the recent academic literature that articles are supposed to reflect" is rather different from what I read in MOS:FAQ: "Wikipedia defaults to preferring general-audience sources on style, especially when a specialized preference may conflict with most readers' expectations, and when different disciplines use conflicting styles." I thank Crumpled Fire for taking the trouble to oppose change here. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:15, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Peter Gulutzan,

Thanks for weighing in—and welcome to WikiProject Philosophy! We look forward to your future contributions in this area.

The most salient issue you raise pertains to standard usage in current sources. Wikipedia is indeed — and for impeccable reasons – written for a general audience. I am always glad to be edited or entirely reverted on prose not intelligible to your average 7th grader.

I think, however, that there is no such danger of confusion here. So, we follow reliable sources as is contextually appropriate (see WP:RS and WP:ERA).

I am not, to be clear, proposing that Wikipedia follow academic norms as a matter of general principle. Reliable sources on Aristotle and his philosophy, however, mostly come from professional academics. And any that don't are still unconditionally welcome if they help improve the article (in the most general sense of "improve").

In response to your other comments, I believe that bringing the issue to the attention of editors at the most relevant WikiProject is entirely appropriate. If I missed another relevant board or general forum, please do share with the same disclosure. Not trying to exclude anyone here! I have not contacted anyone individually, on or off Wikipedia. I'm looking for consensus on something upon which I am well-informed, but not a subject-matter expert. The default assumption is that we are all trying to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Aristotle and other Ancient Greek philosophers. If I'm in the wrong here, I genuinely want to know, so that I can graciously accede to the unforced force of the better argument.

To achieve meaningful consensus, we need multiple, informed voices. In some other context, I would indeed prefer to individually argue the case on its own merits, but that is not how Wikipedia works—and for good reasons, which I support, even if I do not love all of the implications. Raising the same issue on the Plato talk page was not a great call, but just on account of the redundancy, not, as far as I see, any sort plausible recruitment strategy. I did it because it seems like, whatever the consensus here may be, it should apply there as well, and for all of the same reasons—but which @Crumpled Fire would insist also appear independently on that talk page. And I don't want to be doing this at all, much less repeatedly for every individual article to which the same facts apply. I am, however, going to close that discussion out, subject to their revision for which no reasons need be provided.

Look forward to your further considered thoughts on the issue —

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 15:57, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

If you go to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers, put "wp:era" in the "Search archives" box, and read all the discussions about this, you'll see that there have already been "considered thoughts on the issue". Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:32, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Oh no! I'm not suggesting a change to Wikipedia policy. What is directly at issue is what is most appropriate for this individual article.

The policy @Crumpled Fire cited to justify their change says either style is fine as long as it is employed consistently. It also says, "An article's established era style should not be changed without reasons specific to its content"(my emphasis). The fact that it previously used a different style is not dispositive.

Hence my reference above to the two major online philosophy encyclopedias and general academic practice. If BCE has become the preferred term by folks publishing on Aristotle, as I believe it has, that would be a strong content-specific reason to justify restoring the previous version of the article. Or if I am missing something, could you please explain what specifically?

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 23:24, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

With apologies to everyone for not simply letting this go, here is an overview (as I see things).

The policy at issue is WP:ERA. It's unusually narrow and contravenes the more general and frequently cited WP:BOLD. Made aware of this, however, by someone who did indeed very much wish to dispute the style on this page, I created this thread. I also notified the most relevant project noticeboard, where, contrary to my intention, much of the discussion took place.

What is frustrating to me is that the policy explicitly states that both styles are acceptable. It says, "Either convention may be appropriate for use in Wikipedia articles depending on the article context." It also links out to a related policy that I would summarize as "please don't muck around with existing styles in a way that is needlessly disruptive".

In particular, it does not say what @Crumpled Fire presents on the WikiProject talk, namely their argument "only that we shouldn't change the established uses of BC/AD to BCE/CE", where by "established", I understand them to mean the oldest instance of either term that can be found in the article history (rather than what is "established" by the reliable sources upon which the article is based). They also seem to be saying that they are only interested in changing styles in one direction, rather than implementing the policy in a universal way. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

This discussion has indeed become needlessly disruptive. However, I would submit that the primary reason is that some participants refuse to keep the discussion, to the extent possible, focused on what style is most appropriate to the context of this article, as is required by the policy they invoke. It would seem instead, that they would like to re-litigate the general policy they invoked to start what has become rather a mess of a discussion.

I do not think anyone is engaged in actual self-contradiction. It is, however, not great practice to cite a policy, in order rehash general arguments against that same policy, in a venue that does not determine policy. Hence my characterization, "needlessly disruptive" and "mess of a discussion".

To close, I will just point briefly in what I do think would be a productive direction, in the unlikely event anyone actually has any patience remaining to further pursue this in a way consonant with the existing policy.

In the top post of this thread, I pointed to the practice of the two top online philosophy resources that are freely available online.[3][4]. Both use BCE in their articles on Arisotle. These are not "cherry picked". WikiProject Philosophy literally has templates specifically designed to make them (very, very slightly) easier to cite. These are the kinds of high-quality sources in terms of which this discussion should be taking place. I do not, to be clear, pretend that this decides the matter, but I present this just as the sort of consideration relevant to arriving at a sound editorial decision.

With respect to the real concerns about accessibility, I note that Brittanica, which is written at about a 5th grade level, also uses BCE in their article on Aristotle.[5] Wikipedia's own Common Era article also reports that the newer style has become increasingly common in US textbooks since at least 2005, which actually means that some people under 30 might not recognize the old style! (See the article for info about other countries.) So I have no real concern in either direction. (Moreover, if there is good evidence about this, it should probably be introduced elsewhere as a general policy consideration against whichever style might be shown to be widely confusing.) As for my own anecdotal self, I was taught to use the newer style—and this was more than 25 years ago at a Catholic middle school in the United States Midwest. Never been challenged on it until now!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 23:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

BC/AD are more simpler and easier to understand and parse than BCE/CE, which threw me quite off the first time I encountered it. Not convinced that we should follow modern academic trends and worry about the fact that the terms are derived from religion (like so many other terms). Traumnovelle (talk) 03:51, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Just to say that, as a professional historian, I am also agnostic as to CE BCE. The reason is that we have no standard. Besides, CE and BCE are only disguised conventions applied to the Gregorian Calendar. So happy with BC and AD if this helps the majority of readers to understand. 86.6.148.125 (talk) 19:15, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in! The emerging consensus does seem to be "what is wrong with you people and why are you arguing about this?"...

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 23:26, 18 February 2024 (UTC)