Talk:Frithjof Schuon/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Untitled

why was the entire 'criticism' section removed? this article needs to be checked for neutrality.

I have partially rewritten and added references to the "criticism" section, that had become barely readable. I have also listed secondary readings (Books about Schuon and his perspective).

Hope it will fit better Wikipedia's standards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.225.50.238 (talk • contribs) 18:11, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Book dates

Could someone add the dates his books were originally published, and the dates of translation into English? --Blainster (talk) 08:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Criticism

This is a controversial figure, but it seems that a section on the controversy was deleted. Criticism has been published by Mark Sedgwick, Against the Modern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), and by Peter Lamborn Wilson, Sacred Drift (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1993), and also on the web site of Mark Koslow: Media:http://naturesrights.com/knowledge power book/frithjof_Schuon.asp Legenhausen (talk) 13:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I strongly advise any one of Schuon's own followers or sympathizers who might happen to be reading this to insert and write a balanced "Criticism" section his or herself, so as to avoid bias from the other direction fulfilling that vacuum. --Sawyer207 (talk) 16:27, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

• • • The following document clearly outlines the events in question, and while it may have "provided" controversy, it had no basis in fact.

http://www.frithjof-schuon.com/dossier_schuon_english.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.240.222.240 (talk) 14:59, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Sympathizers or not, it is in the readers' interest to have a serious Criticism section as suggested above. I am moving the lines about the Bloomington accusations from the end of the biography (recently added without any explanation by LeandroTelesRocha1983) to this new section, and bringing back the final lines of the biography section to something more concise and less dramatic.

Mention of Sedgwick's work must be made—after all it is Oxford University Press—but detailed criticism has been raised by Fitzgerald, Poindexter and Horváth and several key points have received no public reply from Dr Sedgwick, so I think we can safely assume it is not quite an authoritative book on Traditionalism, pace Oxford. Cf. WP:USEBYOTHERS: “The goal is to reflect established views of sources as far as we can determine them.” See also Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Flaws, especially the lines: “Do they have an agenda or conflict of interest, strong views, or other bias which may color their report? Find out what other people say about your sources. Have the sources reported other facts reliably, including on different subjects? Cross-check with what you already know.” If any fellow editor here is particularly keen on relying on Sedgwick's as an authoritative source, please refer to the three reviews linked above before making edits to this article. Caveat lector!

Admirers of Schuon may also be reminded that it is totally out of place to use this article to engage in praise of their mentor, and that deleting or trying to tone down irresponsibly the Criticism section would only detract from the objectivity of the article, and thus feed the ever distracting rumours going round in the web. Schuon himself would probably have been for a fair treatment of the whole matter in cold objectivity. — Desde la Torre (talk) 00:39, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Further to my previous: I have removed from Criticism the paragraph taken from Ohlander's “Maryamiyya Sufi Order” article, as it came directly from Sedgwick's and it seemed to have been added mostly for its tabloid impact. Other sections from Ohlander's article could be used advantageously upon another edit, but I don't have that much time just now. Servus!—Desde la Torre (talk) 11:49, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Sympathizers copying from online biographies

The recent (as of 02:04, 16 March 2015) edit by User:2601:f:400:ca10:c5b4:dea2:54cf:297a is mostly a copy and paste from the World Wisdom Books website biography, which makes this edit a breach of WP:NPS. While WW's publications and diffusion activities may be commendable, their contents in relation to Mr Schuon are certainly not written in a neutral “encyclopaedia” tone and are by far too detailed for the concision required.

This article has a long history and this is not the first time such a pro domo addition occurs, but disciples, students and followers of FS might realize that it is detrimental to Schuon's appreciation to have an encyclopaedia article taken over for promotional purposes. In the case of such well established and widely published authors, a Wikipedia article is notably a first port of call for anyone with an interest; the oeuvre stands for itself and does not need summarizing at every opportunity.

A link to the WW's page, if not already provided under External References could be added instead. Please see my comments above under Criticism. To add to the problem, the editor has no user page and is thus impossible to contact. I will proceed to undo the edit and hope for the best! — Desde la Torre (talk) 10:02, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Critical Narrowness

This article is useless as it is. There is no trace of comparative or even historical criticism. As it stands, the article is a pamphlet. This page needs the attention of someone with a background in comparative religion study. There is also a gap in his later biography. What was Schuon doing in his later years?Silverstairs (talk) 15:36, 27 February 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Silverstairs (talk • contribs) 15:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I just stumbled upon this page and I must say that after over 2 years it is still bad. It needs to be made much more neutral and 3rd party sources about his philosophy and impact need to be greatly increased. Ashmoo (talk) 16:15, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Prompted by Ashmoo's remark, I wonder if there would be consensus among interested editors in redoing this article on the model of the German Wikipedia article? Not necessarily all of it, as it seems to go occasionally into lots of detail, and keeping a Criticism section, but the German one seems informative and more like a reference article. It would be good to hear opinions and I am certainly not going to make such a big move without previous editorial consensus. Furthermore, would anyone volunteer to do the bulk of the article translation? Desde la Torre (talk) 10:23, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't read German but did skip over that article and it seems like portions could be imported into the English one. Or are you talking about the overall structure? I also think the Criticism section should be removed and the contents incorporated into the main text. That is the wikipedia preferred style and solves a lot of POV problems. Ashmoo (talk) 13:20, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I was thinking primarily in terms of structure, but also contents of course. —About the Criticism section, I see your point, but because FS has been a controversial figure and there had been a suggestion in the past by another editor, I thought it might be more apropos to encapsulate all that in one single section. That whole matter is contentious, and it does not seem too appropriate to give it the same treatment as to the rest of the biographic material, which is very much of one tenor. Here again, I think it would be wise to hear from other interested editors. Servus! Desde la Torre (talk) 00:16, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

It would definitely be good to hear from other editors. But I think the style guide against Criticism sections was specifically formed to avoid lumping all negative comments into a single section. As it is, the article is extremely pro FS in the main article and only mentions controversies in the Criticism section, making it almost two articles. Generally a Reception section is preferred so that balance with (Due weight) to all the different opinions of the man and his work. At the moment, the criticism section seems to be entirely about a single sex scandal. If this happened after his death, my preference would be to put it into a Post humous legacy section. If it was during his life, it should be in the bio section during era that it happened. Ashmoo (talk) 20:38, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Revamping the article

Further to the discussion above with Ashmoo, I open this new section for comments on the long overdue renovation of the article. There is the suggestion to try to follow (not strictly) the tenor and structure of the German article. I would suggest the first thing to do would be to change the article preamble and the Bibliography section ("Works" may be better?) with subsections for his own work and secondary literature, including publication dates of the original editions and English translations. Along these lines, I should be able to give this article a few hours a week, hoping for some help. Servus— Desde la Torre (talk) 11:18, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

After some drafting, consulting and consideration, and after doing some work on the Bibliography as explained below, I have decided to put on hold plans to do further changes to the article. It is certainly not a good article, but a full revamping would be far too time consuming for me at the moment. If someone is interested, I would be happy to lend a hand. Desde la Torre (talk) 16:40, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Bibliography

As per the above section, I have separated author's own works from anthologies, added a new publication and some new edition dates, but I think there is still checking and updating to do. I haven't touched the alphabetical sorting, though for readers of the article I think a publication date sorting would be expected. Views on this? Servus— Desde la Torre (talk) 16:40, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Anonymous coda to biography

Anonymous user 108.88.37.71 has added a paragraph to the biography section "Delineating the distinction of apparent opposition of exoterisms and the inherent truth as outlined by FS". It starts by saying "it is impossible to give at present a final decision on Schuon's world of ideas… Nevertheless, an attempt may be made…" This is obviously out of place in the biography section, especially just after the author's death is mentioned! But in general it is hardly suitable for an encyclopaedia article. It is essayistic whereas, quoting WP:GENERALIZE, "Encyclopedia articles are a summary of accepted knowledge on a given subject." The article is already patchy as it is, so let us try not to cram it with opinions. This is not the place to give any final decision on anyone's ideas, least of all a somewhat controversial figure. If we stick to the facts of the biography and the abundant legacy, there is plenty for readers to be informed and then pursue their own research. The Views section contains, as far as I can see, everything added by this new paragraph, which is therefore redundant.

I would like to ask user 108.88.37.71 to relocate the paragraph later in the article or to delete it, also considering WP:NOR: "Wikipedia articles must not contain original research." I will otherwise delete this paragraph on the reasons just outlined—say within two weeks time.

I hope this helps, Desde la Torre (talk) 09:30, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Criticism gone again

Speaking as someone who came in here to look up Schuon, the article is heavily biased in his favour the moment. I have just been reading Schuon's "Understanding Islam" and have (as a former religions major) frankly been surprised at the (even objectively speaking) weakness of his philosophical arguments, in contrast to all his admirers praising him as a great, sagely figure known for his "objectivity" and whatnot. Whereas in reality, many of his arguments could be summed up as "Well, this is just an old, Eternal Truth and the modernists are stupid!" which, whether you agree with him or not, must have come across as foot-stompy even to his peers at the time. Frankly, I was surprised he is still being taken so seriously by many--there's a huge contrast between what his disciples paint him as and what's actually in his books. Forgive me for veering into personal criticism there for a moment, but I could not think of another way to illustrate the problem with the article as it is--when I came here to see if there were objective assessments of his works, and what his critics had to say, there was absolutely none of it here to be found. This article is in sore need of quotations from all sides to place him correctly in the wider contexts of religious philosophy, but right now it's almost hagiography.--Snowgrouse (talk) 23:53, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

The devotees are probably the only ones willing to spend time on this article; the rest has got better things to do than cleaning-up this article. That being said: you can devote some of your own time? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:54, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

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