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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 14 March 2025 [1].

Epistemology

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Nominator(s): Phlsph7 (talk) 10:40, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Epistemology is the philosophical study of knowledge. As a major branch of philosophy, it examines the nature of knowledge, distinguishing different types and components. It further explores the sources of knowledge, like perception, and its limits, addressing what people can and cannot know. Thanks to It is a wonderful world for the in-depth GA review and to DoctorWhoFan91 and Shapeyness for their insightful peer review comments! Phlsph7 (talk) 10:40, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Image and prose review

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Will do an image and prose review later today. DWF91 (talk) 11:51, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Image

Everything other than the first are fine, correctly attributed, with appropriate captions. Maybe you should use the original pic, or use a diff image for the first?

Prose

Seems fine mostly, as I mentioned most of the changes that were needed in the PR. One issue that kinda exists is that seeing African and Indian epistemology in branches and approaches feel weird, as it seems to contrast modern approaches with ancient ones. Maybe move it to history, or move some of the history to above it, relating how Greco-Roman epistemology was diff or similar to modern epistemology.

Very great article by you as always, very near to FA standards. DWF91 (talk) 20:04, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking another look at the article! I replaced Russell's image with a different one. I think African epistemology fits well in this section since it is connected to decolonial scholarship also discussed there. Also, it's difficult to temporally locate African philosophy since there is close to no written tradition before the 20th century. I tried to reformulate the beginning of the paragraph on the schools of traditional Indian epistemology to connect it better to the context. There are some issues with moving this paragraph to the history section since the history section already has a full paragraph on Indian philosophy in the ancient period and is WP:BALANCED this way with the other traditions. If we wanted to move the comparison between the different schools there, we would have to condense it to avoid upsetting the balance. This would mean that a lot of information is removed, which, I think, is not desirable. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:08, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What is say is also correct, and the rewording of the first few words of the Indian epistemology section makes it read better. Therefore, it's a support from me. DWF91 (talk) 17:37, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support  Comments  from Noleander

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  • As a normative field of inquiry, epistemology explores how people should acquire beliefs. As currently worded, seems to require user to know the obscure word "normative". Consider re-phrasing to plainly state the "explores how people should acquire beliefs" fact at the start of the sentence, then introduce the word "normative" towards the end. That would make it more understandable & inviting to lay readers.
    Hello Noleander and thanks for your comments! Concerning normativity, I tried a different approach by introducing the word "norms" instead. Have a look if this also works, otherwise I would follow your suggestion. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:45, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Phlsph7 - It is fine as-is, but FYI I'm still struggling to grasp the essence of the paragraph. If it is possible, I'd suggest trying to put the essence of the paragraph up nearer the start. The words "normative" and "norm" are not gonna be known by many readers (although, maybe they will be to those readers that make it that far in the article :-) What is the essence? I see the words "should" and "fail" (as in pass/fail) and "evaluate"; and wheWhatn I click on blue "normative" I see "evaluates ... as either correct or incorrect". So maybe put up in 2nd sentence something like Unlike psychology or sociology, which simply study how humans acquire knowledge, epist judges acquired knowledge and determines if it meets certain criteria ... namely .... This issue is not a show-stopper for FA support; rather it may be more an indication of my own dullness than the quality of the article, so please do not change the article if - in your opinion - is is already correct and accurate. Noleander (talk) 15:32, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I rearranged the paragraph to introduce the terms "descriptive" and "normative" later. I also added a footnote to explain the distinction. I hope this makes it clearer. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:49, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Excellent use of "Notes" (non-citation footnotes) throughout the article, for interesting, yet relatively insignificant, facts.
  • Epistemological problems are found in most areas of philosophy. The phrase "Epistemological problem" is first used there, and as a reader, I'm not sure if that 2-word phrase is a proper noun, or not. If "Epistemological problem" is a significant thing, then maybe establish that fact in that paragraph. Alternatively, if "Epistemological problem" is not a proper noun, consider re-wording to make it clear, e.g. "Issues related to epistemology arise ..." or "Problems related to epistemology arise ..." or "Epistemological issues ..." Not a big deal, it just caused me to stop my flow of reading and wonder if it was a proper noun.
    Reformulated. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:45, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Many readers will want to know how active the field is today: how many scholars/academics/professors are actively researching/investigating today? Five? 100? 500? I cannot find it in the article, but maybe I'm overlooking it. I expect to see it at the bottom of the History section.
  • ... continuing the thought above: Can you give an indication of number of journals/books/papers are published every year? Or if there are only general Philosophy journals, then maybe say something like "There are four journals that actively publish philosphy works, and an estimated 5% of the works are related to Epist." Or something like that. Of course, maybe there are no sources on that stat, but if you can find anything like that, it would help readers to know how active the field is today.
    Responding to this and the previous comment, I agree that this information would be quite interesting to have. However, I'm not aware of any official statistics and the overview sources that I know of also don't mention them. Presumably, one reason is that this is hard to assess because epistemology is a broad field overlapping with many other disciplines, which makes it difficult to determine whether a person or a work belongs primarily to epistemology rather than another category. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:45, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As a partial response, the overview page of Philpapers currently lists 54057 works under the category epistemology. However, I'm not sure how comprehensive its categorization system is since some works are uncategorized and some are only listed under one category even though they belong to several others at the same time. So this figure is probably not something we can use in the article. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:45, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If there is no source, there is no source. Not much we can do about that. Absence of this data is not a show stopper for FA support; but keep your eye out ... maybe some day in the future you'll stumble on the data somewhere. Noleander (talk) 15:53, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see that the Sources includes only a couple "author-link" tags to their WP article (e.g. Jennifer Lackey); seems like there should be more. No big deal, but maybe usage of "author-link" should be more uniform? Or perhaps only a couple of authors have WP articles?
    I went through our source-list to add more. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:45, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hmmm, I'm having a hard time finding any constructive criticisms to make. Of course, I know nothing about philosophy. The prose, layout, & citations look rock-solid.
  • Section "Other concepts" - It looks like this section intends to present the reader with 2 to 5 distinct ideas: Rationality, Evidence, Understanding, etc. But I cannot tell where one starts and the other ends. Example: 1st para discusses Rationality; okay ... but then the reader starts the 2nd paragraph, which begins "Epistemic norms are criteria to assess ..." Reader is forced to stop and ask themselves: is this a continuation of the Rationality discussion in prior para? Or have we moved on to a new idea? Ditto for para starting "Knowledge ascription is the act of attributing ..." The reader may think "Okay, the first blue word in each paragraph is the main idea of the paragraph, but "Knowledge ascription" is not blue ... what is going on? Suggestion: use either subsections (one paragraph sections are legitimate, tho rare); OR begin each paragraph with bold face term, like a dictionary (e.g. Knowledge ascription is the act ..." ) I know that these suggestions are rare - but I don't think they violate the MOS. The important test, after all, is "will the layout help the reader?". Better to push the boundary of the MOS than confuse the readers.
    I see a similar section named "Related fields" below in the article ... in that section, again there is the pattern of one paragraph per topic; yet that section is easier for the reader, because there is a prominent blue link near the start of each paragraph. Also, the wording of each paragraph more strongly suggests to the reader: "We are starting a new, fresh topic NOW ...."
    It seems that different reviewers have different ideas about how this should be handled. During the recent peer review, the opposite criticism was made that some paragraphs feel too disjointed and should be more organically connected to each other. We'll probably have to find a compromise that works for both groups. Having extra subsections for minor concepts may give WP:UNDUE weight to them. Instead, I reformulated the start of the different paragraphs so that each one situates the following idea as concept in epistemology. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:13, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Clarify: Philosophical skepticism questions the human ability to attain knowledge. Some skeptics limit their criticism to specific domains of knowledge. For example, religious skeptics say that it is impossible .... That paragraph makes a big leap between 1st and 2nd sentence. 1st sent introduces skepticism; then immed goes into flavors of skepticism. Most readers will want to know precisely what " ....questions the human ability to attain... " means. For example, in the linked Philosophical skepticism article it has "... it even rejects very plausible knowledge claims that belong to basic common sense. ..." Something like that could be useful in this Epist paragraph. The current wording in 1st sentence "questions the human ability to attain knowledge." is very weak; is the idea behind skepticism more bold, more startling? if so: let the reader know before delving into the flavors.
    I expanded the first sentence to better explain the basic idea. The difficulty is that there are various types of skepticism so it's easier to describe the different types than to give an abstract characterization that applies to all of them. Many types of skepticism are bold, but not necessarily all. For example, religious skepticism is not particularly bold in secular societies. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:30, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Section: Major schools of thought - Seems a bit peculiar that all four subsections are titled "AAA and BBBB". The lower three appear to contrast two alternative, opposing approaches, so the "AAA and BBB" pattern makes sense. But the first section, "Skepticism and fallibilism" section deviates from that: Skep and Fallib are not in opposition, correct? Maybe reword the title of "Skepticism and fallibilism" to give a hint to the reader that, unlike the other 3 sections, the "Skepticism and fallibilism" section is not contrasting two alternative approaches.
    Skepticism and fallibilism are often used as contrasting terms since fallibilists usually don't deny the existence of knowledge. However, you are right that the contrast is less pronounced than for the other pairs of positions in this section. I'm not sure that there is a good synonym for "and" for our purposes. We could try "Skepticism as well as fallibilism" but that sounds odd and could also be misunderstood. In this context, I think the "and" just expresses the topics discussed in the section without implying that they are opposites. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:51, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Minor wording nit: The course of modern philosophy was shaped... I think of a course as being "set" or "charted" (vs "shaped"). Maybe "The outline of modern philosphy was shaped..." Optional suggestion; okay as-is.
    I think "shaped" fits better here since Descartes was a major influence but not the only one. We could also use "influenced" but it sounds a little weaker. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:11, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do not see any discussion in the article about the idea that "Nothing exists; my entire existence is a dream; the entire universe is simply my imagination; ..." Like the Matrix movie. Shouldn't that be in an article about knowledge? I've heard the word "Solipsism" used to sort of denote that. From a lay person's view: I expect the article to prominently discuss that concept. maybe the article already does, and I'm overlooking it? Of course, if the sources are silent, then you can ignore it. But I searched the article for "solip" and was surprised to see no hits.
    These points are discussed but with a slightly different terminology. External world skepticism is explained in the first paragraph of the section "Skepticism and fallibilism" and the dream argument is presented in the third paragraph. The footnote in this paragraph describes more or less the matrix-scenario. Solipsism as the theory "nothing but me exists" belongs more to metaphysics than epistemology. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:07, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • @user:Phlsph7 That's all I can find. Overall, a great article, I struggled to find any improvements to suggest. Happy to "Support" for FA once the above issues are addressed/resolved. Note that some are optional suggestions. Contingent on successful image and sourc review, of course. Noleander (talk) 17:10, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Phlsph7 Changed to "Support". Noleander (talk) 18:21, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the helpful suggestions and the support! Phlsph7 (talk) 17:27, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support: All of my comments were addressed in the peer review prior to this nomination and after re-reading the article I only have minor suggestions: (1) the caption for the portrait of Russell is not super informative, it may be better to say he originated the distinction (example source), (2) I think the note on epistemic injustice covers testimonial injustice but not hermeneutic injustice (a broader definition of epistemic injustice is that it is something that wrongs someone in their capacity as a knower, but that probably isn't super enlightening), (3) Linda Zagzebski might be worth a mention in the analysis or value of knowledge section (or even in relation to "cognitive contact with reality", which is quite influential and I believe originated with Zagzebski). Another great article Phlsph7! Shapeyness (talk) 20:03, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for taking another look at the article and the support! I changed the caption and weakened the claim about epistemic injustice. I included Zagzebski together with Sosa in the history section. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:29, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I don't usually do this, but I have nothing to contribute but my support. I made one minor edit but I cannot suggest any further improvements. Another excellent article from the nominator. Graham Beards (talk) 16:16, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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  • Some sources are missing DOIs. The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology has a doi (10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195301700.001.0001), as does Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge (10.4324/9780203987070), Handbook for the Historiography of Science (10.1007/978-3-031-27510-4), and Knowing and Seeing: Groundwork for a new empiricism (10.1093/oso/9780198833567.001.0001) just to name a few from the first column. I would recommend going through every book source from an academic publisher and seeing if there's an ebook version with a DOI. (or you could remove the DOIs, but this would be unhelpful for readers)
    For the books, I usually stick to the ISBN as the identifier of the book as a whole. However, some books, like edited handbooks, give DOIs for each chapter. So when citing a specific chapter, it makes sense to add the DOI in addition to the ISBN if it is available. I went through the source list to add all the corresponding DOIs where I was able to find them. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some journals are missing ISSNs; for instance, Luper 2004 (Philosophical Issues) and Wheeler & Pereira 2004 (Journal of Applied Logic)
    Added. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • You have "retrieved" dates for most, but not all Google Books links. I would suggest removing the retrieved dates (they're not particularly helpful here) or adding them to all linked sources.
    Removed. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maguire 2015 lists the book series (SpringerBriefs in Education); i think this is an error, as no other academic book citation in the bibliography does so.
    Removed. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • A couple books have an OCLC in addition to an ISBN, but inconsistently so. Either add OCLCs to all, or remove them from these three which do have them (were they published before ISBNs were standardized, they'd be fine to leave in, but these all appear to have ISBNs as well)
    Removed. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "a" after the em dash in Bird 2010 should be capitalized
    Changed. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Blaauw and Pritchard 2005, Epistemology A - Z should probably be spelled with an unspaced en dash (Epistemology A–Z)
    Changed. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Phlsph7: Apologies for the nitpicks regarding citation consistency - this is a wonderful article and very well-sourced. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 00:55, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Generalissima: Thanks for the source review and your keen eye for inconsistencies! I made the corresponding changes. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support on source review. Fixes and clarifications look good to me. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 14:10, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by comments

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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