Talk:Timeline of global philosophers

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When Grace Hopper was living, she did not call herself a philosopher. Certainly these people have accomplished great things, and certainly many of them can be called thinkers. Is "philosopher" now an honorific for them? Ancheta Wis 07:34, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This list seems rather dubious to me. Seems to range from politics to physics, for instance. The other problem I have with this is that especially the last part is a list of people who've so recently become a "global philosopher" that it'd be pretty POV to judge whether they are or not. Though I think the whole notion of "global philosopher" is a category that needs a lot more explaining before anyone can figure out who qualifies and who doesn't. Martijn faassen 23:20, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I created this page hastily, way back when. I think it may have been a mistake. Perhaps this page should be scrapped, its information merged with the appropriate categories. Lucidish 01:18, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

The idea of a list of prominent thinkers is good, but it seems unwise to display certain names in boldface or italics to show their relative "importance" as that is likely to be a controversial issue. Also, the summary on Habermas should be revised. --PModin 21:41, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

This need not be the case. Influence can be quite easily measured, and the user ought not mean that the influential philosophers are the only worthwhile philosophers (e.g. Frege before Russell popularized him). I think one can safely say that Nozick has been more influental than Hofstadter, even though Hofstadter's book is widely read. Kripke is more influential Rand. I plan to clean up some of the crap (e.g. Lene Hau, I haven't a clue how she is listed as a philosopher) after I finish some other work (and I will not touch any of the continental/post-modernist/post-structuralist/etc philosophers because I do not feel I qualified nor do I really want to become qualified to discuss them). Feel free to reply with your view(s) on the subject.--droptone 06:13, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted some name without recognition in philosophy

some of names still listed seem to me not to be people that qualify as philosophers of distinction.

Agree. This needs pruning. Thumbelina 17:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

It was suggested over at the Western timeline that a standard be set up. The suggestion was, if someone was mentioned by two encyclopedias, and 30-50 articles on Philosopher's Index, then they qualify. (Though it was also suggested that these numbers be tweaked for contemporary philosophers.) Thoughts?Lucidish _{{ Ben S. Nelson }} 21:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)