Re: CFV: sci.philosophy.natural moderated
mikko.levanto@vtt.fi
27 Nov 1995 17:21:20 GMT
According to several post, most of those who have expressed their
opinion agree that the proposed group sci.philosohy.natural has
a misleading name.
This should be a sufficient reason to vote NO even to those
who would accept the proposal if it had a better name, e.g.,
sci.philosohy.natural.ancient.
I wrote:
|>Newsgroups line:
|>sci.philosophy.natural Ancient natural philosophy.(Moderated)
|
|The proposed name for the group is misleading. The full line
|quoted above indicates that the intended content is not
|natural philosohy but history; and the charter makes that clear.
|A better name could be sci.history.philosophy.natural or
|sci.philosohy.natural.ancient -- there should be some indication
|about the actual content.
Will Wagers <wagers@computek.net> wrote:
>The point about the name of the group was discussed previously.
>Neither the charter nor the rationale for the newsgroup makes
>any mention of history.
The word may be absent, but the intent of the charter is clear.
>There seem to be some people who feel that anything in the past
>is history (belongs in a history category). But, using this rule of
However, usually the scope is restricted to the history of society
and people at the time covered by written sources.
>thumb, archaeology, palaeontology, cosmology, etc. would belong
>under history as well. What distinguishes these areas from
While they are sometimes included in history, usually they are not,
because of the restriction to "historical" time. Archaeology is
included more often than others.
>history is science - the use of scientific methods to investigate
History is science just like any of the mentioned ones: its purpose
is to produce (and store and distribute) knowledge; and, as a part
of this task, to detect and correct errors in what has been
presented as knowledge. Formerly the methods have not been as
scientific as they are now, but the same can be said about any
science.
>past objects and events. The proposed newsgroup is dedicated to
>the use of scientific methods to properly interpret ancient
>science, especially as it affected ancient myth, philosophy, and
This fits under history without any stretching.
>theology. Thus, I feel it would be misleading to put it anywhere
>but under .sci.
I agree.
>Even the history of science is normally documented and
>interpreted by scientists, rather than by historians per se.
History of science is history, whoever is doing it.
>Also, the group's purpose is multi-disicplinary. Contributions are
>sought from scientists in a large number of specialties,
>historians, linguists, philosophers, theologians, etc.
>
>There has been some discussion of the RFD under news.groups,
>but a great deal of it was via e-mail, where a surprising number
>of people who are interested in ancient natural philosophy do not
>have direct access to or do not frequent newsgroups. The
>majority of this correspondence was from scientists (e.g. the
>latest is a group of neurobiologists), not historians.
>
>Besides, the time for such discussions is in the RFD stage. It
>seems a bit unrealistic to jump in at the last moment with a
>proposed name change. This proposal means something to a
>group of enthusiastic people who are anxious to use it. I hope
>that anyone making suggestions is as interested in the subject
>as we are.
You shouldn't forget that the names are also important to those
who are not interested in this particular subject.
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