Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Critique of Impure Reason

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete‎. The Keep arguments, while thoroughly researched, do not address the P&G-based issues raised by the Delete views. Owen× ☎ 13:41, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Critique of Impure Reason[edit]

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Critique of Impure Reason (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Fails WP:BOOK, only 5 citations in google scholar, none of which are reviews and 3 of which are by the author himself. Appears to be a vanity page. Psychastes (talk) 17:25, 27 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete: All I can find is a few citations and a mention in a bibliography of work on Kant. The best is this which mainly focuses on another of Bartlett's books and notes "This is not my field and I haven’t tried to tackle the book, but have exchanged ideas with Steven about promoting it. You see, he has had an extremely difficult time trying to find anyone to review the book." Shapeyness (talk) 10:57, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Unable to find any reviews of the book besides user reviews and a few brief mentions here and there. As it stands, it appears the book is not adequately covered from independent pubs failing WP:BOOKCRIT. X (talk) 17:10, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP. As a graduate student in philosophy, I hope Wikipedia will keep this article. It is of great value to me and my seminar group members. This philosopher's book is important. It is very long and complex, so this well-researched article is very useful. It can benefit a lot of students.
50.78.191.225 (talk) 21:19, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. For these reasons:
  1. The notability of the book has been confirmed by world-famous philosophers, including: (a) Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker [1], one of Germany's leading philosophers of science and physicist, who contributed the book's strongly endorsing Foreword; (b) renowned American philosopher Nicholas Rescher, who praised the book: "I admire its range of philosophical vision"; and (c) celebrated German philosopher Gerhard Preyer [2], who commended the book as "an impressive, bold, and ambitious work. Careful scholarship is balanced by original analyses".
  2. As Brian Martin mentioned, it is difficult to find book reviewers willing to review a 900-page book. However, Wikipedia's standards for a book's notability admit exceptions. One of these is: A book that "is included in Project Gutenberg or an analogous project does not need to meet threshold standards" (Wikipedia:Notability (books)). The book was peer reviewed and included in the University of Pittsburgh's PhilSci-Archive [3], which offers "a stable, openly accessible repository in which scholarly articles and monographs may find a permanent home," analogous to Project Gutenberg.
  3. The book is not a vanity publication. By the author's choice, the book was published as a benefit to the public at cost by a nonprofit publisher to make the nearly 900-page printed edition of the book affordable [4]. The book is also made freely available as an eBook through several archives, including PhilPapers, where since the book's publication 3 years ago, more than 2,500 copies have been downloaded [5].
  4. Since the book's Wikipedia article was posted 12/2021, the article has had more than 5,800 pageviews, indicating the article's utility to Wikipedia users.
  5. The article documents the evolution of the book over the course of previous publications by Bartlett spanning a period of more than 50 years. This information is found nowhere else and is valuable to professionals in philosophy.
  6. Further supporting the book's notability, major research libraries in the U.S. and Europe have acquired copies of the printed edition, including Harvard, Wesleyan, Fordham, University of Illinois, Northwestern, Stanford, University of Washington, Utrecht University, Leipzig University, and University of Paris [6].
  7. A translation into Spanish of the book's Introduction has been published, indicating growing international recognition of the book's importance [7].
Toh59 (talk) 05:55, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe any of these points address the requirements of NBOOK. (Toh59, you might find it helpful to read WP:ATA.)
  1. The quoted endorsements are not, as far as I can work out, from reviews. These opinions need to be published somewhere (not as WP:UGC) to "count" here.
  2. It is not typically hard to find reviewers for academic monographs, since relevant academic journals often review them as a matter of course. Also, the threshold standards that are waived for Project Gutenberg books have to do with requirements like "it has an ISBN", not the notability standards we discuss here. The inclusion in PhilSci-Archive is not relevant to notability.
  3. This has nothing to do with wiki-notability, i.e., coverage in secondary sources.
  4. This has nothing to do with wiki-notability, i.e., coverage in secondary sources.
  5. This has nothing to do with wiki-notability, i.e., coverage in secondary sources.
  6. Being collected by libraries is a threshold standard (i.e., if it wasn't collected by libraries, we'd be much more confident it was not notable), but not a notability indicator in itself.
  7. Being translated is not direct proof of notability, though it is usually the sort of thing that results in the generation of reviews (which are proof of notability)
Despite the poor argument above, I am open to the idea that this book may be notable. I have not done a search myself for sources, and there may be reviews in paywalled academic journals.
More intriguingly, the IP editor's mention of a "seminar group" suggests that this book might satisfy NBOOK#4, The book is, or has been, the subject of instruction at two or more schools, colleges, universities or post-graduate programs. Toh59, 50.78.191.225, if you are able to provide syllabi or course listings of classes at multiple schools which have used this book, that would provide a rationale to keep the article. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 02:29, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I checked OpenSyllabus and there are two books listed there with this title, but they're by other authors, so it's not this book. Psychastes (talk) 05:09, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    1. The limitation insisted on here, that a book's endorsements must come solely and exclusively from reviews, is unreasonably restrictive. When a published book has a Foreword or Introduction written by a world-famous scientist or philosopher, as in the case of C. F. von Weizsäcker, by industry-wide standards this constitutes a major endorsement of a book. Secondly, a book's commendations that are published as an integral part of a book, for example, on the book's cover, back cover, or inside pages, qualify by those same standards as recognized endorsements of a book. Von Weizsäcker's very strongly commending Foreword, along with the commendations made by celebrated philosophers Nicholas Rescher and Gerhard Preyer, are all recognized without question as endorsements of the book.
    1. You wrote, "These opinions need to be published somewhere (not as WP:UGC) to "count" here." User-generated content as understood by Wikipedia means "Content from websites whose content is largely user-generated." The endorsements listed under (1) are by no means "user-generated": they do not comprise content from websites, but are, as required, published endorsements (in both the printed and the eBook editions). They were clearly not generated by Bartlett or content from websites, but were contributed by widely recognized scholars. To verify these published non-user-generated, endorsements, a copy of the published book containing von Weizsäcker's Foreword can be downloaded here [[8]], and a copy of commendations published as the book's back cover is available from [[9]], p. 849.
    2. The threshold standards that are waived for Project Gutenberg books – like possessing an ISBN (the book possesses ISBN 978-0-578-88646-6) – can justifiably be said to apply to the book in question since the objectives of the PhilSci-Archive are analogous to PG's. Since the threshold standards do not apply to PG books, they would not apply to Bartlett's book in the PhilSci-Archive as an analogous repository.
  2. This is simply not the case when it comes to 900-page books, as recognized by Brian Martin, and attested to by Bartlett himself: "to interest philosophy journal editors to review such a long book can be challenging. When the author asked the world-renowned Review of Metaphysics to consider reviewing the printed edition of Critique of Impure Reason, the editor responded by saying that it would not be possible to find a reviewer willing to read and review such a long book. If published for the first time today, Kant’s own Critique of Pure Reason would have a hard time finding willing reviewers" [[10]], p. 17.
  3. Was not intended as a response to wiki-notability, but as evidence that the book is not a "vanity publication." It was published for the benefit of the public, with no financial benefit to the publisher or author. The eBook edition alone shows that, especially for a book with this large number of pages, it has a significant audience. Wikipedia's commitment to serving the public good and to provide a useful educational resource is relevant.
  4. Has the same intent as 3.
  5. Has the same intent as 3.
  6. I agree, this meets an additional threshold standard, one that we ought not to ignore, especially since all of the universities that have added the book to their collections are known as major research institutions (and are not, for example, small public libraries).
  7. Educators and scholars would definitely disagree with this claim: Being translated is a sign that a work is recognized as sufficiently notable and important to merit translation. Again, (2) applies here: Reviewers of extremely long technical works, even when translated, can be very hard to find.
Toh59 (talk) 23:38, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Delete or keep?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CycloneYoris talk! 09:00, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • KEEP: An additional and central reason, not previously mentioned in this discussion:
Much of Bartlett's notability is due to his many publications. Of his publications, the massive Critique of Impure Reason has been recognized as the culmination of Bartlett's work: "a great book, the fruit of a lifetime of research" in the words of American philosopher Martin X. Moleski [[11]], p. 849. The present article documents the importance of the book as the end-result of Bartlett's research over a period of more than 50 years. The importance, complexity, and length of this major work warrant and call for this separate article. Toh59 (talk) 21:51, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • My opinion (delete) is unchanged by Toh59's rebuttals, which continue to misunderstand wiki-notability and WP:NBOOK. Note that Toh59 already provided a bolded keep !vote before the relisting, so the above should not be counted a second time.
(To engage a bit with Toh59's arguments: The forewords etc are indeed published but they are not independent: for a source to show notability it must be all three of wp:reliable, wp:independent, and wp:sigcov. Moreover, we don't actually care what people say, just that people have said a lot of things, so praise of the book is not relevant if it isn't from a review or other form of reliable, independent sigcov. The quote from Martin X. Moleski is also from within the book itself, and not independent. Toh59, it seems like you are putting your energy in the wrong places: if you can provide 2 book reviews or proof that 2 different schools have taught this book, the article can be kept.)
As far as I can work out, zero sources have provided for notability, and the investigation of NBOOK#4 was also a bust. There is no policy-based rationale for a keep. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:47, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You state, apparently without misgiving, the following policy: "we don't actually care what people say, just that people have said a lot of things, so praise of the book is not relevant if it isn't from a review or other form of reliable, independent sigcov." If what you state here is a guiding principle in Wikipedia, then this reduces a book's notability to a simple standard of how many heads we can count who are talking about a book, and dismisses whether a book has been endorsed in its Foreword by a physicist and philosopher with a reputation in same ball club as a Heisenberg, Jauch, Bohr, or Einstein. The counting policy would in this case give more weight and credibility to head-counting regardless of qualification, while dismissing the judgment of those best qualified to form an opinion.
WP:NBOOK advocates a rational policy: "The criteria provided by this guideline are rough criteria. They are not exhaustive. Accordingly, a book may be notable, and merit an article, for reasons not particularized in this or any other notability guideline….
Regarding academic and technical books, which the book under discussion clearly is, Wikipedia's policy is also reasonable: "Academic and technical books serve a very different function and come to be published through very different processes than do books intended for the general public. They are often highly specialized, have small printing runs, and may only be available in specialized libraries and bookstores. For these reasons, most of the standards for mainstream books are inapplicable to the academic field because they would be too restrictive and would exclude articles on books that are worthy of notice. Again, common sense should prevail.
—It is just this – common sense – that is needed in the exclusionist push for the article's deletion. For academic books, the WP:NBOOK policy goes on to state: "In such cases, possible bases for a finding of notability include, in particular, … whether one or more translations of the book have been published…." –And, as has been pointed out, since Bartlett's book appeared in 2021, one translation has already been published.
Given the weight placed on reviews, you've also stated: "It is not typically hard to find reviewers for academic monographs, since relevant academic journals often review them as a matter of course." As Brian Martin and Bartlett have both noted, what you've said is simply untrue: Some disciplines offer many outlets for books to be reviewed. A book in physics, for example, has many more review opportunities than a book in philosophy.
Since you want quantitative data, here is a time-consuming test that I've made, and hope you are open-minded and willing to make it yourself: I've searched for reviews of any books in philosophy, books that meet the following criteria: (1) published within the same time-frame as Bartlett's Critique of Impure Reason (i.e., since the Fall of 2021), (2) containing a minimum of 800 pages, and (3) representing new work by a single author -- that is, excluding reprinted editions of long classical works and edited collections of papers by multiple authors.
I was not able to find a single work that meets these criteria by having been reviewed at least once. If this is indeed a fact about reality, then to require of Bartlett's book that it meet a standard that is simply not met by any comparable book in the real world, is to impose an unrealistic and unreasonable demand.
The article that is facing cancellation has already served more than 5,800 readers (how, we of course cannot know), an average of more than 4 pageviews a day. For a book whose title is far from sexy, but evidently "intellectual and technical," we may reasonably conjecture that the article possesses some interest or some value to a surprising number of people. Since the information found in the article is to be found nowhere else, bringing together in a single documented discussion of Bartlett's work over a 50-year period, pressing the delete button ends this. What is the public benefit served by deleting it, weighed against the potential value to Wikipedia users of keeping it? Toh59 (talk) 05:35, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I'm not sure if the article we have is a genuine work of WP:OR or just a result of a newbie editor not fully understanding how citation works on wikipedia, but this article is not a neutral summary of the book and its reception or academic legacy - all of the citations that aren't to the book aren't actually to sources that directly support the information in the article. For example, in the background section, we have Bartlett's doctoral dissertation A Relativistic Theory of Phenomenological Constitution: A Self-referential, Transcendental Approach to Conceptual Pathology. This work presents within a phenomenological framework a logically compelling method that makes it possible to identify and correct conceptual transgressions that are self-undermining. This is the first work in which Bartlett describes the project of a "critique of impure reason." There are two footnotes here - both to the dissertation itself. There is no secondary source linking the dissertation to the book that is the subject of the article; the article isn't even citing Critique of Impuree Reason itself for the idea that this book grew out of these sources. Much of the rest of the article is only sourced to the book itself, and has strongly non-npov phrases like the book proposes a new and revisionary philosophical understanding. The entire last section appears to be back-cover blurbs and other marketing material - these are not acceptable for wikipedia articles on books.
All of this is to say that even if the book is found to be notable, I think we're looking at a WP:TNT delete. But is it a notable book? Well... half of the citations to the book are by the author himself. I found a review that looked promising - but it's also by the author. It seems like there has been a concerted but ineffective effort by this scholar to promote his book. I'm not saying our article is one such attempt... but I'm not not saying that either. Delete. -- asilvering (talk) 00:45, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Asilvering, you wrote: "the article isn't even citing Critique of Impure Reason itself for the idea that this book grew out of these sources."
You'll find a detailed description of the direct evolution of the book from Bartlett's doctoral dissertation on the first two pages of the book's Preface (pp. xxix-xxx). Toh59 (talk) 05:46, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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