Talk:Sam Harris

Neuroscientist, Philosopher

There has been much discussion above about these two terms. I'm creating a new heading, because I think both can be determined by the same wiki policy (WP:NACADEMIC). I think Harris can be called a neuroscientist, but not a philosopher. I think he qualifies as a neuroscientist because he has a PhD, has published and has been cited. These alone would not qualify him as a notable neuroscientist, but he achieves notability for other reasons, such as WP:AUTHOR, so there is no reason not to mention it on his page. However, he does not qualify as a philosopher because he has no such degree, has not published and is not cited. There is an argument above by Jweiss11 that neuroscience is a type of philosophy, and that he has been called "philosopher" in WP:RS. These are good arguments. However, he is not actually a notable neuroscientist (see criteria below), and "philosopher" is used colloquially by none academics. (Remember a philosopher, for our purposes, is not synonymous with a deep thinker or a person who has good ideas; or even with one who discusses philosophy. See, for instance, all the discussion about whether or not Alan Watts is a philosopher. He is not. Here are the criteria by which one is determined to be notable in an academic field, per WP:NACADEMIC:

1. The person's research has had a significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources.
2. The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level.
3. The person has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association (e.g., a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society) or a fellow of a major scholarly society which reserves fellow status as a highly selective honor (e.g., Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).
4. The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions.
5. The person has held a named chair appointment or distinguished professor appointment at a major institution of higher education and research, or an equivalent position in countries where named chairs are uncommon.
6. The person has held a highest-level elected or appointed administrative post at a major academic institution or major academic society.
7. The person has had a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity.
8. The person has been the head or chief editor of a major, well-established academic journal in their subject area.

Harris scores a zero for both neuroscientist and philosopher. You could make an argument as a neuroscientist he qualifies for #7 "substantial impact outside academia" however, Sam collected his PhD after being a public intellectual, so this is not the story of a neuroscientist who became a public figure, but of a public figure who became a mediocre neuroscientist. But as I said above, he should get a pass for neuroscientist, but not philosopher. Namaste DolyaIskrina (talk) 21:57, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Agreed.VR _talk 09:13, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

"The person's research has had a significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources."

If the significance of a person's work in a discipline is demonstrated by how independent reliable sources treat him and his works, Harris clearly qualifies as a philosopher. Independent reliable sources routinely refer to him as a philosopher. His works have been cited and discussed in peer-reviewed philosophy papers. The philosopher Daniel Dennett's Reflections on Sam Harris' Free Will in the peer-reviewed Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia is an example of the latter. Best, Inimesh (talk) 11:13, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

thanks Inimesh. Your link was dead, so I'm re-including it here. Do you have other examples of him being cited? I only got one hit on Stanford Encyclopedia. I am personally most persuaded by the idea that WP:RS call him a philosopher. However, since we are using the word philosopher as an academic term, we need to look to the relevant epistemic community, not the popular media. So yes, Dennett is a philosopher who is commenting on Harris, but... is this an example of "a significant impact in their scholarly discipline"? I don't believe Dan Dennett ever called Harris a philosopher, and a review in which Dennett says Harris gets the philosophy wrong, can hardly be an example of Harris being considered a philosopher by other philosophers. So let's look for examples of philosophers calling Harris a philosopher. Not examples of philosophers disagreeing with Harris. DolyaIskrina (talk) 17:47, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Oops. I have no idea how the "in" slipped into the link. If you're looking for philosophy papers that have cited Harris, you might want to look here, here, and here. If you're looking for an instance of a philosopher describing Harris as a philosopher, you might want to consider The Oxford Handbook of Atheism co-edited by Michael Ruse. Inimesh (talk) 11:26, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I am new to this discussion, but isn't it true that a philosopher is not a completely academic construct, and therefore these criteria are overly restrictive? From Wikipedia, "A philosopher is someone who practices philosophy," and philosophy "is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language." Why would WP restrict its construct of philosopher to people who have done that study through academia (PhD, publications in academic outlets, professorship, cited by philosophers, etc)? This comes up more with ancient philosophers, many of whom wrote important philosophical texts but did not do so at academic institutions. In general, do we need WP guidelines for intellectuals who undertake their work outside academia? Jmill1806 (talk)

Inemesh, looked at your links and the first few were confusing search pages. Can you repost or quote the best examples? The Michael Ruse book didn't seem to ever refer to Harris as a philosopher but only as an atheist. (Am I missing the part where Ruse calls him a philosopher?) I guess you could argue that atheist is a philosophical position, but see below for more about that. Honestly I don't think Sam is a philosopher. To have only one reference as a co-author at https://plato.stanford.edu/ is pretty conclusive. Why work so hard to get Harris an honorific he doesn't need, and doesn't seem to want himself? DolyaIskrina (talk) 04:03, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

I hear you Jmill, but I think there is a good reason for this policy. The key concept, as you probably know, is notability. And when it comes to academic fields we have the 8 criteria above otherwise there is no end to the debate. This policy is actually good for inclusion because there are philosophers that are mostly only known by other philosophers, and if not for the above policy an editor could argue that there isn't enough WP:RS for them. See my exchange about Evan Thompson for an example of that. That's why we shouldn't use "Philosopher" as an honorific even if we really like a thinker, and even if they talk about philosophy (FYI I'm a huge fan of Harris). For instance, by strict definition, because Sam had talked about owning a gun (I think? Just an example) we could say "Sam Harris is a marksman." While true by definition, and we could probably back it up with a source. But he's not known for his marksmanship, especially amongst other marksmen (marksfolk?), so if we really feel like that needs to be in his page, we'd say something like "Harris has talked to Rogan about going to the range." If we went by your more open standards, there are plenty of cult and business leaders who have paid PR firms to froth up how smart they are L. Ron Hubbard, Deepak Chopra, Steve Jobs. And what about Malcolm Gladwell, Robert Wright? Next thing you know, we are all philosophers (and we are, by your definition, just not notable ones). (Side note, do you have any examples of ancient thinkers who aren't getting a fair treatment? I'd like to work on those pages. You can leave that info on my talk page.) ThanksDolyaIskrina (talk) 04:03, 19 September 2020 (UTC) DolyaIskrina([[User

talk:DolyaIskrina|talk]]) 04:03, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Oh I found it! p 246, he says "American philosopher and neuroscientist" Is that the only one? DolyaIskrina (talk) 05:26, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

@DolyaIskrina: Puppets: The Major Works of Philosopher Steven Colborne is in Google Books, and also describes Harris as a philosopher. Inimesh (talk) 06:02, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, okay I'm personally moving from oppose to weak oppose "philosopher", and I weak oppose on the grounds of notability.DolyaIskrina (talk) 14:37, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

That is informative, DolyaIskrina, thank you. I don't think Hubbard, Chopra, and others would be included if we had a less academia-specific policy because they have not, as far as I know, produced significant philosophical work. And maybe Harris hasn't either, but I think his work isn't being given a fair appraisal here. Maybe the best policy is not whether it's significant academic work but whether it's significant philosophical work. I am, however, more convinced by the info that Harris himself doesn't present his own work that way. I just think that, if he did, we should be open to inclusion even if it is not done through academic channels. I think Wikipedia would be a better place if we called everyone who does a lot of philosophy a philosopher, even if they haven't taken the conventional academic path. Jmill1806 (talk) 15:01, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

To put it another way, I don't think the philosopher label in a WP lead should be an assignment of career status, prominence, or specific notability. It should just be a descriptor of what they do or have done with their life. Having conversations like this debate on Sam Harris just shows how much of this amounts to WP:Original Research because there are no agencies out there endowing some writers with philosopher titles. That is not what a PhD does, just as one can work for decades as a plumber even if one didn't get a formal plumbing education. Jmill1806 (talk) 15:05, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

@DolyaIskrina: I don't see the need for reluctance here. You seem to be comparing Harris being a philosopher with him being a "marksman", which is deeply flawed. We don't have an extensive number of reliable sources, which range from The Washington Post to The Guardian, calling Harris a "marksman" at all. Also, what Harris "wants" might be irrelevant to the discussion at hand, but as far as I know, Harris has expressed his dislike for needless philosophical jargon, but he has never objected to someone's description of him as a philosopher. Harris was on BBC's HARDTalk recently, and Stephen Sackur did introduce him as a philosopher (among other things). In addition, you seem to be under the impression that it's almost only the popular media that has described Harris as a philosopher. Please know that the search queries "philosopher Sam Harris", "philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris", and "philosopher and author Sam Harris" return a total of 125 results in Google Scholar and quite a number of results in Google Books as well. Although we already have a couple of examples of philosophers describing Harris as a philosopher (and there could be more), WP:RS in general is the strongest argument here. Do we have a consensus? Inimesh (talk) 08:27, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. He still doesn't qualify as a notable philosopher, because if you want to establish him as a notable academic under criteria #1, you have to show that he is "highly cited" which is not the same as getting returns on "SH Philosopher." There is a whole section on determining citations on the WP:ACADEMICS page if you feel like doing that, but it seems to me the question is "does he get a pass for being notable in other ways, the way I suggested with Neuroscientist?" And here is the answer:

"Academics meeting none of these conditions may still be notable if they meet the conditions of WP:BIO or other notability criteria."

DolyaIskrina (talk) 00:07, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

So I change to support.DolyaIskrina (talk) 00:21, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

@DolyaIskrina: We seem to have a consensus, but it seems to me we're referring to different policies here. If an academic is someone who is affiliated with a university (even just as a researcher), as far as I know, Harris is not an academic, but I'm not sure if he had an academic affiliation as a researcher in the past. If that is the case, I don't think it makes sense to cite WP:NACADEMIC to justify calling him a philosopher or a neuroscientist. The philosopher article that the term in the lead links to defines a modern philosopher simply as an "intellectual who contributes to one or more branches of philosophy, such as aesthetics, ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, logic, metaphysics, social theory, and political philosophy," and not necessarily as someone who does academic philosophy. Likewise, a neuroscientist is someone who "has specialised knowledge in the field of neuroscience". So Harris is a philosopher and neuroscientist not as per WP:NACADEMIC but on the basis of his contributions in the form of philosophical works and specialization in neuroscience respectively, as substantiated by WP:RS. By the way, when I wrote my first reply, I was under the impression WP:NACADEMIC laid out the criteria for establishing a person's notability in an academic field of study, not necessarily exclusive to people who work in the academia. Inimesh (talk) 10:25, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I just want to add that, in general, I disagree with the use of WP:NACADEMIC or other notability criteria to determine whether labels such as neuroscientist should go in the first sentence of a WP page. That is not what notability criteria are made for, and if we want to extend them to apply to that, it's a bigger discussion that should be had on a page like WP:NACADEMIC. Jmill1806 (talk) 13:25, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I assume we all agree that Samuel Shenton is not an astronomer, correct? Yet he had a huge impact on non-academic "astronomy" by founding the flat earth society.

Sam Harris, similarly, has had a huge impact on non-academic "philosophy" but is widely regarded as a joke by academics.

So sorry to resurrect an old conversation, but I move he be referred to rather as a pseudo philosopher, or simply an author discussing free will and ethics without any academic qualifications or significance. Drazepp (talk) 19:42, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

@Drazepp: We follow what reliable sources call him. If he is widely and commonly called a philosopher, discussed as a philosopher, etc., then that's what we call him. If there is significant disagreement with this label within academic philosophers (euphilosophers?), then that might warrant mention or clarification. Do you have reliable sources supporting the claim "widely regarded as a joke by academics"? The discussion above is largely a red-herring in using WP:NACADEMIC, which is for determining whether a subject should have its own article, not whether we call the subject A or B. And having a PHD or not in a field is irrelevant: Charles Darwin didn't have a PhD in anything, is he then not a scientist? --Animalparty! (talk) 20:30, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Addition: I'm not terribly familiar with Harris, but a brief Google Scholar search brings up several descriptions from academic philosophers referring to Harris as a philosopher, e.g. Nancey Murphy et al.: "two physicalist reductionist philosophers, namely, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris... Harris is a non-compatibilist philosopher who turns to determinism..."; Stewart Goetz: "Harris is a philosopher, neuroscientist, and hard determinist..."; and Donald W. Viney: "The New Atheism is representative of a series of best selling post‐9/11 books written by philosopher Sam Harris...." If you can find sources that claim he is not a philosopher, please propose them here. Per WP:WEIGHT and WP:PROPORTION, we use consensus among experts, giving various views in proportion to their prominence in reliable sources. --Animalparty! (talk) 21:42, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

References

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Listing William MacAskill under "influenced"

Sam frequently has William MacAskill on his podcast/app to discuss Effective Altruism. I think it might be appropriate to list MacAskill under "influenced" in the sidebar bio? Kleinhern (talk) 20:07, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Proponent of 'scientific racism'?

@MagicatthemovieS: This is a pretty serious charge, I suggest if we are going to categorize him as such it needs to be backed up by multiple reliable sources, and not opinion pieces. Merely talking with Charles Murray and expressing some level of agreement is not sufficient in my opinion. Remember this is a BLP and the standards for inclusion are higher. –CWenger (^ • @) 04:38, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

As far as I can see, the phrase "scientific racism" doesn't appear on the article, and obviously he's not an adherent to classic 19th-century and early 20th-century scientific racism (Nordic, Alpine, Mediterranean etc). What he is accused of seems to be documented with many footnotes. AnonMoos (talk) 11:46, 17 March 2023 (UTC)