Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Science of man

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 Redirect to A_Treatise_of_Human_Nature (non-admin closure) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:18, 24 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Science of man

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

A very broad title, although the content is solely about philosopher David Hume and has nothing that is not in David Hume. The aricle is therefore redundant; it is also unlikely to get updated along with David Hume. The title is both antiquated (18th-19th century) and sexist. Errantius (talk) 02:47, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2020 June 17. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 03:05, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 03:12, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to A_Treatise_of_Human_Nature#Introduction, where it is mentioned. Antiquated and sexist are not good reasons for deletion, but being redundant is. The concept is discussed in context in the section A_Treatise_of_Human_Nature#Introduction and with such a well known philosophical work, I can believe that Science of man is a plausible search term. I don't see much worth merging, so suggest a redirect. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 03:36, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect per Mark Viking. Mccapra (talk) 04:34, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect per Mark viking (thanks) looks good to me (deletion proposer). I'll give it a day or two, to check there is consensus. Errantius (talk) 07:15, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep. The topic of the article is an aspect of Hume's philosophy, so it is hardly surprising that it is only about Hume. At worst, it needs renaming to Hume's science of man to make that clear. Whether or not Hume's conception or naming is sexist, I don't know, but that has bugger all to do with the notability of the topic; and of course the title is antiquated, Hume was born in 1711 (antique is >100 yers). Redirecting would be a travesty; Hume's article only briefly mentions it in passing. In support of notability I offer Fritz Heinemann, David Hume: The Man and His Science of Man, the second half of which is entirely about the subject in hand. Reviews of Heinemann's book in scholarly journals here and here. David Hume and the Culture of Scottish Newtonianism has a very substantial chapter on the topic and this chapter also discusses it. This book also has a substantial chapter on the topic and further discussion in this section. Other books with substantial discussion of this topic include The Origins of David Hume's Economics and Hume's Philosophy of Human Nature. SpinningSpark 18:15, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You don't refer to any "science of man" apart from Hume's, so what problem is there with substituting (as I now agree) a redirect to the article on his book? Errantius (talk) 05:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that it is a viable article on a notable topic. Hume's book is not a synonymous topic. There is no pressing need to redirect. SpinningSpark 10:22, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I will refer to the WP article naming criteria. I think that "Science of man" fails on all of these but conciseness.

Deciding on an article title

Article titles are based on how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject. There is often more than one appropriate title for an article. In that case, editors choose the best title by consensus based on the considerations that this page explains.

Shortcuts

A good Wikipedia article title has the five following characteristics:

Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.
Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.
Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects.
Conciseness – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles, in the box above.

The sources that you cite look like (I can't check them since libraries are closed owing to Covid-19) they do not use Hume's phrase but only mention it as used by him. There was a discipline known in English as "science of man", in the 18th and 19th centuries: Kant called it Anthropologie, and maybe see the history of the Australasian Anthropological Journal which was titled or partly titled Science of Man up to its expiry in 1913. But there is no longer such a discipline or "subject area": it has broken up and its former elements are now found in more specific disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, sociology and maybe anthropology (as that name is now used). The name "science of man" is now recognisable only to readers already familiar with Hume or his milieu: a redirect to his Treatise would therefore be appropriate. The material in the present article that refers to An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals is poorly written and in any case the Treatise article refers to that Enquiry and to the article on it. Retitling the present article as "Hume's science of man" would only preserve a duplication. I remain of the view that this article should be replaced with a redirect to A Treatise on Human Nature. Errantius (talk) 04:15, 19 June 2020 (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.