Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Argument from beauty (2nd nomination)

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 keep per the rough consensus below regarding the subject's demonstrated notability, although there is also a consensus that the article could use some reworking. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:29, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Argument from beauty[edit]

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Essay masquerading as an article. The titular subject is synthesis from disparate primary sources, written by an editor closely aligned to one such source. The previous AfD dates back to a more innocent period in WP's history when simply having a good number of references was sufficient to justify an article not being OR. See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Argument from love (2nd nomination). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 20:12, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep There's no significant deletion argument here. Essay means little as that's just a matter of style and addressed by ordinary editing. The claim of synthesis is just hand-waving and does not specify the supposed synthetic proposition. And having a good number of references is a preposterous criticism. Warden (talk) 22:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- It fairly clearly identifies the synthetic proposition as "the titular subject" — i.e. the entire concept denoted. Uncle G (talk) 13:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete. For the same reason I gave at the other article. None of the sources here are explicitly about an argument for the existence of God. Again, I will change my mind if the logical form of the argument can be attributed to a serious philosopher or even Christian apologist. Vesal (talk) 23:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's very difficult to get people to agree about who counts as a "serious philosopher", but the first few of the Google Books hits linked above find substantial discussion from Richard Swinburne [1] and Richard Dawkins [2]. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:54, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Those sources are perfectly fine. My objection only applies to the section Argument from beauty#Outline logical structure. As it currently stands, the main premise is that beauty exists in ways that transcends its material manifestations. This is essentially asserting dualism. Swinburne does not argue like that, and the question is if any of the sources Uncle G has found argue like that, and if they don't, does it makes sense to have this article distinct from the argument from design? Vesal (talk) 02:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:43, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:44, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Plenty of refs and been in WP for 5 years. (I find that I created this article in 2006, but many others have worked on it since). NBeale (talk) 08:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The topic of the article does not make sense. There could unlimited things like "argument from X", where the X could anything from love, caring, presence of trees, sun etc. Such articles contribute nothing, they are just for the sake of illogical arguments. I propose nominations of Argument from a proper basis, Argument from desire, Argument from degree as well for deletion Abhishikt (talk) 09:48, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- You wrote the same boilerplate at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Argument from love (2nd nomination). I've explained its error there.
  I add to that a note that thinking that an encyclopaedia shouldn't have an article on something propounded by Thomas Aquinas — the argument from degrees — indicates a woeful state of ignorance. But so, too, does the poor state of that article. Here's a rule of thumb for you: If something is in Summa Theologica, it almost certainly has scholarly sources discussing, describing, and arguing about it going back for eight centuries. It probably has several centuries of sources in Latin. Uncle G (talk) 13:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This and Argument from love (AfD discussion) are two similar articles; and their AFD discussions you'll notice are pretty much the same up until this point. (You'll notice that the two articles' talk pages are markedly different.) The problem with this article is not that it is original research in its entirety. There is actually an argument from beauty to the existence of God in the literature. Even looking at only recent literature in English (rather than, say, older works in Greek or Latin), one find Dawkins refuting it (Dawkins 2006, pp. 110 et seq.), and Swinburne (Swinburne 2011, p. 201–202), Kirwan (Kirwan 1999, p. 35), Legge (Legge 1932, p. 42–46), and others propounding it. Even Zia Ullah (Zia Ullah 1984, pp. 28 et seq.) gets in on the act, although you'll have to go to Yaran (Yaran 2003, p. 95) for some actual analysis rather than a simple Islamic statement of the argument.
The problem with this article is twofold. First, it is badly written. Second, it is unclear whether we need this separately from the argument from design (which Swinburne addresses it as) or the argument from providence (which Yaran addresses it as). Neither of these are solved with the use of the deletion tool, however.
By the way, it's also called the aesthetic argument, which you'll find discussed recently in English in even more places (Haffner 2001, p. 194–195, Viney 1985, and so forth) and propounded by people such as Charles Hartshorne. In an alternative form, it's often used to counter the problem of evil argument. (A case could be made that these are two separate arguments, but its use as a counter to an argument against the existence of God places it as an argument for the existence of God.)
- Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780618680009.
- Swinburne, Richard (2011). "The Argument From Design". In Pojman, Louis P.; Rea, Michael (eds.). Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology (6th ed.). Cengage Learning. ISBN 9781111305444.
- Kirwan, James (1999). Beauty. Manchester University Press ND. ISBN 9780719055720.
- Zia Ullah, Mohammad (1984). Islamic concept of God. Routledge. ISBN 9780710300768.
- Yaran, Cafer S. (2003). Islamic thought on the existence of God: with contributions from contemporary Western philosophy of religion. CRVP. ISBN 9781565181922.
- Legge, R. G. (1932). Christian theism in contemporary thought. Christian evidence handbooks. Northumberland press limited.
- Haffner, Paul (2001). The mystery of reason. Gracewing Publishing. ISBN 9780852445389.
- Viney, Donald Wayne (1985). "The Aestheic Argument". Charles Hartshorne and the existence of God. SUNY series in philosophy. SUNY Press. ISBN 9780873959070.
Uncle G (talk) 13:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Uncle G, thank you for taking the time to research this issue. Vesal (talk) 02:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merge with Teleological argument. This article originated as an essay. It was written to persuade, and brought in a host of semi-relevant half-digested quotations and references apparently gathered by Google-trawling. Nonetheless (unlike Argument from love, which is a heap of nonsense from the same source, and which has failed to get out of that essay mire in the five-plus years of its existence), there is a real thing out there in the non-Wikipedia world that is sometimes called an argument from beauty, so I think there is justification for an article here that refers to this material. But I cannot see how it is any different from the argument from design, i.e. the Teleological argument, and I think the best way of dealing with the stylistic issues here is to extract a few points from this essay, if there is anything useful, and merge with that article. An article should be about a concept, not a form of words. The concept here is the teleological argument. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 18:02, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep notable. ref-ed. no substantial claim to delete.Greg Bard (talk) 05:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete For the love of all that is truly holy, because it is unencyclopedic content, because it is non-notable, and because it is empirically observable to be a pleasant pipedream posing as logic. Aesthetics is a function of our minds, and each are the better for this. Every word of the first and primary premise of this argument, that science is unable to account for beauty, was written before brain imaging technology. Anarchangel (talk) 01:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment we don't delete articles just because some editors don't agree with the content. The notability and validity of an argument are quite different questions. {BTW brain imaging was around in 2006 and has nothing whatever to do with the argument! No-one denies that things happen in our brains when we appreciate beauty (and often in other parts of our bodies) but the question is whether beauty exists in ways that transcend its material manifestations. The article gives arguments for and against that view. All arguments depend on premises that may or may not be true, but that does not make the argument invalid much less non-notable} NBeale (talk) 14:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 15:04, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep - Whether or not one agrees with the argument is irrelevant. The argument is certainly notable of itself - a very very brief search on Google Books reveals the following: a section in Dawkins' God Delusion, a section in this book, a chapter in this book (note: the aesthetic argument and the argument from beauty are one and the same), a mention here (which, although only a mention, treats the argument as separate from the teleological argument), a mention in this book, a mention here. This seems to me to be sufficient coverage.
Keep. Checking the Google Books link finds a host of books defending or attacking the argument, and there are more references under the name "aesthetic argument." It is clearly notable, whether or not it is valid. -- 202.124.75.63 (talk) 11:24, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Uncle G. This article is firmly grounded in reliable sources. The most convincing delete !vote is Vesal's, which hinges on the question of whether any serious philosophers have held that "beauty exists in ways that transcend its material manifestations." If I understand Augustine's Confessions X.6 correctly, he does hold this view; in his philosophy of beauty, there is a progression from physical beauty (materialism) to "intelligible beauty, which exceeds the sensory and temporal aspects of the sensible experience of beauty" ([3]). There is more info in these articles:
- The Goodness and Beauty of Truth. H. B. Alexander. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods , Vol. 8, No. 1 (Jan. 5, 1911), pp. 5-21 on JSTOR
- J. Roland E. Ramirez, “Augustine’s Proof for God’s Existence from the Experience of Beauty: Confessions, X,6,” Augustinian Studies 19 (1988): 121-30. (No web access)
- Some Aspects of St. Augustine's Philosophy of Beauty. Emmanuel Chapman. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring, 1941), pp. 46-51 (on JSTOR)

I agree that this argument seems very similar to the argument from design, but there are enough sources discussing it as a separate topic that it deserves a standalone article. --Cerebellum (talk) 01:32, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - even if the article's contents are trivial or relating to that of a personal essay, that in no way should allude to a deletion; it should be edited, fixed or reworked if that. The article and the others like it are obviously notable aspects of philosophy and theology. Royal Mate1 00:32, 15 March 2012 (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.