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Reliability of Wikipedia for philosophy ( beginners ) ?
I'm new to philosophy and I want to know how much is Wikipedia reliable for Philosophy? I have searched for it but really can't find any precise answers and most of them are like 5-6 years old at least. Guide this beginner please
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Wikipedia frequently has quality issues, and it is impossible for a beginner to know when wikipedia is reliable. some articles are genuinely amazing. Some articles are really bad, portray misinformation or sometimes invent fully wrong things.
I'll quote from an old comment of mine:
Wikipedia, especially the less accessed and more 'nerdy' articles, tends to be full of errors when users without the requisite knowledge write them. That's why you should not ever trust wikipedia for academic content. As others point out, the IEP is a good second resource besides the SEP. Both are peer reviewed and written by actual experts in the field.
Now, they may at times still be too high-level or otherwise inadequate for your goals. If that's the case, I'd recommend a good introduction book rather than an internet resource. We assembled a list of good books here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskPhilosophyFAQ/comments/4ifqi3/im_interested_in_philosophy_where_should_i_start/
Edit: For academic newbies, I would strongly suggest you make good use of handbooks and other, slightly longer and detailed overview publications. Equally nice is the Philosophical Compass journal.
For non-academic newbies, those sources may not be what you are looking for, but don't immediately dismiss them. They are just a lot more detailed than wikipedia, but they are also written by academics who stand for the quality by their name, and (usually) go through a quality assurance process like peer review.
Here's a concrete example, from that same old thread - it hasn't become better in 5 years:
https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/mxhvog/is_wikipedia_a_good_secondary_source/gvqkuov/
Thank you for your detailed answer. I'm sorry to reply lately as I thought my post was removed which wasn't. Again thank you a lot. I'm going to buy the books very sooner then.
You didn't reply late at all! Also, yes your post was originally removed by some script, but as a mod I approved it!
Is IEP REALLY reviewed? It used to be understood that it isn’t, or can’t be, which is what was presumed to have led to some of their less flattering anomalies (which in at least one case gets very strange indeed - scientific racism is involved). In the case that I know, the problem is inferred to arises because article are limited to contributions by professionals, but the professionals themselves aren’t vetted and the articles aren’t peer reviewed, and of course this places a great deal of confidence in those professionals not to be strange cranks etc.
Their mission statement says it's peer-reviewed: https://iep.utm.edu/home/about/
It’s better to use the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which has articles written by academics who specialize in that topic. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, and although it requires people to cite sources there’s no guarantee the person writing it knows the most relevant sources to cite.
I understand. Thank you
It’s mostly fine, but superficial. I’ve not really encountered much that is howling wrong, but it’s usually very abbreviated.
There are two online encyclopedias dedicated to philosophy.
The Internet Encyclopedia: https://iep.utm.edu
The Stanford Encyclopedia: https://plato.stanford.edu
The Stanford one is a genuine professional resource for working philosophers, so in many cases articles will be possibly too technical or assume too much, but if you read the article for “Plato”, then “Aristotle” etc I’m certain you will be able to get a lot out of it.
Thanks brother. I'll check out some academic books then I'll go for this SEP sequence.
I once had to edit a Wikipedia article to remove a paragraph stating that Theodor Adorno wrote songs for The Beatles to corrupt the minds of Western youth.
Obviously, not every article has this kind of nonsense in it, but beginners need to be wary.