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I have noticed that this article seems to be a frequent target of vandalism. I recently reverted a change (see the revision I made on 24 November 2023) which promoted the claim that Jean-Paul Sartre stated a belief in God while on his death bed, a claim that has no credible evidence. After looking through the history of this article to find the original author of said addition, I found to my amazement that the change was made all the way back in October of 2021. The fact that an unsubstantiated paragraph of text can survive two years on such a significant philosopher's Wikipedia article without seemingly anyone noticing is alarming to me.
For this reason, and because of a history of other occurrences of vandalism on this article, I would like to open a discussion for locking this page. Stephanos100 (talk) 05:39, 14 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Too late apparently. By the time it's gotten like this and no correction has been forthcoming the existing content has a defacto consensus. Not really important that the enwiki article as is like this since Sartre is one of the most discussed thinkers of the last 2 centuries and no srs reader is going to take wikipedia as authoritative. If there's a ring of truth, you could say the ring of half truth and distortion is pretty clear here. The distinction between crowd sourced and scholarly content curation. Try Stanford Philosophy Encyclopedia. Lycurgus (talk) 17:26, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's all written as if this is 100% confirmed (i.e. 'Sartre did...') when as far as I'm aware it's not entirely confirmed. Ofc I'm not defending his actions, but shouldn't it be necessary to use phrasing like 'Sartre allegedly did' rather than treating it like it's something known for definite. 2A00:23EE:2770:2CAD:D8FD:4ACD:ECD2:EE99 (talk) 21:19, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It should be added that he supported abolishing the age of consent.
Given the thrust of the article is that May 1968 was a time where a lot of people were saying a lot of things, I'd object to it in this or any biography unless there's similar advocacy on the record either before or after that time. Remsense ‥ 论05:11, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why is this a reason to not include it? These lots of people saying lots of things meant the things they said, and this particular thing they said is very notable. It wasn't just May 1968 either.
I can understand why for example Harriet Beecher Stowe's article might not mention some of the de-facto racialist views she had. But many people are not aware how common this view was among intellectuals at the time, and even then it's not like it was the de-facto view of intellectuals at the time. And of course there's the double standard of mentioning it in Foucault's and many other French intellectuals' articles but not this one. 24.126.11.223 (talk) 05:53, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If added by itself, either the signature is stripped of context, which you and I both agree is important here, or it appears like an odd aside about May 68 that doesn't connect to other details. This is a biography of a particular individual, so the most important information about them, not what external dynamics we feel they represent. If it is an isolated incident, it doesn't say particularly much about them, instead it says something about May 1968. Remsense ‥ 论05:59, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The last sentence in the introduction of his wife's article applies to him exactly, it includes context, and it references the same source I mentioned before. 24.126.11.223 (talk) 06:12, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:OSE says in the first sentence that the argument for inclusion cannot be "based solely on whether other articles do or do not exist, because there is nothing stopping anyone from creating any article". However, my argument is not solely based on this, and no one is disputing the inclusion in his partner's article, which has stood for a very long time.
Also, you have not provided justification for why it's UNDUE, and it's not unreasonable for me to expect in that justification for you to address my question of why it's DUE in his partner's article but not his.
I would also like to add that, like his partner, his advocacy for abolishing the age of consent was not limited to a single signature, contrary to what you said. 24.126.11.112 (talk) 19:11, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Several reasons.
It's undue in the lede because the 1969 protest letters regarding age of consent was just not significant to Sartre's career. It is a side-note, a piece of trivia. Frankly it's usually just used to pedo-jacket Michel Foucault in the wild so it's kind of alarming seeing it being jammed onto the page of any famous signatory.
The comment in the lede as worded leaves out the significant context that the root of the dispute was stricter age of consent laws for gay men as for heterosexual men and that the abolitionist stance evolved out of wanting legal equality for gays and straights.
1. These were not letters related to the '69 protests. Your argument for it being UNDUE is equally an argument for it being UNDUE in Foucalt's and Simone de Beauvoir's, however the inclusion has been in these articles for a long time.
2. That was the May 1977 petition. Look at the January 1977 petition that came before it. Also, his advocacy for abolishing the age of consent went beyond these petitions, which you know.
3. At least now you acknowledge that your argument for not including it in the lead can only be justified by reverting the long-standing precedent in the other article. 24.126.11.112 (talk) 19:30, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My mixing up two years is not cause for you to edit-war. Self revert please. And my removal of the information from Beauvoir wqas not an admission of anything other than that I just became aware that someone stuck this onto the Beauvoir page. Simonm223 (talk) 19:35, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't just "mixing up of years". Remsene made a point of '69 by reducing his advocacy to the fervor of the time. You were also implying his advocacy was limited to a single petition at the time motivated by stricter laws for gay men. 24.126.11.112 (talk) 19:40, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK you should assume good faith. I'm actually quite aware that the age of consent petitions were in 1977 - I read 1969 above and had a minor brain-fart. And I am saying his advocacy over age of consent was not a significant portion of his political activism compared to those more weighty topics currently in the body. As I said, it's a footnote. If you want to challenge that perception you'll need better sources than a 25 year old newspaper article. Which is what the Beauvoir inclusion depended on.
And absolutely none of this touches on the fact that you're trying to put things in the lede that are not in the body of the article. And they aren't in the body of the article because they're not important to an understanding of Sartre. Simonm223 (talk) 19:45, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that academics today don't see a position that's so widely dismissed and controversial today as relevant to understanding Sartre's work. However, it not being a relevant part of his work to academics today does not mean it's not a relevant part of his biography to a general wikipedia audience.
But I understand my paragraph above is just a counterargument to your argument for inclusion being UNDUE, and that the ONUS is on me to justify the change. My justification is simply that his position on age of consent is quite notable, and the notability cannot be solely attributed to general sentiment at a specific time since his activism spanned a long period, and this was by no means the de-facto view of leftist French intellectuals at the time.
Whatever counterargument you have for notability I'm sure applies to Foucalt's article and others, and I'm not going to keep pushing on this because I know what the outcome will be, so I suggest you consistently apply your argument for lack of notability to Foucalt's article by removing any mentions of his advocacy for abolishing the age of consent. 24.126.11.112 (talk) 20:15, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are actually mistaken about Foucault. All I will say about how this topic is currently handled in the Foucault article is that it still needs better sources than a bunch of primary documents and the same 25 year old newspaper article. However the Foucault inclusion is not in the lede and ties the petition directly to a major aspect of Foucault's body of work thus demonstrating relevance to an understanding of his work as a philosopher.Simonm223 (talk) 20:22, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The lede is irrelevant to my argument. I'm only talking about inclusion in general. Sartre's position on age of consent and child sexuality could very easily be introduced in the body in a manner similar to the way it's introduced in Foucalt's article by adding a paragraph on a major part of his work on sexuality (as is done in Foucalt's article). He is under the category "philosphers on sexuality" after all. I could do this now, but I know a reason will be found to revert it. Therefore, I still believe the mentions in Foucalt's article should be removed for consistency. 24.126.11.112 (talk) 20:37, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, you're I suspect pointedly missing the point here. The inclusion of the line at Foucault actually engages directly with his philosophy of the body and of sexuality - a topic he wrote his last major monograph on. Sartre's last major monograph, meanwhile, had nothing to do with sex and the body at all. In fact, in general, Sartre had very little to say, as a philosopher, about sex and the body more complicated than "homophobia is bad." And so there's some relevance to a brief inclusion at the Foucault article which is lacking here. Simonm223 (talk) 20:43, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
>Sartre had very little to say, as a philosopher, about sex and the body more complicated than "homophobia is bad."
No. The assertion that he said very little about body and sexuality beyond "homophobia is bad" leads to the absurd conclusion that he's not a philosopher of sexuality, which is only most obviously contradicted by him being included as one of the few in that category without a second thought. If I actually mentioned the countless sources where he discussed sexuality in depth beyond "homophobia being bad", that would only allow countless more opportunities for the argument to be redirected, which I don't have the patience for. 24.126.11.112 (talk) 21:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-4 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
