Talk:Joseph Overton

American philosopher

"American philosopher" LOL what an oxymoron! 217.250.164.89 (talk) 16:13, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

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accuracy of academic descriptions

Why should Overton be described as a "political scientist" or tagged with "American philosopher" or "American political philosopher"? He never had a degree or academic appointment in political science or philosophy. People like Neera Tanden or Christopher Rufo whose main experience is at ideological think tanks are not described as "political scientists." It seems to me as though a better description for Overton would be "libertarian activist." Mwphil (talk) 11:05, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

I do not find it necessary to have a degree or receive an academic appointment to be regarded as a philosopher - a philosopher is one who philosophizes. I am also open to allowing the title "Scientist" (of various stripes) to those who do not have a degree or academic training. Particularly, I would happily regard any individual that consistently followed the scientific method to uncover truths then shared with others (that is, observation, hypothesis, experiment, publication) as a scientist, even without an academic appointment or a degree. Indeed, the first scientists we regard as such would have had noone to award them a degree. Note that philosophizing is largely observation, hypothesis, publication - lacking primarily experimentation from the scientific method. Thus there is a very natural overlap between philosophers and scientists. It is also why we trust them less than scientists. Note however that Wikipedia might have more precise guidelines for labeling people. Yevuard (talk) 19:31, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

In this case, however, no evidence seems to be provided that Overton did any of the things you describe as philosophy or science.

According to Wikipedia:Overcategorization, we should categorize by "defining characteristic[s]" which are "one[s] that reliable, secondary sources commonly and consistently define, in prose, the subject as having." Reliable sources characterizing Overton are thin on the ground, but I can't find any calling him a philosopher or political scientist. What I find is "executive" https://www.mackinac.org/5535, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/us/politics/overton-window-democrats.html, "researcher," https://aeon.co/ideas/philosophy-can-make-the-previously-unthinkable-thinkable. Based on this, I guess I will change the description from "activist" to "think-tank executive." Mwphil (talk) 20:41, 20 April 2026 (UTC)