Okay, I've given the section on Western philosophy a quick once-over. I did my best to explain edits in the description fields, but please just tag me if anything is unclear or seems wrong.
You're not consistent between "pre-Socratics" and "Presocratics." I'd incline towards the former, but I don't know which (if either) is best practice. Whatever you decide, just Cnt-A and standardize.
It would also be nice to have something on how the analytic-Continental distinction largely fell apart in the late 20th century and is no longer operative in most circles today. But that can, of course, be added later. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:48, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@PatrickJWelsh: Thanks for all the thoughtful improvements! Many of these things are easily missed if one just follows the standard overview sources. I went with "Presocratic" since this spelling seems to be favored by our sources and Google Ngram. The decline of the analytic-continental divide was also my impression. But I'm not sure that it is generally accepted. See, for example, the first sentence of [1].
I've two points regarding your changes:
I think it should be mentioned that Plato's Academy and other schools had to close at the start of the medieval period. It underlines the socio-cultural climate of that age and the role of religion. You are right that it was not Church itself that shut them down. What do you think about the following sentence that makes this more explicit: "The Christian Emperor Justinian forced schools of philosophy, such as Plato's Academy, to close." (Grayling 2019: Plato’s Academy (the ‘School of Athens’) was closed by the Emperor Justinian in 529 CE, along with a general ban on the teaching of philosophy because it conflicted with Christianity.; From Blackson 2011: By convention ancient philosophy ends in 529 when the Christian Emperor Justinian prohibited pagans from teaching in the schools)
Since Hegel is the most important German idealist, I think we should have a sentence or two to give a very rough overview of his philosophy. What do you think of the following: "For him, the unifying principle was spirit. He tried to show how various aspects of concrete reality can be understood as a manifestation of spirit." (from Critchley 2001: unifying principle ... For Hegel, it was the notion of Spirit; from Kenny 2006: Cosmic history, according to Hegel, consists in the life story of spirit(Geist). The internal development of spirit manifests itself in concrete reality.) But you are probably better versed in Hegel so I'm open to other suggestions.