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Just a few minutes back I asked this question in the MSE. However, there I got a couple of downvotes and were told to post it in PhSE. This response makes me wonder that is there any sensible reason to retain the tag?

For the responses I have got were (I will only quote two),

  1. Is it a math question?
  2. Philosophy of X is generally not considered a part of X.

Well, if it's not a math question as "defined" in the help-center, is there any sensible reason to retain this tag?

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    $\begingroup$ Some older posts discussing whether philosophy of mathematics is on-topic on this site: I just noticed that there is a “philosophy” tag on Math.SE, what sorts of questions are on-topic within this tag?, Philosophical questions $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented May 29, 2015 at 5:15
  • $\begingroup$ The posts links to the questions posted on Philosophy.SE. I will add a link to the original version posted on math.SE (which is deleted, so only some users can see it): math.stackexchange.com/questions/1303500/… $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented May 29, 2015 at 5:18
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    $\begingroup$ My personal opinion is that some questions about philosophy of mathematics are on-topic here. Sometimes it is not easy to judge for which of the two site a question is more suitable. But even if the consensus will be that now all questions about philosophy of mathematics should be directed to Philosophy.SE, it think that (philosophy) tag should stay - for historical reasons. (But mentioning existence of Philosophy.SE in tag-excerpt might be useful.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented May 29, 2015 at 5:23
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    $\begingroup$ A problem is that there are ~400 questions tagged (philosophy) right now, probably some of them with this tag only. Even off-topic questions need to be properly tagged... IMO the proper course of action is probably to go through the list, close and delete everything that is off-topic here, and blacklist the tag if it's decided that philosophy if explicitly off-topic here. $\endgroup$
    – Najib Idrissi
    Commented May 29, 2015 at 7:21

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Since you quote my comment, let me elaborate my thought I little bit.

After I saw your post I actually went and checked some of the "hot" question in Math SE with the tag . After that I am more convinced that your question is better suit to Philosophy SE. There are basically two reasons:

Now if we take a look at your question, it is obviously philosophical in nature, and are looking for philosophical answer. It is very likely that you do not get a good response here.

That being said, your question is actually on topic, according to the excerpt of the tag philosophy: It explicitly said that tags are for questions in philosophy of mathematics..... I suggest that we should do something to it, as stated, quite a lot of questions with the philosophy tag should have that untagged.

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Perhaps you acted too quickly; the opinion of two users who came across your post in 20 minutes may not be representative.

That said, have you compared your question to non-closed questions with philosophy tag? [Disregard those that don't need this tag at all.] To me it appears that your question is quite a bit further from mathematics than those; one could ponder the meaning of assertion two things are the same without any mathematical references.

Also, my standard response to "why have this tag if my question is off-topic": off-topic questions also need tags until or unless they are deleted. For this reason, the existence of a tag does not imply the topicality of questions one would associate with that tag.

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    $\begingroup$ "[Disregard those that don't need this tag at all.]" that's quite a lot of them, to be honest. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Commented May 29, 2015 at 11:00

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