Talk:Superstructure

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Disambig[edit]

Does this page need a disambiguation?

  1. A physical or conceptual structure extended or developed from a basic form.
  2. The part of a building or other structure above the foundation.
  3. The parts of a ship's structure above the main deck.
  4. The rails, sleepers, and other parts of a railway.
  5. In Marxist theory, the ideologies or institutions of a society as distinct from the basic processes and direct social relations of material production and economics.

I was looking for a link to #3... - Amgine 18:40, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I'm not familiar with the social science use of the word, and only knew the engineering use.

Cleanup[edit]

How is each section confusing? How does each section need to be cleaned up? Hyacinth 09:31, 11 February 2006 (UTC) I guess the marxist section could use a little "dumbing up" I was looking for clarification and am a little more confused[reply]

What is confusing or hard to understand? What needs clarification? Hyacinth 01:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article is written in a way which laymen would find dizying to read. Not really encyclopedia material.

I agree. There is a lot of jargon. It seems to be written for those already familiar with the material (Karmiw 22:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Please sign your posts on talk pages per Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks! Hyacinth 01:45, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To help understand the Marxist section, I wrote this explanation of the block quote.

Without man's control, he enters in to a relation that binds social productions and material productions. Meaning, he becomes connected to the group of connections between social and material productions. The relations he becomes connected to are, overall, the base structure of his society. This structure builds up a legal and political superstructure. This new superstructure corresponds to the definite forms of social consciousness, as in the varied perceptions of social entities. The mode of production is the force that pushed man into this relation. Man's perception of social, political, and intellectual life was given to him by this mode of production. Therefore, the mode of production gives man his perception of life. At a certain stage during the modes of production the material productive forces of society, which are the forces that produce the materials and the labor power, conflict with either the relation of production or the property relations within the structure the relations have existed in. These relations, that conflicted with the material productive forces, change into shackles. Once they change into shackles a time of social revolution begins. The social revolution will cause economic change and the foundations of these economic changes will, in turn, change the overall structure of the society. When studying this type of change it is necessary to distinguish the differences between material transformation and the current economic conditions of the production. These two can be determined by natural science and the ideological forms ( either legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophical) that the men of the society have used to perceive the new conflict. The only way men can judge this period revolutionary change is to compare it to the conflict, that is between the material productive forces, to the current relation of productive forces.

I do not want to post it if anyone has any conflict with it, so let me know if you do and tell me what you think before I put it in. If there are no responses in a few days or so I will just place it under the quote explaining that it is, well, explaining the quote. Zaxor0 01:01, April 6 2007 (UTC)Zaxor0 01:03, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]


I agree with what your saying. Marx was a moral agnostic and he never criticized particular morals, or subjective opinions directly within his published works. Marx only analysed how humans' life circumstances influence their morality. Human's life circumstances are determined by whichever 'mode of production' they are in. For Marx's, the mode of production is the superstructure, which determines the underlying morality inherent in political and legal statutes - until the flaws within the mode of production become evident and the oppressed classes' morality inevitably changes. That last part is somewhat difficult to articulate. Allan W. Wood was a proponent of this viewpoint <Wood, W., 'The Marxian Critique of Justice', in Thomas Negal et. al. -Marx, Justice, and History- [US: Princeton University Press: 1980]> (I don't have a Wiki id)

Split[edit]

Why and how should this article be split? Hyacinth 09:31, 11 February 2006 (UTC) Template removed at some point. Hyacinth 01:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC) Just please split the dern thing! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.251.45.207 (talk) 19:01, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cite needed[edit]

What needs to be cited in this article? Hyacinth 01:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Superstructure versus deck house[edit]

This article currently asserts, categorically and without a source, that the term "superstructure" on ships "only applies to structure which stretches for the full breadth of the vessel", and that a wheel house is not a superstructure. Is this really a widely accepted distinction? And what about boats? Is a deckhouse or wheelhouse on a boat not a superstructure? See, for example, this definition of a wheelhouse and this definition of a superstructure.--Geronimo20 (talk) 22:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree that "full breadth" is not a widely accepted distinction; in fact, it's a distinction I'd never come across before. According to http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superstructure, it's "the structural part of a ship above the main deck". Nibios (talk) 16:18, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the current "full breath" definition would seem to be incorrect and should be changed. As it is unsourced and we have sources provided by the two of you that clearly state the opposite, I see no problem in changing the article. — Kjet (talk · contribs) 08:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I took out the "full breadth" part, but what's left feels like it still needs work. Nibios (talk) 21:38, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why redirect from social infrastructure?[edit]

Why would "social infrastructure" redirect to this page? Ginstrom (talk) 11:13, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First answer: Because of Superstructure#Social sciences. But I guess you knew this.
This article doesn't seem to follow our usual standards for dealing with ambiguous titles. I am not 100% sure if the engineering meaning is the dominating one, but it appears to be. On that basis, everything unrelated to engineering should not be discussed here but elsewhere, and be linked to by means of a disambiguation note. I will fix this now for the mathematics and Marxism meanings, which is simple because the articles already exist. Perhaps you can identify the correct article for discussing social infrastructure and/or superstructure in the social sciences, or create one if necessary. Perhaps ask WP:SOCIOLOGY, or whatever is the relevant WikiProject for help? Hans Adler 11:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Split needed[edit]

This should be either a disambig page, or a page about superstructure in engineering, with a dis note to other uses. Thoughts? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We don't need a split so much as simply removing everything that isn't engineering – because that's already discussed elsewhere. I will just do it. Hans Adler 18:03, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We can merge the social content into base and superstructure. That will transform this article into Superstructure (engineering). I suggest that this article is moved to that title, and a new disambig created in its place. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:18, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Or we just leave it here. The overwhelming number of incoming links was for the engineering topic. I have just finished redirected everything else to base and superstructure. Hans Adler 18:28, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have done the split and also removed the WikiProject Sociology. While doing that, I noticed it said "Importance: High". Given the state of the article I find that hard to take seriously, and in any case superstructure (sociology) can still be created if necessary. Hans Adler 18:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: withdrawn per nominator. ErikHaugen (talk) 16:41, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]


SuperstructureSuperstructure (civil engineering) — Disambig needed. Superstructure in physics is also quite important. Marie Poise (talk) 17:41, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This depends very much on whether you are an engineer, a scientist, or a philosopher. Google scholar: hits #1 and #3-6,8-10 go to superstructure (condensed matter), #2 goes to base and superstructure, #7 is an astrophysical analogue of superstructure (condensed matter). Superstructure (engineering) seems of little importance for scholars. -- Marie Poise (talk) 21:40, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is unsurprising - ship superstructures don't sound like a particularly interesting research topic. If this encyclopedia were targeted at scholars then I would agree with your conclusion. But consider that normal dictionaries typically don't even mention the uses other than the subject of this article. When most people say "superstructure" they're talking about ships. ErikHaugen (talk) 22:57, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion is closed, folks. I have withdrawn my proposal and implemented the solution Erik proposed. -- Marie Poise (talk) 16:19, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Huh?[edit]

"...having the degree of freedom zero [in the terms of theory of machines]"

What on earth is all this about? --Eamonnca1 TALK 08:03, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Superlattice article[edit]

Superlattice Doesn't it worth to make a common article for this kind of structures? There is also a relationship with articles where multilayer optical devices are mentioned.--193.146.9.175 (talk) 11:04, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]