Talk:Nathan Salmon

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 14:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

General

It appears that the general thesis of the article is correct: Salmon believes that the semantic content of "Mark Twain is revered at Disneyland" is identical to "Samuel Clemens is revered at Disneyland." This must certainly belong to an ahistoric philosophic frame of reference - apparently, accoridng to this article, derived from Frege. But is this accurate? Is this derived from Frege? In what way? Otherwise, lose the reference to Frege. Or is it just that Salmon references Frege repeatedly in his works (in which case, so state). Establishing links between thinkers is difficult - I don't see the link between Frege and Salmon. Salmon's contribution is obviously controversial and must de facto leave out many aspects of what is usually meant by "meaning" (Semantics) and therefore redefine the word "semantics." This isn't something that someone can do on Wikipedia - so citation? What gives Salmon the link to Frege (besides his own claim?). If it is merely "common knowledge" that Salmon believes he is derived from Frege, then so state. Otherwise, citations from Frege are very much neeed.--Levalley (talk) 04:02, 14 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Response to LeValley (General)

The connection to Frege is clear -- Salmon's "proposition guises" sound awfully similar to Fregean senses, or "modes of presentation" of referents or propositions; they solve the problems of vacuous names, coreferring names, etc. in the same way. See On Zinn and Bedeutung and figure it out yourself, I'm too lazy to type it all out for Mr. Anal but-doesn't-know-half-as-much-about-philosophy-as-he-ought-to-to-be-speaking-so-cockily here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.185.209.24 (talk) 21:34, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

If they sound "awfully similar to Fregean senses" to you, then what's the need for the entry on the plagiarist? Nice projection here, Mr. Anal.

I'm glad someone knows of the connection. I was doubting the "connection to Frege," only whether or not Salmon has in any way made a substantial critique or contribution. If you're referring to me as the person who is anal - I am reading as a typical reader, not a philosopher. And, no one should have to figure out from a low priority article what another, more important thinker means in order to understand the article. If instead you mean that someone else is cocky (like the person who claims that Frege and Salmon are clearly connected), perhaps that someone (who is obviously in the know) could site a secondary source (other than Prof. Salmon) who agrees with the content of this article. It's difficult to know what you mean by your insult, since you don't sign your post. --Levalley (talk) 22:11, 31 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Citations

In some place, citations to the referenced works are needed (Salmon can't be saying each and everything in each and every work - and the it's said he said are specific enough to need in line citations - but at least some sort of citations). In other places, other people's viewpoints are stated as fact, without citations to them - one can't just summarize Kant's position a simple statement of fact with a reference point of some kind (like a source on Kant or a wikipedia article that summarizes Kant in precisely the way argued against by Salmon). And so on with Quine etc.--Levalley (talk) 06:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Immediate removal

...following template. No family should be described as dysfunctional (Wikipedia is not a place for amateur psychiatric diagnoses) nor Bohemian, unless it is from a well-recognized secondary source. For this kind of statement, there should be more than one objective biographical source, as it describes many living people (the family of Salmon) with a broad brush and is completely unsourced. Also, wikipedia is not a place for random college professors to insert interesting (but unsourced) facts about themselves, nor for their students to do so - without citations. "Personal communication" (I heard it in a lecture) is not sufficient for the guidelines of Wikipedia. --Levalley (talk) 22:49, 28 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Getting past start level

To get this past start level, inline citations are needed, as well as the article needs to be linked up somewhere. I've looked for places to link it up, can't find any off the top of my head. Perhaps a philosopher will come by and help with that.--Levalley (talk) 22:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Lots of opinion here

On various sides, it seems. Trying to edit down to what is verifiable.Levalley (talk) 05:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Whew.

Perhaps this would all be more clear (and less controversial?) if someone (anyone) saw fit to write an article on Millianism (if that's what it is called)? It seems odd to have Salmon arguing against an idea that we can't scrutinize on its own. I don't know what to do about the rest of the language in this section, it's deteriorating into opinion.Levalley (talk) 05:43, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Copyediting

This article remains a challenge to copyedit, but it's good practice for me. I'm trying.Levalley (talk) 18:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't it probably say "immediate family"? Since everyone's lineage goes back thousands of years, it's hard to know what the source for the biographical statement about "first in family to go to college" would be - I would assume the immediate family known to the person in question. About the language inserted into the first paragraph of the next section: I don't know yet exactly what to do. Page history reveals controversy about the neutrality of the article, article has remained without secondary sources for awhile, so "vague" seems appropriate, "pompous", well, this is an issue of neutrality and needs an expert to weigh in.Levalley (talk) 18:21, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

To the expert who eventually stops by: Is Millianism a word? Is it properly spelled? I can't find this word anywhere. I've asked a couple of philosophers who say they think Salmon made it up, which is fine, but then please, a citation? If Salmon is the only person who uses the word, that needs to be stated. Levalley (talk) 18:25, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Unsourced material

Deletion of unsourced material will commence soon, if citations are not provided. This article reads like the stub of an academic qua professor, and the guidelines for notability for such persons require that 1) specific citations to their works be to juried publications or major publications - there are no specific citations for much of this article and 2) some sort of secondary literature be cited to hook them up to the larger field they claim to be part of. There are lot of these articles in philosophy (over 300, I believe), so the Philosophy project is a bit overwhelmed. This one has been listed as needing work on the Philosophy project page for about 2 years.Levalley (talk) 18:28, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Salmon's Take

As the subject of this article I appreciate Levalley's attempts at improvement. However, some of the editing and revision is excessively heavy-handed and weaken the article unnecessarily. (I have not undone those edits.) In particular, the demand for citations to substantiate what are uncontroversial and widely known facts (e.g., about the writings of Kant or Quine, etc.) is excessive. The demand for citations should be made by an expert in philosophy, rather than by an expert in biographical writing.

Unfortunately the article has also been the target of repeated vandalism from at least two IP addresses. Some of the anonymous vandal's (or vandals') insertions also betray a lack of genuine expertise in philosophy. The vandalism to date has been undone by wikipedia and/or by other anonymous contributors. Wikipedia needs to review its policies in this regard. Suspension of revision priveleges for an extremely brief period (e.g., 24 hours) is surely an inadequate response to repeated vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nsalmon (talk • contribs) 17:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has strong vandalism policies, but remember, everyone here (everyone) is a volunteer. You did the right thing, I think, in reverting the vandalism. That's how to use the policy - just do it. As to citations, well, that's why I (as a copyeditor) put the tags on the article. Let me also mention that it's never a good idea to edit your own biography, as it runs against the COI policies on Wikipedia. As to citations for generally held views on philosophers, I believe that when someone states they are arguing against someone else, they must state where that someone else says the thing they are arguing with. So, for example, if the view of Kant that is generally held is being argued against, then any major introductory textbook that states the view of Kant whic his argued against would be a suitable citation - which is precisely what this (and many other articles on Wikipedia) lack. In-line citations are definitely need in these instances (in other words, a specific page number). As you are an academic, I am sure you know how to find the needed references, I think two textbooks would be a good number for leading the reader to know what the "general view of Kant is." If you visit the Kant page, you'll see that there have been problems on getting Kant so concisely summarized that someone can (within Wikipedia) just assume "everyone knows what is generally held about Kant." I realize it's challenging. I may be misunderstanding something, but the vandalism was not reverted by a "bot," but seems to have been reverted by you. As I said, this is sort of frowned upon, but I think in this case, it's appropriate - I had made a note of the recent changes in my note "whew" because I didn't know what exactly to do with that kind of thing. I don't see my edits as heavy-handed, I believe this article needs to be pulled into line with other similar articles on philosophical topics, which use facts and citations.

BTW, I don't think all of the changes to your page that you reverted were clear examples of vandalism. It's just my opinion - but at least I'm not the subject of the article. For example, since the article mentions the Department of Philosophy at UCSB as a source of notability, the ranking of UCSB in recognized reports (there was a citation, I read it) is part of the article. Wikipedia articles must establish the notability of the person in question, as I understand it. There are some 500 articles on philosophers that are orphaned or very lonely, some of them quite detailed (as yours is) but I've been working on trying to either improve them or merge them. So, some of what you call "vandalism" is rather ordinary Wikipedia editing. I agree, however, that when it's done anonymously, there's less reason to keep it. But that doesn't mean the effort wasn't sincere and doesn't merely represent someone else's point of view. Levalley (talk) 22:59, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

We shall have to agree to disagree about whether some of your edits are (as I believe) excessively heavy-handed. However, your defense of the most recent vandalism is extremely lame, and betrays a serious lack of understanding of both the nature of the source and the vandal's implicit fallacious argument that my department's decline in a popular but non-authoritative ranking is attributable to my continued membership in that department. As I said, I appreciate your efforts at improvement. I believe those efforts are sincere. But if you really believe that this sort of anonymous potshot might be a sincere effort rather than clear vandalism, and that it is therefore appropriate in a biographical sketch, I would strongly urge you to leave the editing of articles concerning philosophy and/or philosophers to genuine experts. You simply lack the understanding and expertise required to assess whether an edit is a genuine improvement or an obvious and cowardly sniper attack (as with the insertion in question).

Copyediting

This was removed because it is not the title of his book:

His first book, Reference and Essence

but rather two Wikilinks with an "and" in the middle. If the title of the book is Reference and Essence, which I assume it is, it should be reinserted properly, as a book title (with a citation). I'll check the references in the page when I get a chance and try to fix. It is also not clear from the text that it is a book (I don't have time right now to go check the reference - but that's why there's a general notice on the article itself; needs fact-checking).Levalley (talk) 22:47, 19 April 2009 (UTC

There are also several typos in the articles/book section, but it is very lengthy and tedious to correct. That's why I hesitate to put the GOCE in progress label on this page, because if someone else comes along and starts watching, perhaps they'll find time to fix the bibliography. I'm learning to leave such editing issues to others, after notability issues and COI are solved (etc).Levalley (talk) 23:21, 19 April 2009 (UTC)