Talk:Peter Carruthers (philosopher)

The text in this entry is in the public domain. Any possible infringements of copyright have been removed I think. It may read like a resume but it is intended to inform the public of the work of one of the most important living philosophers of mind. I don't know how this can be verified except that any philosopher of note would be familiar with Carruthers' work. I intend to add detail to his significant and notable contributions to philosophy of mind.Mark Pharoah (talk) 12:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


 * This source (http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/Faculty/pcarruthers/) is not in the public domain per "Front page © 2007 Isaac Carruthers". Jeepday (talk) 20:03, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Language and Thought
Whilst I understand the motivation (as a simplifying device) I have to say I find the discussion of the supposed Dummett-Fodor spectrum (with Carruthers somewhere in the middle) questionable and for that reason unhelpful. Yes you could conceive of the argument over the relationship between language and thought as being about what relationship spoken language has to thought contents (as here) but this is not an especially standard way to conceive of it nor do I believe (in light of what he has to say in Phenomenal Consciousness and on animal cognition) it is the way Carruthers himself conceives of it. Rather the question to ask is whether thought has a propositional format and as such the capacity of language (or linguistic conceptual thought) is necessary for thought (which seems to bar animals) in which case Dummett and Fodor share the shame extreme with Carruthers at the other and with people like Dennett somewhere in the middle. This seems to be Carruther's impression of the dispute as illustrated in his taxonomy of positions about the contents of thought in Phenomenal Consciousness, at any rate. As such I'd suggest the section be changed on the grounds it is a (a) disputable (b) not the conception of the debate which the subject of the article himself endorses (which seems a reasonable standard to determine which conceptions of philosophical debates to use in articles about philosophers). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.39.9.134 (talk) 14:49, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Advice
At the deletion debate for this article I appear to have been the sole non-Single Purpose Account to argue that this article is entirely inappropriate. well, if it to stay, I'd like ot see it improved.

Firstly, I'd like to apologise on behalf of wikipedia for the anonymous nominator's description of the article as a "vanity page". We generally agree that this is a rude and unwarranted accusation from which wikipedians should refain. I'd also like to point out that "non-notability" is a complex enculturated wikipedia term that can fail to correspond with a real-world meaning.

To improve this article, I'd like to see some independent references. Anything not written by the subject, or his employer, that is reputably published that says anything about the subject, would be good.

An author of the page says that this person is connected to other people with wikipedia pages, and to subjects covered by wikipedia. If this is so, then it is desirable that the article is linked from thos pages in a meaningful way. The fact that the article is a mainspace orphan (no real articles link to it, see ) is bad. If Carruthers is notable, he should be relevent to some other article.

Identifying other biographies with similar or worse problems is not generally considered to be a productive argument.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)