User:Peter Damian

About me
I wrote this book a long time ago. I joined Wikipedia in 2003. There is a list of my articles below. The articles in bold are those to which I was the main contributor, and whose subject is important or notable (e.g. History of logic, which had not been covered properly until 2008). My main area of expertise is in Anglo-American analytic philosophy (I graduated from a well-known British university in the 1970's, did my PhD there, and taught there until the late 1980's. I have work in a number of excellent journals, and continue to work and publish, although I no longer teach). I also have an interest in medieval philosophy, and set theory and mathematics. My contributions to the project mostly reflect these specialisms.

For the entire time I have edited at Wikipedia I have been concerned about the way that experts are treated on the project (often with disdain, often with complete misunderstanding of the principles underlying true expert editing). I was a founder member of the Expert retention project.

Emily Gould on photographers

 * I know Wikipedia basically has to use some stock photo that some random person took of you because they can’t use anything that anyone wants to claim the rights to. They can’t use for example my author photo or any photo of me that has ever been in a magazine or a newspaper. They can’t use a photo that was taken by a photographer. That’s why everyone’s Wikipedia photo is so terrible.

(My emphasis)

Places

 * User_talk:I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc
 * User talk:WoKrKmFK3lwz8BKvaB94
 * User_talk:9SGjOSfyHJaQVsEmy9NS
 * User_talk:%E0%B6%A2%E0%B6%B4%E0%B7%83

Resources

 * /investigation
 * /WW podcast 119
 * User:The Land Surveyor/sandbox
 * Kate's tool
 * Page viewer and profile.
 * IEP article on Rand
 * Ayn Rand lexicon
 * The cathedral of light,.
 * Mellotron
 * Mellotron

Other accounts

 * Wikisource
 * Commons
 * Meta

Articles

 * New articles (including some redirects)

Mathematics, logic and set theory

 * Zermelo set theory Viewed 731 times in September 2008.
 * Skolem's paradox
 * Hume's_principle Viewed 765 times in September 2008.
 * Definitions of Logic
 * Logical form
 * Principle of contradiction Viewed 1765 times in September 2008.
 * History of logic Viewed 2927 times in September 2008.

Philosophy and Logic

 * Sense and reference complete rewrite, March 2016.
 * Philosophy (viewed 181916 times in September 2008)
 * Epistemic theory of miracles (viewed 688 times in September 2008)
 * Concept and object
 * Unity of the proposition (viewed 165 times in September 2008)
 * Proper name
 * Existence (since rather spoilt - viewed 19490 times in September 2008)
 * Russell's_paradox (since rather spoilt)
 * Connotation and denotation (now considerably spoilt)
 * Sense and reference
 * Empty name
 * Philosophical logic
 * Plural quantification (viewed 226 times in September 2008.
 * Ontological commitment
 * Definition (viewed 182828 times in September 2008)
 * Singular term
 * Ontological argument
 * Laurence R. Horn
 * scalar implicature
 * Philosophia Mathematica
 * Philosophical Quarterly
 * Philosophical Review
 * Auctoritates Aristotelis

Medieval philosophy and logic

 * Square of opposition (Viewed 1516 times in September 2008)
 * Medieval philosophy  (Viewed 6642 times in September 2008)
 * Term logic (since much tampered with)
 * Continuity thesis (Viewed 952 times in September 2008)
 * Ockham's Summa Logicae (Viewed 296 times in September 2008)
 * Scholasticism (Viewed 15352 times in September 2008)
 * Isagoge (Viewed 379 times in September 2008)
 * Formal distinction new article.
 * Second scholasticism new article.

Aristotle

 * Aristotle's Metaphysics (Viewed 6563 times in September 2008)
 * Aristotle's Posterior Analytics
 * Aristotle's Categories
 * Aristotle's On Interpretation (Viewed 631 times in September 2008)

Biographies

 * Duns Scotus (Viewed 4724 times in September 2008)
 * Peter Damian (add some of his more idiosyncratic pronouncements)
 * Henry of Ghent
 * Jacopo Zabarella
 * Walter Burley
 * William of Ockham
 * Peter Auriol
 * William of Sherwood (Viewed 186 times in September 2008)
 * Ernst Schroder (Viewed 621 times in September 2008)
 * Peter Geach
 * Crispin Wright
 * Anthony Kenny
 * Max Black (sadly the picture that Black's son sent me has been deleted) (Viewed 1407 times in September 2008)
 * Simon of Faversham
 * Jonathan Lowe
 * Arthur Prior
 * Paul Engelmann
 * Petrus_Aureolus
 * William_Kneale_(logician)
 * Nannette Streicher
 * Philotheus Boehner.

Gospel music

 * Mitchell's Christian Singers

Architecture

 * Villa Cetinale (Viewed 400 times in September 2008)
 * Villa La Pietra
 * Stonborough House
 * Bishop's Park (Fulham)

Other

 * Neurolinguistic programming (complete NPOV rewrite)
 * NLP and science (new introduction, substantial improvements to layout)
 * Regent master
 * Walter of Bruges
 * The Princess (poem)
 * Church music

Why actual Philosophers don't write in Wikipedia
Philosophy I'm a philosopher; why don't I edit the article on my subject? Because it's hopeless. I've tried at various times, and each time have given up in depressed disgust. Philosophy seems to attract aggressive zealots who know a little (often a very little), who lack understanding of key concepts, terms, etc., and who attempt to take over the article (and its Talk page) with rambling, ground-shifting, often barely comprehensible rants against those who disagree with them. Life's too short. I just tell my students and anyone else I know not to read the Wikipedia article except for a laugh. It's one of those areas where the ochlocratic nature of Wikipedia really comes a cropper.

The Bristol Stool Scale
Thanks for alerting me. To be honest, and I might as well be, I find [him] ludicrous, self-contradictory, often deeply uncivil (and equally often deeply obscure), baselessly arrogant, and lacking in self-control, self-awareness, and understanding of philosophy. He and a few other editors have taken over Philosophy, which is a laughing stock; it and one or two other similar articles have often been cited in my hearing as evidence that Wikipedia shouldn't be taken seriously or used as a reliable resource. Although I find that depressing, I don't feel that there's anything that anyone can do; editors like [him] are tirelessly logodiarrhoeic (somewhere between types 6 and 7 on the Bristol Stool Chart), and have no sense of or respect for Wikipedia policies or guidelines. Even if I had the time and energy to commit myself full time to improving the article, they would frustrate that attempt. Just look at the article's history as soon as the protection was removed: rocket-powered hysterical editing, with edit-warring thrown in, all with the net result of... the usual mess.