Talk:Gila Sher

Del

I see no reason for this article to be deleted. It was marked for deletion because Professor Sher was considered a non-noteworthy academic. It seems obvious to me that anyone actually in the field of philosophy of logic knows this to be false. Professor Sher is a respected scholar on two major figures in Analytic Philosophy: Quine and Tarski. Her work on both has proven very influential. She has almost singlehandedly opened an entirely new line of research within Quine scholarship (into Foundational Holism) and she made a name for herself defending Tarski from John Etchemendy in the late 1990's.

Professor Sher is a published author with three books in philosophy. She is a tenured full professor, a popular lecturer, and she has influenced many students. The Leiter Report, which evaluates philosophy departments in the United States, has noted her prescence at UCSD as strengthening the schools general reputation. She also has worked with Linksy and Zalta, two major figures in modern modal logic.

Professor Sher is a significant, important researcher. This article should stay.

Aedan Kane 21:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

It may be obvious to you but...

...not everyone has heard of her! You can't just say 'it's obvious she's notable'. You have to prove that she is by citing good, independent secondary sources (eg newspapers or academic journals that mention her). Kim Dent-Brown ^{(Talk to me)} 21:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Continued

I'm happy to site whatever sources you want. Not everyone has heard of many major researchers in many major fields. Here are links to two books she has written:

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=IqeE6qhOufwC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&sig=XYOBmoJPJb762ItwnuBTvkAWwyA&dq=between+logic+and+intuition&prev=http://scholar.google.com/scholar%3Fq%3Dbetween%2Blogic%2Band%2Bintuition%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D

This book is a modern analysis of philosophy of logic and truth published by Cambridge. That she was selected as the editor of the book should say a lot.

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=7196

This is Professor Sher's expanded disseration, including her criticism of John Etchemendy.

Here is the list Professor Sher provides of some of her articles:

Articles

   * Tarski's Thesis. Alfred Tarski: Philosophical Background, Development, and Influence. Ed. D.E. Patterson. Oxford. Forthcoming.
   * Truth as a Normative Modality of Cognitive Acts. With C.D. Wright. Truth & Speech Acts: Studies in the Philosophy of Language. Eds. G. Siegwart and D. Greimann. (Routledge, Forthcoming)
   * Functional Pluralism. Philosophical Books 46 (2005): 311-330.
   * In Search of a Substantive Theory of Truth. The Journal of Philosophy 101 (2004): 5-36.
   * A Characterization of Logical Constants Is Possible. Theoria 18 (2003): 189-97.
   * Logical Consequence: An Epistemic Outlook. The Monist 85 (2002): 555-79
   * Truth, the Liar, and Tarski's Semantics. A Companion to Philosophical Logic. Ed. D. Jacqette. (Blackwell, 2002): 145-63.
   * The Formal-Structural View of Logical Consequence. The Philosophical Review 110 (2001): 241-61.
   * Truth, Logical Structure, and Compositionality. Synthese 126 (2001): 195-219.
   * The Logical Roots of Indeterminacy. Between Logic and Intuition. Eds. G. Sher & R. Tieszen. (Cambridge, 2000): 100-23.
   * Is There a Place for Philosophy in Quine's Theory? The Journal of Philosophy 96 (1999): 491-524.
   * Is Logic a Theory of the Obvious?. European Review of Philosophy 4 (1999): 207-38.
   * What Is Tarski's Theory of Truth? Topoi 18 (1999): 149-166.
   * On the Possibility of a Substantive Theory of Truth. Synthese 117 (1998/99): 133-72.
   * Partially-Ordered (Branching) Generalized Quantifiers: A General Definition. The Journal of Philosophical Logic 26 (1997): 1-43.
   * Did Tarski Commit 'Tarski's Fallacy'? The Journal of Symbolic Logic 61 (1996): 653-86.
   * Semantics and Logic. The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory, ed. S. Lappin (Blackwell, 1996): 509-35.
   * Ways of Branching Quantifiers. Linguistics and Philosophy 13 (1990): 393-422.
   * A Conception of Tarskian Logic. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 70 (1989): 341-68.

Especially noteworthy on that list is the Blackwell Companion to Logic. Blackwell selects only the best and most respected researchers to write the relevant chapters in their companions. She was selected to write a chapter on Tarski over every other Tarski scholar in the Analytic tradition, which spans four countries and two continents.

And

This article does cite independent sources! The External Link goes to her webpage, on a UCSD address, which directly links to her articles on JStor.

• See further explanation and example on my talk page. Kim Dent-Brown ^{(Talk to me)} 21:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

To demonstrate subject's noteworthiness Independent Authors must be found who write descriptions OF her. Wikipedia editors cannot simply offer supportive assertions that a subject is noteworthy. The article was deleted once, and to simply turn around and create it again and argue about the subject is the wrong way to go. Please read carefully and understand the policy WP:verify. Whatever is said in this article must have already been said by a verifiable, independent published source, and such sources must be identified in an academically suitable manner, ie author, title, publisher, publish date, etc. And personal webpages, blogs or usenet rarely qualify.Sacratomato 22:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Philosophers rarely, if ever, write descriptions of one another. They write extensive descriptions of the IDEAS of others. I have expanded the References section to include every article which refers to her work in the Stanford Encyclopedia.

Everything said in this article is easily verified by reading The Bounds of Logic, an academically published source which I cited in this article. That same book has been referenced independently by a host of other authors in the SEP to back up exactly the sort of points I have made in this essay.

You sneeringly refer to personal webpages, but the webpage I linked is an ACADEMIC webpage. It is identical in kind to the website linked on the Etchemendy article, as I identified. It lists a variety of sources, including the Blackwell Companion. As I stated, and as Blackwell clearly states themselves in the published text I linked directly in this article, they draw only from the most significant researchers.

I am an independent expert in the field of logic. I was asked to write an article on a major academic figure who is considered significant enough to edit books on her field and to be noted in the Leiter Report. I have done so. I was asked to provide clear links to her published work. I have done so. I was asked to provide external links. I have also done so.

If Wikipedia does not accept this article, when it accepts hundreds of totally unreferenced articles ranging from Minor Locations in the Lord of the Rings to obscure anime characters, then I don't know what to say. There is proof on this page that Professor Sher is a major published author in philosophy of logic. That should be more than enough.

• I am quoting now from two of the sources I linked in references:

"The Bounds of Logic is a book on the interface of mathematics, computer sciences, formal semantics in logic as well as in linguistics. It does not assume the form of a survey. Nevertheless, focussing on the deepest philosophical aspects, the book presents a broader perspective in this heterogeneous area. The emphasis on the theoretical grounds for the generalization of quantifiers leads to genuine logical results belonging to the main themes of modern logic." Elena Chernaya Department of Philosophy Moscow Pedagogical Institute

"From central considerations of philosophical logic, Gila Sher draws out implications through the study of quantification for logic, mathematics, and linguistics. She secures the characterization of logical terms in its most general sense - establishing a fundamental result in the foundation of semantics. The book will be of great importance for those interested in semantics from philosophical and linguistic perspectives." -- Robert May, Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine

• Excellent. Now work these citations into the article itself (not here on the talk page) and use in-line citations to these independent authors. See here for how to do this. Kim Dent-Brown ^{(Talk to me)} 22:56, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I put them in the references section of the text. The article is composed of two types of claims. One is of the form: "Gila Sher says/believes/argues X, Y and Z". These are all supported by her book(s), which I linked in the biliography. Another is of the form: "People think X, Y and Z about Gila Sher". These are all supported by the external links under references. This is the natural way I would organize information. Both of those quotes are directly linked in the references section. Why isn't this good enough?

Refs tag removed

I've removed the 'references needed' tag because I think there are sufficient references here now for a short article - and to recognise Aedan Kane's good work in improving this article. I've put in 'citation needed' tags at points in the article itself, which will need an in-line citation adding. The references section at the end needs to be Harvard-style (Author, title, date, city, publisher) rather than a list of URLs. The way to do this is like in the article on Jerry Fodor, which has in-line citations in the text linked to the full references at the end. If you go to the Fodor article and try to edit it, you will see what the syntax looks like.

I've also added the 'Philosopher' box from the Fodor page, but don't know what to put in it! I'm sure Aedan can fill it out authoritatively. I'll also find some categories to add this article to. Kim Dent-Brown ^{(Talk to me)} 09:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Philosophers Box

Thank you for removing the references tag. I will fill out the philosophers box first, then I will rework the citations if no one else will. I don't really know how to do this but I will stumble my way through it. Please correct me.

I will also get a direct date of birth from Professor Sher.

Aedan Kane 15:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC) C.A.

Hi Aedan. Do what you can with the infobox (I see you're getting the hang of it!) and the references. If you look at the syntax of how I entered the first edit, you may get the idea. It's not entirely straightforward but if you do what you can I'll tidy up. On a specialised article like this, I think it's unlikely that anyone but you can provide the citations! Unless that is you email a couple of other Sher specialists and ask them to join you in editing the article.

I think the article is shaping up very well know. The Fodor article is a good model for how this should look; good length, references, bibliography and external links all formatted properly. I realise it's a pain getting pestered by a smart-arse like me, when there are so many crap articles already on Wikipedia. I agree, 90% of what's on here is crap, but that doesn't mean we conscientious editors should lower our standards. Fortunately almost nobody will ever consult the crap 90%! But 9% of what's here is really quite good and 1% is gold dust. This article is already better than 90% of what's here already! Kim Dent-Brown ^{(Talk to me)} 15:22, 2 June 2007 (UTC)