User:Sissizheng/sandbox

Critiquing articles
I learned a lot about what makes a quality Wikipedia article. The most surprising was that all of the information mentioned has to be from reputable secondary sources. I previously thought that primary sources could be cited for Wikipedia articles. Not surprisingly, I learned that Wikipedia articles are supposed to take on a neutral stance and be informative for a general audience. Finally, I learned about the existence of talk pages and WikiProjects, which are social organizations surrounding editing articles of specific topics. This allows many people to collaborate on the same article and learn what others are thinking at the time of writing the article.

I approached critiquing the article I assigned for the assignment by looking at what was missing from the article based on Wikipedia's guidelines for what makes a FA level article. Although it was hard to address all of the concerns of the article, Wikipedia made it clear that well supported and well cited statements are better than incomplete or possibly erroneous statement without citations or with weak citations. Thus, I focused on improving previous citations and writing new content that had many agreeing different sources.

Summarizing my Contributions
In addition to some minor copyediting, I wrote new articles about the history of skepticism in the Western Tradition for the most part based upon Popkin's books, but also with some backup sources to double check. I also restructured the page to split up the history portion into the Western Tradition and the Non-Western Tradition. Finally, I tried to make the site look more visually appealing by adding pictures of key figures.

I believe that our article is greatly improved compared to previous versions because it is now easier to navigate and the parts flow more smoothly from one pat to another. More importantly is that this article now represents generally accepted ideas and knowledge in academia about this specialized topic in Philosophy. I think that this article can now serve as a source of knowledge for the layman as well as a jumping off point for further research. However, I wish I had more time to do more research, since there is still so much work to be done on the article!

Peer Review:
The peer review process consisted mostly of commenting on each other's sandboxes. I left a detailed review of Ethan's Epicureanism article changes on his sandbox, where I suggested edits on his sentence structure, the structure of the article, and some minor copy-editing. Ethan and Talia both reviewed my article and brought up really great points, such as changing the titles to make the categorization more consistent, adding more authors to each section, and changing the Pyrrhonism portion to use secondary sources instead of primary ones. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to do that last part.

One thing I wish wasn't the case was the lack of interaction in the talk page of the article I edited. Maybe because the article was only rated as "mid-importance" of the WikiProject it is a part of, but most of the commentary on the talk page before Shusheng and I introduced ourselves are at least half a year old. I feel like this may be due to lack of general popularity of this area of Philosophy. I hope that classes like our will shed more light on these discussions of this specific type of Philosophy and bring more activity to the space.

Feedback:
I recieved some minor feedback from an Wikipedia editor, suggesting us to cite more sources in large sections. I took that into consideration and did some more research on other sources. However, this was generally something I struggled with since Popkin is such an influential figure in the space that most authors wrote in reference to him.

Wikipedia Generally:
I learned a lot about researching from secondary sources from this project. It was a pretty interesting experience going to the Regenstein Library and looking for really discrete books among the shelves and reading many books for information that I could synthesize for my article. Compared to other assignments I have done in the past, it is highly independent, and more challenging since many sources needed to be used no matter how reknown one source is.

Wikipedia is really important for public understanding, since it is often the first page that pops up on Google for many topics, and even as summaries in Siri search. Since Wikipedia is written for the average reader, who doesn't need to be an academic in the specific area, it opens up many opportunities for the average person to learn about highly technical facts, ideas, and history. It can also bring attention to the topic and spur interest in further research for newcomers to the space. Finally, many students use Wikipedia as a place to gather sources for their essays, so it would be nice if professionals could help write Wikipedia articles in their sector in order to make sure students are being directed to quality sources.

Finally, this project draws a very nice parallel to the story of Diderot and his Encyclopedie, which he tried so hard to get published without being banned. Instead of publishing his thoughts on Atheism, he chose to tiptoe around the Inquisition to protect his grand project. Although the response to Wikipedia is not as dramatic as the response to the Encyclopedie, I think it is not because this is not as great of a undertaking, but rather because we are so used to the influx of knowledge in the information era. In fact, in the age of fake news, Wikipedia might be a more important source of information for the average reader, because erroneous knowledge is arguably more destructive than lack on knowledge.

Thus, I am very glad I chose this track, which has become very meaningful to me because of the impact I am helping to achieve. I am glad that my work throughout the quarter can be of use to more than just my grades!

Peer Review
I have reviewed Ethan Della Rocca's Epicureanism article in his sandbox. Please click the link to see my review.

Why I want to edit it:
This article has really bad organization and fails to mention many of the works/figures we studied in class. Furthermore, many wikipedians in the talk section are calling for a complete rewrite. I am collaborating with Shusheng on this project since it is a big endeavor.

Resources:

 * Skepticism: an anthology by by Richard H. Popkin, José R. Maia Neto
 * Michel de Montaigne: Encyclopedia Britannica
 * The History of Skepticism from Savonarola to Bayle by Richard H. Popkin
 * Augustine and Academic Skepticism: A Philosophical Study by Blake D. Sutton

Content Drafts:
I propose to split up the contents on the History of Skepticism into 3 eras: Ancient Skepticism, Renaissance Revival, and Modern Skepticism.

Ancient Skepticism: Medieval: Renaissance Revival: Modern Skepticism:
 * Artistotle, Plato
 * Stoics
 * Academic Skeptics
 * Pyrrhonism
 * Epicurean
 * Ockham
 * Erasmus
 * Montaigne
 * Mersenne (1588–1648)
 * Gassendi
 * "New Pyrrhonism"
 * Bacon
 * Hobbes
 * Descartes
 * Spinoza

Structural Changes:
I moved the traditional western history section before the Ancient Chinese and Indian parts since I think most people searching up philosophical skepticism would be interested in the western tradition (which is separated from those parts). Shusheng rewrote the introductory sentences to introduce the major themes of all of the authors' arguments/explorations in Skepticism.

Augustine's Proof Against Skepticism
In 386 CE, Augustine published Contra Academicos (Against the Skeptics), which counters many claims that Academic Skeptics make:
 * Objection from Error: Through logic, Augustine proves that Skepticism does not lead to happiness like the academic skeptics claim. His proof is summarized below.
 * A wise man lives according to reason, and thus is able to be happy.
 * One who is searching for knowledge but never finds it is in error.
 * Imperfection objection: People in error are not happy, because being in error is an imperfection, and people cannot be happy with an imperfection.
 * Conclusion: One who is still seeking knowledge cannot be happy.


 * Error of Non-Assent: Augustine's proof that suspending belief does not fully prevent one from error. His proof is summarized below.
 * Introduction of the error: Let P be true. If a person fails to believe P due to suspension of belief in order to avoid error, the person is also committing an error.
 * The Anecdote of the Two Travelers: Travelers A and B are trying to reach the same destination. At a fork in the road, a poor shepherd tells them to go left. Traveler A immediately believes him and reaches the correct destination. Traveler B suspends belief, instead believing in the advice of a well-dressed townsman to go right, because his advice seems more persuasive. However, the townsman is actually a samardocus (con man) so Traveler B never reaches the correct destination.
 * The Anecdote of the Adulterer: A man suspends belief that adultery is bad, and commits adultery with another man's wife because it is persuasive to him. Under Academic Skepticism, this man cannot be charged because he acted on what was persuasive to him without assenting belief.
 * Conclusion: Suspending belief exposes individuals to an error as defined by the Academic Skeptics.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
The most notable figure of the Skepticism revival in the 1500s, Montaigne wrote about his studies of Academic Skepticism and Pyrrhonism through his Essais. Because his father believe in Humanism education, Montaigne was brought up with Latin being his native language. Thus, he was able to read the sources for his studies of Skepticism in Latin rather than through translation.

His most notable writings on Skepticism occurred in "Apologie de Raimond Sebond," an essay written mostly in 1575-1576 when he was reading Sextus Empiricus and trying to translate Raimond Sebond's writing, including his proof of Christianity's natural existence. The reception to Montaigne's translations included some criticisms of Sebond's proof. Montaigne responded to some of them in Apologie, including a defense for Sebond's logic that is skeptical in nature and similar to Pyrrohonism. His refutation is as follows:
 * 1) Critics claiming Sebond's arguments are weak show how egoistic humans believe that their logic is superior to others.
 * 2) Many animals can be observed to be superior to humans in certain respects. To argue this point, Montaigne even writes about dogs who are logical and creates their own syllogisms to understand the world around them. This was an example used in Sextus Empiricus.
 * 3) Since animals also have rationality, the over-glorification of man's mental capabilities is a trap-- man's folly. One man's reason cannot be better than another's as a result.
 * 4) Ignorance is even recommend by religion.

Mersenne (1588–1648)
Marsenne was an author, a mathematician, a scientist, and a philosopher. He wrote in defense of science and Christianity against atheists and Pyrrhonists before retiring to encourage development of science and the "new philosophy," which includes philosophers like Gassendi, Descartes, Galileo, and Hobbes. A major work of his in relation to Skepticism is La Verité des Sciences, in which he argues that although we may not be able to know the true nature of things, we can still formulate certain laws and rules for sense-perceptions through science.

Additionally, he points out that we do not doubt everything because: A Pyrrhonist might refute these points by saying that senses deceive, and thus knowledge turns into infinite regress or circular logic. Thus Marsenne argues that this cannot be the case, since commonly agreed upon rules of thumb can be hypothesized and tested over time to ensure that they continue to hold. Furthermore, if everything can be doubted, the doubt can also be doubted, so on and so forth. Thus, according to Marsenne, something has to be true. Finally, Marsenne writes about all the mathematical, physical, and other scientific knowledge that is true by repeated testing, and has practical use value.
 * Humans do agree about some things, for example, an ant is smaller than an elephant
 * There are natural laws governing our sense-perceptions, such as optics, which allow us to eliminate innacuracies
 * Man created tools such as rulers and scales to measure things and eliminate doubts such as bent oars, pigeons’ necks, and round towers.

Notably, Marsenne was one of the few philosophers who accepted Hobbes' radical ideology-- he saw it as a new science of man.

Emerging Discussion after the Death of Richard Popkin
Because Richard Popkin was one of the founding fathers of study in this area, the account of the history of Skepticism in his books are accepted as the standard. However, recent scholars have been suggesting an addition to Popkin's account. Instead of centering the history of Skepticism around specific figures who wrote key skeptical works, Skepticism is proposed to be a continuous engagement with works by ancients like Sextus Empiricus to modern thinkers like Hume. The engagement with previous works were probably due to unwanted doubts about accepted episteme instead of purely due to classical writings becoming available at any specific time.

Why I want to edit it:
This article currently has extremely dismal citation. I plan to use the books we read in class, some books from the uchicago library, and some online wikipedias to add to the current citations. Furthermore, I want to incorporate a bit of what was written before into my article, since it is a good start. I will focus on the style section, which does not have enough discussion about how groundbreaking this style was.

Resources:

 * A descriptive bibliography of Montaigne's Essais,1580-1700 by R.A. Sayce and David Maskell
 * Montaigne's Essais by Wendell John Coats, Jr.
 * Montaigne's career by George Hoffmann
 * Essaying Montaigne: a study of the Renaissance institution of writing and reading by John O'Neill.
 * The Renaissance rediscovery of intimacy by Kathy Eden

ADD TO AN ARTICLE:
His essays were seen as an important contribution to both writing form and skepticism. The name itself comes from the French word meaning "attempts," which shows how this new form of writing did not aim to educate or prove. Rather, his essays was an explorative journey in which he works through logical steps to bring skepticism to what is being discussed.

Philosophical Skepticism
This is the focus of our class, but this wiki page is extremely messy and disorganized. I think I will need to first compile a list of the skeptics in order according to how we covered them in class, and then work on writing individual articles about them.

Essais
I want to work mostly on the style section, as there is very little discussion there. I will also add some citations to the rest of the article.

Montaigne
I originally wanted to write about this, but since it is already B-class, I decided to abandon this project

Article Evaluation
For my article evaluation, I decided to evaluate Essais
 * 1) Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you? Everything is related to the article topic but I think that the introductory sentences do not accurately outline the rest of the article's contents
 * 2) Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? The articles are mostly neutral, but most of the article is extremely poorly cited. An example is the style section, where the author wrote about Montaigne's style without citing any resources for such analysis
 * 3) Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? I think most viewpoints are overrepresented since many sections contain only one viewpoint. This is obvious especially in the Style section
 * 4) Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article? The links work but the one citation in the content section links to a picture, and the one citation in the style section links to a source about another work, not the essays in question.
 * 5) Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted? The facts are poorly referenced
 * 6) Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added? I am not sure about the date of the information, but I think more can be added about the style of the essays since Montaigne wrote the first essays
 * 7) Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? The talk article has very few threads. One thread is about possibly writing an article for each essay, and another thread is about changing a citation link. However, it seems to be agreed upon that the article needs better citation overall.
 * 8) How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProject? The article is rated start-class, and is part of WikiProject Philosophy mid-importance.
 * 9) How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class? There is less emphasis about the groundbreaking style of the essays, and more about the content and purpose of his essays