User talk:Bmolly

Nishi Amane

 * I found this article to consist of mostly biographical facts and instances. The subsection entitled "Meiji Philosopher" was very limiting, as it did not include most of Nishi's philosophical ideas.  This subsection also failed to mention Nishi's great influence on the strains of Chinese Philosophy that developed after he had his philosophical debut; Nishi's revolutionizing ideas did not solely affect Japan, like this particular article seems to show.  His ideas of happiness and self-cultivation reflect notions of the importance of the individual and individual rights that are crucial to Western Philosophy.  Nishi's ideas such as these can also be related to Liang Qichao's revolutionizing ideas of rights consciousness. Nishi also had a greater connection to Confucianism that is not at all mentioned in this article.  Overall, Nishi's existing article definitely needs some improvement; there is clearly not enough information on him as a philosopher.  The subsection regarding his legacy does not do him justice, and this article should include more links to other topics that relate to him and his philosophies.

Liang Shuming

 * This article is actually done fairly well, although it is missing a few important things. It includes pretty much all of Liang's main points of reference and scope of ideas, yet it does not seem to mention anything in particular about Liang's feelings on human rights and equality . Another thing that the article fails to do is make conscious connections between Liang's scope of ideas.  Just merely listing the figures of interest that Liang has been involved in alerts the reader of what Liang's individual arguments are; not providing the reader with any contextual background and irelationships, however, devalues the notion of Liang's philosophy as whole.  The philosophical and historical importance of Liang's discourse can be made more clear if the relationships between his ideas (where they sprang from and what they have ultimately gone on to influence) were taken into account.  Though providing just the basics helps an article to stay neutral, this tactic deprives the reader of essential information when viewing a philosopher or an idea in context with history and society.

Liberalism in China

 * Right off the bat I found this article incredibly devoid of detail. Liberalism in China is a much bigger topic than this article makes it out to be.  First off, this article needs to be split into subsections, like on the Classical Liberalism page because right now it is just in one narrative section.  These subsections would follow a similar structure to the Classical Liberalism page (core principles, overview, history, intellectual sources) and they would include subtopics such as Western Influences on Liberalism in China, Pre-Marxist Liberalism in China, and Post-Marxist Liberalism in China .  Although this existing article does mention that Marxism originally beat out Liberalism in China, it fails to give any hard evidence or specific details and instances as to why Marxism previously overpowered Liberalism in China, and this discourse is vital to the development of Liberalism in China today.  Furthermore, this article does not go into any depth on Liberalism in China today, even though this topic is highly relevant to both current Chinese and global politics.  There are plenty of modern Chinese philosophers, and other philosophers and thinkers in general, who have had relevant discourses on Liberalism in China that could be cited in this article, yet aren't.

Opportunities and Challenges

 * When I began to research for this assignment, I was shocked at the lack of Wikipedia entries relating to modern Chinese philosophy. I started off by merely looking up the authors of numerous pieces we have read, but I could not find at least half of them on Wikipedia (ie, they do not have their own pages or were not mentioned in any current Wikipedia page).  Perhaps with contemporary philosophy, it is more difficult to discern which philosophers are actually important and/or relevant enough to acquire their own page and information.  With philosophers, it seems that with the longer amount of time that has passed, their words and ideas have the chance to be revisited more and more, and thus their words and ideas have the time to merit a sense of importance to historical and philosophical discourse.  Because of this, in the case of many modern and recent philosophers, they seem to not have had enough time to attract a following or to require the need for a greater realization and understanding of their importance to current historical and philosophical discourse.  In light of this observation, I believe it will be very difficult to have a significant impact on the expansion of modern Chinese philosophy on Wikipedia.  Because of the severe limitations of the current entries on this subject, to get to the next level of  information, there would have to be many new entries created, with many links between them.  I am thinking of this expansion in terms of a three-step process.  Right now, just the first step of the process has been completed on Wikipedia for modern Chinese philosophy, which is essentially the bare minimum.  I have deduced this from observing the lack of inclusion of the few modern Chinese philosophers and ideas that we have read so far, which means that the numerous other modern Chinese philosophers and ideas that we have yet to read are also not likely to be included in any Wikipedia articles.  Thus, the addition of many modern Chinese philosophers and their ideas to Wikipedia would be the second step in this process.  The third and final step in this process would be to connect (through additional information and links to other pages) the philosophers and ideas of modern Chinese philosophy to classical Chinese philosophy and any other philosophies/philosophers/schools of thought that are related to modern Chinese Philosophy in any way, shape, or form.  (I think establishing relationships in this way is vital to the overall comprehension of any topic in general.)  In addition, when writing about philosophy, it is hard to suppress a point of view because all philosophy is essentially expressing point of view.  In Wikipedia articles, however, expressing a particular point of view is not allowed, as all articles are supposed to be neutral in order to provide the best possible background and basis of a concept.  The many strains of modern Chinese philosophy have all developed from previous philosophical ideas and philosophers; that is, they are all taken as point of views on other previously apparent point of views. Perhaps this is part of the reason why existing articles on modern Chinese philosophy do not seem to explain the philosophers and ideas in a completely coherent and detailed manner.  I hope to be able to add the necessary elements to an article to make it more coherent and valuable to the readers.