Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Wittgenstein for the internet

I've been asked to revise and expand the entry on Wittgenstein in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. So when I'm not grading exams over the coming days I'll be working on that. The encyclopedia's guidelines for authors says that:
The purpose of your article is to present information accepted by colleagues working in the area. An encyclopedia article is not the place to defend an original thesis. Your article will explain the topic in language the reader can understand, and it will present the important distinctions, the main results, and the main points of view on controversial issues. Your article should call attention to related topics and should provide some references in case the reader wishes to read further on your topic.
It also says that:
The expectation is that authors will paraphrase and interpret and not primarily excerpt or quote. Do not adopt the attitude that every claim needs to be supported by a reference (that is, a citation). Encyclopedia articles are different than journal articles in the sense that they aren’t expected to defend all their remarks, but rather are expected simply to lay out the accepted wisdom on the topic. 
So I think I need to make some changes. I'll try to post drafts of various sections of the revised version, just in case anyone reading has suggestions. The whole thing needs to be a little longer than the original, but I think this will be taken care of if I add a section on "Mind" and expand what I say about "Certainty" and "Ethics," to which I intend to give a section of its own, distinct from "Religion."   

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