How Claims Are Tested

Every factual claim on Virtue & Paradox points to a source you can open, and every quotation carries a verdict. This page sets out the rules behind both: what each verdict means, how far a search reaches, how puzzles are checked and what happens when sources disagree.

Where the texts come from

Each entry lists its own sources, and each source links to the original wherever one is online. The texts the site returns to most often come from a short list:

• Greek and Latin originals: the TEI texts that the Perseus Digital Library publishes under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license. Material adapted from them is shared under the same license.
• English translations: public-domain translations from Project Gutenberg and Wikisource, such as George Long's 1862 translation of the Meditations.
• Summaries of scholarly positions: the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, quoted briefly and linked.
• Sanskrit texts of the Yoga Sutras: the GRETIL collection, used for reference alongside public-domain printed translations.
• History and puzzles: source-critical scholarship from academic publishers for the history of the martial arts, and the original paper or book for each puzzle where it can be read; where it cannot, the entry says so and names the source it relied on instead.

The public-domain status of each translation is established edition by edition, from the translator's death year and the jurisdiction concerned. The age of a book alone does not settle it.

The five verdicts

Every quotation entry carries exactly one of five verdicts. A verdict always refers to the editions listed in that entry's search scope.

• verified: the matching original text was found in the listed editions. The entry gives the coordinate, and the coordinate links to the passage.
• paraphrase: a passage with a closely related idea was found, but the circulating wording is not the text of any listed translation. The entry gives the coordinate of that related passage.
• unverified: no confirmable direct source was found in the listed editions, and no related passage either. This verdict means only "not found"; it is not a finding of forgery. The entry gives the search scope.
• misattributed: documentary evidence shows that the line comes from another author or another work. The entry names that source and gives the evidence and the earliest traceable appearance.
• fabricated: documentary evidence shows that the line was composed later by someone else. The entry gives the evidence and the earliest traceable appearance. Without evidence of that kind this verdict is not used, and an unverified line is not moved up to fabricated.

Quotations in running text follow the same rule and carry their coordinate and verdict, in the form Meditations 8.47 (Long translation) — verified.

Where an entry describes how a quotation spread, it lists only specific appearances with dates: a book with its edition, a dated article, a dated post. An appearance that cannot be dated is left out rather than guessed.

What a search scope covers

A search scope lists three things: the editions and translations compared, the languages covered and the date of the search. A modern translation outside that list is outside the verdict. If a circulating line later turns up word for word in a translation that was not searched, the entry is regraded and that translation is named.

Negative findings are written in the same narrow way. An entry says that a line was not found in the listed editions as of the search date. It avoids the form "X never said Y," because a search of named editions cannot show that.

String matching, exact and fuzzy, serves only to locate candidate passages in the full texts. The verdict comes from reading each candidate passage in context against the original.

How puzzles are checked

Every puzzle answer on this site is checked by enumerating every case with a program, or with a SAT solver, a program that tests whether a set of logical conditions can all hold at once. Each puzzle entry includes a check record card that gives the method, the number of cases tested and a summary of the output. The record can be downloaded.

Rerunning a program confirms the calculation and the way the result is presented. It does not confirm the inputs. Whether the puzzle is stated the way its source states it depends on that source, which the puzzle card names as the earliest known one. Puzzle answers are run again once a year.

Numbers, counts and dates

Verse and section numbers are checked one by one against the edition named in the entry. Where editions number a text differently, the entry says which numbering it follows: the Yoga Sutras, for example, run to 195 sutras in James Haughton Woods's 1914 translation and to 193 numbered aphorisms in the 1920 printing of Vivekananda's Raja Yoga. Every count names the edition it comes from.

Dates in a timeline are checked by a program for order and for overlapping ranges. As with puzzles, that check covers the arithmetic, and each date still rests on its cited source.

Translations

Quotations use a public-domain English translation where one exists, and the entry names the translator and the edition. Where no public-domain English translation exists, as with some Edo-period Japanese texts, the site translates the passage itself.

Those translations follow fixed rules. Only short passages are translated, and the original text appears alongside. Each one is labeled Translation: Virtue & Paradox and goes through two separate checks of its meaning against the original. Where a published translation can be consulted, the differences between it and the site's translation are shown side by side.

A translation made for this site is never presented as the wording of an existing translation.

When sources disagree

Conflicts are settled by the type of claim, not by a single ranking of sources.

• Wording, meaning what an author wrote at a given place: a reliable critical edition of the original outranks a public-domain translation. When translations disagree with each other, both are shown, and the site does not choose between them.
• Facts, meaning dates, origins, whether an event happened and the history of a tradition: source-critical scholarship and cross-checked evidence outrank the account an ancient or traditional text gives of itself. An ancient author's report shows that the report exists. It does not show that events happened that way.
• Interpretation, meaning what a passage means: the main readings found in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and academic publications are set out side by side. Where scholars disagree, the disagreement is shown, and the site does not declare one reading the only correct one.

When a verdict or a fact changes

A verdict can change when a new source turns up. When that happens, the site publishes an entry explaining the change, the quotation's entry keeps the old verdict struck through beside the new one, and the change is logged on Corrections and Verdict Changes.

A factual correction appears at the end of the entry it affects, in the form Correction (YYYY-MM-DD): The entry said X; it should say Y, based on {source}., and on the same log. Any substantive revision also moves the revision date in the entry's Cite this page block.

Some checks repeat on a schedule. The quote ledger is checked every six months for newly circulating misquotations to add. Sanskrit terms and verse numbers are rechecked across the site whenever a different translation is adopted. Entries on martial arts history are updated when the scholarship they rely on is overturned.

If you think a verdict or a fact is wrong, write to contact@virtueandparadox.com with the page address and the source that shows it.