Jeremy Taylor wrote:

I like Daniel's idea of sharing and discussing essays, though I would think many contemporary essays have a copyright (as much as I don't really think intellectual property should exist) that means they aren't allowed to be broadly shared, so we would have to focus on older ones.

Though, I assume that if a university is sharing PDFs publically, they have the proper permissions to do so. So, linking to those PDFs on those sites probably fine.

Last edited by John West (6/26/2015 7:06 pm)

Btw no problem if other people have already decided against this but I thought it was better to have the Philosophy section split into separate sub-sections e.g. General Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Ethics and Non-Western Philosophy.

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

I like Daniel's idea of sharing and discussing essays, though I would think many contemporary essays have a copyright (as much as I don't really think intellectual property should exist) that means they aren't allowed to be broadly shared, so we would have to focus on older ones.

Yes, this concerned me slightly at first. I don't think it would be cause for concern in as much as it would only be a few people sharing said essays between themselves privately; if it was a case of making putting PDFs downloaded from a pay site up online I agree it definitely wouldn't be advisable. If philosophers and journals consent to allowing persons to download material from their archives for free then this kind of low level data sharing seems inevitable (of course it's most academic philosophers actually get access to a lot of material in the first place). Of course you're right to say there's lots of material available from straight from individuals' websites.

John West wrote:

DanielCC wrote:

Things are a bit busy for me at present but I'd definitely still be up for it. Made we should wait till we've a few more people involved though? Of course it would be necessary to ask around and reach a decision re the choice of book beforehand otherwise we'd all end up going off into our specialist subjects and leaving others perplexed.

 
It's up to you. My only input is that it ought to be about classical theism. Several others here are almost certainly better informed about classical theist-related and philosophy of religion literature than me.

One of the things you said you wanted to accomplish was to get more people reading authors like Scotus, right?

 It may be worth checking the old scholastic bookshelf for ideas, too.

Okay, so for books I'm leaning towards that Gerson. As I said we'll wait till we've a couple more people interested and see what the group feeling is towards choice of book. 

For Scotus, something like Frank & Wolter's Duns Scotus: Metaphysician or the De Primo Principio would be good choices as both are quite short and represent a distillation of the Subtle Doctor’s thought on certain issues. Rightly or wrongly I would shy away from primary texts at first if only because they’re often even more complex than modern Analytic commentary. Again if people think otherwise I’m happy to go with it.
 

DanielCC wrote:

Btw no problem if other people have already decided against this but I thought it was better to have the Philosophy section split into separate sub-sections e.g. General Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Ethics and Non-Western Philosophy.

I agree structurally but not at first. You don't want 20 empty forums when you have have 5 full ones. It's like going to a resturant that looks empty. It just frightens people away.

iwpoe wrote:

DanielCC wrote:

Btw no problem if other people have already decided against this but I thought it was better to have the Philosophy section split into separate sub-sections e.g. General Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Ethics and Non-Western Philosophy.

I agree structurally but not at first. You don't want 20 empty forums when you have have 5 full ones. It's like going to a resturant that looks empty. It just frightens people away.

Oddly I was thinking along similar ‘advertising’ lines but came to the opposite conclusion. My thoughts were since a lot of the weight would fall on the Philosophy Section it'd better to have it split up as that way people would see immediately there's a range of conversations going on. Also it adds a nice professional look.
 
(It’s no big deal either way as I said)
 
Anyway I’ve long mini-essay type post on universals to unleash on the world later. Until then.

 

iwpoe wrote:

My big project right now is classic Platonism (i.e. in the ancient tradition) and the Forums, but I don't study or write like an analytic Philosopher so we'll see if any of you can bear it.

As long as arguments are explicit, logically valid, and claims are justified, I wouldn't care if you wrote in villanelle.