I was browsing another philosophy discussion board, Philosophy Forums, and saw that they had invited both David Chalmers and John Searle as “Guest Speakers” on the site (http://forums.philosophyforums.com/) to engage in discussion with members of the boards.
What a wonderful idea!
So this isn’t an original idea, and I don’t know whether it’s been done here before or not, but I can’t think of any reason not to do it (again?)! We can discuss their works and theories with them, ask them directly about how to interpret something they’ve written or said, and even ask them mundane, but pertinent questions like “What do you do for fun?” or “Who are your favorite thinkers?” or “How do you deal with your fame?” (just kidding, kinda). We could even host two rival philosophers or something and make things really interesting!
I don’t know how you make a thing like this happen, but the fact that it’s been done is encouraging!
What does everyone think?
Who would you want to invite?
A brilliant idea… I was toying with a similar one myself, but am too lazy to bring it to fruition you see, I am in a Mensa group on Facebook and was gonna (will… now) post a link to ILP on their wall: they have some amazing discussions going on there…
I would love to hear from someone like Steven Pinker or Robert Greene about their current works/views, as they have both published interesting works in my opinion…
We could expand beyond strict ‘philosophers’ to all kinds of thinkers: economists, sociologists, psychologists, theologists, (ex-)officials, etc. etc.
I guess it would just take sending the desired philosopher an email inviting them to participate, right? We’d need some official looking letter head. . .
Official looking letter-head isn’t hard. Just make the official Invitation on Google Docs or Microsoft Word, then send a brief E-mail explaining the attachment.
Yes, I don’t see any reason to strictly limit invitation to “philosophers,” but what we should do is have a nomination and voting process determine selection because we don’t want to invite someone here for discussion if only one or two ILP members have an interest in their ideas. We want this to be worthwhile for our guest, too.
So we should begin an official nomination process. - Looks like Magsj already has a couple of nominations–should we have a limit on the number of nominations per person?
Once we figure out who we want to invite, we can work out specifics on how to go about inviting them.
Yes, we would want some kind of official looking invitation.
And maybe we can bring Dunamis back so somebody will be able to carry out a conversation with them. Personally I’d be too intimidated to say anything. I have a graduate level class right now, and I’ve never even said anything there.
Yes. I think it would be a mistake to force people into discussion with a famous thinker. But we’re just gauging interest here. Thanks, by the way, for being honest.
I’ve got to disagree with you on that. The benefit for the guest is exposure to people with an interest in Philosophy, or whatever the subject be. So, even if only one or two people are aware of this person; more people would end up being aware of the person after their visit here. All we would have to do is make sure they have a really good intro leading into their thread.
I don’t know, I’ll definitely talk to the people. If I were really that afraid of talking to my Philosophical superiors, I’d never engage Faust, (and others) in as many threads as I do. It’s a learning experience either way, but I find learning is best done when I am actively engaged, at least, depending on the topic. I’ve seen a few of my greatest music heroes in real life, and I was able to talk to them just fine even though I’d never compare with their abilities on my best day.
EDIT: Not really heroes, just for a lack of a better term thing.
I see. I did not mean to suggest that one or two people alone from ILP couldn’t make worthwhile discussion with a guest of their choice. I just thought it would be better to invite a guest for discussion with say 10 people from ILP who each have a burning desire to talk to him or her.
Nah, he’s just old as hell. I wanna get the scoop on that whole naming and necessity thing. It seems like when people aren’t sure about something, they always drag you into a conversation about language and things get hazy and vague. I bet he’d be able to actually have that conversation and maybe even stay on track. Oh think of the excitement!
Invite some philosophers of science. That seems to me to be quite a growth industry on the forum these days, particularly with the conspiracy theorists being so active. Philosophers of science seem to be unusually balanced on what is fact and what is fiction, but then that is their job. A good idea.
I’d also love to see someone talk at length about multi realizability as it fascinates me. Particularly H.Putnam whose book I read: Three Fold Cord, and although quite hard to follow, once I thought about it seemed a pretty good argument in the sphere of consciousness.
Occasionally I like to go get my ass handed to me on this site and other related ones. It only applies if you like Chinese philosophy but there are some heavy-hitters there.
He likes the Virtue Ethics and the Analytical tradition. I normally think of those as somewhat in conflict, which is really neat. And he has the Chinese stuff I love down too.
you see, I am in a Mensa group on Facebook and was gonna (will… now) post a link to ILP on their wall: they have some amazing discussions going on there…