There are no common enterprises on Indian philosophy on the web and this is a pity. I tried several times to make this blog an open platform (by the way: if you are interested, just send me your contributions!), but always failed. I am not sure about the reason, but I have recently been discussing it with Prof. Manyul Im, who has been the creator of a great blog on Chinese Philosophy, which is now run by several scholars (Im included) and which has played —I believe— a great role in the dissemination of Chinese philosophy. Below is part of my answer to a recent post:
As for your questions, since I "discovered" your blog (which was still only Manyul Im's one) I have been hoping to find something like that on Indian philosophy. I think it is incredibly good and healthy to have a place to discuss. Among other things, it improves ideas and methodologies and it makes common strategies possible (and common strategies are more than needed, if we want non-Western philosophy to find some visibility also in the West) (plus, it is fun).
I also tried to suggest to some colleagues to open one. Unluckily enough, my proposal has not lead to anything concrete. This might be due to sociological reasons (one might speculate on the intrinsic differences between people working on China or on India…) or maybe only to the fact that it is quite difficult to initiate a new blog. Adding oneself to one which is already well-known and well-established is surely easier and more appealing. Hence, it might work. I would certainly be happy to contribute and to look for further contributors and I could start a preliminary inquire among friends, colleagues and readers.
What do you think? Would you be interested in such an enterprise?
As for previous essays, you might check this post (on Indological forums), this one (on Indological blogs) and this one (on a concrete essay of building a forum).
4 comments:
"To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Blogs are essentially public diaries, with a main single voice.
A forum for philosophical discussion such as you describe would not be best hosted by a blog. You need an "Internet forum". See
As Marshall McLuhan taught us, the medium is the message. You'll have far more success getting a good discussion rolling if you use the right medium. Non-heirarchical, threaded, archived, searchable, socially-networked. Voting facilities, and ideally a system for voting up or down messages, as in academia.edu.
More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum
Best of luck!
Dominik
Thank you Dominik, I really appreciate your practical attitude, the way you can direct my ideas into something feasible and your honesty. By the way, do you know the collective blog I referred to? It is really worth a stop:
http://warpweftandway.wordpress.com/
Your idea is good. Hopefully you can keep the politics out! And yes don't forget to get Indian philosophy scholars involved. Sometime I think they don't care or are lazy!
J.Thakar
Dear J. Thakar,
until now, I have been lucky enough not to have any issue with Hindutva etc., probably because I do not work on sensitive areas. As for Indian scholars, you are certainly right (they need to be involved). But I would not say that they are particularly lazy. Another reader sent me a personal comment saying that he thinks no one is REALLY interested in discussing, reading thoroughly, emending one's views, etc.:-(
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