Wednesday 6 June 2007

Incipit

I've started this blog as an experimental repository for notes on mediaeval philosophy, with no idea how useful, active, or long-lived it will prove to be. I've heard it said that academic blogging is inadvisable, either because people might steal your ideas, or because you might reveal traits that could put off potential employers. But I don't plan to use this blog as a therapeutic outlet, and I like to think of our corner of academia as a collaborative enterprise.

8 comments:

Ben said...

"I’ve heard it said that academic blogging is inadvisable, either because people might steal your ideas"

But surely that can be said about giving conference papers and circulating drafts...

"or because you might reveal traits that could put off potential employers"

That's also something I've been warned of (particularly since I openly blog under my own name), but I'm not sure how hard potential employers will look. It may not be hard for them to find my blog, but will they trawl through all those posts?

Brunellus said...

But surely that can be said about giving conference papers and circulating drafts...

Well, quite. There must be paranoid people out there who do neither.

I'm not sure how hard potential employers will look.

No doubt it depends on the employer. There's a notorious cautionary article here.

Ben said...

Well, I suppose that certainly highlights reasons to be cautious. But, on the plus side, blogging can allow you to circulate ideas and get feedback, is a networking tool, and I got offered a book review at an American journal after leaving a comment on a blog - so it's not entirely negative!

Brunellus said...

That's encouraging. I wonder whether you might have more of a problem with crackpots than me; I can't imagine people using my blog to air their lunatic theories about Peter Auriol, but voting systems are a different matter. Incidentally, superficial word-association makes me want to ask if you've read Borges' ‘The Lottery in Babylon’.

Ben said...

[Note to self, must remember to check back comments on other blogs]

Of course. Also Luke Rhinehart's The Diceman and Philip K. Dick's Solar Lottery, though I still have G. K. Chesterton's The Napoleon of Notting Hill on my 'to read' list.

Edward Ockham said...

Welcome to the 'sphere. I just spotted your blog. I maintain the Logic Museum.

Do you have any more information about your background? Not easy to tell from your posts, but I guess a speciality in Peter Auriol? Not a scholastic I know very well, I admit.

All the best for now.

Brunellus said...

Thanks! I've noticed you on Wikipedia a few times in the past, and I came across Beyond Necessity (and thence the Logic Museum) while trying to work out which blog service to use. Glad to see you here.

I'm a philosophy DPhil student working on Auriol's take on future contingents. Slightly more generally, I'm interested in 14th-century philosophy. I've done a small amount of work on Francis of Marchia and Gregory of Rimini, and I'm particularly keen to read more of the latter.

Edward Ockham said...

Ah so you're interested in the infinite in the middle ages? Did you know I was working on a translation of Suarez' work on the continuum? (Suarez is v. late Scholastic). Interesting in itself, but, even better, contains many references to late medieval work on the continuum. I can dust this off if you are interested.