On Being a Polemicist, too.

This is the end of my first year blogging at D&I. I want to thank you, my dear readers, for your ongoing interest and responsiveness to my daily musings. I also want to thank some of my distinguished guest-bloggers (Dan Dennett, Alistair Isaac, Neil McArthur, Lisa Herzog, Bryce Huebner, Joel Katzav--apologies if I forget somebody) who have offered their name and credibility to D&I. In scanning the detailed numbers per post, I am not surprised that my explicitly polemical posts on 'professional issues' remain extremely popular (often with thousands and thousands of readers). Some of these polemics have become part of my professional philosophical interests in ongoing reflection on the institutions of knowledge-formation and expertise in a democratic society and in so-called meta-philosophy.  I also recognize that these polemical posts help define who I am in the minds of most readers.

I won't deny that D&I constitutes my life in philosophy alongside my teaching.  When I had started it, I had hoped it would be on the cutting edge of a creative move into digital philosophy. It has not lived up to my early aspirations, but, happily, it is governed by the necessity that drives my curiosity and wonder. It has been very gratifying to see that my 'back-list' of non-polemical posts are found day in day out by readers, who follow the myriad paths of links through D&I.

Despite the avalanche of words it has also been an exercise in self-command. For example, I have come to see that I should remain silent on daily news; as a professional philosopher, I have no comparative advantage over the professional pundit. (We are both likely to miss what really matters about the news, but I will be more embarrassed by this later.) The scholar in me enjoys viewing D&I as a kind of indirect commentary on the daily headlines. To be clear: I embrace the public significance of philosophy, and I admire my peers who explicitly defend the cause(s) of justice in an age of anonymous blogs and hate-mail/death-treats.

Finally, this is also the last post of D&I for the year. I look forward to resuming daily blogging in the first week of 2015. I wish you and your loved ones a happy new year!