philosophers

[Arjen]

I noticed that there are subfora for branches of philosophy, like ethics and politics and such, but there is not a subforum to create topics about a specific philosopher's philosophy. Some such philosophers might be Immanuel Kant, Jaques lacan, Aristotle, all difficult to really get and well worth many, many discussions. When started in a specific subforum, topics like that stay much more on topic, imho. Is it a conscious choice not to have such a subforum? Or is it just because no one thought of it? Perhaps not enough people that actually read famous philosophers?

[Scott]

If we made a forum or subforum for all the famous philosophers, that would be too many forums.

As it is there are only about 13 forums, and the only subforums are in the Book of the Month section. So the forums aren't meant to be super-specific. They are just a broad way to categorize the topics in the forum into ~13 forums for easier browsing. Having too many forums would make it harder to browse, not easier.

One can still create the same topics that they would create in a philosopher-specific forum and then just post it in the most appropriate forum category that we do have, probably the General Philosophy Forum.

[Arjen]

How about 1 subform for philosophers, in which new topics can be created, starting with the name of the philosopher in brackets, like: [Aristotle] Idea ?

[Scott]

How about 1 subform for philosophers, in which new topics can be created, starting with the name of the philosopher in brackets, like: [Aristotle] Idea ?

That could work.

Another idea would be to have something like a "Philosopher of the Week" program, in which we create a subforum for a new philosopher each to discuss that philosopher. If we preannounce the philosophers to be featured, it would give participants a chance to read up on that philosopher's ideas prior to start of the discussions.

Either way could work. Would do you think?

[Arjen]

I think that, in the long run, creating subfora for each/a lot of philosophers is the best idea. It will create some form of knowledge base on-site. I am not sure if announcing things works here? It might be a cool idea, or maybe not at all. I was thinking that if you would launch 1 philosophers subforum and let it run for a year or so, you can select a popular philosopher at that time and make it into a new subsubforum. Maybe Announcing that for the extra attention will add extra body to it.

But I don't know what people would like best. ☺