(MEDIA) This Blog [1]

The idea for this collection of texts had its origins in some thoughts toward a book.  For several reasons, I decided to present this material in a blog, rather than than the more “traditional” format I had originally envisioned for it.

This change occurred for several reasons.  I'll admit, part of my motivation is a desire I've had to play around with the blog format for some time now.  Paired wit this is an interest in digital formats as information technology.  The advent of widespread computer access has opened new vistas in textual construction and presentation; modeling reality is an ongoing process—our individual and collective models are constantly changing and encountering novelty.  The blog format allows an ongoing dialogue with the topic, in place of the bounded territory of a book.

In this entry, I want to write a little about the blog as a piece of textual technology.  A blog, short for web log, necessarily makes use of the internet, and, thus, may make use of the hypertextual format that is native to this territory, to the extent that its creator sees fit.  The hypertext blends media, and makes use of the web shape.  Though I will not totally dispense with the possibility this early in the project, it is not likely that I will not make much use of video or audio additions to the texts that make up this blog (though, I may very well include an illustration or two—but the inclusion of illustrations, unless they are animated in some way, does not differentiate the hypertext from the printed text).  It is highly likely, however, that I will make use of the web—using the ability to supplement this text by linking it with others within this blog, and outside of it, all over the internet.

More than merely an illustration of the interconnection of texts, the hypertext allows the actual formation of a web of texts, each supplementing the other.  I thoroughly enjoy the printed text, and would be loathe to see that format fall by the wayside; but, the hypertext allows for a melding of media into a single piece.  Digital presentation of texts need not replace the book (the main format for textual information for the last several hundred years, however, we make a grave error if we do not use any and all available methods to transmit information—particularly in a field such as philosophy, which as a community, is made from the sharing of thoughts; accomplished at a distance through the text (as well as through oral transmission and conversation, and with the advent of digital technology increasingly through audio-visual mediums, which can be included in the hypertext—both directly embedded within it and as a link in its web).

Here, I mean to explore the use of a blog as an extended meditation on a single subject; in this case, on the construction and use of philosophical models.  As, itself, a model of textual presentation, I would describe the “blog” as a book without horizons: as an unbounded book.  Rather than being a collection of ephemera, this “work” has a theme which brings it together; which is more specific than simply “philosophy” (I should note, that I do not think this project to be totally unique; while I will admit that I am not personally aware of them,  I am quite sure that his is not the only “book-like” blog).  This is an exploration in both subject and form.