The State of the Blog

Greetings everyone at one year's end and another's beginning!

In the last few weeks I have posted some discussion items that whooshed up. Any improvements or suggestions in the format or topics of the Whooshup blog are welcome. If you would like to contribute to this blog, please send me an email. We would need to get you set up on blogspot before you can post main articles. You are always encouraged to post Comments.

Corvid suggested a wiki on the subject areas covered, and to post resources for the webcast classes, such as printouts, assignments, etc. As far as definitions of Heidegger terms, I noticed there was a good start in Wikipedia. Public web pages for the Dreyfus classes can be found at the Berkeley site. I was able to run down the course web page for Phil 185 and could download handouts there. If there is a need and interest for a wiki please let me know and I'll see what I can do.

I hope those of you who are tracking with the three courses that have already been podcast, and may take the classes that are repeated or new that will be webcast in the next couple semesters, will find this blog a good place to leave your thoughts. I am also googling for other blogs that tag Dreyfus, and have listed those I've found on the right side panel.

A final note: In reading some of the criticisms Professor Dreyfus has aimed at the Internet, I was challenged to develop this blog as myself, opening up my somewhat simple and entirely mundane existence to the world, having come to grips with passages like this:

The test as to whether one had acquired an unconditional commitment would come only if one had the passion and courage to transfer what one had learned on the Net to the real world. Then one would confront what Kierkegaard calls 'the danger and life's stern judgment.' But precisely the attraction of the Net, like that of the press in Kierkegaard's time, is that it inhibits that final plunge. Indeed, anyone using the Net who is led to risk his or her real identity in the real world would have to act against the grain of what attracted him or her to the Net in first place.

This statement applies directly to me. I was very hesitant to be myself on the web where I have become used to anonymity, posting to blogs and wandering about as if I had no real existence but was nothing more than a heckler and a snoop. You may not feel obliged to attempt to disclose yourself, and you certainly won't be criticised here if you remain anonymous. But the issue runs deep:

So it looks like Kierkegaard may be right. The press and the Internet are the ultimate enemy of unconditional commitment, but only the unconditional commitment of what Kierkegaard calls the religious sphere of existence can save us from the new holistic leveling launched by the Enlightenment, promoted by the press and the public sphere, and perfected in the World Wide Web.


Hubert Dreyfus, On the Internet, 2001