|Partnering with The Academy |
|Stick to the Subject, for the reasons listed below, belongs in the realm of The Academy, by which we mean the community of scholars and the institutions that support their work. |
|Creating a Learning Community through the Discussion Society |
- Stick to the Subject is a knowledge-sharing project that combines classic small group discussion dynamics with online support. The group discussions, called Conversation Sit-downs, are moderated events with speakers facing one another and the moderator seated at the center of the apex.
- The Conversation Sit-downs are conducted with a classroom-like civility and attention to fact.
- The links and materials posted to the knowledge base are selected by people knowledgeable on the relevant topics and are sourced using MLA style formatting.
|Creating a Logos through the Knowledge Base |
- The word, Logos, is taken from the maxims of Heraclitus, an Ephesian philosopher from the fifth century BC. Logos can be translated from Greek to mean several things, including, according to Karl Jaspers, "word, discourse, content of discourse, meaning, reason, truth, law; even Being". Logos could be seen to act as an orderly, rational reasoning system with infinite scalability, complexity, and flexibility. Heraclitus believed that all things and events behaved according to Logos, and that anyone could deduce its presence through reasoning.
- Two particular aspects of Logos are interesting in considering the philosophical basis of a knowledge-sharing system:
- Continuous Flux. Heraclitus believed that all things, including Logos, are in a continuous state of flux. He wrote, "as they step into the same rivers, other and still other waters flow over them". The stream and the course of the river are the same, but the water is constantly changing.
- Unity of Opposites. Heraclitus believed that Logos underlies all things and events, and that opposites, such as day and night, heat and cold, etc,. were co-dependant dualities: each thing needing its counterpart to have meaning. He wrote, " things can diverge while being brought together, it is a harmony that changes back, like that of the bow and lyre."