Introducing Amy's Folly

While I am not devoid of vanity, I tend to think of my philosophical journey as a collaborative enterprise. Some of the collaborations are all in my own head, others are more formalized.

Leaving aside my official and informal teachers and my PhD students (and post-docs), my actual co-authors, and guest-bloggers, I divide my informal collaborators into three important categories: (i) those I do reading groups with, (ii) those who are in person conversation partners, and (iii) those I read, dead and alive. (Did I say I like to classify and make distinctions?) In practice, there is non-trivial overlap: I have been, for example, reading and talking with Ryan Hanley, Leon Montes, and Maria Pia Paganelli nearly my whole career; the same is true of Katherine Brading, Chris Smeenk, and Zvi Biener (who I have co-authored with, too). I literally can’t understand my own professional work without tacit reference to them.

But among the people I read, there is an important distinction among those whose papers and books I read and those whose blogs I am in constant conversation with. It won’t surprise regular readers that among the really active philosophical bloggers I devour Liam Kofi Bright,

Justin Smith-Ruiu

, and

Richard Pettigrew

religiously. But for me the most important blogger contemporary is Amy Olberding (Oklahoma).

I have never met Amy in person. But she has been a regular explicit and tacit interlocuter since I was invited to respond to her (2017) "Philosophical exclusion and conversational practices." Philosophy East and West 67(4): 1023-1038. I don’t recall the exact circumstances, but I think I was asked to do so because back at NewAPPS, I hosted a number of discussions that were the targets of (and evidence for) her piece. (See here for my response; and her rejoinder here.) The exchange had an important effect on me, and helped shape my plans for Neglected Classics of Philosophy, Volume 2 (and I am lucky my editor at OUP, Peter Ohlin, shared my vision). Amy has a lovely chapter in it.

But if you look at my actual digressions, I rarely respond to Amy (here; here; here—all in 2020). I think the reason for that is fairly simple; her pieces touch me so intensely that I always want to set aside more time to respond to them than I allow myself. I am always moved by how she weaves together philosophy and life. I savor her elegiac lyricism and down-to-earth humor; but I have done so too quietly. Since I think the main point of these digressions is to tell you my dear reader, ‘here’s thinkers and topics to direct your attention to,’ I am failing in my own purpose. But I begin to rectify this tomorrow.

A few weeks ago, Amy and I were talking about her readership after Justin Weinberg’s DailyNous linked to one of her pieces (here). And we decided on an experiment. Starting tomorrow, she has an open invitation to Digress. We will call her corner of D&I, Amy’s Folly. I hope you welcome it as much as I do.