Digital Dialogue

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Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue

TLT Summer Faculty Fellowship Project
Christopher Long, Associate Professor of Philosophy

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In Plato’s dialogue Gorgias, Socrates claims to be one of the only Athenians who attempts the true art of politics. As is well known, Socrates haunted the public places in Athens looking for young people with whom he could converse. During these discussions, Socrates was intent on turning the attention of those he encountered toward the question of the good and the just. It is difficult to understate the lasting political power these dialogues have had over the course of time. Yet the emergence of social Web 2.0 technologies opens new possibilities for this ancient practice of politics, which Socrates fittingly called in the Gorgias, a “techne,” or art.

"Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue" is designed to explore the opportunities digital expression offers to enhance, deepen, expand and promote my academic scholarship in philosophy by focusing on issues related to the Socratic practice of politics. I will work closely with the TLT staff to brainstorm ideas, produce digital content, develop new and enhance existing tools of digital expression in order to model a practice of using Web 2.0 technologies as a mode of philosophical research that is also socially and politically engaged. The point will not be to research the impact of technology on philosophy, but to explore the possibility of pursuing rigorous academic philosophical research using digital media and innovative technology. The main outcome of the project will be an integrated academic digital profile that serves to strengthen my scholarship and teaching in philosophy. One important dimension of this profile will be the creation of a digital community around some of the central philosophical ideas that animate my teaching and scholarship.

Schedule

During the months of June and July, I will be on-site at ETS/TLT on MWF in the afternoons from 1-4pm.

Team

The team working with Chris Long will consist of:

Together, the teams will work to establish a weekly meeting/brainstorming session, an agreed upon output from the fellowship, and any products or deliverables.

Vehicles of Digital Dialogue

Here are some of the modes of communication used to open my research to a wider audience.

Digital Dialogue Podcast

The Digital Dialogue podcast is designed to generate discussion around questions concerning but not limited to the nature of digital dialogue, its political possibilities, the excellences associated with it and the impact is might have on our pedagogical practices.

Blogs

Multi-Media

Other Modes of Communication

Traditional Academic Vehicles of Exposure

Digital Agora

Socrates was at home in the agora, the ancient Athenian marketplace where the economic, political and judicial life of the city took place. A key to the present project will be to develop a digital agora in which a life of dialogue around the issues of my research might thrive. The identification of a platform and structure for the digital agora will be critical to the ultimate success of the project.

The digital agora will need to be:

I have been experimenting over the past few years with using the Blogs@PSU platform to cultivate a space of digital dialogue centered around the topics of my undergraduate courses. I have written about the various options I have used in a blog post for my presentation for the 2009 Penn State Assessment Conference.

Now that I see the demo for Google Wave, it seems like this is the perfect platform for the digital agora. The ability to communicate freely, publish blog posts, comment on them, co-edit texts, etc. offers me the opportunity to explore philosophical concepts in dynamic dialogue, publishing certain things widely, holding other aspects in reserve until they are ready to be more broadly exposed. Also, the ability to highlight and comment upon specific terms and phrases in a comment, post, document, etc., will allow me to focus more easily and hopefully review and compile more effectively the ideas that are most important.

Bringing Graduate and Undergraduate Courses into Dialogue

In response to my work on the blog with students in my PHIL298H course in which we address issues related to the feminist critique of patriarchal organizing structures, we started talking about the ways these structures are operating on us in the classroom.

This started me thinking about the possibilities these new technologies offer to open a space that would integrate three things:

  1. Undergraduate Teaching
  2. Academic Research
  3. Graduate Teaching

I intentionally place academic research in the center because I envision it as the hinge that links the two sides of teaching together.

During the Fall 2009 semester, I am attempting to use the Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue blog to bring my graduate seminar on Ancient Greek Philosophy into dialogue with my undergraduate PHIL/CAMS200 Ancient Greek Philosophy course. Both courses focus on the practice of Socratic politics as it is portrayed in the dialogues. With this initiative, I have attempted to develop a space that integrates undergraduate education, scholarly research and graduate education. This space is designed and directed by me, but is not dominated by me as professor. The space is meant not only to engage in a theoretical investigation of Socratic politics in the Platonic texts, but also to perform at the same time the excellences of dialogue that animated Socratic citizenship.

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