Help!

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear".  Thomas Jefferson

If you are reading this, it's because you've hit on the site, and so you are part of this organic living community in cyberspace dedicated to thinking about philosophy.  You can help me!  How? By writing to me: peter@inducit.com

The vision of the site, set up four years ago, is that the wisdom lies with the people.  Currently around 850 people use the site every day. But we get wisdom through the application of philosophy. There are such things as good and bad arguments and we need to learn to identify the difference.  So we are on a journey together – a journey into truth!  

On this journey there are many ways of discovering and then understanding truth.  We can do so by looking for example at the film Untouchable I mentioned in a blog recently.  We can read a book, a novel for example, and experience, feel, some great moral truth.  Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov is often quoted by philosophers, but the book you're reading today may be just as relevant.  We can also act out truth or act on truth, truth can be explained by drama and lived by real choices I make.  I want to post more and more extracts that we can through together – film, book, novel, documentary, play, historical reconstruction.

So our subject demands really imaginative teaching.  This is why I need your feedback and your contributions.

1.  Feedback – please write to me. What do you think of the site?  How could it be improved?  It is not, contrary to what you might think, a revision site.  It's dedicated to building up thinking, it's about training not arrival (although you may find summary sheets and revision powerpoints on the site especially at exam times).

2. Teachers, please send me your brilliant lesson plans and also recommend the site for homework.  Again, please feedback what you think.  Use the books and tell me what you think – they can always be revised, changed, added to.

3.  Be critical as well as imaginative in your suggestions.  There may be things that don't work (eg hyperlinks) or that you don't understand, or they may be mistakes in understanding, or fallacies (meaning wrong moves in logic).

4.  As soon as I have worked out how best to do it, I am going to go live at 6.30-7.00pm (UK time) every evening Monday to Friday for you to make points, ask questions, share something.  I am looking forward to engaging more with the invisible community.

If we work together, we will, I am sure, grow together ultimately towards the greater good of all. And mean time, we will become better readers, critical readers of our culture in a world where time for change and radical thought may be running out.

Image copyright rebecca dyer www.beingandtim.com