Dia-blog-ical Stalemate?

As many have noted, this blog has hit an unprecedented lull recently. Let’s be honest, aside from a bunch of congratulatory notices, conference reports, and a few valiant attempts to get a substantive debate going, nothing much has been going on at the Garden. Below is a list of possible reasons for this state of affairs.  (Note: the list is exhaustive and presented in precise order of likelihood.)

1. No Robert Allen.  Although the catchphrase ‘bring back Allen!’ did not sweep the nation as I predicted, I think we’re all beginning to recognize the value of Professor Allen's spirited vituperative slightly unhinged assaults on experimental philosophy, free will skepticism, the Red Sox, and Kip Werking.   Since I am familiar with all of his targets and know that they can handle the weight of his over-the-top criticisms with aplomb, I repeat: bring back Allen. 
2. We’ve said it all.  Or most of it, anyway.  I fervently hope this isn’t the case, but the fact is the blog has been running for over two years and almost all of the important free will/moral responsibility issues have been touched on, and many have been done to death (much like Frankfurt-style examples maybe?  Forget I said that.  That was someone else.  Bad dog, Tess!).  Call to arms: someone say something new and inflammatory!  Or inflammatory at least...
3. It’s summer, we’re doing something else (lighten up Sommers!) Maybe, but if you look at past summers I bet you don’t find a dry spell like this one.
4. The Red Sox have made by far the fewest errors in the major leagues.  10 fewer than the next best fielding team.  The Red Sox. The Boston Red Sox. Leading the league in fielding.  This is a significant perhaps apocalyptic event that has ramifications all across the globe—much bigger than some butterfly flapping his wings in Peru.   It would be pure hubris to think that it would have no effect on our humble blog.
5. You have all been converted to free will skepticism.  And so, you think, what’s the point of blogging, what’s the point of doing anything.  All the paralysis, the diminished ambition, the despair that you have long feared has come to pass.  You feel that you no longer deserve praise for your accomplishments and that strips the value away from your work, interpersonal relationships, everything.  Your only joys consist in watching a bunch of Europeans run around for two hours tripping each other and faking injuries.   (Note: this is not an accurate assessment of the implications of free will skepticism.)  Solution: reconsider your original position and defend it once again.   Free will skeptics need opponents--it’s becoming too crowded in here! 

Comments

[Manuel]

A few thoughts:

1. Maybe the initial burst of posting was atypical— perhaps there was a pent-up amount of bloggable topics waiting for discussion that has now been dealt with and what we are seeing is the regular amount of bloggable free will-ish stuff.

2. My sense is that many academic blogs have slowed down of late or needed some kind of reorganization to keep things fresh or to keep things going. Maybe my sense is mistaken (not the first time, I know). Still, if this is true then the GFP slowing may be part of a deeper pathology in need of diagnosis. My guess is that many people have come to realize just how time consuming blogging can be, and judged that the relative payoffs are insufficient to merit more blogging. So, perhaps, incentive structures would have to be changed if we are to return to the fervent days of yore.

3. Where did all the Super Famous People go? Early on, we had some posting by Super Famous People. It has been a while since a Super Famous Person has posted on something substantial. Everyone likes to respond to Super Famous People, so it would likely re-vivify the blog if SFPs started posting again. (John, time to step up and strong-arm other SFP, in your role as Senior Advisor Dude to the GFP!)

4. Fear of making an ass of oneself may be slowing down commentary. In the early, heady days of the blog, before anyone felt offended or worried that people might be, this may have been less of a problem. At any rate, while some of us have too little fear of being an ass (fine- I admit it, that includes me), some of us may have too much fear of making an ass of him/herself.

5. Fear of annoying each other by perpetual self-reference. Many of us have published at least a few articles, and inevitably some of them have not been widely read by many of the rest of us. There is simply too much stuff getting published to keep up with everything, even if you wanted to. Still, for people who have published and have arguments that are relevant to various discussions, there may be the fear that one is becoming tedious in repeating arguments that have been presented in more detail elsewhere or (even worse) giving into the temptation of pointing out this fact. (Again, this might be relevant in the case of participation by SFPs.)

Still, I find the blog useful even in its sleepy state because of updated papers, conference announcements, and the like are often of interest.

[Manuel]

A quick follow up on one's of Kip's comments: I think discussion of particular papers would be a good thing. Personally, I can't always do that at the drop of a hat, but it would be great to have Garden-wide discussions of papers and books. Maybe one way to do this is to have someone Super Famous pick a paper, announce it, give everyone a few weeks to read it, and then said Super Famous Philosopher starts a discussion about the paper here at the GFP. (I think someone has suggested something like this before.) Consider it a second. Maybe we could have rotating people responsible for this.

If there is interest in this, let me know. I'd be happy to play an organizational role here, coordinating willing folks for different months. So, for example, Fritz could pick a paper for us to discuss in August, Randy could pick one for September, Derk could pick one in October, Tim in November, John in December, Saul in January, and so on. Of course, we don't necessarily have to have SFP doing the picking, but maybe that would help promote participation.

Whaddya all think? If you would be willing to do something like this, drop me a line . . .

[Mark Smeltzer]

Blog wierdness. Kip's and Matt's comments seems to have disappeared... For some reason, the blog split this post into two pages:

With Manuel's comments, but wihtout Kip's and Matt's comments:
http://gfp.typepad.com/the_garden_of_forking_pat/2006/07/diablogical_sta_1.html

With their comments, but without Manuel's:
http://gfp.typepad.com/the_garden_of_forking_pat/2006/07/diablogical_sta.html

Hmmmmm...

[Dan Speak]

I had the same thought as Manuel (token, not type... which was weird) that the downturn in blogging activity might be a more general phenomenon. But when I checked "Certain Doubts" things still looked pretty active over there (but I'm not a regular at that site and so can't be sure I'm interpreting things correctly).

One element that keeps things active at CD is that Kvanvig posts provocative tidbits regularly. That takes a kind of confidence (perhaps generated by being the blog's founder), however, that most of us simply don't have-- per Manuel's expression of some of our worries of looking like an idiot or an A-hole. But it makes a difference both because some interesting stuff is bound to stick and because dead threads here and there don't have much impact on the mood of the participants.

No suggestions here, just a couple of observations.

[Dan Speak]

I had the same thought as Manuel (token, not type... which was weird) that the downturn in blogging activity might be a more general phenomenon. But when I checked "Certain Doubts" things still looked pretty active over there (but I'm not a regular at that site and so can't be sure I'm interpreting things correctly).

One element that keeps things active at CD is that Kvanvig posts provocative tidbits regularly. That takes a kind of confidence (perhaps generated by being the blog's founder), however, that most of us simply don't have-- per Manuel's expression of some of our worries of looking like an idiot or an A-hole. But it makes a difference both because some interesting stuff is bound to stick and because dead threads here and there don't have much impact on the mood of the participants.

No suggestions here, just a couple of observations.

[Neil]

I second Manuel's paper suggestion. If a paper by a SFP - or even a lesser light - was discussed, the author would have an incentive to respond to comments. That just might revivify the blog. It might also be useful for the author.

[Alan]

If anyone can boast posting salva ignoratio it is I. But I concede that among others I came to see that I was draining down a black hole of blogging addiction. So my pledge has been to blog with hesitancy--wait till the next session to see if I am as passionate as I thought I was. And for the last couple of months, I've kept the pledge.

But now I wade back into the pool of bloggodosio with trepidation.

And like a straying lover seeking forgiveness--please look at some comments I made at Brian Weatherson's site (now tar.weatherson.org btw--update your links). He raises the question of whether causing and making something happen are equivalent, and I try to correct him on one example he offers from the perspective of responsibility as making something happen. He hasn't responded thus far. But maybe my comments there could be fodder for further remarks here.

[Neal]

Here's an hypothesis -- since the Garden was essentially founded by two graduate students (namely, Gustavo and me, although John had the idea for a blog on free will about the same time that we did) none of the bigger names associated with the blog feel a sense of responsibility to post on a regular basis. Occasionally I feel this sense of responsibility to post, and I do on a fairly regular basis, but I am after all still a graduate student and am probably more wary about making a fool of myself than a hot-shot professor would be. I'm not saying that this is a *good* reason for there to be less activity in the Garden, but it's a thought. Places like PEA soup and Prosblogion look like they have more full-time faculty that feel a responsibility to post. We have a bunch of big names, but no guilt.

[John Fischer]

I like Manuel's idea a lot--so why don't we do it? That is, Manuel can play an organizational role, and we can focus on a paper per month and see how it goes.
Ok?

[John Fischer]

By the way, I have guilt, but the guilt is not efficacious.
John

[Matt McAdam]

I wrote the following in respone to Tamler's initial post, which for some reason was removed from the site. I hope you don't mind the re-post on my part:

Per Tamler's second point: why not open up the discussion to other agency related topics beyond free will? Surely the name 'agency theory' refers to a field that considers topics other than this (undoubtedly important) one. One needn't go farther than a look at the list of contributors to this site and those under "other homepages" for evidence of this: Mele, Genet, Watson, Korsgaard, Velleman, Bratman, and Scanlon all work on agency, but much (if not most in some cases) of their work isn't focused on free will. Think also of Davidson's work - of the five essays specifically devoted to action in his "Essays on Actions and Events", only one explicitly deals with freedom. Though some who visit this site may think, "well, so much the worse for Davidson's, etc. work", I suspect that I'm not the only one who visits who would be excited to see the topics discussed here broadened to include philosophy of action more generally. Just a suggestion.

[Manuel]

Hi Matt-

I don't think anyone is opposed to more general discussions of action theory. I know Andrei would love it. We just need people to start those discussions. There is, of course, a large group of free will junkies cruising this blog, but this is no reason to not see if anyone is interested in some action. So to speak.

[Kevin Timpe]

Here are a few other thoughts that are relevant to others' comments above.

~the number of interesting philosophy blogs is greater than it was even 6 months ago. I know that I now check a significantly higher number of blogs on a semi-regular basis. If things are quiet at one, interesting discussions on going on at others. Blogs now compete for our time not only with journals and books, but also other blogs.

~many of us have interests in a number of areas in addition to free will. Most of my own writing has been on other issues this summer, and I tend to post on what I'm writing on or thinking about most. Maybe this is also true of others.

[Neil]

Manuel seems to have volunteered to coordinate the paper fest. Here's an idea: why not approach some of the folks who will be speaking at the 'New Directions' conference at USF, and ask them whether they would be willing to allow their papers to serve as target articles? That way we get new work, by big(gish) names to attack discuss.

[Joe Campbell]

I'm all for the paper fest idea!

[doris]

Tamler:

I've been managing to get by this summer, as much as I miss being subjected to "spirited vituperative slightly unhinged assaults." But I do appreciate your concern.

jmd

[doris]

On the topic of silence and papers, I note that the material Joshua and I recently posted was apparently unnoticed here, although there was some helpful discussion over at X-phi. Don't blame us! jmd

[Kip Werking]

I'm all in favor of Manuel's idea.

I'm a Garden junkie (as well as being a "free will junkie"), and so the more the merrier, as far as I am concerned.

[panasianbiz]

I stumbled across your blog while I was doing some online research. As a fellow blogger, I truly hate to think that these things have a shelf life, as it were. Perhaps we just have slow periods before our creative output picks up again.

[David Hunter]

How about (If you will pardon the mixed metaphor) too many gardeners spoil the brew?

In other words on the guilt front prehaps each new contributor lets the other contributors feel less obligated until the obligation becomes so diluted that no one actually posts...

David