Despite having had a huge amount of free time over the last year I have produced almost no written philosophy and it seems to me that with the exception of those in institutions that demand some kind of evidence of productive thinking to be committed to paper from time to time, no one else I know has either. It’s not as if people have stopped thinking about philosophy. Everyone is still having ideas, reading, talking and generally developing their outlook. However, nothing is getting written down and this is a great shame. Why? Well, two reasons. The first is logistical. Conversations take place rarely, often by chance and usually between two or at most three people so although thinking is being done not everyone is getting to know about it as they did when we were all at university and there was a kind of ‘scene’ within which ideas circulated with enough ease that it was fairly possible for everyone to have a reasonable idea of what everyone else was thinking about. Worse still, these days it’s perfectly possible for me to go a month or more without really talking about philosophy with anyone, and sitting around building complex thoughts up inside your head is like building sandcastles below the tide line.  When you go back to look at them your ideas will be mere lumps completely devoid of detail if they are even there at all in any recognisable form. The second reason is that writing is a completely unique, extremely precise and productive way of thinking. When we go to put something down on paper we order our thoughts, clean them up and develop them. We are also forced to consider and deal with potential objections. It quickly becomes obvious that some ideas that seem perfectly plausible when one is out for a walk or even in conversation are absolutely absurd once they are written down.

So why are we not writing things down, now that no one is forcing us to? Of course I can’t say with certainty for other people, but in my own case the reason seems clear. If I write something I face a choice: either wait until I have something really interesting to say, put in a huge amount of effort and time writing it up then polish it until I feel ready to send it off to various journals for rejection, or scribble a few notes in a notebook that no one will ever look at. The first is far too much effort. I’m not that busy but I definitely lack the time and resources to produce anything that anyone would ever consider publishing. It’s also very hard to drum up that kind of motivation without being in an academic environment. The second seems completely pointless. Every now and then I do scribble a few notes, but the knowledge that they are not contributing to anything and will never be read by anyone often makes me wonder if I’m going mad.

This is what the notthatcomplex blog is all about. A reason to write, a place where thoughts can be put on display without having to go through the time consuming process of being made fit for publication. As a result we might solve the logistical problem and get a bit more mileage out of our ideas. Everyone will be able to have a look at them, and you don’t run the risk of its being lost forever if you happen to have an interesting thought at a time when the chances of meeting anyone who will be interested in listening to it are slim. Hopefully we can also enjoy the increase in the standards of rigour and clarity that writing inevitably brings.

This brings us to three final questions: Who is this blog for, who is going to post on it and what exactly is to be posted on it? I have no intention of trying to attract a large number of readers or make this blog publically known, though of course I have no objection to anyone who might have an interest in reading publishing and replying to posts doing so. The blog is primarily for the small group of people I know who regularly think about and discuss philosophy. At the moment I think that will probably make about 8 potential readers and contributors, but who knows. People can post anything that they consider to be ‘philosophy’ in the widest possible sense. Material is certainly not to be restricted to what is strictly considered as philosophy in academic circles and can be as heavily informed by or dependent on knowledge of any subject you choose. Given that only a couple of people are straight philosophers I would be surprised if there wasn’t a wide range of discussion on a number of topics. It is also very important that people understand that the material that they publish does not have to be particularly polished. This is not an arena for judging other people or for trying to prove your intellectual ability. For this reason I’m actively encouraging people to submit fragments and notes as well as more finished article type pieces. This is a place for ideas to be exchanged and developed, and it will greatly help this to be achieved if people don’t worry overly about getting everything word perfect. If people feel the need to polish everything I’m afraid they will often decide not to submit anything at all. If an idea gets posted it can be cleaned up and made more rigorous by subsequent discussion far more efficiently than by being examined and edited for hours by one person.

So there, that’s it. Submit stuff to me at joshua.thorpe@live.com (I’ll try to see if there is a way that you might be able to post things directly but I don’t really understand computers so that might take a while). Try to make it the kind of thing you would want to say or discuss if there were someone around to discuss it with, whether it’s a 100 word note written in your lunch hour or a 10,000 word article I don’t care. Contributions to the philosophy book review section would also be welcome and may help to counter the feeling that you are consuming as well as thinking about philosophy in isolation as others will be able to find out a little about what you have been reading. Obviously feel free to reply to anything anyone puts up directly on the blog without E mailing me. I have a few things I’m going to put up in the next week so don’t worry, you probably wont suffer the embarrassment of having been the only one to post anything. Post any general questions I’ve not managed to address as a reply to this post.