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Facebook pages devoted to contemporary philosophers

Brian Leiter

Reader Luke Kaven writes:

You may have noticed a number of "community" pages on Facebook, themed around famous contemporary philosophers. There are pages for Kim Sterelny, Fred Dretske, William Lycan, John Searle, Sydney Shoemaker, Jaegwon Kim, and a page on Intentionality (as well as perhaps several others).

The administration of these pages is entirely anonymous, and there are no published standards.  One day I wrote, in a mild-mannered comment on Sydney Shoemaker's page and Jaegwon Kim's page, suggesting that more content by the philosophers themselves would be useful.  The next day, I found I was banned from making comments on those pages.  On another page, I tried to write to the admins, asking for one to get in touch with me on a question.  That message (worded as told here) also got me punished.

I can get over the smarting. Though I was a student of Sydney Shoemaker's and it does leave a bitter taste in my mouth.  My concerns are more over the idea of community pages for philosophers, and under what rules they ought to be administered, and by whom.  Surely this is a matter of some small concern.  Anonymous administrators should not be in charge of representing these schools of thought in a way that is outright hostile to other members of the philosophical community.

This is a significant and meaningful way to disseminate knowledge about philosophy, and I would want to enquire further into the who is running the pages and how, for the sake of the community as a whole.

Does anyone have any insight into who owns these pages? Does this strike you as a concern?  If you have any suggestions, I'd welcome them.

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4 responses to “Facebook pages devoted to contemporary philosophers”

  1. Ned Block

    I have no idea who runs any of these pages. Some of them–at least the ones with Tyler Burge's and Jaegwon Kim's names on them–post under the name of the philosopher without the philosopher's permission or knowledge. I think some viewers are under the impression that Burge or Kim are somehow behind these pages. Not so!

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  2. Luke Kaven

    Given the number of postings in common to these pages, which are often almost simultaneous, I suspect they are all run by the same people. [This includes the Tyler Burge page (thank you Prof. Block), and perhaps further pages.]

    I queried OUP and CUP to see if they or any of their media contractors might be behind it, but was told in both cases that this is not so.

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  3. Sean

    I created the Facebook community page for Anthony Brueckner. Several undergraduate students were admirers of his work and teaching, and wanted to honor him with a "like" on Facebook. Since they knew I had a good relationship with Brueckner, they requested that I be the one to ask for permission. Tony was a little surprised that anyone was interested, but thought the idea was charming, and gave me the go-ahead.

    I made the page and sent links out to the people who wanted to "like" it. I think we have something in the neighborhood of 40 likes, but I haven't checked in awhile. In the description section of the page I explained that this was made by his students and was not his personal Facebook page, but on at least on occasion someone confused the community page for a personal page.

    I never thought of it as a resource for disseminating information about his work, though I did link to his UCSB faculty page, which had a list of publications. I also posted a link to an Amazon page for his most recent set of collected essays. A few photos were added that likely would only make sense to people who attended his lectures and were familiar with the topics he liked to use as examples during thought experiments. Other than that, nothing was posted except a short notice when Tony died, offering condolences to his friends and family.

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  4. Luke Kaven

    Sean, the Brueckner page is not, in FB terms, a "community" page, but a personal page, and is not subject to the concerns I mentioned. [Though one might like a better way that we all might pay tribute to our mentors and their work through Facebook.]

    I firmly believe that there ought to be a more coordinated effort to represent contemporary philosophy on Facebook; or at the very least, there ought to be some community standards for how such pages are to be administered. In my view, administrators should not be anonymous, should be open to input from the philosophy community, and shold apply a fair set of rules evenly towards members of the community.

    If anyone out there has any knowledge about these pages, do please weigh in. Or if anyone knows another forum where I might pose this question fruitfully, I'd be grateful for the recommendation.

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