Classical Theism

If any of you are able to get in touch with the administrator of the French Aquinas forum, please get in touch with me by private message.

Gerlof,

Could you link those Mackie?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/TeamAquinas/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1861608004153751/

This would be very cool indeed, although I think we should first get a decent English speaking community before we branch out.

I agree in general, but you already have a few French speakers, and I notice that the French Aquinas forum has been down for at least a week. So, I think it might actually be worth adding a French subforum. (Certainly I'm more likely to take the time read philosophical discussions on a forum in French than English.) Partly, it's just nice for people to be able to fully express themselves. For example, one of our older members, who I don't think has signed up an account yet, has quite bad English, but is surprisingly quite eloquent in French. (I was a bit taken aback the first time I read something by him in French. It's like he's a whole different person.)

I'm not sure. But learning Hebrew would be too colossal a task for me, right now. Shall have to stick to English, French, German, or Latin, though I'd prefer one of the first three at this point.

I'm looking for literature on Kabbalah. Any recommendations?

It's worth noting that part of the reason we opened Ontological Investigations was that we were spending so much time answering questions that we decided we may as well switch to a format better built for it. The other is that we always expected that over time the people who were asking questions would become knowledgeable to answer them and pick up some of the slack. Presumably, that was why they were asking questions, but the few who stayed either kept asking the same questions, or lacked confidence to help others. (Ouros, you, I think, were one of the exceptions who showed actual development.)

Are you still around?

Those were doing poorly before the forum even opened. They've been dead for years. With the exception of Ed's blog, the big Thomism, Scotism, etc. groups are all on Facebook.

I don't think the forum is necessary (it never was), but I do think it can provide a service for those who want to talk about philosophy, scholasticism, religion, theism and related political issues, and the like, without censorship. It's just that I can't be the one who puts in the work to build it up this time.

I'm happy to help out and would love to hear some of those ideas. Could you say more about what specifically it takes to build a forum and keep it running (what does it cost, what is the time commitment, what technical skills are necessary etc.)

You need advertisement, you need knowledgeable, active people, and after you reach a certain size you don't need, but should have, someone with technological skills. The first is so that people know you exist and where to find you. The second is so that people will stay after they find you. The third helps with aesthetics, security, and things like that. The second takes the most time. I was probably burning at least five hours a day on here after Scott died. It got better after a while, but the fact is that most people aren't interested in contributing to forums. They ask questions, get what they want, and leave.

Administrator-wise, be careful not to recruit all "idea people". That is part of what happened with the first forum. Between our emails and moderator forum conversations, you can find the classical theism podcast, the classical theist YouTube channel, and the classical theism Facebook group, and more, all there. (A moderator suggested the first two, but never acted on them -- in both cases within a few months other people filled those niches. We discussed and veto'd moving to Facebook partly for the reasons I've mentioned, partly because some people felt it would lower the overall level of conversation. (I supported moving to Facebook at the time, but in retrospect I think the decision to not move was right.))

I also agree that we need to decide what the purpose of the forum is. How broad should the focus be? It could be very specific (e.g. Thomistic scholarship), somewhat specific (e.g. classical theism), less specific (e.g. Christian philosophy), or very general (e.g. philosophy of religion). My vote would be classical theism, since the more general forums already exist and going more specific could limit membership (we are already having trouble getting people to post as it is).

I'm inclined to think that classical theism sites succeed in spite of their names. It's too much of a philosophical term of art. Nobody outside certain narrow parts of philosophy even knows what "classical theism" is. It also doesn't give you much to work with in terms of specific aesthetics (if you ever want to, e.g., build a website, or make the forum look a bit nicer).

If you're going to go broad, I recommend theism, not classical theism. Everybody knows what theism is, and you might get some interesting internecine disputes with neo-theists on a theism forum.

If you're going to go a bit more specific, go with scholastic. If you go with "Thomistic scholarship", you're going to have to compete with the Thomism Discussion Group on Facebook, and that is a competition you'll lose. (Most of the professional philosophers who are also Thomists are active on the Thomism Discussion Group, and it has thousands of members.) Besides, other scholastics (e.g. Scotus and Bonaventure) are at least as interesting as Thomas. As far as I'm concerned, some of them are also right about more (e.g. Scotus).

It also gives some wiggle room on all sides: if you are really into Thomas or Scotus, or Feser or Hart, you're in the right place. But even if you are an "open theist" or just someone interested in theism in general, you are still close enough to the subject matter to join in.

Too much wiggle room, I think, and too much of the wrong kind. Relevant comments in this thread: https://classicaltheism.createaforum.com/philosophy/the-necessity-of-creation-revisited/msg72/#msg72

Sorry for the slapdash reply. No time for proper writing!

Your biggest challenge, whatever you choose, is going to be giving people a reason to come here instead of going to the rather large groups on Facebook. I've discovered over the last few years that most people don't actually care that much about freedom of expression.

By the way, do you have a first name I can call you? It doesn't have to be your actual one. I just get tired of calling people "Mighty", "Flying", and things like that. It's so uncivilized.

Not just Christian philosophy, but a specific tradition of it. It's not like we would stop people from talking about other philosophy or theology related subjects (or in off topic other subjects entirely), but the official focus of the forum would be on scholastic philosophy, or scholastic and patristic philosophy (patristic to include e.g. the Church Fathers).

You end up needing to argue for the actualization of existence, which is basically the existential proof in De ente et essentia expressed with a focus on the terminology of actualizing potencies.

Have you considered rebranding as a scholastic, or scholastic and patristic forum? I've long disliked the rather bland theme of "classical theism".