As of today, Love of All Wisdom has been officially up for two years. In that time, I’m happy to say, the site has grown significantly. In May 2011, Love of All Wisdom pages were viewed a total of 4288 times, well over 100 a day on average – compared to the first four months where the total never cracked 2000. That growth comes even though I’m now making one long post a week rather than the three short posts that I began with. Several recent posts have received over 60 comments. That number would be respectable even for a controversial political blog; for a philosophy blog, it’s pretty unusual.
I’d like to thank all the blog’s readers for its success to date. And I’d like to extend a special thank-you to the commenters, who have made this site a lively forum for discussion of key philosophical issues. It is deeply gratifying to see how many people come back to hear and discuss my reflections on topics that can often be abstract, esoteric or difficult.
Last year at this time, I added a list of “favourite posts” from the first year. With two years’ worth of posts, I’ve changed and expanded that list. In the sidebar you’ll see three categories. The first is “popular posts” that others have appreciated or enjoyed a lot. The second is “basic concepts,” posts that elaborate ideas I return to regularly in my philosophy; they’re a good starting point to understand the ideas here in more detail. Finally, there’s “personal favourites,” which is just that: the posts I’m particularly fond of myself.
Thank you all again, whether you reply or not. Without you, Love of All Wisdom would be no more than a set of personal journals stashed away in a corner. Here’s to many more years!
Congratulations! It’s a great blog. May you have many more years of success!
Congratulations! Your posts have been insightful and great to read. I’m glad your blog is doing well.
Amod, it has been interesting to me to see you work with your blog. Your posts are always thoughtful, but you are not afraid to express tentative conclusions, to “think out loud” and to speak of your personal intellectual journey. It is very refreshing.
I have also appreciated the opportunity to comment. The great thing about philosophical debates, to paraphrase D.T. Suzuki, is that no one loses.
I hope that your success continues over the next two years — or for as long as you continue to find the project fun and helpful to yourself and others.
It’s a great blog and I hope its characteristically robust posts, comments, and discussions will continue and gain further momentum progressively toward clarity and truth.
Thank you, everyone. Jim, you have hit one of the features I most enjoy about blogging. “Thinking out loud” is verboten in print academic work – every claim must be an impregnable fortress. But I think the best ideas come when one has the freedom to be wrong.
Dear Amod,
congratulations for your first two years and best wishes for many years to come! I also enjoy your posts because they are thought-provoking and I like the way you interact with each comment, trying to engage in a real dialogue.
A personal question: I like your blog since its beginning and I would not say that it “improved” (which does not mean that it is now worse, just that the standard was quite high since its beginning). Do you think it became more popular due to the increasing number of people who told to their friends (etc.) about it? Or do you think that you have learnt to be a better blogger?
Elisa, good questions. The posts have changed in that they’ve gotten longer – early on I aimed for about 300 words, now about 1000. I do think that means higher quality in that I can explore questions in more depth, but I don’t think that’s the reason the blog has gotten more popular. If anything, longer posts can discourage readership because they take more effort to read. Definitely, some people have told their friends about the blog and increased the readership that way. But I’ve also been quite active in promoting the blog myself, and I think that’s made a significant difference. I’ve mentioned it to people I’ve met at academic conferences since it started, and a significant number of my commenters have found it that way. I also link to each week’s posts on Facebook and academia.edu, which helps bring casual readers back.
I should also note that I’m afraid I don’t get to interacting with every comment anymore. Looking for work, doing the work I already have, and writing a post a week takes up a lot of time; and now that there are so many comments, there’s no way I could respond to everyone the way I did in the early days of the blog. Fortunately, a great number of those comments are people responding to each other, so comments don’t go ignored even when I can’t get to them.
@Amod,
you should not regret not being able to reply to each comment. It would be like trying to speak with each of your guests at a dinner (the metaphor is M.Hyatt’s).
And I agree about gratitude!
Terrific, nourishing blog. I stumbled on it by accident but stayed for the thinking out loud.
Amod:
Excellent, consistently stimulating.
Amod:
excellent and reliably stimulating.
The gratitude goes both ways.