nupedia-l Introduction

Mon, 17 Apr 2000 13:17:24 -0700

Hi all,

I guess most of you don't really know who I am, so let me introduce
myself.  (Forgive me for the length here, but I figure many of you might
be interested in some of the details.  Or maybe I just like talking
about myself.)

I was born in the Seattle area in 1968 and grew up in Anchorage, Alaska.
I went to Reed College in Portland, Oregon, one of the finest private
liberal arts colleges in the country, where I graduated with a B.A. in
philosophy (with many courses in the humanities and psychology) in 1991
after taking a year off to spend time in Germany.

I took another year off (you might notice that I take my time doing
things, sometimes) and then entered the Ph.D. program at Ohio State in
Columbus, Ohio.  I did very well in my coursework, and was a TA or
grader for five years; the last few years I taught my own introductory
logic and introductory philosophy courses.  (The last quarter I taught
intro philosophy, I wrote out all of my lectures, in a very
conversational style, and then read them to my poor students; 350 pages'
worth!  I had always wanted to do that, and I did.)  I earned the M.A.
in 1995 and was ABD shortly thereafter.  Around that time, I did
extensive work on Scottish philosophy (Hume and Reid), and read a
well-received paper in 1995 at the Hume Society conference.  Also around
the same time I decided I didn't want to go into academia; nonetheless,
I decided it would be best if I finished my degree, and I'm glad I am
doing so.  Anyway, this explains why I haven't published any papers to
speak of; I've been told by various professors that I should publish
various of my papers, and I still might.

But since making this decision not to become a professor, I've taken
some more years off.  I should have defended my dissertation last
winter, but due to circumstances beyond my control, that probably won't
happen until next month (!).  The title of my dissertation is "Epistemic
Circularity: An Essay on the Justification of Standards of
Justification."  My adviser is a brilliant and distinguished
epistemologist, George Pappas; another famous epistemologist, Marshall
Swain, is also on my committee.

I have very wide-ranging interests within philosophy.  I continue to
have an ambition to write well-researched papers on many philosophical
issues.  I have already planned and started post-dissertation research
on one of my favorite topics in metaphysics ("Is existence a
property?").  I also have an ambition to pursue my general education as
long as I am able.

So much for the story of my academic life so far.  Now for my life
online, and to fill in some of the gaps in the above:

I've been online steadily since 1993 or 1994.  I have authored a number
of websites.  One of them, the Donegal Fiddle Pages
 http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6464/hmpg.html ) is well-respected by
Irish traditional musicians and has made me a lot of useful and
interesting contacts in that community.

Among other online activity, I have managed a number of
philosophy-related mailing lists.  I founded the online Association for
Systematic Philosophy (now defunct, but produced two issues of a paper
journal and a very active, fascinating mailing list) as well as lists
devoted to Thomas Reid's *Inquiry* and Laurence Bonjour's *Structure of
Empirical Knowledge*.  In organizing these endeavors I gained experience
that is proving valuable as I organize Nupedia.

Somewhere online you might also be able to find something I wrote called
"The Tutorial Manifesto," which maintained that a superior and
inexpensive education can be obtained by a resourceful student who will
pay professors (or other experts) for tutoring directly; very solid and
respectable degrees can then be obtained by examination from, e.g., the
state-run Regents University of the state of New York.  Perhaps Nupedia
will (after some years) form the basis on which something like this can
be organized and promoted.  Anyway, I spent some time online promoting
this idea, and even tutored a couple of people myself, but I'm afraid I
lost an active interest in the project.

I founded and wrote daily for a second website, Sanger's Review of Y2K
News Reports ( http://www.sangersreview.com ), from September 1998 until
April 1999 -- which is, for perhaps obvious reasons, a source of a bit
of embarrassment on my part and good-natured ribbing on the part of
friends and family.  I am still proud to say, however, that I maintained
a reasonably objective point of view toward the Y2K phenomenon and that
I earned the respect of well-known Y2K experts, both pessimistic and
optimistic, for my comprehensive and largely unbiased reporting.  I also
single-handedly built traffic up to the point at which I was able to
make a living from advertising and user fees; this is no mean feat.
When I handed over daily work on the website to an online friend in
April, I was in a position of being able to arrange that he be paid a
regular, fairly generous stipend by a sponsor.

After that, in the summer of 1999, I worked for my father's business for
the fourth summer in a row.  This was a great job because my father runs
a charter boat on the beautiful Prince William Sound; he ferries
kayakers and does sightseeing tours.  The view from the twelfth floor of
Begich Towers (the old WWII barracks where two-thirds of Whittier,
Alaska residents now live), is wonderful.  I wrote the first version of
the business's website, which can be found at
http://www.alaska.net/~sea/ .  My Dad has retired from a very successful
career as a seabird biologist; he is well-known and -respected by
experts on puffins, gulls, terns, etc.

Last fall that I returned to Columbus, Ohio, where I started teaching
Irish fiddle for a living.  To my enormous surprise, within a month I
had over 20 students.  I was able to pay the bills doing that, and had
ample free time to put finishing touches on the dissertation.

In late January of this year I gave all that up because an old friend,
Jimmy Wales, contacted me and asked me to apply as editor-in-chief of
Nupedia.  Apparently, Bomis, Inc. (which owns Nupedia) had become very
profitable and Jimbo wanted to expand the operation.  He had had the
idea for Nupedia since at least last fall.  He tells me that, when
thinking about people (particularly philosophers) he knew who could
manage this sort of long-term project, he thought I would be perfect for
the job.

This is indeed my dream job, because I am able to combine my experience
building websites and organizing people online with my desire to stay
actively involved in the pursuit of knowledge -- but if possible outside
of academe.  Moreover, after the first year or so, moreover, I will be
able to live nearly anywhere in world, including Alaska or Ireland.
Even on the road, perhaps (courtesy a laptop computer and my bachelor
freedom)!

I'm going to get to work on the first sections of the new draft of the
Nupedia statement of policy soon.  I'm very excited about the project
(of course) and I think we're very lucky to have so many interesting,
knowledgeable people spearheading the effort.  It may take much time and
effort to get this off the ground, but, as Spinoza said, "All excellent
[or: noble] things are as difficult as they are rare."

Best to everyone,
Larry

nupedia-l
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