The philosophes (French for philosophers) were the intellectuals of the 18th century Enlightenment.[1] Few were primarily philosophers; rather they were public intellectuals who applied reason to the study of many areas of learning, including philosophy, history, science, politics, economics and social issues. They had a critical eye and looked for weaknesses and failures that needed improvement. They promoted a "republic of letters" that crossed national boundaries and allowed intellectuals to freely exchange books and ideas.
One of them was Immanuel Kant who said sapere aude, dare to know—have the courage to think for yourself
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Libraries as museums of print and Electronic Cabinets of Curiosity
From Rayward 1.4 The need for information and Resource Description
Republic of letters was a 17 and 18 century equivalent of scientific correspondence and blogs. The Republic of letters was replaced by the creation of published scholarly journals. The modern equivalent of these non published and personal correspondence would be personal emails , email lists, blogs . In the past these correspondence would be saved by individuals in papers from and were sometimes bequithed to others . However while some may archive select email correspondence its security is not as stable as print media especially if it is stored on on web mail . Also print is more stable than electronic files that may become obsolete or corrupted . They also require software and related operating systems to read them. These facilities are know to become superseded and obsolete. What happens to the stuff that gets left behing or is forgotten about becasue it may be deemed to not be of importance at the time. .....
Republic of letters was a 17 and 18 century equivalent of scientific correspondence and blogs. The Republic of letters was replaced by the creation of published scholarly journals. The modern equivalent of these non published and personal correspondence would be personal emails , email lists, blogs . In the past these correspondence would be saved by individuals in papers from and were sometimes bequithed to others . However while some may archive select email correspondence its security is not as stable as print media especially if it is stored on on web mail . Also print is more stable than electronic files that may become obsolete or corrupted . They also require software and related operating systems to read them. These facilities are know to become superseded and obsolete. What happens to the stuff that gets left behing or is forgotten about becasue it may be deemed to not be of importance at the time. .....
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