Cartesian Blogging

Errol Morris is now answering his reader's comments at Zoom. The first response caught my eye:

A number of readers have claimed that I am not producing a blog — that I am producing a series of essays. Nomenclature aside, the idea of publishing the responses of readers to a given text (and even to including an author’s responses to those responses) goes back at least to the 17th century.

I recently read an account of this in A.C. Grayling’s biography of Descartes:

The great interest generated by the Discourse persuaded Descartes of two things, that he had to leave mathematics behind him, and that he needed to write a more careful and thorough account of his philosophy… The writing of the Meditations on First Philosophy — began to occupy him. And he made a strategic decision: that he would circulate the Meditations before publication, soliciting objections; and that he would publish the objections, together with his replies, along with the text of the Meditations itself.

A.C. Grayling, “Descartes: The Life and Times of a Genius”

This is from the 1685 edition of the “Meditations” in the Library of Congress. It is arranged in three sections: the meditations are first, then the first objection and Descartes’ reply, followed by a second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth round of objections and replies.

So what is going on here? I believe it should appropriately be called … “Cartesian Blogging.”

Errol Morris better get the Cliopatria award for Best Series of Post ... just saying.