The odd little term "Phil-Ed" was coined to mean a sort of philosopher's analogue of an Op-Ed. It's a brief essay trying to make a case on some topic of broad interest. Some philosophical writing is inevitably specialized and technical. Nothing wrong with that; it's what some problems call for. But there's something attractive about the model of Socrates, who carried on his philosophical business in the public marketplace.

Socrates was a gadfly. His main ambition was to convince people that they didn't know what they were talking about. That ambition has more to be said for it than we might like to admit. You don't have to look very far to find people saying astonishing thngs with astonishingly little support. Reminding everyone -- oneself included -- how much we don't know is a ritual that probably ought to be participated in a lot more often than it is. But sometimes it's possible to be a little more constructive than that.

The essays included here, written as the mood strikes, are essays in a relatively literal sense of that word. They're attempts -- attempts to think something through at least to the point where a bit of the fog dispels. They don't pretend to be complete, nor adequate nor even remotely definitive. If they're provocative and make some things at least a little clearer, then they will have served their purpose. And each one will have an email link if you want to respond to what I've written. I can't promise to reply to every email I get, but I can promise to look at what you write and think about what you have to say.

-Allen Stairs
Department of Philosophy
University of Maryland