How the internet links philosophy with its roots

The democratic structure of the internet could be returning the practice of thought to the ordinary language with which it began

If only the Greeks had had wi-fi ... Socrates in an Athenian chat room

The impression we get of Socrates from the writings of Plato, Aristotle and Xenophon is that of a man who spent a great deal of time sitting around markets and harbours, chewing the philosophical fat with his fellow Athenians. He would establish himself on the steps of the Parthenon (or wherever else was convenient) and start throwing out provocative questions about the nature of virtue or the ideal form of government.

Anyone who happened to be passing by - from the lowliest fisherman to the most eminent arms dealer - could hitch up their toga and hunker down for a bit of ratiocination with ancient Greece's most important thinker. It is probably no coincidence that the world's first democracy had such an equal-opportunities approach to its favourite intellectual pastime (unless, that is, you happened to be a woman or a slave, but let's not quibble over a demographic that only accounted for two thirds of the Athenian population).

Fast-forward to the late 20th century, however, and the populism had been largely knocked out of philosophy by successive blows from a cannonade of unwieldy and harrowingly complex tomes by the likes of Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Derrida and Levinas. If you wanted to "do" philosophy, you had to study for years at a university and master the jargon by hacking your way through dense jungles of ghastly, convoluted prose.

Philosophy had moved a long way from its demotic origins, and its practitioners were now conversing almost exclusively among themselves - partly, at least, because no one else could understand what the hell they were talking about. This, admittedly, is still largely the case, but it appears that the internet has begun a process of bringing philosophy back to its roots in the agora. A proliferation of blogs in which philosophers formulate their views for a more general online readership (often reacting to current news stories) and then throw open the discussion to the floor has fostered something like a return to the Hellenic way of doing things.

Amongst the best and most accessible of these is Talking Philosophy, started by Julian Baggini and Jeremy Stangroom, both of whom are long-time crusaders against the impenetrable jargon and woolly rhetoric that characterises so much academic writing in the humanities. Recent updates include a post on that creepy Tom Cruise scientology video and one discussing Epicurus's notions about death. University of London philosophy professor Steven Law's blog is always interesting and usually provokes lively debate amongst commenters, particularly on the topic of religion. Nigel Warburton's Virtual Philosopher blog is worth a look too, as are his regular Philosophy Bites podcasts, in which he and Wittgenstein's Poker co-author David Edmonds lay on a buffet of piquant philosophical morsels.

Philosophy was always supposed to be as much about engaging in open conversation as about constructing grand unifying theories of everything. The internet, because of its inherently democratic bias towards brevity, concision and accessibility, may well be cultivating a minor revolution in the way we think about philosophy, and who gets to talk about it. This, surely, can only be a good thing.