Stephen Clark has retired from PHILOS-L. Now meet the new Team
“let me make it plain: by managing the Philos-L during all these years your contribution to contemporary philosophy has been way above Kripke's works. This is not a joke.”
On Friday morning Emeritus professor Stephen Clark announced his retirement from managing PHILOS-L – the ‘Liverpool List’ he created nearly thirty-years ago. PHILOS-L is the largest Philosophy email list in the world. The list currently boasts 10896 members in over 60 countries, with an additional 9000 Facebook subscribers and over 3000 twitter followers (@philosl).
Stephen Clark's retirement announcement
With Stephen’s retirement, management for the ‘Liverpool List’ comes back into Liverpool department of philosophy. Dr Rachael Wiseman will do her best to manage the list in the spirit of Stephen Clark – she’ll stick to his moderation policy: ‘Anarchism tempered by Despotism’! Dr Attila Tanyi will continue to help with moderation and we’re hoping some of our wonderful grad students will lend a hand too. Day-to-day list management will pass to Michael Longworth, School of the Arts, who will be on hand to deal with membership queries and posting problems. Alan Thew, in computing services, who’s been on the scene since the very beginning will remain on hand to help us out when listserv won’t play ball.
The outpouring of love and support for PHILOS-L and thanks to Stephen on Friday was truly overwhelming. A small selection of the posts follow – to see them all, visit the archive (https://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A0=PHILOS-L).
And look out! – next year is PHILOS-L’s 30th birthday. We’re planning to celebrate and we’re hoping you’ll join us throughout the year.
“It’s a wonderful and much appreciated ‘virtual’ philosophical community. Thank you!”
“I remember as an undergraduate student, thinking of pursuing graduate studies, being informed of the list and, as a consequence, very quickly getting a sense of the range of activities and opportunities in the philosophical community across Europe. It's really an essential resource you've created.”
“Just imagine the world without Philos-L ...
“Thank you for such wonderful service! You have helped and continue to help generations of young philosophers find their way in this difficult field. We are immensely grateful”
“even though you might be overwhelmed with this outpouring of support, I need to add my voice to it. As a graduate student with little access to current literature, PHILOS-L was my link to the scholarship - a community I could ask for and get help.”
“I am too so much grateful to your wonderful work: it accompanied me in my academic wandering, providing opportunities and collective knowledge and giving to my precariousness a sense of virtual community and somehow of belonging.”
“It IS amazing that you had the idea for a philosophy list, and managed to carry it out so successfully. It was one of the first things I was told about, when I got back to the UK in 2002, without a job, and needed to try to plug in to an academic community. We had nothing like that in Cambridge, MA – or America, as far as I know – at that time. I’m not even sure that they have anything like it now. It really has been extraordinary, and I have so many friends outside the UK who rely on your list just as much as we do. As Francois Recanati said, you created something extraordinary for philosophers worldwide. Thank you so much!!!!!”
“Very little unites philosophers, but gratitude to you for starting and administering this list unites us all, I think it safe to say. Thanks and enjoy your freedom from Philos-l duties.”