I’m struggling a little to understand your invitations and how to respond to them. For the first invitation, I’ll try to respond here about my “journey” and its outcomes and lessons. For your second invitation—about “creating”—I don’t have a conception of the “deliverable” (sorry for the corporatese) you have in mind, in terms of form and content. If what I said doesn’t make sense, any expansion on your invitation would be helpful.

As quick background, truth units became a project 20 years ago. It was driven by the belief that my reading of 20th-century philosophy had led to some ideas that might be a contribution to philosophy, broadly defined. I believed my “reductionist” synthesis of 20th-century philosophy facilitated living the “examined life.” (The working title used to be “Epistemological Responsibility.”)

At this point, I don’t see a “market” for broadly defined philosophy. By “market” I mean existing channels of discourse for truth units as both ideas and process. However, I see an “audience” on Medium et al, and maybe engaging the audience could lead to a market.

The response on Medium so far has been some interest, welcome and validation, which I’m very grateful for, because it assuages the fear that I was crazy to publish on Medium (“and your father’s still perfecting ways of making sealing wax”).

I wonder if this is all I can hope for, or if things can move to a higher level, so that maybe a market could be created. If not, I’d like to find that out. Then I could stop torturing myself, enjoy writing more about truth units on Medium, and leave things at that, or let go of truth units altogether. Like Icarus, I want to see how high I can fly, but I want to turn back before my wings melt. I think of Frege dying, thinking he was a failure.

To move to a higher level, I think truth units needs more engagement. My hope is more engagement will guide me to articulate truth units better, and become more compelling.

Readers academically versed in philosophy have offered some criticism, which I’m grateful for. That said, the feeling I get is their questions are about “how do you relate your ideas to what I’m versed in?” I wonder if I’m versed enough to do that. I wonder if the “essence” of truth units will get lost or distorted when thus packaged for them.

Receptive readers generally seem bombarded by so much information there isn’t the time, energy, or priority for them to engage. As you say, “how might you encourage a reader to actually consider a question posed?” The process you describe in “Using Medium’s Platform for Active Teaching and Learning” spells out the engagement I’m looking for.

At least part of your thrust is better use of technology. I agree, although I don’t know what I could add to that discussion, not being versed enough on technology. The part I’m drawn to, based on my professional branding background, is how to signal the presence and value of active teaching and learning in the split seconds to catch potential readers deciding which Medium articles to click on to read them, and to continue reading them after the first paragraph.

Clearly some people value active teaching and learning. They go to Medium’s home page to look for it. As they scan the article thumbnails, I imagine they have receptors for: (1) subjects they are deeply interested in, that they will instantly click on; (2) subject areas they will give <1/10th of second consideration to; and (3) intuitive or subconscious indicators of value.

Certainly (1) and (2) are receptors for specific subject areas. Maybe (3) as well, but that’s a black box, hard to parse. Is there a fourth receptor for active teaching and learning itself, for “I want to actually consider a question posed” that promises to them a positive experience of an “active process of inspired free abstract thinking”?

Such a fourth receptor needs to be effective in a split second to screen out competing false promises. If it doesn’t, the receptor gets overwhelmed and throws out all inputs. From a textbook case-study perspective, one first-blush option is to polish a receptor that works well with a key narrow subset (“early adopters”) and grow it from there.

The above undoubtedly wanders out of the scope of your invitations. Hope it’s still helpful to you and CATALN. Thank you!