Prof. David Kolb
Charles A. Dana Professor Emeritus
of Philosophy, Bates College
David Kolb grew up mostly in the New York City suburbs, studied with the Jesuits
in New York and Maryland, received his PhD in philosophy from Yale University,
taught at Fordham University, the University of Chicago, Nanzan University in
Japan, and has been at Bates College in
Maine, as the Charles A. Dana Professor of Philosophy in the
Department of Philosophy and Religion at the college.
Since 2002 he has devoted himself full-time to writing and lecturing.
Themes
in my Writings
I've written essays and books; the sidebar on the left connects you to a listing
by theme that includes all the books and those of the essays that are easily
available on the web. Most of these are from the last ten years or so. I hope
to make more of the current and earlier essays available over time. (For a full
listing of published essays, see the Curriculum
Vitae.)
Most of what I've written connects in one way or another to questions about
what it means to live with historical connections and traditions at a time when
we can no longer be totally defined by that history. I've explored this through
German philosophers (Hegel, Heidegger) who are themselves concerned with this
issue, through architecture and urbanism, where these issues take concrete form,
and through experiments in new styles of writing and scholarship. In these different
areas one keeps seeing new kinds of looser, linked, and less centered unities
emerging in cities, in architecture, in lives, and in texts and ways of writing.
By the way, I am not the author of those excellent works on learning
styles and experiential learning that were written by another David Kolb at
Case Western Reserve University.
"Places", Urbanism, Suburbia, Architecture
Architecture and urbanism are important
on their own, as we try to make a more livable world and discover ways to keep
up with our own changes. They are also practical studies in new modes of unity
and community.
- Sprawling
Places.
This is the book version of my current project. It disagrees with many negative criticisms of contemporary places. I define and use a criterion of place complexity to make suggestions about improving contemporary suburbs and themed places. - Sprawling
Places.
This is the hypertext version of the project described in the previous item. Like the book it treats criticisms of contemporary places and proposes a theory of place complexity. It also includes hundreds of images and a variety of narratives and discussions of related topics and philosophical background that go beyond whaat is presented in the more tightly focused book version. - Postmodern
Sophistications: Philosophy, Architecture, and Tradition.
This book is not so much about design as about what it means to design or plan, and what sort of position the designer occupies. The first half of the book includes essays about finitude and history in general; the second half concentrates on architecture. It critiques the idea that the philosopher or the architect can float above history, and studies what it means to work and build in an always conditioned dialogue with past language and tradition. - Borders
and Centers in an Age of Mobility.
This essay questions some ideas from Kenneth Frampton and Karsten Harries about the need for bounded and centered architectural and urban forms today. It has been published in a special Festschrift honoring Karsten Harries. - Universal
and Particular Persons and Places.
This is the text of a talk given at the Philadelphia philosophy consortium meeting about the collision of universal and particular values and identities today. - Oh
Pioneers! Bodily Reformation Amid Daily Life.
This article discusses Arakawa and Gins' revolutionary views on what architecture can do to change our bodily habits and mode of survival. The article is available as a PDF from the contents page of the special issue the journal Interfaces published on the work of Arakawa and Gins. - Collisions
and Interactions: A Philosophical Perspective.
This is a short summary comment delivered at the 1998 London conference on Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication. - Before
Beyond Function.
This is an essay on the ways Hegel sees architecture going beyond building function.
For
a full listing of published essays, see the Curriculum
Vitae
Hypertext and Digital Scholarship
When I heard about fiction writers using
non-linear hypertext techniques to disrupt or multiply the narrative line, I
wondered what the new kinds of writing might offer to philosophy, and how they
would interact with the argumentative line. This led to a series of writings
on hypertext and argument, and about non-linear ways of writing argumentative
and expository prose. Then I began to wonder about how digital technology and
the web were putting pressure on older practices in scholarship and structures
in the university. Here are some of the results:
- Socrates
in the Labyrinth.
This is a long discussion in hypertext form concerning how non-linear writing might function in philosophy and in presenting argument. It is followed by a series of smaller essays giving examples of various approaches and formats. - Socrates'
Apology.
A brief hypertext essay that appeared in a 1995 issue of Seulemonde, and discusses questions raised about his views about hypertext and argument. - Ruminations
in Mixed Company: Literacy in Print and Hypertext Together.
A talk on hypertext and argument rhetoric, given at the Open University in Britain in 1998. This talk includes an early vision for the Sprawling Places project. Not all those plans worked out as expected. - Hypertext
as Subversive?
A hypertext essay about new media, hypertext linking, and their effect on universities. It disagrees with some political worries about new media. The essay originally appeared in Culture Machine, in issue 2 on universities as culture machines. - Twin
Media: Hypertext Structure Under Pressure,
a hypertext essay about experience of writing the Sprawling Places project that combines a book and a hypertext, focusing on the pressures that linear book writing put on scholarly hypertext composition. - Sprawling
Places.
This is the essay that the previous item talks about. Although it's mostly about places and suburbia, the lengthy hypertext also contains some reflections on its own genesis, and there is a discussion of different kinds of linkage and proximity when I make a parallel between the explicit links in hypertexts and the non-architectural links that make suburbs more complex places than they appear at first to be. - Interview with me (1997) about hypertext, schools, and learning, translated into Italian for Mediamente, a program on Italian public television.
- Two papers for the Hypertext08 conference: "Making Revisions Hypervisible" concerns issues that arise when revising hypertexts, and "The Revenge of the Page" studies the way web argumentative hypertexts do not use complex link chains, and whether or not we should give up the ideal of hypertexts that make rhetorical gestures that are accomplished over complex link patterns. I don't think so (surprise!) and I make some suggestions about ways of overcoming the bias towards single-link rhetorical moves that I see built into the structure of node-and-link hypertext. (Required note: These two papers are (c) ACM 2008. These are the author's version of the works. They are posted here by permission of the ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive versions are published in the proceedings of the Hypertext08 conference.)
- Hypertext
and Philosophy.
A set of quotations (mostly from DK) prepared for a class discussion on hypertext, philosophy, and deconstruction. - A
brief set of short outline points from a talk on The
Prose of Hypertext.
For a full listing of published essays, see the Curriculum
Vitae
Modernity Postmodernity and German Philosophy
Most of the essays I've written in this area have dealt with Hegel and/or Heidegger,
as well as some other figures from nineteenth and twentieth century German and
French philosophy. I've been concerned with how these provocative thinkers should
be interpreted and compared with each other, especially on issues relating modern
freedoms and unfreedoms. Lately I've been writing more about Hegel trying to
evaluate claims about the success of the dialectical process in his Logic, which
I find fascinating and helpful. Many of the ideas about new kinds of unity that
show up in the essays on hypertext and on contemporary places were suggested
by my reading of Hegel. Most of the essays on German philosophers have been
published in venues not accessible from the web; listings can be found in the
Curriculum Vitae, which also
includes references to my essays on other philosophers and topics.
- The
Critique of Pure Modernity: Hegel, Heidegger and After.
This book compares Hegel and Heidegger in general, what each would say about the other, with special focus on their views and worries about the changes that have created our modern or postmodern world. - Postmodern
Sophistications: Philosophy, Architecture, and Tradition.
This book critiques the idea that the philosopher or the architect can float above history, and studies what it means to work and build in an always conditioned dialogue with past language and tradition. The first half discusses contemporary theories; the second discusses architecture. - New
Perspectives on Hegel's Philosophy of Religion.
This book I edited contains essays by a variety of scholars re-evaluating Hegel's philosophy of religion in the light of a new edition of his lectures. - Before
Beyond Function.
An essay on the ways Hegel sees architecture going beyond building function. - The
Logic of the Critical Process.
A paper on Hegel's method, delivered at a panel on Hegel and Critical Theory at SPEP 2001 in Baltimore. - The
Necessities of Hegel's Logics.
An unpublished (for now) paper delivered at the APA in the spring of 2005, questioning certain claims that Hegel's Logic is a successful presuppositionless self-development of pure categories of thought.
Detailed
information: http://www.dkolb.org/
Publications in "Wolkenkuckucksheim –
Cloud-Cuckoo-Land –
Vozdushnyi zamok":
- Borders and Centers in an Age of Mobility (issue 1/07)
- Public
Exposure: Architecture and Interpretation (issue 2/07)