Dewey & Heidegger: WebPhil

Dewey

The pragmatists emphasized the idea that we, as humans, are problem solvers, not information gatherers. We see this trend with the growth of the internet and technology as there is less emphasis on people to memorize things because of the ease of accessibility to information. People now have more of a burden to actually think critically and apply the information that is out there. This is referred to as the instrumentalism of knowledge. Pragmatism finds itself somewhere between the ideas presented by empiricism and rationalism; empiricism emphasis the way that the world around us makes us think about things and rationalism emphasizes the way that comes from inside of us. 

Dewey's ideas can be implemented into WebPhil by making the information needed to assess easily available, thereby placing more of a burden on the visitor to think critically. Whenever they are assessing a website, there could be a pop-up bar on the side that allows them to choose a philosopher and then choose a principle and get a brief explanation of the idea the philosopher taught. They could quickly access this information while critiquing and then make their own assessment and application based on it.

This pop-up can be organized based on common problems (i.e. user fatigue, not clear what purpose is, doesn't drive action, etc...). There can then be a list of possible solutions or ideas that are supported by philosophical content.


Heidegger

Heidegger taught the importance of caring about things in order to make an appropriate assessment. This is clear in schoolwork: the more we care about it, the better we do; the less we care about it, the harder it is to do. The importance of caring about things relates to his idea of authenticity, which he used interchangeably with appropriateness. 

The viewers of WebPhil should care about what they are doing. There is already some hurdle necessary for them to leap and that is actually visiting the website and looking through it. They must have some desire, at least, to get this far. However, when they get to critiquing or being critiqued, it must be in a way that they care about. For example, those who critique should be able to choose the type of website they would like to critique and through which lens they would like to critique. Those who seek feedback from the critique should be required to do a quick write-up of why they came to WebPhil and what they would like to get out of the critique.

These visitors (critics and those who get critiqued) should have profiles they build that allows them to select certain details and explain why they use WebPhil. This can help WebPhil segment and personalize content to them so that what they see and do is always relevant to their interests.

When users create their profile, they specify their interests (even those that may not be obviously relevant to web design). When other users critique their website, they can easily see the website designer's profile and their interests. The more they tie in these other interests, the better feedback they will get on their review. They can also focus their efforts on applying the philosophical content to the interests of the designer.