From the Republic of Letters to the Empire of Email: A COMPARISON BETWEEN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY DISCUSSION CULTURE AND A PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRY PROJECT ON THE INTERNET

Abstract

Introduction:  The eighteenth century is often called ‘the age enlightenment’. It was a time of great philosophers like Newton and Kant but also, maybe even more importantly, it was a era when a much wider range of people became concerned with the arts, literature, philosophy and science. A more commercial and less courtly culture evolved through coffee houses, clubs, reading societies, commercial theatres and libraries. Private postal services across Europe enabled an explosion of thoughtful correspondence - the `republic of letters’. At the same time, the developing print technologies ensured a rapid exchange of ideas and controversies in the form of cheap books and pamphlets. Ideas, information and literary works seemed more ephemeral and less dominated by local influences, while the flourishing correspondence societies exemplified new kinds of impersonal interest groups.