Ever since philosophy began as a literary genre, it has recruited adherents (followers) by writing in an infectious way about love and friendship. Not only is it about love of wisdom; it is also an attempt to move others to this love. That written philosophy has managed from its beginning more than 2500 years ago until the present day to remain virulent (contagious) is a result of its capacity to make friends through its texts. It has been reinscribed like a chain-letter through the generations, and despite all the errors of reproduction, indeed, perhaps because of such errors, has recruited its copyists and interpreters into the ranks of brotherhood.
Peter Sloterdijk, Rules for the human zoo
- no interpretation of texts. let computers do it
- use only machine learning, graph theory and NLP (and maybe bits of information retrieval and semantic web)
- find new ways to categorize/classify authors
- produce readable maps and timelines