Kierkegaard published books under several pseudonyms (my favorite of which is Hilarius Bogbinder) that served as personae allowing him different stances toward his subjects. He went so far as to cite books by pseudonyms in books by other pseudonyms. I don't know what prompted him to do this initially, but it seems an attractive approach to managing the multitude of voices that can emerge when a thoughtful person seeks to express himself or herself. I've managed that multitude in this Weblog by changing my approach to it several times. Those changes have ranged from the cosmetic to the technical to the rhetorical.

Through those changes, this Weblog has continued to serve the basic purpose for which I started it: to allow me a forum in which I can express myself to others as clearly and fully as the medium will allow. As Harold Bloom would have it, I've learned who I am by "overhearing" myself. But I want to do something more as well. In the course of writing in this Weblog (especially in the Essays After Montaigne), I've found myself proclaiming the same ideas more than once in connection with the thoughts and writing of others. Rather than describing these ideas as I happen upon them in other discussions, I've decided to start another Weblog in which I'll directly address those ideas. And since I've realized that those ideas are really my fundamental beliefs (as opposed to something I could demonstrate or prove), I'm calling that Weblog Dogma.