I am an independent policy strategist for open access to scientific and scholarly research literature. Most of my work consists of research, writing, consulting, and advocacy. My primary affiliations are Senior Researcher at SPARC, Visiting Fellow at the Information Society Project of Yale Law School, Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, Open Access Project Director at Public Knowledge, and author of the Open Access News blog and SPARC Open Access Newsletter.
If you support open access to peer-reviewed research articles and their preprints, then read my blog and newsletter. See what's been done and what you can do to help the cause. If you're not sure what open access is, then see my overview.
Until May 2003 I was a full-time professor of philosophy at Earlham College, where I had taught since 1982. I also taught computer science and law. Although I have left full-time teaching, I am still a research professor at Earlham and still work full-time in the academic universe. My philosophical interests (formerly, my teaching interests) lie chiefly in the history of modern European philosophy, science, and literature, roughly from Montaigne to Nietzsche; Kant and Hegel; the history of western skepticism from Sextus Empiricus to the 20th century; epistemological and ethical issues related to skepticism, such as fictionalism, ideology, self-deception, and the ethics of belief; the logical, epistemological, ethical, and legal problems of self-reference; the metatheory of first-order logic; the ethics of liberty, paternalism, consent, and coercion; criminal law and tort law; and the philosophy of law. For more information, see my vita and publications.
My last book is The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Nine New Opinions (Routledge, 1998, reprinted with corrections 2002). See the Preface and Introduction, my page of information, or the Amazon pages on it (paperback or hardback).
Some of the looting in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was done by starving people to obtain food. (Some wasn't, but here let's focus on the first kind.) Was that looting justified by necessity? If the looters are prosecuted and plead necessity, should they be acquitted? Are you looking for a book that explores the basis and boundaries of the necessity defense?
What is judicial activism? How do judges with different moral and political beliefs interpret written law, how do they use precedents, how do they conceive the proper role of judges, how do they conceive the relationship between law and morality, and how do they defend their judicial practices against criticism? Are you looking for an even-handed book that illustrates the contending positions and lets you decide for yourself?
Ahem. Try The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Nine New Opinions.
Academic pages
Current positions (most recent first)
- Visiting Fellow at the Information Society Project of Yale Law School.
- Member of the Advisory Board of The European Library.
- Member of the Advisory Board of the Wikimedia Foundation.
- Editorial consultant to Noesis: Philosophical Research Online.
- Member of the Editorial Board of Open Access Research.
- Member of the External Graduate Faculty of University of Maine (5 yr term, ending June 2012)
- Member of the Board of Directors of The Center For Internet Research.
- Member of the Advisory Board of JournalReview.
- Member of the Advisory Board and Advisory Council of the Open Knowledge Foundation.
- Member of the Advisory Committee of the Text Outline Project.
- Member of the Advisory Group of the Open Access to Knowledge Law Project.
- Member of the Scientific Committee of Open Culture.
- Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Open Humanities Press.
- Member of the Advisory Committee of the Commons of Geographic Data.
- Member of the Publishing Working Group for Science Commons.
- Member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the book series on Open Access published by Polimetrica.
- Member of the Advisory Board of Academic Commons.
- Member of the Steering Committee of the Scientific Information Working Group of the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society.
- Member of the Advisory Board of the Information Commons of the American Library Association.
- Director of the Open Access Project at Public Knowledge.
- Senior Researcher at the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).
- Author of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter.
- Moderator of the SPARC Open Access Forum, discussion list for my blog and newsletter.
- Author of the Open Access News blog.
- Member of the Advisory Board of the Bagaduce Watershed Association. Formerly a member of the Board of Directors.
- Moderator of the BOAI Forum, discussion list for the Budapest Open Access Initiative.
- Consulting Editor of Episteme.
- Member of the New Knot Claims Assessment Committee of the International Guild of Knot Tyers.
- Member of the Board of Governors of the International Consortium For The Advancement of Academic Publication.
- Senior Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College.
To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher. Pascal, Pensées.
Trans. A.J. Krailsheimer, Penguin, 1966, §513Contacting me
- Email (peters@earlham.edu or peter.suber@earlham.edu) is the best way to reach me. If I'm too busy to reply quickly, I'll reply as soon as I can. Please don't send an attachment if you can put the message into the body of your email. If you must send an attachment, then at least use the body of your email to explain what it is.
- Please don't phone, fax, or send snail mail when you could send email instead. If you must use one of these other methods and don't know my contact info, send me an email and I'll send you the number or adddress.
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