Introduction Part 2: Open Access Philosophy

Open Access Philosophy as defined for this forum has two branches: one in the realm of publishing the other lies in the idea of accessibility.

For many, there are inherent problems with open access publishing and philosophy. First, being a published author in the field of philosophy can be a large chunk of your income as a philosopher; taking the time to write an essay or book and giving it away for free is a loss of income. Additionally, getting published in any number of the open access journals of philosophy is actually looked down upon in the philosophy community as it implies that you could not get published in a more distinguished closed access journal. Finally, discovering the new sexy topic to debate in philosophy gets you appearances, lectures, and publications, if you were giving away your ideas for free, someone could steal your idea or enhance its appeal before you got yours. The tides are changing, however even David Chalmers' new site is more of a search engine for those with access to academic journals than anything else.

Those of us who study philosophy tend to hold ourselves in high regard - to the point of unfortunate condescension. I noticed this when I was working towards my BA in philosophy. In the 100 and 200 level classes I took there was always that one person who touted his/her knowledge, engaging the professor in a conversation that was over everybody's head. As I continued with my studies I noticed myself taking part in this practice. It is something that unfortunately caries outside of the classroom. It's not something that every one does, even I don't do it all the time, but it happens. It's that response you get from the black turtleneck wearing philosophy student with greased back hair reading Wittgenstein on the bus. This is one of road blocks when it comes to the accessibility of Open Access Philosophy.

The second road block is that a lot of people do not know what the subject of philosophy consists of. Frequently when I tell people I have a degree in philosophy they say "I could never devote time to studying CRAZY people..." The main tenet of accessibility in Open Access Philosophy is that, when it really comes down to it, we are ALL philosophers. Philosophy is a side effect of consciousness and not just an academic discipline. The roots of philosophy are in the questions that every human encounters. Some of us devote insane amounts of time trying to answer these questions. Some of us never cared to ask these questions. Some of us found the answers and have no need to return to them.

Which brings us to the final road block. While contemporary philosophy is notoriously atheistic, that has not always been the case. There are scores of philosophers throughout history and even some today that are deeply religious folks. Indeed there are whole branches of philosophy that aren't even concerned with religion. Any doctrine/publication/etc... that attempts to answer the ultimate whys and hows of human existence is a work of philosophy: religion is philosophy.

The collide that religion has with philosophy lies in the confrontational nature of philosophy. When a philosophers engage in a philosophical conversation with a religious person we do so (well most of us anyways) under the pretense of friendly discussion in the spirit of a Socratic dialogue. We are not trying to test your faith. We are just as curious about why you believe what you do as you are of us.

I know that I will never be able to convince the philosophical community to convert to open access publishing, the customs in place are rooted in practices decades/centuries old. I will do my best to search out those open access sites and amass them here. You will notice that I link to Wikipedia often, this is because Wikipedia is the best Open Access Philosophy resource on the web right now in terms of publishing and accessibility. While this site is a great resource it is much less accessible to the general public.

This blog is a dumping ground for a larger more comprehensive site on Open Access Philosophy. I will mostly be designing the skeleton of what Open Access Philosophy is here, but I will occasionally be posting some articles that will appear on the actual to-be-named site.

Next up: Open money.