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Open access philosophy books, a thread: Part IV (moving to front from May 28)

Brian Leiter

The last thread had fewer entries than earlier ones, but several months have past, perhaps readers can supply some new links. The instructions, as before:

In light of the growing number of these volumes, I am going to run a thread periodically in which I invite authors or readers to share links to philosophical works that are currently or permanently “open access.”  Please use your full name and a valid email address (the latter will not appear) and include the URL for the book (give the title and the author, if you are not the author).  Authors or readers can only say something about the work and what it tries to do.  Please indicate if the “open access” period is limited.

Submit your comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.  Do not post about books that have appeared in earlier iterations of these threads.

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20 responses to “Open access philosophy books, a thread: Part IV (moving to front from May 28)”

  1. Jonathan Cohen

    OUP has made open access (i believe permanently) my 2009 book, The Red and the Real: An Essay on Color Ontology.
    link: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/112440
    publisher’s book abstract: This book offers a new approach to longstanding philosophical puzzles about what colors are and how they fit into the natural world. The author argues for a role-functionalist treatment of color — a view according to which colors are identical to certain functional roles involving perceptual effects on subjects. The author first argues (on broadly empirical grounds) for the more general relationalist view that colors are constituted in terms of relations between objects, perceivers, and viewing conditions. He responds to semantic, ontological, and phenomenological objections against this thesis, and argues that relationalism offers the best hope of respecting both empirical results and ordinary belief about color. He then defends the more specific role-functionalist account by contending that the latter is the most plausible form of color relationalism.

    Reply
  2. Scott Wisdom

    WINDSOR STUDIES IN ARGUMENT (WSIA) aims to publish timely works in the theory of argumentation — understood broadly, in a way that encompasses informal logic, rhetoric, dialectics, and related fields.

    The University of Windsor’s Digital Press, under the auspices of the Leddy Library, publishes WSIA through the Open Monograph Press and the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) – a multi-university initiative developing open source software and conducting research to improve the quality and reach of scholarly publishing.

    All 16 volumes in the WSIA series are available in multiple formats (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) from the Windsor Studies in Argumentation website:

    https://windsor.scholarsportal.info/omp/index.php/wsia/catalog

    Copies may be printed from the website. Bound volumes are available through commercial booksellers like Amazon.

    Reply
  3. Andre Santos Campos

    The Semi-Future Democracy. A Liberal Theory of the Long-Term View (Edinburgh University Press, 2024)
    Permanent Open Access. URL: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/pub/media/ebooks/9781399534307.pdf

    Publisher’s book abstract: Traditional institutions are often considered inadequate to govern for the long term as their politicians promote short-term thinking which can harm the future. This book proposes a novel theory of social time perception to address the short-term thinking of traditional institutions which threaten to stifle liberal democracies. The semi-future reconfigures liberal democracies’ franchises, representative instruments, deliberative practices, accountability mechanisms, and policymaking to include in the demos all citizens, regardless of age, and holders of representable objective interests in the future. The result is not only a way to legitimise long-term governance but also to improve the quality of current democracies.

    Reply
  4. Gino Zaccaria

    Science Under the Yoke of Value: A Phenomenological Inquiry into the Evaluation Machinery, by Maurizio Borghi, Ivo De Gennaro, and Gino Zaccaria (Routledge, 2025). The book asks why no amount of criticism of metrics, rankings, and audit culture ever seems to change anything. Its answer sounds as follows: the Evaluation Machinery is not itself the disease which threatens scientific research; rather, — it is what prevents us from seeing that disease — which might explain why so many, against their better instincts, prefer to go along with it it. Drawing on Plato, Aristotle, Galilei, Einstein, Husserl, Heidegger, and Arendt, the authors trace two deeper transformations of modern science — i.e.. its “technicization” and its “societization” — and argue that evaluative practices mark on functions as the seal on a progressive de-philosophization of science that scholars can no longer see, let alone resist. The book also includes an in-depth striking analysis of anonymity in peer review and concludes ends with a philosophical dialogue that sums up the main insights it brings to the table. Permanently open access (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0).
    https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003134497/science-yoke-value-maurizio-borghi-ivo-de-gennaro-gino-zaccaria

    Reply
  5. Justin Khoo

    The Meaning of If (OUP, 2022) is now open access and available at the OUP site: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-meaning-of-if-9780190096700?cc=us&lang=en&

    From OUP: “According to Khoo’s theory, conditionals form a unified class of expressions which share a common semantic core that encodes inferential dispositions. Thus, rather than represent the world, conditionals are devices used to communicate how we are disposed to infer. Khoo shows that this theory can be extended to predict the probabilities of conditionals, as well as how different kinds of conditionals differ both semantically and pragmatically.”

    Reply
  6. Bryan Reece

    Aristotelian Ontological Priority and Metaphysical Grounding (Cambridge University Press, 2026) is open access until May 20, 2026 on Cambridge’s site:

    https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/2E8391BEB35AEDE055FE5868B6A86CC4/9781009547963AR.pdf/aristotelian-ontological-priority-and-metaphysical-grounding.pdf

    Abstract: Many think that reality is structured such that some beings are more fundamental than others and characterize this structure in terms of “grounding.” Grounding is typically regarded as explanatory and as exhibiting certain order-theoretic properties: asymmetry, irreflexivity, and transitivity. Aristotle’s notion of ontological priority, which inspired discussions of grounding, also has these features. This Element clarifies Aristotle’s discussions of ontological priority, explores how it relates to other kinds of priority, and identifies important connections to metaphysical grounding. Aristotle provides numerous examples that appear to impugn ontological priority’s order-theoretic coherence. This is Aristotle’s “Priority Problem.” But Aristotle has an independently motivated solution that eliminates the threat from each of the apparently problematic examples and explains why such examples are ubiquitous. The Element argues that a ground-theoretic analog of Aristotle’s solution to the Priority Problem addresses recent challenges to grounding.

    Reply
  7. Gino Zaccaria

    Science Under the Yoke of Value: A Phenomenological Inquiry into the Evaluation Machinery, by Maurizio Borghi, Ivo De Gennaro, and Gino Zaccaria (Routledge, 2025). The book asks why no amount of criticism of metrics, rankings, and audit culture ever seems to change anything. Its answer sounds as follows: the Evaluation Machinery is not itself the disease which threatens scientific research; rather, — it is what prevents us from seeing that disease — which might explain why so many, against their better instincts, prefer to go along with it it. Drawing on Plato, Aristotle, Galilei, Einstein, Husserl, Heidegger, and Arendt, the authors trace two deeper transformations of modern science — i.e.. its “technicization” and its “societization” — and argue that evaluative practices mark on functions as the seal on a progressive de-philosophization of science that scholars can no longer see, let alone resist. The book also includes an in-depth striking analysis of anonymity in peer review and concludes ends with a philosophical dialogue that sums up the main insights it brings to the table. Permanently open access (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0).
    https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003134497/science-yoke-value-maurizio-borghi-ivo-de-gennaro-gino-zaccaria

    Reply
  8. Rob

    Thomas Grundmann’s Expert Authority and the Limits of Critical Thinking
    https://academic.oup.com/book/62490

    Saul Smilanksy’s Paradoxical Ethics
    https://academic.oup.com/book/62721

    Reply
  9. Jacob Barrett

    Jacob Barrett, Ideal and Non- Ideal Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2026)

    Part of the Elements in Political Philosophy series. Permanently Open Access here:

    https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/ideal-and-nonideal-theory/11F53FA6A5B9950442C29C4CE6AA33F7

    Reply
  10. Saul Smilansky

    Saul Smilansky PARADOXICAL ETHICS (Oxford University Press, 2026). Available by Open Access.

    https://academic.oup.com/book/62721?login=false

    Paradoxical Ethics is a unique book, exploring a crucial aspect of morality which we have neglected or suppressed. The book claims that the paradoxical is widespread, deep, and disturbing, and its recognition radically ought to change the way we think about ethics and the meaning of life.

    Reply
  11. Fabien Muller

    Porphyry of Tyre on Theology and Theurgy (Harvard University Press & Center for the Study of World Religions, 2026)

    Permanently open access: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum4346/files/2026-03/muller_porphyry_4t_book_FINAL.pdf

    The book contains the Greek and Latin fragments of Porphyry’s “Letter to Anebo” and “Philosophy from Oracles,” a translation, an introduction, a commentary on the fragments, and two glossaries.

    Reply
  12. Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue

    Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue (Italy) Rationalized and Extended Democracy – The REDemo Project. Foreword by Gilberto Corbellini. Firenze University Press 2023. Open access: https://books.fupress.com/catalogue/rationalized-and-extended-democracy/13592
    The realization of the values and the implementation of the objectives as indicated in democratic constitutions (political, social rights and the people’s welfare) are hindered by structural defects of the legislative/government architecture and processes. Expertise and science have scarce say in politics and policy. The author suggests an innovative view through the ‘REDemo Project’. 1. Rationalization: the insertion of public scientists into legislative/executive mechanisms, with the creation in each democracy of a National Scientific Assembly – parallel to the extant partypolitical Chamber of Representatives – consisting of academic experts and researchers (legal scholars, political analysts, economists, sociologists, land/urban planners, industry/infrastructure designers, biotechnologists, agronomists, ecologists, educationists, specialists on public health, on cultural heritage, etc.) elected by universal suffrage; 2. Extension: the broadening of the institutions of direct democracy and reinforcement of the electorate as decision-maker of last resort. So the main themes and objectives of the book are an examination of the major flaws in today’s democracies (pars destruens) and a proposal for a renewed institutional framework (pars construens).

    Reply
  13. Sebastian Sunday Grève

    David J. Gunkel «Person, Thing, Robot: A Moral and Legal Ontology for the 21st Century and Beyond» (MIT, 2023)
    Link: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/14983.001.0001

    Reply
  14. Jason Aleksander

    Carlos Alberto Sánchez’s A Sense of Brutality: Philosophy after Narco-Culture (Amherst College Press, 2020) is a finalist for the 2026 ACLS Open Access Book Prize and Arcadia Open Access Publishing Award. Although nominated in the area of political science (there is no philosophy category for this award), Carlos is one of the foremost experts on Mexican philosophy.

    Here’s the marketing blurb from Amherst College Press’ page for the book (https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/6h440v48j)

    Contemporary popular culture is riddled with references to Mexican drug cartels, narcos, and drug trafficking. In the United States, documentary filmmakers, journalists, academics, and politicians have taken note of the increasing threats to our security coming from a subculture that appears to feed on murder and brutality while being fed by a romanticism about power and capital. Carlos Alberto Sánchez uses Mexican narco-culture as a point of departure for thinking about the nature and limits of violence, culture, and personhood. A Sense of Brutality argues that violent cultural modalities, of which narco-culture is but one, call into question our understanding of “violence” as a concept. The reality of narco-violence suggests that “violence” itself is insufficient to capture it, that we need to redeploy and reconceptualize “brutality” as a concept that better captures this reality. Brutality is more than violence, other to cruelty, and distinct from horror and terror—all concepts that are normally used interchangeably with brutality, but which, as the analysis suggests, ought not to be. In narco-culture, the normalization of brutality into everyday life is a condition upon which the absolute erasure or derealization of people is made possible.

    Reply
  15. Daniel Fidel Ferrer

    June 1, 2026.

    To: Dr. Leiter.

    Open access unlimited and unending.
    Today Date: 2026 June 1.
    Unending until 2715.

    Free no charges.
    Download and be careful – Philosophy is dangerous.

    Currently over 60+ titles.
    And growing.
    Auch muss auf Hegel zurückgegangen werden!

    1). https://philpeople.org/profiles/daniel-fidel-ferrer

    Or earlier.
    2). https://archive.org/search?query=daniel+fidel+ferrer&tab=all

    All of these are open access and free.
    I am the copyright owner.
    Most of them are: Daniel Fidel Ferrer.
    All rights reserved. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND. Imprint 1.0.
    Some early ones are copyrighted but have been used by re-print publishers in UK.
    A few old articles — let me know if you need those.
    Regarding: Open Access

    I am not worried (please read) – as you know God watches over all of us.
    The rest is Karma.

    By Daniel Fidel Ferrer.
    Currently in the Mountains of Tennessee.
    Full time librarian.

    Reply
  16. Daniel Fidel Ferrer

    Nietzsche’s Ecce homo, Notebooks and Letters: 1888-1889.
    Translation by Daniel Fidel Ferrer. ©2023 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved.
    Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND.
    https://philpapers.org/rec/FERNEH

    The full text has been free on a number of websites.
    Permanently free.

    Reply
  17. Jamie Kelly

    Free Robot Labour: Marx, Automation, and the Future of AI
    by Jamie Terence Kelly

    https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-26782-5

    Palgrave Macmillan, 2026
    Permanently Open Access (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

    Reply
  18. Matthew Ratcliffe

    Matthew Ratcliffe. 2023. Grief Worlds: A Study of Emotional Experience. MIT Press (open access with no time limit)

    https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5524/Grief-WorldsA-Study-of-Emotional-Experience

    “Experiences of grief can be bewildering, disorienting, and isolating; everything seems somehow different, in ways that are difficult to comprehend and describe. Why does the world as a whole look distant, strange, and unfamiliar? How can we know that someone is dead, while at the same time find this utterly unfathomable, impossible? Grief Worlds explores a host of philosophical questions raised by grief, showing how philosophical inquiry can enhance our understanding of grief and vice versa.

    Throughout the book, Matthew Ratcliffe focuses on the phenomenology of grief: what do experiences of grief consist of, how are they structured, and what can they tell us about the nature of human experience more generally? While acknowledging the diversity of grief, Ratcliffe sets out to identify its common features. Drawing extensively on first-person accounts, he proposes that grief is a process that involves experiencing, comprehending, and navigating a pervasive disturbance of one’s experiential world. Its course over time depends on ways of experiencing and relating to other people, both the living and the dead. Along with its insights into the workings of grief, the book provides us with a broader philosophical perspective for thinking about human emotional experience.”

    Reply
  19. Peter M Carruthers

    Cambridge makes new volumes in its Elements series freely available for a couple of weeks following publication. My own “Innateness in Mind” is available until July 3rd. It is easy to search for on the Cambridge Elements in Philosophy of Mind site, but here is the url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/innateness-in-mind/B0322256F2E5109E7FCB899D25A7EED6
    And here is the abstract:
    This Element focuses on contemporary forms of nativism (belief in innateness), which mostly concern the existence of domain-specific learning mechanisms with innate structure and content. After sketching some innate capacities that are widely believed to be shared with other animals, the Element thereafter discusses a number of (alleged) distinctively-human ones. One concerns a faculty of language, another our capacity for representing the mental states of others (and derivatively, ourselves). It then turns to discuss some proposed innate adaptations that support culture. These include a number of learning biases, as well as affective learning mechanisms that enable swift acquisition of cultural values. The final two sections then discuss ‘tribal psychology.’ This may include an innate disposition to stereotype social groups as well as innate ‘tribal’ motivations (both positive and negative). The over-arching thesis of the Element is that human nature might best be thought of as culture-enabling nature.

    Reply
  20. Colin Farrelly

    My new book Aging and the Ethics of Longevity Science has just been published as an open access book with OUP: https://academic.oup.com/book/63067

    The book abstract: A century of experimental science has revealed that the rate of biological aging is malleable, influenced by genetic, environmental, lifestyle, and pharmacological factors. Translational gerontology is ushering in a new ideal for longevity science, “rate control.” Unlike disease control, which has increased survival time by suppressing causes of premature death, rate control aspires to increase healthspan and compress morbidity in late life by slowing the rate of aging through nonpharmacological (healthy environments, lifestyle) and potential pharmacological (geroprotective drugs) interventions. Aging and the Ethics of Longevity Science examines the ethical and societal implications of population aging and longevity science. Dispensing with frames that perpetuate the “Frankensteinification” of translational gerontology, philosopher Colin Farrelly encourages instead an understanding of the societal significance of longevity science predicated on wisdom-inquiry science and responsible biology.

    Reply

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