I am faculty in the Philosophy department at Bellevue College where I’ve taught since 2000. This is where I write. On this site you’ll find my OER Introduction to Philosophy, my critical thinking primer, a few philosophical papers, and many assorted essays on topics in philosophy and critical thinking.<\/p>\n
Early in my career at Bellevue College I taught a course on Philosophical Issues in Technology. One of the topics I took to in that class was intellectual property and, in particular, the Free Software movement’s challenges to copyright. I am not adamantly opposed to intellectual property. I would not dismiss the role that copyright plays in incentivizing lots of useful work. \u00a0But the habit of commodifying everything is not always helpful to engaging thoughts and ideas on their own terms. Inquiry in philosophy and science has always been a community affair facilitated by freely sharing ideas and findings. Publishing under copyright erects barriers to the exchange of ideas and information. And for college students, who can least afford it, these barriers can be expensive. I don’t find the costs for readers associated with publishing under copyright worth any benefits that might accrue to myself. I rather find myself enamored with the idea of copyleft.<\/p>\n
I see ideas as the commonwealth of beings with minds. Ideas are there to be discovered, explored and shared, not fenced off or claimed for the glory and profit of those fortunate enough to happen onto a good insight. My own efforts to figure things out have benefited tremendously from the thoughtful efforts of many others who have asked nothing of me in return.<\/p>\n
I write first to record for my own progress in exploring ideas. If I can give clear expression to an idea, first for myself, it comes at no additional cost to me to then share with others who might find it helpful. For that matter, I only stand to benefit from whoever might takes the trouble to offer feedback. So, all of my writing on this site is covered by the Creative Commons license below.<\/p>\n
Thanks for visiting. I’m best reached at this email: wpayne@bellevuecollege.edu<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n Copyright (cc by nc 4.0). 2023 W. Russ Payne. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and\/or modify this document with attribution under the terms of Creative Commons: Attribution Noncommercial 4.0 International or any later version of this license. A copy of the license is found at http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am faculty in the Philosophy department at Bellevue College where I’ve taught since 2000. This is where I write. On this site you’ll find my OER Introduction to Philosophy, my critical thinking primer, a few philosophical papers, and many assorted essays on topics in philosophy and critical thinking. Early in my career at Bellevue … Continue reading W. Russ Payne<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":815,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-105","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/wrussellpayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/wrussellpayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/wrussellpayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/wrussellpayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/wrussellpayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/wrussellpayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1279,"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/wrussellpayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/105\/revisions\/1279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/wrussellpayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/wrussellpayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}