David Estlund (Brown) writes:
I recently received an email about an SSRN-like service for philosophy....I’m writing to you to propose some discussion on your blog of this sort of thing. A few issues: Do journals object to final drafts being posted? Do we think it’s a good idea to treat so much work-in-progress as effectively published? Is it fair to cite a posted work in one’s own published work even though the cited thing might not be in final form? Is the shape of the field going to be affected by the dynamics of who participates the most in this technology, even though there’s no referee system that applies to it? I’m not a technophobe, but I do think these are worth continually thinking about. Distributing work in progress is time-honored, but it’s a new world. That was nothing like publishing. Now the lines are getting pretty blurry.
Good questions; what do philosophers think? Post only once; comments may take awhile to appear, and are reviewed for substance and relevance; signed comments strongly preferred as usual.
