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PHILIP PETTIT is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University, where he has taught political theory and philosophy since 2002. Irish by background and training, he was a lecturer in University College, Dublin, a Research Fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bradford, before moving in 1983 to the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University; there he held a professorial position jointly in Social and Political Theory and Philosophy. From 2012-13 he will be spending Spring semiester for each of an indefinite numbers of years in the Australian National University as Distinguished Professor of Philosophy. He was elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009, and honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2010; he is also a fellow of the Australian academies in Humanities and Social Sciences. He holds honorary professorships in Philosophy at Sydney University and Queen's University, Belfast and has been awarded honorary degrees by the National University of Ireland (Dublin), the University of Crete, Lund University, Universite de Montreal and Queen's University, Belfast. Common Minds: Themes from the Philosophy of Philip Pettit appeared from OUP in 2007, edited by Geoffrey Brennan, R.E.Goodin, Frank Jackson and Michael Smith.

He works in moral and political theory and on background issues in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. His recent single-authored books include The Common Mind (OUP 1996), Republicanism (OUP 1997), A Theory of Freedom (OUP 2001), Rules, Reasons and Norms (OUP 2002), Penser en Societe (PUF, Paris 2004), Examen a Zapatero (Temas de Hoy, Madrid 2008), Made with Words: Hobbes on Mind, Society and Politics (PUP 2008) and On the People's Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy (CUP 2012). His recent co-authored books include The Economy of Esteem (OUP 2004), with Geoffrey Brennan; Mind, Morality and Explanation (OUP 2004), a selection of papers with Frank Jackson and Michael Smith; A Political Philosophy in Public Life: Civic Republicanism in Zapatero's Spain (PUP 2010), with Jose Marti; and Group Agency (OUP 2011), with Christian List, LSE. He is currently finalizing the text of the 2009 Blackwell Lectures in Philosophy, Brown University, On Speaking Terms: Morality and its Place in Nature (Wiley Blackwell); and the text of the Uehiro Lectures in Ethics at Oxford University, 2011: The Robust Demands of the Good: An Ethics of Attachment, Virtue and Law (OUP). Also forthcoming is a book with W.W.Norton for a general audience, entitled Just Freedom: A Moral Compass for a Complex World. He is giving the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Berkeley in 2014-15.

For interviews on www.philosophybites.com see Philip Pettit on Group Agency and Philip Pettit on Consequentialism and Philip Pettit on Republicanism

For a piece on protests about the financial crises go to laviedesidees.fr see Republican Reflections on the 15-M movement

For a recent interview about the book 'On the People's Terms' see http://newbooksinphilosophy.com/2013/05/01/philip-pettit-on-the-peoples-terms-a-republican-theory-and-model-of-democracy-cambridge-up-2012/

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