Kevin Shepherd: Profile
I was born in Cambridge in 1950, and am a British citizen. I do not claim notability or importance, merely the role of a citizen commentator in books and on websites.
From January 1981 until 1993, and with a reference from a sponsor at Corpus Christi College, I undertook a private research project at Cambridge University Library. I was fortunate enough to accumulate many notebooks that are still useful. My first book was Psychology in Science (1983), and related to the history of science. At that period I formulated an interdisciplinary approach called anthropography, which was outlined in Meaning in Anthropos: Anthropography as an interdisciplinary science of culture (1991). I have since referred to this approach in terms of the philosophy of culture; my version of anthropography should be distinguished from ethnography.
During the 1980s I was able to establish IRCA (Intercultural Research Centre of Anthropography) in Cambridge, which was a private undertaking. This project entailed an attempted "cross-cultural relevance to Western, Islamic, Jewish, Indian, Chinese, and other culture-groups," to quote from my prospectus. Subsequently, I decided against the rather officious format, which was influenced by academe, and instead preferred from then on a purely citizen identity.
I became tagged as a “serious amateur,” a phrase in unofficial use at Cambridge and Oxford Universities that describes, e.g., a writer who does not hold academic honours but who does attempt serious work with annotations. I wrote an annotated book extending to a thousand pages (Minds and Sociocultures Vol. One: Zoroastrianism and the Indian Religions, 1995). All my books (eleven in total) are annotated. See further my bibliography.
During the 1990s I lived in Moray, Scotland, and was there in a position to survey “new age” trends relating to the Findhorn Foundation, which I declined to join. This organisation preached unconditional love and "global village" paradise, and yet afflicted dissidents with suppression. Commercial "workshop" mysticism is not a viable prospect, and ecological science is realistically out of place in such a market. Some of my conclusions were expressed in the book Pointed Observations (2005), which has the sub-title of Critical reflections of a citizen philosopher on contemporary pseudomysticism, alternative therapy, David Hume, Spinoza, and other subjects.
From the far north, I moved back to England, thereafter undertaking the temporary self-publishing venture called Citizen Initiative. Time has moved on, and that phrase now signifies an internet activity, extending to six websites. The Citizen Initiative website went online August 31st, 2007, after I had been persuaded that the internet can be a means of providing relevant information, whatever the distractions predominating.
The following is a list of my other websites and the dates of commencement:
kevinrdshepherd.net September 23rd, 2008
kevinrdshepherd.info August 17th, 2009
independentphilosophy.net November 17th, 2009
citizenphilosophy.net January 9th, 2010
citizenthought.net January 29th, 2011
I have also maintained the blog feature Commentaries since November 2009.
I am identified on Google Search name lists as Kevin Shepherd and Kevin R. D. Shepherd (type three spaces). My initials are cumbersome but authentic, and decode to Richard David.
Kevin R. D. Shepherd