About Me
Artist-theorist-essayist-ethicist-autist
Peter Critchley
Writer specialising in everything interesting.
I am a writer, intellectual range rider, and author of 55 books, published under the heading of Writing Voice. I have a book on Dante currently being edited for publication by the Fralerighe Press in Rome, titled Dante's Politics of Love. (Details here). I have for the best part of a decade held the Top 0.1% position on Academia.edu. (Sad to say, I’ve recently plummeted to being merely Top 0.5% since the removal of fifty or so key texts .. )
I have over the years worked in free access, helping students and researchers in their own studies. I describe my writing as sending out messages in bottles, for people to respond to according to their own unique daemon. Together, in our commitment to the eudaimonic way of life, we may well come to rescue one another and live happily ever after as a result. How else could that fairytale ending come true? We don't need heroes so much as a mutual aid society formed of the walking wounded. I see life as a creative unfolding, with each having something uniquely their own to bring to the dance. I am a PhD trained in history, politics, economics, ethics, and philosophy. I am steeped in fact and logic, but know that the world is turned by the Love that transcends both. Such Love is the source and end of all things, and stands in no need of proof. I have been honoured to have helped and advised students with their work over the years, and have been gratified to see many progress to PhD, publication, and academic appointment. I chose to work outside of academia, pursuing a little dream of setting up an electronic grassroots Academy by the name of e-Akademeia. I set myself up as a one-person university, with a view to tutoring students who were interested in learning as an end in itself, outside of the daimon-destroying demands of examination and certification. All my tutoring work was offered for free. Which, as business plans go, was not the greatest idea in the world. My business advisor at St Helens Chamber told me that I would 'make a million' should I take her advice and 'monetise' the words I write. Instead, I carried on creating: I am a millionaire in words rather than money. I approach the world through my writing voice, hence the title of my publishing venture. I have had to. I could never handle classes, finding it impossible to keep track of different voices. Problems with sensory mixing effectively ended my ambitions of obtaining the academic career my qualifications justified. I have made my work available for free on Academia, Humanities Commons, and Research Gate as well as on my own Being and Place website. I am an Elvis expert/fanatic/obsessive and almost as expert on Queen, too, with websites devoted to both. For a quiet (ish) bookworm, I have led a fairly dramatic, indeed death-dealing, existence: I have fallen down mountains, suffered near-fatal heart attacks, and was in the pens on Leppings Lane during the Hillsborough Disaster of 1989, helping to rip advertisement hoardings off the walls to be used as stretchers for the injured. I am a survivor. I worked in distribution and delivery for over a decade: carrying heavy bags and pulling a trolley on foot, door-to-door, in all weathers. I loved being described as an "essential key worker" during lockdown and have framed my notification letters. They have pride of place in my new home. The locals loved my presence on the streets, too, putting on little lockdown parties for me by way of thanks for my efforts. I would have loved to have been a postman. My ambitions in this direction got diverted when I hit grade 'A' distinction at 'A' level, encouraging me to take the academic route to the future. I like walking, talking to people as I go, fending off dogs, rescuing cats, finding lost dogs, helping people with odd jobs. In rain and snow. If my head is in the clouds, my feet are on the ground. Both take me far. I argue for a Rational Freedom which affirms transcendent standards of truth and justice enfolded by the Love that nourishes, sustains, and moves all things. I have led an unusual life, one that has frequently baffled people as well as myself. The reason why became clear in September 2021 when I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Condition. It turns out that I am not a genius after all, I am something much more interesting: I am autistic.
