Michael A Peters made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand

Professor Michael A. Peters was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand this first week of March 2018. The Royal Society indicates “We have more than 400 Fellows (FRSNZ) who have been elected to our Academy for distinction in research or for advancing science, technology and the humanities. We have been electing Fellows since 1919.” Professor Peters was also a Fellow of the New Zealand Association of Humanities before it joined with the Royal Society. The Philosophy of Education of Australasia (PESA) is an affiliated society. Professor Peters is the Executive Editor of PESA flagship SSCI journal Educational Philosophy and Theory (EPAT). He recently wrote an editorial with Prof Tina Besley “The Royal Society, the making of ‘science’ and the social history of truth” examining the original charter for the Royal Society (Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge) granted by Charles II in 1662 that named twenty members under William Brouncker (2nd Viscount Brouncker) as the first President and included such luminaries as Robert Boyle, natural philosopher, chemist and  physicist, and the theologian John Wilkins, as well as Henry Oldenburg, a German theologian and later Editor of The Philosophical Transactions. The Royal Society of New Zealand established in 1933 was preceded by the New Zealand Institute set up under an Act of Parliament in 1867. Peters is a philosopher of education influenced by Wittgenstein and Foucault who has an interest in the political economy of knowledge and education, and a practical focus on academic publishing and forms of open science and education.