Publishing
CategoryJournal Articles: Quantity & Quality
“Considering my own area of philosophy of language and mind, I don’t think there is all that much difference between most of what gets published in the ‘top’ journals, and most of what gets published in the ‘tier 2 ‘journals. My sense is that there is rather too much good work to keep track of, not that the difference between the top tier and the tier 2 journals is ..
Goodin on Journals, Editors, and Publishers
“It is a classic collective action problem. In that Tragedy of the Commons, the role of the editor is to be The Enforcer, against both self-serving authors in the blogsphere and self-serving commercial publishers in the share market.” (more…)
Publishers to Authors: Find Your Own Endorsements?
For a Halloween party back when I was in graduate school, a friend of mine dressed up as his imagined first book.
Bad Reviewer Experiences
A couple of years ago, we had a discussion of “Philosophy Journal Horror Stories“. Most of the experiences shared were from the perspective of authors. But authors aren’t the only participants in the academic publishing system with complaints (from which we might, one hopes, learn something). (more…)
More Details on the Dispute Between JPP & Wiley
The Chronicle of Higher Education has followed up on Wiley’s firing of Robert Goodin (ANU) from the editorship of the Journal of Political Philosophy. (more…)
Statement of Non-Cooperation with the Journal of Political Philosophy (updated with list of signatories)
The following resolution, prompted by recent developments at the Journal of Political Philosophy, was drafted by Simon Căbulea May (Florida State) with input from others. (more…)
New Project to Fund Converting Journals to Open Access
Editors of academic philosophy journals whose content is largely behind paywalls may be interested in applying to a new program from MIT Press that will “cover the expenses of transitioning a journal to open access model for a three-year term, provide the Press’s full suite of publishing services, and support the development of a sustainable funding model for the fu..
Norms for Publishing Work Created with AI
What should our norms be regarding the publishing of philosophical work created with the help of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT or other forms of artificial intelligence? (more…)
Logic Journal Retracts Two Articles After Refutation in Online Discussion
Studia Logica: An International Journal for Symbolic Logic, recently published and then retracted two articles by Janusz Czelakowski (Opole) following a discussion at MathOverflow, a site for professional mathematicians. (more…)
Pay Referees Per Mistake Caught?
James Stacey Taylor, a professor of philosophy at The College of New Jersey, is concerned about the problem that “scholars are not verifying the accuracy of their sources,” and offers up a solution. (more…)
A Little Rough Data About Journal Refereeing in Philosophy
Is there a refereeing crisis in philosophy? There has been a fair amount of discussion about this over the past couple of months. What was missing from much of this discussion, though, was data. So I asked for some. (more…)
Which Journals Still Impose Style Requirements on Initial Submissions?
I didn’t think this happened anymore, but apparently some philosophy journals still reject or decline to consider manuscripts because they don’t conform to the journal’s or publisher’s style requirements. (more…)
Does Cambridge University Press Ban Chapters Authored Solely by Grad Students? (Updated with reply from CUP: “No”)
A graduate student in philosophy wrote to share that he and another student had been recently booted from an edited collection under contract with Cambridge University Press (CUP) because, he says, the press does not allow chapters to be authored solely by graduate students. (more…)
Call for Refereeing Data from Journal Editors
Over the past couple of weeks we’ve seen complaints from journal editors about the difficulty of finding referees and managing the refereeing process in a timely way but also some commentary suggesting that there may not be a problem. (more…)
How Editors Can Use PhilPeople to Find Referees
At least part of the “referee crisis” in philosophy comes from the fact that many philosophers are never or only rarely asked to referee. How can editors find these relatively untapped referees? (more…)
How to Fix the Referee Crisis in Professional Philosophy (guest post)
In the following guest post, Eric Schliesser (Amsterdam) provides a two-step solution to the referee crisis in philosophy. (more…)
Is Peer Review in Philosophy “Broken Beyond Reasonable Repair”?
Over at The Philosopher’s Cocoon, Helen de Cruz (SLU) laments her experiences with peer review from the perspective of an editor trying to get submissions refereed, saying “it is my strong suspicion that the peer review system is finally broken beyond reasonable repair.” (more…)
Why a Crowd-Sourced Peer-Review System Would Be Good for Philosophy (guest post)
Would “an online, crowd-sourced peer-review system” work better than traditional peer-review as a “quality control device” in philosophy? In a paper forthcoming in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, three philosophers, Marcus Arvan (Tampa), Liam Kofi Bright (LSE), and Remco Heesen (Western Australia), argue for a positive answer to this question. (m..
A Public Database of Referee Service (guest post)
A few years ago, Neil Sinhababu, associate professor of philosophy at the National University of Singapore, wrote about the “publication crisis” in academic philosophy in a post entitled “2,000 Spaces for 10,000 Papers: Why Everything Gets Rejected & Referees Are Exhausted.” In this guest post*, he follows up with a proposal for how to help make things better. (more..
New Book Series to Feature Cross-Cultural Philosophy
The editors of a new book series from Oxford University Press (OUP) that will publish works that “exhibit conversation between traditions or cultural sources not often engaged together” are seeking submissions of proposals. (more…)
Philosophy Journal Hosts Debate on “Jewish Influence” (updates: Article Retracted; Journal Gets New Editor)
Have Jews insinuated themselves into positions of power and influence in politics and culture because they are innately gifted with higher IQs, or is it also because they are ethnocentric and hypocritical networkers good at using non-Jews in their self-serving mission of “transforming America contrary to white interests”? Race science and/or conspiracy theory? This-..
Citation Rankings of Philosophers Based on Scopus Data (updated)
A database of information regarding citations of researchers has been updated, and now includes information about the citation rates of researchers, including philosophers. (more…)
Discipline Size and Progress, in General and in Philosophy
When a field of study becomes large enough, its size “may impede the rise of new ideas,” according to Johan S.G. Chu and James A. Evans, in a new paper, “Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science,” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)
Your Paper Has Been Accepted. Now What? (guest post)
A graduate student who had an article accepted for publication asked Jonathan Ichikawa, professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, about the post-acceptance process. (more…)
CNRS Commission Defends Roques in Response to Plagiarism Accusations / Update: Roques Dismissed from CNRS (updated)
A commission formed by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) has issued a statement defending a researcher in medieval philosophy against multiple charges of plagiarism. (more…)
Philosophy Journals’ Book Review Policies and Practices
A recent discussion on social media of a book in metaethics, self-published five years ago and authored by someone who had left academia, prompted questions about whether a review of the book would ever appear in an academic philosophy journal. (more…)
OUP’s Prestige Monopoly (guest post)
Oxford University Press (OUP) has an excellent reputation in philosophy and publishes a lot of philosophy books. That seems like a good thing, but are there reasons to be concerned by the publisher’s disciplinary dominance? (more…)
“Incompetence”, “Arrogance”, “Misunderstanding”
Last month we had a very active post with readers submitting their “Philosophy Journal Horror Stories.” The following story, recounted by Nathan Salmon (UCSB), fits well with that collection. (more…)