journals
TagNew Journal: “Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice” (corrected)
A new journal, “Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice,” will have its inaugural issue in winter 2019. It will be an annual, interdisciplinary, online and open-access journal. (more…)
Medical Ethics Journal Infected by Anti-Vaxx Fraud (guest post by Christian Munthe)
The “Insanely Low Acceptance Rates” of Philosophy Journals
The dirty secret of philosophy is that we have insanely low acceptance rates—often well under 10% —for papers. This low rate is only defensible if you think that publication in philosophy has the kind of inductive risk that any false positive leads to society’s catastrophe. Nobody thinks that. (more…)
Peer Review or Perish: The Problem of Free Riders in Philosophy (guest post by Elizabeth Hannon)
“Here’s a radical suggestion, using the only weapon/motivational device editors have: If someone fails to fulfill their duties as referee, the journal will not accept submissions from that referee.” (more…)
Do Journals Favor Affiliated Authors?
“Do academic journals favor authors who share their institutional affiliation?” That’s the central question of a recent study, which finds evidence that suggests the answer is “yes.” (more…)
Journal of History of Philosophy Lifts Moratorium on Early Modern Submissions
Late last year, the Journal of the History of Philosophy (JHP) had announced that it would not be accepting new submissions on early modern philosophy and would be treating “revise and resubmit” verdicts on manuscripts as rejections. JHP editor Jack Zupko (Alberta) has now announced that these measures are no longer in effect. (more…)
The Most Popular Philosophers in the “Absurdly Narrow Canon” of Philosophy
Which figures in the history of philosophy are philosophers today paying most attention to? In a recent editorial in the British Journal for the History of Philosophy (BJHP), editor Michael Beaney (KCL, Humboldt) surveys recent publications to identify what changes have taken place in who is popular among historians of philosophy, and what changes he thinks should b..
Diversity in Philosophy Journals
The Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA) will include a session on diversity in philosophy journals, with several speakers and an additional panel consisting of representatives from nearly 20 academic philosophy journals. (more…)
Springer Agrees To China’s Demand To Censor Its Journals
Springer Nature, possibly the world’s largest academic publisher, has agreed to demands from the Chinese government to block access in China to more than a thousand articles, according to reports at Financial Times and The New York Times.
Are Women Philosophers Underrepresented in Top Ethics Journals? (guest post)
The following is a guest post* by Maggie Dalecki (Manitoba), Meena Krishnamurthy (Michigan), Shen-yi Liao (Puget Sound), and Monique Deveaux (Guelph), based on research presented in “The Underrepresentation of Women in Prestigious Ethics Journals,” forthcoming in Hypatia. (more…)
A Desk Rejection Scorecard (guest post by Antti Kauppinen)
The following is a guest post* by Antti Kauppinen, currently an Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tampere, and soon to be (as of 2018) Professor of Social and Moral Philosophy at the University of Helsinki. It’s about improving desk rejection: the practice of editors at academic journals rejecting papers without ..
Bypassing The Journals
In the lively and still ongoing discussion of “The Publication Emergency,” a few commenters suggest the use of an online archive for posting papers. See this comment from Jc Beall. In a related comment written at about the same time as Beall’s, jdkbrown says: (more…)
The Publication Emergency (guest post by J. David Velleman)
The following is a guest post* by J. David Velleman, professor of philosophy at New York University. It discusses the problems that arise from graduate students publishing more and more, and presents a pair of suggestions for how to improve matters. (more…)
Quality Control, Methodological Bias, and Persistent Disagreement in Philosophy
Recently, mainstream philosophy journals have tended to implement more and more stringent forms of peer review (e.g., from double-anonymous to triple-anonymous), probably in an attempt to prevent editorial decisions that are based on factors other than quality. Against this trend, we propose that journals should relax their standards of acceptance, as well as be les..
Women in Philosophy Journals: New Data
There are new findings on the presence of women in academic philosophy journals:
- Though approximately 25% of philosophy faculty in the United States are women, only 14-16% of the articles that appear in the discipline’s top journals are by women.
- Journals which do not use anonymous review seem to have a higher percentage of women authors than journals which ..
What Philosophy Journal Decisions Look Like
Sometimes a picture is worth a million words, or at least a number of numbers. Writer Natasha M. Frost has created a visual representation of publication decisions made at a number of academic philosophy journals, as reported by authors at the Blog of the APA’s new journal survey site: (more…)
Systematic Discrimination in Peer Review: Some Reflections (guest post by by Kyle Powys Whyte)
“As these issues of peer review and editorial review continue to arise every year, I hope people increasingly address the systematic problems—taking into consideration the ongoing history of discrimination and the thorough reforms that need to take place in the world of academic publication.”
The following is a guest post* by Kyle Powys Whyte, Timnick Chair in ..
The Latest Philosophy Papers
A new website has been launched that lists new philosophy articles as they are published. The site, called The Philosophy Paperboy, is the creation of Andrea Raimondi, graduate student in philosophy at the University of Nottingham, with web design by Lorenzo Cataldi. It’s searchable, and currently tracks over 400 journals. (more…)
A Way To Increase Transparency In Academic Publishing
How can we make journal editing more transparent? That’s the question of a timely article in the recent issue of Metaphilosophy, “Why not Open the Black Box of Journal Editing in Philosophy? Make Peer Reviews of Published Papers Available,” by Caroline Schaffalitzky de Muckadell and Esben Nedenskov Petersen (both of the University of Southern Denmark).
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Citation Patterns Across Journals (guest post by Brian Weatherson)
“Anything can happen in a small sample, but it was enough to suggest to me a hypothesis: There is no such thing as a generalist philosophy journal.”
The following is a guest post* by Brian Weatherson, Marshall M. Weinberg Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. It originally appeared at his blog, Thoughts, Arguments, and Rants.
Plagiarism In Philosophy: How Publishers Respond
How do publishers respond to cases of plagiarism in philosophy? Michael V. Dougherty, professor and Sr. Ruth Caspar Chair in Philosophy at Ohio Dominican University, looks into the matter in a new article in Metaphilosophy, “Correcting the Scholarly Record in the Aftermath of Plagiarism: A Snapshot of Current-Day Publishing Practices in Philosophy.” (more…)..
New Philosophy Journal Survey Project
The Blog of the APA is launching a new project to collect and share data on the experiences philosophers have had with academic journals, including information about each journal’s “average review time, time to publication, acceptance rates, comments per submission” and related qualities. (more…)
Should Journals Publicly Grade Submissions?
Jonathan Weisberg, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and managing editor of Ergo, notes that by the time a paper is published in one journal, it has likely made the rounds at a few others, and hence has been reviewed by several people whose opinions on it are not publicly available. These people have already “thought about strengths and..
Dominance Of The English Language In Contemporary Philosophy: A Look At Journals
“If you’re an academic aiming to reach a broad international audience, it is increasingly the case that you must publish in English. Philosophy is no exception.” So writes Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside), in a post at The Splintered Mind.
As he notes, this gives native English speakers an obvious professional advantage of being able to reach a worldwide readersh..
Does Referee Gender Make a Difference?
Once again, Jonathan Weisberg (Toronto), one of the managing editors of Ergo, looks at the journal’s data to see what, if anything, can be learned from it. This time, he focuses on what difference the gender of an article’s referee makes. (more…)
How Bad Is Reviewer 2, Actually? Data from a Philosophy Journal
Does Reviewer 2 deserve that terrible reputation? (more…)
Philosophy On The SciRev Journal Reviewing Site
SciRev is a multidisciplinary website for researchers to share their experiences with various journals so they can select not just appropriate but also efficient venues for their work. It is run by a pair of economics professors. They describe the aim of the site this way: (more…)
Philosophy Departments and Journals Ranked by Gender Data at New Website
A new website presents data on women in philosophy in a novel manner: it orders departments by number of women faculty and journals by number of women authors. (more…)