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Best Quality Journals in the History of Philosophy: The Results

Brian Leiter

So with over 300 votes cast, here are the results of our earlier poll.  Remember that this was limited to journals that publish in more than one period in the history of philosophy.

1. Journal of the History of Philosophy  (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)
2. Philosophical Review  loses to Journal of the History of Philosophy by 146–109
3. Philosophy & Phenomenological Research  loses to Journal of the History of Philosophy by 182–73, loses to Philosophical Review by 158–70
4. British Journal for the History of Philosophy  loses to Journal of the History of Philosophy by 203–44, loses to Philosophy & Phenomenological Research by 127–126
5. Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie  loses to Journal of the History of Philosophy by 198–40, loses to British Journal for the History of Philosophy by 131–106
6. History of Philosophy Quarterly  loses to Journal of the History of Philosophy by 219–29, loses to Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie by 150–79
7. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society  loses to Journal of the History of Philosophy by 200–37, loses to History of Philosophy Quarterly by 126–91
8. European Journal of Philosophy  loses to Journal of the History of Philosophy by 191–38, loses to Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society by 103–86
9. Canadian Journal of Philosophy  loses to Journal of the History of Philosophy by 216–21, loses to European Journal of Philosophy by 101–87
10. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly  loses to Journal of the History of Philosophy by 212–16, loses to Canadian Journal of Philosophy by 102–82

Runners-up for the top ten were Journal of the History of Ideas and Philosopher's Imprint
 

These results don't look crazy to me, with the important caveat that no one should conclude that, e.g., Journal of the History of Philosophy is a better place to publish a piece in ancient philosophy than, say, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy or Phronesis.  For a journal barely a decade old, Philosopher's Imprint continues to do remarkably well in these polls, in a way that may even understate its reputation in many parts of the profession.   Notice that British Journal for the History of Philosophy and PPR essentially tied.  Beyond the "top ten" and the two runner-ups, I would not give much credence to the results, and, of course, even within the journals listed above, I think the approximate range of the rating is more useful than the precise ordinal rank.

Thoughts from readers?  SIGNED COMMENTS ONLY.  How should one weight the more general history journals as against those that specialize in a particular period or figure?  Comments on other issues welcome as well.

 

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15 responses to “Best Quality Journals in the History of Philosophy: The Results”

  1. Becko Copenhaver

    Just curious as to why Philosophical Quarterly wasn't included. I read the criteria for inclusion and I didn't get the sense that they ruled Philosophy Quarterly out, but I probably missed something.

    BL REPLY: I did look at Phil Quarterly, but going through several issues, I found either no history papers, or almost none. So my conclusion was that it had ceased to be a particularly hospitable forum for history papers–perhaps I surveyed an unrepresentative sample.

    Reply
  2. Remy Debes

    I agree that this list looks about right. Personally, I was a little surprised to see PPR come out so well for history. I also gave Pacific a bit more credit in my own ranking.

    As to the pointed question about specialty journals, I think there is less of a puzzle when it comes to the established venues like Hume Studies or Kant-Studien (in my opinion these are solid "A"journals), as there is a puzzle for newer venues like the Adam Smith Review (to choose one I'm most familiar with and a little favorably biased towards). A quick review of the contents of ASR will make it clear that the quality is very high indeed. Indeed, issue for issue, it averages a more prestigious line-up than half the history journals on this new top ten list. Granted, it is an annual, and thus condensed. Nevertheless, if your work were accepted there, you could almost guarantee you would rub shoulders with some heavy hitting historians. Obviously, the past and present editors have been doing a bang-up job.

    And yet, it is admittedly still a relatively obscure venue. Known to Smith scholars, of course. But who else is keeping tabs? And how does one effect a change of consciousness about it in such a way as to ensure it counts when one might really need it to – e.g. if one is going up for tenure?

    Reply
  3. Colin Heydt

    Like Remy, I was surprised at PPR's high ranking. I also think that the Journal of the History of Ideas deserves better–though that undoubtedly reflects my view that the work of the historian of philosophy should have close ties to that of the intellectual historian.

    Reply
  4. Corey W. Dyck

    I will second (third?) the surprise at PPR's high ranking, and throw in HPQ to boot. PPQ is certainly under-ranked and I think that the Canadian Journal of Philosophy likely suffered because it doesn't have 'history' in its name–it has published, and continues to publish, excellent pieces in the history of philosophy.

    Reply
  5. Mohan Matthen

    History of philosophy has evolved quite a bit in the last twenty or so years. There was a time when one could read, say, Locke carefully and insightfully and publish one's thoughts. Call that thematic history of philosophy (THP). Though THP is far from moribund, specialists in history now read very broadly in the literature in the period, which requires special skills, not least linguistic. Discovery is as much a part of the new history of philosophy as analysis — discovery of texts, of trends, of relationships; in ancient philosophy, even discovery of meaning (philology). Call this scholarly history of philosophy (SHP). Margaret Wilson wrote very insightfully about this issue.

    It strikes me that the journals in the above list are somewhat heterogeneous as between THP and SHP. Phil Review wouldn't be particularly interested in SHP (would it? — in the old days, it published Burnyeat, not Barnes). The British Journal is obviously historical, perhaps to the exclusion, or marginalization of THP, which it would be prone to treating as amateurish. THP has always found its way into general philosophy journals, even journals such as the Journal of Philosophy and Nous.

    JHP is clearly a scholarly journal; PPR is not.

    I would guess that this hiatus confuses the ranking by introducing an extraneous factor. When a journal selects papers because they are good philosophy, with no prejudice against historical topics, they fall into a different category than journals that select for good scholarship.

    Reply
  6. Martin Lin

    I'm surprised that anybody is surprised that PPR did so well. And I'm pretty surprised that JHP beat the Phil Review. For my historical research interests, many more ground breaking papers have been published in the Phil Review and PPR than in JHP or BJHP, which is not to say that they aren't very fine journals that publish high quality work.

    Reply
  7. Ben Saunders

    Was it a condition that, as well as covering all historical periods, the journals also had to cover all areas of philosophy?

    I'd have said there are good pieces in places like Ethics or Utilitas if, say, you're interested in J. S. Mill's Utilitarianism. Nor would I say that either journal is confined to one period of history (though it may be true that most historical pieces in Utilitas are 19th century).

    Or was the problem that these journals don't publish historical pieces regularly enough?

    BL REPLY: Ethics won't publish historical pieces unless they have a contemporary angle–and, yes, I was trying to identify journals that didn't have subject-matter restrictions.

    Reply
  8. Michael LeBuffe

    I think that Mind has published some very interesting history of philosophy lately and would've like to see it included. Historians should be aware, at least, that Mind is publishing history.

    Reply
  9. Margaret Atherton

    I would like to see another poll in which journals covering only a single historical period were included for a couple of reasons. Many of these journals are extremely important venues for philosophers specializing in the period (or even the historical figure) in question, and it would severely disadvantage junior faculty if it were thought that they were publishing in less important or prestigious places than the multi-purpose journals on the list. And I am a little concerned about the validity of the rankings of the multi-purpose journals as journals in the history of philosophy since none of them publish very much history.

    BL COMMENT: I hope no one makes a mistake on the first point, which I've explicitly flagged. I'm open to trying a second poll, but it would help if scholars in the different areas would suggest the journals, since I'm more likely to miss them the more specialized one gets. And probably the new polls should proceed area by area: e.g., the general journals *plus* the ancient philosophy specialty journals; the general journsl *plus* the early modern specialty journals. Suggestions are welcome on how to proceed.

    Reply
  10. Bill Wringe

    One fairly prominent journal which publishes more History of Philosophy than many of the journals on this list, but which doesn't appear on this list is the Review of Metaphysics.

    There's an obvious conclusion that one might draw from this.I'm not a historian, so I'd be interested to know whether historians of philosophy would regard it as appropriate to draw it.

    BL COMMENT: Just to be clear, Review of Metaphysics was in the survey, but did not score that well. That struck me as unsurprising, but perhaps others will have something to say about that.

    Reply
  11. Mike Jacovides

    Phil Review has an acceptance rate of about 5%, the Journal of the History of Philosophy has an acceptance rate of about 10%, the Canadian Journal of Philosophy has an acceptance rate of about 10%, and History of Philosophy Quarterly accepts around 15% of its submissions. For whatever that's worth.

    Reply
  12. Vernon Kent

    Actually, Journal of the History of Philosophy's acceptance rate is under 3%. That information is available here:

    http://philosophy.wisc.edu/jhp/submissions.html

    Reply
  13. Tad Schmaltz

    Just a small correction: The Journal of the History of Philosophy has on average had an acceptance rate of 4.6% over the past six years. For the information on JHP submission statistics, see http://philosophy.wisc.edu/submissions.html.

    Reply
  14. Mike Jacovides

    Sorry about that. I was going off old information.

    Also: that's amazing!

    Reply
  15. Timothy Chappell

    The Philosophical Quarterly regularly publishes articles in the history of philosophy. Recent issues have included articles on Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and medieval logic. We welcome articles on all areas of philosophy and its history. Our 2009 essay prize was on Kant, and our just-advertised 2011 essay prize is on Hume.

    Best wishes,

    Timothy Chappell, Reviews Editor, on behalf of The Philosophical Quarterly editorial team

    Reply

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