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Changes at the journal ANALYSIS?

Brian Leiter

A longtime reader writes:

I'm wondering whether anyone in your circle has remarked on the recent overhaul of the venerable journal Analysis.  For decades (a century?) this journal's 'brand' was brief rigorous articles dealing with very circumscribed arguments or issues in philosophy.  Now they have reduced the number of articles from about 15 per issue to about 5 per issue, in the interest of including a Book Symposium in each issue (a la Phil. and Phenom. Res.) and expanding book reviews and 'state of the art' review articles.

I sent the following note to the editor last August, and received no response:

I've been a subscriber since 2007.  I am a lifetime APA member and have had a serious interest in philosophy (primarily analytic) since the late 70s, though I am not a PhD and thus technically not a "philosophical professional".  I've recently been involved in some of the editing of Kripke's unpublished work via the CUNY Center.  I have submitted a couple of manuscripts to Analysis in the past, and it is one of my favorite journals. I'm sure you've heard this before, but what the hell is going on with the recent dearth of 'short' papers, which has historically been Analysis's calling card?  Don't we philosophers have FEW ENOUGH possibilities for publication in well-regarded journals at the present time without this reduction?  Are you aiming for the 'canonical' 12 articles a year of The Philosophical Review?  I would rate your sections in increasing order of value now thus: Critical Notices (low), Book Reviews, Recent Work, and Articles (high).  It's not that the 'back matter' is worthless, but how can we afford to lack the sort of venue that once published Anscombe's 'On Brute Facts', for example (NB: the current learned disputants about 'grounding', including people who should know better like Fine, seem never to have heard of that paper)? (I'm going to assume that you have been under some sort of pressure to go this way, and don't blame you personally.)

Perhaps you could raise this question in the Reports.  Does anyone else resent this loss of a unique and historically distinguished publication venue and resource?

I've not been following changes at Analysis, though recall that they proposed to broaden the subject areas covered, which seemed a welcome development.  Thoughts from readers on the preceding?  (Please submit your comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.)

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9 responses to “Changes at the journal ANALYSIS?”

  1. post-doc

    I have also subscribed to Analysis for a number of years. I totally agree that that it is a bad thing that Analysis seems to be publishing less proper articles in favor of more book symposia and critical notices etc.

    As to broadening the subject areas covered, I am agnostic. Though I agree with the general sentiment that great philosophy articles (that are also short and clear etc) should be published in Analysis regardless of specific subject area, it is not totally obvious to me that the journal will be improved by actively trying to be broader in scope. So far I have not really noticed any great change in the subject matter of articles under the new editors, though perhaps others will disagree?

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  2. Jonathan Birch

    All journals are constrained by page limits agreed with the publisher. To help with this problem, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science has moved its book reviews to an online-only, open-access format (see the link below). I like this approach. Perhaps Analysis could consider something similar?

    https://bjpsbooks.wordpress.com/

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  3. Ben

    Those looking to read or publish short philosophy articles should also remember the relative newcomer Thought.

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2161-2234

    Reply
  4. gradstudent

    It would be regrettable indeed if 'Analysis' ceased publishing lots of short articles, as was its claim to fame. I'm not entirely sure we need another journal to have book symposia, book reviews, and review articles. I'd rather it stick to its guns; other than 'Analysis', the only journal whose remit is to publish only shorter pieces is 'Thought'. I think there is great value in having places to publish short pieces.

    That said, the idea to broaden the scope of articles in the journal is a very salutary development, as is some other editorial changes that the journal announced a while back when the new editors took over. The previous situation at the journal was such that, anecdotally anyway, it was nearly impossible to get published there unless one had a certain institutional or disciplinary cachet. The end of that sort of thing is very welcome.

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  5. Anthony Ellis

    I am afraid that your correspondent is less well-informed than he or she thinks. 'Analysis Reviews' and 'Analysis' are separate journals, with separate editors, though both are published by OUP under the same cover. Each has its own page space, and 'Analysis Reviews' takes none of the page space of 'Analysis' (and vice versa). Your correspondent may object to the content of 'Analysis'. If so, the editors of that journal are well able to take care of themselves. Speaking as the editor of 'Analysis Reviews', I can be forgiven for thinking that it serves a useful purpose.

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  6. Allen Hazen

    The cynic in me just says "Philosophers are getting more and more verbose, and journal editors are indulging them by letting them publish longer and longer articles." I think it's not just "Analysis": my sense is that average article length has increased over the decades in several other journals. As for "Analysis," it started a while back: I noticed over a decade ago that the note "articles are normally limited to 3,000 words" had been changed to "4,000"!

    I think there is a cultural change in academic philosophy. It is now the norm to include a lot more i-dotting and t-crossing (and a lot more c-y-a "I'm not claiming that…" and "This is not meant to imply…" discussion) in articles than was tolerated in earlier decades. The optimist might say that this is a sign of rising standards and a more carefully scientific approach. For myself I think it is largely necessary and unfortunate. If nothing else, a long, careful, detailed, rigorous, balanced article is less likely than a short, main point only, one to get a young student interested in a philosophical topic!

    Reply
  7. Harold Teichman

    I'm the author of the original note to Brian Leiter complaining about the diminution of page space in Analysis. I've just had a backchannel communication with Anthony Ellis, who has graciously explained some of the difficult circumstances surrounding what's happened backstage recently at Analysis. I certainly didn't mean to cast any aspersions on Ellis, whose Reviews section has been as fine as any such reviews publication I'm familiar with, and I had no quarrel with MIchael Clark's taste in articles, either. I just wanted to see the tradition carried on. It looks like it will be very shortly, with new editors of the journal soon to appear.

    This particular journal represents something which I think is a salient strength of analytic philosophy, and which does not seem to exist, culturally, on the other 'Continent', as we like to call it: the ability to pose careful, isolated philosophical investigations of (as it were) small quotidian and perennial issues in philosophy (while allowing for much larger implications). Gettier's famous paper exemplifies that, as does the paper I mentioned by Anscombe. And there have continued to be a few of those more recently in the pages of Analysis. I'm aware of Thought's recent appearance, and salute them for doing something similar. Allen Hazen's remarks on culture change are very on-target. It's obviously questionable whether a lot of what was and is considered the most significant thought in the field from the 40s through the 70s (let alone earlier) would be published in the 'top' journals now. Looking forward to the coming issues of Analysis/Reviews.

    Reply
  8. Samuel

    It's worth linking to the recent statement by the new editors of Analysis, Chris Daly and David Liggins, from August 2016:

    https://academic.oup.com/DocumentLibrary/Analysis/neweditorstatement.pdf

    An important excerpt:

    "Word limits are unchanged: the absolute maximum is 4000 words. Shorter papers will be preferred to
    longer papers, other things being equal. Because of the intense pressure on space, we have a policy of
    not publishing responses to papers that have appeared in other journals."

    From some quick scanning of tables of contents, it does appear that the average number of original articles per issue is now substantially lower than in the past (5-6 articles per issue rather than >10). That appears to have begun with Vol. 76, Issue 1, in January 2016 and so was probably not a decision by the new editors.

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  9. Ben Colburn

    Just to confirm a couple of points which others have made:

    There's definitely no change of policy (as the new editors' statement makes clear). There's also no intention to reduce the number of articles: 2016 was a lean year for Analysis (but not Analysis Reviews) because of the handover between Michael Clark and the new team. We expect normal service to resume very shortly.

    Ben Colburn

    Secretary to the Analysis Trust

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