MOVING TO FRONT FROM AUG. 28 TO ENCOURAGE MORE DISCUSSION--and please see the 9/5 update, below
Patricia Smith Churchland at the University of California at San Diego and Daniel Dennett at Tufts University write with the following apt comments about the editorial practices of some of our profession's most visible journals:
Several of us old guys have often discussed the unprofessional nature of the so-called premier journals in our discipline. We shall restrict ourselves to mentioning Journal of Philosophy and Philosophical Review. First, both are "in house" journals, meaning, as we understand it, that the editor (at Columbia and Cornell respectively) standardly selects faculty from his/her department to review papers. Papers are not standardly sent out for peer review. This makes the journals vulnerable to a certain kind of corruption and cronyism that would not be tolerated in the sciences. We know of no first ranked journal in the natural or social sciences that operates that way, or second-ranked journal either, for that matter. Our casual survey of scientists revealed that the "in house" refereeing system is regarded as completely unprofessional. Obviously the "in house" policy also means that from time to time people who are not particularly competent are reviewing submitted manuscripts. The policy may also partially explain the absurdly long time it takes for manuscripts to be reviewed.
May we also add that the journal -- Philosophical Psychology -- whose editor, Bill Bechtel, is in the department at UCSD, does not operate as an "in house" journal but according to the professional criteria in the natural and social sciences. Philosophy of Science also abides by a peer review practice, and its location moves as a function of its term-limited editor, who is selected by the Philosophy of Science Society.
The "in house" practice of refereeing at Journal of Philosophy and Philosophical Review is likely an innocent relic of earlier times. It is easily corrected.
I recall a time in the early 1990s (around when I cancelled my subscription) when we used to refer to the Journal of Philosophy as the Journal of Philosophy and Decision Theory, given the preposterously large number of papers on decision theory it published, due to the influence of Isaac Levi, then a senior member of the Columbia department and an influential editor of the Journal. Another pernicious, it seems to me, aspect of the in-house editing at J.Phil. in particular is that its rather precious book review space is given over disproportionately to books by Columbia faculty.
I wonder, though, what other philosophers think? I am inclined to think that Professors Churchland and Dennett are right, and that it would be in the interest of the profession, and the editorial integrity of these journals, for a radical revamping of their editorial practices: the Ethics model created by Brian Barry, and continued to the present, seems a better one. What do readers think? As with our earlier, informative thread on irresponsible journal practices, postings will have to be non-anonymous.
UPDATE: Do see the comments by Nicholas Sturgeon and Brian Weatherson, the current editors of Phil Review, regarding that journal's editorial practices.
UPDATE 9/5: An untenured professor writes:
I can't help but think that your discussion of Phil Review's refereeing practices is inhibited by not allowing anonymous posts. I think some people may not feel free to be critical because they are intimidated by the enthusiastic endorsement of Phil Review by prominent philosophers commenting on the post, and they might even be worried about being blackballed by PR somehow. (I'm not saying that this is the right response, I'm just reporting a possible fact.) I understand your desire to avoid anonymous comments, but I am not sure it works so well in this forum.
Faculty who would like to comment anonymously on this issue should e-mail me, and I will then post the comment, if suitable, as an anonymous comment, below. Given the sensitivity of the issues, I do think some measure of accountability is required here, but if I at least know the identity, I can gauge whether the opinions expressed are based on relevant experience. I will, of course, treat your identity as strictly confidential.
