Philosopher Gualtiero Piccinini (Missouri/St. Louis) has the details, links and a short explanation of the rating scale, as well as some comments on the significance of this list for European philosophers. The philosophy list is here. And a longer explanation of the rating scale is here.
The rankings consist of three gradations: A being the highest, C the lowest. The ratings strike me as fairly plausible, though there are some odd results. (Thom Brooks (Newcastle) also comments on some oddities in the ranking.) European Journal of Philosophy, for example, should clearly be an A, now that it is the most important forum for historical work on post-Kantian Continental philosophy, as well as publishing important articles in many contemporary areas. And why is British Journal for the History of Philosophy an A, while History of Philosophy Quarterly gets a B? All the Kluwer X and Philosophy journals (where X is Biology, Economics etc.) got an A, which may explain how Law and Philosophy got an A, while the journal I co-edit, Legal Theory, got a B, even though we reject many papers that end up being accepted at Law and Philosophy.
One explanation for the handful of peculiarities may have to do with the committee that oversaw the philosophy journal rankings, which consisted of Francois Recanati, Manuel Garcia-Carpintero, Diego Marconi, Kevin Mulligan, and Barry Smith--a strong group of philosophers, but none of whom work mainly in moral, political, or legal philosophy, or in the history of philososphy. (Marconi and Mulligan do some work in these areas.) Overall, though, they deserve credit for coming up with a fairly reasonable listing, which, as Professor Piccinini suggests, may exert a positive influence on professional standards and practices in philosophy in Europe.
What do readers think? Post only once (comments may take awhile to appear), and non-anonymous comments will, as usual, be strongly preferred. Since this appears to be an "initial" list, it may be that feedback from philosophers will influence the final listing.
