The announcement is here. I had refereed the APA's proposal for a different press, which I gather took a pass. Here is roughly what I said (quoting in part from the proposal submitted):
I am skeptical whether the APA is well-positioned to produce the high quality journal it envisions, the one that combines “diversity” with “quality.” The APA’s “pluralistic consitutencies” (as the proposal calls them) are potentially a source of significant difficulty for this project, not an asset. The worry is that the APA is supposed to represent everyone in the philosophy profession, regardless of the quality of their work or approach. When the proposal describes Continental Philosophy Review, for example, as a “top field" journal,” it is quite clear that it is pandering to interest groups within the APA, not philosophical standards of excellence. (Some good work occasionally appears in CPR, but the idea that the best work in Continental philosophy appears there is ludicrous and indefensible; the use of this example suggests the process has already been ‘captured’ in part by those with other agendas.)
We have seen this pattern repeatedly within the APA. The Eastern Division represents the extreme of this phenomenon, with the result that many philosophers no longer participate there because for the sake of alleged “inclusiveness” and “diversity”—meaning neither racial nor ethnic diversity, nor even philosophical diversity, but simply pandering to organized interest groups—the program is no longer very good. As I understand it, The Journal of Philosophy stopped publishing papers from the Eastern because of this problem many years ago. The Central and Pacific have avoided the fate of the Eastern, which gives some reason for hope if they take the lead on the JAPA project. But surely the prospect of an APA-approved journal will bring out “special interest” lobbying in its worst forms. I see no reason to be optimistic that the contemplated journal will not simply be captured by certain groups looking to leverage their position in the field by capturing editorial control of portions of the journal, without regard to quality.
The link, above, indicates the initial committee charged with setting up the editorial structure. It, fortunately, includes a number of highly capable and sensible philosophers. (It also fails to include, alas, any well-known scholars working in the Continental traditions of post-Kantian philosophy.) I certainly hope my worries prove unfounded, but we will see.
UPDATE: A senior philosopher elsewhere writes:
Unfortunately, I predict that [this new journal] will do more to divide the profession than to unite it and will cause more not less alienation from the APA than people seem to hope. Either it will really be a high quality journal with demanding editorial standards. In which case, it will devolve into an in house version of, say, Phil Rev. I don't see how rejecting almost all of what is submitted to it will serve to help bring the profession together -- any more or less than Phil Rev already does. Or it will take many more comers and will be a thing of moderate to low quality, a sort of ghetto of work that isn't publishable elsewhere. In which case, it will damage the reputation of the APA as whole -- in just the way the reputation of the Eastern Division has been damaged.
So it seems like a big mistake to me. I do think the APA is doing many other things right these days. But this isn't really one of them.
But mainly, I wanted to say that you are not alone in your worries about this journal.
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