MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--SOME READERS ASKED ME TO OPEN COMMENTS, WHICH I HAVE NOW DONE (couldn't moderate them yesterday)
Dubbed the "Barcelona Principles" by its creator, philosopher Filippo Contessi, it adopts the currently trendy language of "inclusion," but its basic point is sound: insofar as analytic philosophy tries to be a Wissenschaft, it should be open to scientific contributions from researchers across different linguistic cultures. It seems to me doubtful, however, that one can evaluate "publications, presentations, proposals and submissions without giving" weight to their authors' "linguistic style" and "fluency," since the latter are often inextricable from the substance. (One can, certainly, as the principle proposes, disregard accent.) Far better, it seems to me, to invite non-Anglophone philosophers on the merits of their work and then help them, as needed, with their English expression. (With the four volumes [so far] of Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Law, we have solicited a number of important legal philosophers outside the Anglosphere, and, when necessary, helped edit their English.)
Of the other principles, I'm skeptical that journals or presses should spend time collecting statistics. More important, it seems to me, is including non-native Anglophone speakers in editorial roles, which will facilitate identifying strong contributors to the philosophical literature, notwithstanding obstacles of linguistic style or fluency that might put off native speakers.
