New Associate Editors Join the BJPS Team
New recruits for the BJPS editorial team
New BJPS Co-Editor-in-Chief Appointed
The British Society for the Philosophy of Science has appointed a replacement for outgoing Co-Editor-in-Chief, Wendy Parker
‘Letters to the Editors’ Now Accepted
Letters must be in direct response to a BJPS article, concern factual errors, overlooked literature, objections, counterexamples, or any other matter of philosophical interest
Job: Co-Editor-in-Chief
New BJPS Co-Editor-in-Chief sought
BJPS Stats 2023
Acceptance rates, time to decisions, and more
Changes to the BJPS Editorial Team
All change at BJPS Towers
BJPS Popper Prize 2023
Winner of the 2023 BJPS Popper Prize announced
Referee of the Year 2023
The Editors are delighted to announce the BJPS Referee of the Year for 2023
BJPS Stats 2022: Part III
Part III: Journal Metrics
BJPS Stats 2022: Part II
Part II: BJPS Authors
BJPS Stats 2022: Part I
Part I: BJPS Papers
New Additions to the BJPS Editorial Team
We are delighted to announce the arrival of six new Associate Editors to the BJPS team
BJPS Popper Prize 2022
Winner of the 2022 BJPS Popper Prize announced
Referee of the Year 2022
The Editors are delighted to announce the BJPS Referee of the Year for 2022
BJPS Stats 2021: Part I
Part I: Journal Metrics
Referee of the Year 2021
The Editors are delighted to announce the BJPS Referee of the Year for 2021
BJPS Popper Prize 2021
Winner of the BJPS Popper Prize announced
New Associate Editors for the BJPS
We are delighted to announce the addition of three new associate editors: Pierrick Bourrat (Macquarie University), Nick Huggett (UIC), and Cédric Paternotte (Sorbonne Université).
The BJPS Popper Prize 2021
The Editors are delighted to announce that the BJPS Popper Prize for 2021 has been awarded to Eddy Keming Chen, for the article ‘Quantum Mechanics in a Time-Asymmetric Universe: On the Nature of the Initial Quantum State’.
New: BJPS Short Reads
BJPS articles, but shorter
BJPS Stats 2020
Number of submissions, acceptance rates, and more in 2020
Instructions for BJPS Referees
We’ve recently updated our guidelines for referees and we’ve posted them on our website in case they’re useful for authors too
Three new Associate Editors join the BJPS
We are delighted to announce the addition of three new Associate Editors: Cameron Buckner (University of Houston), Elizabeth Irvine (Cardiff University), and Juha Saatsi (University of Leeds).
Popper Prize 2020 Honourable Mentions
Articles shortlisted for the 2020 BJPS Popper Prize
Referee of the Year 2019
The Editors of the BJPS are delighted to announce that Kenny Easwaran (Texas A&M) has been chosen as Referee of the Year 2019, for his willingness to act as a referee, […]
H. Orri Stefánsson joins as the BJPS as Associate Editor
The Editors are delighted to announce another new member of the BJPS team. H. Orri Stefánsson (Stockholm University) joins the BJPS as Associate Editor.
Mary Leng joins as the BJPS as Associate Editor
The Editors are delighted to announce that Mary Leng (York) is joining the BJPS as Associate Editor.
BJPS Stats for 2018, Part 1
Information about the number of submissions, acceptance rates, and decision times for 2018. Part 2 will cover demographic information.
Referee of the Year 2018
The editors of the BJPS are delighted to announce that Adrian Currie (Exeter) has been chosen as Referee of the Year 2018, for his willingness to act as a referee, […]
Join the BJPS Editorial Team
The BSPS invites expressions of interest regarding the appointment of a new Co-Editor-in-Chief for the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, to join current Co-Editor-in-Chief Wendy Parker and Assistant […]
New Virtual Issue: Bell’s Theorem 55 Years On
The Editors of the BJPS are delighted to announce the publication of a new virtual issue. Following on from the success of previous issues on Kuhn and the philosophy of psychology and cognitive science, BJPS Associate Editor Peter Lewis has drawn together papers from the journal that have critically explored Bell’s theorem and its philosophical upshot. The full issue can be found here, but we’ve reproduced Peter’s introduction below. Enjoy!
BJPS Popper Prize 2018
We are delighted to be able to announce that Jonah N. Schupbach has been awarded the 2018 BJPS Popper Prize for his article ‘Robustness Analysis as Explanatory Reasoning‘.
BJPS Papers in The Philosopher’s Annual 2017
The BJPS is pleased to note that two of the papers it published last year have been included in The Philosopher’s Annual top ten papers of 2017. These papers have been made free to access, with links below.
Podcasts: BSPS Annual Conference
If you didn’t make it to this year’s BSPS annual conference in Oxford, we’ve teamed up with Philosophy Streaming to record the Presidential Address and the plenary discussions for your listening pleasure!
[Updated] Peer Review or Perish: The Problem of Free Riders in Philosophy | Beth Hannon
As any journal editor will tell you (at length, possibly via the medium of rant), the trickiest part of the job is not the papers, not the authors, and not even the typesetters. It’s the referees. It is no mean feat to secure referees who are, first, reliable in their academic judgement, second, responsive to emails, and third, willing to return reports when they say they will. But the frustrations of editors aside, the far more pressing concern is for the career prospects of early-career researchers. Jobs and funding can depend on timely decisions. Indeed, whether an early-career researcher gets to become a mid- or late-career researcher can depend on whether a decision is made in a reasonable amount of time.
BJPS Popper Prize 2017
The Editors of the BJPS and the BSPS committee are delighted to announce that Grant Ramsey and Andreas de Block are the 2017 winners of the BJPS Popper Prize for their article ‘Is Cultural Fitness Hopelessly Confused?’.
Lakatos Award Lectures
Endowed by the Latsis Foundation, the Lakatos Award is given to an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science. Winners are presented with a medal and given the chance to deliver a lecture based on the winning work. To celebrate the 2015 and the 2016 award winners—Thomas Pradeu and Brian Epstein, respectively—they each delivered a lecture at the LSE last week. Introduced by Hasok Chang, Pradeu’s lecture is entitled ‘Why Philosophy in Science? Re-Visiting Immunology and Biological Individuality’ and Epstein’s is ‘Rebuilding the Foundations of the Social Sciences’.
Christian Wüthrich’s ‘The Temporal and Atemporal Emergence of (Space-)Time’
Christian Wüthrich delivered one of the plenary talks at this summer’s BSPS conference in Edinburgh and lo! It was recorded (future is now!).
IF and Only IF
Another year, another impact factor. Thomson Reuters, who compile the figures, have released their 2017 report and the BJPS continues to perform very well (a brief explanation of the IF can be found here). We’ve jumped from last year’s 1.738 to a not-to-be-sniffed-at 1.985.
Popper Prize 2016
The decision of the Co-Chief-Editors of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science is that the Sir Karl Popper Prize for 2016 should be awarded jointly to Elizabeth Irvine for her paper ‘Model-Based Theorizing in Cognitive Neuroscience’ (Br J Philos Sci, 2016, 67, pp. 143–68) and Eran Tal for his paper ‘Making Time: A Study in the Epistemology of Measurement’ (Br J Philos Sci, 2016, 67, pp. 297–335).
Short Shrift: Word Limit for the BJPS
A while back, we decided to implement a ‘soft’ word limit of 10,000 words and we asked authors who wanted to exceed this limit to write to us with a justification. More than a year later, we’ve found that not one paper submitted that exceeded 10,000 words couldn’t have been pruned and nonetheless retained all that mattered (and, indeed, was and did). So to make things more straightforward for all concerned, the Editors have decided to make the 10,000-word deadline firm. Papers exceeding this length will automatically be returned to authors.
BJPS Review of Books: It lives!
The Editors of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science recently took the decision to publish book reviews online-only in order to save as much space as possible for original articles in print editions. Following from this, we are happy to announce the launch of the BJPS Review of Books.
Judging a Journal by Its Cover
The BJPS is getting a shiny new look thanks to the good people at Studio Carreras.
Associate Editor Lara Buchak Featured in this Year’s Philosopher’s Annual
BJPS Associate Editors don’t just act as midwives to great philosophy, they produce it too! Hot on the heels of ex-Associate Editor Marc Lange, Lara Buchak is featured in this year’s Philosopher’s Annual for her joint paper ‘Groupthink’, written with Jeffrey Sanford Russell and John Hawthorn, and published in Philosophical Studies.
IF Success, Then Celebrate!
Editing is more often than not a thankless job (look away now, potential Co-Editor-in-Chiefs). However, this is one of those rare happy moments when it all comes good. Yesterday, Thomson Reuters released the Journal Citation Report for 2015 and the BJPS continues its lead among philosophy of science journals, with an impact factor of 1.738.
Join the BJPS Editorial Team!
We are looking for a new Co-Editor-in-Chief. Prof. Michela Massimi is stepping down from her role with the Journal after two terms at the helm to work on, among other […]
Oi! Ref!
Another year, another plethora of referees to thank! The BJPS continues to go from strength to strength, and while our authors can bask in the limelight, as editors we get to see behind the scenes, to all the hard work done by the referees in taking strong drafts and turning them into shiny, publishable gems. As the list of names below makes clear, the number of people it takes to make a journal work is not small, and that’s before we include all the editors and the team at OUP. What’s more, this list isn’t nearly complete—not everyone consented to be named—and there are more than a few (heroic!) people listed who have written a number of reports for us throughout the year. We are incredibly grateful for all of he considered, thoughtful reports we received throughout the year from these referees—they certainly make our job as editors easier!
Popper Prize 2015
The Editors of the BJPS are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2015 Popper Prize is Matthew Slater for his BJPS paper, ‘Natural Kindness’.
It’s Hard Being Popular…
Due to the very welcome fact of the BJPS’s ever increasing popularity, we’ve been forced to make some tough decisions. All print journals work with tight page budgets, which in our case has been fixed by joint agreement between the BSPS and our publishers, OUP. The upshot of this is that it’s often impossible to publish everything we would like to. Competition for space has always been fierce in the BJPS and, as the last few years have seen a 50% increase in submissions to the Journal, things have become that much tougher.
Triple-Masked Peer Review Is GO!
We are very pleased to announce that the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science has adopted a triple-masked system for peer review, whereby neither the referees nor the editors […]
Envoi | Marc Lange
I am honored to have been an Associate Editor of BJPS. I thought of my role not so much as a gatekeeper, but more as a teacher. My aim was […]
All Is Change
There have been some changes in our editorial make up over the last couple of months. First, the sad news. Michael Wheeler and Marc Lange have both stepped down from their roles as Associate Editors for various reasons, including the pressure of other responsibilities. Both have been with this editorial team from the word go and have put a lot of time and energy into supporting the journal. We’d like to thank them both for all their support, and for their careful and thorough reports that helped not just us but also many authors.On a happier note, we have two new additions to the team: Alyssa Ney and Lara Buchak! We are delighted to have both on board.
Acknowledgements
The lone philosopher, working in a dingy attic by the scrap end of a guttering candle might have some cultural purchase, and certainly the working conditions might sometimes be a little Dickensian, but what’s apparent from working behind the curtains at the BJPS is that good philosophy is not the result of the heroic efforts of single individuals. We are lucky enough here to receive submissions from the best and brightest in our field, but the distance between that first submission and the finished product should not be underestimated. That gap is bridged by the time, hard work, and thoughtfulness of our referees, in conversation with our authors. For myself, I have learnt more about how to do philosophy in reading the back-and-forth between author and referee than I could ever have imagined, and it has been a huge privilege to be able to eavesdrop on these conversations.
The Sir Karl Popper Prize for 2014
The decision of the Co-Editors of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science is that the Sir Karl Popper Prize for 2014 should be awarded to Rachael L. Brown for her paper ‘What Evolvability Really Is’ (Br J Philos Sci [2014], 65, pp. 549-72).
Journal Rankings | DEVITT’S LGSCD-INDEX & DEVITT’S GSCD-INDEX
Kate Devitt has done some interesting work to improve upon Google Scholar’s journal rankings…
Weekend Reading
If our new virtual issue on the philosophy of psychology and cognitive science wasn’t enough to keep you busy, here are more new things for your reading pleasure.
Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science | Daniel Weiskopf
Psychology emerged within the last two centuries from a long tradition of philosophical speculation about the mind, and it has to a large degree remained entangled with that tradition. Psychological theorizing overlaps with philosophical discourse at many points, and has also produced a host of concepts, methods, and models that shed new light on some of philosophy’s old problems. This combination has made it one of the most fertile sources of material for philosophers of science. The emergence of cognitive science as an organizing conception for the interfield study of the mind is a testament to the reciprocal influence of philosophy on scientific theorizing. As increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the analysis of the practices of particular sciences, the philosophy of psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science have flourished.
Dark Matter: The New Neptune or Vulcan?
BJPS Co-Chief Editor Michela Massimi and Professor of Astronomy Ofer Lahav have written a piece for Astronomy & Geophysics on the Standard Model. Just how many anomalies are necessary for a […]
New on Advance Access
Some new additions to our advance access page for your perusal
Peter Vickers on Science and Inconsistency
Over on OUP’s blog, Peter Vickers (Durham) argues that inconsistency and science go hand in hand.
The brand new blog of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
The philosophy of science is entering an exciting era. Its horizons are wider than ever, the topics and areas it covers are even more stimulating, and the interactions with the sciences are both more productive and provocative. As Editors of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, we have front row seats on all this activity, allowing us to witness an unprecedented period of thrilling research being carried out at the frontiers of biology, neuroscience, cognitive science, as well as the physical and human sciences. The sheer variety and stimulating nature of the topics that we have the pleasure to publish is a testament to the vibrancy of the field.
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