Open Access in Philosophy
In the German-speaking area, the development of open access in philosophy is characterised by remarkable diversity – both substantively and institutionally. Different philosophical schools of thought each have their own publication cultures, forms of communication, and reputation economies. One constitutive element of the engagement with open access in philosophy is philosophical reflection itself. Here, both epistemological and ethical dimensions play a role: Questions regarding the accessibility and availability of knowledge, scientific justice, and responsibility towards the public are negotiated. And last but not least, the societal and epistemological implications of digitalisation processes are discussed. Developments such as data tracking or the use of artificial intelligence in research raise fundamental questions that are reflected on a substantive level in the discipline. Further discussion points are the evaluation systems and metrics in scholarly publishing. In philosophy, there are critics of the Journal Impact Factor – its relevance for the culture of the discipline has been fundamentally called into question.
Despite these debates, there is little systematic, empirical evidence to date regarding the concrete implementation and spread of open access in German-speaking philosophy. An initial overview of the situation can be provided by analysing the positions of relevant stakeholders. The professional societies in German-speaking philosophy, for example the German Society for Philosophy (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Philosophie, DGPhil), the German Society for Analytic Philosophy (Gesellschaft für analytische Philosophie, GAP), the German Society for Phenomenological Research (Deutsche Gesellschaft für phänomenologische Forschung, DGPF), and the German Society of Aesthetics (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ästhetik, DGÄ), have not yet taken a definitive stance on the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (UNESCO, 2021), the position papers of the European Union, or reform papers on research evaluation (see Policy Positions). The GAP linked Nicola Mößner and Klaus Erlach’s position paper on scientific publishing and the evaluation of scientific expertise (Mößner & Erlach, 2024), describing it as “a starting point for further discussion” (Announcement 28.02.2024). Regarding the colour spectrum of open access models – especially the trend towards diamond open access – it remains to be seen what positions German-speaking philosophy will take in the long term.
Open Access Journals
As of April 2024, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed 375 entries in the sub-disciplines of philosophy under the rubric Philosophy, Psychology, Religion. Some of these open access journals charge authors publication fees.
Influenced by the open access idea and the development of free digital publishing software, over three dozen open access journals of philosophy have been established in recent years. Although these journals are sometimes narrow in scope, they complement the dominance of broad-scope journals from familiar sub-disciplines of philosophy. The following overview provides an impression of the range of these new journals.
Important open access journals of philosophy include:
- Philosophers’ Imprint DOAJ
- ERGO. An Open Access Journal of Philosophy DOAJ
- Zfphl. Zeitschrift für philosophische Literatur
- Zeitschrift für praktische Philosophie DOAJ
- Organon F DOAJ
- European Journal of Analytic Philosophy DOAJ
- Metaphysics DOAJ
- Journal of Modern Philosophy DOAJ
- Journal of Social Ontology DOAJ
- Polylog. Zeitschrift für interkulturelles Philosophieren
Besides journals published by non-commercial bodies, this list also contains open access journals from conventional publishers. Most open access journals are young, and established journals are rarely converted to open access. An exception is Faith and Philosophy, the leading journal of analytical philosophy of religion.
A list with an extended selection of younger open access journals can be downloaded here.
Video zur Finanzierung von Open-Access-Artikeln
Quelle: Brinken, H. (2020). Finanzierung von Open-Access-Artikeln, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/49536 (CC BY 3.0 DE)
Open Access Books
As of April 2024, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) listed 1,110 titles under the keyword Philosophy. A further 10 sub-disciplines of philosophy are captured with their own entries, which are not included in the main category. OAPEN listed 389 titles under the rubric Philosophy (as of April 2024).
The Publishers of OA books list, which is part of the Open Access Directory, includes publishers whose portfolios include philosophy titles. University presses usually offer the possibility of publishing books open access. Whereas, conventional publishers generally require authors to grant them exclusive rights of use, university presses and other open access publishers content themselves with non-exclusive rights of use.
A considerable number of conventional publishers also offer open access options. The financial framework conditions of such offerings vary greatly.
Noteworthy among the publishers and book series are:
- Open Humanities Press. New Metaphysics
- Open Book Publishers. Philosophy
- Ubiquity Press. Open Scholarship. Philosophy
- re.press
- Open Edition Books
- Logos Verlag Berlin
Disciplinary Repositories
The most important repositories in philosophy include:
- PhilPapers: a comprehensive text archive and bibliographic search instrument
- PhilSci: an archive for natural philosophy and philosophy of science
- HAL-SHS: an archive for human and social sciences
- Cogprints: an archive for cognitive sciences
- Sammelpunkt: a repository for electronically archived theory
An overview of relevant repositories is also provided by the Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).
In practice, scholars are happy to use para-academic publication platforms that require readers to register, and that restrict the rights of the authors who publish their works on the platform. However, the long-term availability of the materials is not guaranteed by publishing them on such platforms or on private websites.
Video über das Zeitveröffentlichungsrecht
Quelle: Brinken, H. (2020). Finanzierung von Open-Access-Artikeln, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/49536 (CC BY 3.0 DE)
Open Science in der Philosophie
Die Frage nach dem Umgang mit Forschungsdaten ist in der Philosophie mittlerweile angekommen und wird lebhaft diskutiert. Innerhalb des NFDI-Kosmos sind die Konsortien Text+, NFDI4memory und NFDI4culture besonders relevant. Text+ erstellt beispielsweise gerade eine Registry für (digitale) Editionen, die bereits im PhilFinder integriert ist. Auch lexikalische Ressourcen und Sammlungen finden sich bei Text+. Eine wichtige Anlaufstelle ist zudem die AG Philosophie der Digitalität der DGPhil, in der vielfältige Projekte zu dem Thema besprochen werden. Aus dieser AG heraus entstand beispielsweise auch das PhiWiki.
Practical Tip
Finding Open Access Literature (in German)
Other Offerings
The platform Euporia aims to increase the discoverability of open science offerings in philosophy. It hosts open access primary and secondary literature in the field of philosophy as well as thematic collections and blog discussions.
On the platform Humanities Commons, there are philosophy publications, topics, and working groups.
The Radical Open Access Collective, a community of scholar-led not-for-profit publishers, journals, and other open access projects, was founded in 2015. The Collective also provides an Information Portal with general technical and bibliographic resources and radical open access literature.
The online archives JSTOR and Project MUSE now also provide open access content relevant to philosophy.
Further Reading
- Hrachovec, H. (2021). Jüngere Open Access Journale in Philosophie (Version v.1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5140827
- Laakso, M., & Polonioli, A. (2018). Open access in ethics research: An analysis of open access availability and author self-archiving behaviour in light of journal copyright restrictions. Scientometrics, 116, 291–317. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2751-5
- Roberts, B. W., & Teira, D. (2021, January 29). Publishing Philosophy Open Access Without a Particle Collider. LSE Impact Blog. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2021/01/29/publishing-philosophy-open-access-without-a-particle-collider/
- Sahu, R. R., & Parabhoi, L. (2019). Open Access Repository: A Comparative study of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Library Philosophy and Practice. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2511
- Sanjay, K., & Shiuli, K. (2018). A Bibliometric Study of Directory of Open Access Journal: Special Reference to Philosophy. International Journal of Information Dissemination and Technology, 8(3), 154–156. https://doi.org/10.5958/2249-5576.2018.00033.X
- Schroeder, M. (2017). Ensuring future for open-access publishing. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 12(1), 1–5. https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/jetshy12&i=5
- Weinberg, J. (2018, September 20). What Is the Best Type of Open Access for Philosophy and Other Humanities Disciplines? (guest post by Roberta Millstein). Daily Nous. News for and about the Philosophy Profession. https://dailynous.com/2018/09/20/best-type-open-access-philosophy-humanities-disciplines-guest-post-roberta-millstein/
Content editors of this page: Prof. Dr Herbert Hrachovec (Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna) and Prof. Dr Dr Daniel von Wachter (Internationale Akademie für Philosophie im Fürstentum Liechtenstein) (Last updated: December 2021)