the very first real Open Access journal in philosophy

Philosophers' Imprint

Mission Statement

On its website, maintained by Michigan Publishing, we read: 

"Philosophers' Imprint is a refereed series of original papers founded by Stephen Darwall and J. David Velleman. The Imprint was founded in the spirit of the Open Access movement, whose mission is to promote a future in which funds currently spent on journal subscriptions are redirected to the dissemination of scholarship for free, via the Internet."

The longer version starts with:

"There is a possible future in which academic libraries no longer spend millions of dollars purchasing, binding, housing, and repairing printed journals, because they have assumed the role of publishers, cooperatively disseminating the results of academic research for free, via the Internet. Each library could bear the cost of publishing some of the world's scholarly output, since it would be spared the cost of buying its own copy of any scholarship published in this way. The results of academic research would then be available without cost to all users of the Internet, including students and teachers in developing countries, as well as members of the general public.

These developments would not spell the end of the printed book or the bricks-and-mortar library. On the contrary, academic libraries would finally be able to reverse the steep decline in their rate of acquiring books (which fell 25% from 1986 to 1996), because they would no longer be burdened with the steeply rising cost of journals (which increased 66% in the same period)."


Submissions

Submissions cost 25 USD and are selected "on the basis of their estimated long-term significance": "The Imprint publishes articles that engage directly with a philosophical issue or historical figure. We do not publish "interventions" in contemporary debates or commentaries on contemporary figures. Although there is no page limit on submissions, the Editors value economy of expression and do not plan to publish book-length works." 


2023 and 2024 (volume 23), until now 29 articles


2022 (volume 22), 24 articles

2021 (volume 21), 36 articles


2020 (volume 20), 34 articles


2019 (volume 19), 54 articles


2018 (volume 18), 25 articles


2017 (volume 17), 25 articles


2016 (volume 16), 19 articles

2015 (volume 15), 35 articles


2014 (volume 14), 35 articles


2012 and 2013 (volumes 12, 13), 43 articles


2011 and 2010 (volume 10, 11), 30 articles


2009 and 2008 (volumes 8, 9), 24 articles

2007 to 2001 (volumes 1-7), 35 articles