Authorship and contributorship
Authors of articles submitted for publication in Philosophy and the Mind Sciences must be natural persons. Each listed author must have substantially contributed to the conception and design of the submitted article or to the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data used in the article.
Submitting an article to Philosophy and the Mind Sciences is taken to mean that all the listed authors have approved the submitted version of the article. Further, authors agree to be personally accountable for their own contributions to the article and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the article are appropriately investigated, even ones in which an author was not personally involved.
All authors who have made a significant contribution to the article should be named. Anyone who contributed to the research or article preparation, but is not an author, should be acknowledged with their permission.
Nonhuman artificial intelligence, large language models, generative AI, or similar types of tools do not meet the criteria for authorship, since they are not accountable for the content they create.
Authors must be aware that extensive use of AI-based tools and technologies for generating substantial article content is strongly discouraged, unless it is part of formal research design or methods. Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, the production of images or graphical elements, or the analysis or interpretation of data, must disclose in the article how the AI tools were employed and which tools were utilized. Authors must take full responsibility for the integrity of the content generated by or with the help of AI tools.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism occurs when an author uses someone else’s words, ideas, or work without proper attribution or permission, and presents them as one’s own original work.
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences uses a plagiarism detection software to screen all accepted articles for textual overlap before publication. Articles found to contain plagiarized passages will not be published. Further, we reserve the right to contact the affiliated institutions of authors who have not acted according to good research and publication practices.
If the work or words of others are used, they must be appropriately cited or quoted. Articles already published or under consideration elsewhere, either in whole or in part, will be precluded from consideration for Philosophy and the Mind Sciences. Similarly, any cases of text recycling, redundant publication, and plagiarism will be rejected pre- and post-publication.
Appeals and complaints
If you have questions about an editorial decision, you should contact your assigned editor(s). In case of submissions for special issues, you should contact the assigned guest editor(s) of the special issue. If you have difficulties or concerns contacting your assigned editor(s) or guest editor(s), please contact a member of the editorial board instead.
Please note that priority is given to active submissions under consideration. Therefore, decisions on appeals may take longer. Final decisions on appeals will rest with the editorial team.
If you want to complain about a process, e.g. the time taken to review a submission or edit an already accepted submission, please contact your assigned editor(s). The matter will then be investigated by the assigned editor(s), possibly together with the editors-in-chief, and the complainant will be given appropriate feedback within a reasonable amount of time.
If you want to complain about specific content, e.g. our website, guidelines or publication ethics, please contact an editor-in-chief. The matter will then be investigated by the editors-in-chief and, if needed, presented to the members of the editorial board. Every complainant will be given appropriate feedback within a reasonable amount of time.
If you want to complain about a person, e.g. an editor-in-chief or your assigned editor(s), please contact one of the responsible members of the journal’s editorial advisory board.
In all cases, editors, editors-in-chief, and associate editors of Philosophy and the Mind Sciences will follow the guidelines and flowcharts published by The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) when investigating complaints.
Allegations of research misconduct
Research misconduct includes clear cases of plagiarism, duplicated publication of articles, data fabrication or falsification, or cases in which research involving animals or humans has not been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework.
If a case of suspected research misconduct is brought to your attention, please contact an editor-in-chief, provide detailed information about the case and explain why you suspect it to be a case of research misconduct. The editors-in-chief will then investigate the case. If they conclude that the allegation is justified, they will contact the accused author(s) to provide them the opportunity to respond to the allegations, while keeping the identity of the accuser confidential. In cases of minor transgressions, the author(s) will be given a clear warning and the opportunity to correct their mistakes. In cases of major transgressions or if the editors-in-chief are not satisfied with the author’s response, the editorial board will be informed about the case and will consult with the editors-in-chief on how to proceed. In general, this will result in informing the institutions and employees associated with the accused author(s) about his transgressions.
No submission to Philosophy and the Mind Sciences will be published or further processed as long as its author(s) are suspected of research misconduct. Submissions whose author(s) have been found to engage in research misconduct will be rejected. Articles that have already been published and whose author(s) have been found to engage in research misconduct will be investigated and may be removed from the journal. This will be accompanied by a public statement and explanation to the scientific community as well as in the “Announcement” section of the journal’s website.
In any case, editors, editors-in-chief, and associate editors of Philosophy and the Mind Sciences will follow the COPE-guidelines and flowcharts when investigating allegations of misconduct.
Conflicts of interest
A conflict of interest can be anything potentially undermining, or be perceived as undermining, full and objective peer review, decision-making or publication of articles submitted to Philosophy and the Mind Sciences. Personal, financial, and professional affiliations or relationships can be perceived as conflicts of interest.
Authors, editors, and reviewers are asked to report all actual and potential conflicts of interest that arise at the time of article submission or at any later stage during the copyediting or publication process to the editorial board. When considering whether to declare a conflicting interest or connection we encourage authors, editors, and reviewers to consider how they would answer the following question: Is there any arrangement or relation that would embarrass you if it was to emerge after publication and you had not declared it?
Reviewers are asked to reject any peer review request if they apprehend a conflict of interest with the author(s). If Editors-in-Chief or guest-editors apprehend a conflict of interest, another Editor-in-Chief or guest editor without a conflict of interest will handle the submission and oversee the peer-review process.
Failure to disclose a conflict of interest can result in the rejection of an article. If any undisclosed competing interest is brought to the attention of the editorial board after publication, Philosophy and the Mind Sciences will handle it by following the COPE guidelines.
Data sharing and reproducibility
In order to increase transparency and reproducibility, Philosophy and the Mind Sciences encourage authors to make their research data openly available.
Ethical oversight
All studies involving humans (individuals, human data or material) must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval must have been obtained for all protocols from the authors’ institutional or other relevant ethics committee to ensure that they meet national and international guidelines. Details of this approval must be provided when submitting an article, including the institution, review board name, and permit number(s).
Human studies categorized by race/ethnicity, age, disease/disabilities, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, or other socially constructed groupings, should include a justification of the choice of definitions and categories, including whether any rules of human categorization were required by the relevant funding agencies.
Appropriate non-stigmatizing language should be used when describing different groups. To ensure this, Philosophy and the Mind Sciences reserves the right to subject submitted articles to a “sensitivity check” by a member of the editorial board, which may result in a request for reformulation and even rejection of the submission.
To protect a participant’s anonymity, identifying information should not be included in the submitted article unless such information is absolutely necessary and explicit approval has been granted by the subject.
Authors describing studies involving animals should have consulted the ‘Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments’ ARRIVE 2.0 guidelines developed to improve standards of reporting, ensuring that the data from animal experiments can be fully scrutinized and utilized. Articles reporting in vivo experiments must adhere to the ARRIVE Essential 10 checklist as a minimum, and we encourage authors to use the full ARRIVE 2.0 checklist. The relevant information outlined in these guidelines should be included in the appropriate section of the article.
Experiments involving vertebrates or regulated invertebrates must be carried out within the ethical guidelines provided by the authors’ institution and national or international regulations. Where applicable, a statement of ethics permission granted or animal licenses should be included. If animals were used but ethical approval was not required, a clear statement should be included stating why this approval was unnecessary.
In all cases, a statement should be made to confirm that all efforts were made to ameliorate any suffering of animals and details of how this was achieved should be provided.
Authors must comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences reserves the right to reject any submitted article that editors believe does not uphold high ethical standards, even if authors have held up ethical approval or if ethical approval is not required.
Intellectual property
All contributions to Philosophy and the Mind Sciences are published free of charge (diamond open access) under a CC-BY license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided appropriate credit is given to the original author(s), and the original sources and a link to the Creative Commons license are provided.
Authors must ensure they have the necessary permissions to use any images, figures, or graphs in their submissions.This includes obtaining consent from copyright holders or ensuring that the images are properly licensed for reuse.
Submitted articles with content that infringes copyright may be rejected if the problematic sections cannot be removed. Further, we reserve the right to contact the affiliated institutions of authors who have not acted according to good research and publication practices.
Peer review and copyediting
All submitted articles to Philosophy and the Mind Sciences, including contributions to special issues, are subject to double-blind peer review. Detailed information regarding the review process can be found in the Submission section of our website.
Reviewers should consult our Guidelines for reviewers for some general instructions regarding writing a review for Philosophy and the Mind Sciences. Evaluations should be transparent and aim for constructive criticism, avoiding any kind of personal attacks or hurtful remarks. Reviewers are prohibited to copy, cite or distribute unpublished manuscripts. Further, reviewers are expected to report any case of conflict of interest, scientific misconduct, or anything similar to the editorial board.
Introductions of special issues, abstracts of book symposia, and author(s) replies to commentators are assessed by the editorial team of Philosophy and the Mind Sciences.
By submitting a manuscript, authors agree to copy-edit the manuscript according to the requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, in case it is accepted for publication.
Post-publication discussions, corrections, and retractions
If you notice errors in a published article, please contact the assigned editor(s). If you don’t know who the assigned editor is, please contact an editor-in-chief. We will check each case carefully and in agreement with the respective author(s) and/or the journal's editorial board. If the error is confirmed, a correction will be published on our website.
If you want to request a name or pronoun change in published articles, please write an email to one of the editors-in-chief which should include (i) your former name, (ii) the reasons for your name change, (iii) your new name, email, ORCID, etc. Once the change has been confirmed, your previous publications will be locally updated. You can choose for this update to happen silently or by public author correction.
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences encourages post-publication discussions on all articles.