Philosophical Topics

Philosophical Topics is a peer-reviewed journal of philosophy produced by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) and published by the University of Arkansas Press.

Philosophical Topics originated in 1970 as the Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, published by the University of Oklahoma Press in cooperation with the Southwestern Philosophical Society (SWPS). The original editors were philosophers Alvin E. Keaton and Robert Shahan, and the first issue, a dual issue, published the proceedings of the 1967 and 1968 meetings of the SWPS. From that point, one issue (out of three) a year was devoted to the society’s proceedings, while the other issues consisted of original articles. After eleven years, under editor Shahan, the journal changed its name to Philosophical Topics but was still published out of Oklahoma. The journal expanded its list of advisors to include such internationally known figures as Richard Rorty, Paul Ricoeur, and W. V. O. Quine.

Shahan announced in 1981, with the name change, that the journal would publish three numbered issues a year and two supplements devoted to the proceedings of the SWPS. However, only one issue was published in 1982 and none the following two years. After a long delay, the Spring 1985 issue was released by the University of Arkansas Press, with Christopher S. Hill as the new editor. That issue published the 1981 and 1982 proceedings of the SWPS, but that was the last time the journal published the society’s proceedings, and the SWPS went on to establish its own journal, the Southwest Philosophy Review (which, for a while, was published by the University of Central Arkansas Press).

After moving to UA, Philosophical Topics began publishing two issues a year on specific topics, overseen by a specific issue editor, such as the Spring 1986 issue on epistemology, which featured an article by renowned epistemologist Ernest Sosa, “Experience and Intentionality.” A 1994 dual issue featured, first, a range of articles on various aspects of the philosophy of Daniel Dennett and, then, a series of responses by the Tufts University philosopher himself (who, the following year, would publish Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist). Of the essays in the first half of the journal, Dennett wrote, “There could be no more gratifying response to a philosopher’s work than such a bounty of challenging, high-quality essays. I have learned a great deal from them, and hope that other readers will be as delighted as I have been by the insights gathered here.” A 2001 dual issue similar offered analyses and critiques of the philosophy of Alvin Goldman of Rutgers University and a response by Goldman himself.

With UA philosopher Edward H. Minar as editor, issue topics in the twenty-first century have ranged from such classical concerns of philosophy as ethics, consciousness, and happiness to more specifically contemporary matters, such as “Envisioning Plurality: Feminist Perspectives on Pluralism in Ethics, Politics, and Social Theory” (Fall 2013) and “Social Minds in Digital Spaces” (Fall 2022).

For additional information:
Philosophical Topics. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/journal/philtopics (accessed December 19, 2024).

Philosophical Topics. Philosophy Documentation Center. https://www.pdcnet.org/philtopics (accessed December 19, 2024).

Philosophical Topics. University of Arkansas Press. https://www.uapress.com/philosophical-topics-journal/ (accessed December 19, 2024).

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas