Welcome

CURRENT ISSUE:  Volume 34, no. 2 (October 2012), available now; or access individual articles via our Archive

Volume 34, no. 1, SPECIAL ISSUE: Imagining Better: Philosophical Issues in Harry Potter available now (print copies now available for purchase; see Ordering page)

Listen to a MuggleNet Academia Podcast with Carrie-Ann Biondi on “Harry Potter and Philosophy: Metaphysical Musings at Hogwarts”

Read the abridged version of Glenn Garvin’s review of Yoani Sanchez’s Havana Real in The Miami Herald (Jan. 26, 2013; first published in Reason Papers, October 2012).

Editors-in-Chief: Carrie-Ann Biondi and Irfan Khawaja
View the Editorial Board

Forthcoming in Reason Papers, and highlights from recent issues:

*NOTE: Beginning in 2013, Reason Papers will be published online twice a year–in June and October.* 

Reason Papers is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal appearing online each fall and (beginning June 2013) each spring. It features full-length Articles and Discussion Notes, along with Symposia, Book Reviews, and Review Essays. Our Fall 2011 issue inaugurates a new section of the journal, “Afterwords,” devoted to brief commentaries on contemporary issues, including original translations from non-English sources.

As a “journal of interdisciplinary normative studies,” Reason Papers publishes work whose content is “normative in the philosophical sense.” As an interdisciplinary journal, Reason Papers’s mission is guided by an ideal of disciplinary integration that extends beyond philosophical reflection on normative concepts. We welcome work in any academic field, as long as it meets the relevant standards of rigor for the fields it discusses, and as long as its normative implications are clear or made explicit.

Reason Papers is a forum for inquiry and debate across a wide spectrum of views rather than the instrument of any one ideology, party, or camp. Thus, Reason Papers is not edited for conformity with any particular philosophical or ideological perspective, is neither aligned with nor endorses any other institution or organization, and receives no funding from any outside source. The journal’s expenses are paid out of income from the sale of back issues, and out of the Editors’ pockets. (The links listed below under “Related Sites” are suggestive of journals or institutions with intellectual interests that overlap with those of Reason Papers, but involve no formal endorsement by the Editors, the Advisory Board, or the journal itself.)

Reason Papers 32 (Fall 2010) was the journal’s last issue to be published in a hard-copy/paid subscription format. Starting with Volume 33 (Fall 2011), Reason Papers has gone to a free, fully online format. All issues, including the current one, are now available for download in the Archive section.  Reason Papers is an Open Access journal (ISSN: 03631893): readers thus have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of all content in our Archives for free (i.e., without charge either to the user or to his or her institution). This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access. For further information on Open Access journals, consult the Directory of Open Access Journals.

For a detailed discussion of our conception of the journal, read the Fall 2011 Editorial Essay (PDF, 6 pages).

For information about recent and forthcoming Symposia, visit our Forthcoming Symposia page (under “News”).

For information on writing a book review, go to our Call for Book Reviews (under “News”).

For information on ordering hard copy back issues of Reason Papers, visit our Ordering page.

For information on submitting a manuscript to Reason Papers, visit our Submissions page.

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Call for Papers

Fall 2014 Symposium:  The Epistemology, Ethics, and Politics of Emergencies

The Editors of Reason Papers are soliciting submissions of manuscripts for a special symposium on emergencies (due by March 1, 2014). Send submissions to reasonpapers@gmail.com. Inquiries welcome.

Submissions may grapple with any of a wide variety of issues related to emergencies (not an exhaustive list): How is “emergency” to be defined?  How do we know when we enter/exit an emergency?  How should moral and legal norms be formulated so as to take stock of emergencies–if they should? Are moral norms defeasible in the face of emergencies, or specially contextualized so as to preserve their indefeasibility? Who has special authority for decision-making in an emergency? How best to guard against abuses of power or corruptions of norms in emergency situations?

We’re looking for submissions across the broadest spectrum of relevant disciplines–philosophy, political science, legal studies, history, sociology, anthropology, medicine, criminology/police studies, strategic/military studies, etc.

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Highlights from our Archives: Sadek J. al-Azm on the Arab Spring in Syria; William Glod on paternalism; Carrie-Ann Biondi on Tara Smith’s Virtuous Egoist; Stephen Kershnar on intrinsic value; Roderick Long on Hilary Putnam; Larry Sechrest on Hayek’s ‘Extended Order’; Randall Curren on Fred Miller’s Aristotle; Laurie Calhoun on Churchland’s eliminativism; Stuart Warner on Locke’s Second Treatise.

Special thanks to Stephan Kinsella for managing the PDF archives, to IT expert David Veksler, to Israel Curtis for site design and for moving us to WordPress, and to Jeff Tucker of the Mises Institute for volunteering to host the site.

This page modified April 28, 2013 (IK).