''Synthese'' () is a scholarly periodical specializing in papers in

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for br ...

, and

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. S ...

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

, and related issues. Its subject area is divided into four specialties, with a focus on the first three: (1) "epistemology, methodology, and philosophy of science, all broadly understood"; (2) "foundations of logic and mathematics, where 'logic', 'mathematics', and 'foundations' are all broadly understood"; (3) "formal methods in philosophy, including methods connecting philosophy to other academic fields"; and (4) "issues in ethics and the history and sociology of logic, mathematics, and science that contribute to the contemporary studies". As of 2022, according to

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes pee ...

metrics Metric or metrical may refer to: * Metric system, an internationally adopted decimal system of measurement * An adjective indicating relation to measurement in general, or a noun describing a specific type of measurement Mathematics In mathema ...

( h-5 index and h-5 index

median In statistics and probability theory, the median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as "the middle" value. The basic f ...

), it is the top

journal, but other metrics do not rank the journal as highly.

Overview

Published articles include specific treatment of methodological issues in science such as induction,

probability Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1, where, roughly speaking, ...

, causation,

statistics Statistics (from German: ''Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, indust ...

symbolic logic Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal sy ...

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...

and

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...

. The name ''Synthese'' (from the Dutch for ''

synthesis Synthesis or synthesize may refer to: Science Chemistry and biochemistry *Chemical synthesis, the execution of chemical reactions to form a more complex molecule from chemical precursors **Organic synthesis, the chemical synthesis of organi ...

'') finds its origin in the intentions of its founding editors: making explicit the supposed internal coherence between the different, highly specialised scientific disciplines.

Jaakko Hintikka Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka (12 January 1929 – 12 August 2015) was a Finnish philosopher and logician. Life and career Hintikka was born in Helsingin maalaiskunta (now Vantaa). In 1953, he received his doctorate from the University of Hels ...

was the editor-in-chief of ''Synthese'' from 1965 to 2002. The current editors-in-chief are Otávio Bueno, Wiebe van der Hoek, and Kristie Miller.

Editorial decision controversies

In 2011, ''Synthese'' became involved in a controversy over

intelligent design Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for its bold attempt t ...

. The printed version of the special issue ''Evolution and Its Rivals'' of the journal, which appeared two years after the online version, was supplied with a disclaimer from the then editors of the journal that "appeared to undermine

he authors He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

and the guest editors". ''Synthese'' engendered controversy again in 2016, when an article printed in it was called a "homophobic and sexist rant". "Due to an unfortunate human error", one of the articles accepted to the special issue ''Logic and Relativity Theory'' of the journal was not sent by the guest editor to the editors of the journal for approval as the then current policies had required. Upon the discovery of this discrepancy, the then editors of the journal imposed a moratorium on new special issues for approximately two-three months pending review of the policies.

Notes

External links

Editorial board
{{Philosophy journals, state=collapsed Logic journals Philosophy of science journals Springer Science+Business Media academic journals Journals published between 13 and 25 times per year

Overview

Editorial decision controversies

See also

Notes

External links