About the Journal | Critical Hermeneutics

Focus and Scope

Critical Hermeneutics is a biannual international journal, which promotes theoretical and moral studies of philosophy. It is inspired in particular by the model, procedural style, schools of reference, research itinerary and thematic articulations of Paul Ricoeur’s (1913-2005) work.

In his Du texte à l’action (1986), the French philosopher defined his methodology and speculative work as follows: (a) a 'reflexive philosophy' that remains (b) within the 'sphere of Husserlian phenomenology' as (c) its 'hermeneutical variation'. Without doubt, this formula precisely resumes the essential and tendential character of his construction and methodology, which is an interpretative description with reflective basis. However, a more general formula is one of ‘critical hermeneutics’, which is comprehensive of subsequent developments and, at the same time, susceptible to a more precise and wider application (it is an expression used by Ricoeur in qualifying his position of mediation between Gadamer’s hermeneutics of tradition and Habermas’ critique of ideology). It is a formula of a philosophy whose epistemology has its fundament in the so called hermeneutic arc theory, which is a conception elaborated through the vast hermeneutical phenomenological research on psychoanalysis, theory of the text, theory of action, and history. This theory gives to critical hermeneutics a bifacial epistemological configuration (the same which is at work in psychoanalysis, history and in all of the human and social sciences), having a transversal collocation between explanation and understanding.

To this salient aspect there are other elements that characterise the Ricoeurian philosophical work conceived as a unified procedural style. Its main recurrent and characteristic aspects form the specific mark and the operational direction for this review; that is: (1) the (Jaspersian) ideal of co-philosophising, the work of research and dialogue within the community of philosophers (where, the argumentation comes before ideal or personal creed; (2) the philosophical procedure, from which ‘all the books are open simultaneously’ for the scholar (see Memory, History, Forgetting, 2004), and all instruments of research immediately usable, being without any limitation due to time, place or tradition; (3) the interdisciplinary work between philosophical knowledges (of all schools) and scientific or non-scientific knowledges; (4) the dialectic of reflection-interpretation between the non-philosophical and the philosophical dimension; (5) the engagement of philosophy in the community, both in relation to the political, economical-juridical and social sphere; (6) the collocation of the philosophical work into the dialectics of theory and practice, that is the idea of philosophy as practical theory; (7) the discursive articulation of philosophy in analytic, critic and reflective degrees and registers (of discourse), which is in accordance with a methodological order disposed between explanation and comprehension, under aegis of interpretation; (8) the productive dialectics between faith and reason.

Peer Review Process

Authors are invited to follow the Author Guidelines (see below) in preparing the manuscripts for submission. If necessary, the Editors will exercise the right to alter/modify manuscripts in accordance with the stylistic and formal lines of the journal.

Submission of papers to Critical Hermeneutics is taken to imply that the manuscript is not under consideration by other journals, and that is not a published work.

This journal follows a double-blind refereeing process for each submission (except for special issues, which are realised under an "ad hoc" scientific committee). The reviewers' determination whether a paper will be accepted or rejected is based on four criteria: 1) Excellent: the paper does not need any change; 2) Good: the paper needs minor changes; 3) Interesting: the resubmission is recommended after consistent changes and/or revisions; 4) Insufficient: the paper is rejected.

In case of resubmission (points 2 and 3), the same reviewers will be requested to re-evaluate the paper.

Critical Hermeneutics is a scientific journal supported by UniCA OpenJournals, a free editorial web project. If the paper is accepted by the reviewers, an acceptance letter will be provided without fee.

Open Access Policy

This Journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

This journal does not charge Article Processing Charges (APCs) and Article Submission Charges (ASC).

Critical Hermeneutics is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence 3.0.

With the licence CC-BY, authors retain the copyright, allowing anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute and/or copy their contribution. The work must be properly attributed to its author.

Publisher copyright policies & self-archiving /SHERPA/ROMEO

A free editorial web project

Critical Hermeneutics is a scientific journal supported by UniCA OpenJournals, a free editorial web project. It does not apply any APC (article processing charges) or ASC (article submission charges).

Ethical Code

Critical Hermeneutics is an on line, peer-reviewed scientific journal. Its code of ethics is inspired by the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Members of the Management Committee and the Scientific Committee, the Authors, the Editors, and the Referees must understand and agree with the ethical requirements. Respect for these basic requirements determines the quality of editors and reviewers’ peer-reviewed scientific work.

DUTIES OF THE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE AND EDITORS

a) Publication Decisions

The Management Committee and the Editorial Board are responsible for the final decision to publish or not the contributions submitted to the Journal. In the formulation of this decision, they may refer to the Scientific Committee. In their actions, Directors and Editors are bound by the applicable legal requirements regarding defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

b) Fair Play

The Management Committee and the Editorial Board undertake to evaluate the manuscripts for their intellectual content, without distinction of race, sex, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, political orientation or affiliation, scientific, cultural or academic affiliation of the Authors. Directors and Editors base their decision to accept or reject a manuscript for publication only on evaluating quality, originality and clarity of the manuscript and its relevance with reference to the scientific and cultural interests of the Journal.

c) Confidentiality

The Directors, the Editorial Board and the Scientific Committee refrain from submitting the documents or disclosing any information concerning the manuscripts submitted to the Journal to anyone other than the Author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial adviser(s), the publisher, as the case may be.

d) Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

The Directors, the Editorial Board and the Scientific Committee undertake to ensure that all unpublished materials sent to the Editorial Board are not used for research and/or editorial purposes by any of the Members of the Journal without the express written consent of the Author.

DUTIES OF THE REVIEWERS

a) Contribution to Editorial Decisions

The practice of peer review helps both the Directors and the Editors to formulate an opinion on the possible publication of the manuscript. It will help the Author in his/her review, on the reworking and refinement process of the text.

b) Respecting times schedule

If the referee does not feel able to undertake the proposed task (due to disciplinary competence or anavailability) or to read a given manuscript within the required time, he/she must inform the Editorial Board in due time.

c) Confidentiality

Any manuscript assigned to the referee must be considered a confidential document; therefore, it must not be discussed with third parties without express permission from the Editors.

d) Objectiveness

Peer-reviewing must be implemented in a correct, impartial and neutral way.

The sections completed by the referees must not contain any personal judgments or comments on the Author nor any vulgar or derogatory expressions of any kind on the contribution. In order to ensure the impartiality of the evaluation and confidentiality of the materials sent, the review process follows, at all stages and in each case, the protocol provided by the editorial procedure of the Journal. The Editorial Board is available to accept, discuss and possibly publish contributions with well-founded criticisms of works edited in previous issues. It also undertakes to publish limited corrections, clarifications, and retractions where necessary (interventions which are articulated over a certain margin will require a peer review). For Authors, the Journal guarantees the possibility to respond to criticisms (within given limits) and does not preclude the possibility of publishing studies that suggest different, opposite or negative results compared to contributions edited in previous issues.

e) References

Referees undertake to accurately indicate the references of fundamental works possibly neglected by the Author. In addition, the referee is required to report to the Editorial board any similarities or superimpositions of the document submitted with other works known to him.

f) Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Confidential information or references obtained during the peer review process must be considered confidential and cannot be used for personal purposes or in favour of third parties.

AUTHORS’ DUTIES

a) Originality and Plagiarism

Authors are guarantors of the originality of their work. They provide correct indications of all bibliographic sources and/or any other accessed source utilised in the preparation of their work.

b) Sources’ quotation

The Directors and the Editorial staff may request to make the sources or data of authors’ research available, for example in cases of studies considered original or innovative. In this manner, they can be preserved and possibly made accessible to Authors interested for a reasonable period after publication. False or imprecise statements are unprofessional, incorrect and ethically unacceptable.

c) Multiple publication, repetitious and/or competing

Authors must also give assurance that their contribution has not been published before or is, at the time of submission, being evaluated by other journals. Simultaneously submitting the same manuscript to several journals is ethically incorrect and unacceptable.

d) Work’s authorship

The paternity of the work must be properly attributed, and all those who have made a significant contribution to the design, organisation, implementation and re-elaboration of the research concerning the article must be considered as co-authors. If other people have participated significantly in some phases of the research, their contribution must be explicitly acknowledged. In the case of multiple-handed contributions, the Author who submits the text to the Journal is required to state that he/she has properly indicated the names of all other Co-authors, have obtained their approval of the final version of the article and their consent to the publication in the Journal.

e) Conflict of interest

All Authors must indicate in their manuscript any financial conflict or other conflict of interest that might be interpreted in such a way as to influence the results or the interpretation of their work. All sources of financial support for the project must be indicated.

f) Mistakes in publishing papers

When an Author finds a mistake or inaccuracy of significant gravity in his/her paper, he/she is bound to promptly notify the Directors and the Editorial Board in order to indicate the proper corrections.

Legal deposit

Critical Hermeneutics is experimenting the National legal deposition and long-term digital preservation service. Within the project the persistent identifier NBN (national bibliographic number) is assigned to each article.

deposito

Indexing

Critical Hermeneutics is indexed by the following abstracting and indexing services:

ACNP
Base- Bielefeld Academic Search Engine
DOAJ
Google Scholar
OpenAire
ROAD
Ulrichsweb - Global serial directory (subscription needed)
WorldCat