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The reputation of journals like Synthese?

In our newest “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

I’d like to know the recognition level of journals like Synthese. I saw that it’s ranked 11th in journal rankings, but unlike other journals, Synthese publishes a very large number of articles. I’d like to know how recognized this journal is for job hunting.

My sense is that Synthese has a good reputation (commensurate with published surveys/renkings), and that it publishes a lot of excellent work. But, like the OP, I have also heard a few people note how many papers the journal publishes.

Any thoughts from readers?

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10 responses to “The reputation of journals like Synthese?”

  1. Anonymous

    Synthese is widely viewed as a strong, top-10-ish journal. (Only at the snobbiest depts is it viewed less highly, e.g. some of the top 10-15 PGR depts that expect publications primarily in the top 4-5 journals for tenure). Even though it publishes a lot of articles, it’s worth noting that Philosophical Studies (also a Springer publication) is similar in that regard and it also has a comparably strong (probably better) reputation; and that big name philosophers publish in both journals.

    So unless you aiming to work only at a tip top dept or already do so and are going up for tenure (or have been advised by your senior colleagues against it), publishing in Synthese looks pretty good overall. (Things may be different to some, however, if you’ve only ever published in Synthese or ‘lower’ ranked journals.)

    Reply
    1. Daniel

      My sense is that Philosophical Studies publishes a lot less than Synthese; their websites list 6,674 and 10,562 articles respectively. So, Synthese does not publish twice as many as Philosophical Studies, but it’s not that far off.

      Reply
  2. anon

    Like Marcus, I am inclined to think Synthese has a good reputation as a philosophy journal

    The OP could already be familiar with this — but, in case they are not:

    de Bruin compiled a “meta-ranking” of philosophy journals based on data from: Brian Leiter’s ranking (“general philosophy journals, 2018), Scopus and Scimago (2019), Google Scholar (collected using Publish or Perish, data collection in 2021), Google Scholar (2019), and Web of Science (2019).

    Synthese ranked 4th on the meta-ranking

    Reply
  3. Michel

    Synthese took a hit in the late aughts/early tens, back when it was primarily a logic/PhilSci journal and had dubious policies with respect to special issues. It’s cleaned house considerably since then, and has expanded its scope to be pretty much a generalist journal. And I think it’s excellent.

    Yes, it publishes a lot of material. I think that’s a good thing, actually, especially when the quality seems consistently high. Certainly, as a submitter and a referee, my experiences have been positive, and I have a high opinion of the work in my subfield that’s been published there.

    Reply
  4. synthesiser

    Synthese is viewed as a good journal rather than a wow journal—there is really no case where having an additional Synthese pub on your CV would do you harm, I don’t think anyone believes themselves above it, but it’s not a particularly strong signal in & of itself that you’re *really* good at the publishing game the way a PhilReview or Nous pub might.
    Many very good, highly cited papers wind up in Synthese because there are only so many journals ‘above’ it, and referee decisions are often basically arbitrary; you just took a position that a referee personally disagrees with, even if you gave reasons for doing so. Synthese probably wouldn’t be my first pick for most material, but that’s because I’m junior—if I had tenure, it well might be for some papers for the comparative quickness & reliability of publishing a paper there.
    And in the end, for most people in the profession, especially those with subfields that translate less well into Nous/PPR pubs, a Synthese pub is equivalent to about their career best. It’s pretty rarefied air, the 70 or so PhD granting departments mostly, where this isn’t the case. So as I say, maybe not the publication that *helps* the most, but a paper winding up there is still a perfectly good outcome.

    Reply
  5. AGT

    I don’t see any obvious negative connection between quality or reputation and the number of articles published (say, per year). After all, if we follow the – I assume – underlying logic, what matters is the percentage of submissions published (aka acceptance rate). In itself, the fact that Synthese publishes a lot does not mean its acceptance rate is low since it also, presumably, receives a lot of submissions. So, if the logic is that reputation and quality correlates with selectivity, then Synthese, despite its relatively high number of published articles, might still be a very good and highly reputed journal.

    But this is just on the side. Synthese IS a good and reputed journal. Simple as that.

    Reply
    1. High Volume, Okay Selectivity

      Synthese has a 36% acceptance rate (from APA Journal Survey) which seems unusually high, which might explain certain perceptions that it’s good but not that good.

      Reply
      1. synthesiser

        Just want to add as a caveat, APA survey acceptance rate is across the board rather severely inflated due to response bias—people are more likely to report their successes or drawn out R&Rs than boring desk rejects. For instance, Canadian officially reports their acceptance rate as 8%, while APA has it at 13%; PhilReview per their live statistics page accepts 1%, while APA has it a bit over 3%.

    2. Anonymous

      Surely Synthese’s acceptance rate can’t really be 36%. That figure is based only on people who bothered to report their results, and almost no one does that in ordinary cases. Probably only a few happy accepted authors went there to post. By that logic, GradCafe says Stanford’s philosophy PhD acceptance rate is as high as 23.5% 😛

      Reply
      1. Anonymous

        I mean the math should be pretty straighforward: last year, they received around 3500 submissions(based on reviewer requests and my own submission number) and maybe accept 10-15%. My personal view is that Synthese is a strong but not stellar journal, which plays a rather central role for many subfields in philosophy of science/mind. Maybe, it is less of a go to place for mainstream metaphysics, epistemology, or ethics. For my own papers, the quality of reviews was usually good and I had to fight hard in the R&R’s. As always, the degree of quality control can vary for special issues, which in my view invite for horsetrading games, but the same definitely also goes for Phil Studies or other journals in the same ballpark.

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