Filozofia
Journal for Philosophy

Code of Ethics of the Journal Filozofia

The publication ethics of the journal Filozofia is based on the Code of Ethics of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), available on-line at www.publicationethics.org, and on the examples of good praxis in the Slovak and international academic environment (for instance the rules for the publication ethics of such journals as ACTA FACULTATIS IURIDICAE UNIVERSITATIS COMENIANAE and The Code of Ethics of ArteActa Journal – available at: https://afi.flaw.uniba.sk/index.php/AFI/ethics;
https://www.arteacta.cz/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/eticky-kodex-aa.pdf.

The Code of Ethics of the Journal Filozofia respects the Code of Ethics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and it sets forth the ethical duties imposed on authors, members of the editorial board, reviewers, editor-in-chief, and publisher and shall be binding on all of them.

I. Responsibilities of Authors

  1. Only those who have significantly contributed to the conception, form, or realization of the presented text (an article, essay, discussion, review – henceforth an "article“ or a "study“), are referred to as the authors/co-authors of an article (henceforth "author“). All co-authors must be clearly listed in the text of the manuscript at the moment of its submission to the journal. Requests for the possible addition of co-authors after the acceptance of the manuscript are subject to the approval of the journal’s editor-in-chief.
  2. Authors shall submit to the editorial board only their original manuscripts and they shall be able to prove this fact if requested. In the event that authors employed sources created by different authors when preparing their papers, they shall provide accurate and complete citations of these sources, as mentioned in the Notes to Contributors of the journal Filozofia. The author undertakes to publish also those publications which he did not use literally, but which significantly influenced the form of the submitted manuscript. The author must also take into account the relevant and available works of other authors on the subject matter of the manuscript submitted and include them in the bibliography. Plagiarism, in any form, including self-plagiarism, constitutes unethical conduct and is deemed unacceptable by the editorial board. Filozofia regularly checks submitted papers by anti-plagiarism software iThenticate.
  3. Authors shall submit to the editorial board only unpublished manuscripts. Authors agree no to submit their manuscripts to any other journal or any other publications during the entire publication process. By submitting their manuscripts to the journal, authors confirm that they are the only copyright holders; in the event that papers are prepared by a group of authors, the main author shall also duly indicate who all the other co-authors are and he/she shall also demonstrate that all these co-authors have consented to submit the manuscript to the journal. Authors have to declare the financial support of the research (if relevant) and their professional affiliation. Infringement of copyright of other copyright holders constitutes unethical conduct and is deemed unacceptable by the editorial board.
  4. Authors shall employ argumentation based on true data, on objective foundations leading to objective findings, and on the application of rigorous methodology and scientific principles. Providing misleading or intentionally false statements constitutes unethical conduct and is deemed unacceptable by the editorial board.
  5. By submitting their manuscripts, authors consent to the publication process and particularly to the submission of such manuscripts to a double-blind peer review process or alternatively to other assessment of manuscripts by the editorial board. In the event that authors discover, after they have already submitted their manuscripts, that a serious mistake has been made or that there are other serious inaccuracies in their papers, they shall notify the editor-in-chief or the executive editor thereof. Authors shall cooperate with the executive editor in connection with the given matter and provide him/her with any necessary and expeditious assistance to ensure that such serious mistakes or inaccuracies are removed or assistance necessary to withdraw the paper from the publication process. Failure to communicate the fact that a serious mistake has been made or that there are other serious inaccuracies or failure to provide assistance shall constitute unethical conduct and is deemed unacceptable by the editorial board.
  6. By submitting their manuscripts, authors grant the editorial board the right to publish these manuscripts (both to print them and to publish them electronically) without being provided with any remuneration for such publishing in return. Authors also consent to have their papers entered into all databases which the journal is or will be a part of. Authors also consent to have their first name, surname, place of work and e-mail address provided in the section of the paper titled “contact information”.

II. Responsibilities of Reviewers

  1. Peer-review is an essential and integral part of formal scholarly communication. The reviewers' main task is to assist the editorial board and the editor-in-chief in deciding on whether a particular manuscript will be published or rejected. A review shall help the author of a manuscript make changes to the manuscript and thus refine it. Reviewers shall not review manuscripts when a conflict of interest could arise stemming either from competition or other relationship between a reviewer and author. Conflicts of interest in this case include, in particular, any benefit of the reviewer from the approval or rejection of the manuscript, cooperation on the project in the past four years, a fundamental difference of opinion on the main theme of the reviewed manuscript, and so on. Reviewers shall notify the editor-in-chief of any conflict of interest which may arise.
  2. Reviewers shall ensure that all information contained in the manuscripts is kept confidential. The editorial board treats manuscripts as confidential, and reviewers shall therefore neither disclose them, nor talk about them to anybody, apart from the editor-in-chief and the executive editor. Significant information and ideas obtained during the continuing review process shall also be treated as confidential and shall thus not be used by reviewers to obtain any personal benefit.
  3. The editorial board is of the view that both authors whose papers have already been published in the journal or who intend to submit their papers to the journal are likewise obliged to act as reviewers, in case they are invited by the editor-in-chief or by the executive editor to review a manuscript. In the event that the designated reviewer believes that he/she does not have the expertise necessary or he/she assumes that he/she will not be able to prepare, for any reasons, such a review within the designated deadline, the reviewer is obliged to notify the executive editor thereof and be excused from the review process.
  4. The review process is anonymous on both sides. Reviewers shall prepare their reviews in an objective way with respect to the intellectual content and scientific value of the manuscript, such as relevance, originality, conciseness, clarity of the text and the precision, persuasiveness and adequacy of the reasoning. Reviewers prepare the reviews personally with a required structure and to the best of their knowledge and belief.
  5. Reviewers shall notify the executive editor without undue delay of any circumstances under which a particular manuscript shall be rejected. The review itself shall be prepared in an objective and decent way, based on the knowledge, theories and methods of the relevant discipline. Criticism of the author as a person is inadmissible. Reviewers shall express their opinions in a professional, clear and comprehensible way and shall adequately support them with relevant arguments. Reviewers shall indicate which data or information is cited incorrectly or is not cited at all. Reviewers shall notify the executive editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the reviewed manuscript and any other paper or publication already published of which reviewers are aware. Reviewers shall support such notice with relevant documents.
  6. In the event that a manuscript is rejected, the non-published information contained in the submitted manuscript shall not be used in reviewers' own research without an expressed written consent given by the respective author. Reviewers shall use the information obtained during the preparation of a review neither to their nor to another person's benefit, neither to put the authors at a disadvantage nor to discredit them.

III. Responsibilities of Editors and of the Editorial Board

  1. The editor-in-chief, executive editor and reviews editor of Filozofia (henceforth "editors") aim to maintain the journal's profile and reputation. The editors are responsible for the overall content and structure of the journal.
  2. The editors shall ensure that manuscripts are accepted on the basis of fully adhering to the principles of equal treatment and may therefore not reject a manuscript on the grounds of sex, religion or belief, race, nationality or ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, marital or family status, colour of skin, language, political or other views, national or social origin, property, family line or other status. The editors shall ensure that no conflict of interest arises in connection with the publication process.
  3. The editors are guided by the general policies of the publisher and must bear in mind the recommendations of the editorial board of the journal, and, at the same time, proceed in accordance with all valid legal regulations, especially copyright laws and the Civil Code. The editors can consult their decisions with members of the editorial board, with reviewers, or with the publisher.
  4. The editors uphold the procedures which guarantee the quality of the journal and are responsible for ensuring that editorial decision-making is not in any way influenced by any potential commercial, personal, or institutional interests. The editors shall ensure that the review of manuscripts is unbiased and impartial and that manuscripts are assessed solely on the basis of their content. The editor-in-chief and the executive editor shall ensure that authors are provided with anonymous reviews and that they incorporate them into their manuscripts. The editors are authorized to request that all contributors as well as reviewers acknowledge any conflicts of interest and make public corrections if a conflict of interest becomes apparent after publication. The editor-in-chief has a right to accept or reject manuscripts or request revision. Furthermore, he/she has the right temporarily to suspend or stop the publication process in case there is suspicion of plagiarism or other form of fraud or unethical conduct. In that case the editor-in-chief or (with his/her permission) the executive editor first turns to the authors of the given text and requests their response. If the response is not provided in a reasonable amount of time or they fail to respond satisfactorily, then the publication process shall be stopped and the editorial board shall propose a measure against the author.
  5. In order to ensure that manuscripts and their contents are of a respectable scholarly quality, the editor-in-chief together with the executive editor shall ensure that an initial internal assessment of manuscripts is carried out. Such initial internal assessment shall focus both on the formal requirements and whether manuscripts fall under the scope of the journal. In the event that such an assessment is negative, the editor-in-chief shall ask the executive editor to notify the author of the given manuscript thereof without undue delay. Furthermore, the editor-in-chief and the executive editor check whether the publication ethics is adhered to by the authors of the manuscripts.
  6. The editors are not permitted to share any information about a submitted manuscript with anyone other than its authors, other members of the editorial staff, and reviewers (including potential ones). Editors are not allowed to use any information acquired from the unpublished manuscript, or other unpublished ideas acquired in the Review Process, for their own research purposes or that of anyone else, without an explicit written consent of the authors. The editors inform about corrections, explanations, or apologies related to the published article.
  7. Members of the editorial board must uphold, in the same fashion as editors, the principles of confidentiality and impartiality and avoid the conflicts of interest. In case a manuscript is submitted by members of the editorial board (including the editor-in-chief, executive editor and reviews editor), the authors will not participate in the editorial and publishing process of their own contribution, they will not know the identity of the reviewers, they will not participate in the decision-making of the editorial board on publishing or not publishing their work, nor will they in any way influence the decision.

IV. Responsibilities of the Publisher

  1. The Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, as the publisher of the journal Filozofia, in collaboration with the editors ensures that roles of the publisher, editors, and the editorial board of the journal are clearly defined.
  2. The publisher guarantees the independence of the editors and the editorial board regarding their decisions and protection against commercial, political, institutional, or any other type of pressure.
  3. The publisher monitors the adherence to the procedures which ensure the quality of the journal (including the review process, the rules for editing or rejecting an article) and safeguards against unethical behavior (conflicts of interest, violation of the rules of impartiality and confidentiality) and illegal transactions (violation of copyright laws and other intellectual property rights, violation of the Civil Code, etc.).
  4. The publisher follows procedures which ensure an objective evaluation of the journal in the public and in relevant citation databases (Arts & Humanities Citations Index), Current Contents Arts & Humanities (Additional Web of Science Indexes), Scopus and others.
  5. The publisher is not allowed to attempt dishonestly to influence the evaluation of the journal Filozofia by artificially increasing any measurable value (its scope, costs, on-line readership, and so on).
  6. The publisher is capable of transparently sustaining the means of financing the journal. The publisher, moreover, undertakes that it will fulfil all contractual commitments in relation to the preparation, publishing, and distribution of the journal, into it which it has entered.
  7. The publisher shall archive on a long-term basis the final published version of every issue of the journal.