Res Philosophica, along with its publisher the Philosophy Documentation Center, is not for profit. The journal does, however, have costs (typesetting, printing, and so on), and to cover these costs we use a modestly priced subscription model. But we also support the rights and interests of our authors.

In order to balance these interests, we have established the following Standard Copyright Policy, which authors agree to when publishing in the journal (no payment is required for submission or publication). Authors retain copyright to their work, and license some of those rights to the journal:

  • With regard to manuscripts as submitted to Res Philosophica, authors retain all rights.
  • With regard to the content of the final manuscript, authors license to Res Philosophica, for one year after publication in the journal, exclusive rights to publish in any medium, and perpetual, non-exclusive rights to the same.
  • With regard to re-publication of the content of the final manuscript by third parties, authors license to the journal rights to negotiate permissions.
  • With regard to formatting and design (including the "look and feel" of the journal), the journal retains all rights.
  • The journal retains all rights to the collective work.

This means, among other things, that authors may post the manuscript as submitted to Res Philosophica to their website, and may post the final version (as formatted by the author) one year after publication in the journal, but may not post the journal's formatted version (or reproduce its "look and feel"). Authors may use the content of the published article in any future work of which they are the author without permission.

In addition, we do offer an Open Access Publication Agreement (Contact the editorial coordinator for pricing information). This option ensures publication in all formats with a Creative Commons
CC BY-NC-ND publishing license that gives everyone the unlimited right to copy, download, or use the text for non-commercial purposes. This option is sustained by payment of an open access publishing fee that helps cover costs of publication and perpetual access.