Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A philosophy graduate seminar instructor reviewing recent peer-reviewed survey articles in Philosophy Compass to construct a comprehensive syllabus on moral epistemology.
- Is an instance
A departmental tenure panel adhering to DORA guidelines by reading a philosopher's survey and original research papers directly rather than relying on journal impact factors.
Editorial commentary
Quick answer: Philosophy Compass (abbreviated Philos Compass) is an online peer-reviewed journal published by Wiley-Blackwell, launched in January 2006. It specializes in authoritative survey articles across all major philosophical disciplines. Its impact factor is the two-year Journal Impact Factor (JIF) reported annually by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), tracking citations across humanities and social sciences indexes.
Philosophy Compass occupies a distinctive role in academic philosophy publishing. Unlike traditional philosophy journals that emphasize narrow novel arguments, Philosophy Compass commissions peer-reviewed survey papers that map current debates, emerging methodologies, and conceptual disputes across epistemology, metaphysics, normative ethics, logic, and the philosophy of science. In research administration, authors and editors emphasize adherence to established principles of research ethics and transparent citation practices.
What is the Philosophy Compass journal?
The journal is published as an electronic serial by Wiley-Blackwell. Key cataloging metadata and publication characteristics include:
- Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons).
- First issue: Volume 1, Issue 1, January 2006.
- Format: Electronic serial (no physical print edition).
- ISSN: Electronic 1747-9991.
- NLM catalog ID: 101562649 (NLM title abbreviation: Philos Compass).
- Editorial scope: Comprehensive survey articles synthesizing contemporary philosophical literature across history of philosophy, ethics, epistemology, logic, and philosophy of mind.
- Indexing and digital preservation: Crossref digital object identifiers (DOIs) registered under prefix 10.1111, with full ORCID metadata and automated similarity checking.
What is the Philosophy Compass impact factor?
The Philosophy Compass impact factor refers to the Journal Impact Factor calculated annually by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports. Clarivate computes the metric by dividing citations received in a given JCR data year by citable items (review and survey articles) published in the preceding two calendar years.
Because Philosophy Compass primarily publishes literature reviews and survey articles, its citation dynamics differ from primary-research journals. Review papers often serve as standard entry points for scholars and graduate students, accruing steady citations over extensive multi-year periods. Clarivate additionally reports a five-year impact factor, which accounts for the extended citation half-life characteristic of philosophical scholarship. Researchers and administrators should always retrieve official metric values directly from official JCR releases or the journal’s Wiley Online Library metrics tab, indicating the specific measurement year.
How does CiteScore compare with the impact factor?
Elsevier produces CiteScore through citation metrics cataloged in Scopus. Whereas Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor calculates citation ratios across a two-year baseline, CiteScore incorporates a four-year window of published papers and citations. Because of these divergent time windows and indexing coverages, CiteScore and JIF metrics represent distinct calculations and should not be treated as interchangeable.
Should the journal’s impact factor be used to evaluate researchers?
No. Modern research governance and evaluation frameworks increasingly implement the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). DORA advises universities, funding councils, and evaluation committees against employing journal-level metrics as proxies for individual article quality or a scholar’s intellectual merits.
In philosophy, synthesizing an active debate into an authoritative survey paper represents significant pedagogical and analytical labor, but citation totals can fluctuate based on subfield size. Research assessment panels are encouraged to review the intellectual originality, methodological clarity, and argument rigor of the scholar’s writings rather than relying on aggregate journal citations.
Frequently asked questions
Who publishes Philosophy Compass?
Wiley-Blackwell publishes Philosophy Compass as an electronic-only academic journal.
What types of articles does Philosophy Compass publish?
The journal primarily publishes peer-reviewed survey and review articles covering active debates across all subfields of philosophy.
Where can I find the official Philosophy Compass impact factor?
The official Journal Impact Factor is published annually by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports and displayed on the journal’s Wiley Online Library metrics page.
Sources
Checked 2026-11-07.
- Crossref API, Journal record for Philosophy Compass (ISSN 1747-9991): https://api.crossref.org/journals/1747-9991
- NLM Catalog, Philosophy compass (NLM ID 101562649): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/101562649
- DORA, San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment: https://sfdora.org/read/
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Philosophy Compass"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/philosophy-compass" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/philosophy-compass",
"name": "Philosophy Compass",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/philosophy-compass",
"description": "Philosophy Compass is an online-only peer-reviewed academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell that specializes in commissioned survey articles across all major areas of philosophy. Launched in 2006, it provides state-of-the-art literature overviews and receives an annual Journal Impact Factor indexed by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/publishing#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/philosophy-compass",
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"author": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
},
"datePublished": "2026-11-07T08:53:52",
"dateModified": "2026-11-07T08:53:52",
"inLanguage": "en-GB",
"isAccessibleForFree": true
}
