About the Journal

The Journal of Social Ontology (JSO) is an interdisciplinary journal devoted to social ontology and collective intentionality that was founded in 2015 and is published as an open access journal. It is supported by International Social Ontology Society and the University of Vienna.

The Journal of Social Ontology publishes work in social ontology broadly understood. Social ontology is about the nature and (presumed) existence of social phenomena, such as cooperation, institutions, laws, social collectives, and social categories (e.g., gender and race). Work in other areas with a clear relevance to questions of social ontology, including empirical work, is also considered within the scope of the journal.

The journal provides a forum for exchanges between scholars of diverse disciplinary and methodological backgrounds. In addition to major articles, JSO publishes book reviews and shorter discussion articles.

Topics

• Social ontology and collective intentionality
• Basic structures of the social world
• Interdisciplinary perspective including moral, social and political philosophy, sociology, anthropology, cognitive science, human sciences, economics, history, law, political science, and psychology

Peer Review Policy

• The Journal of Social Ontology practices double-anonymous peer review. This means that the identity of the author will remain unknown to the referees and the referees will remain anonymous to the author. All submissions receive an initial editorial review (i.e. desk review). Submissions that are rejected at this stage will not be accompanied by a report. Submissions that are not rejected at this stage will be send to at least two independent referees that are experts in the relevant subfield(s) selected by the Editors.
• The Journal of Social Ontology is committed to maintaining the highest standards of scholarly rigor and requires two (2) positive reviews by independent reviewers as well as the Editorial Board’s approval for any decision to publish. Reviewers must be in no relevant relationship to the author, i.e. they cannot be affiliated with the same institutions or function(ed) as a supervisor. It is sometimes not possible to provide two reports for all manuscripts and the editorial staff will occasionally provide a decision with one report—though generally all submissions not rejected in the initial review will be returned along with two (2) reports.
• Our invitation to referee this paper is based on the assumption that you do not know the identity of the author. If you do know the identity of the author, please let us know, and describe any personal or professional connection you may have with them.