Presentation and Copyright Issues

Since the Fall of 2009, Sebastien Charles and I have co-organized annual conferences on early modern philosophy called the Quebec Seminars in Early Modern Philosophy. This kind of events, now found throughout North America and Europe, derive from the meetings of the Midwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy organized, beginning in the 1990s, by Steven Nadler (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Daniel Garber (then at the University of Chicago). The idea at the basis of these conferences is very different from that prevailing in the case of more traditional conferences, which normally deal with one author or one subject in particular. There is no specific topic or author, just a chronological time-frame. A very simple, but relevant idea stands behind this formula: specialists in early modern philosophy are a “family”; they share common interests and yet they do not know each other sufficiently well.

The Seminars call for submissions by specialists in the history of early modern philosophy (roughly, from the end of the 16^th to the end of the 18^th century) on a subject of their choice. The conferences are always very selective in the choice of papers, and the acceptance rate usually varies between 10 and 30 % (depending on place and year). The selection is made on the basis of long abstracts and aims to retain only the most original proposals for current research in early modern philosophy. In addition, one or two invited guest speakers, typically more well-known senior scholars, are added to the program.

The idea of offering a publication venue for these papers of high quality began with the very first editions of the Seminar, but everyone also agreed that the publication of these papers should not be mere “proceedings.” As a result, we have come up with the idea of this new electronic journal which is a hybrid between different traditional formulas:

1) Only those having presented a paper at one edition or the other of the Quebec Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy can submit a paper. Thus, there is a true continuity with the conference (as in the case of proceedings);

2) The text submitted is not necessarily the one that was presented at one of the Seminars. In addition, it is evaluated by experts in the field before getting accepted for publication in Studia de Philosophia Moderna (thus making this journal more akin to a regular philosophy journal).

It should be noted that this journal is meant as a very open organ for the diffusion of ideas:

1) It falls within the realm of open-access publications, which means that there are no costs associated with reading or downloading its papers;

2) Distribution and copying of the full texts is freely authorized, with no limit of page number, in the context of personal or academic use (notably for teaching purposes);

3) Authors maintain limited copyrights on their papers: they can freely re-publish papers that were initially published by Studia de philosophia moderna in another journal or in other works, whether their own or in volumes edited by others. However, any future publication will have to acknowledge the initial publication and give the reference in it. Furthermore, a text published in our journal cannot be withdrawn or modified afterwards.

It is strictly forbidden to publish the content of this volume under one's name or to re-publish its content without explicit and written consent of the authors.

Syliane Malinowski-Charles (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières),

Co-Editor