About JPACT

Although JPACT was founded by a group of scholars who have been meeting every year since 2009 as the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition (PACT), it is not intended to be merely the publishing arm of that body, nor does it publish conference proceedings. Rather, each article we publish is expected to stand on its own merits and is reviewed blindly by at least two scholars with experience in the subfield.

We created the journal because we were frustrated with the business practices of the conglomerates that publish many of the most eminent journals in continental philosophy. We wanted to publish a journal that only accepts work of the highest level of academic rigor but makes all this work quickly, freely, and universally available with no author fees.

As PACT has matured, the "Pacific" part of our name has ineluctably transformed the way we think of the "continental tradition." Our meetings have all taken place on the west coast of the United States or the island of Hawaiʻi, and much of our thinking concerns what it means to think at the edge of the Pacific in the midst of the anthropocene. As such, we view the "continental tradition" not as a fixed field of study but as the starting point for a conversation about where we want philosophy to go. Sometimes this will be toward transdisciplinarity, sometimes toward philosophical field work, sometimes to the literary voices of the West of Turtle Island, sometimes toward a radical retrieval of indigenous voices, and sometimes toward big surprises. A tradition is something alive, breathing, self-transforming, not a sclerotic rehearsal of the well trodden. As such, we welcome submissions from a variety of perspectives that might contribute to these ongoing conversations, including non-Western philosophies, pragmatism, and other forms of philosophical expression and inquiry.