With this 2023 issue, Méthexis turns 35. The journal was founded in 1988 as the brainchild of Argentine philosopher and historian of ancient philosophy Conrado Eggers Lan, who was also its first editor. Although its subtitle, “Revista argentina del filosofia antigua”, reflected the intention to offer a venue for the publication of scholarly articles in Spanish, from its very first issues Méthexis presented itself as a journal with a distinctly international character, owing both to the presence of scholars of different nationalities and to the use of multiple languages. This orientation gradually became prevalent, so much so that from issue no. 7 (1994) the publisher became the German Academia Verlag (a close collaborator of the International Plato Society, of which Eggers Lan was one of the founders). Then from issue no. 11 (after the editorship was taken over by Victoria Juliá, following Eggers Lan’s passing in 1996) the subtitle became what it is today, namely “International Journal for Ancient Philosophy”. With issue no. 13 (2000), the editorship passed to the Argentinean scholars Marcelo Boeri and Alejandro Vigo, who carried out some valuable work to improve the journal, both in terms of the quality of its content and its promotion and dissemination within the scholarly community. For Méthexis’ twentieth anniversary (1998), Boeri and Vigo published a celebratory issue with invited contributions. At the same time, they did me the honour of asking me whether I might be interested in becoming the journal’s editor. Not without some anxiety, I accepted the position: this year’s issue marks the fifteenth year of my stewardship. As of issue no. 28 (2016), Méthexis’ publisher is Brill, whom I thank both for having accepted my proposal at the time and for their efficiency and professionalism in managing the technical aspects of the editorial work.
1 Assessment and Perspectives
In these 35 years, Méthexis has featured 87 articles in English, 72 in Spanish, 48 in Italian, 23 in French and 15 in German. To this one must add a substantial number of notes, discussions and reviews. The evolution of the journal in recent years naturally reflects the changes that have taken place in scholarly research in the Humanities, and particularly in the history of philosophy. The progressive decline in notes and reviews is regrettable in my view. While the prevailing tendency among scholars and researchers to aim for publications with a greater academic impact is certainly understandable, the terrain for debate and criticism is becoming increasingly thin. I therefore take the liberty of inviting scholars and colleagues interested in publishing in Méthexis to consider these opportunities for debate. Another evident development is the increasing predominance of contributions in English. This trend too is understandable as well as perfectly logical, for reasons I do not need to spell out. However, Méthexis will continue to accept articles in the five languages mentioned: a scholarly and cultural choice shared by its publisher (for the reasons stated on the back cover). More generally, my intention has been (and will continue to be for as long as I remain the journal’s editor) to respect the criterion already made explicit in the very title of the journal (most aptly chosen by the late Eggers Lan), namely “participation”. The reference here is not only to the various language communities and schools of thought (I again refer to the back cover for this), but also to the different kinds of contributors. The double blind review system introduces a democratic principle of selection in the evaluation of research, which enables not only established scholars (whose contributions are always welcome, of course), but also junior scholars or researchers without an official academic position, to have access to the journal. I would therefore like to thank all the friends and colleagues who have agreed to work as referees free of charge and, more generally, to recall just how valuable this collaboration is for the smooth running of a field which is so important for our scholarly research.
2 The Present Issue
As has sometimes been the case in the past, Méthexis 35 includes a monographic section, this time devoted to Plato’s Timaeus, a new critical edition of which – with a translation and commentary – was published last year (Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, Mondadori 2022). I would like to thank the two editors of this volume (Franco Ferrari and Federico Petrucci) for their collaboration in preparing this special section of the journal.
