Ethos Kwartalnik Instytutu Jana Pawła II KUL

About Ethos Kwartalnik Instytutu Jana Pawła II KUL

Ethos. Kwartalnik Instytutu Jana Pawła II KUL — Journal Profile

Ethos. Kwartalnik Instytutu Jana Pawła II KUL (in English, Ethos: Quarterly of the John Paul II Institute at the Catholic University of Lublin) is a peer-reviewed scholarly quarterly from Poland devoted to the philosophical problems that surface in contemporary culture as key civilisational challenges. Published by the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, usually shortened to KUL) and shaped conceptually and editorially by the university's John Paul II Institute — formally the Centre for Research on the Thought of John Paul II — the journal has appeared since 1988. Its print ISSN is 0860-8024 and its online ISSN is 2720-5355, the same pair carried on this Journals World record. Articles are published in Polish and English, each volume is organised around a single theme, and the journal's intellectual centre of gravity is philosophical anthropology and ethics read in dialogue with theology, literature, history and the social sciences. For readers who know Lublin philosophy through the work of Karol Wojtyła and his student Tadeusz Styczeń, Ethos is one of the places where that tradition continues to be developed, tested and argued with in public.

This profile explains what the journal is, how its themed volumes work, what kinds of manuscripts fit it, how its review and licensing arrangements are described by the publisher, where it is indexed according to its own journal page, and how an author or librarian should verify the details that matter before citing it, submitting to it or adding it to a collection. Facts that the publisher does not state publicly are identified as such, rather than filled in by guesswork.

At a glance

Origins and institutional setting

The journal was created in 1988 on the initiative of Tadeusz Styczeń, a Salvatorian priest and moral philosopher who had studied under Karol Wojtyła in Lublin and who succeeded him in the university's Chair of Ethics. Styczeń founded the John Paul II Institute at KUL in the early 1980s and edited Ethos for many years; his biographical note on the KUL site credits him as founder of both the institute and the quarterly. That founding story matters for understanding the journal's character. Ethos was not set up as a general philosophy review competing on breadth. It was set up as the publishing organ of a specific research community — one formed around personalist ethics, the dignity of the person, and the philosophical legacy of John Paul II — while remaining open to authors and viewpoints well beyond that community.

The institutional arrangement is stated plainly on the journal's own page. The publisher is the Catholic University of Lublin. Responsibility for the journal's concept and editing lies with the John Paul II Institute. In practical terms that means the journal benefits from a stable university publisher, a library and repository infrastructure (KUL maintains an institutional repository where recent volumes are also deposited), and an editorial identity anchored in a named research centre rather than in a commercial list. For librarians, the distinction is useful: catalogue records should name KUL as publisher, while correspondence about content, themes and submissions belongs with the institute's editorial office.

The journal has lived through several eras of Polish academic publishing: a late-communist founding in print, the transition years of the 1990s, Poland's integration into European research structures, and the move to an online platform with DOIs, licensing marks and database indexing. Its archive, as the publisher notes, is available online from 2011 onward on the journal site, with earlier volumes held in print and electronic form by the KUL library. Authors citing older material should therefore expect a two-step lookup — the platform for recent decades, the library catalogue for the earliest volumes.

How the themed volume works

The most distinctive feature of Ethos is that successive volumes each take up a separate theme. The publisher describes the model directly: each volume addresses philosophical problems that appear in contemporary culture as fundamental civilisational challenges, and each volume pursues one topic. Themes named on the journal page include consciousness and identity, truth and post-truth, language, memory, expectation and alienation. Forthcoming themes announced by the editors have included tradition, fidelity, the ethos of colour and care, each with its own submission deadline published as a call for papers.

This structure has real consequences for authors. A manuscript is not simply accepted into a queue; it is considered for a particular thematic volume, which means fit with an announced theme is the first editorial question, before quality is even assessed. A strong paper on a topic the journal is not currently collecting may simply have no home in the next volumes. Conversely, the calls for papers give authors an unusually transparent view of what the editors want, often a year or more ahead. Prospective contributors should read the announcements section of the journal site first, note the deadline for the theme closest to their work, and write the submission so that its dialogue with the theme is explicit in the title, abstract and introduction — not left for the editors to infer.

For readers, the themed model turns back volumes into usable edited collections. A researcher working on, for example, philosophical accounts of memory or on post-truth can treat the relevant volume as a curated dossier: a set of articles approaching one problem from different disciplines, often including translations, discussions and review material alongside research articles. Citation practice should reflect this: cite the individual article and its DOI, but when describing the journal, mention the volume theme, because that is how the issue was conceived and how other readers will find it.

Scope: anthropology, ethics and the humanities in conversation

The publisher states that the problems treated in the journal are shown from the perspectives of different fields of the humanities and social sciences, in particular philosophy, and within philosophy especially philosophical anthropology and ethics. The Journals World record's subject tags point in the same direction: Catholicism and religious studies, bioethics, media, education, phenomenology and existential philosophy, philosophical ethics and theory, Polish historical and cultural studies and Central European literary studies. Those tags describe the journal's actual contents well. A typical volume mixes conceptual analysis (what is a person, what is conscience, what does dignity require), applied ethical argument (bioethical questions, media ethics, the ethics of education), cultural interpretation (literature, film and art read philosophically), and historical scholarship on Polish and Central European thought.

Three scope notes will save authors wasted effort. First, the journal is philosophical in method even when its topics are theological or literary: an article that only reports empirical data, or only expounds a text without argument, is unlikely to fit. Second, engagement with the personalist tradition associated with Wojtyła is welcome but not a loyalty test; the journal publishes critics, historians and philosophers working in other idioms, provided the argument addresses the volume theme. Third, the journal's Polish–English bilingualism is substantive, not decorative. Polish-language articles appear alongside English ones, abstracts support discovery in both languages, and international authors are visibly present in recent volumes — the 2025 volumes, for instance, include English-language contributions on topics from Romanticism and moral intuition to John Donne and Virginia Woolf, read through the lens of the volume theme.

Article types and what a volume contains

Recent volumes combine several kinds of material. Full research articles carry the thematic argument. Discussions and polemical pieces respond to positions taken in the journal or in the wider literature. Translations bring significant texts into Polish or English. Review and survey material situates new books. Editorial framing introduces the theme. Authors should check the current call for the expected article profile for that volume, because a themed issue may commission some pieces while openly calling for others. Length, reference style and abstract requirements follow the publisher's author guidelines on the journal platform; those guidelines, rather than habits from other journals, govern formatting, and the similarity-check and Crossref marks displayed on the journal page indicate that submissions pass through standard screening and registration workflows.

Peer review, ethics and licensing

The journal describes itself as a peer-reviewed scientific journal (recenzowane czasopismo naukowe), and its Scientific Council (Rada Naukowa) is composed, in the publisher's words, of distinguished European and American scholars. That council structure is typical of Central European university journals: strategic and quality oversight by a named international board, day-to-day decisions by the institute's editorial team. The journal page displays a Creative Commons CC BY licence mark, which signals that published articles are distributed under terms permitting reuse with attribution; authors should nevertheless read the exact licence statement attached to the article and the author agreement for the volume they submit to, because the operative terms are those documents, not the icon alone. The page also displays the COPE mark, indicating the publisher aligns its editorial practice with the Committee on Publication Ethics framework. Where this profile cannot verify a detail — for example, a specific article-processing charge — it says so: no fee schedule is stated in the material reviewed for this profile, so authors for whom charges matter should ask the editorial office directly and in writing before submitting.

Indexing and standing

The journal page lists the services in which Ethos is covered: ERIH PLUS (the European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences), EBSCO's Central & Eastern European Academic Source, The Philosopher's Index, CEEOL, CEJSH, ANVUR, the Polish Scholarly Bibliography (PBN) and the ICI Journals Master List (Index Copernicus). The page also shows a Polish ministry (MNiSW) score of 100 points, which is the measure that matters most for Polish authors whose institutions reward publication in ministerially listed journals, and an Index Copernicus value for 2024 shown as 92.07. CEEOL's journal record independently confirms the basics: publisher KUL, subjects philosophy, social sciences, theology and religion, four issues a year, print ISSN 0860-8024, status active.

How should these signals be weighed? ERIH PLUS and The Philosopher's Index are selective humanities indexes with disciplinary gatekeeping, so presence there is a meaningful quality signal for a philosophy journal. CEEOL and CEJSH are regional full-text and bibliographic platforms that make the content discoverable across Central and Eastern European studies. The ministry score affects Polish academic careers directly. None of these is a substitute for reading the journal itself: the strongest evidence of standing is the visible one — continuous publication since 1988, current volumes appearing on schedule (volume 38 in 2025, with calls already announced for later themes), named international scholars on its council, and articles that are cited and argued with. The OpenAlex-derived indicators on this Journals World record (a low h-index and small citation counts) reflect how incompletely regional, bilingual humanities journals are captured by global citation graphs, and should not be read as a measure of the journal's place in its own field.

Reading and using Ethos as a researcher

The practical route into the journal is the KUL platform: browse by volume, use the theme as your map, and follow DOIs (prefix 10.12887) for stable links. Because pre-2011 volumes sit with the library rather than the platform, a systematic review covering the journal's full run should budget time for catalogue work and interlibrary requests. When citing, give the Polish title as printed, the volume and issue numbering as shown on the article (the journal uses a double numbering, for example 38 (2025) no. 4 (152)), and the DOI where one is assigned. When searching, remember the title collides with many unrelated uses of the word “ethos” and with a different Kraków journal, Logos i Ethos; searching by ISSN 0860-8024 or by the DOI prefix is far more reliable than searching by title alone — a point this profile returns to below, because the same caution applies inside journal databases.

Who should submit — and who should not

Ethos is a good target for philosophers working on anthropology, ethics, personalism, phenomenology and the philosophy of culture; for theologians willing to argue philosophically; for literary and cultural scholars whose work carries a conceptual argument tied to an announced theme; and for historians of Polish and Central European thought. It is a poor target for purely empirical studies without philosophical framing, for confessional writing that does not engage scholarly literature, and for manuscripts indifferent to the current calls for papers. Authors outside Poland should note the bilingual reality: English submissions are normal, but the journal's conversation is rooted in a Polish research community, and engaging that literature — including Wojtyła's and Styczeń's work where relevant — strengthens a submission considerably.

Submission checklist

• Read the current calls for papers on the journal site and choose the theme your manuscript genuinely addresses; note its deadline.
• Confirm the manuscript is in Polish or English and follows the platform's author guidelines for structure, abstracts and references.
• Make the dialogue with the volume theme explicit in title, abstract and introduction.
• Check that citations to the journal itself, if any, use ISSN- or DOI-based identification to avoid confusion with similarly named titles.
• Read the licence and author terms attached to the current volume before signing; ask the editorial office directly about any charge, since a public fee schedule could not be verified for this profile.
• Keep the submission confirmation and the volume schedule; themed volumes close on announced dates, and late manuscripts may wait for a future theme or miss the journal entirely.

Frequently asked questions

Is Ethos. Kwartalnik Instytutu Jana Pawła II KUL the same as Logos i Ethos?

No. They are different journals from different Polish centres. Ethos is the Lublin quarterly of the John Paul II Institute at KUL, ISSN 0860-8024 / 2720-5355. Logos i Ethos is a separate Kraków title. Similar names cause real catalogue confusion, so identify Ethos by its ISSNs or DOI prefix 10.12887.

What does “Kwartalnik Instytutu Jana Pawła II KUL” mean?

It means “Quarterly of the John Paul II Institute of KUL”. Kwartalnik signals the four-issues-a-year rhythm, the institute is the editorial home, and KUL is the Polish acronym of the Catholic University of Lublin, named for John Paul II.

When was the journal founded, and by whom?

In 1988, on the initiative of Tadeusz Styczeń SDS (1931–2010), professor of ethics at KUL, founder of the John Paul II Institute and the journal's long-serving editor-in-chief, according to the publisher's own description.

Does the journal publish in English?

Yes. The publisher states that articles appear in Polish and English, and recent volumes include substantial English-language contributions from international authors.

Is Ethos peer-reviewed?

Yes. The publisher describes it as a reviewed scholarly journal, overseen by a Scientific Council of European and American scholars, with editorial work carried out by the John Paul II Institute.

Where is Ethos indexed?

According to the journal page: ERIH PLUS, EBSCO (Central & Eastern European Academic Source), The Philosopher's Index, CEEOL, CEJSH, ANVUR, PBN and the ICI Journals Master List. It also carries a Polish ministry score of 100 points as displayed on its page.

How are volumes organised?

Each volume pursues a single theme — recent and announced examples include memory, expectation, alienation, tradition, fidelity and care — with calls for papers and deadlines published on the journal site.

Can I read older volumes online?

The publisher notes that volumes from 2011 onward are in the platform archive; earlier volumes are held by the KUL library in print and electronic form. Start with the journal site, then the library catalogue for the earliest years.

Does the journal charge authors?

A public fee schedule could not be verified from the sources reviewed for this profile. The journal page displays a CC BY licence mark for published content. Authors should confirm any charges and the exact licence terms with the editorial office before submitting.

Editorial note on verification

This profile is anchored in the journal's own page on the KUL publishing platform (title, ISSN pair 0860-8024 and 2720-5355, DOI prefix, founding account, themed-volume model, indexing list and ministry score as displayed there), cross-checked against CEEOL's journal record, which agrees on publisher, subjects, frequency, print ISSN and active status. Those details match the ISSNs carried on this Journals World record (shown there without hyphens as 08608024 and 27205355). No duplicate record for this journal was found on Journals World: searches by ISSN returned this post alone. Details that change — forthcoming themes, deadlines, council membership and scores — should be re-checked on the official journal page at the time you act on them.