Special Issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology
Guest Editors: Anika Fiebich, and John Michael
Deadline for Submissions: February 1st 2014
the scientific debate on intentional actions. Within this debate ‘mental
agency’ has been defined as the capacity to bring about specific mental
states through one’s own mental processes. In this sense, typical mental
actions include recalling something, forming a judgment, solving a
problem and making an action plan.
Most discussions of mental action have so far focused on establishing
it as an interesting and legitimate category and addressing fundamental
conceptual issues that it raises. Building upon this foundational work,
the present special issue aims to bring together attempts to make use of
the notion of mental action as a theoretical tool, i.e. in
conceptualizing neglected types or aspects of intentional action and
action preparation, in theorizing about empirical findings, in
generating new questions for empirical research.
Aspects of mental actions and mental agency include (but are not
restricted to):
• Typology of Mental Action. Are there types of action that have not
yet been discussed in the literature and which might be illuminated by
conceptualizing them as mental actions (e.g. forming the intention not
to act, ‘mind-wandering’ while in a resting state)?
• Intentional Structure. Are mental actions accompanied by an intention
to (mentally) act? What is the intentional structure of mental agency?
Is there a sense of agency for mental acts? If so, how is it constituted
and (how) does it differ depending on whether the mental acts in
question precede intentions to act or intentions to not to act?
• Action preparation. What role does mental agency play for the
preparation of bodily actions? (How) can the notion of mental agency
assist us in conceptualizing novel findings from neuroscience or
psychology (e.g., Aaron Schurger’s and colleagues challenging follow-up
study of the Libet-experiment)? How can empirical research enrich our
understanding of mental agency and mental preparations of bodily
actions?
• Mental acts in groups. What are the peculiarities of mental acts
performed in groups such as group reasoning? What is mental agency in
groups? Does mental agency in groups presuppose the assumption of some
kind of super-agent?
Invited Contributors:
Shaun Gallagher (University of Memphis)
Joelle Proust (IJN Paris)
Aaron Schurger (INSERM), and Sebo Uithol (University of Parma)
Word limit: 8000 words
Deadline for submissions: February 1st 2014
Publication is expected in September 2014
How to submit
Prospective authors should register at: www.editorialmanager.com/ropp
to obtain a login and select Pictorial and Spatial Representation as the
article type. Manuscripts should be approximately 8,000 words and
conform to the author guidelines available on the journal's website.
About the journal
The Review of Philosophy and Psychology (ISSN: 1878-5158; eISSN:
1878-5166) is a peer-reviewed journal, published quarterly by Springer,
which focuses on philosophical and foundational issues in cognitive
science. The journal’s aim is to provide a forum for discussion on
topics of mutual interest to philosophers and psychologists and to
foster interdisciplinary research at the crossroads of philosophy and
the sciences of the mind, including the neural, behavioural and social
sciences. The journal publishes theoretical works grounded in empirical
research as well as empirical articles on issues of philosophical
relevance. It includes thematic issues featuring invited contributions
from leading authors together with articles answering a call for papers.
Contact
For any queries, please email the guest editors: anifiebich@gmail.com
and johnmichaelaarhus@gmail.com
