Category : philosophy of action

CFP: Mental Illness and Power

“Mental Illness and Power”

A Philosophy Conference at the University of Memphis

Memphis, Tennessee

February 21-22, 2014

Deadline for proposals: November 15th, 2013

This and more information available online at: http://www.memphis.edu/philosophy/pgsa_2014.php

As much historical and theoretical work has shown, the way people have understood mental illness throughout history is co-occurrent with shifting power relations within which human beings understand themselves. Mental illness manifests itself in different ways in different contexts and certain theoretical lines can be drawn between the way mental illness is understood and the forms of power which operate on the human mind, body and understanding.   Recently many issues surrounding mental illness have become  prominent in public discourse. To name a few examples, the controversial publication of the DSM 5; attempts by legislators to allow mental health professionals to refuse services based on values; the investigations of the mental health of mass murderers; and the expansion of mental health coverage intended by the Affordable Care Act.  These issues have all been featured prominently on the nightly news while at the same time drawing the attention of public intellectuals and politicians. With this in mind, it seems that now is an opportune moment to open a dialogue about the relationship of mental illness and power.

Philosophy provides a promising, critical, yet constructive space in which to open this dialogue.  Indeed, philosophy and the mental health professions have greatly influenced one another.  Some philosophers are critical of mental health practices while others use psychological insights to develop their own theoretical resources. Many psychological theories have historically been influenced by philosophers, whether John Locke, the positivists, or the existentialists.  Thus, philosophers and mental health professionals have much to share with one another, especially at this moment.

The Philosophy Graduate Student Association welcomes papers from philosophers of all stripes and theoretically interested scholars in other fields, including but not limited to: clinical mental health counseling, rehabilitation counseling, psychology, psychiatry, history, literature and the arts, and political science/studies.

To Submit:

Please prepare a proposal (500-700 words in length) for blind review in either .pdf or Microsoft Word file format.  Send the file as an attachment to an e-mail with a body containing the title and the author’s name, contact information, institutional affiliation and status (graduate student, faculty member, independent researcher, etc.)  If accepted, final papers need to be suitable for a presentation approximately 20 minutes in length.

Proposals should be submitted to memphispgsa@gmail.com<mailto:memphispgsa@gmail.com>.

The deadline for submissions is November 15th, 2013.

This conference is sponsored by the Department of Philosophy, the Lillian and Morrie Moss Chair of Excellence, and the Philosophy Graduate Student Association at the University of Memphis.


CFP: Mental Actions and Mental Agency

CALL FOR PAPERS
Mental Actions and Mental Agency
Special Issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology
Guest Editors: Anika Fiebich, and John Michael
Deadline for Submissions: February 1st 2014

In recent decades, mental actions have been discussed intensively in
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

John Michael
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
Center for Subjectivity Research, Copenhagen University
& Center for Interacting Minds, Aarhus University
http://au.academia.edu/JohnMichael