CFP: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences (Critiquing Technologies of the Mind)

Submission deadline: June 30, 2015

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CALL FOR PAPERS

Critiquing Technologies of the Mind: Enhancement, Alteration, and
Anthropotechnology

Special Issue of Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences

Over the past twenty or even thirty years, an international and
interdisciplinary body of research has developed on the various ethical and
philosophical issues raised by the possibility of using technological means
to transform the human body beyond medical ends. The phrase that has emerged
in the English-speaking bioethical debate to describe this new field is
‘human enhancement’. Some authors, particularly in France, have raised
objections to the positive valuation that is implied in the preferred
English terminology. As an alternative, the terms ‘anthropotechnics’ and
‘anthropotechnology’, combining the Greek words ‘anthropos’ and ‘techne’,
have been suggested as preferable conceptual tools, which avoid the implicit
positive valuation of ‘enhancement’, while directly addressing the question
of technological intervention in and on the body for extra-medical ends.

This special issue will investigate a specific area of the
anthropotechnics/enhancement debate: those modifications of the body aimed
at affecting the processes of the mind. This field is generally referred to
as ‘cognitive enhancement’, we prefer the more neutral and encompassing
expression ‘technologies of the mind’. The issue will aim to address the
fundamental ethical and philosophical questions surrounding this area of
technology through the prism of the philosophically productive contrasts and
conceptual differences between the (broadly speaking) Anglo-American and the
(broadly speaking) French debates. The idea of anthropotechnics has emerged
out of different philosophical traditions than the mainstream Anglo-American
philosophical discourse around enhancement. We argue that a careful
interrogation of the conceptual resources drawn upon by the French and,
rather coarsely speaking, continental philosophical traditions (here we
include phenomenology, hermeneutics, French epistemology, and
post-structuralism) examined against a backdrop of the ‘enhancement’ debate
more familiar perhaps to English speaking readers, will significantly enrich
and broaden the philosophical literature in this area, as well as enlarging
its international conceptual scope.

We welcome contributions on all topics and from all approaches within the
scope outlined above. A more detailed CFP is available from the Journal's
website:
http://www.springer.com/philosophy/philosophical+traditions/journal/11097?detailsPage=societies

*Submission information*

Word limit: 8000 words

Deadline for submissions: 30 June 2015

Publication is expected in 2016/17

Peer review: all submissions will be subject to a double blind peer-review
process. Please prepare your submission for blind reviewing.
Submissions should be made directly via the journal’s online submission
system: 
(http://www.editorialmanager.com/phen) indicating: Special Issue:
Critiquing Technologies of the Mind.

For further details, please check the website of Phenomenology and the
Cognitive Sciences:
http://www.springer.com/philosophy/philosophical+traditions/journal/11097

Specific questions about the special issue can be addressed to Darian
Meacham ([email protected]), Ruud ter Meulen
([email protected]), or Sylvie Allouche ([email protected]).
Please include the text “Special Issue: Critiquing Technologies of the Mind”
in the subject line of the email.

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