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SUMMARY:"After “Consciousness”: Conceptual Engineering for AI\, Mind\, and Moral Standing" (Special Issue\, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy)
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DESCRIPTION:<p><strong>Call for Papers&nbsp\;</strong>&ndash\; Special Issue of:</p>\n<p><strong><em>Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy</em></strong></p>\n<p><u><strong>After &ldquo\;Consciousness&rdquo\;: Conceptual Engineering for AI\, Mind\, and Moral Standing</strong></u></p>\n<p>Submission deadline: June 1 2026&nbsp\;</p>\n<p>---</p>\n<p><em>Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy</em>&nbsp\;invites submissions for a Special Issue on the metaphysics and individuation of artificial systems\, edited by&nbsp\;<strong>Herman Cappelen</strong>&nbsp\;and&nbsp\;<strong>John Hawthorne</strong>.</p>\n<p><strong>Overview</strong></p>\n<p>What happens if we deliberately set aside the term &ldquo\;consciousness&rdquo\; in our thinking about AI&mdash\;and explore what grows in the conceptual space it used to occupy?</p>\n<p>This special issue treats that question as a structured experiment in conceptual engineering. Debates about AI and &ldquo\;consciousness&rdquo\; often generate verbal dispute without clear payoffs: the term may be defective\, culturally parochial\, or weakly connected to what ethically and politically matters. Meanwhile\, scientific and computational work (e.g.\, global workspace models\, higher-order approaches\, predictive processing\, recurrent processing\, IIT\, attention schema theory) can proceed by specifying mechanisms and capacities with or without &ldquo\;consciousness&rdquo\;-talk.</p>\n<p>We invite contributions that (i) assess whether &ldquo\;consciousness&rdquo\; should be abandoned\, quarantined\, or deflated in AI discourse\, (ii) articulate and evaluate replacement vocabularies (scientific\, philosophical\, normative)\, and (iii) develop genuinely non-anthropocentric or AI-specific concepts for theory\, practice\, and governance. Comparative work drawing on non-Western conceptual resources is especially welcome\, alongside careful attention to translation hazards and the politics of conceptual choice.</p>\n<p><strong>Guiding questions</strong></p>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<p>Foundations: Should we stop using &ldquo\;consciousness&rdquo\; in AI discourse\, and with what scope (AI only\, or more broadly)? What about neighboring terms (sentience\, subjectivity\, awareness\, experience)?</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>Replacement: What counts as a replacement vocabulary&mdash\;must it target the same phenomena\, or may it re-carve the territory? What distinguishes replacement from changing the subject?</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>Alien concepts: Which AI-relevant properties lack human analogs\, and how should we name and measure them without anthropomorphism?</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>Traditions &amp\; translation: What do non-Western frameworks make salient\, and what are the risks of importing new defective concepts or political exclusions?</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n<p><strong>Suggested topics (illustrative)</strong></p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Concept-defect arguments\; illusionism and its implications for AI</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>What actually matters for ethics/governance without the &ldquo\;C-question&rdquo\; (deception\, trust\, welfare-relevant patterns\, moral standing)</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>Mechanistic vocabularies without label competition (broadcast/gating\, meta-representation and calibration\, feedback depth/error-correction\, etc.)</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>Philosophy of AI mind and language without the &ldquo\;C-detour&rdquo\; (speech acts\, intentions\, representation\, agency)</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>Reference and measurement for novel AI properties\; operationalization for policy</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>Anthropomorphism and &ldquo\;hidden humanism&rdquo\; in seemingly neutral terms</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>Buddhist\, Confucian\, Daoist\, Vedantic\, Indigenous (and other) resources\; translation hazards\; power and politics of conceptual choice</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Submission details</strong></p>\n<ul>\n<li>Manuscripts should be&nbsp\;<strong>around or under 10\,000 words</strong>. Submissions will be considered on a&nbsp\;<strong>rolling-review basis</strong>&nbsp\;until the final deadline of&nbsp\;<strong>1 June 2026</strong>.</li>\n<li>Please submit through the journal&rsquo\;s website:&nbsp\;https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/sinq20</li>\n<li>When uploading your manuscript\,&nbsp\;<strong>select the Special Issue title</strong>&nbsp\;from the drop-down menu on the submission form.</li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Queries</strong><br>For questions regarding the Special Issue\, please contact:&nbsp\;inquiryeditorial@gmail.com</p>\n<p><strong><em><br></em></strong></p>
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