CFP: Arkete: Philosophy of Perception: Representation, Reality, and Cognitive Structure

Arkete

Special Issue 2025

Philosophy of Perception: Representation, Reality, and Cognitive Structure

Editors: Mariano Bianca (University of Siena) and Paolo Piccari (University of Siena)

Philosophical reflection on perception has returned to the centre of contemporary debates in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and metaphysics. Questions concerning perceptual content, representational structure, and the relation between experience and reality have gained renewed prominence in light of current discussions on cognition, conceptual capacities, and the epistemic role of perception.

At the same time, the field remains divided between competing models: representationalist accounts, relational theories, disjunctivism, and naturalistic approaches that attempt to explain perception through cognitive or computational frameworks. These debates raise a deeper philosophical question: whether perception should be understood primarily as an internal mental state or rather as a structured form of access to an objective world.

This special issue aims to gather contributions that investigate perception as a cognitive and conceptual phenomenon with epistemic and metaphysical implications. Particular attention will be devoted to approaches that combine analytic rigour with broader theoretical ambition, exploring how perceptual experience contributes to the constitution of knowledge and to the articulation of reality.

We welcome contributions addressing these questions, preferably grounded in concrete cases and/or examples that help clarify and support philosophical analysis.

Topics for Submission (including, but not limited to)

• The nature of perceptual representation
• Conceptual vs. non-conceptual content
• Perceptual content and cognitive architecture
• Perception and realism
• Relationalism, representationalism, and disjunctivism
• Perceptual justification and epistemic normativity
• Perception and ordinary knowledge
• Similarity and structural models of representation
• Perception, categorisation, and concept formation
• Perception and mental representation in cognitive science
• Illusion, hallucination, and theories of error
• The metaphysical implications of perceptual theories
• Perception and the structure of reality

Submission Guidelines

Submissions must be original and unpublished, written in English or Italian, and formatted according to the journal’s editorial guidelines. All manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

The 2025 issue of Arkete will be dedicated to these questions. The volume will include articles selected through this Call for Papers as well as invited contributions by national and international scholars.

All submissions must be sent no later than 14 May 2026 to the Editors at:

[email protected]
[email protected]

Manuscripts must conform to the editorial guidelines available at:
https://www.arkete.it

Accepted languages: English and Italian.

Maximum length: 40,000 characters (including spaces, footnotes, references, and abstract).

Each submission must include:

• an abstract (max. 150 words, in English)
• 5–6 keywords (in English)
• the anonymised manuscript prepared for blind review

In a separate file attached to the same email, authors must provide:

• name and surname
• institutional affiliation
• email address
• title of the paper
• abstract and keywords