CFP: Gestalt Phenomenology and Embodied Cognitive Science (Synthese S.I.)

CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue of Synthese

Gestalt Phenomenology and Embodied Cognitive Science

Guest Editors:

Alistair Isaac

Dave Ward

In the early 20th century, two influential and interrelated movements shaped philosophical and scientific thinking about the mind. Gestalt Psychologists such as Ehrenfels, Koffka, and Köhler argued that our perceptual experience is structured in ways that cannot be reduced to, or explained in terms of, a mere aggregation of simple component sensations. They aimed to construct a systematic science of the mind centered on identifying and taxonomising these structural properties, and extending this methodology beyond the perceptual domain. Simultaneously, Phenomenologists such as Husserl, Gurwitsch, and Merleau-Ponty aimed to articulate systematic philosophies starting from the careful examination and description of lived experience, often focusing on the same phenomena and structures as Gestalt Psychologists.

Gestalt Psychology and Phenomenology share several key theoretical commitments: the phenomenal character of experience constitutes evidence; complex cognitive phenomena may be explained through structural analysis; and the mental constitutes a distinct realm for both philosophical and scientific study, not reducible to the merely physical. These commitments are also shared by many recent embodied, enactive, and ecological (“Multi-E”) approaches to cognitive science, that emphasize the embodied and environmentally structured nature of cognition.While work in multi-E cognitive science often pays lip service to its roots in Gestalt Psychology, J. J. Gibson, and Phenomenology, insufficient work has been done to draw on the insights of these traditions in a detailed or rigorous way to address the many foundational questions about the methods, metaphysics, and epistemology of embodied cognitive science, including:

·  What constitutes a good explanation of a cognitive capacity?

·  What are the limits of reductionist or modular conceptions of cognitive scientific explanation?

·  Is there a role for phenomenology in a rigorous perceptual science?

·  Does contemporary multi-E cognitive science escape the Phenomenological and Gestaltist critiques of traditional psychology?

·  How do contemporary views in multi-E cognitive science bear on whether perception should be construed as direct or indirect?

·  Does multi-E cognitive science entail a non-reductive ontology of mind?

We invite submissions of papers that draw on Gestalt Psychology, Phenomenology, or their interrelations to address the above questions, or contribute in other ways to understanding how the relationship between these research programs might shed light on methodological questions in philosophy of cognitive science.

In addition to papers with a contemporary focus, we welcome papers that investigate issues in the history of Phenomenology, Gestalt Psychology, multi-E cognitive science, or some combination of these, in a way that bears on pressing contemporary questions in philosophy of cognitive science.

Deadline:  14 May 2018

Submission Instructions:

Contributions must be in English, original and not under review elsewhere. Each submission should include a separate title page containing the contact details for the author(s), an abstract (150-250 words) and a list of 4–6 keywords. All papers will be subject to double-anonymous peer-review. Manuscripts should be submitted online through the Synthese Editorial Manager (https://www.editorialmanager.com/synt), by selecting the Special Issue “S.I.: Gestalt Phenomenology and Embodied Cognitive Science” from the article type drop-down menu. For further details, please refer to the author guidelines available on the journal’s website: (http://www.springer.com/philosophy/epistemology+and+philosophy+of+science/journal/11229?detailsPage=pltci_2998239)

Please direct any inquiries, concerns, or questions to the guest editors:

Alistair Isaac ([email protected])

Dave Ward ([email protected])