CFP: Annals of the Japan Society for Philosophy of Science: Special Issue on the Philosophy of Mental Time

Human experience takes place in time, but we also appear to experience time – or the passing of time – itself. While this may seem a rather obvious observation, it raises a number of puzzling questions. How do we experience time? What exactly do we experience when we experience time? Do we actually experience time? Or do we infer time from something in or some aspect of our experience?

These are questions that are not likely to be (satisfactorily) answered by philosophers alone, but that need the input of neuroscientists, psychologists, and others, and conversely, answers to these questions may have implications outside the scope of philosophy.

The subject matter of this special issue of the Annals of the Japan Society for Philosophy of Science is "mental time", the experience and awareness of time, including that of past, present, and future. Its scope is interdisciplinary – we invite contributions that straddle the boundaries between philosophy and the empirical sciences, or between different sciences or different branches (etc.) of philosophy.

Topics we would like to see addressed include – but are not limited to – the following.

* Perceiving the present. -- For example, duration of the experienced present (i.e. the specious present), discrete vs. continuous present, and so forth.

* Perceiving the past and future. -- Memory, mental time travel, future concern, the anticipation of death, and related topics.

* Time in ethics and social philosophy. -- Future generations and distributive justice, the relevance of time awareness for moral status, and so forth

* Time awareness and the metaphysics of time. -- Can aspects of our experience and awareness of time contribute to solving the metaphysical puzzles about time (such as those of the A Theory vs. B Theory, presentism vs. eternalism, 3Dism vs. 4Dism, and so forth)? Conversely, can the metaphysics of time improve the (philosophical and/or scientific) understanding of the experience of time?

The special issue of the Annals of the Japan Society for Philosophy of Science is scheduled for publication in 2019. The deadline for submissions of proposed contributions to that special issue is February 24, 2018. Papers selected for the special issue will go through the normal peer review process after selection.