JCS (2001-2) Publishing Programme

As usual JCS will contain a balance of submitted papers and focused topics, some of which will make double issues. There are a number of special features in preparation, including:

Intersubjectivity: Second-person Approaches to the Study of Consciousness

Edited by Evan Thompson

Authors with papers under review include Yoko Arisaka, J. Allen Cheyne, Jonathan Cole, Natalie Depraz, Shaun Gallagher, Vittorio Gallese, Iso Kern, Eduard Marbach, Victoria McGeer, Annabella Pitkin, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Barbara Smuts, Anthony Steinbock, Evan Thompson, Kay Toombs, Alan Wallace and Dan Zahavi.

Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion?

Edited by Alva Noë

The discovery of such phenomena as change blindness and inattentional blindness has led numerous scientists and philosophers to embrace a new scepticism about the nature of perceptual consciousness. Whereas traditional scepticism questions whether we can know — on the basis of experience — that things are in reality as we perceptually experience them, the new sceptics challenge the very idea that we have the perceptual experience we think we have. Perceptual consciousness, these writers suggest, is a kind of false consciousness. This new scepticism has broad implications for the study of perception and consciousness. The writings collected in this volume explore these implications.

Animal Consciousness

John Searle is very confident that his dog Ludwig is conscious (JCS 5, 1998, p. 729). Many would challenge him, because there is real issue as to whether any nonhuman animals actually have consciousness. Allied to this are further questions such as how the matter could be decided, of which animals it might be true, what kind of consciousness they might have, etc. If we allow that at least some animals do have consciousness, then a set of ethical issues arises concerning how we should treat them. A special issue of JCS will explore both the foundational and the related questions.

Parapsychology

We can only apologise for the continuing delays with this special issue which will be published as soon as the guest editors have completed their task.