Call for Papers: PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY – Special Issue of “Thaumàzein”

The analysis of mental disorders necessarily requires a careful and multilayered reflection. Psychiatry is indeed focused on complex phenomena and symptoms that can be only partly traced back to merely quantitative objectifiable data. This is thereason why we can witness a growing methodological and conceptual “mutual enlightenment” between philosophy and psychiatry. Whereas philosophy offers notions that can help to take into account also the qualitative aspects and the lived experiences of pathologies, clinical psychiatry seems to represent one of the most relevant practical fields that allow philosophy to test its explanatory capacity regarding its several central issues. The history of phenomenological psychopathology, in particular, shows that among philosophers there has been a keen interest in the practical consequences of these issues in the field of clinical psychopathology.

It is important to note that psychiatry, in diagnosing and analyzing some disorders as well as in elaborating therapeutic directions, turns to the concepts that have a pronounced philosophical relevance. Human being, common sense, self, lived body (Leib) and inanimate body (Körper), intersubjectivity are some of the concepts employed to comprehend several psychopathologies, for instance, those entailing profound emotional and intersubjective disabilities such as schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder and depression. On these concepts there have been vivid philosophical discussions. It is therefore quite difficult to imagine, for example, that the connections between time, body and otherness which emerge in certain psychopathologies can be analyzed, completely detached from the philosophical debate over these issues or without asking whether there is any relationship between mental disturbances and the peculiarity of human existence.

Considering these convergences, this CFP aims at investigating possible relationships between specific psychopathological symptoms and a series of crucial issues of philosophy, such as:

1) Anthropogenesis and Phenomenology of Emotions;
2) Intersubjectivity and Direct Perception of Expressivity of the Other;
3) Phenomenology of Embodiment;
4) Minimal Self and Plasticity of the Process of Human Formation (Bildung) 5) Value-ception (Wertnehmung), Order of Feeling, Philosophy of Person; 6) Atypical Social Cognition and Common Sense.

Contributions should be submitted in English and should not exceed 10,000 words, including abstract, footnotes, and references. Manuscripts should be preparedfollowing Thaumàzein‘s style guidelines (http://thaumazein.it/formatting-guidelines- for-authors/), and should not have been published or be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Submissions should be sent by e-mail to Guido Cusinato (guido.cusinato@univr.it) within the 30th of November 2018

Invited Contributors include:
Anna Donise (University of Naples, Italy), Mads Gram Henriksen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Kohji Ishihara (University of Tokyo, Japan), Joel Krueger (University of Exeter, the U.K.), Federico Leoni (University of Verona, Italy), Paolo Augusto Masullo (University of Basilicata, Italy), Aaron Mishara (The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the U.S.), Guilherme Messas (Faculdade de Ciências Médicas da Santa Casa de São Paulo, Brazil), Virginia Moreira (University of Fortaleza, Brazil), Mario Rossi Monti (University of Urbino, Italy), Riccardo Panattoni (University of Verona, Italy), Gilberto di Petta (Scuola di Psicoterapia Fenomenologico-dinamica of Florence, Italy), Giovanni Stanghellini (University of Chieti-Pescara, Scuola di Psicoterapia Fenomenologico- dinamica of Florence, Italy)

Click here to download the Call for Papers