Balkan Journal of Philosophy

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

SPECIAL THEMATIC ISSUE (2025)

Philosophers take representations to be vehicles of meaning, exhibiting intentionality. As such, there are many different varieties of representations: linguistic, perceptual, logical, political, artistic, moral, scientific, etc. Despite the rather ubiquitous use of the term “representation”, we still know little about various ways in which human mind represents things. In a recent collection of papers, Non-Propositional Intentionality (2018), Alex Grzankowski, Michelle Montague (eds.) and the authors have paved the way for recognizing specific differences between propositional and non-propositional representations.

There are further distinctions worthy of investigation. Consider, for instance, the way we represent things in different sensory modalities. Visual, audio, tactile, and olfactory representations can be about the same object in rather different ways. Also, some representations are not intended at external objects at all, but rather at our own mental states or the states of others. For instance, phenomenal concepts are supposed to represent the phenomenology of our states. What are the semantic properties of such underexplored representations: reference, content, truth-conditions, etc.? Are all forms of non-propositional representations forms of mental imagery?

The thematic issue “Varieties of Representations” aims at shaping a vision of how new strategies in philosophy, itself and in collaboration with other cognitive sciences, influence our understanding of representations. We invite contributions from all domains of philosophy with special emphasis on reconsiderations of the notion of representation in light of recent ideas in philosophy and cognitive sciences. For instance, what is the role of representations in the extended mind (a question already raised by Kriegleder (2022)), or are there inconclusive representations typical of transitional attitudes (Staffel 2019, 2021)? We are also interested in naturalized approaches, exploring the relationship between brain activity and representations, as well as teleological theories of mental content.

Submitted papers should not exceed 8,000 words (including references, an abstract of about 150 words, and a short list of keywords). Papers should be sent to the journal’s email address at: balkanjournalofphilosophy@gmail.com.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: November 30, 2024.

This special issue will appear in 2025.