CALL FOR PAPERS

The Senses: The 17th Annual Graduate Student Philosophy Conference
Philosophy Program, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
April 25th and 26th 2014
Keynote Speakers: Tim Bayne (University of Manchester) and Fiona Macpherson (University of Glasgow)
Conference Organizers: Zoe Jenkin (CUNY), Kate Pendoley (CUNY), and David Neely (CUNY)
Deadline for Submission: 1 January 2014
Notification of decisions will be sent by March 1 2014. Please send any questions to thesensescuny@gmail.com.

The Theme:
The senses play a crucial and pervasive role in both our everyday experience and in debates across diverse areas of philosophy. These include perceptual and cognitive architecture, consciousness, aesthetics, and epistemology, among others. Philosophers who have dealt with the topic of the senses range from Aristotle to Moore to Grice to McDowell, yet many issues still remain to be explored. The following questions are offered as suggestions for contributions:
• How should we individuate the senses? Is there a clear distinction between perception and cognition? If so, how should we draw the line?
• What is the nature of the contents of sensory experience (rich or sparse, conceptual or non-conceptual, representational or not)?
• To what extent are the sensory modalities made up of informationally encapsulated, domain-specific modules? To what extent do sensory states interact with each other and with cognitive states like beliefs, desires, fears, and moods?
• Is vision different from the other senses in a fundamental way? If so, what are the implications of this difference for theories of perception, content, and justification?
• What is distinctive about the bodily senses, such as proprioception and interoception? Do they enable agentive awareness, and if so, how?
• Does sensory experience have a privileged epistemological role? Do experiences provide justification in virtue of their phenomenology or in virtue of the detection capacities they endow?
• How do the senses function in the perception and appreciation of art, and can features of this role help us to define and characterize aesthetic experience?
We will give preference to submissions on the topic of the senses, but we will consider submissions in any area of philosophy. We encourage submissions that engage empirical research, especially in neuroscience and psychology. Please send the following to thesensecuny@gmail.com in two separate documents, in either .doc or .pdf format
1) A cover letter including the author’s name, university affiliation, contact information, title of paper, topic area, word count, and an abstract of no more than 250 words.
2) A paper prepared for blind review. Submissions should not exceed 4,000 words and should be suitable for a 40-minute presentation.