Skip to main content

Interview on the journal 'Passion'

On the blog today, Kathleen speaks to Alfred Archer and Heidi Maibom about the journal 'Passion', which was launched relatively recently. Alfred and Heidi are editors-in-chief of the journal.
 

Alfred Archer

 KMH: Could you tell us a little bit about Passion, and its links to EPSSE?

AA & HM: Certainly. 2014, The European Philosophical Society for the Study of Emotions (EPSSE) has been going for ten years now and has grown into a wonderful, lively and welcoming group of scholars working on philosophical issues related to emotions. Several years ago, it was suggested that the society could look into starting its own journal . The main reason for this was that while EPSSE’s members were publishing their work in a range of philosophical and interdisciplinary journals, there was no academic journal dedicated to publishing the kinds of papers that EPSSE members were writing. Between 2017 and 2020 the executive board, then led by Achim Stephan, explored various options for starting an open access journal with commercial publishers.

When we took up our positions on the executive committee of the society (together with Joel Krueger), we decided that it would be better to look for a non-commercial publisher, as this would give a better financial deal for both the society and to the authors, as well as allowing the society to decide for itself how it wants the journal to be run. By happy coincidence, Tilburg University (where Alfred works) was just starting an initiative to encourage open science which included the start of an open access publisher, Open Press TiU. By working with Open Press TiU we are able to publish a completely open access journal that is free for both the reader and the author, and with only minimal costs for EPSSE. 

Heidi Maibom

KMH: What inspired you to start the journal?

AA & HM: We both felt that EPSSE was an inspiring group of philosophers, which every year would have a conference full of some of the most interesting philosophical work on emotions and that it was a real pity that there was no journal committed to publishing this kind of research. Having a journal would both be a major boost to the society and help draw attention to the valuable work being done by its members and others doing similarly exciting, cutting-edge, and engaged philosophical work on emotions. This feeling was shared by the other members of the executive board at the time (Max Gatyas, Joel Krueger and Lucy Osler) who are now the journal’s associate editors and who have been crucial in getting the journal started. 

KMH: What kind of topics do you hope to publish about in the journal?

AA & HM: As the title suggests, we are looking for original work on emotions. This could be papers on the nature of emotions generally or on specific emotions, such as guilt, anger, or joy. We are also interested in work on the connection between emotions and human welfare, politics, or art. We publish papers in both the philosophical traditions: analytic and continental. And although this is a philosophical journal, we are pretty ecumenical about what we take a philosophically interesting paper to be. We embrace interdisciplinarity and our own work is heavily influenced by work in fields traditionally external to philosophy, such as psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, history, anthropology, and so on. One does not have to be a card-carrying philosopher to publish in Passion, but the paper should be philosophical in nature. 

KMH: Are there any events or special issues coming up which we should keep an eye out for? 

AA & HM: At this time, we publish two issues a year. One with papers received during the normal course of events, and another which is a special issue. The special issue has historically been connected with a workshop organized in connection with the yearly meeting of EPSSE. Last year, that issue was about co-experienced emotions (which you can read here), and this year it will be on the nature of emotions, and is guest edited by Heidy Meriste. We strongly encourage anybody philosophically inclined to submit their papers to the next issue Passion, which will appear this summer..

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Delusions in the DSM 5

This post is by Lisa Bortolotti. How has the definition of delusions changed in the DSM 5? Here are some first impressions. In the DSM-IV (Glossary) delusions were defined as follows: Delusion. A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture (e.g., it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgment, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility.
Read more

Motivated Reasoning in Science

Today's post is by Josh May (University of Alabama, Birmingham). In this post, he talks about one of his papers published in Synthese and entitled " Bias in Science ". Josh May Much discussion of the replication crisis in science has focused on the social sciences, particularly psychology. A common narrative is that the social sciences are particularly susceptible to powerful biases, such as moral and political ideology. I argue instead for a parity thesis: all areas of science are subject to bias, through the general psychological mechanism of motivated reasoning . This provides a unified framework for understanding how values influence the entire scientific enterprise. The scientific process involves numerous decisions that can be influenced by one's values--including moral, political, and prudential values--which manifest as goals or motivations. A researcher wants badly, say, to publish in a prestigious journal in order to either advance her career or maintain ...
Read more

Models of Madness

In today's post John Read  (in the picture above) presents the recent book he co-authored with Jacqui Dillon , titled Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Psychosis. My name is John Read. After 20 years working as a Clinical Psychologist and manager of mental health services in the UK and the USA, mostly with people experiencing psychosis, I joined the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1994. There I published over 100 papers in research journals, primarily on the relationship between adverse life events (e.g., child abuse/neglect, poverty etc.) and psychosis. I also research the negative effects of bio-genetic causal explanations on prejudice, and the role of the pharmaceutical industry in mental health. In February I moved to Melbourne and I now work at Swinburne University of Technology.  I am on the on the Executive Committee of the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis and am the Editor...
Read more