Pain & Pleasure
CALL FOR PAPERS
Pain and Pleasure
Special issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology
Invited authors:
Professor Murat Aydede, Philosophy, University of British Columbia
Professor Valerie Hardcastle, Philosophy and Psychology, University of Cincinnati
Dr Siri Leknes, Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Oslo & Dr Brock Bastian, Psychology, University of Queensland
Deadline for submissions: 1 August 2013
The Theme
Consider your pain when you step on an upturned nail, and your pleasure when you taste your favourite wine or are tenderly caressed. How might we compare these experiences? What might be said about their relationships? We tend to say that your pain is unpleasant, negative, and bad while your experience of the wine and caresses is pleasant, positive, and good. This special issue will ask whether more can be said about the contrasts, similarities, and relationships between sensory pleasure, on the one hand, and physical pain and unpleasant sensory experience, on the other.
To illuminate pleasure, should we simply invert our theories of pain, or vice versa? Or are there asymmetries among the two cases? If so, what do the asymmetries tell us about pleasure, pain, and unpleasantness? What roles do pain and pleasure play? How do pain and pleasure interact?
This special issue will address pain and pleasure, and crucially the similarities, contrasts, and relationships between them. Contributions should focus on what might be called sensory hedonics: physical pain, other unpleasant sensory experiences, such as itch and nausea, and sensory pleasures.
The topic is ripe for interdisciplinary investigation. We encourage original contributions from psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers of mind, and ethicists, particularly papers that bring to bear more than one discipline. To fix ideas, there follows a list of key questions.
Key Questions
1. Ought pain and sensory pleasure be explained in parallel ways?
To illuminate either pleasure or pain, should we simply invert our theory of the other? Or are there asymmetries between the two cases? If so, what do the asymmetries tell us about pleasure, pain, and unpleasantness?
2. Are pains and sensory pleasures motivational in similar ways?
Pains are arguably motivational. Are pleasures motivational in the same way? In virtue of what do pains and pleasures motivate? At what, if anything, is the behaviour they motivate respectively aimed: avoiding harm and pursuing benefits; or avoiding unpleasantness and pursuing pleasure; or something else? What is the role of expressive behaviour (e.g. grimacing and smiling)? What, in these various respects, are the similarities and differences between pain and pleasure?
3. What roles do physical pain and sensory pleasures play?
What are the roles of pain, unpleasant experiences, and sensory pleasures? Is there more to these roles than the motivation of behaviour? Do they have symmetrical roles? If not, what is the adaptive value of the asymmetries?
4. How are pain and pleasure related to perception?
Can any perceptual experience be pleasant or unpleasant? Which if any perceptual experiences do physical pains involve? What if anything do these experiences represent? Many think pains represent bodily damage; but what about pleasures? What are the similarities and differences between the ways in which pleasure relates to perception and the ways in which pain—and sensory unpleasantness—does?
5. How do pain and pleasure interact?
Can we find the pleasantness of an experience unpleasant? Can we find an experience’s painfulness pleasant? Do masochists? Does relief from pain involve pleasure, or just less pain? How do pain and pleasure affect one another? How is each affected by other states? What, in these respects, are the similarities and differences between pain and pleasure?
Invited Authors
Professor Murat Aydede, Philosophy, University of British Columbia
Professor Valerie Hardcastle, Philosophy and Psychology, University of Cincinatti
Dr Siri Leknes, Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Oslo
Important Dates
1 August 2013 submission deadline
15 December 2013 target publication date
How to submit
Prospective authors should register at: www.editorialmanager.com/ropp to obtain a login and select Pain and Pleasure as the article type. Manuscripts should be approximately 8,000 words and conform to the author guidelines available on the journal's website.
About the journal
The Review of Philosophy and Psychology (ISSN: 1878-5158; eISSN: 1878-5166) is a peer-reviewed journal, published quarterly by Springer, which focuses on philosophical and foundational issues in cognitive science. The journal’s aim is to provide a forum for discussion on topics of mutual interest to philosophers and psychologists and to foster interdisciplinary research at the crossroads of philosophy and the sciences of the mind, including the neural, behavioural and social sciences. The journal publishes theoretical works grounded in empirical research as well as empirical articles on issues of philosophical relevance. It includes thematic issues featuring invited contributions from leading authors together with articles answering a call for papers. See http://www.springer.com/philosophy/journal/13164
Contact
For any queries, please email the guest editors: