For the extended version of this call for abstracts, see: https://philosophymindscience.org/index.php/phimisci/announcement/view/82
We are currently inviting submissions for a special issue on Perception and Artificial Intelligence in Philosophy and the Mind Sciences, guest edited by Heather Logue and Daniel Weger. Philosophers expressing interest to submit are Susan Schneider, Susanna Schellenberg, Mazviita Chirimuuta, Krys Dolega, Azenet Lopez, Alfredo Vernazzani, and Renee Ye.
While the growing importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in our everyday lives has led to increased philosophical interest, most debates focus on ethics, agency, creativity, cognition, or consciousness. By contrast, the question of whether AI systems can perceive has received remarkably little attention. Yet perception is highly relevant to epistemological, action-theoretic, and moral questions concerning AI. There is therefore an urgent need to examine the topic of perception and AI more closely.
This special issue aims to establish AI perception as a distinct area of philosophical inquiry. It invites contributions that address conceptual, empirical, and normative questions concerning the perceptual capacities of AI systems. Relevant topics and questions include, but are not limited to the following:
- Can current AI systems be said to perceive in any meaningful sense?
- What can debates about AI perception teach us about the concept of perception itself?
- How does artificial perception differ from biological perception?
- What can recent developments in computer vision and multimodal AI systems contribute to debates about AI perception?
- What are the implications for debates in normative ethics, epistemology, and action theory?
- What lessons about the possibility of artificial consciousness can be learned from the debate on AI perception?
As part of the special issue project, we are organising an international workshop at the University of Leeds on 12–13 July 2027, bringing together invited contributors and selected participants. Authors interested in contributing to the special issue are encouraged to submit an abstract (500 words plus bibliography) for consideration for the workshop. Acceptance of an abstract concerns participation in the workshop only and does not guarantee acceptance or publication of a subsequent manuscript in the special issue. Participation in the workshop is not a prerequisite for submitting a manuscript to the special issue. The abstract submission deadline is 31 January 2027. Successful applicants will be notified by 1 March 2027. For inquiries, please contact Daniel Weger (d.m.weger@leeds.ac.uk).
We accept submissions in different lengths, but we expect a majority of submissions to be between 4,000 and 8,000 words. Submissions should not exceed the maximum length of 10,000 words (including footnotes, excluding references, title, and abstract). The journal’s usual author guidelines for author’s submissions apply. After an initial screening by the editors of the Special Issue, all relevant submissions (including submissions by invited contributors) will undergo double-blind peer review.
Full submissions are due on 30 September 2027. The publication date of the special issue is planned for the 2nd quarter of 2028.
For pre-submission inquiries (even ahead of writing a manuscript), please contact Daniel Weger (d.m.weger@leeds.ac.uk).