CALL FOR PAPERS
Book Symposium
Author Bio: Heidi L. Maibom received her Cand Phil from University of Copenhagen in 1994 and her PhD from University of London in 2000. She was a Postdoc in the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology program at Washington University in St. Louis 2001-2003, and Assistant/Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Department of Philosophy at Carleton University 2003-2013. She has been Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati since 2014. In 2021, she became Ikerbasque Research Professor & Distinguished Professor at ILCLI at the University of the Basque Country. She has held fellowships at Cambridge University and Princeton University.
Abstract: When Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court, his comments that a judge should have "the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay, disabled, or old" caused a furor. Objective, reasoned, and impartial judgment were to be replaced by partiality, sentiment, and bias, critics feared. This concern about empathy has since been voiced not just by conservative critics, but by academics and public figures. In The Space Between, Heidi Maibom combines results from philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience to argue that rather than making us more biased or partial, empathy makes us more impartial and more objective.
The problem is that we don't see the world objectively in the first place, Maibom explains. We see it in terms of how we are placed in it: as an extension of our interests, capabilities, and relationships. This is a perspective and it determines what we pay attention to, how we interpret events, and what matters to us individually. It is not private, however. By means of the imagination, Maibom contends, we can place ourselves in another person's web interests, capabilities, and relationships and, viewing the world from there, experience a new way of interpreting and valuing what happens. This broadens and deepens our understanding of others and the world around us. It also helps us understand the greater reality of who we are ourselves.
Maibom's book weaves together results from philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience to provide a positive up-to-date view of what it really means to take another person's perspective, and how empathy, rather than being the enemy of objectivity, is the foundation of it.
The Journal of Philosophy of Emotion (JPE) is planning a book symposium on Dr. Heidi L. Maibom's new book, The Space Between: How Empathy Really Works, and we are looking for three (3) additional commentators who are interested in engaging in a critical discussion of it, with the aim of moving the discourse on relevant topics highlighted by her book.
Invited commentaries will be published, alongside commentaries by Elizabeth Waldberg (York University) and Kristin Andrews (York University), and Carl Hildebrand (University of Hong Kong), contingent on peer review. We are hoping to publish this book symposium in the JPE’s Summer (September) 2025. If you are interested in being a commentator, please email submissions[dot]jpe[at]gmail.com, with information about your interest, along with a copy of your CV, by July 31, 2024. Please also make sure to specify the book symposium in the email subject line. Invited commentators will be contacted by August 15, 2024, with the decision regarding their expressed interest and any further details. All commentaries will be due December 31, 2024.
We encourage a diversity of scholars of all ranks who are interested in participating as a commentator to respond to this CFP, provided that they are willing and able to commit to fulfilling the expectations set by the JPE's submission guidelines and the JPE’s double-anonymous peer review process. Please refer to past issues of the JPE for examples, and all submissions must adhere to the JPE’s style guideline (which includes a Google Doc manuscript template), and note that authors are responsible for providing all necessary DOIs and appropriately formatting their references. All contributors are also responsible for copyediting their own submissions and providing any requested citation information, although the JPE will also conduct a preliminary review and copyedit check of all submissions accepted to go to peer review. No submission will be sent to peer review without the appropriate formatting, in accordance with the JPE style guidelines. The JPE also requires a submission fee of $35, or you can become a member of the Society for Philosophy of Emotion (SPE), which includes a one time JPE submission fee waiver. The JPE is an independently published, open-access journal, and all manuscript submission fees go toward paying for operating costs and providing need based subventions to facilitate diverse and inclusive participation. Our completely transparent Financial Report is also made available for your review.
Commentators will be selected not only based on their qualifications, but also based on their cooperative compliance and the consideration for the value of diversity and inclusiveness among equally qualified commentators. Potential contributors are also welcome to let us know in their letter of interest that they would be willing to referee the composed book symposium if for some reason they were not invited to contribute a commentary, but would still like to contribute to the book symposium. All referees may also choose to be publicly acknowledged in a subsequent issue of the JPE. A digital copy of the book will be provided to those invited to contribute a commentary and to those interested in peer reviewing the completed book symposium. Please let us know if you will also need a hard copy.