About the JNphi

The Journal of NeuroPhilosophy (JNφphi) is an established international, peer-reviewed, open-access scholarly journal dedicated to the interdisciplinary intersection of neuroscience and philosophy. The journal provides a scholarly platform for researchers and scholars seeking to investigate the reciprocal relationship between empirical knowledge of the brain and philosophical inquiry into the mind, consciousness, cognition, and human experience.

At the heart of JNφphi is the recognition that many of the most fundamental questions concerning the mind cannot be adequately addressed from either neuroscience or philosophy alone. Contemporary neuroscience provides increasingly sophisticated empirical accounts of neural systems, brain function, cognition, perception, memory, emotion, behavior, and consciousness. Philosophy, in turn, offers conceptual, analytical, epistemological, and theoretical frameworks through which the meaning, implications, assumptions, and explanatory limits of neuroscientific findings can be critically examined.

JNφphi is dedicated to bringing these two intellectual traditions into sustained and productive dialogue. The journal therefore places the neuroscience–philosophy intersection at the center of its scholarly identity, encouraging research that moves beyond disciplinary boundaries and examines how neuroscientific discoveries can inform philosophical questions, how philosophical analysis can contribute to the interpretation of neuroscientific evidence, and how interaction between the two disciplines can generate new theoretical and conceptual approaches.

History and Scholarly Identity

The Journal of NeuroPhilosophy was established and registered on July 4, 2007, under ISSN 1307-6531. Since its foundation, the journal has been committed to developing an interdisciplinary scholarly environment connecting neuroscience with philosophy and related fields.

The emergence and continued development of neurophilosophy reflect a broader transformation in the study of the mind. Questions that were traditionally addressed primarily through philosophical reasoning are increasingly investigated using neuroscientific methods, while neuroscientific discoveries increasingly generate questions that cannot be resolved through empirical investigation alone.

JNφphi occupies this interdisciplinary space.

The journal seeks to examine the conceptual and philosophical significance of neuroscientific knowledge, while also recognizing the importance of empirical neuroscience for contemporary philosophical investigations of mind, consciousness, cognition, perception, agency, identity, and human experience.

Its scholarly identity is therefore neither exclusively philosophical nor exclusively neuroscientific. Rather, JNφphi is positioned at the interface where neuroscience and philosophy encounter, challenge, and inform one another.

Open-Access Publishing

The Journal of NeuroPhilosophy is committed to open-access scholarly communication, enabling published research to be broadly accessible to the international academic community.

Open access is particularly valuable for an interdisciplinary field such as neurophilosophy because meaningful engagement may involve scholars working across philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, medicine, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and related disciplines.

By providing broad access to published scholarship, JNφphi seeks to facilitate the international exchange of ideas, increase the visibility and discoverability of interdisciplinary research, and encourage dialogue across institutional and disciplinary boundaries.

The journal considers open access an important component of its broader commitment to the dissemination of scholarly knowledge and to the development of an internationally connected research community.

Above Image: The Camille Flammarion engraving is a wood engraving by an unknown artist that first appeared in Camille Flammarion's L'atmosphère: météorologie populaire (1888). The image depicts a man crawling under the edge of the sky, depicted as if it were a solid hemisphere, to look at the mysterious Empyrean beyond.

The Neuroscience–Philosophy Intersection

The central intellectual focus of JNφphi is the interdisciplinary intersection of neuroscience and philosophy.

This intersection encompasses questions concerning how the brain gives rise to cognition and conscious experience, how neural mechanisms relate to mental states, how neuroscientific evidence should influence theories of mind, and how philosophical concepts can contribute to the interpretation of neuroscientific findings.

The journal is particularly interested in scholarship addressing questions such as:

• How should neuroscientific findings influence philosophical theories of mind?
• What can neuroscience tell us about the nature of consciousness?
• Can subjective experience be adequately explained in terms of neural mechanisms?
• What is the relationship between brain activity and mental states?
• How should concepts such as self, agency, identity, intention, and free will be understood in light of neuroscience?
• What are the philosophical implications of cognitive and affective neuroscience?
• What conceptual assumptions underlie neuroscientific theories and explanations?
• How can philosophical analysis clarify neuroscientific concepts, models, and interpretations?
• Where are the explanatory limits of reductionist, computational, or biological approaches to the mind?
• Can interdisciplinary approaches provide more comprehensive accounts of consciousness and cognition?

JNφphi welcomes scholarship that engages directly with such questions and contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between neural processes and mental phenomena.

Neuroscience as an Empirical Foundation

Neuroscience provides an essential empirical foundation for contemporary investigations of the mind and brain. Developments in cognitive neuroscience, systems neuroscience, computational neuroscience, neuropsychology, neuroimaging, electrophysiology, and related fields have significantly expanded our understanding of neural mechanisms underlying cognition and behavior.

However, empirical findings do not automatically resolve the philosophical questions associated with them.

A neural correlate of a mental state, for example, may provide important information concerning the biological conditions associated with that state without necessarily explaining the philosophical nature of consciousness itself. Similarly, identifying neural mechanisms associated with decision-making does not, by itself, settle longstanding philosophical questions concerning free will, agency, responsibility, or intentionality.

JNφphi therefore encourages scholarship that carefully distinguishes between empirical findings, theoretical interpretations, and philosophical conclusions.

The journal welcomes neuroscientific research when it contributes meaningfully to questions concerning mind, consciousness, cognition, or philosophical understanding, as well as interdisciplinary research in which neuroscientific evidence forms an important component of a broader philosophical investigation.

Philosophy as Conceptual and Critical Inquiry

Philosophy plays a complementary role within the JNφphi framework.

Philosophical analysis can clarify concepts, examine assumptions, distinguish different forms of explanation, evaluate theoretical claims, and identify questions that may remain unresolved by empirical investigation. It can also help determine what follows—and what does not follow—from neuroscientific evidence.

The journal therefore welcomes philosophical scholarship that engages seriously with contemporary neuroscience rather than treating neuroscience merely as a source of illustrative examples.

Particularly valuable are contributions in which philosophical arguments are informed by current neuroscientific knowledge, critically evaluate neuroscientific theories, or propose new conceptual frameworks for understanding empirical findings.

JNφphi also welcomes philosophical analyses that examine foundational issues such as reductionism, emergence, representation, embodiment, causation, explanation, levels of analysis, scientific realism, computational models, neural representations, and the relationship between first-person and third-person approaches to the mind.

Neurophilosophy and the Study of Mind

Neurophilosophy occupies a central position within the journal's intellectual scope. It represents a field in which philosophical questions concerning the mind are investigated in close relationship with contemporary findings and theories in neuroscience.

JNφphi approaches neurophilosophy as a genuinely interdisciplinary enterprise rather than as the simple application of philosophy to neuroscience. The field involves a reciprocal exchange in which empirical neuroscience can reshape philosophical problems, while philosophical analysis can influence how neuroscientific findings and theories are interpreted.

This reciprocal relationship is particularly important in the study of consciousness.

Consciousness remains one of the most challenging problems at the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy. Although contemporary neuroscience has identified numerous neural processes associated with conscious states, fundamental questions concerning subjective experience, phenomenal awareness, self-consciousness, and the relationship between neural activity and experience remain open.

JNφphi welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions addressing these questions, including research on neural correlates of consciousness, theories of consciousness, altered states of consciousness, self-awareness, perception, attention, embodiment, predictive processing, global workspace theories, integrated information approaches, higher-order theories, and other emerging frameworks.

Philosophy of Mind and Neuroscience

The relationship between neuroscience and the philosophy of mind constitutes another major area of interest for JNφphi.

The journal welcomes research examining how neuroscientific evidence bears upon longstanding philosophical questions concerning:

• the mind–brain relationship;
• mental causation;
• consciousness;
• intentionality;
• subjective experience;
• personal identity;
• selfhood;
• agency;
• free will;
• decision-making;
• perception;
• memory;
• emotion;
• cognition;
• embodiment; and
• the nature of mental representation.

The journal is particularly interested in contributions that critically engage with both philosophical arguments and contemporary empirical evidence.

Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy

The rapid development of cognitive neuroscience has created new opportunities for interdisciplinary research concerning perception, attention, memory, language, reasoning, decision-making, emotion, social cognition, and other aspects of human cognition.

JNφphi welcomes research examining the philosophical significance of these developments and their implications for theories of cognition and human behavior.

Contributions may explore how neuroscientific models challenge traditional philosophical distinctions, how cognitive theories can be integrated with neural explanations, or how interdisciplinary approaches can address questions that remain difficult to resolve within either cognitive science or philosophy alone.

Neuropsychology and the Philosophical Understanding of Mind

Neuropsychological research provides an important source of evidence for understanding the relationship between brain function and cognition. Observations arising from neurological and neuropsychological conditions have historically contributed to debates concerning memory, perception, language, personality, selfhood, consciousness, and the organization of cognitive functions.

JNφphi welcomes theoretically informed neuropsychological research where findings have broader implications for understanding the mind–brain relationship.

The journal particularly encourages contributions that connect neuropsychological evidence with philosophical questions concerning the nature and organization of mental functions and the relationship between neural systems and subjective experience.

Philosophy of Neuroscience

JNφphi also provides a forum for the philosophy of neuroscience itself.

This includes critical examination of the conceptual foundations, explanatory strategies, methodological assumptions, and theoretical models employed in neuroscience.

Relevant questions include:

• What constitutes an adequate neuroscientific explanation?
• How should neural mechanisms be understood?
• What is the role of reduction and emergence in neuroscience?
• How should different levels of neural and cognitive explanation be related?
• What does it mean for a mental phenomenon to have a neural correlate?
• How should neuroscientific models be interpreted?
• What are the epistemological limits of neuroimaging and other neuroscientific methods?
• How should causal claims concerning brain and behavior be evaluated?

Through this area of scholarship, JNφphi seeks to contribute not only to philosophical discussions about the mind, but also to a deeper philosophical understanding of neuroscience as a scientific discipline.

Emerging Technologies, Artificial Intelligence, and the Mind

The development of artificial intelligence and advanced neurotechnologies has further expanded the intersection between neuroscience and philosophy.

JNφphi welcomes interdisciplinary scholarship examining questions concerning artificial intelligence, computational models of cognition, machine consciousness, artificial minds, brain–computer interfaces, neuroprosthetics, neural decoding, cognitive enhancement, and human–machine interaction.

Such research may investigate whether computational or artificial systems can reproduce aspects of cognition, whether consciousness can be understood computationally, how biological and artificial intelligence should be compared, and what philosophical assumptions underlie emerging models of artificial and natural cognition.

Ethical questions may also arise within these areas, particularly where developments in neuroscience and neurotechnology affect autonomy, privacy, responsibility, identity, or human enhancement. However, such ethical questions are considered within the broader context of the journal's central concern with the neuroscience–philosophy relationship.

Interdisciplinary Scholarship

Interdisciplinarity is fundamental to the identity of JNφphi.

The journal encourages research that does not merely place neuroscience and philosophy side by side but establishes a substantive intellectual relationship between them.

For example, a manuscript may use neuroscientific evidence to reassess a philosophical theory of consciousness; employ philosophical analysis to clarify the conceptual foundations of a neuroscientific model; examine the philosophical implications of neuropsychological findings; or develop an interdisciplinary theoretical framework integrating neural, cognitive, and philosophical perspectives.

JNφphi particularly values scholarship in which the interaction between disciplines produces new questions, interpretations, concepts, or theoretical possibilities.

At the same time, interdisciplinarity does not mean the absence of disciplinary rigor. Contributions should demonstrate appropriate methodological, conceptual, and scholarly standards within the fields from which they draw.