The Journal of NeuroPhilosophy (JNφphi) is an international, open-access scholarly journal dedicated to the rigorous and interdisciplinary study of the relationships among the brain, mind, consciousness, cognition, behavior, philosophy, and emerging scientific and technological paradigms. The journal provides a forum for critical, theoretically informed, and scientifically grounded dialogue at the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy, while remaining open to relevant contributions from cognitive science, psychology, artificial intelligence, physics, biology, linguistics, ethics, and related disciplines.

Established on July 4, 2007 (ISSN 1307-6531), JNφphi is committed to advancing neurophilosophy as an interdisciplinary field in which philosophical analysis and empirical investigation mutually inform one another. The journal encourages contributions that examine fundamental questions concerning the nature of mind and consciousness while engaging critically with contemporary developments in neuroscience and the broader sciences of the mind.

JNφphi publishes original research articles, review articles, theoretical and conceptual papers, hypothesis and theory articles, perspectives, commentaries, opinion and discussion papers, book reviews, and other scholarly contributions that advance understanding of neurophilosophical questions.

The journal particularly welcomes work that connects empirical findings with philosophical analysis, develops new conceptual frameworks, critically evaluates established theories, or explores the philosophical implications of emerging scientific discoveries.

Neurophilosophy and Cognitive Science

JNφphi welcomes interdisciplinary research addressing the relationship between neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophical theories of mind. Topics include the nature of cognition, consciousness, intentionality, mental representation, mental content, learning, memory, mental imagery, and the relationship between cognitive processes and brain function.

The journal is particularly interested in contemporary approaches including connectionism, embodied cognition, computational theories of mind, functionalism, representational theories, higher-order theories of consciousness, and theories concerning the unity of consciousness.

Research may also address the relationship between cognition and emotion, folk psychology, experimental philosophy, causal theories of mental states, the language of thought hypothesis, and contemporary theories of agency and mental representation.

Questions concerning qualia, subjective experience, the knowledge argument, philosophical zombies, and the mind–brain relationship are considered within the broader investigation of consciousness and cognition.

JNφphi also welcomes interdisciplinary work examining how developments in cognitive science and neuroscience challenge, refine, or extend traditional philosophical conceptions of mind.

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.

Neuroethics and Moral Philosophy

JNφphi considers the ethical, social, and philosophical implications of developments in neuroscience, medicine, biotechnology, and cognitive science.

Relevant topics include autonomy, agency, personal identity, moral responsibility, decision-making capacity, implicit decision-making, justice, inequality, privacy, informed consent, and the ethical use of biomedical information.

The journal welcomes contributions addressing the ethical implications of emerging technologies and biomedical interventions, including human enhancement, reproductive technologies, genetic modification, neurotechnology, and advanced forms of cognitive intervention.

Particular attention may be given to questions concerning the relationship between biological explanations of human behavior and concepts of responsibility, freedom, dignity, and moral agency.

Neuroaesthetics

JNφphi welcomes research examining the relationship between the brain, cognition, perception, emotion, art, beauty, and aesthetic experience.

Neuroaesthetic research may integrate neuroscience, perceptual psychology, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, philosophy of art, and related disciplines to investigate how aesthetic experiences arise and how they are represented within the nervous system.

Topics may include the neural mechanisms of aesthetic perception, artistic creativity, emotional and sensory responses to art, aesthetic valuation, perceptual organization, and the relationship between meaning, knowledge, and aesthetic experience.

The journal is particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches exploring how neurological, cognitive, evolutionary, and philosophical perspectives can jointly contribute to understanding aesthetic experience.

Neurophilosophy of Free Will, Agency, and Responsibility

The relationship between free will, agency, causation, determinism, and neuroscience constitutes an important area of inquiry within JNφphi.

The journal welcomes philosophical and neuroscientific analyses of compatibilism, incompatibilism, libertarian and nondeterministic accounts of agency, causal theories of action, moral responsibility, and the neural foundations of decision-making.

Research may investigate whether neuroscientific accounts of human behavior challenge traditional concepts of freedom and responsibility, as well as how contemporary theories of brain function can inform philosophical debates concerning agency.

The possible relationship between quantum indeterminacy, causal processes, and human agency may also be considered where supported by rigorous philosophical or scientific analysis.

Neurotheology, Spirituality, and the Brain

JNφphi welcomes interdisciplinary investigations of the relationship between brain function, spirituality, religious experience, consciousness, and human meaning-making.

Topics may include the neuroscience of prayer, meditation, mystical and transcendent experiences, spiritual awe, altered states of consciousness, self-transcendence, and experiences of unity or interconnectedness.

The journal encourages contributions drawing on neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, philosophy, anthropology, religious studies, and related disciplines to examine the cognitive and neural dimensions of spiritual and religious experience.

Research may also consider the relationship between spirituality and well-being, the neural correlates of altered states, and philosophical questions concerning the interpretation and significance of extraordinary subjective experiences.

Quantum Mechanics, Mind, and Consciousness

JNφphi provides a forum for rigorous philosophical and theoretical examination of proposed relationships between quantum mechanics, consciousness, cognition, and the nature of reality.

Relevant discussions may include the measurement problem, Bohmian mechanics, collapse theories, the Copenhagen interpretation, Everettian and many-worlds interpretations, modal interpretations, and decoherence.

The journal welcomes contributions that critically examine claims concerning quantum theories of consciousness and their philosophical implications. Such contributions should distinguish established physical theory from speculative extensions and should clearly articulate the conceptual and empirical status of the proposed relationships.

Neurogenetics, Neurobiology, and the Biological Foundations of Mind

JNφphi welcomes interdisciplinary research addressing the biological foundations of cognition, behavior, personality, decision-making, and human agency.

Relevant topics include developmental neurobiology, neurogenetics, genotype–phenotype relationships, heritability, biological individuality, evolutionary neuroscience, Darwinian approaches to behavior, and levels of biological organization.

The journal also welcomes philosophical and ethical analyses of genetic and neurobiological explanations of human behavior, including questions concerning reductionism, biological determinism, human enhancement, and the social implications of genetic knowledge.

Particular attention may be given to the interaction between biological mechanisms and environmental, developmental, social, and cultural factors in shaping human cognition and behavior.

Paranormal Belief, Altered States, and the Brain

JNφphi is open to scientifically and philosophically rigorous investigations of paranormal belief, anomalous experiences, altered states of consciousness, and their cognitive and neurobiological correlates.

Relevant topics may include déjà vu, unusual perceptual experiences, anomalous cognition, spiritual and paranormal beliefs, schizotypal traits, religiosity, temporal-lobe phenomena, and the cognitive mechanisms underlying belief formation.

Research employing methods such as EEG, SPECT, PET, fMRI, and other neuroimaging or neurophysiological approaches may contribute to this area when methodologically rigorous.

The journal encourages critical examination of both extraordinary claims and conventional explanations, emphasizing appropriate methodological standards and careful distinction between subjective experience, interpretation, and empirical evidence.

Death, Brain Death, Afterlife, and Survival

JNφphi welcomes philosophical, neuroscientific, and interdisciplinary investigations of death, brain death, consciousness, personal identity, survival, and the possibility of post-mortem existence.

Topics may include philosophical definitions of life and death, criteria for brain death, personal identity, near-death experiences, theories of survival, dualism and materialism, the philosophy of mind, and historical theories of the soul.

The journal also considers the ethical dimensions of euthanasia, end-of-life decision-making, cryopreservation, hypothetical consciousness transfer, artificial immortality, and technological approaches to extending human existence.

Contributions may critically examine claims concerning survival after death while distinguishing philosophical possibilities, empirical evidence, and speculative hypotheses.

Artificial Intelligence, Social Robotics, and Human–Machine Interaction

JNφphi welcomes research examining the philosophical, cognitive, ethical, and neuroscientific implications of artificial intelligence, machine intelligence, social robotics, and human–machine interaction.

Relevant topics include the nature of intelligence, machine cognition, causation, computability, complexity, learning, reasoning, language, and artificial forms of agency.

Classical and contemporary philosophical questions concerning the Turing Test, the Chinese Room, machine understanding, consciousness, intentionality, and computational theories of mind are particularly relevant.

The journal also welcomes research concerning AI ethics, privacy, moral responsibility, social cognition, human–robot interaction, algorithmic decision-making, and the societal implications of increasingly autonomous technological systems.

Language, Linguistics, and the Neural Basis of Communication

JNφphi welcomes interdisciplinary research investigating the relationship between language, cognition, brain function, and communication.

Relevant areas include linguistics, neurolinguistics, cognitive science, computational neuroscience, linguistic typology, comparative cognition, formal language theory, and mathematical approaches to language and cognition.

Research may address language processing, semantic representation, bilingualism, language control, executive functions, linguistic computation, and the neural organization of language.

The journal particularly welcomes research integrating linguistic theory with neuroscientific methods, including neuroimaging and computational approaches, to investigate how linguistic information is represented, processed, learned, and retrieved.

Neuroepistemology, Neurophenomenology, and the Philosophy of Mind

JNφphi welcomes philosophical and empirical approaches examining how the brain contributes to knowledge, perception, belief, experience, and consciousness.

The journal is interested in neuroepistemology, neurophenomenology, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, naturalism, ontology, internalism and externalism, reductionism, functionalism, dualism, and mind–brain identity theories.

Historical perspectives, including contributions from Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, are welcomed when they illuminate contemporary questions concerning mind, consciousness, selfhood, and cognition.

The journal also encourages work that brings phenomenological descriptions of experience into constructive dialogue with contemporary neuroscience.

Complex Systems, Brain Networks, and Emergent Mind

JNφphi welcomes theoretical and empirical research examining cognition and consciousness as phenomena emerging from complex biological and neurocognitive systems.

Relevant frameworks include the Free Energy Principle, Complex Adaptive Systems, Evolutionary Systems Theory, network neuroscience, brain connectivity, modularity, network topology, dynamical systems, and large-scale neurocognitive networks.

Research may investigate how causality, probability, determinism, emergence, organization, and network dynamics contribute to cognitive and mental functions.

The journal is particularly interested in approaches that move beyond simple reductionism and examine how multiple levels of organization—from neural mechanisms to cognitive, behavioral, and social processes—interact in the emergence of mind and consciousness.

Physics of Mind and Theoretical Neuroscience

JNφphi welcomes interdisciplinary theoretical work exploring whether principles from physics, mathematics, information theory, dynamical systems, and theoretical neuroscience can contribute to understanding mind and brain function.

Topics may include computational models of cognition, physical theories of mental processes, information processing, dynamical approaches to consciousness, predictive processing, variational approaches, and mathematical models of brain organization.

Such contributions should clearly distinguish established theoretical frameworks from speculative proposals and should articulate their philosophical, mathematical, or empirical implications.

Evolution, Cognition, and Social Behavior

The journal welcomes research examining cognition and behavior from evolutionary, biological, neuroscientific, and philosophical perspectives.

Topics include the evolution of cognition, cooperation, altruism, social behavior, evolutionary game theory, reciprocal interactions, decision-making, adaptive behavior, and the relationship between biological evolution and cognitive architecture.

The journal is particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches that investigate how evolutionary processes interact with neural, cognitive, environmental, and social mechanisms.

Additional and Emerging Topics

The scope of JNφphi is intentionally interdisciplinary and remains open to emerging questions at the boundaries of neuroscience, philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, biology, physics, artificial intelligence, linguistics, ethics, and related fields.

The journal welcomes contributions that introduce new theoretical frameworks, challenge established assumptions, integrate previously separate areas of inquiry, or identify emerging philosophical questions arising from scientific and technological developments.

Potentially relevant areas include, but are not limited to:

• Philosophy of neuroscience

• Philosophy of psychology

• Philosophy of biology

• Philosophy of artificial intelligence

• Philosophy of information

• Consciousness studies

• Cognitive neuroscience

• Computational neuroscience

• Neurophenomenology

• Neuroepistemology

• Neuroethics

• Neuroaesthetics

• Neurotheology

• Philosophy of perception

• Philosophy of language

• Philosophy of science

• Evolutionary cognition

• Brain–computer interfaces

• Neurotechnology

• Predictive processing

• Information theory and consciousness

• Complex systems and network neuroscience

• Artificial and machine consciousness

• Human–AI interaction

• Embodied and extended cognition

• Altered states of consciousness

Interdisciplinary Orientation

The distinctive character of the Journal of NeuroPhilosophy lies in its commitment to meaningful dialogue across disciplinary boundaries. JNφphi does not regard neuroscience and philosophy as isolated domains; rather, it considers them complementary perspectives through which fundamental questions concerning mind, brain, consciousness, cognition, agency, knowledge, morality, and human existence can be investigated.

The journal therefore encourages submissions that move beyond disciplinary silos and establish substantive connections between empirical evidence and philosophical reasoning.

JNφphi particularly values contributions that are conceptually precise, methodologically transparent, scientifically responsible, philosophically rigorous, and capable of stimulating further interdisciplinary research.

Through this broad yet focused scope, the Journal of NeuroPhilosophy aims to serve as an international platform for scholars investigating one of the most fundamental questions in contemporary thought: how the biological brain gives rise to mind, consciousness, cognition, experience, and the human capacity to understand itself.