Digital Identities, Digital Ways of Living: Philosophical Analyses 

The massive use of digital technologies today and the way they are prominently taking part in several of our everyday activities makes a philosophical reflection on this phenomenon particularly needed. Indeed, digital technologies are not just facilitating accomplishing several different tasks – from tracking our physical activities, to finding the right directions while driving, to communicating with others. Such technologies are also shaping and re-defining the way in which we make our activities and conceive our lives, while also affecting the sense of our identities and ourselves.

Let us think, for instance, to the way the constitution and the evolution of our personal, embodied and gender identity can be affected by the usage of social networks and, for instance, by the massive role of pictures on the social media (Facebook, Instagram, twitter etc.) or by profiling mechanisms used by some online platforms. Let us also consider the way language and communication acquire new forms on the web and can even have more relevance than before based on the augmented possibilities of fruition by web-users. Moreover, we should not forget the crucial way in which the usage of digital technologies is transforming the political identities of citizens, the forms of their participation in the public life, and the structures of collective political subjects and institutions (parties, parliaments, states).

This special issue will feature three Sections, each of whom is dedicated to a specific topic of interest in the philosophical debate about digital technologies and digital identities: 

- Personal Identities – Digital Minds, Bodies and Persons;

- Language and Mind – Social Media and Identity Construction;

- Ethical and Political Implications of Digital Technologies.

Invited papers include: 

Helena De Preester, Jose Luís Martí, Damiano Palano, Viviana Patti.

Publication date: July 2021

---

Phenomenology of Social Impairments 

Guest Editors:

• Valeria Bizzari (University of Heidelberg, Clinic for General Psychiatry, Section Phenomenological Psychopathology and Psychotherapy);
• Oren Bader (University of Heidelberg, Clinic for General Psychiatry, Section Phenomenological Psychopathology and Psychotherapy);
• Thomas Fuchs (University of Heidelberg, Clinic for General Psychiatry, Section Phenomenological Psychopathology and Psychotherapy).

Following a workshop entitled: “Phenomenology of Social Impairments” (Heidelberg, July 2^nd  2019), this special issue of Phenomenology and Mind is dedicated to phenomenological instigations into disturbances of intersubjectivity in mental disorders. 

A growing body of clinical data and phenomenological insights indicates that mental disorders involve disturbances in the subject relation to other people and a loss of crucial social predispositions and affordances. These deficits seem to influence crucial aspects of the subject’s communal world that phenomenological analyses highlight, such as inter-affectivity, embodied intersubjectivity, collective intentionality, and emotional sharing. However, the nature and scope of these impairments in different mental disorders are not always sufficiently clear. The primary goal of this special issue is, therefore, to promote a systematic exploration of various intersubjective anomalies in mental disorders from a phenomenological perspective. We are particularly interested in papers that suggest phenomenological tools for the study of disturbances of intersubjectivity in specific pathologies, such as schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, and autism spectrum disorders.      

Invited papers include: 

Anna Bortolan, Thomas Fuchs, Joel Krueger.

Publication date: December 2021