In 2023, Rivista internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia will publish a special issue on the Psychological Humanities. The idea for this thematic issue was sparked while comparing this emerging field to the more established discipline of medical humanities. At first glance, a joint venture between the medical sciences and humanities appears more intuitive than one between psychology and humanities – especially if we consider psychology to be a human science. Yet, this inclusion is questionable. While psychology, like literature, language, history, and philosophy, aims to study and explain the human mind and condition, it has also developed psychometrics and many of its subfields rely on empirical data, observations, and experiments. In fact, there is a long-running debate on whether psychology should be considered a natural or a human science. The behavioral and cognitive traditions have always tried to bring psychology more in line with the natural sciences or at least to make it a more exact sciences based on empirical data and mathematical models. Similarly, in contemporary psychological research, data and empirical studies are considered far more important than theory for the advancement of the discipline.
This special issue on psychological humanities will address these questions, promoting a discussion on what the psychological humanities are and should be. Further, it will interrogate what main lines of research that characterize this field, the type of psychology they endorse, and the challenges they face. Of course, the range of disciplines within the humanities is vast, making points of convergence with psychology many and varied. Given the aims and scope of Rivista internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia as well as the journal’s readership, the focus will be on those aspects of this debate that are most relevant from a philosophical point of view, which concern the nature of psychology as well as the role of theory in advancing the field. The goal of the issue is to seek a more general definition of the psychological humanities that will help us better understand the epistemic role they can play in future research.
For the special issue, we invited several authors who we consider to be central for defining the psychosocial humanities in this perspective, including critical or cautionary reflections. They are (in alphabetical order): Saulo de Freitas Araujo (Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brasil); Barbara Held (Bowdoin College, Brunswick, USA); Lisa Malich (University of Lübeck, Germany); Jack Martin (Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, USA); Lisa Osbeck (University of West Georgia, Atlanta, USA), and Thomas Teo (University of York, Toronto, Canada).
We happened to plan this special issue and then we discovered that Division 24 is taking up a similar theme. Clearly there are commonalities in our interests, and we should build connections between our communities, perhaps leading to future projects involving the articulation of psychological humanities.
The special issue will be available in open access immediately upon publication at www.rifp.itopens in new window (click on “Last issueopens in new window” or on “Archiveopens in new window”)
Rivista internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologiaopens in new window is a peer reviewed, no-fees full open access journal founded in 2010 that publishes in Italian and in English and aims to promote and to develop critical discussions and thorough reflections on the links connecting philosophical and psychological research.
Rivista internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia is indexed, among others, in Web of Science Core Collection and in Scopus. Moreover, it is also included in The Philosopher's Index; Thomson Reuters; DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals; EBSCO Discovery Service; Philosophy Research Index; Google Scholar, ERIH Plus and Philosophical Papers.
Author's Bio
Sara Dellantonio, PhD is an Associate Professor in Philosophy of Science, Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Italy. She received her PhD in Philosophy at the University of Bremen, Germany.