Special Issue on Infant Consciousness

The Philosophy and the Mind Sciences (PhiMiSci) Society invites contributions to a special issue they are organizing, with a focus on infant consciousness.

Posted Sep 27, 2025

By Amahury J. L. Díaz

1 min read

Special Issue Editors: Claudia Passos Ferreira, Sascha Benjamin Fink, Joel Frohlich.

Deadline for article submission October 15th, 2025.

The special issue will examine many questions about consciousness in infants, and will address where things stand in the philosophy and the science of infant consciousness. Themes for submission to this special issue include, but are not limited to, the following questions:

When does consciousness emerge in human development?
What do theories of consciousness predict about infants?
What evidence helps us detect consciousness in infants?
What are the sufficient and necessary conditions for infant consciousness?
Is there a precise border for infant consciousness or a vague border?
What is the best methodology to investigate consciousness in infants?
Are fetuses conscious?
How do various kinds of consciousness develop?
How can we characterize the experience of being an infant?
What is the nature of early stages of consciousness?
What are the contents of a newborn baby’s consciousness?
What are the moral implications of the emergence of consciousness?
When do infants first acquire knowledge about their conscious experience?
Can insights from other areas, e.g., animal research and artificial intelligence, help us to make progress in infant consciousness?

If you’re uncertain whether your work fits this issue, we encourage you to make a pre-submission inquiry (even ahead of writing a manuscript) to claudiapassos@nyu.edu

Deadlines and Schedule