Philosophy and social commitment
Summer 2025 Issue
If we open the Human Rights Watch website and dedicate just a couple of minutes to review the crises and conflicts that are occurring at this very moment, we will surely be surprised to discover ones that we did not know about or to learn a little more about others that don’t seem to end. Nonetheless, if we dedicate 30 minutes or an hour, we will probably end up with a feeling of sadness and helplessness in front of the overwhelming number of struggles that are currently occurring in the world.
Considering this context and assuming that the world is a varied place where, at the same time, the most wonderful things and the worst atrocities occur, we must ask: what is the role of philosophy in a rapidly and unpredictably changing world? What is the role of Western Philosophy, that of first-world countries, in respect to the condition of the Other of the West? How is it possible to connect, act and think about a world that is a world of war, famine, displacement, genocide? What should philosophy do in the face of the genocide in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, the crisis in Venezuela, in Congo, in Iraq, in Tanzania, in Sudan, in El Salvador, on the U.S.-Mexico border, and a long etc.?
What is then philosophizing from other places, ones in which discourses emerge from within and in touch with the struggles and conflicts, both despite and because of them? The problem framed in this way implies a threefold question. One, that of the universality of philosophy even in its decolonized, de-westernized vestige. Two, that of the substantial cause for the emergence of the need to philosophize. Three, that of its finality: does philosophy need to understand the Other, or does it need to make space for it – let it speak? Is the philosopher an unraveler of secrets, or a guardian and a speaker of secrets?
The matter is to rethink the role of philosophy, and the philosophical act, on a planetary scale. It is exactly at this scale that the alleged universality of philosophy comes out as not a presupposition, but a question – and a possibility. At stake, too, there is the question of the pertinence of the discipline of philosophy within the category of action or within that of comprehension. Is the philosopher the one who constructs knowledge of the world for the pure will to know, or to utilize that knowledge to act in the world? Also: act in what way? For what purpose? For justice? But what is justice, from what perspective is justice, for who is this justice we speak about? What would a planetary-scale justice be? Is it really something like the Western, bourgeois, ideological Human Rights Declaration?
Other questions that may be interesting for this issue:
What is the role of philosophy today in politics and society?
What kind of relationship does philosophy have with geopolitics?
What kind of philosophy would be able to speak for everyone?
Is it possible to think about a non-universalist but non-relativistic philosophy?What is the relationship between the real ordinary person who utters the philosophical statement and philosophy itself?
What is the relationship between philosophy and culture?
What is the relationship between philosophy and change?
How can we imagine a world in which the power and capacity of thinking consistently is not relegated to a category of people, but it is democratized, without falling into relativism?
Can we find a new notion of Truth that is not the truth of philosophers, abstract and extractive, but radically immanent as well as universal?
We invite you to think about the contribution of philosophy to a world in crisis.
If you want to publish your paper in this issue, here are the steps:
Step 1:
Send your abstract (max 300 words), to [email protected], by May 29, 2025 using the following headline in your email: “GCAS Review Journal Abstract Submission – [Your Last name in Parenthesis]. Please, include in the same file the title of your prospective paper and your details: your full name, institution (if any) and e-mail address.
Our response will indicate whether the abstract sounds appropriate for the upcoming edition or perhaps for a future edition.
Step 2:
If our response is positive, we kindly ask prospective contributors to submit their complete paper by August 29, 2025, to [email protected].
Step 3:
Our editorial process is not the traditional blind peer review that has become a formula in academia. Once you submit your article to us, we will make comments as an editorial team and send your article to people who we believe can contribute to your ideas and writing. These people, who will be identified, will comment on your article and, once we have all the comments, we will send it back to you so that you can make the pertinent changes. When you resubmit it, we will review it again and if we consider it is ready, the process is closed, although it is possible that we will send you more comments. Our idea is not to send your text to “experts” to sanction whether your text is publishable or not, but we want to work with you to achieve the best version of the text.
Submit a Special Edition
You may also consider the possibility of compiling a special edition of The GCAS Review between our publication cycles. If you are interested in Guest Editing a Special Edition, we would need:
The theme and overall topic
A potential list of the titles of the articles, poems, videos, pictures,
Consolidated list of potential and confirmed contributors
Draft of the Open Call for the issue
Send us this information in a document to [email protected] and we will review your proposal.