Dialogue between philosophy and psychology on COVID-19

Abstract

This article is a modified record of “Philosophy and Psychology III: Contrastive approaches to the COVID-19 problems,” a public symposium held at the 84th annual convention of the Japanese Psychological Association on September 9, 2020 via webinar. Before this symposium, philosophers and psychologists joined and discussed emotions (2018) and justice (2019) to stimulate psychologists to have greater interest in and to devote more attention to philosophy. It had been noted that psychologists tend to be quite indifferent to philosophy despite the fact that historical origins of psychology as an established discipline can be traced back to philosophy and physiology. In the last symposium, we, two psychologists and a philosopher, discussed COVID-19 as a problem, particularly addressing topics of “freedom and publicness” and “the future of embodiment.” Through that discussion, results showed that philosophy and psychology can be complementary and productive for both.