Introduction to Volume 12, Issue 4 of topiCS

For our October 2020 issue (Volume 12, Issue 4), we publish two topics. However, before I describe those, I want to note that this is the last issue of topiCS for me as the Founding and Executive Editor of this journal. This introduction is no place to recount all the details of the origin of the journal, but let me begin by saying that it got its final boost during the Governing Board meeting at the 2006 Conference (Vancouver, Canada). At that time I was still a member of the Executive Committee of the Cognitive Science Society, and I remember leading the arguments both for and against starting a new journal. The main argument against a new journal was that we already had a fine first journal: namely, the Cognitive Science journal. At that time we could not envision a second journal that could stand alone by representing a subset of the field. (Interesting, because now I certainly can imagine that!) However, also at that time I was finishing up work on an edited volume I had organized (Gray, 2007) with me as the sole editor, with many fine cognitive scientists as contributors. I remember thinking how unfair it was to them that, unlike for a journal article, the main editor's name would be the only name shown on the cover, as well as the name in the largest font on the publisher's website and paperbase descriptions being distributed by the vendor at the Vancouver Conference. During the arguments, everything clicked into place and I proposed that we create a journal in which guest editors would recruit authors and organize papers much the way as editors of edited books did. The rest, as they say, is history. And I am very pleased to turn the journal over, after 12 years of being the Executive Editor (which followed about 2 years of negotiations with our publisher, and then recruiting Topic Editors and authors for our first two issues). topiCS's second Executive Editor will be Andrea Bender of University of Bergen, Institutt for samfunnspsykologi, Norway. Andrea has extensive experience with topiCS having organized several topics with other researchers as members of the Editor team. Likewise, she has served for many years on my Senior Editor Board which helps recruit, review, and vet all proposals sent to topiCS. Yes, dear reader, you are in good hands and, indeed, I cannot think of better ones to continue and deepen the contribution of this journal to our field. Okay … enough history, back to work. This issue has two excellent topics, both of which are exciting examples of how cognitive scientists can use topiCS when presenting their ideas to the wider community. The first topic was proposed, organized, and lovingly edited by Henry Prakken, Floris Bex and Anne Ruth Mackor and is titled “Models of Rational Proof in Criminal Law.” In addition to an excellent Editors' Introduction and six fine papers, each of which is based on the famous Simonshaven Case, the Editors have recruited interesting commentaries from four members of our community. The second topic has been organized and shepherded through to publication by Matteo Colombo and Markus Knauff. This is a brilliantly executed look at “Levels of Explanation in Cognitive Science: From Molecules to Culture.” I can personally endorse this topic, outside my role as Executive Editor, as once most of the papers were in Early View this past spring, I used a large subset of them in my graduate research seminar. The “levels of explanation” approach worked well and helped the students see how our field is joined together despite the sometimes very disparate nature of our theories and data. Indeed, this topic may well be the best response we have to the recent battles over whether Cognitive Science is multidisciplinary and not interdisciplinary (Gray, 2019; Núñez et al., 2019, 2020). Please note that all Editors' Reviews and Introductions written for any topic are available as free downloads courtesy of our publisher. If you are a student, new to the field, or if you are a colleague in another area of cognitive science interested in catching up on what your colleagues in our multidisciplinary field are doing, then these papers are what you are looking for. To our readers, keep searching and reading topiCS for our high-quality, curated collections of papers on timely topics of interest to the broad Cognitive Science community. topiCS encourages letters and commentaries on all topics, and proposals for new topics. Letters are typically 400–1,000 words (maximum of two published pages) and will be published without abstract or references (possibly 1–2 but usually none). Commentaries are often solicited by Topic Editors prior to the publication of their topic. However, commentaries after publication are also considered and should range between 1,000 and 2,000 words. Most commentaries would not have an abstract and would not include many references. The Executive Editor and the Senior Editorial Board (SEB) members are constantly searching for new and exciting topics for topiCS. Feel free to open communications with a short note to the Executive Editor (mailto: [email protected]) or an SEB member (SEB members are listed under the Editorial Board heading on the publisher's homepage for topiCS (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1756-8765/homepage/EditorialBoard.html).