The Early Modern Philosophy Calendar

This website is maintained by Stephen H. Daniel at Texas A&M University as a service to scholars working in the history of early modern philosophy. It brings together information about calls for papers, event schedules, and contacts about presentations, conferences, and seminars dealing with research in late 16th, 17th, and 18th century philosophy.

To have an event listed, send the appropriate information to Steve Daniel (sdaniel@philosophy.tamu.edu). Events posted on various mailing lists (e.g., philosop, philos, MWSeminar) are incorporated into this page. If no deadline is listed for calls for papers, that means either that the deadline has passed or that presentations were by invitation only.



July 3-5, 2009
Conference: The Use of Knowledge: Elements of Stoicism in Modern Thought
Europa-Universität Viadrina
Main University Building, Rm. 104
Frankfurt an der Oder
Friday, July 3
  15.00 - 15.15 Matthias Rothe (Europa-Universität Viadrina): Introduction
  I. Stoic order and nature in the XVIIIth century
    15.15 - 16.15 Jeffrey Barnouw (Texas, Austin): "Intelligent Design in Shaftesbury"
    16.15 - 17.15 Stefanie Buchenau (Paris VIII): "'Die Moralpropädeutik des berühmten Wolffs' and Its Stoic Basis"
    17.45 - 18.45 Thierry Hoquet (Paris X-Nanterre): "Anti-Lucrèce and Anti-Polignac: Order, Chance and Nature in France in 1749"
Saturday, July 4
    9.00 - 10.00 Gabrielle Radica (Picardie-Jules Verne): "Stoic Elements in Rousseau’s Emile: Living Beings, Nature and Order"
    10.00 - 11.00 Bastian Ronge (FU Berlin): "Sensitive Stoicism: A New Perspective on Adam Smith’s Stoicism"
  II Stoicism between metaphysics and aesthetics in the XIXth and XXth centuries
    11.30 - 12.30 Christopher J. Delogu (Jean Moulin-Lyon III): "Emerson, Stoicism, and the Question of Responsibility"
    14.00 - 15.00 Simon Swift (Leeds): "‘Take courage, and withdraw yourself from ways/That run not parallel to Nature’s course’: William Wordsworth and the courage of (neo)-Stoicism"
    15.00 - 16.00 Cornelia Wild (LMU München): "Exercising Modernity: Stoic Practice in the Works of Baudelaire and Foucault"
    16.30 - 17.30 Thomas Bénatouïl (Nancy II et IUF): "A new ontology or an aesthetics of existence? Stoicism between the first Deleuze and the last Foucault"
Sunday, July 5
  III The Role of Stoicism and Neostoicism in modern history and XIXth-XXth century historiography
    9.30 - 10.30 Angus Nichols (Queen Mary, London): "Stoicism and the Development of the Human Sciences: Wilhelm Dilthey’s Reception of Stoicism"
    10.30 – 11.30 Tracie Matysik (Texas, Austin): "The Hidden Influence of Stoicism in Nineteenth-Century German Philosophical Critique of Modern Natural Sciences (Tönnies, Friedländer, Berendt)"
    11.30 – 12.15 General discussion
Contacts: Matthias Rothe and Thomas Bénatouïl
Website.


July 13-14, 2009
Conference on Hume and the Enlightenment
Flinders University
Adelaide, Australia
Conference Theme: Hume continues to have a profound influence on philosophical thought and ideas. Yet Hume’s influence extends well beyond philosophy to a range of others disciplines including politics, history, literature and economics. While Hume is now widely regarded as the most significant of British philosophers, he was in his day counted a significant essayist and historian. Further, the influences of Hume’s empiricism stretch from encouraging the exploration of sentiment in literature to being a precursor to cognitive science. Taking recent work on Hume as a starting point, this conference aims to examine Hume’s thought and influence not just on philosophy but on a range of other disciplines.
Monday, July 13
  9.30  Welcome
  9.40  Anik Waldow (Sydney): "Triggers of Thought: Impressions within Hume's Theory of Mind"
  10.30  Anna Stoklosa (Toronto): "Can Hume’s Impressions of Reflection Represent?"
  11.40  George Couvalis (Flinders): "A malignant Demon?: Hume’s Scepticism with Regard to Reason (Partly) Vindicated"
  1.30  Dale Jacquette (Bern): "Hume’s Enlightenment Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Mathematics"
  2.20  Gavin Brown (Royal Institution of Australia): "Science and the Humanities"
  2.30  Robert Phiddian (Flinders): "Was Hume a satirist?"
  3.40  Ian Hunt (Flinders): "Hume and Rawls on the Stability of a Society’s System of Justice"
  5.00  Stephen Buckle (Australian Catholic U.): "Hume and the Enlightenment" (keynote)
Tuesday, July 14
  10.00  John Gill (Adelaide): "Hume’s attack on Miracles"
  11.10  Craig Taylor (Flinders): "Hume on Sympathy and Cruelty"
  12.00  Mark Collier (Minnesota, Morris): "Hume’s Theory of Moral Imagination: Sympathy, Benevolence, and the General Point of View"
  2.00  Karen Green (Monash): "Will the real Enlightenment historian please stand up! David Hume versus Catherine Macaulay"
  2.50  Frederich von Petersdorff (Germany): "The Historian Hume and the Rewriting of History"
Organizer: Craig Taylor
Conference website.


July 25-31, 2009
Princeton-Bucharest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
Bran, Transylvania
The Bucharest-Princeton Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy is an international annual meeting of scholars interested in various aspects of early modern thought. The aim of the seminar is to create a stimulating environment for discussing papers and ideas. Traditionally, the seminar has two components: morning reading groups and afternoon discussions of work-in-progress. This year, the topic for the morning sessions will be Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus. In addition to this we are inviting papers on all aspects of early modern philosophy/early modern science. The languages of the seminar are English and French.

Invited speakers: Daniel Garber (Princeton), Roger Ariew (South Florida), Ed Curley (Michigan), Frederic de Buzon (Strasbourg), Université Marc Bloch de Strasbourg), Pina Totero (Rome), Martin Lin (Rutgers), and Alan Gabbey (Barnard/Columbia U). Others may be added later.
The Seminar will take place in Bran, a small resort near Brasov, in Transylvania. It will be hosted in a small, friendly Bed & Breakfast (single or double rooms). The participation fee is 120 Euros for faculty and 60 Euros for students (covering accommodations with breakfast and some of the meals). To apply, send a CV and a one-page abstract by May 15 to Dana Jalobeanu and Vlad Alexandrescu.
Seminar website.


July 27-30, 2009
Kant and Reid Reading Party
Burn House, Angus, Scotland
Readings: Kant, Paralogisms (Critique of Pure Reason, A 341-405, B 406-31); Reid, "Of Memory" (Essays on the Intellectual Power of Man, Essay III)
The aim of this Kant and Reid Reading Party is to bring together students and staff who are interested in Kant's and Reid's philosophy. Graduate student papers (to be circulated to all participants in July) include:
  Ralf Bader (St Andrews): "Self-knowledge in §7 of the Transcendental Aesthetic"; response: Anna Tomaszewska (Kraków)
  Ruth Boeker (St Andrews): "Reid's theory of memory and the self: Does Reid offer a coherent alternative to Locke's account of personal identity?"; response: Martin Brecher (Bonn)
  Toni Kannisto (Oslo): "The Inevitability of the Illusion in the Paralogisms: A Survey on Subjective and Objective Necessity"; response: Giuseppe Motta (Mainz)
Fees: £80 Students (unwaged); £120 Staff (waged). The fee includes full boarding at the Burn House and transport from St Andrews to the Burn House and back. Presenters pay half the regular fee. Please contact Ruth Boeker for registration and any further information. We would like to receive a short motivation together with your registration. Several bursaries to assist students who are unable to reclaim fee or travel expenses are available.
Please contact the organizers, Ruth Boeker or Jens Timmermann, for further information.
Website.


August 2-6, 2009
Hume Society Conference: Naturalism and Hume's Philosophy
Dalhousie University and King's University College
Haifax, Nova Scotia
Conference Themes: Naturalism in Hume's Philosophy, Hume's Contribution to the Development of Modern Science
Invited speakers: Martha Bolton (Rutgers), Michael B. Gill (Arizona), William Edward Morris (Illinois Wesleyan), John D. Norton (Pittsburgh).

Paper submissions (4000 words max) are invited in all areas of Hume studies, especially naturalism (in epistemology, ethics, philosophy of religion, and theory of mind) and Hume's role in the development of modern science. Self-references must be deleted for blind reviewing. The author's name and contact information should appear only on a front cover sheet. Papers may be submitted in French, Spanish, German, or English, but must include an English-language or French-language 100 word (max) abstract. Submit cover sheets, abstracts, and papers in one file in either MS Word or rich text format (RTF) as an email attachment no later than November 1, 2008 to submissions@humesociety.org.

The Hume Society has set aside up to $2000 for the support of graduate students reading papers at the annual Hume Society meetings, to be given to qualifying students whose papers have been accepted through the normal blind-review process. Authors will be notified that their submissions have been received. If you submit a paper and do not receive an acknowledgement by November 15, 2008, please contact the Hume Society secretary. More information available at the conference website and the Hume Society Conference website.


August 7-10, 2009
Atlantic Canada Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
This year's seminar immediately follows the Hume Society Conference at Dalhousie.
  Friday, August 7
    9:00  Meet and Greet Breakfast
    10:00  Remy Debes (Memphis): “The Value of Persons in the Moral Philosophy of Adam Smith”
    11:30  David Raynor (Ottawa): "The Intentionality of Perceptual Consciousness: Hume and Kant"
    2:00  Peggy’s Cove with Hume Society
  Saturday, August 8
    9:00  André Gombay (Toronto): “Perspectives”
    10:30  Joseph Tinguely (New School for Social Research): “What is Orientation Not in Thinking?: A Reconsideration of Kant and the Role of Feelings in Knowledge”
    1:00  Christina Beheme (Dalhousie): “Is Cartesian Linguistics Cartesian or Chomskian?”
    2:30  John Bunner (Toronto): “Descartes on the Will Extended Beyond the Intellect”
    4:00  John Duncan (Toronto, Trinity C): “Reconstructing Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality
    5:30  Barbeque
  Sunday, August 9
    9:00  Liam Dempsey (Trent): “An Early ‘Qualia-Based’ Argument for Dualism”
    10:30  Geoff Gorham (Macalester C): “The Metaphysics of Newton’s De Gravitatione: A Cartesian Interpretation”
    1:00  Debbie Brown (Queensland) and Calvin Normore (McGill): “Descartes and Animal Souls”
    2:30  Eric Stencil (Wisconsin-Madison), “Arnauld’s Actualism”
    4:00  Shannon Dea (Waterloo): “The Infinite and the Indeterminate in Spinoza”
  Monday, August 10
    9:00  Scott Forschler (Independent Scholar, Chicago): “Willing Universal Law vs. Universally Lawful Willing: Where Kant’s Derivation of FUL Goes Wrong”
    10:30  Jeff Edwards (SUNY Stony Brook): “Kick Not Against the Pricks: Cumberland, Pufendorf and Hobbes on Natural Obligation”
    12:00  Suma Rajiva (Memorial U): “Fathoming the Abyss? Kant’s Modest Proposal for Reflecting on God”
    1:30  Lunch / End of Conference
Inexpensive accommodations in university residence housing (some of it new and quite comfortable).
Contact/conference organizer: Tom Vinci.


August 17-20, 2009
International Berkeley Conference: 300th Anniversary of the publication of An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision
University of Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe, Germany
Monday, August 17
  9:00    Opening of conference
  9:15    Bertil Belfrage (Lund): "Berkeley's Way from Naive to Analytic 'Commonsense' (1707-1709)"
  10:00  Richard Brook (Bloomsburg, PA): "Is Geometry About Tangible Extension?"
  11:00  Wolfgang Breidert (Karlsruhe): "On Motion and Alteration in Berkeley's Theory of Vision"
  11:45  Orla Slattery (Mary Immaculate C, Limerick): "Inseparability and Heterogeneity: Berkeley's Theory of Vision Considered as an Exercise in Epistemological De-Constructivism"
  2:30    James Van Cleve (Southern California): "Reid versus Berkeley on Three Puzzles of Vision"
  3:15    Jørgen Huggler (Aarhus): "The Reception of Berkeley's Theory of Vision in Danish psychology in the 20th Century: E. Rubin & E. Tranekjaer Rasmussen"
  4:15    Ville Paukkonen (Helsinki): "Berkeley on Judgements Connecting Ideas of Sight and Touch"
Tuesday, August 18
  9:00    Timo Airaksinen (Helsinki): "Two Types of Meaning in Berkeley's Theory of Vision"
  9:45    Geneviève Brykman (Paris X, Nanterre): "Shortsightedness and Longsightedness in Berkeley"
  10:45  Georges Dicker (SUNY Brockport): "'An Idea Can Be Like Nothing But An Idea' -- Another Try"
  11:30  Marc Hight (Hampden-Sydney C.): "Imaging, Imagining, and Conceiving: Untangling Berkeley on Perception"
  2:30    Mykolas Drunga (Vytautas Magnus, Lithuania): "Berkeley: Idealist or Phenomenalist?"
  3:15    Talia Bettcher (Cal St, Los Angeles): "Analogy, Heterogeneity, and the Entire Distinction"
  4:15    George Pappas (Ohio State): "Berkeley's Positive Epistemology"
Wednesday, August 19
  9:00    Lothar Kreimendahl (Mannheim): "Wortstatistische Untersuchungen zu Berkeleys Principles und ihre philosophische Bedeutung [Statistical Word Studies of Berkeley's Principles and Their Philosophical Significance]"
  9:45    Laura Benitez Grobet (U Nac. Autó. México): "The Critical Revision of the Structure of Scientific Knowledge in G. Berkeley and R. Boyle"
  10:45  Sylvia Parigi (Cassino): "The Theory of Vision and the Microscope: An Empiricistic-Immaterialistic Point of View"
  11:30  Luc Peterschmitt (CNRS-U Lille 3): "Berkeley's Method in the Theory of Vision: Observations, Experiments, Thought Experiments"
  2:30    José Robles (U Nac. Autó. México): "Natural Philosophy and Religion: The Cases of Boyle, Newton and Berkeley"
  3:15    Tom Stoneham (York): "The Argument from Mirrors"
  4:15    Katia Saporiti (Zürich): "Berkeley on Perception, Space and Time"
Thursday, August 20
  9:00    Sébastien Charles (Sherbrooke): "Berkeley on Imagination"
  9:45    Marta Szymańska (Jagiellonian U, Poland): "Has the Theory of Vision Influenced Berkeley's Social Ethics?"
  10:45  Tom Jones (St Andrews): "Berkeley and the Value of the Arts"
  11:30  Andrea Wilke (Bonn): "George Berkeley as Predecessor of a Philosophy of Style?"
  3:00    Eric Schliesser (Leiden): "Education in the Cave: Berkeley's Platonizing Response to Newton's Challenge"
  4:00    Stephen H. Daniel (Texas A&M): "Berkeley and Spinoza"
Contacts: Bertil Belfrage and Wolfgang Breidert


August 27-29, 2009
International Conference on Philosophical Aspects of Symbolic Reasoning in Early Modern Science and Mathematics
University of Ghent, Het Pand, Belgium
This conference brings together scholars working on philosophy of science, history of philosophy and history of science and/or mathematics. The topic is the role of symbolic representations in the development of modern science and mathematics from the end of the 16th century throughout the 17th century.
Thursday, Aug. 27
  09h00-09h45: Registration
  09h45-10h00: Opening
  10h00-11h15: Plenary 1: Marco Panza (CNRS, Paris): "Does algebra need a (literal) formalism?"
  11h30-12h45: Plenary 2: Doug Jesseph (South Florida): "The 'merely mechanical' versus the 'scab of symbols': Seventeenth-century debates over the criteria for mathematical rigor"
  14h00-15h30: Concurrent Sessions
    Concurrent Session 1
      Christian Leduc (Princeton): "Imagination, Reason, and Symbolization in Leibniz"
      Norma B. Goethe (Cordoba/Argentina): "Leibniz on the Art of Reasoning with Signs"
    Concurrent Session 2
      Michael Barany (Cambridge): "Translating Euclid's Diagrams into English, 1551-1571"
      Maria Rosa Massa Esteve (Barcelona): "The algebraic treatment of Euclid’s Elements in Hérigone’s Cursus mathematicus (1634, 1637, 1642)"
  16h00-17h30: Concurrent Sessions
    Concurrent Session 3
      Johan Blok (Groningen): "How Diagrammatic Reasoning in Wolff's Method of Mathematics becomes Symbolic Reasoning in the Precritical
      Giovanni Ferraro (Molise, Italy): "Analytical symbols and geometrical figures Eighteenth century Analysis as Nonfigural Geometry"
    Concurrent Session 4
      Andrew Arana (Kansas): "Descartes' Single Motion Criterion for Geometricity"
      Karin Verelst (VUB, Belgium): "Nieuwentijt Infinitesimals and the Axiomatic Method: A seventeenth century attempt at formalising calculus consistently"
Friday, August 28
  10h00-11h15: Plenary 3: Eberhard Knobloch (Technische U. Berlin): "Leibniz between ars characteristica and ars inveniendi: Unknown news about Cajori's 'master-builder of mathematical notations'"
  11h30-12h45: Plenary 4: Michel Serfati (Paris VII): "Scientific revolution, symbolic revolution; mathematical and philosophical aspects"
  14h00-15h30: Concurrent Sessions
    Concurrent Session 5
      Karen François (VUB, Belgium): "Descartes’s Mathesis Universalis: A concept which expresses Descartes’s authoritarian epistemology"
      Olivia Chevalier (Paris): "Symbolic algebra and the general art of solving problems in Descartes"
    Concurrent Session 6
      Rainhard Z. Bengez (TUM, Germany): "429: "I am a fool" -- Kepler's discovery of the elliptic curve as example for the innovative interaction between vision, heuristic and symbolic mathematics"
      Katherine Dunlop (Brown): "Making Time Appear in the Diagram: The Opening Mathematical Argument of the Principia
  16h00-17h30: Concurrent Sessions
    Concurrent Session 7
      Scott J. Hyslop (Indiana): "Algebraic Collisions: Challenging Descartes with Cartesian Methods"
      Ladislav Kvasz (Bratislava): "The role of symbolism in Galilean, Cartesian and Newtonian physics"
    Concurrent Session 8
      Manuel Martens (Ghent): "Giordano Bruno’s mnemonics in the Articuli adversus mathematicos"
      Fatima Romero Vallhonesta (Spain): "The symbolism in the earliest mathematical works written in Spanish, containing algebra"
Saturday, August 29
  10h00-11h15: Plenary 5: Jens Høyrup (Roskilde): "Hesitating Progress: The Slow Development Toward Algebraic Symbolization in Abbacus- and Related Manuscripts, c. 1300 to c. 1500"
  11h30-12h45: Plenary 6: Matthias Schemmel (Max Planck Inst., Berlin): "Medieval Representations of Change and Their Early Modern Application"
  14h00-15h30: Concurrent Sessions
    Concurrent Session 9
      Maarten Bullinck (Ghent): "Metalepsis: The origin of semiotics in symbolic algebra"
      Roy Wagner (Israel): "On the semiotic processes that enabled Bombelli’s L'algebra"
    Concurrent Session 10
      Ad Meskens (Antwerp): "Diophantos: the beginning of symbolic algebra?"
      Giovanna Cifoletti (Paris): "Diophantus's algebra as a project: The Arithmetica in the eyes of sixteenth-century mathematicians"
Conference website.
Contact: Maarten Van Dyck.


September 2-4, 2009
Hobbes Workshop
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, England
Workshop open to all topics related to Hobbes, including papers that utilize Hobbes’s work in order to address contemporary issues. 12 papers will be given in four panels and contributors are expected to attend as many of these panels as possible. An effort will be made to organize the panels around particular topics, and presenters will be asked to read in advance, as well as provide written comments on, the two other papers given during their respective panel. Since participants will have read one another’s work in advance (thus making it unnecessary to read the papers aloud), longer, more developed work is encouraged (20 pages and up).
Please send 300-word abstracts (including paper title, author, email address) to Michael P. Krom no later than April 27, 2009. Subsidies are not available for the workshop. All contributors will be expected to secure their own funding. An official invitation can be made available for those requesting funding from their respective institutions or from independent agencies.
Contact: Michael P. Krom.


September 3-4, 2009
Conference: Lucretius in the European Enlightenment
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland
Speakers include:
  David Butterfield (Christ’s College, Cambridge): "Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and Classical Scholarship in the Eighteenth Century"
  Gianni Paganini (Piemonte Orientale): "Lucretius and Bayle"
  Ann Thomson (Paris VIII: Denis Diderot): "Lucretius and la Mettrie"
  Catherine Wilson (City U New York Grad Center): "Lucretius and Rousseau"
  Avi Lifshitz (U College London): "Lucretius and German Debates over the Origins of Language, c. 1750"
  Wolfgang Pross (Berne): " 'Atheorum antistes et oraculum': Enemies of Lucretius in the European Enlightenment"
  James Harris (St. Andrews): "Lucretius and Hume"
  Alan Kors (Pennsylvania): "Lucretius and d’Holbach"
  Mario Marino (Friedrich Schiller U Jena): "Lucretius and Herder"
  Ernst A. Schmidt (Tübingen): "Lucretius and Wieland"
  Glenn Most (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa & U Chicago): "Lucretius and the Sublime in the Eighteenth Century"
Conference website.
Contacts: Thomas Ahnert (History); Hannah Dawson (History and Philosophy); Michael Lurie (Classics).


September 10-11, 2009
Conference on Spinoza and Bodies
University of Dundee
Dundee, Scotland
Scheduled speakers:
  Daniel Selcer (Duquesne): “Singular Things and Spanish Poets: Spinoza on Corporeal Individuation”
  Caroline Williams (Queen Mary U, London): “Reconfiguring Body and Mind: Thinking Beyond the Subject with/through Spinoza”
  Michael Mack (Nottingham): “Spinoza and Freud, or how to be mindful of the mind”
  Eric Schliesser (Leiden): “Spinoza’s criticism of mathematical science”
  Anthony Paul Smith (Nottingham/DePaul): "The Ethical Relation of Bodies: Thinking with Spinoza towards an Affective Ecology"
  Mateusz Janik (Polish Academy of Sciences): "Thinking the Future: Spinoza's Political Ontology Today"
Advanced registration required by 31 August 2009. Bursaries are available for postgraduate students (Masters or PhD) or academics who are unemployed, part-time, or on fixed-term contracts. The bursary reimburses travel expenses (up to £150) and accommodation expenses (up to £60). To apply for a bursary, fill in the relevant section on the registration form (available at the conference website) and submit it by July 20 to Michael Burns.
Contact: Beth Lord.
Conference website.


September 25-27, 2009
Conference on the Philosophy of Leibniz and Kant
Joint Meeting of the Leibniz Society of North America and the North American Kant Society
University of Kentucky, Bingham-Davis House (218 E. Maxwell St.), Lexington, KY
Participants:
  Karl Ameriks (Notre Dame)
  Martha Brandt Bolton (Rutgers)
  Ursula Goldenbaum (Emory)
  Des Hogan (Princeton)
  Anja Jauernig (Notre Dame)
  Patrick Kain (Purdue)
  Alison Laywine (McGill)
  Brandon Look (Kentucky)
  Donald Rutherford (UC-San Diego)
  Nick Stang (Miami)
  Eric Watkins (UC-San Diego)
Accomodations: Lexington Downtown Hotel, $129/night
Conference Website
Contact: Brandon Look


September 25-27, 2009
Days of Judgement Conference
Institute of Philosophy, Leiden University, the Netherlands
Friday, Sept 25
  Judgement and reason: history and philosophy
    9.30-10.30 Per Martin-Löf (Stockholm): "Justifications of judgements as chains of immediate evidences"
    10.45-11.30 Göran Sundholm(Leiden): "Self-evident containment and analytic variation: two strands in the development of logic from Aristotle to Quine"
    11.30-12.15 Norma B. Goethe (Cordoba/Arg.): "Judgement and Reason: from Leibniz to Frege"
    12.15-13.00 Catarina Dutilh Novaes (Amsterdam UvA): "Judgments, contents and their representations"
  Antiquity and early modern philosophy
     14.30-15.15 Frans de Haas (Leiden): "The harmonics of judgement: Aristotle's logic and applied mathematics"
    15.15-16.00 Jan van Ophuijsen (Utrecht): "Stoic assent and assertibles"
    16.15-17.00 Elodie Cassan (Tours): "Descartes' theory of judgement: warranted assertions, the key to science"
    17.00-18.00 Michael Della Rocca (Yale): "Spinoza: conatus and mental force"
Saturday, Sept 26
  Kant
    9.15-10.00 Johan Blok (Groningen): "Kant's Dissertation and Wolff's Formal Aspects of Judgements"
    10.00-10.45 Wim de Jong (Amsterdam VU): "Kant on judgment and formality"
    11.00-11.45 Jessica Leech (Geneva): "Kant and Modal Judgement"
    11.45-12.45 Michiel van Lambalgen & Dora Achourioti (Amsterdam UvA): "Kant and logical theory: the completeness of the Table of Judgements"
  Bolzano, Neo-Kantianism and Dewey
    15.00-15.45 Stefan Roski (Amsterdam VU): "Judgements, concepts and conceptual truth in Bolzano"
    15.45-16.30 Mark Siebel (Oldenburg): "Bolzano's Theory of Judgement"
    17.00-17.45 Arnaud Dewalque (Liege): "Windelband on Anerkennung: an early appropriation of Brentano's idiogenetic theory of judgement"
    17.45-18.30 Matthew Brown and Adam Streed (UC San Diego): "Judgement in Dewey's Logic"
Sunday, Sept. 27
  Trendelenburg, Husserl and Frege
    9.15-10.00 Carlo Ierna (Louvain): "Existential and Categorial Judgements: from Trendelenburg to Russell"
    10.00-10.45 Robin Rollinger (Salzburg): "Immanent and Real States of Affairs in Husserl's Early Theory of Judgment
    11.00-11.45 Jeremy Kelly (Florida Southern College): "Frege and Russell on Assertion"
  Frege
    14.00-14.45 Elina Nurmi (Cornell U): "Theory of judgement in the Begriffsschrift"
    14.45-15.30 Leila Haaparanta (Tampere): "Judging and the veridical use of 'is': remarks on the later Frege"
    16.00-16.45 Mark Textor (King's College London): "Judgement as Acknowledging the Truth of a Thought"
    16.45-17.45 Wolfgang Künne (Hamburg): "Frege on Anerkennung"
Organizer: Maria van der Schaar


October 16-18, 2009
Quebec Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy/Séminaire québécois en philosophie moderne
Sherbrooke, Quebec
The Quebec seminar in early modern philosophy is a new annual conference in the history of early modern philosophy (roughly, the period from Descartes to Kant). Its specific aim is to foster the exchange of ideas among scholars of early modern philosophy from French and English language, particularly from Canada, the United States, and Europe. Sessions will take place in Sherbrooke (at the Université de Sherbrooke and at Bishop's University) on Friday, and in North Hatley, a village 15 minutes from Sherbrooke, on Saturday and Sunday at the Manoir Hovey (where participants will be accommodated at special rates). Transportation to and from North Hatley will be provided.
Keynote speakers: Denis Kambouchner (Université Paris IV- Sorbonne) and an Anglophone scholar TBA. Papers on any topic in the history of early modern philosophy are welcome. Reading time should be approximately 45 minutes. Please submit an abstract of no more than 750 words no later than July 10, 2009 to one of the seminar organizers: Sébastien Charles or Syliane Malinowski-Charles. We will be unable to acknowledge receipt of submissions before late June, but feel free to re-send your submission if you haven’t received any confirmation by June 28. The program will be established in the days following the deadline of July 10.

Le séminaire québécois en philosophie moderne est un nouveau colloque annuel en histoire de la philosophie moderne (approximativement, la période allant de Descartes à Kant) qui vise à favoriser l’échange intellectuel entre spécialistes francophones et anglophones de la philosophie moderne, particulièrement ceux provenant du Canada, des États-Unis et d’Europe.
Conférenciers d’honneur: Denis Kambouchner (Université Paris IV – Sorbonne), invité anglophone: à venir
Nous invitons des propositions de communication portant sur tous les aspects de l’histoire de la philosophie moderne. La durée des présentations sera d’environ 45 minutes. Les rencontres se tiendront à Sherbrooke le vendredi (à l’Université de Sherbrooke et à l’Université Bishop’s) et à North Hatley, un village à un quart d’heure de Sherbrooke, pendant la fin de semaine (au Manoir Hovey, où les participants seront hébergés et tarifs spéciaux seront disponibles).
Veuillez soumettre un résumé de votre présentation, d’au plus 750 mots, avant le 10 juillet 2009 à l’un des organisateurs: Sébastien Charles ou Syliane Malinowski-Charles. Nous ne serons pas en mesure d’accuser réception de vos propositions avant la fin juin, mais n’hésitez pas à renvoyer votre résumé si vous n’avez pas encore reçu de confirmation le 28 juin. Le programme du colloque sera établi dans les jours suivant la date limite du 10 juillet.


October 17-18, 2009
Oxford Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
Oxford University
10 Merton Street, Oxford, UK
Sixth annual Oxford Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy. Abstracts for papers on any topic in early modern philosophy (roughly, the period from Bacon to Kant) are invited. Please send an abstract of approximately two pages double-spaced (for a reading/presentation time of approx. 40 mins) by email no later than July 1 to Paul Lodge.
Conference website.


October 23-24, 2009
South Central Seminar in the History of Early Modern Philosophy
University of Texas, San Antonio, TX
Eleventh annual South Central Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy. Like similar seminars in other parts of the country, the South Central Seminar is an informal group designed to foster interaction among scholars working on topics in the history of early modern philosophy.

Submissions of abstracts (1-2 pages) are invited on any topic in early modern (pre-Kantian) philosophy. Completed papers should be no more than 12 pages, for a reading time of 25 minutes or less. The deadline for submitting one- to two-page abstracts (preferably by e-mail) is August 31, 2009. Details about the program will be available two weeks later. Presentation of papers will occur on Friday, October 23 (3:00 - 6:00 p.m.) and Saturday, October 24 (9:00 - 5:00) on the UTSA campus. Participants will have a chance to celebrate the conclusion of the seminar Saturday night on San Antonio's famed Riverwalk.

Submit abstracts to Steve Daniel, Department of Philosophy, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4237. For information on local arrangements, contact Jill Graper Hernandez.
Seminar website


November 6-7, 2009
Sixth NYU Conference on Issues in Modern Philosophy
Topic: "The Foundations of Morality"
New York University, New York, NY
Friday, November 6
  2:00-4:00  First Session: Hobbes
    Speaker: Stephen Darwall (Yale); commentator: Susanne Sreedhar (Boston U)
  4:30-6:30  Second session: Hume
    Speaker: Kate Abramson (Indiana); commentator: Michael Gill (Arizona)
Saturday, November 7
  10:00-12:00  Third session: Kant and Hegel
    Speaker: Sally Sedgwick (U Illinois, Chicago); commentator: Karl Ameriks (Notre Dame)
  2:00-4:00  Fourth session: Mill
    Speaker: John Skorupski (St. Andrews); commentator: J. B. Schneewind (Johns Hopkins, emeritus; New York U, visit sch)
  4:30-6:30  Fifth session: Contemporary Philosophy
    Speakers: Peter Singer (Princeton), Barbara Herman (U California, Los Angeles)
Registration (required) and hotel information: conference website.
Contact.
Conference Directors: Béatrice Longuenesse, John Richardson, Don Garrett


December 2-4, 2009
Conference: "Skepticism in the Enlightenment from Bayle to the Encyclopédie"
University of São Judas Tadeu, São Paulo, Brazil
This is the first part of a two-part bilingual (English/French) conference on "Skepticism and Enlightenment." The second part of the conference ("Skepticism in the Enlightenment from the Encyclopédie to German Idealism") will be held at the Montréal campus of the University of Sherbrooke April 14-16, 2010.
Although there is already a list of invited speakers, some space is available for non-invited papers, in particular for Ph.D. students and post-doctoral students.
All proposals (title and abstract) must be sent before August 1, 2009 to the conference organizers: Plinio Junqueira Smith and/or Sébastien Charles.


December 11-12, 2009
International Conference: Galileo and Spinoza
Centre de Recherche sur l'Histoire des Systèmes De Pensée Modernes (CHSPM)
Université Paris 1 - Sorbonne; 17, Rue de la Sorbonne, Paris
Friday, December 11
  9:00    Filip Buyse (Paris I Sorbonne): Introduction
  9:30    Henri Krop (Rotterdam): "La bibliothèque de Spinoza"
  10:45  Jacob Adler (Arkansas): "Joseph Solomon Delmedigo: Student of Galileo and Teacher of Spinoza"
  11:45  Tamar Rudavsky (Ohio State): "Science, Demonstration and the Art of Hermeneutics in Spinoza and Galileo"
  14:15  Franco Biasutti (Padua): "Galileo and Spinoza: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives"
  15:30  Pietro Redondi (Milano-Bicocca): "Spinoza critique Galilée, ou le concordisme en question"
  16:30  Herman De Dijn (Harvard/KU Leuven): "Natura naturans and Natura naturata in Spinoza"
  17:30  Theo Verbeek (Utrecht): Discussion and questions
Saturday December 12
  9:00    Filip Buyse (Paris I Sorbonne): Introduction
  9:15    Stephen Gaukroger (Sydney): "Mechanics versus Mechanism: Galileo, Spinoza, and Newton"
  11:00  Filip Buyse (Paris I Sorbonne): "Boyle, Spinoza and Galileo: Is Spinoza a Strict Mechanical Philosopher?"
  13:30  E. Vampoulis (Patras): "Le concept de l'infini chez Spinoza et Galilée"
  14:30  Fabien Chareix (Paris IV Sorbonne): TBA
  15:45  Graham Burnett (Princeton), with Kevin Von Duuglas-Ittu & James A. Schulz: "Spinoza and Optics"
  16:45  Theo Verbeek (Utrecht): Discussion and questions
  17:45   Filip Buyse: Conclusion
Contact: Filip Buyse


December 14-17, 2009
Conference: The Human Nature Tradition in Anglo-Scottish Philosophy: Its History and Future Prospects
Commemorating the publication of the first Hebrew editions of Hobbes' Leviathan (2009) and Hume's Treatise on Human Nature (2010)
Shalem Center, Jerusalem, Israel
One of the most striking features of Anglo-Scottish thought from Hobbes to Mill and beyond is its concern with the study of “human nature.” Philosophers in this tradition not only engaged in the empirical study of human psychology and anthropology, but often saw this discipline as foundational with respect to other disciplines--not only morals, political theory and aesthetics, but mathematics, logic, natural science, and religion as well.

Historical and philosophical papers will address questions such as: What is the scope and content of this “human nature tradition” in philosophy? Why does this tradition emerge when and where it does? What is its relation to natural science? To the Bible and religion? To classical and medieval thought? What is its relation to philosophical currents on the Continent or in America? Why and how does this tradition begin to wane when it does? Finally, the conveners will be interested in papers that bring this tradition into dialogue with current trends in philosophy and science: Has Anglo-Scottish human nature philosophy now been rendered obsolete by cognitive science, as many seem to believe? Or does this tradition still have something significant to contribute to philosophy or natural science?

Speakers include: Thomas Ahnert (Edinburgh), Roger Ariew (South Florida), Stephen Darwall (Yale), Aaron Garrett (Boston U), Daniel Garber (Princeton), Michael Gill (Arizona), Knud Haakonssen (Sussex), James Harris (St Andrews), Michael Heyd (Hebrew U), Daniel Jacobson (Bowling Green), Joseph Mali (Tel Aviv), Susan Manning (Edinburgh), Fania Oz-Salzberger (Haifa), Robert Pasnau (Colorado), Nicholas Phillipson (Edinburgh), Jesse Prinz (CUNY Graduate Center), Paul Rahe (Hillsdale Coll), Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Gordon Schochet (Rutgers), Silvia Sebastiani (Istituto Ital. delle Scienze Umane, Florence)

The proceedings will be interdisciplinary in character. The conference organizers welcome participants from the fields of philosophy, political theory, history, cognitive science, and allied disciplines. A limited travel budget will be available to assist graduate students wishing to participate. Graduate students applying for travel assistance should submit a cv, letter of recommendation, and a letter explaining why they wish to participate no later than June 30.
Contacts: Mordechai Feingold and Yoram Hazony.


February 27-28, 2010
Southwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM
Invited Speaker: Steven Nadler (Wisconsin, Madison)
The Southwest Seminar was formed to foster interaction among scholars who work on various topics in the history of early modern philosophy (a period ranging, roughly, from Montaigne to Kant). Papers on any subject are welcome; reading times should be approximately 45 minutes. The deadline for submitting abstracts (of approximately 750 words, prepared for blind review, in .doc or .rtf format) is November 1, 2009. Email submissions should be sent to Mary Domski. If you do not receive confirmation of receipt of your abstract within a week, please resubmit or contact Mary Domski. The program will be announced by the end of December.
Website.


March 5-6, 2010
Southern Study Group Conference, North American Kant Society
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
Featured speakers:
  Otfried Hoeffe (Eberhard Karls Universitaet Tuebingen)
  Rudolf Makkreel (Emory)
  Richard Velkley (Tulane)
  John Zammito (Rice)
Call for Papers: The selection committee welcomes papers in all areas of Kantian scholarship. Reading time should be limited to 30 minutes, and submissions are not to exceed 25 pages. Completed papers must be prepared for blind review, with contact information sent in a separate file. Graduate students should indicate their status in the body of their papers. Submission deadline: December 1, 2009.
Send submissions (as email attachments or by surface mail) and inquiries to the conference organizer, Kristi Sweet, Department of Philosophy, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4237.
Website.


March 10-12, 2010
Conference on Practical Ethics in Scottish Philosophy
Center for the Study of Scottish Philosophy, Princeton Theological Seminary

It was common among Scottish philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries to distinguish between the theory of morals and practical ethics. While the former dealt principally with questions concerning the nature and ground of moral judgment, will, and value, the latter comprehended rules for good conduct and character.

Papers are invited that address Scottish practical ethics. Topics of particular interest include (1) the ways in which the Scottish philosophical tradition combined theoretical and practical ethics and (2) explorations of the degree to which Scottish practical ethics might be relevant to contemporary philosophical concerns.

Please send abstracts to the Center for the Study of Scottish Philosophy by September 2009. Revised versions of presented papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of the Journal of Scottish Philosophy (Guest Editor: Colin Heydt, University of South Florida).


March 21-26, 2010
Conference: Thomas Reid From His Time To Ours
University of Aberdeen (March 21-23), University of Glasgow (March 24-26)
In March 2010 a week-long event in recognition of Thomas Reid will be held at the two universities where he taught: the University of Aberdeen and the University of Glasgow. The conference will be devoted to all aspects of Reid’s work and its context. Plenary speakers include James Harris (St Andrews), Laurent Jaffro (Blaise Pascal), Paul Wood (Victoria, BC), and Gideon Yaffe (Southern California).

Papers are invited on any aspect of Reid’s thought in terms of its historical or contemporary relevance, its relationship with his contemporaries in the Scottish Enlightenment, and any aspect of his influence on philosophical thinking in throughout the world. Proposals (of not more than 500 words) for 20-minute papers should be submitted to Alexander Broadie or Cairns Craig. Deadline for submissions is September 30, 2009. Arrangements are being made for the conference proceedings to be published.

For details about the schedule and registration, housing, and meal costs, consult the conference website.
Contacts: Cairns Craig in Aberdeen and Alexander Broadie in Glasgow.


April 6-9, 2010
International Berkeley Conference: 300th Anniversary of the publication of The Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) deals with a broad spectrum of philosophical issues in metaphysics, philosophical theology, epistemology, theory of perception, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, etc. Speakers at the conference will discuss aspects of Berkeley's philosophy that highlight a distinct connection of their chosen topic with the Principles.

A number of speakers have already been invited. Others are welcome to submit papers. We especially wish to encourage applications from doctoral students or from persons who have recently defended a doctoral dissertation. Their papers should be submitted to the organiser, Richard Glauser, by September 15, 2009. A panel of three experts will select the five best papers, and their authors will have three nights of their hotel costs covered. Announcement of the selected papers will occur in December 2009.

The conference is sponsored by the International Berkeley Society and the Swiss FNRS.
Contact: Richard Glauser


April 14-16, 2010
Conference: "Skepticism in the Enlightenment from the Encyclopédie to German Idealism"
University of Sherbrooke, Montréal campus
Montréal, Québec, Canada
This is the second part of a two-part bilingual (English/French) conference on "Skepticism and Enlightenment." The first part of the conference ("Skepticism in the Enlightenment from Bayle to the Encyclopédie") will have been held December 2-4, 2009 at the University of São Judas Tadeu, São Paulo, Brazil.
Although there is already a list of invited speakers, some space is available for non-invited papers, in particular for Ph.D. students and post-doctoral students.
All proposals (title and abstract) must be sent before August 1, 2009 to the conference organizers: Plinio Junqueira Smith and/or Sébastien Charles.