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.

May 18-20, 2012
New England Colloquium in Early Modern Philosophy
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA
Friday, May 18
    3:30-5:00 pm  Nancy Kendrick (Wheaton C.): “Turning Savage Americans into Indian Scholars: Berkeley’s Bermuda Project”
    5:15-6:45 pm  Patrick Connolly (UNC Chapel Hill): “Locke’s Ideas of Power”
Saturday, May 19
    9:30-11:00  Andrea Sangiacomo (ENS Lyon/Macerata): “What a Body Can Do: Spinoza against Occasionalism”
    11:15-12:45  Hsueh Qu (New York U): “Hume’s Incorrigibility Principle”
    2:15-3:45  Marine Picone (ENS Paris): “The Summulists’ disputes de Constantia subjecti: Leibniz and His Masters on Eternal Truths and Existence”
    4:00-5:30  Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Oxford): “Identity of Indiscernibles, Atoms and Absolute Space”
Sunday, May 20
    9:30-11:00  Ludmila Guenova (Wesleyan): “Kant on Color and Form”
    11:15-12:45  Paul Guyer (Brown): “'A Treasure House of the Human Soul': Baumgarten, Mendelssohn, and Herder”
Register on the website by April 1 to secure lodging.
Contact: Alison Simmons.
Website.

May 21, 2012
Venice Leibniz Seminar
University Ca’ Foscari Venice
Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Dorsoduro 3484/D; 3:30 p.m.
Venice, Italy
Speaker: Paul Rateau (Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne): "La doctrine leibnizienne du meilleur monde possible"
Contact: Matteo Favaretti.

May 21-22, 2012
Workshop on Self-Knowledge in Kant with Patricia Kitcher
University of Luxembourg
Campus Walferdange, Route de Diekirch, BP2, L-7220 Walferdange/Luxembourg
21 May
    14:00-15:00  Patricia Kitcher (Columbia): "Kant on Self-Consciousness and Object Cognition"
        15:00-15:30  Comment by Manfred Baum (Wuppertal)
        15:30-16:30  Discussion
    17:00-18:00  Patricia Kitcher: "Kant's View of Why Knowledge of an 'I-think' is Limited"
        18:00-18:30  Comment by Klaus Duesing (Cologne)
        18:30-19:30  Discussion
22 May
    10:00-11:00  Patricia Kitcher: "A Kantian Critique of Current Approaches to Self-Knowledge: I. Kant's Theory in the Contemporary Context; Kant vs. Anscombe's Thought Experiment"
        11:00-11:30  Comment by Alexandra Newton (Leipzig)
        11:30-12:30  Discussion
    14:00-15:00  Patricia Kitcher: "A Kantian Critique of Current Approaches to Self-Knowledge: II. Kant vs. 'Transparency'; Kant vs. First Person/Third Person Asymmetry in Knowledge of Mental States"
        15:00-15:30  Comment by Dieter Sturma (Bonn)
        15:30-16:30  Discussion
Admission free, registration required.
Website.
Contact: Dietmar Heidemann.

May 23-26, 2012
Conference: Ideals and the Ideal in Kant
Bogazici University
Istanbul, Turkey
    Ideals play a key role in many areas of Kant's philosophy, where we find discussion of theoretical, ethical, political and aesthetic ideals. For example, in the Critique of Pure Reason, the idea of God is presented as the "Ideal of Pure Reason" and regulative ideas seem to function as ideals. In his ethics, he argues that both the highest good and the intelligible idea of humanity are ideals. In his political philosophy the idea of a civil condition is also an ideal, as is the idea of perpetual peace. Finally, in his aesthetics he introduces the ideal of beauty, which he identifies with that of the human figure and which he suggests involves the expression of moral worth.
    In this conference we will be interested in papers that discuss the role of ideals in any or all areas of Kant's work. The conference will be run as a workshop with a maximum of five talks in a day, with plenty of time for discussion.
    Amongst the questions that might be discussed at this conference are: What is the relationship between Kant's understanding of theoretical ideals and practical ideals? How do moral and political ideals inform practice and application in Kant's work? Is the good will and ideal? How does the centrality of ideals in Kant's work fit together with the ought-implies-can principle? What is going on in the Ideal of Pure Reason? What is the relationship between ideals and ideas? What is the relationship between moral ideals and aesthetic ideals? How do Kantian ideals integrate or relate ideas of pure reason with the material of experience? What is the relationship, if any, between the notion of an ideal and the ideal (as opposed to the real). Does an understanding of the role and nature of ideals in Kant throw any light on what Kant means by idealism, or are these two notions totally quite distinct?
    Abstracts (which should be one page or less) should be sent to Lucas Thorpe no later than February 20, 2012. Applicants will be informed whether their paper has been selected to be given at the conference by March 1, 2012.
Confirmed speakers include:
    Paul Guyer (Brown): "Reason as Idea and as Ideal in Groundwork III"
    Ken Westphal (East Anglia): "Freedom and Universal Causal Determinism: Constitutive Premise or Explanatory Ideal?"
    Jens Timmermann (St Andrews): "Autonomy and Ends-in-themselves"
    Kate Moran (Brandeis): "Between Knowing and Hoping: Kant on the Highest Good"
    Jennifer Uleman (SUNY-Purchase): "What We Think About When We Think About Ideals"
    Lucas Thorpe (Bogazici): "Ideals and the Ought-Implies-Can Principle"
    Oliver Thornedike (Johns Hopkins): "Kant's Gap in the System of Critical Philosophy"
    Martin Sticker (St Andrews): "Is the Common Man the Ideal Moral Agent? Kant on Common Moral Capacities and the Method of Practical Inquiry"
    Stijn Van Impe (Ghent): "Kant's 'Black Swan': Perfect Moral Friendship"
Contact: Lucas Thorpe.
Website.

May 25-26, 2012
Workshop: "Mandeville in Context"
University of Fribourg
Fribourg, Switzerland
Friday, May 25
    9:30-9:40  Introduction and Welcome
    9:40-10:50  Béatrice Guion (Strasbourg): "Did Mandeville read the Essais de morale? Bernard Mandeville and Pierre Nicole"
    11:10-12:20  Eric Schliesser (Ghent): "Mandeville’s Role in the Once-Respectable Tradition of Anti-Mathematics: A Whirlwind Tour With Stops at Spinoza, Hume, Diderot, Buffon, and Even (Perhaps) Adam Smith"
    14:00-15:10  Christian Maurer (Fribourg): "Private Vice, Publick Benefits? Mandeville and Campbell on Luxury, Trade and Vice"
    15:30-16:40  Florian Häubi (Fribourg): "Self-Deception and Self-Denial in Mandeville and Nietzsche"
    17:10-18:10  Francesca Pongiglione (Milano): "Mandeville’s Contradictions in His Theory of the Utility of Poverty"
Saturday, May 26
    9:30-10:40  Hans Blom (Rotterdam/Potsdam): "Reading the Dialogues"
    11:00-12:10  Mikko Tolonen (Helsinki/St. Andrews): "Tale of Two Mandevilles: The Difference Between the Fable of the Bees and Part II"
    14:00-15:10  Roundtable Session on Methodological Issues in History of Philosophy
For further information and a detailed program please contact Christian Maurer. Participation is free, but please register by May 14th. The workshop is supported by the CUSO Doctoral program, and a limited number of bursaries for doctoral students in philosophy from CUSO universities (UniFr, UniNe, UniL, UniGe) are available. All participants from Swiss universities are invited to also register before the 25th of May.
Contact Christian Maurer.
Website.

June 1-4, 2012
International Berkeley Conference: Berkeley on Moral and Social Philosophy/La philosophie morale et sociale de Berkeley
Université de Sherbrooke - Campus Longueuil
Longueuil, Québec (near Montréal)
Friday, June 1
    9:00-9:15  Bertil Belfrage: Welcome
    9:15-10:00  Bertil Belfrage (Lund): "Rational Belief and Religious Faith in Berkeley's Unpub-lished Philosophy 1707-1709"
    10:00-10:45  Sébastien Charles (Sherbrooke): "De Pascal à Locke: la reprise berkeleyenne des enjeux philosophiques concernant la tolérance religieuse et civile"
    11:15-12:00  Milowit Kuninski (Jagiellonian U, Krakow): "The Old and the New in Berkeley's Passive Obedience"
    14:00-14:45  Scott Breuninger (South Dakota): "Improving the 'Health of the Nation': Berkeley, Virtue, and Ireland"
    14:45-15:30  Heta Gylling (Helsinki): "Berkeley a Worldly Philosopher"
    16:00-16:45  Richard J. Van Iten (Dubuque, IA): "Berkeley's Pragmatic Bent and Its Bearing on His Social Philosophy"
    17:00  Informal discussion at the Sandman Hotel
Saturday, June 2
    9:15-10:00  Luc Peterschmitt (Lille): "Une philosophie pour quoi faire? Berkeley face au scepticisme et à l'irréligion"
    10:00-10:45  Ahmed Mellah: "La réforme morale et sociale de Berkeley"
    11:15-12:00  Pascal Taranto (Nantes): "Vérité et utilité dans la pensée morale de Berkeley"
    14:00-14:45  Jérémy Girard (Nantes): "La bonne société d'après Berkeley: entre éducation religieuse et coutume raisonnable"
    14:45-15:30  Timo Airaksinen (Helsinki): "Berkeley and Human Freedom"
    16:00-16:45  Daniel Flage (James Madison): "Ethics in Alciphron"
    17:00  Informal discussion at the Sandman Hotel
Sunday, June 3
    9:15-10:00  Adam Grzelinski (Torun, Poland): "Berkeley's Understanding of Beauty and His Polemic with Shaftesbury"
    10:00-10:45  Ville Paukkonen (Helsinki): "Berkeley's Eudaemonistic Ethics: the Case of Sociability"
    11:15-12:00  Hugh Hunter (Toronto): "Berkeley on Doing Good and Meaning Well"
    14:00-14:45  Melissa Frankel (Carleton): "Morality, Idealism, and the Possibility of Sin"
    16:00-16:45  Marta Szymanska-Lewoszenska (Jagiellonian U, Krakow): "The Meaning of Berkeley's Request for mundum contemplandum, & imitandum in Human Acting in the Moral World"
    17:00  Informal discussion at the Sandman Hotel
Monday, June 4
    9:15-10:00  Nancy Kendrick (Wheaton C., Mass.: "Berkeley and The Ladies Library"
    10:00-10:45  Marc Hight (Hampden-Sydney C.): "Berkeley on Economic Bubbles"
    11:15-12:00  Piotr Szalek (Lublin, Poland): "Berkeley's Non-cognitivism"
    14:00-14:45  Artem Besedin (Moscow): "The Principles of Berkeley's Early Social Philosophy"
    15:15-16:00  Stephen H. Daniel (Texas A&M): "Berkeley and Hobbes: The Acceptance of the Political/Linguistic Self"
    16:00-16:30  Sébastien Charles (Sherbrooke): Conference Summary
Contacts: Bertil Belfrage (English), Sébastien Charles (French).
Website.

June 7, 2012
Workshop: "Matter and Nature in Early Modern Philosophy"
Ghent University
Blandijnberg 2, Rm. 2.16
Ghent, Belgium
13:45-15:00  Marleen Rozemond (Toronto): "Mills Can't Think: Leibniz' Approach to the Mind-Body Problem"
15:15-16:30  Katherine Dunlop (Brown): "Newton on conservation and the Activity of Matter"
16:45-18:00  Herman De Dijn (Leuven): "Reading the Book of Nature and Reading the Bible"
Contact: Eric Schliesser.

June 7, 2012
Venice Leibniz Seminar
University Ca’ Foscari Venice
Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Dorsoduro 3484/D; 3:30 p.m.
Venice, Italy
Speaker: Mogens Laerke (Aberdeen/CERPHI, ENS de Lyon): "Leibniz on Spinoza’s Monism, October 1675 to February 1678"
Contact: Matteo Favaretti.

June 11, 2012
Lecture: "Rousseau and Modern Democracy"
Speaker: Richard Tuck (Harvard); reply: Adam Roberts (Oxford)
British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, 6:00-7:30 p.m.
London, UK
June 2012 marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, often seen as the first modern theorist of democracy and one of the chief founders of modern political thought. He had great influence on both the French and American Revolutions, and on the institutions of all existing democratic states. He coined the memorable phrase: "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains".
Registration required.
Website.

June 21-24, 2012
Conference: International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science
University of King's College
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Thursday, June 21
    Morning session I.3 (parallel): Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam
        Daniel Schwartz: “Francis Bacon on the unity of discovery and justification”
        Ian Stewart: ”Francis Bacon and the history of the philosophy of ‘observation’”
        Karen Zwier: “Experiment as test of causal claims: A history”
    Morning session I.4 (parallel): Scientific Methods and Explanation
        Anastasia Guidi Itokazu: “Johannes Kepler's history of hypotheses: In defence of realism”
        David Marshall Miller: “Pluribus ergo existentibus centris: Explanations, descriptions, and Copernicus”
        Petter Sandstad: “Philodemus on the joint method of agreement and difference”
    Morning session II.3 (parallel): Thomas Hobbes
        Marcus P. Adams: “Maker’s knowledge and underdetermination in Hobbesian natural philosophy”
        Geoffrey Gorham: “Hobbes on motion, time and conatus: A realist account”
        Edward Slowik: “Hobbes and the “phantasm” of space”
    Morning session II.4 (parallel): Wallis and Kant
        Adam Richter: “The Trinity and the cube: Nescience in the epistemology of John Wallis”
        Michael J. Olson: “Metaphysics and science in Kant’s Copernican revolution”
    Afternoon session III.4 (parallel): Aristotle
        Phil Corkum: “Aristotle on quantification”
        Richard Dewitt: “Does Aristotle say an object that weighs twice as much falls twice as fast? (Hint: No.)”
        Janine Gühler: “Aristotle’s way of abstracting”
        Mark Sentesy: “The compatibility of dunamis and energeia”
Friday, June 22
    Morning session IV.3 (parallel): Philosophy of Experiment
        Peter Anstey (Otago): “D’Alembert, the ‘Preliminary Discourse’, and the experimental philosophy”
        Madalina Guirgea: “On the creative role of experimentation in Descartes’ study of colours”
        Yiftach Fehige: “Two hundred years of thinking about thought experiments”
    Morning session IV.4 (parallel): Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
        Erik C. Banks: “The problem of extension in the philosophy of science (1700-1860)”
        Douglas Bertrand Marshall: “Leibniz: Geometry, physics, and idealism”
        Ken Pearce: “Leibniz on phenomenalism, mechanism, and the great chain of being"
    Morning session V.1 (parallel): Symposium on Transforming methods: Late Aristotelian roots of modern approaches to medicine, natural philosophy and civil science
        Peter Distelzweig: “William Harvey’s Aristotelian experimentalism”
        Nathan Smith: “Simple natures and scientific explanation in Bacon and Descartes”
        Helen Hattab (Houston): “Method and mathematical order from Zabarella to Hobbes”
    Morning session V.4 (parallel): Newton and Huyghens
        Ari Belenkiy: “The master at the Royal Mint: How much money did Newton save Britain?”
        Alistair Isaac: “Newtonian answers to Baconian questions: ‘Proof by experiment’ in Newton’s optical research”
        Maarten van Dyck: “Mechanics and natural philosophy in the work of Christiaan Huygens”
    Afternoon session VI.1 (parallel): Symposium on Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics: Twenty years young
        Dennis Des Chene (Washington U): “Descartes’ revision of the relations of metaphysics to natural philosophy”
        Dana Jalobeanu: “Descartes’ mathematical physics and Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics”
        Tad M. Schmaltz: “The mechanical philosophy and occasionalism: Reflections on Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics”
            Daniel Garber (Princeton): Response
Saturday, June 23
    Morning session VII.1 (parallel): Symposium on Newton’s place in the rationalist tradition
        Mary Domski: “Newton and Proclus on the geometry of absolute space”
        Eric Schliesser: “Spinoza and the Newtonians on motion and matter (and God, of course)”
        Janet Folina: “Hamilton’s Newtonian defense of truth in algebra”
    Morning session VII.4 (parallel): Varia
        Eric Palmer: “‘A wise disposition of nature’: Finding purpose in early modern explanation”
        John Barresi: “British psychology as an empirical science in the eighteenth century: Pneumatological lectures of Grove, Doddridge, Reid and Belsham”
        Ina Goy: “Kant on formative power”
    Morning session VIII.1 (parallel): Symposium on Kant, Leibniz, and the foundations of the exact sciences
        Clinton Tolley: “Kant, Leibniz, and the metaphysical foundations of logic”
        Jeremy Heis: “Leibniz versus Kant on Euclid's axiom of parallels”
        Marius Stan: “Leibniz and Kant on the relativity of motion and the law of inertia”
    Morning session VIII.4 (parallel): Descartes
        Barnaby Hutchins: ‘The non-mechanical foundation of Descartes’ mechanical physiology”
        Bret J. Saunders: “Descartes’s scientific poetics: Analysis, analogy and rhetoric in Optics I”
        Monica Solomon: “Descartes and Newton: The influence of mathematics in conceptualizing motion”
    Afternoon: Special Plenary Symposium: Reflections on Michael Friedman’s Kant and the Exact Sciences
        Emily Carson: “Kant, quantity, and figurative synthesis”
        Marius Stan: “Physics in Kant and the Exact Sciences: Twenty years later”
        Robert DiSalle: “Transcendental philosophy from a Newtonian perspective”
        Michael Friedman: “Reconsidering Kant and the Exact Sciences”
Sunday, June 24
    Morning session IX.1 (parallel): Symposium on Life before the man-machine: Conceptualizing life and mechanism in early modern natural philosophy
        Peter Distelzweig: “Function, use and teleology in Descartes and early modern medicine”
        Barnaby Hutchins: “Descartes and the dissolution of life”
        Dagmar Provvijn: “Harvey’s mechanisms”
        Charles T. Wolfe: “Automata, man-machines and the challenge of life”
    Morning session IX.4 (parallel): History of philosophy of mathematics
        Mario Santos-Sousa: “Berkeley on the mind-dependence of numbers”
        Barbara Sattler: “The Labours of Zeno: A supertask?”
        Tobias Schöttler: “The quaestio de certitudo mathematicarum, or: The unique character of mathematical Proofs”
        Daniel G. Campos: “The role of analogy in mathematical reasoning: The case of Archimedes’ De Circuli Dimensione and Bernoulli’s Ars Conjectandi”

Note: the Atlantic Canada Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy will be held at Dalhousie University will be held at Dalhousie University in Halifax June 25-28, 2012 (see below). The organizers of both conferences hope that some participants will find it convenient and attractive to attend some of the events in the other. Among these events is a trip scheduled for June 24 to Joggins, on the Bay of Fundy, one of the premiere fossil sites in North America in a beautiful seaside situation.

Website.
Contact: Eric Schliesser.

June 22-24, 2012
Margaret Wilson Conference
Dartmouth College
Haldeman Building
Hanover, NH
All sessions in Haldeman 125 except concurrent sessions on Saturday afternoon (tba).
Friday, June 22
    Morning session: Descartes
        Elliot Samuel Paul (Barnard, Columbia): "Descartes's Scientia"
        Raffaella De Rosa (Rutgers-Newark): "Descartes on the Innateness of Color Sensation"
        Stephen H. Daniel (Texas A&M): "Berkeley and Descartes on the Relation of Mind to Its Ideas"
    Afternoon session: Spinoza and Leibniz
        Eugene Marshall (Wellesley): "Spinoza's Mechanistic Psychology"
        John R. T. Grey (Boston U): "Reconsidering Spinoza on the Lower Animals"
        Larry Jorgensen (Skidmore): "Revisiting Distinct Perception in Leibniz"
        Stewart Duncan (Florida): "Leibniz: Thomas Burnett of Kemnay"
Saturday, June 23
    Morning session: Locke, Hobbes, and Berkeley
        Matthew Stuart (Bowdoin): "Locke on Coincidence and Identity"
        Dan Kaufman (Colorado): "Division and Composition, the Hobbes Way"
        Matthew Holtzman (Washington C.): "The Moral-Philosophical Program of Berkeley's Principles"
        Melissa Frankel (Carleton U, Ottawa): "Divine Perception, Archetypes, and the Adequacy of Ideas"
    Concurrent Afternoon Session I
        Colin Chamberlain (Harvard/Notre Dame): "Two Aspects of the Mind-Body Union in Descartes and Malebranche" (location A)
        Jill Graper Hernandez (Texas, San Antonio): "The Present Suffering: An Early Feminist Revision to Leibnizian Theodicy" (location B)
        Patrick Connolly (North Carolina, Chapel Hill): "Locke's Ideas of Power" (location C)
    Concurrent Afternoon Session II
        J. A. Abreu (Cambridge): "Madness in Descartes's Meditations" (location A)
        Yual Chiek (Yale/Queen's): "Leibniz's Rejection of Cartesian Mechanism: Conceivability, Incomparability, and the Principle of the Best" (location B)
        Jason Fisette (New School for Social Research): "Architecture, Not Projection: The Skepticism of Hume's Analogy of Morals to Secondary Qualities" (location C)
    Concurrent Afternoon Session III
        Patrick Brissey (South Carolina): "Descartes: The Adam and Tannery Edition or a Lost Draft?" (location A)
        Allison Kuklok (Harvard): "Strings, Physies, and Hogs Bristles: Objective Kinds in Locke" (location B)
        Timothy Yenter (Yale): "Hume's Argument for Why the Causal Maxim is Not Certain" (location C)
    Concurrent Afternoon Session IV
        Alex Silverman (Yale): "Spinoza on Attributes and Desires" (location A)
        Jessica Gordon-Roth (Illinois, Chicago): "A Reconsideration of Lockean Persons as Modes" (location B)
        Marina Folescu (Southern California): "Reid on the Objects of Perception" (location C)
Sunday, June 24
    Morning session: Hume
        Joshua Wood (Texas A&M): "Is Hume's Impression of Will a Fiction?"
        Stefanie Rocknak (Hartwick): "Moderate Skepticism in Hume's Treatise"
        Lewis Powell (Wayne State): "Hume vs. Malebranche on Doxastic Voluntarism"
    Afternoon session: Hume and Kant
        Jennifer Marusic (Brandeis): "Hume on the Misuse of Causal Language"
        Robert Fogelin (Dartmouth): "Hume's Role in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
        Andrew Chignell (Cornell): "A Neglected Modal Condition on Kantian Knowledge"
        Timothy Rosenkoetter (Dartmouth): "What Can Kant's Disagreements with Wolff Tell Us About Kantian Autonomy?"
Website.
Contact: Samuel Levey.

June 25-26, 2012
Conference: Humean Readings
La Sapienza University of Rome
Rome, Italy
Call for papers: this conference will consist of morning and afternoon sessions devoted to examining the many subjects dealt with in the philosophical work of David Hume, from both a historical and a more strictly philosophical point of view. Papers in English are therefore invited in the many fields of Hume's philosophy. Invited speakers include: Julia Driver (Washington U, St. Louis), Eugenio Lecaldano (La Sapienza, Rome), Willem Lemmens (Antwerp). Presentations along with discussion will be limited to about one hour. Abstracts (less than 300 words) along with a short c.v. should be sent to Alessio Vaccari no later than May 1. Decisions will be announced by May 10.
Contact: Alessio Vaccari.

June 25-28, 2012
Atlantic Canada Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
Dalhousie University
Marian McCain Bldg. Room 1130, 6135 University Ave.
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Monday, June 25
    12:00-1:20  Christina Behme (Dalhousie): “Science should be Neither Aristotelian nor Galilean but Cartesian”
    1:30-2:50  Susan Mills (Grant MacEwan): “Descartes’s Mechanistic and Psychosomatic Medicines”
    3:00-4:30  Bret J. Saunders (U Dallas): “The Cartesian Theatre: Analysis, Experience, and the Imagination in Optics I and Meditations I-II”
Tuesday, June 26
    9:00-10:20  Colin Chamberlain (Harvard): “Two Aspects of the Mind-Body Union in Descartes and Malebranche”
    10:30-11:50  David Scott (U Victoria): “Descartes and Aristotle on Pure Mind”
    1:00-2:20  Gordon Mower (Brigham Young): “A Progress of Doubt: Descartes as Skeptic”
    2:30-3:50  Andreea Mihali (Wilfrid Laurier): “Extreme Makeover: Descartes Edition”
    4:00-5:20  Allison Kuklok (Harvard): “Physies, Strings and Hogs’ Bristles: Objective Kinds in Locke”
Wednesday, June 27
    9:00-10:20  Tad Robinson (Muhlenberg C.): “Spinoza on the Immediate Infinite Mode of Extension”
    10:30-11:50  Hellen Hattab (U Houston): “Analysis and Synthesis in Spinoza’s Method”
    12:00-1:20  Jason Fisette (New School for Social Research): “Architecture, not Projection: Hume’s Analogy of Morals to Secondary Qualities”
Thursday, June 28
    9:00-10:20  Anna Frammartino Wilks (Acadia U): “What We Can and Cannot Know About Kant’s Things in Themselves”
    10:30-11:50  Dai Heidi (Simon Fraser): “The Neglected Neglected Alternative”
    12:00-1:20  Colin McQuillan (Tennessee): “Aesthetic and Logical Clarity in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason”
    Note: the annual meeting of the History and Philosophy of Science Association (HOPOS) will be held in Halifax June 21-24, 2012 (see above). The organizers of both conferences hope that some participants will find it convenient and attractive to attend some of the events in the other. Among these events is a trip scheduled for June 24 to Joggins, on the Bay of Fundy, one of the premiere fossil sites in North America in a beautiful seaside situation.

Contact: Tom Vinci.

June 28-29, 2012
Conference: "Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Britain"
University of Leeds
England
The aim of this international conference, held in celebration of the tercentenary of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s birth, is twofold: first, to reassess the impact that Britain had on Rousseau’s life and writing; and secondly, to examine the reception of Rousseau's works in Britain from the eighteenth century to the present day. It is well known that Rousseau spent a number of months in England in 1766-67, a stay dominated by his stormy relationship with David Hume. What is less well known is the extent to which Rousseau, even before then, was steeped in British culture, including its literature, its philosophy and its politics. Exactly how Rousseau engaged with British culture and the effect it had on his own intellectual development and output will be a key focus of this conference. The conference will also allow scholars to explore systematically the many ways in which Rousseau has been read, understood, appropriated and challenged by British writers, philosophers and political theorists from the eighteenth century to the present day.
    Possible topics for conference papers include, but are not limited to:

    ·  Rousseau in Britain: travel and translation
    ·  Rousseau and the British press
    ·  Rousseau and the British Enlightenment
    ·  Rousseau and the Romantics
    ·  Rousseau and the Victorians
    ·  Rousseau: From Modernism to Postmodernism
    ·  Rousseau and British feminism
    ·  Rousseau and British nature-writing
    ·  Rousseau and the novel in Britain
    ·  Rousseau and British educational theory
    ·  Rousseau and British political theory

Proposals for 20-minute papers in English should include a title and an abstract of 300-500 words and should be sent by 30 September 2011 to the conference organisers, Russell Goulbourne and David Higgins.
Contact: Russell Goulbourne.

June 28-29, 2012
Locke Workshop
University of St Andrews
Department of Philosophy, Edgecliffe, Room 104
St Andrews, Scotland, UK
Thursday, June 28
    9:45-11:15  Jessica Gordon-Roth (Illinois, Chicago): "A Reconsideration of Locke on Persons as Modes"; commentator Ruth Boeker (St Andrews)
    11:30-13:00  Julie Walsh (UC San Diego): "Locke and Limborch on the Nature and Extent of Human Powers"; commentator: Markku Roinila (Acad. Finland/IASH Edinburgh)
    14:30-16:00  Martha Brandt Bolton (Rutgers): "Locke’s Anti-Essentialism"
    16:15-17:45  Patrick Connolly (North Carolina, Chapel Hill): "Lockean Superaddition and Lockean Humility"; commentator: Han-Kyul Kim (Temple)
Friday, June 29
    9:30-11:00  Edwin McCann (Southern California): "How Locke Didn't Argue for the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction"; commentator: Allison Kuklok (Harvard)
    11:15-12:45  Vili Lähteenmäki (Jyväskylä/HU Berlin): "Locke on Consciousness of Mental Acts"; commentator: Piotr Szalek (Catholic U Lublin/Cambridge)
    14:00-15:30  Shelley Weinberg (Illinois, Urbana-Champaign): "Locke on Knowing Our Own Ideas"; commentator: Matt Priselac (North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
Website.
Contact: Ruth Boeker.

June 29-30, 2012
Conference: "Leibniz and Experience"
Leibniz Universität Hannover
Königsworther Platz 1, Room 1502/003
Hannover, Germany
Friday, June 29
    9:00-9:15  Introduction and Welcome: Wenchao Li (Leibniz Hannover) and Arnaud Pelletier (Leibniz Hannover)
  Session I: Experientia: The Metaphysics of Experience
    9:15-10:15  Michel Fichant (Paris-Sorbonne): " 'Le principe des principes': idées et experience"
    10:15-11:15  Ursula Goldenbaum (Emory): "How Theological Concerns Favor Empiricism over Rationalism"
    11:30-12:30  Jeffrey McDonough (Harvard): "Leibniz on Monadic Teleology and Optimal Form"
  Session II: Experior: Kinds of First-Person Experiences
    14:00-15:00  Christian Barth (Humboldt U Berlin): "Leibniz on Sensation"
    15:00-16:00  Paul Rateau (Paris Panthéon Sorbonne): "Expérience et morale"
    16:15-17:15  Luca Basso (Padova): " 'Experimentum' und 'incommoda': die Vielfalt der politischen Gemeinschaften bei Leibniz"
  Evening Lecture (Contihochhaus, 14th Floor)
    18:00-20:00  Justin Smith (Concordia): "Tierexperimente und Erkenntnistheorie bei Leibniz und seinen Zeitgenossen"
Saturday, June 30
  Session III: Experimentalia: Experience and the Grounding of Sciences
    9:15-10:15  François Duchesneau (U Montréal): "What a ‘Science of the Organism’ Should Be for Leibniz"
    10:15-11:15  Hartmut Hecht (Berlin): "The Exclusion of the Perpetuum Mobile and Its Significance for Leibniz's Foundation of Physics"
    11:30-12:30  Arnaud Pelletier (Leibniz Hannover): "Leibniz and the Bounds of Experience: The Case of Magnetism"
  Session IV: Experimenta: Case Studies in Empirical Sciences
    14:00-15:00  Anne-Lise Rey (Lille III): "Le statut des expériences en chimie dans G.W. Leibniz"
    15:00-16:00  Raphaële Andrault (Paris VII): "Expériences du vivant dans les lettres à Arnauld: un rôle illustratif ou constitutif?"
  Session V: Expertus Sum: Storing Experiences
    16:15-17:15  Mogens Laerke (Aberdeen/ENS Lyon): "More mathematico ordinata, ordine naturali exposita: Leibniz, the Encyclopedia, and the Natural Ordering of Experimental Knowledge"
    17:15  Final Discussion
Contacts: Wenchao Li and Arnaud Pelletier.

June 29-July 4, 2012
Bucharest-Princeton Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy: "The Battle for Scientia in the Seventeenth Century"
Vila Andra
Bran, Romania
    The early modern period was an era of intellectual ferment, old ideas against new, and new ideas against new. Many of the disagreements were over substantive matters: are there indivisible atoms? is there a vacuum? is there anything in the world over and above body? But much of the disagreement was over matters of method and epistemology: what the proper goal of inquiry is and how it should be conducted. Some, like Descartes, favored a newly retooled version of Aristotelian scientia. Others, like Bacon, saw historia as fundamental. Others, like Galileo, Huygens, and later Newton saw mathematics as central. Others, like the members of the Royal Society of London saw the future in the experimental philosophy. Others focused on notions like sapientia or religio. These debates led to lively exchanges, in letters, in documents like the Objections and Replies to Descartes’ Meditations, in pamphlet wars, and eventually in journal articles. This is the theme of this year’s Bucharest-Princeton seminar: the lively world of disputation over the aims, goals, and methods of inquiry in philosophy and science taken broadly, investigated through the correspondence, debates, objections and replies that animated the intellectual scene of early modern Europe.
    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. It includes workshops in the morning and presentations of papers in the afternoon, where participants can present work in progress. While the morning sessions will focus on the theme of “The Battle for Scientia,” the afternoon sessions seek to give participants an opportunity to discuss their own special interests with an open and sympathetic audience of students and scholars with broad interests in early modern thought. Throughout we try to maintain a balance between the high scholarly level and the informal friendly spirit of a colloquium.
The Seminar will take place in Bran, a small mountain resort near Brasov, in Transylvania. It will be hosted in a small, friendly bed and breakfast (single or double rooms). The participation fee is 150 EUR for faculty and 70 EUR for students (covering accommodation with breakfast). We invite applications for contributions (from researchers) and for attendance (from students). If you want to contribute a paper, please send a CV and a one-page abstract, and if you want to attend, a CV and a letter of intent – by April 27 – to Dana Jalobeanu, Vlad Alexandrescu, and Daniel Garber.
Website.
Contact: Dana Jalobeanu.

June 30-July 2, 2012
Memorial Conference for Roger Woolhouse: "Substance in Early Modern Philosophy"
University of York
Humanities Research Centre, Berrick Saul Bldg, Bowland Auditorium
Speakers:
    Maria Rosa Antognazza (King’s College London)
    Donald Baxter (Connecticut)
    Martha Bolton (Rutgers)
    Justin Broackes (Brown)
    Lisa Downing (Ohio St)
    Han-Kyul Kim (Temple)
    Paul Lodge (Oxford)
    Antonia LoLordo (Virginia)
    Jonathan Lowe (Durham)
    Peter Millican (Oxford)
    Lex Newman (Utah)
    Pauline Phemister (Edinburgh)
    Sam Rickless (U California San Diego)
    Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Oxford)
    Timothy Stanton (York)
Website.
Contact: Rob Davies.

July 2-6, 2012
Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas
University of Cyprus
Nicosia, Cyprus

For more information on any of these workshops, go to the Conference Website and click on the link to the List of Workshops.

July 5-7, 2012
Conference: Kant and Modality
Humboldt University
Berlin, Germany
Kant’s various modal terms play a central yet to a large extent neglected role throughout his philosophy, from metaphysics, logic and epistemology to ethics, aesthetics and theology. Kant’s transcendental method itself is deeply bound to how he understands the necessary conditions of the possibility of some actual features of our cognitive capacities. Although lately the importance of modality to several key-issues of Kant’s philosophy has been recognized, his views about modality remain a poorly understood and under-researched area.
    The conference seeks to promote important issues of Kant’s theory of modality and to exchange ideas by bringing together scholars working on all topics relating to his conception of modality. In addition to the invited speakers, two slots are available for presentation of 45 minutes, followed by 45 minutes of discussion. We cover all accommodation costs as well as travelling costs up to 500 Euro.     Those interested in presenting their work on any topic related to Kant’s conception of modality should send a max. 1000 word description of their topic along with a CV to Toni Kannisto no later than April 15. Priority will be given to topics focusing on Kant’s theory of modality exclusively rather than in relation to other philosophers or fields of philosophy.
Possible topics include but are not restricted to the following:
  -  Kant’s conception and theory of modality
  -  Logical, real, deontic, epistemic etc. modalities
  -  The relationship between different kinds of modality (e.g. logical and real)
  -  The relevance of modality to Kant’s philosophy (e.g. to metaphysics, ethics, a priori/a posteriori distinction, philosophical method, justification, transcendental idealism, development of Kant’s thought, etc.)
  -  Kant’s conception of being and existence
  -  Comparison of different interpretations of Kant’s philosophy of modality
Scheduled speakers include:
    Uygar Abaci (Pennsylvania): "Was Kant a Modal Realist?"
    Ian Blecher (Pittsburgh): "Kant on Being and Actuality"
    Ralf Busse (Regensburg): "Kant on Intuition, Objecthood, and Existence"
    Andrew Chignell (Cornell): "On 'Proving' Something to be Possible: Kant's Modal Condition and Contemporary Epistemology"
    Toni Kannisto (Oslo): "From Thinking to Being: Kant's Modal Critique of Metaphysics"
    Jessica Leech (Cambridge): "Metaphysical Necessity: Some Lessons from Kant"
    Markku Leppäkoski (Stockholm): "Kant’s Necessity: Cannot Be Otherwise"
    Giuseppe Motta (Trier): "Kant´s New Definition of the Concept of Existence in the Critique of Judgment"
    Tobias Rosefeldt (Humboldt-Universität Berlin): "Kant on Existence and Real Predicates"
    Timothy Rosenkoetter (Dartmouth): "The Reciprocal Dependence of Kant's Theory of Judgment and His Views on Modality"
    Nicholas Stang (Miami): "Kant on Nomic Necessity"
Website.
Contact: Toni Kannisto.

July 7-8, 2012
Kant Workshop with Paul Guyer: "A Passion for Reason"
University of Konstanz
Konstanz, Germany
This workshop with Paul Guyer (U Pennsylvania) will center primarily on questions regarding Kant's practical philosophy. We will read and discuss recent articles by Paul Guyer on this topic. Some participants will have the opportunity to present short papers (max. 20 minutes reading time). Please send your proposal together with a short CV by May 30th, 2012 to Dina Emundts. Submissions should concern issues directly related to Kant's practical philosophy. Registration is free, but we request that you register ahead of time, as space is limited.
Website.
Contact: Jochen Briesen or Dina Emundts.

July 12-13, 2012
Conference: The Reception of Newton
Edward Worth Library
Dublin, Ireland
In recent years, considerable attention has been devoted to the elucidation of the precise nature and scope of Newton's influence on eighteenth-century science in particular, and on Enlightenment culture more generally. The Edward Worth Library is uniquely positioned to contribute to ongoing reassessment. An early eighteenth century library belonging to a Dublin physician, Edward Worth (1678-1733), the Library and its holdings bears witness to the spread of Newtonianism in Ireland. Worth's collection reminds us of the range and depth of the Newtonian impact on Europe and the crucial role played by second generation Newtonians in clarifying, classifying and re-presenting Newton's ideas. To mark "Dublin City of Science 2012," the Worth Library is organising this conference to explore the many facets of Newton's legacy. It is envisaged that a selection of the papers will be published.
    Speakers include: Mordechai Feingold (Cal Tech); Sarah Hutton (Aberystwyth); Robert Iliffe (Sussex); Scott Mandelbrote (Peterhouse C., Cambridge); William Newman (Indiana); and Lawrence M. Principe (Johns Hopkins).
    Abstracts of 300 words and a short author profile should be sent to Elizabethanne Boran no later than 1 March 2012. Independent scholars and researchers from all disciplines are welcome. Accommodation and registration costs will be covered and a small number of travel bursaries are available.
Contact: Elizabethanne Boran.

**Note: the North Sea Early Modern Philosophy Workshop listed here has been postponed.**

July 18-19, 2012
North Sea Early Modern Philosophy Workshop: "Early Modern Consequentialism and Its Critics"
Ghent University
Ghent, Belgium
Keynote speakers: Maria Rosa Antognazza (Kings College London), Michael Gill (Arizona)
We welcome paper proposals on topics (somewhat) pertaining to "Early Modern Consequentialism And Its Critics." Please send a blinded 500 word abstract to Eric Schliesser by May 1, 2012. Please include identifying information on a separate sheet.

July 18-22, 2012
International Hume Society Conference
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Special themes:

      Themes from the Work of Terry Penelhum: Self, Will, Religion
      Hume and Rousseau: On the occasion of Rousseau's 300th birthday
      Nominalism and Relations

Call for Papers: papers should be no more than thirty minutes reading length with self-references deleted for blind reviewing; the author's name 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 abstract. Authors are requested to submit cover sheets, abstracts, and papers in one file in either MS Word or rich text format (RTF). Cover sheets should include the author’s contact information. Papers are to be submitted as an email attachment addressed to submissions @humesociety.org. Submissions must be sent by November 1, 2011. Authors will be notified that their submissions have been received. If you submit a paper and do not receive an acknowledgement by November 15th, please email secretary@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.
Website.
Contact: Angela Coventry.

August 15-18, 2012
Conference: Subjectivity, Selfhood and Agency in the Arabic and Latin Traditions: The History of Philosophical and Moral Psychology
Uppsala University
Uppsala, Sweden
Subjectivity, consciousness, self-awareness, and the intentional aspects of perception and apprehension are popular topics in the contemporary philosophy of mind. A common thread amongst the various approaches to them has been dissatisfaction with the Cartesian paradigm of a self-constituted subject that is perfectly free in its volitions and epistemically transparent to itself, typically presented as standard for the modern age. Working from the opposite end, historians of philosophy and ethicists have noted that ancient and medieval ethics operated in a strikingly different understanding of self. Far from subscribing to the Cartesian notion, premodern moral philosophy generally took its cue from the assumption that human selfhood is socially construed. Our instinctive apprehension and evaluation of reality has as much to do with our upbringing as it does with our conscious acts of cognition and evaluation.
    It is in the Middle Ages that these two lines of thought converge. Historians of philosophy have noted that Descartes’ understanding of subjectivity did not develop in a vacuum; rather, it represents the culmination of medieval debates, which in turn build on ancient precedents. At the same time, the virtue ethics tradition underwent significant transformations, thanks in part to pressures arising from religious and legal considerations. These include a preoccupation with the freedom of choice and one’s culpability for the character one acquires.
    The present conference invites abstracts for submissions relating to these issues in Antiquity, the Latin and Arabic Middle Ages, and the Early Modern period. Relevant questions to consider are, for example: descriptions and explanations of consciousness and self-consciousness; degrees of self-consciousness; the conceptual shift from soul as the form of the human body to human self; human selves and the divine self; techniques of the self, constructability of the self; social conditioning of human selfhood; and the dual concept of microcosm and macrocosm.
Confirmed keynote speakers: Calvin Normore (McGill/UCLA) and Udo Thiel (Graz).
Abstracts (300 word maximum) should be sent no later than January 31 to Jari.Kaukau. Submissions will be allotted 30 minutes for presentation and discussion.
Contact: Jari Kaukau.

September 6-8, 2012
International Colloquium: "Hume's French Conversation / Conversations avec 'le bon David' "
Paris
Call for Papers

"But the most eminent instance of the flourishing of learning in absolute governments is that of France, which scarcely ever enjoyed any established liberty, and yet has carried the arts and sciences as near perfection as any other nation. The English are, perhaps, greater philosophers; the Italians better painters and musicians; the Romans were greater orators; but the French are the only people, except the Greeks, who have been at once philosophers, poets, orators, historians, painters, architects, sculptors, and musicians. With regard to the stage, they have excelled even the Greeks, who far excelled the English. And, in common life, they have, in a great measure, perfected that art, the most useful and agreeable of any, l'Art de Vivre, the art of society and conversation." (Of Civil Liberty)

"Our jealousy and our hatred of France are without bounds; and the former sentiment, at least, must be acknowledged reasonable and well-grounded" (Of the Balance of Trade)

    Through a series of plenary lectures, regular sessions and round tables, this colloquium proposes to explore a subject that has never been treated with the attention it deserves: the specific relations with France that helped make David Hume into the philosopher, man of letters, political author, economist and historian that he was.
    Papers in either English or French are invited in three fields: the influence of French thinkers on Hume; his experience in Paris and the provinces during his years in France (and his correspondence with French contemporaries); the posterity and influence of his thought among the French, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries. Whether the approach is philosophical, political, historiographical, economic, literary, sociological, etc., it is hoped that all papers will represent state of the art contributions to Hume studies.
    This colloquium is organized by Robert Mankin (Laboratoire de Recherches sur les Cultures anglophones, Université Paris-Diderot); and Laurent Jaffro (Laboratoire PhiCo/NoSoPhi, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne). One-page proposals for papers should be addressed by 1 October 2011 to both organizers.

Appel à communications

«L’exemple le plus éclatant de l’épanouissement du savoir sous un pouvoir absolu est celui de la France, qui n’a presque jamais connu d’état de liberté, et qui a pourtant porté les arts et les sciences aussi près de la perfection que toute autre nation. Il se peut que les Anglais soient de plus grands philosophes, les Italiens de meilleurs peintres ou musiciens; les Romains furent de plus grands orateurs; mais les Français sont les seuls, les Grecs mis à part, qui ont été à la fois philosophes, poètes, orateurs, historiens, peintres, architectes, sculpteurs, et musiciens. Au théâtre, ils ont surpassé même les Grecs, eux qui surpassent de loin les Anglais. Et dans la vie ordinaire ils ont très largement perfectionné cet art, s’il en est le plus utile et le plus agréable, l’art de vivre, l’art de la société et de la conversation.» (De la liberté politique)

«Notre jalousie comme notre haine de la France sont sans bornes; et il faut admettre que le premier sentiment, au moins, est raisonnable et justifié.» (De la balance commerciale)

    Ce colloque, qui combine conférences publiques, sessions de travail et tables rondes, se propose d’explorer un sujet qui n’a jamais été traité avec l’attention qu’il mérite: les relations particulières avec la France qui ont contribué à faire de David Hume le philosophe, l’homme de lettres, l’essayiste politique, l’économiste et l’historien qu’il fut.
    On attend des communications, en français ou en anglais, dans trois domaines: l’influence des penseurs français sur Hume; son expérience parisienne et provinciale lors de ses séjours en France (et sa correspondance avec des Français); sa postérité et son influence en France, en particulier aux 18e et 19e siècles. Quelle que soit l’approche adoptée, philosophique, politique, historiographique, économique, littéraire, sociologique, etc., on espère que toutes les communications constitueront des contributions de référence aux études humiennes.
    Le colloque est organisé par Robert Mankin (Laboratoire de Recherches sur les Cultures anglophones, Université Paris-Diderot), et Laurent Jaffro (Laboratoire PhiCo/NoSoPhi, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne). Des projets d’une page doivent parvenir aux deux organisateurs au plus tard le 1er octobre 2011.

September 6-9, 2012
Conference: "Scottish Common Sense Philosophy and the Natural Law Tradition in America"
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, NJ
    From 1750 to 1850, ethics and education in North America was powerfully influenced by the Scottish philosophical tradition. A major channel of this influence was John Witherspoon, President of the College of New Jersey and signatory of the Declaration of Independence, whose Lectures on Moral Philosophy to the students at Princeton provided a model for the colleges across the emerging United States to emulate. Drawing on Francis Hutcheson and the Protestant natural law tradition, Witherspoon and his successor Samuel Stanhope Smith established Scottish philosophy, and especially Thomas Reid’s philosophy of Common Sense, as a major influence on the development of American intellectual life.
    Princeton Theological Seminary celebrates the 200th anniversary of its foundation in 2012. By the inclusion of this conference in the bicentenary program the Seminary aims to sponsor an intellectual event that will investigate, and at the same time celebrate a key element of the academic and religious context in which Princeton Seminary was founded. Its further purpose is to explore the continuing relevance and future role of a philosophical tradition grounded in Protestant natural law.
    Schedule of keynote presentations:

        Thursday, Sept. 6: Gordon Graham (Princeton): "Piety and Science: the Princeton Tradition of Christian Education"; response: Leigh Schmidt (Washington U St. Louis)
        Friday, Sept 7, morning: Jennifer Herdt (Yale) and Stephen J. Grabill (Acton Institute): "Protestantism, Ethics and Natural Law: Two Perspectives"; response John Bowlin (Princeton)
        Friday, Sept. 7, afternoon: Keith Lehrer (Arizona): "Thomas Reid, Morality and Common Sense"; response: Esther Kroeker (Leuven)
        Saturday, Sept. 8: Nicholas Wolterstorff (Yale): "Reid, Knowledge, Faith and Scepticism"; response: Rene van Woudenberg (Free U Amsterdam)
        Sunday, Sept. 9: Dawn De Vries (Union Theo Sem, Richmond): "Ethics, Religion and Education"; response: Sam Fleischacker (Illinois/Chicago)

A further feature of the program (on Saturday Sept 8) will be a combination of lectures and panel discussion open to members of the public, on the contemporary relevance of the conference theme.

        Lecture I: Daniel R Robinson (Oxford): "Witherspoon, Scottish Philosophy and the American Founding"; response: Scott Segrest (West Point)
        Lecture II: Alan Keyes (Witherspoon Foundation): "Common Sense, Natural Justice and the Republican Character of Government in the United States"; response: George Nash (Russell Kirk Ctr)
        Panel: Jennifer Herdt, Alan Keyes, Jeffrey Stout (Princeton), Hadley Arkes (Amherst), Dan Robinson (Oxford)

Paper proposals are invited for subsidiary concurrent sessions. These may be on any aspect of the conference theme, and should take the form of an abstract of approximately 500 words, submitted by email attachment, with contact details on the accompanying email only. The deadline for submission is April 1, 2012. Decisions will be communicated by May 1, 2012. Financial support including travel and lodging is available for up to six graduate paper presentations. Successful proposals will be eligible for the 2013 George Davie Essay Prize - $1000 plus publication in the Journal of Scottish Philosophy.
Website.
Contact: James Foster.

September 13-15, 2012
Conference: Leibniz and Bayle
University of Paris Sorbonne
Paris
[More information to come.]
Contact: Paul Rateau.

September 15-16, 2012
Southern Study Group of the North American Kant Society
Hyatt Regency Hotel
Tulsa, OK
Keynote speakers: Stephen Palmquist (Hong Kong Baptist) and possibly one other.
    Papers on any area of Kant studies will be considered, but submissions pertaining to Kant’s philosophy of religion are particularly encouraged. Papers should be limited to 30 minutes reading time (approximately 4500 words) and cannot have been already read at other NAKS study groups or meetings. All submissions should be prepared for blind review and accompanied by an abstract of no more than 300 words. The deadline for submission is April 15th, 2012 with notification by mid-June. NAKS membership is mandatory for submissions. (Please go to the “members only” section of our website and follow the link to submit and/or become a member). The best graduate student submission will receive a stipend of $200 and be eligible for the Markus Herz Prize. Selected papers are also eligible to be considered for inclusion in the book series Rethinking Kant, published by Cambridge Scholars Press.
    Submit your paper in Adobe (.pdf) or MS Word (.doc, .docx) format via email attachment to Lawrence Pasternack with “NAKS submission” as the email’s subject. Your paper should include a cover page with only its title and abstract. In the body of the email, include the title, abstract, author’s name, and contact information.
Contact: Lawrence Pasternack.
Website.

September 20-21, 2012
Conference: "Kantian Ethics and Moral Life"
University of Antwerp, City Campus
Antwerp, Belgium
A vast amount of literature on Kant’s moral philosophy tends to focus on the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason, discussing Kant’s views about the ground of morality and its supreme principle, the categorical imperative, (the relation between) its formulas, the good will and moral motivation, and the problems and requirements of rational agency. This focus tends to reaffirm the image of Kantian ethics as an abstract, formalistic and rigorist theory. Asking to adopt the law of pure reason as the only principle of morality, while sketching human beings as weak, deficient and often irrational creatures, Kantian ethics seems to suggest that the gap between its ideal of virtue and human nature is unbridgeable.
    In the last decades however, a number of scholars has shown that a less formalistic and rigorist reading of Kant’s moral philosophy is possible. A more complete, detailed and balanced picture of Kantian ethics appears by focusing on the views Kant presents in The Metaphysics of Morals and Lectures on Ethics. These works offer a fruitful analysis of themes like human virtue, moral feeling and the role of moral education. Also, Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View provide insightful discussions of the human existential moral condition. The theory of human morality that Kant develops in these writings provides a vital antidote to the so-called abstract rationalism and formalism of his moral philosophy. It shows that Kantian ethics is capable of offering us an attractive and feasible moral theory.
    Even this new approach cannot conceal, however, that Kantian ethics is very demanding. It requires that the standards of pure practical reason are taken into account as overriding concerns in every practical deliberation. And even though one can argue that Kantian ethics is right to ask this, it still leaves open the question of how to meet these standards in various concrete situations. Thus, even for contemporary Kantian ethics, a number of questions remain unanswered. How to live a moral life in the Kantian sense? How to take into account Kantian moral concerns as a citizen, a politician, a businessman, a member of a family, etc.? How to give shape to Kantian virtue as an individual? How to estimate the moral import of features that are inextricably bound up with our existence as human (finite and sensuous) beings?
    This conference aims to bring together influential authors and young Kant scholars, permitting the participants to engage into a debate concerning the various facets of Kant’s views on how human beings can lead a moral life and on what features are necessary and distinctive for leading a moral life. It invites participants to question and challenge Kant’s thought for its present-day relevance and to discuss Kantian approaches to specific problems in (applied) ethics, but it also welcomes exegetical approaches to Kant’s account of moral life. Papers are also invited to question and challenge Kant’s thought for its present- day relevance. Over the last decades, the new, more balanced Kantian approach has taken root in various fields of applied ethics, such as animal ethics, human rights and international solidarity, medical ethics and business ethics. The conference welcomes contributions from moral philosophers who have been inspired by recent Kantian thinking to reflect on urgent issues such as our duties towards (farm) animals, our duties towards (far away) strangers, the nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the moral status of the corporation.
    Substantial efforts will be made to publish all papers accepted for the conference in proceedings and/or to publish selected and revised papers in an edited volume.
    Confirmed Speakers: Marcus Düwell (Utrecht), Paul Guyer (Pennsylvania), Barbara Herman (UCLA), Pauline Kleingeld (Groningen), Jens Timmermann (St Andrews).
    Call for Abstracts: in addition to the plenary sessions there will be room for presentations of short papers (20-30 min). If you wish to contribute, please send an abstract of 500 words to Liesbet Van Haute. The deadline for submissions is 30 September 2011. Participants whose abstract is accepted will be asked to send in a full paper by May 2012.
Contacts: Liesbet Van Haute or Stijn Van Impe.

September 20-22, 2012
Conference: "Locke and Cartesianism/ Locke et le Cartésianisme"
Université Lille III, Maison de la recherche
Villeneuve d'Ascq, France
Through this conference, we wish to explore what is still surprizingly a negected theme in Locke studies--a theme, however, that may prove to be a very important key to the interpretation of Locke's philosophical project. We expect the papers to cover topics such as:

Although Descartes is the primary focus of the conference, a session will be devoted to Locke's relations with so-called Cartesian authors, such as Malebranche (or Norris), Arnauld and Nicole.
Confirmed speakers: Peter Anstey, Laura Berchielli, Martha Bolton, Geneviève Brykman, Stephen Daniel, Lisa Downing, Daniel Garber, Richard Glauser, Philippe Hamou, Matthieu Haumesser, Laurent Jaffro, Denis Kambouchner, Martin Lenz, John Milton, Marc Parmentier, Martine Pécharman, Claire Schwartz, Catherine Wilson.
Website.
Contacts: Philippe Hamou and Martine Pécharman.

September 27-29, 2012
Quebec Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy / Séminaire québécois en philosophie moderne
University of Sherbrooke
Sherbrooke and North Hatley, Quebec
    Anglophone keynote speaker: Steven Nadler (Wisconsin, Madison); Francophone keynote speaker: TBA.
    The Quebec seminar in early modern philosophy is a bilingual 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.
    Papers on any topic in the history of early modern philosophy are welcome for presentation. The reading time should be approximately 45 minutes. The meetings will take place on the first day at the Université de Sherbrooke, and for the greatest part henceforth at the Hovey Manor in North Hatley, a village 30 minutes away from Sherbrooke (see the website of the Hovey Manor, where participants are invited to reserve their accommodations at the specially negotiated conference rates).
    Call for Papers: please submit an abstract of 500 to 750 words to Syliane Malinowski-Charles (for English submissions) or Sébastien Charles (for French submissions) no later than April 1, 2012. People submitting an abstract are expected to be able to follow the papers that will be presented in French.

    Conférencier invité Anglophone: Steven Nadler (Wisconsin, Madison); Conférencier invité francophone: à venir.
    Le séminaire québécois en philosophie moderne est un colloque annuel bilingue en histoire de la philosophie moderne (couvrant, 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.
    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 le premier jour à l'Université de Sherbrooke, et par la suite au Manoir Hovey à North Hatley, un village situé à environ une demie-heure de Sherbrooke (voir le site du Manoir Hovey, où les participants sont invités à prendre une réservation au tarif négocié pour le colloque).
    Appel à contributions: veuillez soumettre un résumé de votre présentation, entre 500 et 750 mots, à Sébastien Charles ou Syliane Malinowski-Charles avant le 1er avril 2012.
Contacts: Sébastien Charles, Syliane Malinowski-Charles.

October 11-12, 2012
Conference: Spinoza en Angleterre: Sciences et Reflexions sur Les Sciences
Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon
15, Parvis Descartes
Lyon, France
On s'intéresse de plus en plus au milieu intellectuel, historique et philosophique au sein duquel la philosophie de Spinoza s'est développée. Cependant on a eu une certain tendance à marginaliser son rapport avec l'Angleterre, qui représente au contraire un pôle important pour la réflexion spinozienne. Les débats scientifiques, en particulier, semblent constituer un enjeux problématique très intéressant pour Spinoza, mais qui reste encore assez peu exploré. La correspondance avec le secrétaire de la Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, et indirectement avec Robert Boyle, place Spinoza en rapport avec le milieu intellectuel anglais du début de son entreprise philosophique. C'est en Angleterre aussi d'ailleurs, que se trouve l'autre philosophe et interlocuteur au moins indirect de Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes, qui a été comme lui l'objet de la haine de son époque et a été également accusé d'athéisme. More, Cudworth et Toland ont été parmi les premiers à s'intéresser, pour la critiquer ou la défendre, à la philosophie de Spinoza. Même Colin MacLaurin, dans son histoire de la physique pré-newtonienne, n'hésite pas à dédier plusieurs pages à Spinoza. En effet, l'Angleterre du XVIIe siècle a constitué un milieu culturel extrêmement varié et dynamique, profondément lié au contexte néerlandais et européenne : révolutions politiques et scientifiques s'y articulent, tout en présentant un contexte privilégié aussi bien pour fournir à Spinoza lui-même plusieurs motifs de réflexion, que pour recevoir et diffuser sa philosophie. L'idée de ce colloque est donc de s'interroger sur la place de Spinoza dans ce milieu et sur l'osmose qui semble le caractériser.

Scholars are increasingly interested in Spinoza's intellectual and historical environment. However, it seems that the relation with the English culture has not been well appreciated yet, in spite of its importance for the development of Spinoza's own philosophy. Scientific debates, in particular, seem to define a set of problems that could have been very interesting for Spinoza, although not well explored by scholars. His correspondence with Henry Oldenburg, the secretary of the Royal Society, and indirectly with Robert Boyle, put Spinoza in touch with the English philosophical and scientific milieu from the beginning of his career. Moreover, Thomas Hobbes was also another important interlocutor for Spinoza's philosophy, who shared with him his highly controversial reputation, and the condemnation for atheism and materialism. Also Henry More, Cudworth, and Toland were among the first who took an interest in Spinoza's work, both in order to criticize or defend it, and Colin McLaurin, in his history of pre-Newtonian science devotes several paragraphs to counter Spinoza's philosophy. Mid-seventeenth century England was a highly diversified cultural environment, deeply connected with the Dutch and European context. The socio-political and scientific revolutions which took place in those years had probably stimulated Spinoza's reflections on several key problems both for developing his own philosophy and for better disseminating it. This conference aims to explore Spinoza's relationship with this kind of cultural environment and the osmoses between the two.

Contacts: Andrea Sangiacomo, Luisa Simonutti, Pierre-François Moreau.

October 17-18, 2012
Leibniz-Bayle Conference
University of Montreal
Pavillon Lionel-Groulx, 3150 Jean-Brillant (C-2059)
Montréal, Québec
This is the North American wing of a pair of conferences on Leibniz and Bayle, the first of which will be held in Paris, at the Sorbonne, September 13-15, 2012.
C'est le volet nord-américain d'un diptyque de colloques sur Leibniz et Bayle, dont le premier aura lieu à Paris, en Sorbonne, 13-15 septembre, 2012.
Wednesday, October 17
    9:15-10:00  Paul Rateau (Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne): "Leibniz, Bayle et le pouvoir de la raison"
    10:00-10:45  Kristen Irwin (Biola): "Reason in Bayle and Leibniz"
    11:15-12:00  Evelyn Vargas (U. Nac. de La Plata): "Leibniz and Bayle: Two Versions of Pyrrhonism"
    13:30-14:15  Joseph Anderson (South Florida): "Leibniz and Bayle on Divine Permission"
    14:15-15:00  Thomas Lennon (Western Ontario): "The Surprising Bayle-Leibniz Critique of Quietism"
    15:30-16:15  Jean Bernier (Genève): "Philosophie morale et révélation chez Bayle"
    16:15-17:00  Hartmut Rudolph (Leibniz Ed, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akad Wissenschaften): "Views of the World to Come: Some Remarks on Leibniz’s Metaphysics and Bayle’s Fideism"
Thursday, October 18
    9:30-10:15  Anne-Lise Rey (Lille)" 'Les bêtes et les hommes en tant qu'empiriques': réflexions épistémologiques sur la différence entre l'âme humaine et l'âme des bêtes"
    10:15-11:00  Jeanne Roland (Lycée Romain Rolland): "Machine de l'art et machine de la nature: différence de genre ou de degré? L'image du vaisseau de Bayle à Leibniz"
    11:00-11:45  Donald Rutherford (UC San Diego): "Bayle’s Dog and the Dynamics of the Soul"
**Note**: The 2012 meeting of the Leibniz Society of North America will be at Concordia University in Montreal, October 19-20, 2012 (see below).
Le colloque de la Société Leibnizienne de l'Amérique du Nord se tiendra à l'université Concordia, à Montréal, 19-20 octobre, 2012.
Contact: Christian Leduc.

October 19-20, 2012
Leibniz Society of North America Meeting
Concordia University
Hall Building Room 769
Montréal, Québec
Friday, October 19
    9:00-10:00  Douglas Marshall (Minnesota): "Leibniz: Geometry, Physics, and Idealism"
    10:00-11:00  Martine De Gaudemar (Paris X-Nanterre): "Sens et enjeux de l'expression chez Leibniz"
    11:00-12:00  Tzuchien Tho (CIEPC, Paris): "What is expressed in Motion? Leibniz's Invention of Force and the Problem of Infinitesimals"
    13:00-14:00  Christian Barth (Humboldt-Berlin): "Leibniz on Sensory Appearance"
    14:00-15:00  Matteo Favaretti (Foscari Venezia): Leibniz on True and False Ideas"
    15:00-16:00  Julia von Bodelschwingh (Yale): "It seemed Best at the Time: Goodness and Monadic Teleology"
Saturday, October 20
    9:00-10:00  Ohad Nachtomy (Bar Ilan/Fordham): "What's Infinity got to do with Life?"
    10:00-11:00  Anne-Lise Rey (Lille): "Le rôle des fictions dans la philosophie naturelle de Leibniz : diversité des régimes d'expérience"
    11:00-12:00  Yual Chiek (Yale/Queens): "A Relationist Approach to Incompossibility"
    13:00-14:00  Richard Arthur (McMaster): "Leibniz on the Relativity of Motion"
    14:00-15:00  Edward Slowik (Winona State): "Space and the Extension of Power in Leibniz's Monadic Metaphysics"
    15:00-16:00  Markku Roinila (Helsinki): "Imagination, Moral Instinct and Perfection in Leibniz"
Contacts: Justin Smith, Christian Leduc.
**Note**: This meeting will be preceded, on October 17 and 18, by a conference on Leibniz and Bayle at the University of Montreal (see above).
Cette réunion sera précédée, 17-18 octobre, par un colloque sur Leibniz et Bayle en l'université Concordia, à Montréal.

October 24-28, 2012
Conference: "Leibniz's Theodicy: Reception and Relevance"
Lisbon, Portugal
Details (including the list of invited speakers and commentators and a call for papers) to be posted soon.
Contact: Samuel Newlands.

November 1-3, 2012
International Conference of the European Society of the History of Science
Different venues near the Evaggelismos Metro station
Athens, Greece
The conference includes symposia on a variety of topics including:

The deadline for submitting abstracts--which must be done through the conference website--is February 24, 2012.
Conference website.

November 2-3, 2012
South Central Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
Texas A&M University
YMCA Building 401
College Station, TX
Call for proposals: 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. Presenters will have their housing and meals paid for. Abstracts (1-2 pages) on any topic in early modern (pre-Kantian) philosophy should be sent to Stephen H. Daniel no later than September 7. Completed papers should take no more than 35 minutes reading time to allow for discussion. The seminar schedule will be announced within ten days after that.
Website.
Contact: Stephen H. Daniel.

November 2-4, 2012
Conference: Early Modern Medicine and Natural Philosophy
Center for the Philosophy of Science
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
The aim of the conference is to bring to the fore the medical context of the 'Scientific Revolution' and to explore the complex connections between medicine and natural philosophy in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe. Medicine and natural philosophy interacted on many levels, from the practical imperative to restore and maintain the health of human bodies to theoretical issues on the nature of living matter and the powers of the soul to methodological concerns about the appropriate way to gain knowledge of natural things. And issues of life, generation, ageing, medicine, and vital activity were important topics of investigation for canonical actors of the Scientific Revolution, from Boyle, Hooke and Locke to Descartes and Leibniz. Recent efforts to recover the medical content and contexts of their projects have already begun to reshape our understanding of these key natural philosophers. Putting medical interests in the foreground also reveals connections with a wide variety of less canonical but historically important scientists, physicians, and philosophers, such as Petrus Severinus, Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Lodovico Settala, William Harvey, Richard Lower, Thomas Willis, Louis de la Forge, and Georg Ernst Stahl. This interdisciplinary conference will bring together scholars of Renaissance and Early Modern science, medicine and philosophy to examine the projects of more and less canonical figures and trace perhaps unexpected interactions between medicine and other approaches to studying and understanding the natural world.
    Confirmed Speakers include: Domenico Bertoloni Meli (Indiana), Antonio Clericuzio (Cassino), Dennis Des Chene (Washington U), Patricia Easton (Claremont), Cynthia Klestinec (Miami U), Gideon Manning (Caltech), Jole Shackelford (Minnesota), Justin E. H. Smith (Concordia, Montreal).
    Submission Guidelines: please submit an extended abstract of approximately 1000 words and a 1-2 page CV to Peter Distelzweig. Submission should have full institutional and contact information and should be in doc/docx or pdf format. Deadline for submissions is 1 June 2012. Decisions will be announced by 30 July 2012. Partial funding will be available for accepted papers.
Website.
Contact: Peter Distelzweig.

November 9-10, 2012
NYU Conference on Issues in Modern Philosophy: Inequality
New York University
Kimmel Center, 60 Washington Square South
New York, NY
The New York University Department of Philosophy will host the ninth in its series of conferences on issues in the history of modern philosophy on November 9 and 10, 2012. Each conference in the series examines the development of a central philosophical problem from early modern philosophy to the present, exploring the evolution of formulations of the problem and of approaches to resolving it. By examining the work of philosophers of the past both in historical context and in relation to contemporary philosophical thinking, the conferences allow philosophy’s past and present to illuminate one another. The theme of the 2012 Conference is: "Inequality."
Website.
Contact: Don Garrett.

November 14-17, 2012
Conference: "Harmony and Reality in Leibniz's Philosophy"
Leibniz-Forschungsstelle, Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität
Münster, Germany
Follow-up to UC San Diego conference on "Leibniz's Final Philosophy."
Contact: Stefan Meier-Oeser.

December 13-15, 2012
Conference: The Enduring Challenge of Rousseau's Thought
Colorado College
Colorado Springs, CO
In the year 2012, the 300th anniversary of his birth and the 250th anniversary of the publication of Emile, the magnitude of Rousseau’s legacy is incontestable. While the depth and systematic character of Rousseau’s thought had been recognized almost immediately by such thinkers as Kant and Hegel, among others, there has continued to be debate, not over the extent of his influence in many domains, but rather over the degree to which his legacy is to be understood as the result of rhetorical genius and dazzling dilettantism, rather than of meticulous art and philosophic rigor. The object of this conference is to bring renewed attention to Rousseau’s genuine and yet at times still undervalued stature as a scientist, philosopher, and artist. We hope that the work presented at this conference will serve to showcase how very deeply and subtly Rousseau thought, to explore some of the complex problems that he treats so radically and profoundly, to bring to life the vigorous debates in which he is engaged with his most thoughtful contemporaries and predecessors, and to demonstrate the subtlety and depth of discipline that he brought to his many endeavors. In accord with the spirit and past practice of the Rousseau Association/Association Rousseau, submissions are welcome in a wide variety of fields including, but not limited to, political philosophy, philosophy, music, history, the history of ideas, eighteenth-century studies, history of science, literature, and religious studies.
    Proposals (title and short summary) in English or French, for papers (to be presented orally in 15-20 minutes) should be sent no later than May 15 to Eve Grace. A decision will be communicated by June 15, and a preliminary program for the conference will be available in September 2012.

January 29-February 1, 2013
European Society for Early Modern Philosophy Conference: "Debates, Polemics and Controversies in Early Modern Philosophy"
Université de Grenoble
Grenoble, France
The European Society for Early Modern Philosophy invites submission of papers for presentation at the ESEMP Conference 2013. The three key-notes speakers will be Maria Rosa Antognazza (London), Marcelo Dascal (Tel Aviv), and Ursula Goldenbaum (Emory). There will also be invited speakers, among which Igor Agostini (Lecce), Raphaële Andrault (Paris 8), Jean-Pascal Anfray (ENS, Paris), Delphine Bellis (Paris), Laura Berchielli (Clermont-Ferrand), Gabor Boros (Budapest), Marion Chottin (France), Sorana Coreneanu (Bucharest), Hannah Dawson (Edinburgh), Sabrina Ebbersmeyer (Munich), Daniel Heider (Budweis), Sarah Hutton (Aberystwith), Peter Kail (Oxford), Catherine Larrère (Paris 1), Vili Lätheenmäki (Helsinki), Christoph Lüthy (Nijmegen), Martine Pécharman (CNRS), Francesco Piro (Salerno), Margaret Schabas (Cambridge), Stephan Schmid (Berlin), Daniel Schwartz (Jerusalem), Jean Terrel (Bordeaux 3), Matteo Valleriani (Berlin), Koen Vermeir (Paris 7), Valtteri Viljanen (Turku) and Falk Wunderlich (Mainz).
Please note that there is no registration fee for selected papers. Membership of the ESEMP is not compulsory to submit a paper. Travel and accomodation costs will be reimbursed. To submit a paper, please send an abstract of about 1000 words no later than April 30, 2012 to the President of the ESEMP, Sophie Roux. Your abstract should present not only the main arguments in the debate/polemic/controversy under study, but also make explicit the methodological approach that you have chosen and the specific domain to which your paper refers (e.g., metaphysics; natural philosophy; epistemology and philosophy of mind; the sciences including medicine; moral philosophy; politics). Please use the PDF-file format for submission and render your text completely anonymous, allowing for blind refereeing.
Papers will be selected by the board of the ESEMP (President, Vice-Presidents, Treasurer, Secretary), assisted by the organizers of the colloquia. We will consider submissions in the three official languages of the ESEMP (English, French and German) equally.
For each talk, there will be time for a 30-minute presentation, with about another 15 minutes for discussion. All accepted papers will be eligible in case of the publication of the proceedings.
Membership of the ESEMP is not compulsory to submit a paper. However, if you want to become a member of the ESEMP, please contact the Treasurer of the ESEMP, Hubertus Busche.
Website.
Contact: Sophie Roux.

February 23-24, 2013
Southwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
Biola University
La Mirada, CA
Following the model of similar seminars around the U.S. and Canada, 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).
Invited speaker: Thomas M. Lennon (Western Ontario)
Call for Abstracts: Papers on any subject in early modern philosophy are welcome for presentation at the Southwest Seminar. Reading times should be approximately 45 minutes. The deadline for submitting abstracts (of approximately 750 words) is Friday 19 October 2012. Email submissions are highly encouraged and can be sent to Mary Domski. Abstracts should be prepared for blind review and sent in either .doc or .rtf format. If you do not receive confirmation of receipt of your abstract within a week, please resubmit or contact the organizers. The program for the seminar will be announced in mid-November. Participants will receive two nights of complimentary housing in a hotel near the Biola campus. Modest funding to help cover speakers’ travel expenses may also be available.
Website.
Contact: Mary Domski.

March 1-3, 2013
Workshop: Scottish Reactions to Mandeville
Center for the Study of Scottish Philosophy
Princeon Theological Seminary
Erdman Conference Center
Princeton, NJ
    Egoism played a central role in enlightenment ethics. The first wave of egoist theory emerged out of Protestant theologizing, Epicurean revivalists like Pierre Gassendi, and especially the work of Thomas Hobbes. But whereas those influences dominated late 17th and early 18th century discussion of egoism, the egoist "culprit" of the greater part of the 18th century, at least in Britain, and especially in Scotland, was Bernard Mandeville. Papers are invited that investigate the peculiar influence Mandeville's philosophy had on Scottish thinking as well as papers that reconsider the nature of Mandeville's argument itself alongside the effectives of Scottish responses to that argument. While contributions focused on Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith are expected, papers addressing lesser studied Scottish responses to Mandeville are also encouraged.
    Plenary speakers: James Harris (St Andrews/Inst Advanced Studies, Princeton) and Remy Debes (Memphis)
Send conference paper abstracts to Remy Debes no later than October 1, 2012. Acceptance/rejection announced by November 1, 2012.
    This conference is being organized in association with a special issue of the Journal of Scottish Philosophy. Deadline for initial journal submission: December 1, 2012. Submissions should be prepared for blind review and sent by email attachment to the Journal of Scottish Philosophy. NB: accepted conference abstracts can be the basis of journal submissions.
Contact for both the issue and the conference: Remy Debes.

May 15-16, 2013
Craiova Colloquium in Early Modern Philosophy: "Between Continuity and Transformation: Leibniz on Substance and Substantial Forms"
Bucharest, Romania
Call for Papers: Through this colloquium, we wish to explore the theory of substance and substantial forms, especially in connection with the moment 1678-1679. We want to see, both from an historical and systematical point of view, the continuity and the transformation of the young Leibniz’s ideas (1666-1679) to the mature Leibniz (1680-1695). We expect the papers to cover topics such as: the influences from other theories of substance (Aristotelian, Scolastics, Cartesian, Mechanist etc.); the most important steps of the elaboration of the theory of substance; the way how some elements survived until the works from the middle years, especially until the monadological view; the solution of the composition problem; the relationship between soul and body; created substance and its role; the theological consequences of the composition problem; the view of the corporeal substance, and the relationship with the body and the organism; the nature of the body; the substance as subject and the way in which the early theory of substance influenced the mature theory of complete notion; the way in which the theory of substance influenced Leibniz’s logical and mathematical research, etc.
    Confirmed speakers include Daniel Garber (Princeton), Michel Fichant (Paris IV Sorbonne), Roger Ariew (South Florida), Enrico Pasini (Torino), Andreas Blank (Paderborn), Adrian Nita (Craiova, Romania), Stefano Di Bella (SNS Pisa). Papers can be in English or French.
Website.
Contact: Adrian Nita.

June 2013
Colloque international Leibniz-Diderot
Université d'Ottawa
Ottawa, Canada
L'année 2013 fêtera par plusieurs manifestations scientifiques le tricentenaire de la naissance de Diderot. C'est aussi l'occasion d'envisager une rencontre entre Diderot et Leibniz. Rencontre entre deux philosophies et deux pratiques de la philosophie, nourrie chez Diderot d'une lecture de Leibniz, mais aussi entre deux univers intellectuels, Leibniz et Diderot étant deux représentants marquants de leur siècle respectif. La première motivation de ce rapprochement classique est le mélange étonnant de proximité et d'opposition entre ces deux philosophes. Convergence autour de l'idée d'encyclopédie et des sociétés savantes, dans une pratique philosophique plurielle, voire par moments éclectique, dans l'accent sur certaines questions comme le rapport entre l'inerte et le vivant, la modalité des lois de la nature et le statut des unités ultimes de la matière. Mais opposition d'un matérialisme et d'une métaphysique monadique et finaliste, d'un empirisme et d'une défense des idées innées. Ce colloque voudrait non seulement faire le point sur ces rapprochements et ces oppositions, en interroger la pertinence, mais aussi poser la question de savoir comment on peut être philosophiquement à la fois aussi proche et aussi éloigné. Un second aspect concerne la pratique de l'histoire de la philosophie. Les études diderotiennes ont posé la question de la manière d'interpréter le rapport à Leibniz, ce qui demande comme souvent avec Diderot de rénover les catégories historiographiques. Il s'agira donc de savoir comment interpréter un rapport philosophique qui n'est pas une influence ni un simple emprunt revisité. Mais ce colloque voudrait aussi soulever la question du rapport de Leibniz et du leibnizianisme à Diderot. D'un point de vue leibnizien, quel peut être l'intérêt de la lecture opérée par Diderot : cette lecture très singulière éclaire-t-elle malgré tout l'œuvre de Leibniz ? Au final, ce colloque voudrait être l'occasion d'une discussion entre des philosophies qui se situent en général dans des horizons relativement lointains, mais qui partagent, comme ce colloque entend le montrer, de nombreuses et profondes affinités.
Appel à communication: Nous invitons toute personne intéressée de participer au colloque à nous faire parvenir une proposition de communication. Nous encourageons fortement les étudiants à soumettre une proposition. Les communications peuvent être en français ou en anglais. Veuillez envoyer un résumé (environ 500 mots) d'ici le 15 mars 2012 à Christian Leduc, François Pépin, Anne-Lise Rey, ou Mitia Rioux-Beaulne.
Call for papers: We invite everyone interested to participate in the conference to send us a presentation proposal. We strongly encourage graduate students to submit a proposal. Talks can be in French or English. Please send an abstract (approx. 500 words) by March 15th, 2012 to Christian Leduc, François Pépin, Anne-Lise Rey, or Mitia Rioux-Beaulne.
Contact: Christian Leduc.

August 19-22, 2013
International Berkeley Conference: The 300th Anniversary of the Publication of Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous
Collegium Maius, Jagiellonian University
Kraków, Poland
Scholars from around the world will be meeting to discuss Berkeley's Three Dialogues. Abstracts should be submitted to one of the organizers, Milowit Kuninski (Jagiellonian) or Bertil Belfrage (Lund), no later than 29 February 2012.