I just saw an advert for this conference in Pisa, Italy, in the beginning of June. It looks fantastic, very impressive list of speakers, including E. J. Lowe, Peter van Inwagen, and John Heil for instance. I worked on universals when I was doing my Masters degree, but I haven’t really followed the discussion since. This conference would no doubt give a good idea about the current state of the debate, but the timing doesn’t really work for me — I’m travelling a lot this summer.

Anyway, the schedule is below, I wish I could attend!

Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore – 5th-7th July 2010

Provisional Schedule

Monday (5th of July)

h. 14.30: Introduction

h. 14.50: Michael Loux (University of Notre Dame) : An Exercise in
Constituent Ontology

h. 16: Coffee Break

h. 16.15: Peter van Inwagen (University of Notre Dame): Relational
versus Constituent Ontologies

h. 17.30: Dean Zimmerman (Rutgers): Rehabilitating David Lewis’s
Arguments from Temporary Intrinsics

Tuesday (6th of July)

h. 9.15: Alex Oliver (Cambridge): Plurals and Properties

h. 10.30: Coffee Break

h. 10.45: Fraser Macbride (Cambridge): Russell on Relations

h. 12.00: Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Oxford): Leibniz On Properties

h. 13.15-14.45: Lunch Break

h. 14.45: John Heil (Washington, St. Louis): Universals?

h. 16.00: Coffee Break

h. 16.30: Sophie Gibb (Durham): Tropes and the Generality of Laws

Wednesday (7th of July)

h. 10: Jonathan Lowe (Durham): In Defence of Substantial Universals

h. 11.15: Coffee Break

h. 11.45: Gabriele Galluzzo (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa): For an
Aristotelian Understanding of Kinds and Properties

h. 13-14.30: Lunch Break

h. 14.30: Anna-Sofia Maurin (Lunds Universitet): States of Affairs and
the Exemplification Regress

h. 15.45: Coffee Break

h. 16.15: Robert Garcia (Texas A&M University): Categorial Gaps in Bundle Theory