Modality in the history of philosophy is an interesting topic, I expect this conference to be of interest to many contemporary philosophers working on modality as well — it certainly would be to me. Great list of speakers too, including the Finnish expert on modality in medieval philosophy, Prof. Simo Knuuttila. I’m slightly tempted to come up with a paper on Aristotle and the issues surrounding the order of ontological priority of essence and modality, since that’s a topic I’ve been thinking about recently. But I do feel that I’m lacking in historical expertise a bit. Besides, the conference overlaps with the Boston Marathon, which I’m planning on running if all goes well…

British Society for the History of Philosophy Annual Conference 2013: The Actual and the Possible

The University of York, 16th-18th April 2013

Supported by a Mind Association Major Conference Grant, the University of York and the Centre for the History of Philosophy (CHiPhi)

Confirmed Speakers: Prof. Simo Knuuttila (University of Helsinki), Prof. Thomas Baldwin (University of York), Prof. John Divers (Leeds), Dr. Jessica Leech (Sheffield), Dr. Anna Marmadoro (University of Oxford),Prof. Wayne Martin (University of Essex)

1st Call for Papers:

Key positions within 20th-century French and German (‘continental’) philosophy have been constructed according to ideas of possibility and its relation to actuality. Similarly, in the last decades questions concerning modality have come to prominence within the forms of metaphysical inquiry pursued in contemporary ‘analytic’ philosophy. The aim of this major international conference to be held at the University of York, April 16th-18th 2013 is to illuminate these different approaches to ideas of possibility and actuality against the background of the history of philosophy.

In how many different senses can something be possible? How do notions of possibility relate to ideas of potentiality or powers? How do notions of possibility relate to ideas of actuality or reality? Are ideas of possibility compatible with freedom and the openness of the future? The conference will approach these and other questions by means of keynote talks, invited papers and parallel, open sessions. Proposals for the latter are invited on any figure or period in the history of philosophy, from ancient Greece to the 20th century.

In order to propose a paper, an abstract of no more than 500 words should be sent to m.sinclair@mmu.ac.uk by December 1st 2012. Please put BSHP 2013 in the subject-line.

Funnily enough, I don’t think I’ve ever attended a conference in Helsinki, even though it’s my home town. The 4th EPSA conference might very well change that. I haven’t participated in strict philosophy of science conferences for a while, but I’ve been to several before, including the second EPSA where I organized a symposium. This time I might consider submitting a normal paper. Plenty of time until the deadline though. Helsinki should still be nice towards the end of August (it is at the moment), so this is certainly worth recommending!

4th Conference of the EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE ASSOCIATION

EPSA13

Helsinki, Finland, 28-31 August 2013

http://www.helsinki.fi/epsa13/

Submission deadline: 15 January 2013

The Fourth Conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA) will be organized and hosted by the Finnish Centre of Excellence in the Philosophy of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, Finland, 28-31 August 2013.

EPSA invites contributed papers and proposals for symposia.

The conference has eight sections:

1. General philosophy of science
2. Philosophy of the physical sciences
3. Philosophy of the life sciences
4. Philosophy of the cognitive sciences
5. Philosophy of the social sciences
6. Philosophy of technology and applied research
7. Formal philosophy of science
8. Historical, social and cultural studies in philosophy of science

INVITED SPEAKERS: Alison Wylie (University of Washington), Martin Kusch (University of Vienna), Hannes Leitgeb (University of Munich)

CONTRIBUTED PAPERS: Please submit an abstract of 1000 words prepared for blind review. Abstracts should start with the number and title of the relevant section. The allocated time for delivering contributed papers at the conference will be 30 minutes, including discussion.

SYMPOSIUM PROPOSALS: Please submit a full proposal that includes the number and title of the relevant section, the title of the proposed symposium, a general description of the topic and its significance (up to 1500 words), and titles and abstracts of all papers (up to 300 words for each paper). The symposium proposals should be prepared for blind review, but make sure that you provide separately a list of all participants (including the chair) and their contact information (institutional affiliation and e-mail addresses), and indicate the organizer(s) of the symposium proposal (who may or may not be a proposed speaker). Accepted symposia will be allocated 120 minutes, including discussion. They can have any format but the maximum number of speakers is 5. Symposium proposals that explore connections between different areas or research programs in philosophy of science or between philosophy of science and sciences are encouraged.

Please note that no one will be permitted to present more than one paper (either a symposium paper or a contributed paper including papers jointly authored with others) on the EPSA 13 program. All submissions will be reviewed, but in case both a symposium paper and a contributed paper by the same author(s) are under consideration for the program, the priority will be given to the symposium paper. Symposium participants are kindly asked to inform their symposium organizers if they are involved in more than one symposium proposal. Similarly, co-authors of papers are kindly asked to inform their co-authors if they are authors in other papers.

All questions about submissions should be directed to the co-chairs of the Program Committee for EPSA 13: Stéphanie Ruphy (stephanie.ruphy@wanadoo.fr) and Gerhard Schurz (gerhard.schurz@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de). Members of the Program Committee and Local Organizing Committee for EPSA 13 are listed at

http://www.helsinki.fi/epsa13/

All submissions have to be made electronically through the EasyChair system at

https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=epsa13

Please notice that first time users have to register as users of the EasyChair conference system.

IMPORTANT DATES

15 January 2013: Submission deadline (contributed papers and symposia)
15 April 2013: Notification of acceptance
15 June 2013: Early registration deadline
28-31 August 2013: Conference

This looks quite interesting, nice set of plenary speakers too. Ladyman is generally a great addition to these types of conference, dealing with the interface between philosophy of science and metaphysics and/or the rest of philosophy. Note that they accept proposals for symposia as well. I’m almost tempted; I successfully organised a symposium at the European Philosophy of Science Association conference in 2009, featuring Alexander Bird, Robin Hendry, and Paul Winstanley. If I were to organise one, it would probably be something on philosophy of physics, as I’ve been recently thinking about the relevance of scientific discovery for philosophy and most interesting cases come from particle physics. I dealt with this with my popular post on the Higgs ‘discovery’. I’m thinking of following up on this with a post on the philosophical relevance of Standard Model more generally, and the ‘discovery’ of particles which the SM regards as fundamental in particular. Anyway, it’s always a bit of work to plan something like this, and I’m rather busy at the moment (but if you’re reading this and think you’d have something great to contribute to such a symposium, do let me know).

GWP.2013 Call for Papers – Call for Symposia

First International Conference of the German Society for Philosophy of Science

“How Much Philosophy in the Philosophy of Science?”

Leibniz University Hannover, Germany

March 11–14, 2013

In September 2011 the German Society for Philosophy of Science (Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftsphilosophie – GWP) was founded with the aim to better integrate the community of philosophers of science and scientists interested in philosophy of science in Germany and thereby to promote the field at a local as well as an international level. The GWP aims to organize an international conference every three years. The first conference will take place in Hannover with the overarching theme “How much philosophy in the philosophy of science?” (See www.wissphil.de/gwp2013 for aims and scope of the conference.)

The conference is open for contributions on any topic within the philosophy of science, construed broadly, and contributed papers will be clustered into parallel sessions focusing on a particular theme or special science. The overarching theme of the conference will explicitly be addressed in the plenary lectures as well as a number of parallel sessions. Contributed papers that address the conference theme are therefore particularly encouraged. Plenary lectures will be given by:
Peter Godfrey-Smith (New York)
Stephan Hartmann (Tilburg)
James Ladyman (Bristol)
Chrysostomos Mantzavinos (Athens)
Sandra D. Mitchell (Pittsburgh)
Margaret Morrison (Toronto)
Wolfgang Spohn (Konstanz)

We welcome proposals for individual papers (30 min plus 15 min discussion) or symposia (3 speakers in a total 2-hour session). Graduate students are especially encouraged to submit proposals for either individual papers or symposia. All submissions will be subjected to a blind refereeing procedure. Proposals for papers should include the title and abstract (up to 500 words), but no personal information. Please attach a second file with your name, affiliation, contact details, and the title of the submitted paper. Symposia proposals should include the symposium title, a description of the symposium’s rationale (up to 500 words) and for each of the 3 speakers the title and abstract (up to 500 words), but no names. Please attach a second file with names, affiliations, contact details of the symposium organizers and speakers, and the title of the proposed symposium. If your paper/symposium addresses the overarching conference theme, please indicate this in the attached file where names etc. are specified. If you or (one or more of) the speakers in your symposium are graduate students, please indicate this, too.

For submission via EasyChair see: www.wissphil.de/gwp2013

The deadline for all submissions is: 30 September 2012.

Organization: Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Dietmar Hübner, Meinard Kuhlmann, Holger Lyre, Thomas Reydon, Torsten Wilholt

www.wissphil.de

This one is for grad students. The area is pretty broad, but I suspect that many submissions will reflect the (excellent!) work of the keynote speakers: Tim Crane, Thomas Hofweber, and Anna-Sara Malmgren. They’re asking for extended abstracts by September 1. I know one of the organising groups, ‘Understanding and the A Priori’ quite well as I spent over a week in Cologne at a couple of their previous conferences a few years ago. It’s a good group and since the conference is taking place at Cologne, I expect it to be a great opportunity for grad students working in core areas of analytic philosophy! Note that accommodation costs for speakers are covered.

We invite graduate students to submit abstracts on the philosophy of language, logic and mind, as well as on metaphysics and epistemology for presentation at the LEMMing Graduate Conference, jointly organized by the research groups Understanding and the A Priori (Cologne), Formal Epistemology (Konstanz), Phlox (Hamburg) and Nominalizations (Hamburg).

The graduate conference will take place from November 29 to December 1, 2012 at the University of Cologne (Germany). Keynote speakers will be
(1) Tim Crane (University of Cambridge)
(2) Thomas Hofweber (University of North Carolina)
(2) Anna-Sara Malmgren (Stanford University)

The material must be suitable for a presentation of no more than 45 minutes. Nine submissions will be selected for presentation. All presentations will be followed by a 10-minute comment by a postdoc affiliated with the research groups.

The deadline for submission is September 1, 2012.

The costs for accommodation (but not for travel) for the accepted graduate speakers will be covered.
Applicants should send the following documents for blind review:

(1) A separate cover page including: author’s name, title of paper, institutional affiliation, contact information and specification of the area(s) to which the paper is related (possible areas are: Language, Logic, Epistemology, Mind, Metaphysics);
(2) A substantial abstract of the presentation no longer than 1’500 words, excluding title and references, with no information identifying the author or the author’s institutional affiliation.

The documents should be sent as email attachments in *.pdf format to lemmingcologne@googlemail.com. Please use ‘Graduate Conference’ as subject line. Receipt of submissions will be confirmed by email.

Applicants must be graduate students by September 1, 2012. Please note that we do not accept more than one submission per person.

Notification of acceptance will be sent by October 15, 2012.

For more information please visit the website http://lemminggc.wordpress.com/call-for-abstracts/ or contact lemmingcologne@googlemail.com.

This should be interesting, although I don’t know whether there will be anything new presented. I’ve contributed to the debate about true contradictions in my ‘The Law of Non-Contradiction as a Metaphysical Principle’ (2009) — effectively addressing the suggested topic of ‘Are contradictions ‘in the world’ or merely a semantic phenomenon?’, but this is a topic that I’d like to return to some day. I’ll see if I can think of something new to say before the deadline! The timing is not ideal for me though, as I’ll be teaching.

25 Years In Contradiction

7-9 December 2012, University of Glasgow

Keynote Speakers:

J.C. Beall (Connecticut)
Graham Priest (CUNY/Melbourne)
Stewart Shapiro (Ohio State)
Alan Weir (Glasgow)

This conference marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of Graham
Priest’s In Contradiction. It is hosted by the School of Humanities at the
University of Glasgow.

In Contradiction is the first serious defence of the view that there are
true contradictions (dialetheism), as a response to the paradoxes of self-
reference. The transition of dialetheism from a view on the ‘lunatic
fringe’, to be dismissed with an incredulous stare, to one of the major
players in the debate surrounding truth and paradox, is one of the most
significant developments in philosophical logic of the last 30 years.
Priest’s work and, in particular, In Contradiction has been central to the
development of dialetheism, with the latter (now expanded in its second
edition) still regarded as the view’s canonical text.

In this conference, we wish to mark the 25th anniversary of In
Contradiction by hosting a selection of papers assessing the state of the
art for dialetheism, the problems it faces and avenues for future
research.

Possible topics for submissions are:

Does dialetheism suffer from ‘revenge problems’?

Are contradictions ‘in the world’ or merely a semantic phenomenon?

What are the merits and disadvantages of the different versions of
dialetheism?

How should mathematics be done in a dialetheist context?

What are the applications of dialetheism to other areas of philosophy?

Papers should be approximately 30 – 40 minutes long. Abstracts of c. 500
words should be sent to Adam.Rieger@glasgow.ac.uk or
g.young.3@research.gla.ac.uk, by September 30th.

We hope to have some money to support travel for graduate students; please
mention that you are a graduate student when submitting an abstract.

It is hoped to publish a volume of proceedings with a leading press.