It was a long day yesterday at the Aristotelian Themes in Dependence, Modality, and Essence Workshop, organized by Mika Perälä and me. We started at 9am and went on to 6pm with a few breaks. We had thought that the 1,5h slots for each of the five speakers would be quite generous, but it turned out that discussion filled pretty much all the time we had — a positive thing, of course!

Miira Tuominen commenting on Lucas Angioni’s talk.

Lucas Angioni (Campinas, Brazil) gave a talk on ‘Essence, Causality and Necessity in Aristotle’s Theory of Scientific Explanation’, followed by Michail Peramatzis (Oxford) with ‘Essence and Necessity in Aristotle’. Both of the morning talks were historical and we had a good audience of ancient philosophers (including Miira Tuominen, who clarified some of Lucas’s points for us). Michail’s talk was especially interesting for myself, since he has worked on priority in Aristotle and knows the contemporary literature on the themes of the workshop quite well.

Michail Peramatzis

My own talk on ‘Grounding Modality in Essence’ was perhaps too contemporary for this workshop, but I happened to have some slides for it from a previous occasion and it certainly fit the theme. Some good discussion followed in any case. Benjamin Schnieder (Hamburg) gave a more general talk on ‘Grounding and Dependence’, taking Schaffer as a foil and laying out the options regarding the connection between ontological dependence and grounding. Very interesting talk, and so clearly presented that I think non-experts were quite able to follow as well. Mika Perälä finished with a talk on ‘Aristotle on ouk aneu Dependence’, in which he explored the connection between the more general issues about priority in Aristotle with his own interests regarding thought and appearance.

Workshop Audience

We were all quite tired by the end — I should take the opportunity to thank the audience for their contributions and attention! Special thanks to my fellow founder of Dynamis, Jani Hakkarainen, who served as a chair (we announced The Finnish Network for Metaphysics just before my talk). We’d also like to thank the Academy of Finland and our Department for financial support.

Benjamin Schnieder

Bringing to front from December 2012

I’m excited to announce this workshop at the University of Helsinki, bringing together Aristotle scholars and contemporary metaphysicians on a number of important themes in Aristotelian metaphysics. I’m organizing this with my colleague and Aristotle scholar Mika Perälä. A poster (free to distribute) is available here.

Aristotelian Themes in Dependence, Modality, and Essence

Workshop at the University of Helsinki
Saturday, January 26th 2013

Location: University of Helsinki Main Building, Fabianinkatu 33, room 8

Program
09:00 – 10:30 Lucas Angioni (Campinas, Brazil), ‘Essence, Causality and Necessity in Aristotle’s Theory of Scientific Explanation’
10:40 – 12:10 Michail Peramatzis (Oxford), ‘Essence and Necessity in Aristotle’
12:10 – 13:10 Lunch
13:10 – 14:40 Tuomas Tahko (Helsinki), ‘Grounding Modality in Essence’
14:50 – 16:20 Benjamin Schnieder (Hamburg), ‘Grounding and Dependence’
16:30 – 18:00 Mika Perälä (Helsinki), ‘Aristotle on ouk aneu Dependence’

Attendance is free, but we would kindly ask you to e-mail either Mika Perälä (mika.perala@helsinki.fi) or Tuomas Tahko (tuomas.tahko@helsinki.fi) if you are planning to attend. Some of the papers will be available for pre-reading, please contact Mika or Tuomas for further details.

The workshop is organized by Dr. Mika Perälä and Dr. Tuomas Tahko and is funded by Mika Perälä’s Academy of Finland project Aristotle on Memory and the Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, University of Helsinki.

This should be an interesting opportunity for early career researchers (only two spots available). I note that Vasilis Politis will be present — I found his Routledge Companion to Aristotle’s Metaphysics interesting reading. So, hopefully a paper on Aristotle and analytic philosophy will get through! I wasn’t planning on submitting myself, even though I have recently written something related to the topic.

Ancient philosophy and analytic philosophy

Conference organised by Catherine Rowett, Tom Sorell and Alberto Vanzo, to be held in St Anne’s College, Oxford, on 25-27 October 2013

For the past forty years, most research on ancient philosophy in the English-speaking world has been shaped by the methods and style of analytic philosophy. This has sharpened our understanding of key doctrines, highlighted their philosophical relevance, and made it possible for ancient views to bear on current debates. This alliance of analytic philosophy and ancient philosophy also raises pressing methodological questions. To what extent are we allowed to supplement the claims of ancient philosophers with premises and concepts that the authors involved would not recognize? How can our understanding of the arguments of ancient philosophers profit from the study of non-argumentative aspects of their texts, like the use of myths or the dialogic form? How should we deal with texts whose standards of argument that are markedly different from our own, or which seek to promote specific forms of life, rather than establishing a specific body of truths?

Invited speakers: Lesley Brown (Oxford), Walter Cavini (Bologna), Gail Fine (Cornell/Oxford), Terence Irwin (Oxford), Kathryn Morgan (UCLA), Vasilis Politis (Dublin), Christopher Rowe (Durham).

Two slots are available for presentations of 45 minutes from early-career scholars, followed by 30 minutes of discussion. We aim to cover some of the travel and accommodation costs.

Please submit full papers (max. 15,000 words) to Alberto Vanzo (alberto.vanzo@email.it) by Monday 3 June 2013.

This “Reading Party” looks to be strictly in ancient philosophy, but I take it that it might be of interest for some regular visitors to this blog.

Call for papers: Aristotle Reading Party 2013. Energeia and dunamis in Metaphysics Theta

29 April to 1 May 2013, University of St Andrews, UK

Submission Deadline: 21 January 2013

The Aristotle Reading Party is both a graduate conference and a reading event. In our six reading sessions, each introduced by a distinguished scholar, we will discuss the dichotomy of energeia (actuality) and dunamis (potentiality) informed by a close reading of Metaphysics Theta 1-10. We will finish with a final session on Physics Gamma 1-3, in which change is defined in terms of energeia and dunamis.

We invite graduate students to submit papers on any topic related to Aristotle’s distinction between energeia and dunamis. Submissions can be either directly on Metaphysics Theta or on any related topic such as change, soul, happiness or mathematical objects. Extended abstracts should not exceed 1,000 words (or 35 minutes presentation time) and should be prepared for blind review. The abstract must have no identifying information. Abstracts should be submitted as a PDF file via https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=arp2013 A call for participation for the remaining places will be made in February 2013.

The event will take place from 29 April to 1 May 2013 at the Burn House in Angus (http://www.goodenough.ac.uk/the_burn0.html). Transport from St Andrews will be organised. Thanks to generous support by the Aristotelian Society, GRADskills Innovation grant (University of St Andrews), Mind Association and Scots Philosophical Association the costs for accommodation at the Burn House (full board for two nights) will be fully covered for successful applicants.

Confirmed participants:

Andreas Anagnostopoulos (Ludwig Maximilians Universität, München)

Sarah Broadie (University of St Andrews)

Ursula Coope (University of Oxford)

Klaus Corcilius (University of California, Berkeley)

Marko Malink (University of Chicago)

For further information, please refer to the conference website: http://www.readingaristotle.com/

Any questions can be directed to Janine Gühler (jg65@st-andrews.ac.uk)

I really don’t know how he finds the time, but Jonathan is the keynote speaker at yet another conference. This graduate conference on categories at the The Catholic University of America in D.C. seems to be open to both historical papers and contemporary papers. Regarding the latter, don’t forget my Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics volume, which includes several papers (by Gary Rosenkrantz, Alexander Bird, John Heil, Peter Simons, Joshua Hoffman, and Lowe himself) on the topic of categories!

The Categories:
a graduate student conference in philosophy at
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

keynote speakers:
E.J. Lowe, Durham University
&
Gregory Doolan, The Catholic University of America

March 22 & 23, 2013

Following Aristotle, We understand ”the categories” to name the ten highest genera. Since Aristotle, the categories have been the subject of rich discussion in nearly every major philosophical era.

We invite papers that engage this discussion, using historical, systematic, or original approaches. Questions relevant to the conference include but are not limited to the following:

Should categories be understood principally as belonging to metaphysics, logic, or epistemology?
What are the categories? How many are there? Is there a natural order among the categories?
Can two or more distinct systems of categories equally well represent the world?
What is the relationship between the kinds of questions we can put to the world and the kinds of beings there are in the world?

Papers focusing on one or more of the categories are also welcome.

Submit papers of 3500 words or less by January 15, 2013.
Submissions and all correspondence should be sent to:
categories.conference@gmail.com