Category: Announcements

Survey: “Intuitions and Philosophical Expertise”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

Ivar Hannikainen and Joshua Knobe are running a study on philosophers’ intuitions about thought experiments and are looking for participants. Taking part takes about five minutes, and all responses are anonymous. Participants who complete the study are shown how philosophers and non-philosophers answered each of the questions.

They write:

We are running a quick study on philosophers’ intuitions about certain thought experiments. If you happen to have a moment, it’s available here.

After you take the study, it will give you information about how philosophers and non-philosophers answered each of the questions. All responses are completely anonymous.

Talk: “The Voice that Whispers Ideas” (Aleksandr Fadeev)

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

On August 20 from 16:30–18:00 (UTC+2), Aleksandr Fadeev (KU Leuven) will talk about “The Voice that Whispers Ideas – Inner Speech, Semiosis, and Insight Problem Solving” in the Inner Speech Colloquium, organized by Jonida Kodra, Daniel Müller, and Mathijs Geurts (University of Osnabrück and Paris Lodron University Salzburg).

The talk can be accessed via Microsoft Teams. The abstract reads:

Inner speech, the internal silent experience of language, plays a central role in human cognition, supporting a range of cognitive processes, including thinking, memory, and self-awareness. Beyond its cognitive functions, its role in the generation and transformation of meaning remains largely underexplored. Drawing on Vygotsky’s theory and Lotman’s semiotic model of autocommunication, the talk discusses a semiotic perspective in which inner speech is understood as a dynamic process of semiosis: socially acquired signs undergo structural, functional, and semantic transformations through internalisation, thereby enabling the emergence of new and personally meaningful formations. From this broader perspective, the talk discusses how phenomenological variations in inner speech may be relevant for understanding processes of meaning transformation.

As an empirical case, we focus on insight problem solving, in which changes in problem representation and semantic restructuring are particularly important. Across a series of experiments, participants solved compound remote associate tasks (CRATs), and reported their inner speech experience after finding solutions, as well as whether solutions emerged through gradual analytical search (non-insight) or via a sudden insight (“Aha!” experience). A mixed-method approach combined open-ended reports, VISQ, semi-structured interviews, and dual-task procedures.

Findings indicate that inner speech is highly prevalent during problem solving but varies across solution types: insight solutions are associated with more condensed and less articulated forms of inner speech, whereas non-insight solutions involve more deliberate and expanded forms. These differences suggest that different modes of problem solving are associated with distinct phenomenological forms of inner speech. The study is discussed in relation to the broader semiotic view of inner speech, suggesting that phenomenological variations may contribute to understanding how meaning transformations unfold and may inform theoretical accounts of inner speech.

Conference: “6th European Experimental Philosophy Conference”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

From September 8 to 11, 2026, the 6th European Experimental Philosophy Conference will take place at the University of Cagliari, Italy. It opens with the Linguistic Justice Society’s satellite workshop “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Linguistic Justice” on September 8, followed by the main conference from September 9 to 11.

Non-presenters who would like to attend are asked to register by July 31, 2026. The announcement reads:

The 6th European Experimental Philosophy Conference will take place at the University of Cagliari from September 8th to 11th, 2026. It will consist of the Linguistic Justice Society Satellite Workshop “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Linguistic Justice” on September 8th, followed by the main Conference on September 9th–11th.

The event is generously supported by Gian Pietro Storari Funds, Dipartimento di Pedagogia, Psicologia, Filosofia, Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Fondazione di Sardegna, Esperantic Studies Foundation, Regione Autonoma Sardegna. The program of the entire event is available on the conference website.

The event will be open also to non-presenters. The Satellite Workshop on Linguistic Justice can be attended either online or in person, while the main Conference can be attended only in person. No registration fee is required for either event.

If you plan to attend the Satellite Workshop and/or the main Conference as a non-presenter, please send us an email by July 31st to 6EuroXPhi@gmail.com.

In the email, please specify whether you plan to attend the Satellite Workshop, the main Conference, or both. If you plan to attend the Satellite Workshop, please also let us know whether you will attend online or in person.

All are welcome!

Talk: “Moral Language and Moore’s Paradox” (Pascale Willemsen and Lucien Baumgartner)

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

On June 11 from 16:00–18:00 (UTC+1), Pascale Willemsen and Lucien Baumgartner will talk about “Moral Language and Moore’s Paradox – Challenging Moral Expressivism.” The talk can be accessed via Zoom (Meeting ID: 651 0778 6432, Code: 235823). The abstract reads:

Moore’s Paradox – e.g., “It’s raining but I don’t think it’s raining” – is widely considered infelicitous despite being logically consistent. In this paper, we extend Moore’s Paradox to moral discourse and test whether moral statements like “Murder is wrong but I don’t disapprove of it” elicit similar intuitions. Rooted in moral expressivism, the Parity Thesis predicts that moral assertions express non-cognitive attitudes (e.g., approval/disapproval) in a manner analogous to how descriptive statements express beliefs. In a pre-registered study with 1200 participants, we empirically test this thesis using a mixed design that manipulates moral term type (thick vs thin), evaluative polarity (positive vs negative), perspective (first vs third person), and attitude (belief vs disapproval). The results of our main study and one qualitative follow-up study suggest that while moral statements resemble Moorean Paradoxes in important ways, participants find it largely acceptable to call an action wrong without disapproving of it. As the infelicity of such statements is a core ingredient of Moorean Paradoxes and, as we suggest, the Parity Thesis, we conclude that moral language does not express approval and disapproval like declarative language expresses beliefs.

Talk: “Justified True Belief Revisited” (Helen Fischer)

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

On May 26 from 15:30–17:30 (UTC+2), Helen Fischer will talk about “Justified True Belief Revisited – A Psychological Perspective on ‘Knowledge’” at Heidelberg University. The talk can be accessed via Zoom. The abstract reads:

Modern societies rely fundamentally on the production, circulation, and recognition of reliable knowledge. Yet despite the normative and institutional prominence of knowledge, we know surprisingly little about what citizens themselves count as knowledge, to whom they attribute it, and on what grounds. A dominant philosophical account defines knowledge as Justified True Belief, requiring that a proposition be true, believed, and adequately justified. In this talk, I present a large-scale empirical test whether ordinary knowledge ascriptions adhere to this normative standard. In a preregistered conjoint experiment with a nationally quota-matched U.S. sample (N = 1,295), participants judged whether an agent “knows” propositions across a politically contested domain (climate change) and an uncontested domain (astrophysics). We fully crossed Justification (six levels varying strength and source), Truth (true vs. false), and Belief (strong vs. weak). Knowledge ascriptions systematically diverged from Justified True Belief across both domains. Belief exerted the strongest causal influence (Average causal effects: AMCE ≈ −0.42 for weak vs. strong belief), Truth was helpful but not necessary (AMCE ≈ 0.18 for true vs. false), and Justification contributed little or not at all (AMCE range across levels ≈ 0.00–0.05). This asymmetry had striking consequences: more than half of participants attributed knowledge even to false propositions when belief was strong, whereas only about one quarter attributed knowledge to true, strongly justified propositions when belief was weak. Across both domains, participants thus heavily prioritized conviction over truth and justification when judging whether others “know.” By showing that ordinary knowledge ascriptions more closely follow a model of “Strong Belief with optional Truth” than the normative account of Justified True Belief, these results help explain why low-justification and even false propositions can be treated as knowledge in public discourse.

Workshop: “Mental Interpretation & Mental Diversity”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

From May 25 to 26, 2026, the workshop “Mental Interpretation & Mental Diversity” will take place at the University of Granada, Spain.

The announcement reads:

There is a marked tendency in the philosophy of mind to characterize mental interpretation – the understanding of each other and ourselves in terms of mental concepts, folk or sciency – in broadly universalist terms. Whether described as the exercise of psychological capacities whose basic structure is universally shared across the species (a Theory of Mind, described in functionalist-representationalist terms), or as a predictive practice based on fundamental norms of rationality, the underlying commitment remains the same: the downtown of mental interpretation is a set of universal rules, functional or rational, that set fixed boundaries to what can plausibly count as a (healthily) minded creature.

This assumption has been challenged from a number of directions. On the one hand, empirical evidence from fields like anthropology and cultural psychology points to a rich intercultural diversity in the meaning and function of mental concepts. This evidence partly converges with experimental studies on attributions of mental states like belief or intention, which reveal a marked context-dependence in the way mental attributions are used and assessed. In parallel, civil right movements like the Neurodiversity or Mad Pride movements have increasingly demanded greater recognition for intracultural cognitive diversity. This includes both subpersonal differences in sensory and executive processing, for which neurodiversity-informed research provides accumulating evidence, as well as person-level differences in how such differences are interpreted and policed in interpersonal practices.

In sum, this points to the need for a philosophy of mind better suited to accounting for this rich diversity in minds and in the ways we talk and think about them. The present workshop aims to move in this direction by bringing together cutting-edge research on mental interpretation, mental diversity, and the connections between them. The contributions address various important topics in this line of inquiry, including the analysis of consequences of different philosophical theories of mental interpretation for our understanding of mental diversity; the link between mental (self-)interpretation and the constitution of mind and mental health; inter- and intra-cultural variability in mental interpretation; mental diversity and counternormative (e.g., mad, neurodivergent) interpretation practices; epistemic and discursive injustices related to mental interpretation; or the interplay of first-, second-, and third-personal perspectives in self-interpretation.

Workshop: “Epistemologies of Places”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

From June 9 to 10, 2026, the fourth workshop of the Empirical Epistemology Network will be held at the University of Stirling, UK.

The announcement reads:

This event considers how place-knowledge – especially in relation to cities – comes to be formed through sensory engagements, lived experiences, and interactions with environments through physical immersion, memory and imagination, and the role these play in giving rise to place(s). Combining academic papers with interactive activities such as storytelling, mapping, walking and artistic interventions, together we will explore the challenges and opportunities for place-based imagining and to reflect on how ways of knowing shape, and are shaped by, engagements with place.

Speakers:

  • Pablo Fernandez Velasco (Stirling)
  • Paola Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco (Durham, in-person only)
  • Rebecca Noone (Glasgow)
  • Christina Anderson (UCL)
  • Sofya Shahab (Stirling, in-person only)
  • Quill R. Kukla (Georgetown)

The overarching goal of the network is to build bridges between epistemologists and empirical researchers from various disciplines. Epistemologists will reflect about the practical relevance of their theoretical research on the nature of knowledge, and empirical researchers will consider whether some of the sharp conceptual tools of epistemologists are helpful for their own work. Participants will be drawn to identify the implicit or explicit assumptions of their work and field of research, assess whether those assumptions are warranted, and think about the consequences of challenging those assumptions. Remote participation, where feasible, is welcome. For more details about the network, up to date information about speakers and links to register, please visit https://empiricalepistemology.stir.ac.uk/index.php/events/.

Small travel and child-care bursaries available. Please note that in-person attendance is limited to 30. If you register and then realise you can’t attend, please let us know asap so that we can free the space for someone else. The Empirical Epistemology Network is run by Giacomo Melis (Stilring), Kirsten Blakey (Toronto), Jack Lyons (Glasgow) and Peter Graham (UC Riverside), and is supported by the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network (award PF 024).

The overarching goal of the network is to build bridges between epistemologists and empirical researchers from various disciplines. Epistemologists will reflect about the practical relevance of their theoretical research on the nature of knowledge, and empirical researchers will consider whether some of the sharp conceptual tools of epistemologists are helpful for their own work. Participants will be drawn to identify the implicit or explicit assumptions of their work and field of research, assess whether those assumptions are warranted, and think about the consequences of challenging those assumptions.

For more information please contact: giacomo.melis1@stir.ac.uk

Workshop: “Philosophy – What and How?”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

From May 7 to 8, 2026, the workshop “Philosophy – What and How?” will take place at the University of Vienna, Austria.

The announcement reads:

Views on what philosophy is and how it should be done vary widely. Is philosophy concerned with reality or with our concepts used for grasping aspects of reality? Does philosophy use a priori or empirical methods? What is the role of intuitions? And of the method of cases? What are philosophers trying to find out? Is Philosophy a descriptive or a normative discipline, or both?

Key information:

Dates: May 7–8, 2026, 09:00–18:00
Venue: Sky Lounge (DG), Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, 1090 Wien, Austria

Here is a list of speakers and titles:

  • Max Kölbel: Philosophy as Conceptual Engagement
  • Yaokun Fu: The Arrovian Impossibility Theorem in Metaphysical Theory Choice
  • Sophie Veigl: Beyond Method? Philosophy of Science Between Analysis and Activities
  • Elijah Chudnoff: Intuition and Philosophical Progress
  • Matti Eklund: The Parochial, the Universal and the Alien
  • Asya Passinsky: Ameliorative Metaphysics
  • Eric Wallace: Idealisation and Overfitting
  • Alice van’t Hoff: Choosing Metalanguages
  • Edouard Machery: Arguments won’t help

Registration and more details:

https://philosophywhatandhow.phl.univie.ac.at/

Registration is required but free of charge, and all are welcome (registration form on the bottom of the page).

This workshop is supported by the PACE (pace.phl.univie.ac.at/) and KiC (www.knowledgeincrisis.com/) projects.