Category: Calls

Call: “International Congress of Empirical Biomedical Ethics”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

From January 28 to 29, 2027, the first International Congress of Empirical Biomedical Ethics will take place in Lausanne, Switzerland, under the theme “Explain, Justify, Defend.” The congress asks how empirical data can inform normative justification – how to bridge the gap between what people do, think, believe, or value and what ought to be.

Abstracts can be submitted until September 30, 2026. The call reads:

International Congress of Empirical Biomedical Ethics

28–29 January 2027, Lausanne, Switzerland

Explain, Justify, Defend

Empirical biomedical ethics is a research field that is both old and new. It builds on a long tradition of field exploration to ensure research questions remain relevant to concerned stakeholders, while also representing an emerging scholarly community working to structure its approaches and methodologies. Biomedical ethics is inherently plural, shaped by interdisciplinarity, diverse cultural backgrounds, national and local contexts, as well as various moral frameworks. Where philosophers and theologians first laid down conceptual and theoretical groundwork to address ethical concerns in medicine, the empirical turn in biomedical ethics saw the social and health sciences bring in their own perspectives and methods to ground ethical judgments in the realities of clinical experience, patient and family perspectives, and complex social contexts. Medical professionals themselves have started to train in and engage with the field. While it is sometimes thought to occupy too much space and resources within the medical humanities more generally, biomedical ethics is still seeking to find its unique place among the philosophy, history, geography or sociology of medicine or science. Its defining trait – its normativity – is both the source of its internal disarray and what unifies it, what sets it apart and what intertwines it deeply into other fields.

As an emerging academic field and community, empirical biomedical ethics attempts to find coherence and to structure itself around one central question: how to bridge the gap between the descriptive and the normative, between what is – what people do, think, believe or value – and what ought to be.

The first International Congress on Empirical Biomedical Ethics (ICEBE) aims to bring together researchers, medical professionals and other concerned stakeholders from diverse backgrounds. Our goal is to foster dialogue, share methodologies and build a cohesive community around the central challenge of bridging the descriptive and the normative. In order to do so, it proposes to focus on a theme that can be explored both from a methodological or from a content perspective: Explain, Justify, Defend. As an academic field, how does empirical biomedical ethics attempt to explain the relationship between facts and values? How does empirical data inform normative justifications? Can concerned stakeholders’ actual beliefs and ideals be used to defend normative judgements and, if so, to what extent? But also, for example, how do clinicians explain their decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment in intensive care units, and how do these explanations align with or diverge from the ethical principles and legal frameworks governing end-of-life care? How do healthcare professionals defend or justify the unequal distribution of emotional labour carried out by doctors, nurses or care assistants, and how does it relate to wider gender dynamics?

We invite you to join us on January 28th and 29th in Lausanne, Switzerland to explore these questions, share your work, and shape the future of empirical biomedical ethics. Together, we can advance our understanding of how to explain, justify, and defend ethical judgments in medicine.

Scientific Committee

  • Brenda Bogaert (Institute for Humanities in Medicine, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne)
  • Pr. Richard Huxtable (University of Bristol, Bristol Medical School (PHS), Centre for Ethics in Medicine)
  • Pr. Jonathan Ives (University of Bristol, Bristol Medical School (PHS), Centre for Ethics in Medicine)
  • Agnes Kandlbinder (Institute for Humanities in Medicine, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne; University Research Priority Program: “Human Reproduction Reloaded,” University of Zurich)
  • Cristina Murano (Department of Philosophy and Society, Faculty of Philosophy, University Complutense of Madrid)
  • Sophie Püchel (Institute for Humanities in Medicine, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne)
  • Morgane Romero (Université de Lausanne, Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherches en Éthique (CIRE))
  • Silke Schicktanz (Department of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine at the University Medical Center Göttingen)
  • Julia Tinland (Aix-Marseille Université, SESSTIM, CaLIPSo)

Call for Abstracts

  • Word length: <300 words
  • Format: Word, author(s)’s name(s), discipline(s) and affiliations on a separate 1st page
  • Deadline: September 30th, 2026
  • Submit to: https://icebe.sciencesconf.org/submission/submit
  • Results: October 20th, 2026
  • Registration fees: 65 CHF

Call: “18th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

From August 23 to 28, 2027, the 18th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology (CLMPST 2027) will take place at Kobe University, Japan. One of its twenty-one thematic sections is devoted to empirical and experimental philosophy of science and technology.

Abstracts can be submitted until November 15, 2026. The call reads:

CLMPST is the premier forum on Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology. Its aim is to bring together active researchers in this broad field. The International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology (CLMPST) is organized under the auspices of the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IUHPST/DLMPST).

CLMPST has a long history – it started in 1960, and has been held every four years since then in capital cities and/or by leading university centres in this field. Recent previous CLMPST Congresses were held in Buenos Aires (2023), Prague (2019), Helsinki (2015), Nancy (2011), and Beijing (2007). The 2027 edition will take place at Kobe University in Kobe, Japan.

Aims and Scope

As in previous editions, CLMPST 2027 aims to foster connections between the research fields of logic and philosophy of science and technology, as well as research studying the foundations and methodology of science and technology. We are looking forward to having papers and symposia on all topics pertaining to our fields, from mathematical logic to metaphilosophy, from the foundations of the exact sciences to philosophy of the social sciences, from philosophy of technology to historical perspectives on the sciences, presented by researchers from all regions and cultures of the world.

CLMPST 2027 calls for contributed papers and contributed symposia in 21 thematic sections:

A. Logic

  • A.1 Mathematical Logic
  • A.2 Philosophical Logic
  • A.3 Computational Logic and Applications of Logic
  • A.4 Historical Aspects of Logic
  • A.5 Educational Aspects of Logic

B. General Philosophy of Science

  • B.1 Methodology
  • B.2 Formal Philosophy of Science and Formal Epistemology
  • B.3 Empirical and Experimental Philosophy of Science and Technology
  • B.4 Metaphysical Issues in the Philosophy of Science and Technology
  • B.5 Ethical, Social and Political Issues in the Philosophy of Science and Technology
  • B.6 Historical Aspects in the Philosophy of Science and Technology
  • B.7 Educational Aspects of Philosophy of Science and Technology

C. Philosophical Issues of Particular Disciplines

  • C.1 Philosophy of the Formal Sciences (including Logic, Mathematics, Statistics)
  • C.2 Philosophy of the Physical Sciences (including Physics, Chemistry, Earth Science, Climate Science)
  • C.3 Philosophy of the Biological Sciences
  • C.4 Philosophy of the Biomedical and Health Sciences
  • C.5 Philosophy of the Cognitive and Behavioural Sciences
  • C.6 Philosophy of Computing and Computation
  • C.7 Philosophy of the Humanities and the Social Sciences
  • C.8 Philosophy of the Applied Sciences and Technology
  • C.9 Philosophy of Emerging and Interdisciplinary Sciences

The language of the congress is English.

Contributed Papers

Submissions will be made through the EasyChair platform. Please submit an abstract of 500 words, including the references, prepared for anonymous review. Indicate to which congress section you submit the paper (tick the appropriate box). The allocated time for each contributed paper is 30 minutes, including discussion.

Contributed Symposia

Symposia are groups of talks on a common theme. Each symposium consists of four to twelve papers. In EasyChair, please make a submission for (a) the symposium as a whole; and (b) each paper in the symposium (so, for example, for a four-paper symposium, you should make a total of five submissions).

(a) For the symposium as a whole, please provide an abstract with a general description of the format and the topic of the proposed symposium and its significance (up to 500 words), and suggest a symposium chair. If desired, it is acceptable for the symposium organiser to be the chair. Indicate to which congress section you submit the symposium (tick the appropriate box). After the abstract, please list the titles of the talks in the order they should appear at the conference. Please provide the symposium with an acronym, and write this acronym at the beginning of the title of the symposium.

(b) For each paper within a symposium, please submit a 500-word abstract (including references). Indicate to which congress section the symposium belongs. Please write the acronym of the symposium at the beginning of the title of the talk.

Note to symposium organisers: Papers intended to be presented as parts of a symposium must be submitted by their respective authors. Symposium organisers should contact all symposium speakers in advance and make sure that they submit their abstracts by the submission deadline of 15 November 2026.

Although the exact format of symposia is up to the symposium organizers, the allocated time for each symposium paper is 30 minutes.

Important Dates

  • Submission deadline: November 15, 2026
  • Notifications of acceptance: Early March 2027
  • 18th CLMPST, Kobe University, Japan: August 23–28, 2027

Call: “The Identities of Action”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

The Society for Philosophy of Emotion and the Journal of Philosophy of Emotion are organizing a book symposium on Joseph Ulatowski’s “The Identities of Action – How the Normative Valence of Consequences Matters for Act Evaluation.” They are looking for commentators as well as for a session chair and guest editor.

Expressions of interest are possible until August 28, 2026. The call reads:

Abstract

Individuating action depends upon how people comprehend value judgements about the consequences of an action to distinguish – or not to distinguish – between them. The question “what is action?” cannot be fully addressed until it is established whether two action descriptions – whether in law, business, insurance policies, or ordinary conversation – refer to the same or different actions. This book approaches the problem of action individuation by arguing for a variantist account, where the moral valence of the consequences of an action plays a foundational role in distinguishing between actions. Actions with bad consequences are associated with the originating act from which the action arises; actions with positive consequences are separate from their originating act. When we consider whether a bad or good consequence is identical to an originating action, the normative valence of the consequences of the action matter. Drawing from an empirical assessment that tests non-philosophers’ intuitions about individuating actions, along with real-world examples, Joseph Ulatowski explores the practical and philosophical significance of how we distinguish between actions.

Author Bio

Joseph Ulatowski is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Assistant Vice-Chancellor of Sustainability at the University of Waikato, Aotearoa New Zealand. Besides Identities of Action, he is the author of Commonsense Pluralism about Truth – An Empirical Defence, co-editor of two forthcoming anthologies: Lynch and His Critics and Experimental Philosophy and Corpus Analysis, as well as special issues of the Asian Journal of Philosophy on cross-cultural analyses of the nature of truth, Synthese on Paul Horwich’s minimalism about truth, and an Australasian Philosophical Review with a lead article on the value of truth in a post-truth era by Gila Sher. His work largely focuses on the nature and value of truth, action theory, and the history of philosophy in Poland.

Overview

The Society for Philosophy of Emotion and the Journal of Philosophy of Emotion (JPE) are organizing a book symposium on Professor Ulatowski book, The Identities of Action: How the Normative Valence of Consequences Matters for Act Evaluation. We are looking for commentators and session chair/guest editor for the SPE’s 2027 Central APA (in-person) affiliated group session, and for a subsequent publication in the Journal of Philosophy of Emotion, including a JPE podcast edition. (No additional work beyond seeing your commentary through to publication with the JPE will be required for the podcast edition.) If you are interested in engaging in a critical discussion of Professor Ulatowski’s book, with the aim of moving forward the discourse on relevant topics highlighted by his book as they relate to the philosophy of emotion, or chairing the APA affiliated group session and guest editing this book symposium, please complete the APA Affiliated Group Session and JPE Book Symposium Interest Form. Because the JPE requires the use of Google workspace tools, you will be required to log-in with a Google account to access the form. If you do not use your Gmail account on a regular basis, we recommend you set your Gmail to forward your emails to the email that you regularly use so you do not miss any correspondence from us. If you are interested in participating as a commentator or session chair/guest editor, please complete the form, which includes uploading a copy of your CV, by August 28, 2026. We will contact you by September 4, 2026, with a decision regarding your expressed interest and any further details.

Society for Philosophy of Emotion

Accepted commentators will be invited to present their commentaries during the in-person book symposium, as a part of a Society for Philosophy of Emotion (SPE)-American Philosophical Association (APA) affiliated group session at the 2027 Central APA, which will be an in-person conference. Commentaries for this book symposium are due to the author six (6) weeks before the SPE-APA session date, and author replies are due (3) weeks before the session date, in accordance with the APA meeting participation guidelines and prior to the due date for the JPE book symposium. Commentators would also be required to register for the 2027 Central APA conference, and be a member of the SPE at the time of their participation (which includes a one-time JPE submission fee waiver). An annual SPE membership is $35, with a discounted rate of $10 for graduate students and underemployed scholars.

Guest editors would be invited to contribute an editorial introduction, including highlighting the significance of the discussions in the book symposium to the relevant scholarly discourses. Information on guest editor responsibilities can be found on the JPE’s Join the Team page. The session chair/guest editor would also be required to register for the 2027 Central APA conference, but they will receive a free one year SPE membership (which includes a one-time JPE submission fee waiver).

Please note that commentators and guest editors who agree to participate in this in-person book symposium will not be eligible for any funding assistance from the APA since only those who are presenting in an APA main program event are eligible for such funding. However, participants can also submit a paper or volunteer to comment on a paper for an APA main program event and apply for APA funding if they are accepted, since APA main program participants are allowed to also participate in affiliated group sessions without any restrictions. Organizers will also be informed to avoid any scheduling conflicts.

Journal of Philosophy of Emotion

Commentaries for the JPE will be due one month after the Society for Philosophy of Emotion (SPE)-American Philosophical Association (APA) affiliated group session for this book symposium. We encourage a diversity of scholars of all ranks who are interested in participating as a commentator to respond to this CFP, provided that they are willing and able to commit to fulfilling the expectations set by the JPE’s submission guidelines and the JPE’s double-anonymous peer review process. Please refer to past issues of the JPE for examples, and all submissions must adhere to the JPE’s style guideline (which includes a Google Doc manuscript template), and note that authors are responsible for providing all necessary DOIs and appropriately formatting their references. All contributors are also responsible for copyediting their own submissions and providing any requested citation information, although the JPE will also conduct a preliminary review and copyedit check of all submissions prior to sending them to peer review. No submission will be sent to peer review without the appropriate formatting, in accordance with the JPE style guidelines. The JPE also requires a submission fee of $35 or you can use your SPE one-time JPE submission fee waiver.

Selection Criteria and Peer Refereeing

Commentators will be selected not only based on their qualifications, but also based on their cooperative compliance and the consideration for the value of diversity and inclusiveness among equally qualified commentators. Potential contributors are also welcome to let us know in their letter of interest in refereeing this book symposium if for some reason they were not invited to contribute a commentary, but would still like to contribute to the book symposium, or if they would rather referee the book symposium. All referees may also choose to be publicly acknowledged in a subsequent winter issue of the JPE. Referee’s will also receive a free membership to the Society for Philosophy of Emotion, which includes a one time author submission fee waiver for the JPE, for the year of their membership.

Call: “XPHI UK Work in Progress Workshop Series”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

Organized by Eugen Fischer, Joanna Demaree-Cotton, and James Andow, the “XPHI UK Work in Progress Workshop Series” continues. Anyone interested in presenting something can contact the organizers. They write:

We are delighted to announce a call for abstracts for the next series of UK XPHI Online. This is a monthly online workshop devoted to discussion of work in progress in experimental philosophy (broadly construed). We feature work from all areas of experimental philosophy, by researchers at all career stages, from the UK and all over the world. The workshop meets once a month on Teams, typically the second Wednesday of each month (16:00–18:00 UK time), for a two-hour session that typically features two talks (each 40 minutes plus 15 minutes Q&A). This call is for a series starting in October 2026. To submit, please email the organizers an abstract of up to 500 words by July 15, 2026, to james.andow@manchester.ac.uk.

Call: “Do Experiments Replicate?”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

From September 22 to 23, 2026, the workshop “Do Experiments Replicate? Philosophical Reflections on the Use and Misuse of Statistics and Econometrics” will take place at the Jagiellonian University, Poland.

Abstract submissions are possible until June 1, 2026. The call reads:

The workshop “Do experiments replicate? Philosophical Reflections on the Use and Misuse of Statistics and Econometrics” aims to provide a forum for exchanging ideas on the replicability of randomized experiments, such as randomized field experiments in economics, randomized controlled trials and preclinical studies in medicine, and psychological experiments.

The workshop promotes philosophical and methodological discussions of conceptual and methodological issues in statistical analysis, econometric modeling, and the methodology of experimentation.

Keynote Speakers:

  • Barbara Osimani
  • Samuel Fletcher

Experimental results are considered reliable because, under comparable conditions, they are expected to yield similar outcomes. However, this assumption has recently been challenged by numerous replication efforts that report results differing from those of the original studies in psychology, medicine, biology, the social sciences, and economics. A surprisingly large fraction of published findings have been found to be non-replicable. Replicability rates range from 11% for in vitro and in vivo preclinical research to 60–90% for clinical trials. Experimental economists fall within this range and, like psychological experimenters, achieve around 60% replicability.

The replication crisis has called into question the credibility of published findings and undermined trust in science. However, the replication crisis, with few exceptions, has received only limited attention from philosophy of science. Despite the efforts of several pioneers, the philosophical and conceptual problems in randomized controlled trials, randomized field experiments, laboratory experiments, econometric modeling, and the statistical analysis of experimental data remain largely uncharted territory in the philosophy of science. The workshop aims to establish a forum for exchanging ideas among philosophers of medicine and economics, philosophers of statistics, and methodologically inclined researchers interested in the conceptual problems of the replication crisis.

The Workshop “Do experiments replicate? Philosophical Reflections on the Use and Misuse of Statistics and Econometrics” invites contributions that focus on experimentation and statistical analysis in economics and medicine, as well as problems that trouble statistical inference from experiments, broadly construed.

Some exemplary topics of talks:

  • The design of randomized experiments in medicine and economics.
  • Statistical hypothesis testing.
  • Non-frequentist approaches to comparing treatment and control group outcomes.
  • Comparisons of design-based and model-based inference.
  • Estimating statistical models.
  • Measuring replication success and replicability rates.
  • Assessing the quality of empirical evidence.
  • Making inferences from the literature review with conflicting results.
  • Other problems in philosophy of statistics related to the replication crisis.

Abstracts no longer than 500 words (including references) should be submitted in an attachment, not including author details, by email with the subject ‘replication workshop’ sent to: mariusz.maziarz@uj.edu.pl.

Deadline for submission: June 1st, 2026

Decisions will be announced by June 15th, 2026.

This activity was supported by a grant funded by the Strategic Program Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University.

Call: “Group Agency and Metaethics”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

From September 9 to 11, 2026, the workshop “Group Agency and Metaethics” will take place at the University of Vienna.

Abstract submissions are possible until May 31, 2026. The call reads:

We invite submissions for the workshop Group Agency and Metaethics. Metaethics concerns the study of the metaphysical, epistemological, semantic and psychological presuppositions and commitments of moral thought, talk and practice. However, the answers to these various questions are typically developed with a focus on individuals. The possibility that groups are normative or moral agents in their own right is rarely considered within metaethics. The aim of this workshop is to explore the significance of the possibility of group agency for debates in metaethics, and vice versa. The workshop will focus on group agency in connection to topics such as naturalism/non-naturalism; realism/anti-realism; cognitivism/non-cognitivism; the nature of normativity and norms; normative reasons; rationality; and experimental metaethics. We further welcome submissions on related issues that may be significant for these topics. By exploring groundbreaking topics at the intersection of metaethics and social ontology, the workshop hopefully will set the stage for future debates.

The workshop will feature four keynote speakers:

  • Prof. Carla Bagnoli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
  • Prof. Bart Streumer (University of Groningen)
  • Asst. Prof. Asya Passinsky (Central European University)
  • Prof. Hans Bernhard Schmid (University of Vienna)

The workshop will take place at the University of Vienna from 9 to 11 September 2026. If you are interested in presenting at the workshop, please send your anonymized abstract to niels.de.haan@univie.ac.at with the subject line: Abstract Group Agency and Metaethics. The anonymized abstract should be approximately 500 words. Each speaker will be allotted 1 hour (incl. Q&A). The deadline for submissions is 31 May, 2026. We aim to send out the notifications of acceptance around 15 June, 2026.

There are bursaries available for students or precariously employed participants with a lack of available funding to (partially) cover accommodation and flights. If you would like to be considered for one of the bursaries, please indicate this in the email. If your submission is successful, you will be asked to provide a short description of your funding situation to ensure we can distribute the bursaries fairly.

The workshop is sponsored by the International Social Ontology Society (https://isosonline.org/) and the University of Vienna.

Call: “Translation – Semiotics – Music”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

Anna Rędzioch-Korkuz and Małgorzata Grajter edit a special issue of Studia Semiotyczne on “Translation – Semiotics – Music.”

Submissions are possible until September 30, 2026. The call reads:

Studia Semiotyczne (Semiotic Studies) invites submissions for a special issue of the journal. Papers should be written either in English or in Polish and prepared for blind review.

The field of translation and music has been attracting increased attention recently: this is evident in numerous monographs, research papers, and conferences focused on the complex relationship between words and sounds (see also Bennett, 2025: 1). As Susam-Sarajeva (2008: 189–190) has noted, this relationship appears at best challenging, since translation scholars are “more comfortable dealing with written texts,” and consequently, “end up sliding into a predominantly textual analysis.” Similarly, Desblache (2019: 58) argues that the two fields, which are genuinely interested in that relationship – namely, translation studies and musicology – remain separate because both are practice-oriented disciplines that primarily focus on either verbal translation or music.

Against this backdrop, we would like to bring the two fields together through semiotics-based research on musical texts, believing that this perspective has the potential to create resonance for general translation studies. It has been argued that semiotics is good for translation studies (Stecconi 2007; Marais 2019; Kourdis 2023), which means – at least potentially – that there is a good deal of methodological and theoretical capital that can be utilized. Research on translation and music can definitely espouse a movement away from words, verbal artefacts and textual research towards the understanding of the performative, enacted, embedded and embodied nature of meaning making within translation, i.e. towards a deeper understanding of material processes of cultural practices, which necessitate moving beyond the verbal fixation and concentrating on more semiotically-informed approaches.

In the special issue, we would like to see how the actual go-between of semiotics bridges the fields of translation studies and musicology. We encourage scholars from across the academy to explore and provide their unique insight within the suggested thematic focus of translation, music and semiotics. We welcome both conceptual and empirical research. Possible topics include, but are not limited to the following questions:

  • Can (and if yes, then how can) semiotics contribute to solving the conceptual confusion within translation studies as exemplified by translating musical texts?
  • How can translation and music capitalize theoretically on various theories of semiotics and vice versa?
  • Can we (and if yes, then how can we) apply conceptual frameworks developed by various schools, e.g. the Moscow-Tartu School of Semiotics, Paris School, Eco’s interpretative semiotics, Groupe μ, Peircean semiotics, etc. to the study of translating musical texts?
  • What methodologies can we use to research the synergy of semiotic systems in musical texts?
  • How can the concept of “textuality” be rethought when applied to musical compositions as texts to be translated?
  • How can the study of translating musical texts through semiotics help to challenge the traditional hierarchy between linguistic and non-linguistic forms of meaning-making?
  • How can semiotics challenge the literal and the human in translating musical texts?
  • How can semiotic approaches account for the performative, enacted, embedded and embodied dimensions of musical translation?
  • How can semiotics bridge the disciplinary gap between musicology and translation studies?

In order to submit the paper, one is kindly asked to submit the manuscript by sending it to: annaredzioch@uw.edu.pl, malgra@amuz.lodz.pl and studiasemiotyczne@pts.edu.pl

All submitted papers will be double-blind peer-reviewed.

Call: “Workshop on Intuitions and Experimental Philosophy”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

In March 2027, David Bordonaba-Plou and Martín Capece del Toro will host the 1st “Workshop on Intuitions and Experimental Philosophy” (WIEP) at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain.

Abstracts can be submitted until November 1, 2026. The call reads:

Intuitions are a source of evidence that many people use to a greater or lesser extent. We rely on them to investigate a wide variety of issues, for example, moral, mathematical, or religious questions, or to examine other people’s opinions on a host of different topics. Although there is debate about what is an intuition, appealing to intuitions has been one of the most widely used methods in many areas within analytic philosophy. The accepted view (see Goldman, 2007; Weinberg, 2007; Williamson, 2007, p. 2; Baz, 2012, p. 87; Koopman, 2012; Kornblith, 2014) is that intuitions play a fundamental evidential role.

Besides, there has been a dispute within analytic philosophy between three different groups of philosophers during the last decades. First, the “autonomists” (see, e.g., Bealer, 1998; Liao, 2008; Sosa, 2013; Chalmers, 2014; Devitt, 2015) defend that introspection and appeal to intuition can be used to answer many philosophical questions. Second, those who defend that analytic philosophers do not employ intuitions as evidence in philosophical practice. Following Nado (2016, p. 782), we can call them “intuition deniers” (see, e.g., Williamson, 2007; Deustch, 2009; Cappelen, 2012). Third, those who think that analytic philosophers use intuitions as evidence but doubt this method, arguing instead for the need to apply more rigorous methods drawn from scientific disciplines such as psychology, the social sciences, or linguistics; we can call them “experimental philosophers” (see, e.g., Machery et al., 2004; Knobe and Nichols, 2007; Mallon et al., 2009; Alexander et al., 2010).

This workshop aims to include presentations addressing the relationship between intuitions and experimental philosophy. The presentations accepted are expected to develop novel perspectives or adopt novel approaches that shed light on traditional problems associated with intuitions in analytic philosophy. Both experimental and theoretical papers will be accepted, as well as explicit defenses of any of the above positions, papers that point out desiderata that all three should fulfill, or papers dealing with other issues related to intuitions and experimental philosophy.

Some possible topics that presentations may address are:

  • Intuitions and mental experiments.
  • Conflicting intuitions in questionnaires.
  • Intuitions and justification.
  • Calibration of intuitions.
  • Differences in the use of intuitions in different areas of analytic philosophy.
  • Empirical or theoretical analyses of the role of intuition talk in the arguments of analytic. philosophers.
  • Empirical or theoretical analyses of philosophical practices making use of intuitions.

Submission

Please submit an abstract including:

  • Title of the paper.
  • Abstract (400–500 words) clearly presenting the research question, theoretical framework, and main argument (in English or Spanish).
  • Institutional affiliation.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is 1 November 2026. Abstracts must be anonymized (also anonymize self-citations) and must have a section including the bibliographic references (not included in the word count). Abstracts should be sent to the following email: davbordo@ucm.es, specifying the following subject: 1st Workshop on Intuitions and Experimental Philosophy.

For any questions, please write to davbordo@ucm.es.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

  • María José Frápolli Sanz (Universidad de Granada, Spain; Institute of Philosophy. School of Advance Study, University of London, United Kingdom).
  • James Andow (University of Manchester, United Kingdom).

Call: “The New Measurement Heretics”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

Following the “Measurement Heretics Workshop – Being, Meaning, and Measuring Well,” Rebecca Jackson, Michele Luchetti, Morgan Thompson, and Aja Watkins edit a volume on the topic.

Abstracts for contributions can be submitted until June 15, 2026. The call reads:

This edited volume stems from the Measurement Heretics Workshop – Being, Meaning, and Measuring Well, organized by Rebecca Jackson at Durham University on March 11–13, 2026. We warmly welcome proposals from researchers in the philosophy, history, sociology, and anthropology of measurement (broadly construed) who would like to address the themes in the description below.

Once the list of contributions is selected, the volume proposal will be submitted for consideration to Chicago University Press.

Topic description

What we measure, and how we measure, matters deeply. In the human sciences especially, the definition and status of what we call “measurement,” the distinguishing or desirable features of measurement, and whether (and when) we should measure at all, has seen a resurgence of interest and debate. This volume engages with scientific, medical, and social measuring practices of the past and present, inviting contributions that dissect and reform the meaning and desirability of fundamental notions in philosophy of measurement – or as we call them, measurement heresies.

This is not the first time fundamental notions in measurement, or “dogmas,” have been challenged in disparate areas of study. The current wave of philosophically influenced history of measurement owes its roots to works such as Chang’s Inventing Temperature (2004), which troubled the dogma that accurate instruments require a prior foundation of true theories of what is being measured. Prior to this, sociological and historical work had already troubled the separation between the purity of numbers and the messiness of human knowers, showing that the growing emphasis on quantification in the 19th and 20th century was marked by the influence of bureaucracy and social agendas more than it mirrored the practice of physicists (Porter 1995; Collins 1975; Gould 1981). Looking further back, stances that today are well within the orthodoxy were once at the center of heated debates. The Kantian dogma of the non-measurability of psychological properties was challenged by Fechner’s “heretical” psychophysics, which on the one hand initiated a long and influential debate on the quantifiability of sensation and, on the other, inspired Mach’s relational theory of measurement in physics that seeded later developments in measurement theory and philosophical debates on the nature of measurement. Waves of reform and reaction in the 20th century included tension between physicists and psychophysicists (Campbell 1920; Stevens 1946), and theories of measurement as foundational to the project of logical positivism (Reichenbach 1927; Carnap 1966). When psychometric visions and techniques were first beginning to shape theory of measurement in psychology (Cronbach and Meehl 1955; Campbell and Fiske 1959), reformist projects led to the beginning of the representational theory of measurement in the physical sciences (Krantz et al. 1971; Suppes et al. 1989; Luce et al. 1990). Reconciling the two has proven difficult but philosophically productive, as several volumes and special issues have shown (Berglund et al. 2013; Vessonen 2017; Pendrill 2019; Mari et al. 2023; Uher 2025; Basso et al. 2026; Luchetti 2026). More recently, works on patient-centered and health measures have challenged the dogma that measurement can, and should, be carried out from a stance of aperspectival objectivity (Duque et al. 2024; McClimans 2024).

There is still much to be done to bring the dogmas of philosophers, inherited from the above mentioned 20th century reformist projects, to face the challenge of measuring in biomedical, clinical, and social contexts. A particular challenge here is to measure that which is unique or highly contextual, such as the lived experience of persons, and to measure moving targets that are more affected by, than reflected by, data meant to capture them (Godman & Marchionni 2022; Runhardt 2025; Zahle 2023). This work has been ongoing in medical humanities, sociological, historical, geographical, anthropological, and literary scholarship, as well as in geophysical and environmental sciences, in ways that have not yet been articulated together. This volume brings the heresies (and the heretics) together, to map the terrain of the current re-evaluation which is taking place in Measurement Studies more broadly.

The purpose of this book is to give space to critical re-evaluations of dogmas regarding fundamental notions about measurement and to invite novel interpretations of formal and informal measurement concepts. We invite contributions focusing on topics including (but not limited to) the following:

  • STANDARDISATION
  • COMPARABILITY
  • QUANTIFICATION, QUANTITIES, and/or MAGNITUDES
  • MEASUREMENT SCALES
  • PRECISION and/or RELIABILITY
  • VALIDITY and/or VALIDATION
  • ACCURACY and/or SENSITIVITY/SPECIFICITY
  • PROXIES

We also invite contributions that are critical of the activity of measurement in general:

  • What are the affective and real-world impacts of measuring and being measured on human and non-human subjects?
  • When is it worse to measure at all, and when is it worth it to measure (even badly) to provide voice to marginalized actors within a system?
  • What would it look like to gather evidence against measurement itself, as being an intervention?

Rather than chapters taking the form of a strictly circumscribed philosophical argument, we invite authors to address one of the above topics from their own disciplinary perspective. We expect chapters to reference a case or cases from past or present measuring practices. The editorial team will explicate the broader philosophical implications in the introductory and concluding chapters.

Confirmed contributors

  • Nicholas Binney (HHU Düsseldorf)
  • Femke Truijens (University of Rotterdam)
  • Riana Betzler (San José State University)

Submission details

Please submit an abstract aimed at an interdisciplinary audience (600–800 words, not including references) to the following email address: measurementheretics@gmail.com

The deadline for abstract submission is June 15th, 2026. Authors of selected contributions will be notified at the end of July. An authors’ workshop will take place online in November 2026, and the final submission of the chapters (6k–8k words) is planned for March 2027.

Call: “New Methods in Semantics of Artefacts”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

From September 15 to 16, 2026, the conference “New Methods in Semantics of Artefacts – Meaning Beyond Linguistic Signs” will take place at the Cité de la Mode et du Design, Paris.

Abstracts can be submitted until May 25, 2026, 12:00 CEST. The call reads:

Conference details

Our organizing committee, with the support of the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE–Paris Sciences Lettres) and the Institut Français de la Mode (IFM), invites submissions to the New Methods in Semantics of Artefacts: Meaning beyond linguistic signs conference, to be held on 15–16 September 2026 at the Cité de la Mode et du Design in Paris.

We are delighted to announce our invited speakers:

Philosophy: Enrico Terrone (University of Genova), Nicola Di Stefano (CNR Italy); Cognitive psychology: Charles Spence (University of Oxford); Linguistics: Philippe Schlenker (École Normale Supérieure / NYU), Pritty Patel-Grosz (University of Oslo); Musicology: Ben Curry (University of Birmingham).

Topic of the conference

Objects such as perfumes, works of art, and creations in design, gastronomy, or entertainment often give rise to mental representations that go beyond the objects themselves. Through perception and interaction, individuals attribute meanings, associations, and symbolic values to such objects, even when these meanings are not explicitly expressed in language. Understanding how such meanings emerge is a shared challenge for philosophy, linguistics, and the cognitive sciences, and this conference aims to put these complementary approaches into dialogue.

The philosophical tradition has long sought to ground what one would ordinarily call the meaning of objects in a general theory of signs – an approach exemplified, within contemporary naturalized philosophy, by Millikan’s work (Beyond concepts, 2017), as well as by more targeted theories addressing the meanings of particular kinds of objects. Pursuing the formalization of such a general theory of signs, the super-linguistics program (Schlenker, Patel-Grosz, among others) holds that formal linguistic theory can be productively extended across various domains of non-linguistic signs, drawing on notions such as the constituency (or grouping) principle central to syntax, the use of logical variables for object tracking, and the variety of inference types investigated in semantics and pragmatics. Finally, several theoretical frameworks in psychology may help address the origins of artefact meaning: in addition to the cognitive foundations of such meaning – cross-modal associations, conceptual representations, affordances, technical reasoning, and intention-based accounts – psychology can illuminate the transmission and cultural learning of the meanings that objects come to bear.

We aim to take stock of the experimental methods and conceptual tools used to study the semantics of objects, and to foster epistemological transfers from the semantics of one domain to another – music, design objects, fragrances, images, food, dance, and so forth – with particular attention to the plurality of sensory modalities through which these objects are perceived.

Submission guidelines

Each selected contributor will be invited to give a 45-minute presentation, including Q&A.

We welcome contributions that place particular emphasis on:

  • the choice and clarification of the semantic concepts employed; and/or
  • attempts at formalization; and/or
  • the originality of the empirical methods applied.

Contributions will be selected from submitted abstracts. Abstracts should be between 400 and 500 words in length, including footnotes but excluding references, and must be suitable for blind review.

The submission deadline is 25 May 2026, 12:00 noon (Paris time).

All abstracts should be submitted to: semanticsofartefacts.conference@gmail.com.

Authors will be notified of acceptance by 18 June 2026.

If your abstract is accepted for presentation, we will cover coffee breaks and lunches during the two-day conference. At present, our funding does not allow us to reimburse travel and accommodation expenses.