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.
