CONFERENCE: METAPHYSICS AND METHOD
IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGY
Paderborn University, June 12-13, 2025
Building L.1.102 & 202
Organizers:
Prof. Sebastian Luft
Chair of Theoretical Philosophy, Paderborn University, Germany
Prof. Dimitris Apostolopoulos
Loyola University Chicago, USA
Dr. Aaron Wells
Metropolitan State University of Denver, USA
The keynote talks will be from Michela Summa (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg) and Clinton Tolley (University of California San Diego).
Guests are welcome, but we ask you to please register in advance by contacting Prof. Sebastian Luft at lufts@mail.uni-paderborn.dehttps://metaphysics-and-methods-2025-upb.weebly.com/
For further information, we invite you to consult the conference website (click here).
Program
Thursday, 12 June
9:00 Welcome (from Conference Organizers)
Session I Methodology, Ontology and Facticity
Moderation: Daria-Leona MacAward (Paderborn)
9:15-10:00 Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ “Real-Ontological“ Categories
Dr. Daniel Neumann (Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz)
10:00-10:45 Is Res Cogitans Just a Piece of the World? Some Remarks on Husserl’s Critique of Descartes
Stefano Franchini (Scuola Normale Superiore)
10:45-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-11:45 Merleau-Ponty’s Descartes: The Philosopher in Factical Situation
Dr. David Suarez (University of Toronto)
11:45-12:30 What’s in a Cogitatio? Descartes, Husserl, and Kant on the Possibility of a Distinctio Phaenomenologica
Dr. Tom Poljanšek (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
12:30-14:00 Lunch
Session II: Practical Philosophy
Moderation: Aaron Wells (Metropolitan State University of Denver)
14:00-14:45 Rereading Spinoza: the Epoché of Religion According to Levinas
Benedetta Catoni (La Sapienza University of Rome)
14:45-15:30 From Bundles to Habits: A Double Theory of the Self in Hume and Husserl
Dr. Marco Cavallaro (Universität zu Köln, Husserl Archive)
15:30-16:15 Husserl’s Re-Reading of Hume’s Moral Theory During his Freiburg Years
Michele Vinai (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg)
16:15-17:00 Coffee Break
Keynote I
17:00-18:30 Finding Necessity Within Contingency: The Epistemic Role of Examples in Kant and Husserl
Michela Summa (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg)
19:00 Conference Dinner
Friday, 13 June
Session III: Philosophy of Mind and Epistemology
Moderation: Sebastian Luft
9:00-9:45 Phenomenology as an Aristotelian Metaphysics of Mind
Dr. Gustav Melichar (Ruprechts-Karls-Universität Heidelberg)
9:45:10:30 Husserl on Concepts: From Bolzano to Kant?
Victor Portugal (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
10:30-10:45 Coffee Break
10:45-11:30 Synthesis and Diaresis: The Secondary Nature of Kantian Understanding
Dr. Michael Blézy (University of Toronto)
11:30-12:15 Evidence Beyond Immanence: Descartes and Husserl on Mathematical and Eidetic Certainty
Dr. Alexis Delamare (Paris)
12:15-13:30 Lunch
Session IV: Speculative Metaphysics
Moderation: Dimitris Apostolopoulos (Loyola Chicago)
13:30-14:15 Neither a Witness Nor a Wave: Jacobi, Fichte, and Husserl on Nihilism
Dr. G. Anthony Bruno (Royal Holloway University of London)
14:15-15:00 Negativity, History and Dialectics of Reality in Jan Patočka's Reception of the Phenomenology of Spirit
Lorenzo Toro (University of Macerata)
15:00-15:45: The Metaphysics of Sleep and Dreams: A Cartesian Legacy in the Early Heidegger
Dr. Aengus Daly (Bergische Universität Wuppertal)
15:45-17:30 Coffee Break
Transfer to Deelenhaus, Downtown.
Keynote II
17:30-19:00 The Phenomenology (and Metaphysics) of Spirit: Hegelian Themes in Scheler, Stein, and Walther
Clinton Tolley (University of California, San Diego)
19:00 Reception (Drinks & Finger Food)
Evening at Leisure
End of Conference
