Dear all,
We are happy to invite you to a workshop with Zoe A. Johnson King (Harvard University) on “Praiseworthiness” taking place on June 11th, from 9:45 to 16:00 at Sensengasse 8/10.
Zoe Johnson King is a leading figure in the philosophical debate on (moral) praise and praiseworthiness. The existing literature in moral responsibility and attached fields is primarily concerned with (moral) blame and blameworthiness which is why Zoe Johnson King has dedicated her upcoming book to the topic of praiseworthiness.
The full book manuscript can be downloaded on her personal website: https://www.zoejohnsonking.com/research
We are going to discuss the book together with Zoe Johnson King in three separate sessions.
09:45 – 11:15 Chapter 1 & 2
11:30 – 13:00 Chapter 3 & 4
14:30 – 16:00 Chapter 5 & 6
The workshop is organized by the KiC and PACE project.
If you plan to come, please register in writing a short mail to sebastian.aster(a)univie.ac.at <mailto:sebastian.aster@univie.ac.at>
Best regards,
The organizers (Paulina Sliwa & Sebastian Aster)

Dear everyone,
The exhibition "Wien und die Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Orte des
Wiener Kreises", curated by
Friedrich Stadler and Bernhard Hachleitner, will open at the
Wienbibliothek on June 4 at 6.30 pm.
More information:
https://www.wienbibliothek.at/besuchen-entdecken/ausstellungen/wien-wissens…
The opening is in German, however, the exhibition itself is in English
and German.
Guided tours will be offered, too.
The exhibition will be open until September 19, 2025.
With best regards,
Zarah Weiss
--
Zarah Weiss, M.A.
(she/her)
Institut Wiener Kreis
Universität Wien
Alser Straße 23 Top 32
A-1080 Wien
https://wienerkreis.univie.ac.at
M: zarah.weiss(a)univie.ac.at
Dear colleagues,
Just a reminder about the upcoming lecture by Associate Professor Nancy Salay (Queen’s University, Canada) on her new book How Words Help Us Think: An Externalist Account of Representational Intentionality (Bloomsbury, 2025).
When: Friday 30 May 2025, 15:00-16:30
Where: Hörsaal 2I (NIG)
All welcome. Registration is not necessary, but let me know if you’d like to join us for an apéritif at Café Eiles after the talk, so that I can book a table.
Abstract
There is general agreement that a capacity to act for reasons is a mark of intentionality. Views differ widely, however, on how ‘acting for reasons’ unpacks.
According to the cognitivist tradition in which individuals are the central units of investigation, intentional agents make sense of their world via internal representations variously construed as neural, mental, or, on some reductive accounts, both. On these views, to act for a reason is to be responsive to some representation of the how the world is, was, or could be. How behaviour is guided by explicit use of representations—e.g., deliberation between whether to pick answer A or B on a multiple-choice exam—is taken to be continuous with the way that implicitly representational processes such as perception guide behavior.
For 4E theorists, in contrast, intentional agents are not individuals so much as they are continually shifting agent-situation couplings to and from which responses develop, often reciprocally. Intentional agents learn to cope within their world as they move and act within it; their needs and wants develop in accordance with their capacity to skillfully “operate” within ongoing situation landscapes. To ‘act for a reason’ here is to be agentive and responsive in a codeveloping agent-situation.
In the context of a comprehensive account of cognition, both views offer important insights. The representational approach brings attention to the cognitive power of explicitly deliberative activity but 4E views explain how operative intentionality grounds actions. In How Words Help Us Think, the book on which this talk is based, these insights are merged. Representations do have a powerful role to play in deliberative processes but not as internal structures that agents “recur” on; rather, they are external tools for spatiotemporally extending the ongoing situations in which intentional agents are always embedded.
On this view, a deliberative capacity, what I will be calling “representational intentionality,” is a strongly scaffolded skill rather than a fundamental capacity: while neural activity plays a critical role here, the development of representational intentionality requires in addition a certain kind of environment—one in which there are language practices—and a particular skill with it. My task in this book is to give an account of how representational intentionality develops when the requisite endogenous and exogenous factors are present. In this talk, I will present the arc of the view along with some of the key arguments that support it.
--
Dr Joshua Bergamin
Co-PI
(Musical) Improvisation & Ethics
Department of Philosophy
University of Vienna
www.improv-ethics.net
Dear all,
You are cordially invited to the following event:
In Goethes Auge - Perception, Ontology and Aesthetics of Colours - A
book presentation
Anastasia Klug (Humboldt Universität Berlin)
When: 11:00-13:00 - Wednesday 28 May 2025
Where: Room B0305, Neues Institutsgebäude (NiG), Universitätsstraße 7,
1010 Wien
Language: Englisch
Abstract:
Goethe spent many years working on colours, about the way we perceive
them, the way they appear in nature, and the way they can be
conceptualized from a physical point of view. In 1810 he published his
Theory of Colours (Farbenlehre), a non-classificable work about the
nature of colours, and, last but not least, their aesthetical value.
Indeed, Goethe was primarly interested into colours for aesthetical
reasons, even if the scientifical debate about the nature of light plays
a decisive role in his investigations. He famously attacked Newton’s
theory about the physical heterogeneity of white light and postulated
instead that what makes colours appear, is what he calls the polarity
between light and darkness. Through the years, this theory led him to
the idea that colours can form complementary couples that are
particularly harmonious, i.e. that are able to produce valuable
aesthetical effects. In Goethes Auge – Wahrnehmung, Ontologie und
Ästhetik der Farbe analyses Goethe’s conceptualization of colours as an
autonomous aesthetical mean, which permits a radical new artistical use.
This publication shows both the originality and the philosophical
importance of Goethe’s way to understand colours. What is at stake is
the link between perception, which implies a material point of view, and
aesthetical judgement in the sense of Kant and Schiller, which is
something more than a mere well-being sensation. Goethe’s approach
reveals itself as an original position in the German philosophical
landscape, characterized by idealism: his Theory of Colours replaces the
human being in the nature and its material dimension, without
sacrificing or reducing the spiritual side of human existence.
Best regards,
Raphael Aybar
--
MSc. Mag. Raphael Aybar, BA
Scientific Coordinator
Vienna Doctoral School of Philosophy
University of Vienna
Universitätsstraße 7, B0301
1010 Wien
+43-1-4277-46020
https://vd-philosophy.univie.ac.at/
vd.philosophy(a)univie.ac.at
raphael.aybar(a)univie.ac.at
Dear all,
we warmly invite you to the next APSE (Applied Philosophy of Science and
Epistemology) Talk and Reading Circle. The talk will be held by Veli
Mitova (University of Johannesburg).
Talk:
When: Thursday, 22.05.2025, 15:00 - 17:00
Where: HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)
Hermeneutical Reparations and the Right to be Known
According to an increasingly influential view in social epistemology, we
owe victims of gross human rights violations not only economic and
social reparations, but also reparations for the distinctively epistemic
wrongs that attend such violations (Lackey 2022). One type of epistemic
reparation is honouring victims' 'right to be known' (_ibid._)--their
right to have their true story known. This talk has two aims. First, I
argue that the right to be known cannot be successfully exercised in
hermeneutically unjust environments, i.e., environments in which the
explanatory and epistemic resources of the oppressed do not feature in
the mainstream knowledge economy (Dotson 2012, Fricker 2007). Thus, the
successful exercise of the right to be known requires what I call
hermeneutical reparations. The second aim of the talk is to sketch three
distinct kinds of hermeneutical reparations. If the arguments work, we
will have put into dialogue two bodies of scholarship that have,
curiously, not yet talked to each other. The dialogue will not only be
of mutual theoretical benefit to both, but will also up our chances of
attaining epistemic justice.
Speaker Bio
Veli Mitova is Professor in Philosophy and Director of the African
Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science [1] at the University
of Johannesburg. She works at the intersection of epistemology, ethics,
and social epistemology. She is the author of _Believable Evidence_
[2](CUP 2017), and the editor of _Epistemic Reparations and the Right to
Be Known_ [3] (forthcoming SI of _Philosophical Studies_), _Epistemic
Decolonisation_ [4](2020) and of _The Factive Turn in Epistemology_ [5]
(CUP 2018). Before joining the University of Johannesburg in 2015, Veli
taught and researched at Universität Wien, Universidad Nacional Autonoma
de México, Rhodes University (her alma mater), and Cambridge (where she
obtained her PhD).
Reading Circle:
When: Thursday, 22.05.2025, 13:00 - 15:00
Where: HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)
We will focus our discussion on a forthcoming article by Veli Mitova
(attached pdf):
Mitova, V. (2025). Decolonial Epistemic-Authority Reparations.
_Episteme_. DOI: 10.1017/epi.2025.2
As introduction to Epistemic Reparations, Veli Mitova suggests the
following article:
Lackey J. (2022). 'Epistemic Reparations and the Right to Be Known.'
_Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association_
96, 54-89.
As introduction to Hermeneutical Injustice:
Fricker, M. (2007). Chapter 7: Hermeneutical Injustice. _Epistemic
injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing_. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Introducing the concept of Contributory Injustice:
Dotson, K. (2012). A cautionary tale: on limiting epistemic oppression.
_Frontiers - A Journal of Women's Studies_ (1): 24-47.
And the latest reading, distinguishing 3 kinds of Hermeneutical
Injustice:
Catala, A. (2025). Chapter 3: Deliberative Impasses, White Ignoring, and
Hermeneutical Domination. _The Dynamics of Epistemic Injustice:
Situating Epistemic Power and Agency. _New York: Oxford University
Press.
All the Best,
Ella Berger and Vinzenz Fischer
Links:
------
[1]
https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/departments-2/philosophy/philosop…
[2] http://www.cambridge.org/9781107188600
[3] https://link.springer.com/collections/jhbeccifed
[4] https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rppa20/49/2?nav=tocList
[5]
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/factive-turn-in-epistemology/A12342A58…
Liebe Kolleg*innen,
untenstehend für Sie zur Information.
Mit besten Grüßen,
----
Institutskoordination
Dipl.-Ing. Katherina Geneviève Krobath, BEd
Andreas Wintersperger, MA
philosophie(a)univie.ac.at <mailto:philosophie@univie.ac.at>
+43(1)4277 46401
Institut für Philosophie
Universitätsstraße 7, Raum A316
1010 Wien
https://philosophie.univie.ac.at/
Das Institut für Philosophie, die Polnische Akademie der Wissenschaften und die Wiener Gesellschaft für interkulturelle Philosophie laden zum Gastvortrag
Landscape Aesthetics and Environmental Virtue Ethics
Mateusz Salwa
Dienstag, 27. Mai 2025
9:45-11:15 Uhr
Institut für Philosophie
Hörsaal 3C
Universitätsstraße 7
1010 Wien
Abstract:
Although landscape is defined differently in contemporary humanities, and often in a way that avoids association with aesthetic values, in philosophy, landscape is almost invariably associated with aesthetics. In all its complexity and diversity, the experience of landscape appears as an aesthetic experience. At the same time, attention has recently been drawn to the fact that landscape also has an ethical dimension – landscape ethics has begun to complement landscape aesthetics. Landscape ethics is often equated with the question of the right to landscape, which entails the obligation to relate to landscape in the right way. If one wants to preserve the aesthetic sense of landscape, one way to combine aesthetics and ethics is the recently proposed concept of environmental virtue aesthetics, a modification of environmental virtue ethics. The aim of my talk is to discuss the relationship between landscape aesthetics and landscape ethics, and to point out the glories and shadows of the virtue-oriented approach.
Dr. habil. Mateusz Salwa is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Warsaw.
Dear all,
The Philosophy of Science Group at the Department of Philosophy
cordially invites you to this mini workshop, taking place *today, 17:00
- 19:15 at NIG, Room 3D*.
You can also join via Zoom:
https://univienna.zoom.us/j/61325403480?pwd=csc5Ipp2tkz9MjwbvFioVELyphZW6u.1
*Mini workshop on AI and computing — 20.05.2025*
Lecture Room 3D (Room D0316, 3rd floor) Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna
Organized by: Univ.-Prof. Tarja Knuuttila
17:00 -18:00
Dr. Nick Wiggershaus (University of Lille)
*
*
*Computational Artifacts and the Problem of Creation*
As computer science integrates principles from logic, engineering, and
physics, the ontological status of its core entities, such as computer
programs, remains contested. Programs are often characterized as hybrids
that have a “dual nature.” In attempts to untangle such hybrids,
philosophers of computing have applied the concept of ‘technical
artifact’ (combining teleological function and physical structure) to
computing. While productive, it overlooks a notorious problem from the
philosophy of art: the /Problem of Creation/, which asks how abstract
objects like musical works or novels can be brought into existence
through concrete human activity. I argue that, like repeatable artworks,
computational artifacts have different representational modes (e.g.,
symbolic, mathematical, diagrammatic) and implementational media (e.g.,
ink on paper, chalk on a whiteboard, electrical signals, punched cards,
etc.). Just as a novel or a musical work is not identical to any one
performance or copy, a computer program persists across implementations.
This invites a philosophical conundrum: How can programmers /create
/abstract objects that are not located in space or time? By
appropriating solutions to the Problem of Creation, we gain alternative
ways to characterize the ontological status of programs and other
computing objects. I conclude by exploring whether we can understand
computational artifacts as /abstract /technical artifacts.
18:15-19:15
Dr. Laura Savolainen (University of Helsinki)
*Emperor’s New Crowds: “Untrustworthy” Workers and “Ground Truth”*
Ground-truth datasets are supposed to nail down facts about the “world”
represented by data, so that machine learning models trained on them
will behave reliably in that same world. Yet when annotation is
outsourced to platform workers whom engineers do not know, and often
mistrust, how is such reliability achieved or even imagined? Based on 27
interviews with machine learning researchers and practitioners, this
paper investigates how ground-truth datasets are stabilised when 1)
annotators are positioned as unreliable non-experts, 2) recognised
domain experts are prohibitively expensive, and 3) the platform
architecture itself suppresses deliberation, feedback, and learning.
Given these constraints, I illustrate ground-truthing as a canny,
iterative practice shaped by task design choices, aggregation methods,
disciplinary conventions, and the affective politics of trusting data
supplied by unknown workers. Rather than reflecting the world, the
resulting datasets operationalize narrowly bounded problem formulations
that satisfy performance goals ‘well enough’ for downstream modelling.
By analysing the epistemic hierarchies, organizational constraints and
judgment calls embedded in these pipelines, the discussion offers a
concrete case for re-evaluating realist assumptions about data,
evidence, and representation in contemporary AI research. Moreover, the
analysis opens normative space for re-imagining data pipelines around
more transparent authority structures and richer human feedback for more
reliable processes and outputs.
--
Alexander Gschwendtner
Universität Wien
Institut für Philosophie
Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien – Raum A0322
https://ufind.univie.ac.at/de/person.html?id=1009319
Dear all,
this is to remind you that Quassim Cassim is giving a talk entitled "How
To Be a Political Epistemologist" to which the WFAP warmly invites you.
When? This Wednesday, 1pm - 2.30pm
Where? HS 3A, NIG, Universitätsstraße 1, 1010 Vienna
Abstract:
One of the fastest growing areas of philosophy today is political
epistemology. In my lecture, I will discuss the extent to which its
leading figures operate in an epistemic bubble or echo chamber. I will
draw on Kusch's conception of a sociology of philosophical knowledge to
investigate the background assumptions, concerns, ideologies, and master
narratives of mainstream political epistemologists. I will propose a
class-based analysis of political epistemology and explore the
suggestion that this field's major preoccupations are essentially the
preoccupations of what Musa Al-Gharbi calls 'symbolic capitalists'. I
will conclude with a plea for a more diverse and self-critical approach
to political epistemology.
We are looking forward to seeing you there!
Best,
Veronika Lassl
Acting Chair - Vienna Forum for Analytic Philosophy (WFAP)
wfap.philo.at
Dear colleagues,
You are cordially invited to the interdisciplinary conference
"Free Will: New Perspectives from Philosophy, Biology and Neuroscience",
taking place on 11th & 12th June 2025 at the Austrian Academy of
Sciences (ÖAW), Vienna, Austria, and ONLINE.
Organiser: Dr. Anne Sophie Meincke (anne.sophie.meincke(a)univie.ac.at),
PI of the Elise Richter research project "Bio-Agency and Natural
Freedom" (Austrian Science Fund, grant DOI 10.55776/V714)
Description:
In everyday life, we naturally assume that it is up to us how we act,
and that we are therefore responsible for our actions. However, free
will in this strong, ‘libertarian’ sense – involving a choice between
alternatives – is increasingly being questioned by philosophers and
scientists. While traditional concerns were predicated on the
deterministic laws of classical physics, today sceptics also cite
biology and neuroscience. We are told that our genes or our brains, not
we, decide what we want and how we act.
This conference gathers leading experts in philosophy, biology and
neuroscience who argue the opposite. Cutting-edge research into the
biological and neural basis of human and animal agency challenges
deterministic assumptions, adding to doubts from quantum physics and
pointing to non-reductionist views of agency and action causation. At
the same time, recent advances in the philosophy of biology and
metaphysics offer new conceptual resources for understanding agency and
free will under indeterminism. The conference explores the resulting
prospects for a scientifically grounded, ontologically robust concept of
‘libertarian’ free will, breaking new ground in interdisciplinary
research on free will.
Invited Speakers:
Björn Brembs (University of Regensburg), John Dupré (University of
Exeter), Geert Keil (Humboldt University of Berlin), Christian List (LMU
Munich), Anne Sophie Meincke (University of Vienna), Alfred R. Mele
(Florida State University), Kevin Mitchell (with Henry Potter; both
Trinity College Dublin), Stephen Mumford (Durham University), Helen
Steward (University of Leeds), Peter U. Tse (Dartmouth College).
Concluding Reflections:
Johannes Jaeger (University of Vienna), Josef Quitterer (University of
Innsbruck)
For more details please see the attached conference programme and visit
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/detail/veranstaltung/der-freie-wille-im-fokus-von-ph…
To attend in person, please register free of charge via
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/veranstaltungen/anmeldung/free-will-new-perspectives…
Or follow the event via live stream:
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/veranstaltungen/live
The conference will be preceded by a Young Academy Distinguished Lecture
by Alfred R. Mele (Florida State University) and Anne Sophie Meincke
(University of Vienna & Young Academy of the Austrian Academy of
Sciences) on the question “Can Biology Help Us Defend Free Will?” on
10th June 2025 at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, see
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/junge-akademie/jours-fixes/1/news-details/young-acad…
We look forward to seeing you in Vienna or online.
Please also note the associated Call for Papers for a Topical Collection
in the journal "Synthese", entitled "Agency and Free Will in an
Indeterministic Universe: New Perspectives from Philosophy, Biology and
Neuroscience", see https://link.springer.com/collections/cjjciagiei .
Best wishes,
Dr. Anne Sophie Meincke
--
Recent publications:
"Continuant Processes or Processual Continuants? Towards an Analytic
Process Metaphysics", in: Objects and Properties: New Essays in
Metaphysics, ed. by A. Moran & C. Rossi, Oxford University Press,
forthcoming
"Emergent Properties", in: The Routledge Handbook of Properties, ed. by
A. Fisher & A.-S. Maurin (pp.347-357), Routledge 2024
"The Metaphysics of Development and Evolution: From Thing Ontology to
Process Ontology", Human Development 67, 5-6 (2023), 233-256:
https://doi.org/10.1159/000534421
"The Metaphysics of Living Consciousness: Metabolism, Agency and
Purposiveness", Biosemiotics 16 (2023), 281–290:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-023-09531-0www.annesophiemeincke.com
Elise Richter Research Fellow
Institute of Philosophy
University of Vienna
Universitätsstraße 7
1010 Vienna, Austria
Dear colleagues,
You are cordially invited to the Young Academy Distinguished Lecture
"Can Biology Help Us Defend Free Will? An Emerging Debate in
Philosophy", 10 June 2025, 17:00 (CEST).
Venue: Austrian Academy of Sciences, Johannessaal, Dr. Ignaz Seipel
Platz 2, 1010 Vienna, Austria, and online
Organiser: Dr. Anne Sophie Meincke (University of Vienna & Young Academy
of the Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Description:
Humans – members of the biological species homo sapiens – are products
of evolution. Therefore, if we have free will, it is plausible to assume
that our free will is also a product of evolution. But do we actually
have free will? Is it – at least sometimes – up to us what we decide to
do? Strikingly, philosophers have long ignored biology when it comes to
answering these questions. Instead, they have quibbled about whether and
how free will might fit into a supposedly deterministic universe as
studied by (classical) physics. Only recently has the debate about free
will begun to open up to biological considerations – so far, however,
mostly with sceptical results. We are told that it is not we but our
brains that decide what we want and how we act, or that our genes
determine our decisions, or other biological factors beyond our control.
In this Young Academy Distinguished Lecture, Alfred R. Mele, Professor
of Philosophy at Florida State University, and Anne Sophie Meincke,
member of the Young Academy and philosopher at the University of Vienna,
will take an overdue fresh look at the relationship between free will
and biology: Can biology help us understand and perhaps even defend free
will? If so, how? If not, why not? To make progress here, it is
necessary to critically analyse the arguments put forward against free
will in the name of biology. Do these sceptical arguments really show
what they claim to show? If not, then there is room to explore what
constructive role biology could play in an attempt to defend free will
against scepticism. Perhaps the common conception of a biological
organism as some kind of deterministic machine is not accurate after
all? How should we understand organisms instead? What biological
function could free will serve? Taking evolution seriously also suggests
considering the possibility that free will may not be a privilege of
human organisms.
First Lecture: Alfred R. Mele: "Free Will and Neurobiology"
Second Lecture: Anne Sophie Meincke: "Free Will Is Real and Biology
Helps Us Understand Why"
Join us for an inspiring and controversial discussion, which will be
moderated by Alice Auersperg, cognitive biologist at the Messerli
Research Institute, Vienna, and member of the Young Academy.
The Young Academy Distinguished Lecture Series brings cutting-edge
scientific topics to the public, presented by distinguished experts and
members of the Young Academy. The present two lectures kick off the
interdisciplinary conference "Free Will: New Perspectives from
Philosophy, Biology and Neuroscience", organised by Anne Sophie Meincke
and taking place at the Austrian Academy of Sciences on 11 and 12 June
2025, see
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/detail/veranstaltung/der-freie-wille-im-fokus-von-ph….
More information is to be found in the attached programme and at
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/detail/veranstaltung/willensfreiheit-und-biologie.
To attend in person, please register free of charge at
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/veranstaltungen/anmeldung/young-academy-distinguishe….
On-site childcare is available upon request. Please indicate your
interest when registering (by 2nd June).
Or follow the event via live stream at
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/veranstaltungen/live.
We are looking forward to seeing you.
Best wishes,
Dr Anne Sophie Meincke
--
Recent publications:
"Continuant Processes or Processual Continuants? Towards an Analytic
Process Metaphysics", in: Objects and Properties: New Essays in
Metaphysics, ed. by A. Moran & C. Rossi, Oxford University Press,
forthcoming
"Emergent Properties", in: The Routledge Handbook of Properties, ed. by
A. Fisher & A.-S. Maurin (pp.347-357), Routledge 2024
"The Metaphysics of Development and Evolution: From Thing Ontology to
Process Ontology", Human Development 67, 5-6 (2023), 233-256:
https://doi.org/10.1159/000534421
"The Metaphysics of Living Consciousness: Metabolism, Agency and
Purposiveness", Biosemiotics 16 (2023), 281–290:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-023-09531-0www.annesophiemeincke.com
Elise Richter Research Fellow
Institute of Philosophy
University of Vienna
Universitätsstraße 7
1010 Vienna, Austria