[News] Workshop 13-14 June: On Writing About Philosopher’s Lives

You are cordially invited to the upcoming workshop at the Institute Vienna Circle: Life and Work: On Writing About Philosopher’s Lives 13-14 June 2025 Room 3A Neues Institutsgebäude (NIG), Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien How do we write about the lives of philosophers, and what brings us to write and read philosophical biographies? Throughout its history, the discipline of philosophy was shaped by human interaction and personal experience as much as by hard thinking of individuals interacting with the world solely through written word. Trends in intellectual migration (or lack thereof) led to differences between philosophical traditions of different countries. There are multiple examples of friendships and personal networks enabling philosophers to flourish intellectually and in their careers; personal conflicts and character clashes could also nearly break said careers. In the relatively recent past, we have seen women enter academic philosophy, sometimes bringing with them perspectives and insights born directly from their personal experience. Their lives as women and their academic careers were inextricably linked. This kind of research and writing becomes particularly relevant when philosophy becomes interested in its history not only from a purely conceptual perspective, but as a history of its people and institutions, which existed in a particular time and place. The practice of biographical writing can both result from such interest, and help satisfy it. The workshop is organised by the MSCA Project "What was and what could have been: Janina Hosiasson-Lindenbaum’s role in the philosophy of probability", led by Marta Sznajder Programme Friday, 13 June 9:45 Welcome and introduction 10:00 -11:00 Christian Damböck, Rudolf Carnap in Chicago. The transformation of antimetaphysics 11:30 – 12:30 Patricia Grill, “Revered Miss”: Otto Neurath’s Early Letters and Reflections on Ellen Key 14:30 – 15:30 Matteo Collodel, False Memories and True Lies: Personal, institutional and philosophical issues in intellectual biography writing – The case of Paul K. Feyerabend 16:00 – 17:00 Zofia Hałęza, Philosophy beyond the text: women as architects of intellectual space Saturday, 14 June 10:00 – 11:00 Sophia Connell, Early analytic women philosophers in Cambridge 11:30 – 12:30 Alan Richardson, When is biography philosophical? Lessons from the life of Hans Reichenbach 14:30 – 15:30 Cheryl Misak, Incorporating Technical Material in an Intellectual Biography 16:00 – 18:00 Marta Sznajder, From a bag of facts to a narrative – Workshopping the biography of Janina Hosiason-Lindenbaum ---- Marta Sznajder Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow Institute Vienna Circle University of Vienna www.martasznajder.com <http://www.martasznajder.com> marta.sznajder(a)univie.ac.at <mailto:marta.sznajder@univie.ac.at>