CFP: Transcendental Argument and Its Discontents

The Taiwan Metaphysics Colloquium series (TMCs) is one of the most noted international philosophy conference series in Taiwan. It was previously hosted by the Department of Philosophy at National Taiwan University and now by the Taiwan Association for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology (LMPST Taiwan): https://www.lmpsttw.org/ This series is held biennially and aims to provide a platform for dialogues amongst researchers working on various contemporary metaphysical issues. In previous years, the conferences under the series have invited many renowned local and international scholars, including David Charles, Max J. Cresswell, Dorothy Edgington, Pascal Engel, Hartry Field, Robert Goldblatt, Alan Hayek, Jennifer Hornsby, Hiroakira Ono, and Daniel Stoljar. Following the conference series, multiple international anthologies have been published, including a Logic in Asia (LIAA) book series (Springer) and a special issue of Synthese.

The sixth Taiwan Metaphysics Colloquium (TMC-VI) is titled “Transcendental Argument and Its Discontents.” A transcendental argument roughly has this form: “X is a necessary condition for the possibility of Y – where then, given that Y is the case, it logically follows that X must be the case” (Stern and Cheng, 2023). In about quarter-century ago, the conference on the problems and prospects of transcendental arguments took place at Sheffield, UK, resulting in an edited volume with many influential papers (Stern, 1999). More discussions have been conducted after that. Some have argued forcefully against the viability and relevance of transcendental arguments (Cassam, 2007; Burge, 2010). Some have connected transcendental arguments to contemporary modal metaphysics and epistemology, though in a critical way (Mizrahi, 2017). Some have attempted to apply or rescue it in specific areas, but controversies remain (Korsgaard, 1996, 1998; Gomes, 2017). Transcendental arguments are also closely connected to contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and metametaphysics. Some relevant ideas include identity, reduction, supervenience, necessitation, constitution, emergence, and grounding.

Invited Speakers:

Ralf M. Bader (Université de Fribourg)

Adrian Bardon (Wake Forest University)

Chong-Fuk Lau (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Jack Alan Reynolds (Deakin University)

Christian Wenzel (National Taiwan University)

We welcome submissions related to the following series of questions, very broadly construed: what are the problems and prospects of transcendental arguments in the 21st century, in particular, in an age of science? Are transcendental arguments rendered obsolete by empirical methods? Or by better philosophical reflections? Can contemporary metametaphysics provide finer-grained apparatuses, i.e., finer than modal logic, for modelling transcendental arguments? Are there some specific transcendental arguments that are successful (or unsuccessful)? At this conference, we plan to gain a better understanding of transcendental arguments in the face of new challenges.

We greatly appreciate the sponsorship of Frontward Foundation, National Taiwan University, and National Chengchi University.

SUBMISSION

All researchers working on the related topics are cordially invited to submit their abstracts for a contributed talk. Authors should submit an extended abstract (preferably, no less than one page but no more than four pages in A4 size, single space). Please put on a separate page with (all) authors’ basic information, including full names, titles, affiliations, email addresses. By convention, the first author will be the corresponding author, unless special notification is added. Each submission will be reviewed. Abstracts must be submitted both in PDF-format and in Word format and send to Tony Cheng [[email protected]]

POST-CONFERENCE PUBLICATION

Following the tradition of TMCs and TPLCs, we are planning to publish a post-conference proceeding in the format of a book volume or journal special issue. All speakers are invited to submit a full-length paper. All papers submitted will be refereed to high journal standards, and thus acceptance as a presentation at the conference is no guarantee that the post-conference paper will be published. A substantial schedule concerning the submission of manuscripts and some other detailed information will be announced after the conference.