Causality in Early Modern Thought

Saturday, September 28 (Acadia Room, KC Irving Centre)

1:00 – 2:00   Scott Stapleford (St. Thomas, NB): “Causal Reasoning in Leibniz’s ‘Monadology’”

2:00 – 3:00   James Hebbeler (Saint Joseph’s, PA): “Kant on Knowledge of Particular Causal Laws”

3:30 – 4:30   Andreea Mihali (Wilfrid Laurier): “Agent-causation in Descartes”

4:30 – 5:30   Brigitte Sassen (McMaster): “Heuristic Methods: Orientation in the Sensible World”

6:15 – 7:15   Tom Vinci (Dalhousie): “Kant on the Paralogisms of Pure Reason and Descartes on the Res Cogitans and the Causal Principle of the Objective Reality of Ideas”

Sunday, September 29 (Acadia Room, KC Irving Centre)

 9:00 – 10:00   Andrea Sangiacomo (Groningen): “The Metaphysics of Determination, from Descartes to Spinoza”

10:00 – 11:00  Jeffrey Edwards (Stony Brook): “Physical Influence, Fields of Force, and 'Matter Everywhere' in Kant's Account of the Dynamical Community of Substances”

11:30 – 12:30  Francesca Di Poppa (Texas Tech): “Spinoza and Maimonides on Causation as Emanation”

12:30 – 1:30   Timothy Rosenkoetter (Dartmouth): “Kant's Account of the Meaning of the Category ‘Cause’”

3:30 – 4:30    Karen Detlefsen (Pennsylvania): “Understanding the Role of Causes in Descartes’ Conception of Living Beings”                                                                

4:30 – 5:30    Daniel Warren (Berkeley): T.B.A.

6:00 – 7:30    Tad Schmaltz (Michigan): “Descartes’ Critique of Scholastic Teleology”

This international symposium explores some of the most influential theories of causality of the early modern period, as well as the theories from which they emerged and those they inspired. It covers a broad range of issues pertaining to causality from the scholastic period to Kant, with consideration of their theological and scientific contexts. The discussions will probe current arguments over the extent to which central early modern perspectives on causality may be viewed as developments of, or departures from, the traditions in which they are rooted. The objective is, in part, to explore how the philosophical frameworks of this revolutionary age shaped science in its various historical forms. However, we will also consider specific features of these frameworks that must remain restricted to philosophical enquiry.

Contact: Anna Frammartino Wilks, [email protected]