CFP: Big Mistake! Big! HUGE!

Call For Applications: University of Milan Philosophy Graduate Conference 

10, 11, 12 March 2025

We are pleased to announce “Big Mistake! Big! HUGE!”, a graduate conference that will be held March 10 – 12, 2025 at the University of Milan. The conference is organized jointly by doctoral students from FSU and HuME, two PhD programmes based at the “Piero Martinetti” Department of Philosophy, University of Milan.

The conference aims to investigate the topic of errors and mistakes from a plurality of philosophical perspectives and research methods. Each of the three days will be devoted to a specific methodology.

Historical Perspectives - Day 1, March 10

Keynote speaker: Tamer Nawar (ICREA - University of Barcelona)

Analytical Methodologies - Day 2, March 11

Keynote speaker: Ofra Magidor (University of Oxford) 

Mind and Cognition - Day 3, March 12

Keynote speaker: Lisa Bortolotti (University of Birmingham)

We welcome submissions for each of the aforementioned days. Papers ought to address the theme of mistakes broadly conceived, including, but not limited to:

• Category mistakes
• Non-sequiturs
• Formal and informal fallacies
• Truth, falsehood, and correspondence
• Modal mistakes 
• Violations of grounding relations
• Skepticism and perceptive mistakes
• Mistakes and epistemic self-doubt 
• Mistakes in assumptions and presupposition
• Mistakes and rhetorical persuasion
• Mistakes and serendipity 
• Cognitive biases
• Misinformation and mechanisms of vigilance  
• Irrational beliefs, delusions, and hallucinations
• Attentional lapses and error-related brain activity 
• False memories and self-deception

Graduate students and people who have obtained their PhD recently (within the last 3 years) are invited to submit an anonymized abstract of no more than 1500 words (excluding references) with a title, along with a separate cover letter specifying personal information, affiliation, and the title of the abstract to [email protected]. Abstracts should be suitable for a 25 mins presentation. 

The deadline for submissions is October 12, 2024 at 12 pm, and applicants will be notified about the results at the latest by January 12, 2025.

The conference will be held in person. 

We charge no registration fee. Unfortunately, we are unable to cover transport and hotel costs for selected speakers, we encourage you to seek financial assistance at your home institutions.

If you have any questions, please email the organizers at [email protected].