Annual Conference of the Philosophical Society of Southern Africa

The annual conference of the Philosophical Society of Southern Africa will take place at the University of Cape Town, 23–25 January 2026.

Three confirmed keynote speakers will deliver papers in plenary session:

Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (Cornell University)

Sara Heinämaa (University of Jyväskylä)

Catarina Dutilh Novaes (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

We invite abstracts of papers for presentation from all philosophical researchers, including postgraduate students, from all parts of the world, on all areas of philosophy, in all schools of philosophy.

Please submit an abstract of no more than 200 words, with your name, affiliation and contact details, to [email protected] by 15 July 2025.

Accommodation on UCT’s mountainside campus directly adjoining the conference venue will be provided at a highly reduced rate.

About the keynote speakers

Catarina Dutilh Novaes is Professor and University Research Chair in Philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She was a professorial fellow at Arché, St Andrews, from 2019 to 2024 and is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. She studied at the University of São Paulo and Leiden University. Her book The Dialogical Roots of Deduction won the Lakatos Award in 2022. She is also author of Formal Languages in Logic and Formalizing Medieval Logic Theories, and co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Logic and Insolubles and Consequences.

Sara Heinämaa is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä, Vice-president of the Philosophical Society of Finland, and a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. She studied at the University of Helsinki and held the Gadamer Chair at Boston College in 2025. She is author of Toward a Phenomenology of Sexual Difference and co-editor of New Perspectives on Aristotelianism and Its Critics, Consciousness, Psychology and Philosophy, Contemporary Phenomenologies of Normativity, Values of Love and Ethical Reflection, Phenomenology as Critique and Chiasmic Encounters.

Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò is Professor of African Political Thought at Cornell University. He studied at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and the University of Toronto. His book How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa was joint winner of the Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book Award of the Caribbean Philosophical Association in 2016. His other books include Legal Naturalism, Africa Must Be Modern, Against Decolonisation, Does the U.S. Need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission? and Can a Liberal Be a Chief? Can a Chief Be a Liberal?

Conference fee for early registration (by 25 October 2025)

Southern Africa:       Student ZAR690/EUR34

                               Non-student: ZAR1,500/EUR74

Rest of world:           Student ZAR1,640/EUR81

                               Non-student ZAR3,000/EUR148

Accommodation in Upper Campus Residence (directly adjoining the conference venue)

For a stay of four nights (22–26 January), including breakfast in the UCR dining hall each morning and annual membership of the PSSA at no extra charge:

Student ZAR520.50 per night (twin room)/ZAR626.50 per night (single room)

Non-student (apart from assoc prof/prof) ZAR714 per night (single room)

Assoc prof/prof ZAR839 per night (single room)