Workshop on Metaphysical Building

The University of Tennessee Southern's School of Arts and Humanities and the University of St. Andrews’ Arché Philosophical Research Centre for Logic, Language, Metaphysics, and Epistemology will be hosting a two-day online workshop on the Metaphysics of Building. 

DESCRIPTION: The aim of this workshop is to bring together scholars working on the metaphysics of building, broadly construed, to explore how building relations such as grounding, composition, constitution, and realization connect the more fundamental to the less fundamental. Talk of “building”—of one thing being based in, generated by, or constructed out of another—runs throughout contemporary metaphysics. This workshop focuses on the family of building relations, examining issues such as their nature, their possible unity or disunity, and their implications for how we conceive of what is fundamental and what is not.

DATES AND VENUE: 16 and 17 January 2026, online via Microsoft Teams

SPEAKERS: Paul Audi (University of Rochester), Karen Bennett (Rutgers University), Sheiva Kleinschmidt (University of Southern California), Peter van Inwagen (University of Notre Dame & Duke University), Nathan Wildman (Tilburg University)

REGISTER HERE: https://forms.gle/hWmBG7h2JhVauTQ57

PROVISIONAL SCHEDULE (Note: All times are in GMT):

Every slot includes: The main talk (40 minutes), and Q&A (25 minutes).

Titles and Abstracts: Coming Soon.

Day 1: Friday, January 16

14:55–15:00 — Opening Remarks
15:00–15:40 — Shieva Kleinschmidt
15:40–16:05 — Audience Q&A
16:05–16:20 — Break
16:20–17:00 — Paul Audi
17:00–17:25 — Audience Q&A

Day 2: Saturday, January 17

14:00–14:40 — Nathan Wildman
14:40–15:05 — Audience Q&A
15:05–15:20 — Break
15:20–16:00 — Peter van Inwagen
16:00–16:25 — Audience Q&A
16:25–16:40 — Break
16:40–17:20 — Karen Bennett
17:20–17:45 — Audience Q&A
17:45 — Closing Remarks

This workshop is supported by Aaron J. Cotnoir's EPSRC Funded Project Instruments of Unity: the Many Ways of Being One.