Thinking the City: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Place

This conference aims to establish a sustained and systematic philosophical engagement with the city as an object of inquiry within analytic philosophy. While cities profoundly structure our social, moral, epistemic, and political lives, there has been little comprehensive philosophical treatment of the city as such. With the notable exception of Quill Kukla’s recent work—which opens an important line of inquiry while leaving significant conceptual territory unexplored—there is as yet no coordinated body of research addressing the nature, norms, and lived experience of urban life utilising tools and concepts from within analytic philosophy.

The conference seeks to address this gap by creating a dedicated forum for philosophical reflection on the city. We invite contributions that engage with the epistemological, ethical, metaphysical, political, and religious dimensions of urban life. The event aims to bring into dialogue work on adjacent themes—including spatial justice, collective agency, identity, trust, public space, and belonging—and to situate these within the broader framework of a developing philosophy of the city.

A central goal of the conference is to help articulate the contours of this emerging field and to contribute to setting a research agenda for future work. The main conference will be preceded by a focused, graduate-student-led workshop dedicated to identifying new research questions and directions for sustained inquiry. We welcome submissions that draw on or engage with political theory, philosophy of religion, social epistemology, ancient philosophy, and postcolonial thought. Please see Call for Abstract page for more details.

The conference is funded by the Mind Association and Clare Hall, University of Cambridge.

Invited Speakers

Quill Kukkla (Georgetown): The Architecture of Agency

Daisy Dixon (Cardiff): Aesthetic Justice — a Cardiff City Impact Case Study

Pilar Lopez Cantero (Antwerp): Care-washing in The Built Environment

Alice Roberts (Cambridge): Can Statues make values 'perceptible'?

Heba Raouf Ezzat (Ibn Haldun): Order and Disorder in the City - Reflections on Human Agency