Acquaintance: Kick-Off Workshop of the Acquaintance Network

Acquaintance

Kick-Off Workshop of the Acquaintance Network

July 1-3, 2026

Valencia Philosophy Lab

University of Valencia, Department of Philosophy

Room F11

(ONLY IN PERSON)

The Acquaintance Network is a newly formed international philosophy research group working on the metaphysics, epistemology, value, and history of acquaintance.

Acquaintance is the relation of conscious awareness that we bear to the things we experience most directly. The notion of acquaintance has the potential to explain a wide range of important facts in philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, and other domains.

The Acquaintance Network aims to support current work on acquaintance and to promote future work on acquaintance. More information about the Acquaintance Network here.

This is the inaugural workshop of the Acquaintance Network. We’ll discuss fundamental issues concerning the nature and epistemology of acquaintance, both from a contemporary and a historical perspective.

Program

Wednesday, July 1

10 – 11:30 Donovan Wishon, “How Transparent is Experience?: Reassessing Diaphaneity in Early Analytic Philosophy”

– Coffee break

12 – 13:30 Sharon Casu, “Acquaintance and Mediation”

– Lunch

15 – 17      Roundtable: SEP on Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description (by Ali Hasan). Discussants: Emad Atiq, Sharon Casu, Sam Coleman, Matt Duncan, Anna Giustina, Ali Hasan, Michael Markunas, Jacopo Pallagrosi, Chris Ranalli, Donovan Wishon

Thursday, July 2

10 – 11:30 Sam Coleman, “Phenomenal Concepts, Qualia, and Acquaintance - Issues Arising”

– Coffee break

12 – 13:30 Michael Markunas, “Acquaintance with Abstract Objects”

–Lunch

15:30 – 17 Anna Giustina and Jacopo Pallagrosi, “Knowledge by Acquaintance and the Conceptual Mind”

Friday, July 3

12:00 – 13:30 Matt Duncan, “I Think, Therefore ... Presentism is False”

–Lunch

15:30 – 17:30 Roundtable: The Normativity of Knowledge by Acquaintance. Discussants: Sharon Casu, Sam Coleman, Matt Duncan, Anna Giustina, Ali Hasan, Michael Markunas, Jacopo Pallagrosi, Chris Ranalli, Donovan Wishon

Organization and contact

Anna Giustina ([email protected])

Jacopo Pallagrosi

Matt Duncan

Special thanks to Jorge Guardiola for the invaluable logistic support.

Funding

Know Yourself: The Importance, the Nature, and the Applications of Introspective Self-Knowledge (PID2023-151949NA-I00), funded by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades.

–This is a Valencia Philosophy Lab event.