CFP: Époque Émilienne - Philosophy and Science 1700-1750

Call for papers:

Époque Émilienne
Philosophy and Science 1700-1750

Third international and interdisciplinary conference of the Center History of Women Philosophers and Scientistsin cooperation with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für französischsprachige Philosophie e.V.

Place: Paderborn University

Date: April 5th-7th, 2017

Invited Speakers: Gabor Boros (Budapest), Waltraud Ernst (Linz), Andrew Janiak (Durham), Pia Jauch (Zurich), Christoph Martin (Paris), Elena Muceni (Geneva), Fritz Nagel (Basel), Gianni Paganini (Vercelli), Osmo Pekonen (Helsinki), Betram Eugene Schwarzbach (Paris), Susana Seguin (Paris), Lieselotte Steinbrügge (Bochum), Jacqueline Taylor (San Francisco), George Vlahakis (Patras)

The conference Époque Émilienne focuses on the multi-faceted interactions in early 18th century philosophy and science. Leibniz’ appointment as a corresponding member of the Académie Royale des Sciences (1700) and Maupertuis’ appointment as president of the Berliner Sozietät der Wissenschaften (1740) are two striking historical events which underline the lively intellectual exchanges between Paris and Berlin, significantly shaping the early history of the European Enlightenment. During the past few years, the importance of Émilie Du Châtelet as one of the central figures in this context has been increasingly recognized. The conference aims to reconstruct central themes of the Époque Émilienne and to contextualize the philosophical and scientific works of Émilie du Châtelet, and their reception, considering their history of ideas and their biographical and institutional networks.

Suitable topics for exploration include, among others, the debate on the vis viva, the reception of the concept of monades/êtres simples in the natural sciences, the formation of epistemological concepts in the tension between apriorism and empirism, the development of the infinitesimal calculus, the debate on determinism, the theory of morality and the critique of religion.

The contributions should have a thematic reference to the writings of Émilie Du Châtelet, to their intellectual environment (Voltaire, Fontenelle, Maupertuis, Bernoulli, Wolff, Euler) and/or to their reception in the French (La Mettrie, Diderot, die Encyclopédie) and German Enlightenment (Luise Kulmus Gottsched up to the young Kant), and in other European countries (like Greece and Italy).

Please submit your abstract (ca. 100-300 words) at the latest by March 5th, 2017 to Ruth Hagengruber [[email protected]] or Pascal Delhom [[email protected]]. Submissions (in .pdf oder .doc format) should bear the name of the author(s) and affiliation(s). Participants will receive an answer by March 12th, 2017. The conference languages are English, French and German.