Contemporary Challenges and Values

Contemporary Challenges and Values

The Chair of the History of Philosophy and Comparative Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) and the journal Kultura i Wartości (“Culture and Values” - journals.umcs.pl/kw) warmly invite you to participate in the conference CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES AND VALUES.The conference will be held online (on Zoom) from 10 to 11 December 2021 in two languages: English and Polish.

In the course of the conference, we intend to reflect on the relationship between contemporary challenges (both theoretical and practical) and values as they figure both in individual as well as social valuations and in theoretical approaches. In particular, we aim to engage in reflection on the following questions (which, however, are only exemplary):

·        What are the key axiological challenges of the contemporary world – both theoretical and practical?

·        Which values are currently undergoing transformation and to what extent? How should we understand the nature of such transformations? Do such transformations occur in values themselves or only in our consciousness thereof?

·        Are all value transformations stimulated by practical challenges?

·        Are value transformations a normal phenomenon or are they symptomatic of an aberration or a crisis?

·        How do such transformations relate to classical axiological positions such as absolutism, relativism, pluralism, objectivism, subjectivism, and relationalism?

·        Can we still speak of the universalism of values (in the context of cultural-civilisational pluralism)?

·        What are the implications of the current world-view- and moral transformations for the understanding of values?

·        Is it possible to trigger transformations of values and to exert influence on their course?

·        What transformations of values sustain transhumanism? What transformations of values occur as its result?

·        We welcome presentations offering systematic approaches to such questions as well as papers discussing approaches already developed by philosophers, figures in Cultural Studies, Sociology, and so on.

The conference will consist in sections in Polish and in English.

Organisational information:

The conference is open to researchers and PhD students. Please send your abstract to [email protected] by 26 November 2021. The abstract should not exceed 300 words. The presentation of your paper should take no longer than 20 minutes. The decision whether your submission has been accepted will be communicated to you by 30 November 2021.

Articles developed on the basis of conference papers will be published – subject to their receiving a positive review - in the journal Kultura i Wartości. Articles, formatted according to the journal's requirements, should be registered on the journal's website journals.umcs.pl/kw by 15 December 2021.