Methodological Breaks and Continuations in the Philosophy of Nature

The famous metaphor of giants’ shoulders refers to the names considered to be the greatest in the history of philosophy, as they were supposed to set intellectual trends for less significant figures.It is well-known, however, that belonging to one or the other group relies on many different circumstances and not only on ‘objective’ factors.Obviously, the aim of the conference is not to underestimate the significance of the renowned thinkers, but to analyze the impact on breakthroughs or continuations in the natural philosophy of those thinkers, who are often overlooked in textbooks and compendiums. The main questions to be asked at the conference are: “Did anyone make possible the emergence of the ‘giants’ in the Western natural philosophy?”; “Who strengthened and maintained the dominant concepts?”; “Who made it easier for the famous coryphaei of natural philosophy to question the prevailing paradigms”?; and finally “Are there figures in the field of natural philosophy who have unfairly earned a reputation as ‘the second best’?” The conference is intended to present research on lesser-known Western philosophers, as well as those who, like the Arabs, had a significant influence on the Western philosophical culture. We invite scholars who deal with the history of the philosophy of nature and contemporary philosophy of science.

The first conference in the series is devoted to the methodological problems of the philosophy of nature seen through the prism of the above-mentioned general problems.