Forum Descartes

Conference organized by Sophie Roux, Ecole normale supérieure - PSL, with the support of ENS - PSL (Translitterae, République des savoirs), ENS Lyon (IHRIM, ERC NOTCOM), Université Paris-Diderot (SPHERE, ERC PHILIUMM), Université Paris-Nanterre (IREPH, Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy), and the Paris Institute for Advanced study.

Registration required for January 18 and 19 at the Paris Institute for Advanced Study (IEA de Paris): see registration form at bottom of page.
Free entry without registration for January 20 at ENS-PSL.

Presentation

Following on from the Descartes Seminar, which ran from 2009 to 2019, the Descartes Forum is an annual event that brings together specialists in the history of 17th-century philosophy and science, for scientific exchanges that help strengthen ties between European and American colleagues and encourage young researchers in their work.

The three days of this first edition will include in particular:
- presentations by doctoral students, followed by comments from other doctoral students and discussions with all attending colleagues.
- a half-day devoted to the discussion of important works recently published in the history of seventeenth-century philosophy and science.

Program

Jeudi 18 janvier / Thursday, January 18, 2024
Institut d’études avancées de Paris, 17 quai d'Anjou, 75004, salle des Gardes

09.15: Welcoming remarks
Sophie Roux (ENS-PSL)

Morning: Philosophy of Mind
Chair: Tarek Dika (Toronto)

09.30: Mattia Mantovani (KU Leuven), “Animal Minds and the Puzzle of Perception”
Daniel Klugman (Princeton University)

10.15: Sean M. Costello (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), “Henry More on the Extended Mind”
Dan Arbib (ENS-PSL)

11.00-11.30: Pause-café

11.30: Ceciel Meiborg (The New School / Université de Nanterre), “Obscure Ideas in Early Modern Philosophy”
Connor Morrison (Johns Hopkins University)

12.15: Pierre Brouillet (ENS de Lyon), “The Voice of Truth: on Malebranche's Psychology of Inner Listening”
Jason Yonover (Princeton University)

13.00-14.15: déjeuner

Afternoon: Natural Philosophy and Science
Chair: Carla Rita Palmerino (Radboud University Nijmegen)

14.15: Helbert E. Velilla-Jiménez (ENS-PSL / Universidad de Salamanca), “A Debate About Cartography Between Cosmographers and Pilots in the Spanish Empire”
Hao Dong (Johns Hopkins University)

15.00: Niall Dilucia (CNRS, IHRIM / MFO), “Natural Philosophy as Moral Philosophy in the Thought of Sir Kenelm Digby (1603–1665)”
Olivier Claude (Université libre de Bruxelles)

15.45-16.15: Pause-café

16.15: Alexandru Liciu (University of Bucharest), “Robert Hooke’s Science of Microscopy and its Italian connections”
Lin Nan (Université de Nanterre)

17.00: Dinh-Vinh Colomban (Université de Nanterre), “The Epistemic Value of Statistics in Experimental Philosophy in Early 18th Century England”
Louis Rouquayrol (CNRS, IHRIM / MFO)

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Vendredi 19 Janvier/ Friday, January 19, 2024
Institut d’études avancées de Paris, 17 quai d'Anjou, 75004, salle des Gardes

Morning: Ethics and Politics
Chair: Delphine Antoine-Mahut (ENS de Lyon)

09.30: Eric Sheng (University of Oxford), “Gassendi on Perfect and Imperfect Happiness”
Jacob Zellmer (University of California, San Diego)

10.15: Claudia Dumitru (Princeton University), “Trust and Inequality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes”
Michael Rosenthal (University of Toronto)

11.00-11.30: Pause-café

11.30: João Carvalho (Princeton University), “Teleology and Causal Necessity in Spinoza's Ethics”
Audrey Miller (Johns Hopkins University)

12.15: Geertje Bol (Ghent University), “Mary Astell on Ambition, Rank, and Talent”
Z.K. Payne (Cornell University)

13.00-14.15: déjeuner

Afternoon: Metaphysics
Chair: Yitzhak Melamed (Johns Hopkins University)

14.15: Harmen Grootenhuis (University of Groningen), “From patch to pattern: a Spinozist explanation of unity among modes”
Samuel Legendre (ENS-PSL)

15.00: Vincent Lee (University of Toronto), “Spinoza, Substance, and Self”
Lila Graham (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

15.45: Shozo Kamiya (Johns Hopkins University), “Divine Teleology in Spinoza’s Early Thought”
Mélanie Zappulla (Université Panthéon-Sorbonne)

16.30-17.00: Pause-café

17.00: Matteo Camerini (CNRS, SPHERE), “Beyond Letter 12: Spinoza, Crescas and the Actual Infinity. Coherences and Paradoxes of a Multiform Concept Between Middle Age and Modernity”
Matthew Morgado (Johns Hopkins University)

17.45: Luce deLire (Johns Hopkins University), “The Metaphysics of Infinity: Descartes, Spinoza, and Beyond”
Théophile Richard (CNRS, SPHERE)

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Samedi 20 janvier, Saturday, January 20, 2024
École normale supérieure, 45 rue d’Ulm, 75005, salle Dussane

Morning: Authors Meet Critics

09.30-11.00 Jean-Pascal Anfray (ENS-PSL), Correspondance René Descartes – Henry More. Édition bilingue latin-français, traduction, notes et présentation (Paris, Éliott, 2023)
Chair : Denis Kambouchner (Université Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Dan Garber (Princeton University)
Antonella Del Prete (Università di Torino)
Tad Schmaltz (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

11.00-11.30 Pause-Café

11.30-13.00 : Dmitri Levitin (University of Utrecht / All Souls College, Oxford), The Kingdom of Darkness. Bayle, Newton, and the Emancipation of the European Mind from Philosophy (Cambridge, Cambridge U.P., 2022)
Chair : Sophie Roux (ENS-PSL)
Mogens Laerke (CNRS, IHRIM / MFO)
Christoph Lüthy (Radboud Universiteit)
Anne-Lise Rey (Université de Nanterre)

13.00-14.15: pause déjeuner

Afternoon: Metaphysical Physics
Chair: Vincenzo De Risi (CNRS, SPHERE)

14.15: Jiaqi Li (ENS-PSL), “Descartes, Cartesians and Continuous Creation”
Henry Kwok (Cornell University)

15.00: Fanhao Meng (Princeton University), “The Fundamental Laws of Motion according to Malebranche”
Louis Pijaudier-Cabot (ENS-PSL)

15.45: Gabriel Meyer-Bisch (Université libre de Bruxelles), “The Theory of Light in Leibniz’s Early Physics”
Frédéric de Buzon (Université de Strasbourg)

16.30-17.00: Pause-café

17.00: Omar Hraoui (Ca’ Foscari / Radboud University), “Leibniz's Use of Kepler's inertia naturalis”
Sören Hand (Université libre de Bruxelles)

17.45: Maaike Korpershoek (University of Groningen), “Fire and Metaphysics in Du Châtelet's Dissertation”
Marco Storni (Université libre de Bruxelles).

Practical Information

Registration required for January 18 and 19 at the Paris Institute for Advanced Study (IEA de Paris): see registration form at bottom of page.
Free entry without registration for January 20 at ENS-PSL.