Ein Workshop von PhilPublica, dem FWF Exzellenz Cluster „Knowledge in Crisis“ an der Universität Wien und der Central European University.
Ausschreibung
Kann ein autonomes Fahrzeug an einem Unfall schuld sein? Welche Rolle sollen die zukünftigen Generationen in aktuellen politischen Entscheidungen spielen? Ist virtuelle Realität wirklich? In vielen Themen, die derzeit in den Medien diskutiert werden, stecken philosophische Fragen, viele andere würden von einer Berichterstattung mit philosophischem Fundament profitieren. Und auch in der Philosophie selbst werden ständig Konzepte und Begriffe (weiter-)entwickelt, die die Aufmerksamkeit einer größeren Öffentlichkeit verdienen.
Nun gilt die (akademische) Philosophie als schwierig und abstrakt. Doch auch philosophische Themen lassen sich mit ein bisschen Übung zugänglich und spannend präsentieren. Wie das geht, wollen wir in diesem Workshop üben: von der Auswahl der Themen und der Medien über das Planen einer „Story“ bis zum Verfassen eines Textes.
Lina Paulitsch (Der Falter) und Eva Stanzl (Wiener Zeitung) erklären die Basics des journalistischen Handwerkszeugs, analysieren mit Ihnen Beispieltexte aus verschiedenen Medien und begleiten Sie beim Verfassen eines eigenen Kurz-Essays mit philosophischen Gedanken.
Datum: 25.-27. März 2026
Ort: Central European University und Universität Wien
Teilnahmegebühr: 50 Euro.
Bewerben können sich Philosophie-Master-Studierende, in Philosophie Promovierende und alle, deren Philosophie-Master-Abschluss nicht länger als zwei Jahre zurückliegt.
Bewerbungsunterlagen: PDF-Datei 1, in dieser Reihenfolge: a) Zwei Themen-Pitches/Vorschläge für einen Kurz-Essay, b) eine Textprobe (ein Auszug aus einer wissenschaftlichen oder nichtwissenschaftlichen Arbeit von circa einer Seite), beides bitte anonymisiert (also ohne Nennung Ihres Namens), ausgefülltes Formular. PDF-Datei 2: Anschreiben, tabellarischer CV, Abschlusszeugnis(se) oder letzte Notenübersicht bitte per Mail an: workshop@philpublica.de.
Bewerbungsfrist: 4. Januar 2026
Für weitere Informationen, auch zur Bewerbung,
↗ klicken Sie hier
The nature and limits of artificial intelligence (AI) are among the key questions of our time. AI has implications for industry, politics, culture, education, and warfare, among many other things. But what exactly is AI, and what are its limits? AI has a history that is not often examined in the contemporary discourse. And speculations about its limits involve controversial philosophical assumptions. This workshop will bring together philosophers and historians to investigate the foundations of contemporary AI.
Spaces are limited. Please ↗ register here.
Conference speakers:
Tim Crane (CEU): Intelligence as a normative concept
Thomas Haigh (UW-Milwaukee): Artificial intelligence as a brand
Matthew L. Jones (Princeton): Making LLMs: a short history of generative artificial intelligence
and its alternatives
Raphaël Millière (Oxford): Artificial competence
Amira Moeding (Cambridge): "AI is our Alchemy:" On knowledge claims and scientific
standards in the history of AI
Shannon Vallor (Edinburgh): AI and epistemic dispossession
Bryan Pickel, University of Glasgow (joint work with Derek Ball, University of St Andrews):
"Immanent Interpretation”
Abstract: Famous arguments purport to show that all, or a substantial fragment, of language is indeterminate in meaning. According to these arguments, if a speaker uses a sentence to express a proposition in a context, then an interpreter must (in principle at least) have more evidence favouring this proposition as the correct interpretation rather than rival interpretations. These arguments appeal to the claim that the interpreter or audience does not have sufficient evidence favouring one interpretation over its rivals. We show that these arguments fail because they ignore evidence that is available to interpreters – evidence that arises from the interpreters themselves as language users. But, our aim is not merely to rebut indeterminacy arguments. We construct a research strategy—immanent interpretation—for interpreters to meet the concerns of the proponents of indeterminacy arguments. We conclude by discussing important limitations on immanent interpretation.
Emelia Stanley, University of Vienna:
"Formalising Open Texture"
Abstract: Waismann’s (1947) notion of open texture captures a species of (non‐sorietal) semantic‐ and truth‐vagueness: that a concept can both apply and disapply to some given case, within a context of application. Noting that open texture resists characterisation in a classical framework, I present an original formalisation the notion. Using this model I then conjecture, contra Waismann, that open‐texture does not only occur in mathematics, but that it plays an indispensable role in characterising its epistemology, and particularly its resolution strategies for crises of non‐trivial disagreement.
Richard Lawrence, University of Vienna:
"Sharp definitions of concepts and the chaos of experience"
Abstract: Frege insists that, for logical purposes, concepts must besharply defined, and this assumption is now deeply embedded in ourcontemporary approaches to semantics. Yet we have lost track of one ofthe background assumptions of classical German philosophy which was partof Frege's reason for that insistence: the idea that experience isinitially an unstructured chaos, on which we must impose structure byactively seeking to grasp concepts in thought. I will argue that thisbackground played an important role in some of Frege's semantic ideas,and that it is worth revisiting as we try to characterize phenomena likevagueness.
Max Kölbel, University of Vienna:
“A Conservative Approach to Semantic Indeterminacy”
Abstract: So-called "felicitous underspecification" seems to be ubiquitous. Nevertheless communication succeeds effortlessly. A number of theorists (e.g. Viebahn, MacFarlane, King and others) have made proposals as to how semanticists should model this phenomenon. Some have proposed new-fangled semantic contents to do justice to the phenomenon. Others have offered pragmatic explanations of communicative success. In this talk, I want to draw attention to a third, more conservative approach that can at least in some cases be employed to explain what is going on.
Location: University of Vienna, Room 3A, NIG, Universitätsstr 7, 3rd floor
Program:
10:00–11:15
Bryan Pickel (Glasgow): “Immanent Interpretation”
11:30–12:45
Emelia Stanley (Vienna): “Formalising Open Texture”
Lunch Break
14:15–15:30
Richard Lawrence (Vienna): “Sharp Definitions of Concepts and the Chaos of Experience”
15:45–17:00
Max Kölbel (Vienna): “A Conservative Approach to Semantic Indeterminacy”
17:15–18:30
John MacFarlane: TBA
If you’d like to attend, you’re very welcome to join us on the day — no prior registration is required.
Do knowledge and expertise matter in international politics? A provocative question, as it may seem, for the launch of a significant volume that consolidates knowledge studies in International Relations, it also strikes a chord. It feels uncannily pertinent and daunting in the context of epistemic crisis across the sciences, humanities, and the everyday global realities of today. The volume and its editors respond affirmatively, yet shift the emphasis to the role of knowledge and expertise: it is constitutive, while the key remains to embrace the diversity of knowledge-in-use in politics. The Handbook advances this approach by cultivating a collective plural epistemic archive that substantiates a transdisciplinary paradigm in International Relations and, more broadly, in the study of politics. At this book launch, the panelists from the Philosophy and International Relations departments at CEU and from the University of Vienna take up the conversation at a critical moment in how we know the world.
Panel:
Katalin Farkas, Department of Philosophy, CEU & FWF Cluster of Excellence Knowledge in Crisis
Jonathan Knutzen, Department of Philosophy, CEU & FWF Cluster of Excellence Knowledge in Crisis
Katharina Paul (tbc), Department of Political Science, University of Vienna
Erzsebet Strausz, Department of International Relations, CEU
Respondents:
Berit Bliesemann de Guevara (co-editor), Aberystwyth University;
Birgit Poopuu (co-editor), Tallin University;
Andrea Warnecke (co-editor), Leiden University
Chair:
Xymena Kurowska (co-editor), Department of International Relations, CEU
When: 16 February 2026
Time: 3.30pm-5pm (small reception afterwards)
Where: CEU Auditorium
You can find out more information about the book here ↗ .
↗ Preview a few chapters of the book, including Introduction and Conclusion.
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, was founded as a non-profit dedicated to ensuring that artificial general intelligence (AGI) would benefit all of humanity. At the time, AGI — the capability of AI to learn, reason and adapt to new situations like a human can — was largely dismissed as science fiction. A decade later and AGI is at the forefront of most discussions about artificial intelligence: some of the largest companies in the world are betting billions on achieving human-level AI.
Philosopher Tim Crane thinks these bets are fundamentally misplaced, arguing that there can be no such thing as AGI (as far as computational AI is concerned). He argues this from reflections on the idea of computation itself. He also argues that even the name itself contains a fundamental flaw — as far as psychology concerned, it is questionable that intelligence is a useful category (let alone 'superintelligence').
Philosopher Simon Rippon remains agnostic on whether we'll ever achieve AGI, but thinks that Tim Crane's reasoning contains fundamental flaws.
What do you think? Join us on 20 January to watch Crane and Rippon debate whether AGI will ever exist, vote for whose arguments you find the most compelling, and share your thoughts, too!
Knowledge in Crisis is proud to support the Minorities & Philosophy special screening of the award-winning documentary American Mirror: Intimations of Immortality.
Now that all the WhatsApp postcards are sent to all grandmas, the Christmas tree photos are liked, and all resolutions are documented (but not yet failed), it is the perfect time to pause our feeds and reflect: In an age where we curate our lives for likes, how do we distinguish who we are from who we post?
Discussion and pizza will follow!
Join us for a public lecture on consciousness and artificial intelligence by world renowned philosopher of mind, Ned Block (NYU).
Abstract: Computational functionalism claims that executing certain computations is sufficient for consciousness, regardless of the physical mechanisms implementing those computations. This view neglects a compelling alternative: that subcomputational biological mechanisms, which realize computational processes, are necessary for consciousness. By contrasting computational roles with their subcomputational biological realizers, I show that there is a systematic tension in our criteria for consciousness: prioritizing computational roles favors consciousness in AI, while prioritizing subcomputational biological realizers favors consciousness in simpler animals. Current theories of consciousness are 'meat-neutral', but if specific physical substrates are necessary, AI may never achieve consciousness. Understanding whether consciousness depends on computational roles, biological realizers, or both, is crucial for assessing the prospects of consciousness in AI and less complex animals.
Ned Block is an American philosopher working in the field of the philosophy of mind who has made important contributions to matters of consciousness and cognitive science.
Dr. Block, Silver Professor of Philosophy, Psychology and Neural Science, came to NYU in 1996 from MIT where he was Chair of the Philosophy Program. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society, has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of Language and Information, a Sloan Foundation Fellow, a faculty member at two National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institutes and two Summer Seminars, the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Science Foundation; and a recipient of the Robert A. Muh Alumni Award in Humanities and Social Science from MIT and the Jean Nicod Prize (list of past recipients of the Jean Nicod Prize), Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris.
Dr. Block is a past president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, a past Chair of the MIT Press Cognitive Science Board, and past President of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness. The Philosophers’ Annual selected his papers as one of the “ten best” in 1983, 1990, 1995, 2002 and 2010. He is co-editor of The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates (MIT Press, 1997). The first of two volumes of his collected papers, Functionalism, Consciousness and Representation, MIT Press came out in 2007. He has given the William James Lectures at Harvard, the Immanuel Kant Lectures at Stanford, the John Locke Lectures at Oxford, the Jean Nicod Lectures at the Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, the Jose Gaos Lectures at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosoficas, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico, the Marc Jeannerod Lecture, University of Antwerp and the Sanders Lecture at the American Philosophical Association.
KiC Public Lectures is organized by the Knowledge in Crisis project, which is supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under the Clusters of Excellence programme (10.55776/COE3). We're a collaboration between the University of Graz, the University of Salzburg, and the University of Vienna, led by Central European University.
Join Us!
Jan 12 from 5:30pm to 7pm GMT+1
CEU Auditorium Vienna
This event is FREE but ↗ registration is required.
Do we have free will? Are we morally responsible for our actions? What if the fundamental laws of nature are deterministic, or if there’s a God who infallibly knows what we will do next? These are among the most traditional and thought-provoking questions in philosophy.
This conference brings together scholars working on these and related issues concerning human agency, abilities, and capacities, with a focus on fundamental problems about free will and moral responsibility.
The talks are open and free to the public!
FInd the schedule here ↗
We are pleased to announce the call for participation in the Salzburg-Vienna Workshop: Analogies, external validity and the future of experimental modeling across sciences, to be held at the University of Vienna (Austria) on December 04 – 05, 2025.
The workshop is jointly organized by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Salzburg and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna as part of its Knowledge in Crisis Project, supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).
Description: Can we understand the properties of black holes by studying the behavior of a moving fluid in the university lab? Can we learn something about the molecular mechanisms of aging by performing genetic interventions in a fruit fly? Experimental practices in different sciences often assume that we can. In fact, experimenting on physical systems that are analogous to, but different from, the target system under investigation has been a common method in biomedical sciences for almost a century and it is becoming more and more important in other fields of science, ranging from black-hole physics to social sciences. Albeit common, this experimental method, often called “analogue experimentation” or “experimental modeling” raises many outstanding questions that puzzle scientists and philosophers of science alike. For instance, to what extent can we extrapolate the results obtained in a source analogue system (or model) to the target system under investigation? Which criteria should we use to choose the analog model that will best help us learn about the target system? Is there a unique justification for experimental modeling across sciences or is this context and field dependent? In this workshop, we will address these and related questions from an interdisciplinary perspective. The goal is to substantially improve our understanding on these timely issues and to create more dialogue between scientists and philosophers working on these topics.
Organizing committee: Tarja Knuuttila (University of Vienna), Patricia Palacios (University of Salzburg), Margarida Hermida (University of Salzburg), Florian Kolowrat (University of Vienna).
Speakers:
-Luca Ferraro (University of Ferrara)
-Antonio Ferreiro (Utrecht University)
-Mirta Galesic (Complexity Science, Hub, Vienna)
-Margarida Hermida (University of Salzburg)
-Tarja Knuuttila (University of Vienna)
-Andrea Loettgers (University of Vienna)
-Francesco Nappo (Polimi)
-Henrik Olsson (Complexity Science, Hub, Vienna)
-Patricia Palacios (University of Salzburg)
-Mauricio Suarez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
-Karim Thébault (Bristol)
-Giovanni Valente (Polimi)
-Jon Williamson (Manchester)
The workshop will take place in a hybrid format. If you would like to attend the workshop either in person or online, please send an email to Florian Kolowrat at florian.kolowrat@univie.ac.at. In the email, explain in one or two sentences your motivation for attending the workshop and your affiliation. There are limited places and students and researchers working on relevant topics will be given priority.
More information about the workshop can be found here:
Several philosophers and scientists have been discussing the possibilities of creating and assessing conscious AI recently (Bayne et al. 2024, Birch 2025, Block 2025, Chalmers 2023, Dung 2025, Schneider et al. 2025, Seth 2025). Butlin et al. (2023) are optimistic that it is feasible and outline a detailed research program for the purpose of assessing consciousness in AI. They assume computational functionalism as a working hypothesis and appeal to neuroscientific theories of consciousness for the identification of potential computational markers of consciousness.
In this talk, I will scrutinize computationalism and functionalism as two different crucial assumptions and evaluate whether it shows promise in being empirically more plausible than a biological theory of consciousness (as suggested by Putnam 1965). I argue that we face significant epistemic limitations once we try to appeal to neuroscientific theories to assess consciousness in AI. This will be illustrated by using Global Neuronal Workspace Theory as an example. Relying on prior work by Chirimuuta (2022, 2025), Cao (2022) and Block (2005) as well as Maley (2023, 2025), Williams (2025), and Piccinini (2020), I make a case for the medium dependence of neural processing. The appeal to neuroscientific theories does not render their computational interpretations empirically plausible since the theories are empirically supported given their “messy” (Cao 2022) biochemical details. I argue that in the case of non-biological artificial systems, all possible markers of consciousness typically used in humans and animals are either absent (neural and first-person markers), ambiguous (verbal report and other behaviors), or question begging (computational markers). We can thus only attribute consciousness (Dennett 1987) rather than assess it in AI systems which substantially limits the research program outlined by Butlin et al (2023) and others.
This talk is open to the public in an online format (Zoom); it can be accessed ↗ here.
Tobias Schicht is the Lichtenberg-Professor of Philosophy at Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany). He is interested in consciousness and cognition, drawing on both philosophy and the sciences of the mind.