For the second year in a row, a survey of experts conducted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) has identified misinformation and disinformation as presenting the single greatest global risk in the short term. This assessment is driven by the belief that misinformation and disinformation generate and exacerbate societal polarization and instability, and that novel artificial intelligence technologies amplify these challenges. But what exactly are misinformation and disinformation? What harms do misinformation and disinformation cause? How might artificial intelligence contribute to these harms? And are these harms as severe as the results of the WEF survey suggest? This conference brings together experts with diverging perspectives to address these issues.
The conference features talks by:
Sacha Altay
Quassim Cassam
Keith Raymond Harris
Justin McBrayer
Anne Meylan
Jessica Pepp
Verena Wagner
Dan Williams
This is a two-day conference (19 and 20 May).
We're pleased to host Professor Laura Valentini (LMU Munich) for a one-day workshop on her latest book "Morality and Socially Constructed Norms" (OUP, 2023). Prof. Valentini will give a talk in the morning (with plenty of time for Q&A), followed by a structured discussion of her book in the afternoon (led by Camilo Martinez and Cosmin Vraciu.
To register, ↗ please contact the organizers.
Propaganda has long been a powerful tool for shaping public opinion, influencing international discourse, and justifying military actions. It has played a key role in spreading extremist ideas, especially in past totalitarian regimes like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
In Russia’s war against Ukraine, propaganda has been a central instrument for creating narratives that legitimize aggression, undermine democracy, and manipulate perceptions both domestically and internationally.
At this event, we’ll explore what propaganda is and how it works—particularly in the digital age—using Russian propaganda as a key example. Join us to deepen your understanding of the challenges posed by propaganda in contemporary conflicts, and to critically engage with competing narratives in times of war.
Here's the lineup:
Volodymyr Yermolenko, Philosopher, Journalist, and Editor-in-Chief at Ukraine World
Teresa Marques, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Barcelona
Juliane Fürst, Professor of Contemporary History at Central European University and ZZF Potsdam
With moderation by Fabio Lampert, Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Vienna
This event was recorded. You can find the full video ↗ here.
How do we create meaningful change? Should we focus on transforming the systems and institutions around us? Or is it better to inspire individuals to change their habits? Maybe it’s both?
Join us for the launch of Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change (MIT Press). Co-author and philosopher Daniel Kelly and a panel of changemakers will dive into the book's ideas and share their own. They’ll also explore the challenges and backlash that often follow social movements, and offer insights on how we might overcome these hurdles.
If you’re passionate about climate action, social justice, or any movement for progress, this event is for you. Expect thought-provoking discussions, fresh perspectives, and plenty of opportunities to engage and share your own ideas for creating a better future.
Afterwards, we’ll host a wine reception where you can continue the conversation.
Don’t miss out—come be part of the conversation and help us shape the future of social change!
Here’s the lineup:
Daniel Kelly, Purdue University (USA)
Asya Passinsky, Central European University (Austria)
Cesy Leonard, Radikale Töchter (Germany)
Henriette Spyra, Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (Austria)
With moderation by Eric Frey, Der Standard (Austria)
About Somebody Should Do Something:
Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva and Daniel Kelly introduce a new set of tools for thinking about social change. Challenging the common idea that we must focus either on changing individuals or transforming institutions, the book offers a new, holistic perspective that emphasizes their interdependence. Drawing on the experiences of union organizers, reproductive rights activists, city planners, and citizens, the authors demonstrate that fighting problems like climate change and racism requires connecting personal actions with systemic change. As they argue, we must see ourselves as people who change systems who change people.
In this book, you’ll find:
• A diagnosis of unhelpful “either/or” approaches to social change.
• A new holistic framework for understanding social change, grounded in a scientifically accurate picture of human nature.
• Practical insights into applying this new perspective to real-world challenges.
This workshop is on Amie Thomasson’s forthcoming book, Rethinking Metaphysics, which challenges the traditional conception of metaphysics as a discipline that seeks to uncover general and fundamental truths about the world and proposes in its place a conception according to which metaphysics does important descriptive and normative conceptual work. Speakers include Viktoria Knoll, Emilie Pagano, Matthew Simpson, Amie Thomasson, and Alice van't Hoff.
If you have any questions, please contact the organizers directly: Asya Passinsky and Denis Kazanov.
The Rethinking Metaphysics Workshop will consist of four 75-minute sessions, with each session devoted to a part of Thomasson’s book. Each of the sessions will begin with a brief synopsis of the relevant chapters and critical remarks from one of the commentators, followed by a response from Thomasson. The remaining time will then be devoted to discussion. At the beginning of the workshop, Thomasson will also deliver a brief précis of her book. Participants are encouraged but not required to read the book manuscript in advance of the workshop. The tentative schedule is as follows:
10:00–10:15 AM: Précis by Amie Thomasson
10:15–11:30 AM: Session 1 on chs. 1–3, led by Alice van’t Hoff
11:30–11:45 AM: Coffee break
11:45 AM–1:00 PM: Session 2 on chs. 4–5, led by Emilie Pagano
1:00–2:00 PM: Lunch break
2:00–3:15 PM: Session 3 on chs. 6–7, led by Matthew Simpson
3:15–3:30 PM: Coffee break
3:30–4:45 PM: Session 4 on chs. 8–10, led by Viktoria Knoll
4:45 PM: Reception
This workshop aims to explore the richness and diversity of questions, themes, and approaches within analytical philosophy of law and political philosophy. It aims to do so by seeking to concentrate especially on the various epistemic problems that arise in the legal, moral, and political domains, and on the possible ways of addressing those problems. Everyone is welcome.
See ↗ here for the complete agenda & workshop registration.
This event was recorded (see here).
Join us for an evening of warm conversation, laughter, and insight, as philosopher Helena de Bres uses the curious experience of being a twin as a lens for reconsidering our place in the world. De Bres will read from her book How to Be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins and discuss its themes with Paulina Sliwa. The audience will be encouraged to join the conversation, with plenty of time for questions and comments. The discussion will be followed by a wine reception.
About How to be Multiple:
Wait, are you you or the other one? Which is the evil twin? Have you ever switched partners? Can you read each other's mind? Twins get asked the weirdest questions by strangers, loved ones, and even themselves. For Helena de Bres, a twin and philosophy professor, these questions are closely tied to some of philosophy's most unnerving unknowns. What makes someone themself rather than someone else? Can one person be housed in two bodies? What does perfect love look like? Can we really act freely? At what point does wonder morph into objectification?
Accompanied by her twin Julia's drawings, Helena uses twinhood to rethink the limits of personhood, consciousness, love, freedom, and justice. With her inimitably candid, wry voice, she explores the long tradition of twin representations in art, myth, and popular culture; twins' peculiar social standing; and what it's really like to be one of two. With insight, hope, and humor, she argues that our reactions to twins reveal our broader desires and fears about selfhood, fate, and human connection, and that reflecting on twinhood can help each of us-twins and singletons alike-recognize our own multiplicity, and approach life with greater curiosity, imagination, and courage.
Helena de Bres is a professor of philosophy at Wellesley College, Massachusetts. She is the author of the academic/trade crossover Artful Truths: The Philosophy of Memoir (University of Chicago Press, 2021) and the philosophical personal essay collection How To Be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins (Bloomsbury USA, 2023). In addition to her scholarly work, de Bres has published personal essays, book excerpts and op eds in The Point, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Yale Review, Aeon and Psyche, among other places. Her website can be found ↗ here.
Paulina Sliwa is a professor of moral and political philosophy at the University of Vienna. Working in moral philosophy, epistemology, and feminist philosophy, Sliwa’s research seeks to understand the practices that lie at the center of our moral lives: how we give and receive moral advice, how we blame, forgive, make excuses, how we praise and give credit. Such understanding is valuable for its own sake, but it can also point us towards ways in which those practices may contribute to unjust social arrangements and should be reformed. Her website can be found ↗ here.
Join us for this year’s World Philosophy Day by celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Matrix.
We’re hosting a free screening at TOP Kino (Rahlgasse 1, 1060 Wien), followed by a discussion on the movie’s many pressing philosophical questions. Moderation by Camilo Martinez and Phyllis Pearson.
Synopsis: Have you ever had a dream that you were so sure was real? What if you couldn't awaken? How would you know the difference between dream and reality? When a beautiful stranger (Carrie Ann Moss) leads computer hacker Neo (Keanu Reeves) to a forbidding underworld, he discovers the shocking truth—the life he knows is the elaborate deception of an evil cyber-intelligence. Neo joins legendary and dangerous rebel warrior Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne) in the battle to destroy the illusion enslaving humanity.
A declaration of climate emergency calls for aradical break from business-as-usual in climate policy. Yet it raises crucialmoral, political and institutional questions: Should the demands of urgency andthe extent of potential harm alter procedures of decision-making or frameworksof justification? Which courses of action/institutions are permissible to avoidthe harms of global warming? How should we understand responsibilities forremedying loss and damage as well as future generations in the context ofclimate emergency? This one-day workshop will bring together researchersworking on the above and related issues surrounding climate emergency.
Speakers:
Kathrin von Allmen (Harvard University)
Ali Emre Benli (University of Vienna)
Angela Kallhoff (University of Vienna)
Ross Mittiga (SOAS University of London)
Tracey Skillington (University College Cork)
The diverse forms of negative affectivity and the ways they interact with one's sense of agency include: the distinction between affects and emotions; the understanding of (negative) affectivity across disciplines; phenomenological or hermeneutical approaches to affectivity and action; descriptive and normative aspects of negative emotional experiences; negative affectivity and embodiment; negative affective experience in mental illness and the sense of self, and; possible positive effects of negative experiences.
Negative Affectivity and Practical Possibilities is a bilingual conference at the intersections of philosophy, psychiatry, and psychotherapy. The two-day event is co-organized by the University of Graz and the Medical University of Graz.
Find the full program ↗ here.
Questions? Contact Denis Džanić and Bernhard Geißler.