Conference Wittgenstein: Naturalism and Necessity
November 21 - November 22
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Conference Wittgenstein: Naturalism and Necessity
Department of Philosophy
Wittgenstein Archives Bergen
University of Bergen, Norway
21-22 November 2019
We invite submissions of 500-word abstracts (excluding references) sent to and . Please use 'Wittgenstein conference' in the subject line.
Deadline 25 August, decisions by 20 September. Length of the talk: 25 min + 20 min Q&A. There is no registration fee, but the contributed speakers will have to arrange their travel to, and accommodation in Bergen (organizers can provide logistical assistance).
The conference will include invited talks by Juliet Floyd (Boston), Oskari Kuusela (East Anglia), Alexander George (Amherst College), Annalisa Coliva (UC Irvine), Severin Schroeder (Reading), William Child (Oxford).
Possible paper topics:
- Questions about Wittgenstein’s naturalism and necessity, logico-mathematical and/or metaphysical
- Differences and similarities between Wittgenstein’s naturalism and other naturalist approaches (e.g. Quine’s scientific naturalism, Maddy's second philosophy, etc.)
- Anthropological and cultural aspects, as related to Wittgenstein's famous remark that “mathematics is after all an anthropological phenomenon” (RFM VII-33)
The themes mentioned above indicate only a few possible directions for presentations. The common thread is exploring issues concerning Wittgenstein’s naturalism, his take on necessity and their relation to his philosophy of mathematics (and logic) -- including, but not limited to, his views on the foundations of set-theory.
This is an event organized under the project Mathematics with a Human Face: Set Theory within a Naturalized Wittgensteinian Framework led by Sorin Bangu and Kevin Cahill at the Department of Philosophy, University of Bergen. This four-year research project, in which the Wittgenstein Archives Bergen (WAB) is a central component, was recently awarded funding by the Norwegian Research Council.