Workshops & Conferences hosted at the department

upcoming

preceding

July 20th-22nd 2026 - European PPE Network Conference

We are delighted to host the 2026 European PPE Network Conference from July 20th-22nd, 2026, with support from the PPE Network in Europe.

Keynote Speakers: Julia Nefsky (Toronto), Karolina Milewicz (Bayreuth), Maya Eden (Zurich).
Conference program

Conference Theme: Governing the Future

How should we think about, plan for, and govern the future? This year's conference will focus on both conceptual and practical challenges of governing across time: how institutions balance short- and long-term goals, how individuals and collectives imagine or discount the future, and how ethical, political and economic reasoning can guide sustainable decision-making in a rapidly changing world.

Papers in all areas of PPE will be considered, but we especially encourage papers that: Integrate philosophical, political, and economic approaches to temporal or future-oriented questions that:

Bridge normative theory and policy practice, particularly in areas like climate policy, fiscal planning, or technology governance.
Examine concepts of time, foresight, and intergenerational responsibility across disciplines.
Address emerging global challenges such as geopolitical tensions, threats to democracy, AI, demographic change or the climate crisis.

We anticipate discussion of questions such as:

How should we weigh the interests of future generations?
What are the ethical foundations of discounting and sustainability?
What political and economic institutions can promote foresight and long-term governance?
What are the epistemic and methodological challenges of forecasting in economics and politics?
How should we think of democratic ideals or liberal values in the face of challenges like climate change, geopolitical tensions, or populism?
How does technological change reshape political economy and how can governance frameworks adapt to transformative innovation?
How do our visions of the future—utopian, dystopian, or otherwise—influence political and economic decision-making?

September 24th–25th 2025 - Onset of Communication

What is the mark of communication? When do we begin to communicate in our developmental life? Is human communication unique, and if so, in what ways? This workshop brings together leading figures from philosophy and psychology, across different schools of thought, to explore these foundational and challenging questions. Speakers are:

Vasu Reddy (Psychology, University of Portsmouth)
Ulf Liszkowski (Psychology, Universität Hamburg)
Malinda Carpenter (Psychology, University of St Andrews)
Hong-Yu Wong & Krisztina Orbán (Philosophy, Universität Tübingen)
Dorit Bar-On (Philosophy, University of Connecticut)
Cristina Borgoni (Philosophy, Universität Bayreuth)
Antonio Scarafone (Philosophy, LMU Munich)

September 17th-19th 2025 - 17th Biennial INEM Conference

We are delighted to host the 17th Biennial INEM Conference taking place September 17th-19th, 2025, with support by the International Network for Economic Method (INEM).

Keynote Speakers: Richard Pettigrew (Bristol), Wendy Carlin (UCL London), Katherine Furman (Liverpool)
Book of Abstracts
Final programme

We welcome proposals for contributed papers and symposia in all areas of the philosophy and methodology of economics. We particularly encourage submissions that combine philosophy and methodology of economics with other perspectives on studying economics offered, for instance, by history and sociology of economics, decision theory, ethics and political philosophy, as well as submissions in Africana philosophy and economics, social ontology, feminist approaches and postcolonial approaches. Contributions by early career scholars and from outside Western Europe or the US/Canada are particularly encouraged. A limited number of remote presentations can be accommodated. Speakers at the conference will be eligible to submit their full papers to a special issue of the Journal of Economic Methodology.

October 10th-11th 2024 - Neurodiversity and neurodivergence: the epistemic, political, and ethical dimensions of conceiving differences versus deficits

Speakers: Amelia Hicks / Robert Chapman / Manolo Pinedo & Neftalí Villanueva / Miguel Núñez / Natalie Ashton / Virginia Ballesteros / Cristina Borgoni / Gen Eickers

Schedule:

October 10, 2024 (Thursday)
11.00–12.00: Robert Chapman: Neuronormativity and Capitalism
12.30-13.30: Manolo Pinedo & Neftalí Villanueva: The Lion, the Infant, and Solaris: Epistemic Injustice and Varieties of the Mental
14.30-15.30: Cristina Borgoni: First-Person Authority in Neurodiversity
16.00-17.00: Natalie Ashton: Learning from Autistic Communities Online
17.15-18.00: Roundtable: AI & Neurodivergence with Shalini Chakraborty

October 11, 2024 (Friday)
11.00–12.00: Virginia Ballesteros: Neurodiversity and the human form(s) of life
12.30-13.30: Miguel Núñez [& Victor Castro]: Non-Ideal Mindedness, Self-Regulation, and Cognitive Diversity
14.30-15.30: Gen Eickers: Divergent Emotions
16.00-17.00: Amelia Hicks: Deficits, Differences, and Ableism in Autism Research: Reflections on the ‘Theory of Mind' Fiasco’
17.15-18.00: Roundtable: Practical Concerns around Inclusion

April 12th-13th 2024 - Decisions and Collectives

The Workshop aims to shed light on how collectives should choose together and how one should choose on behalf of collectives, and to foster a constructive dialogue between advances in the formal modelling of individual and collective choice and the wider philosophical literature concerning the ontology of agency, practical reason, and democratic theory.