Scholarship in Early Modern Philosophy

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Call for Abstracts

Forum Descartes 2026

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The Forum Descartes is an annual international workshop that brings together established scholars, young researchers and advanced graduate students working in the field of Early Modern Philosophy. PhD students and postdoctoral researchers are the main actors of the Forum Descartes: they present their research or comment on the research of other participants; they can meet and exchange ideas with established scholars.

 

After Paris (2024) and Utrecht (2025), the next edition of the Forum Descartes will take place in Turin, from January 21-23, 2026. The Scientific Committee welcomes contributions on any topic related to early modern philosophy in the broadest sense. We particularly encourage proposals that consider early modern philosophy in relation to other disciplines (e.g., history of science, theology, and intellectual history) and that expand the canon of Western early modern philosophy. We strive for a balanced proportion among the genders. 

 

Guidelines for Submission

We invite PhD students and post-doc researchers (no more than three years after the defense of their dissertation) to submit:

1. If you would like to present your research:

2. a max. 300-word abstract 

3. + contact information

4. + an advisor’s contact information

5. + a cv

gathered in A SINGLE PDF-FILE named: “surname.short-title.pdf.”

Please indicate whether you are willing to be a commentator (if you are not selected as a speaker).

 

1. If you would like to comment on someone else’s paper (either because you have already given a presentation at a previous edition of the Forum Descartes, or for any other reason):

2. + contact information

3. + an advisor’s contact information 

4. + a cv

gathered in A SINGLE PDF-FILE named: “surname.short-title.pdf.”

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Please DO NOT submit blind submissions or submit multiple files.

Submissions should be sent by email to Antonella Del Prete at antonella.delprete@unito.it.

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Submission deadline

The deadline for abstract submission is September 15, 2025. Applicants will be informed of the decision regarding their submissions by October 3, 2025.

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Please note that the Forum Descartes cannot cover travel or accommodation costs for speakers and commentators. Some grants for travel and accommodation expenses may be awarded to students from institutions that are unable to cover these costs. We anticipate that we will be able to provide complimentary lunches and a conference dinner free of charge. The local organizing committee will make some suggestions for accommodation.

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The Forum Descartes will begin on January 21, 2026, at 9.30 am, and finish on January 23, 2026, at 6.30 pm.

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The Forum Descartes 2026 is organized in collaboration between the Department of Philosophy and Education Sciences of the University of Turin and the Philosophy Department of the University of Milan. 

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Local organizing committee: 

Antonella Del Prete (Università di Torino)

Stefano Di Bella (Università di Milano) 

Alberto Frigo (Università di Milano) 

Enrico Pasini (Università di Torino)

Paola Rumore (Università di Torino)

 

Scientific Committee

Jean-Pascal Anfray (ENS de Paris)  

Delphine Antoine-Mahut (ENS de Lyon) 

Steven Vanden Broecke (Ghent University) 

Daniel Garber (Princeton University) 

Dana Jalobeanu (University of Bucharest)

Denis Kambouchner (Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Mogens Laerke (CNRS-University of Oxford)

Christoph Lüthy (Radboud University - Nijmegen)

Yitzhak Melamed (John Hopkins University)

Steven Nadler (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Carla Rita Palmerino (Radboud University - Nijmegen)

Sophie Roux (ENS de Paris)

Tad Schmaltz (University of Michigan)

Jacob Schmutz (UCLouvain)

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Call for Abstracts

Henry Power at the Crossroads of Experimental Philosophy: Tests, Trials and Hypotheses

1-2 December 2025, Universit of Technology, Nuremberg

 

Organized by Dana Jalobeanu

Invited speakers: Gideon Manning, Oana Matei, Grigore Vida

Henry Power is one of the underappreciated figures of the Scientific Revolution. His only published book, Experimental philosophy, (London, 1664) was often cited, widely owned, but rarely discussed; and it has never benefited from a modern edition. The secondary literature casts him as a marginal figure in the emergence of early modern science; someone who died too soon, before his ideas had entered the intellectual arena of the mid-seventeenth century. And yet, many agree that Power’s life and work, and the networks in which he participated, tell us a great deal about shifting intellectual and practical alliances and the ferment of knowledge. Indeed, several of the most important experimental projects of the seventeenth century can be traced back to Power. He was, for example, the first to discover the law of gasses (i.e., Boyle’s law, or Boyle-Mariotte’s law); an early systematic microscopist; actively engaged in the experimental program that aimed to detect variations of gravity; and his work on magnetism, generation, and the sensitivity of plants left recognizable traces in later seventeenth-century debates. Most recently, scholars have focused on Power’s humanist methods of reading, writing and commonplacing, drawing attention to his large archive.

This conference aims to study the complexity of Henry Power’s Experimental Philosophy, its genre, its structure, and its sources. What keeps together Power’s investigations into spontaneous generation, pneumatics, magnetism and gravitation? How did he develop his ideas and draft his work? What is ‘philosophical’ about the Experimental philosophy? How was his work received, and what does that reception tell us about the different sects of natural science at the time? 

More specifically, presenters might consider how to understand the curious mixture of Baconianism and Cartesianism so characteristic of the Experimental philosophy? What were the sources of Power’s particular form of atomism? What was the intellectual background (and questions) of his discussions on ‘spirits’ and his beliefs that living beings function as a sort of ‘distillatories’? Is there really a conflict, in Power’s works, between Cartesianism and Neoplatonism or do we need to take into consideration other sources and influences? What counts as ‘observations’ in the Experimental philosophy? What kind of experimental techniques are used in the book? What conventions of representation are adopted; more generally, why are Power’s microscopical experiments so different than Hooke’s, which were published just one year later? What precisely are experiments ‘doing’ in the construction of his ‘experimental philosophy’?

If you are interested in some of these questions, join us in Nuremberg on December 1-2 to discuss Henry Power and the Experimental philosophy. Please send an abstract of 500 words by October 30 to daniela.jalobeanu@utn.de.

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​Call for Proposals/Applications

The History of Philosophy Forum at the University of Notre

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The History of Philosophy Forum at the University of Notre Dame is pleased to announce the Call for Applications for two of our grant programs: 1) the Summer Writing and Research Grants, and 2) the Small Grants Program.  

 

1. The Summer Writing and Research Grant program invites applicants working on research projects in the history of philosophy (broadly construed) who are interested in visiting Notre Dame for writing and/or research during the summer of 2026. Recipients are given access to Notre Dame's world-class library and are provided free accommodation for one month in a furnished visiting faculty apartment next to campus. 

2. The Small Grants Program supports international scholars with research projects in the history of philosophy that could benefit from a stay at the University of Notre Dame during the academic year 2026-2027.  The grant can only be used for travel and accommodation. Eight total awards of up to $3,500 are available.  This program is open to all scholars working in the history of philosophy with primary affiliation at an institution outside the U.S. We ask that applicants contact one of our faculty affiliates before submitting their applications.

 

This year, we especially welcome applications that have some thematic relationship to our current research cluster, “Historical Traditions of Ethics."  However, the grants are open to all projects in the history of philosophy (broadly construed).

 

The submission deadline for both applications is February 1, 2026.

 

More information about the programs, as well as a link to submit the online application, can be found at https://historyofphilosophy.nd.edu/grants/.

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