More information

The 2025 edition of the NYC Workshop in Early Modern Philosophy will take place on June 21 and 22 at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The first day of the event will be held in the Hauptgebäude, Room 1066e, on Unter den Linden, while the second day will continue at the Human Abilities Center, Room 4.17, on Schönhauser Allee.

This year’s keynote speakers are Catherine Wilson from the University of York and Stephan Schmid from Universität Hamburg. The workshop is organized by Reed Winegar and Lauren Kopajtic from Fordham University, together with Ohad Nachtomy from the Technion.

For those interested in attending or seeking more information, the organizers can be contacted at newyorkcityearlymodern [at] gmail.com.

The event promises two days of rich discussion and research on early modern philosophy in the heart of Berlin.

Program

Saturday, June 21 — Hauptgebäude, Room 1066

9:15 – Welcome Note

9:30 – 11:00: Discussions of the Self, Chair: Katja Krause (Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte)

  • Haley Brennan (NYU), “What is the ‘Self’ for Cavendish?”

  • Frans Svensson (University of Gothenburg), “Passion, Vice, and Illness: Lâcheté in Descartes’ Passions of the Soul”

11:15 – 12:45: Spinoza, Chair: Leonardo Mora (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

  • Daniel Bella (University of Hamburg), “Fundamental Parts or Fundamental Wholes? Spinoza’s Changing View on Infinite Modes”

  • Oliver Tödt (Heidelberg University), “Spinoza on active human love”

12:45 – 2:15 – Lunch

2:15 – 3:45: Reactions to Rousseau, Chair: Reed Winegar (Fordham University)

  • Adam Jurkiewicz (The George Washington University), “Finding One’s Way Around: How Rousseau’s Discussions of Embodied Knowing Influenced Kant’s Critical Turn”

  • Re Kia (University of Warwick), “Self-knowledge and spectatorship: Adam Smith on praiseworthiness in contrast to Rousseau”

4:15 – 5:15: Keynote, Chair: Wenchao Li (Freie Universität Berlin)

  • Catherine Wilson (University of York), “Did the Philosophers Believe in their Systems?”

Sunday, June 22 — Human Abilities Center, Room 4.17

10:00 – 11:30: Discussions of God, Chair: Anat Schechtman (University of Texas, Austin)

  • Jean-Luc Solère (Boston College / CNRS, LEM-PSL), “Bayle on Evil and Common Notions”

  • Patrick J. Connolly (Johns Hopkins University), “Causal Containment in Locke’s Proof of God’s Existence”

11:45 – 1:00: Discussions in Moral Philosophy, Chair: Lauren Kopajtic (Fordham University)

  • Enrico Galvagni (University of Edinburgh), “Hutcheson, Burnet, and Bayle on the Foundation of Morality”

  • Manuel Fasko (University of Basel), “The Moral Agency of Non-Human Animals in Mary Shepherd”

1:00 – 2:15 – Lunch

2:15 – 3:45: Leibniz, Chair: Osvaldo Ottaviani (Radboud Universiteit)

  • Gastón Robert (Adolfo Ibáñez University), “Causal Powers, Laws of Nature and Divine Intervention: The Anti-Occasionalist Roots of Leibniz’s Anti-Newtonian Objection for Perpetual Miracles”

  • Jonathan Schmid-Dombiné (Goethe University Frankfurt), “Non-standard analysis and the principle of continuity”

4:15 – 5:15: Keynote, Chair: Ohad Nachtomy (Technion)

  • Stephan Schmid (Universität Hamburg), “Necessitarianism and the Persistence of Finite Modes in Spinoza”