Call for Abstracts: Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Research Conference 2022

It is a pleasure to invite you to the first Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Research Conference at the University of Leuven.

The scientific enterprise, currently organised in a variety of more or less independent disciplines, faces increasing calls to promote interdisciplinarity. It is often argued that scientific problems and societal challenges are more than ever multi-faceted, and too complex to be tackled from one single discipline alone. Reductionism towards this or that disciplinary perspective fails to do them justice, and limits science’s striking power. This is exemplified by the ongoing environmental crisis. Understanding and tackling environmental problems requires the integration of, among other, biological, geological, sociological, economic and legal perspectives. Or by the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic, which has proven to be a medical, political and economic challenge at the same time.

Arguably, this reflection on interdisciplinarity raises an opportunity to rethink the place of philosophy in the architecture of the sciences. It raises some evident questions: if cooperation between multiple disciplines is required, does this include philosophy or not? What can philosophy offer to the other sciences? And do traditional philosophical problems then also require interdisciplinary solutions? Or is philosophy inevitably interdisciplinary? Moreover, it could be argued that philosophy has a role to play in bridging between scientific disciplines, by providing the necessary conceptual tools and services needed for scientific unification. Perhaps the aspiration of philosophy to be a foundation for the sciences is not entirely dead.

We welcome speakers to answer these questions, in general terms or through discussion of particular problems related to philosophy and interdisciplinary science. We particularly invite speakers that are themselves active in interdisciplinary cooperation between philosophy and other sciences.

The first conference on the value of philosophy in interdisciplinary research welcomes abstracts that:

• Tackle explicitly the role of philosophy in interdisciplinary research

• Are the result of a research project on the crossroads of philosophy and another discipline, such as: AI and computer science, biology, physics, medical science, social science, law, literature, engineering, and so on.

We encourage PhD students and early career researchers to submit an abstract. The goal of the researcher is to provide a platform for graduate and undergraduate philosophers to present their work to peers, and to discuss experiences about doing interdisciplinary research that includes philosophy. Ideas do not have to be finished or perfect; it can be work in progress.

Formal requirements

Abstracts should be suitable for a 15-minute presentation.

Abstracts should be written in English.

Abstracts for papers should be fully anonymised.

Abstracts should not exceed 500 words, including references.

Your abstract will be blindly peer-reviewed by two researchers.

There is no registration fee for this conference. However, travel and stay costs cannot be reimbursed.

All information, contact details and the submission link can be found on the website: https://pirc2022.com/

Important dates

• The deadline for submissions is 1 September 2022.

• The selection will be corresponded before 1 October 2022.

• We are looking forward to your submissions and hope to see you on the conference.

Sincerely,

Vincent Cuypers (KU Leuven/Hasselt University)
Lien De Proost (Erasmus MC Rotterdam/KU Leuven)
Nynke Van Uffelen (TU Delft)
Vinsent Nollet (KU Leuven)
Ana Van Liedekerke (KU Leuven)