We are glad to advertise the call for papers of the 2018 International Conference of the Swiss Philosophy Association, to be held on September 6-8, 2018 at the University of Basel.

The question „What is Geist [mind/spirit]?“ is one of the fundamental questions of philosophy. It concerns our understanding of ourselves as conscious beings. We refer to our thoughts, our perceptions and our sensations as “mental states”. We wonder about the place of mind in the cosmos and in the evolution of nature. In the institutions that govern our actions we recognize the realization of a certain spirit: with Montesquieu we speak of the “spirit of laws”, with Hegel of the “objective spirit” of the state, with Max Weber of “protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism” – or we are disturbed by the “new spirit of capitalism” (Luc Boltanski/Éve Chiapello) of our age. With Kant, we say that a work of art does not merely follow a certain set of rules, but that it has “spirit”, or – in the wake of Kandinsky – we search for the “spiritual in art”. In religion we are confronted with the concept of a “Holy Spirit” and the “Spirit of the Creator”. But what is Geist? The conference explores possible answers to this question in 24 panels that range across six sections. Each panel contains three talks with subsequent discussions. In addition to the panel presentations there will be six keynotes by international speakers.

The conference languages are: German, French and English.

Sections:
1) Dimensions of Subjectivity
2) Mind and Nature
3) “Objective Spirit” – The Spirit or Demon of Society?
4) The Spirit of Laws
5) The Spiritual in Art
6) The Problem of Transcendence

If you are interested in giving a panel talk (20 minutes with 10 minutes for discussion), please send us an abstract of your talk in German, French or English.
The abstract should be susceptible for blind-review and contain:
1. The title of your talk
2. The section corresponding to your talk
3. An overview of the topic and the argument of your talk (2500 characters, including spaces) Send us the abstract as an E-Mail attachment (MS-Word file). The body of the E-Mail should contain: 1. Name and (work) address 2. E-Mail address 3. The title of your talk. The submission deadline is: April 1, 2018. Abstracts should be sent to: Marc.Sommer@unibas.ch

Conference Organizers: Gunnar Hindrichs (Universität Basel), Marc Nicolas Sommer (Universität Basel), Mario Schärli (Université de Fribourg)

You can download the following pdf versions of the call:
English version
German version
French version