Tarello Institute for Legal Philosophy

:: Calls :: The II FINO/SIFA Graduate Conference in Mind, Language and Science “Between natural, social, and artificial kinds” will be held on June 30 and July 1 at the University of Genoa. Speakers include David Papineau (King’s College London). Extended deadline for papers: April 15 

To say that a science theorizes about kinds that are natural, instead of social or artificial, is to say that they correspond to elements that reflect the real structure of the world, not merely human actions, interests, and values. These topics are among the most debated in contemporary philosophy as they raise many contentious issues, which involve the nature and semantics of concepts such as species, gender, race, disease, and so on, and also have pivotal implications both for ethics and the various sciences.

Topics of interest include bur are not limited to:
– The metaphysics of natural, social, and artificial kinds
– The epistemology of natural, social, and artificial kinds
– The semantics of natural, social, and artificial kind terms
– Taxonomies in the special sciences (chemistry, biology, medicine, psychology, social sciences, etc.)
– Alleged natural kind concepts (species, gender, race, disease, concept, emotion, etc.)

Keynote speakers:

John Dupré (University of Exeter)

David Papineau (King’s College, London)