  | February 2026 |   | |||||
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 27 | 28 | |
March 6-7, 2026
Virginia Tech
Call for Abstracts: We welcome extended abstracts (between 600-1,200 words) for papers on any topic in the philosophy of the social sciences, especially those that allow interdisciplinary research connections and that are consequential for practicing social scientists. The two-day workshop will allow intensive discussion of the work of its contributors.
Please email submissions to phi.soc.sci@gmail.com no later than December 15, 2025. Abstracts should be blinded and attached to the email as a Microsoft Word document; please include your full name and affiliation in the accompanying email; please also indicate if you would like to be considered for the award for best graduate submission; lastly, please indicate if you would like to be considered for a travel stipend, as some might be available on a case by case basis.
Papers in all areas of the philosophy of the social sciences are encouraged, including in the philosophy of economics and political science, as well as in underrepresented areas, such as the philosophy of psychology and philosophy of history. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of Philosophy of the Social Sciences.
This year’s Roundtable will host Maggie Penn (Political Science and Data & Decision Sciences, Emory) and Jennifer Raff (Anthropology, University of Kansas) as keynote speakers. We will have an 'author-meets-critics’ session with Armin Schulz (Philosophy, Kansas University) on his new book It's Only Human: The Evolution of Distinctively Human Cognition. Commentators will be Daniel Kelly (Purdue University) and Ron Mallon (Washington University in Saint Louis).
The Roundtable is supported by the David H. Kellogg Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, the Department of Philosophy, the Center for Humanities, and the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech.
Guest editors: Tobias Henschen (Konstanz), James Ladyman (Bristol)
Topical Collection Description:
Philosophers interested in causality have usually analyzed it in the context of non-complex systems, and philosophers interested in complexity have not considered its implications for philosophical analyses of causality. Recently scientists and philosophers become increasingly aware of the ubiquity of complex systems, and philosophers have begun to respond by producing detailed studies of complexity (for example, Ladyman and Wiesner (2020) What is a Complex System?), and by examining some of the conceptual and/or inferential disconnections between complex systems and accounts of causality. Failure of explanation, prediction and control of complex systems can come with a substantial scientific and social cost, but can be overcome (climate scientists, for instance, overcome disconnections between nonlinearity and probability or interventionist accounts of causality when using classes of models to predict or project values of variables). There also appear to be important conceptual connections between complexity features and accounts of causality. A connection that is currently of interest to many philosophers and metaphysicians of science is that between emergence and causality (or modality more generally). These connections may also include the conceptual connection between (spontaneous) order and probabilistic accounts of causality. This topical collection will bring together work that analyzes the conceptual and/or inferential connections and disconnections between (specific) accounts of causality and (specific) features of (specific) complex systems. Standard examples of complex systems include condensed matter, the universe, the climate, eusocial animals, the economy, the world wide web, and the (human) brain. Features that are often regarded as indicative of complex systems include emergent nonlinearity, spontaneous order and organization, robustness, modularity and nested structure, and adaptive behavior. Specific accounts of causality include probability, interventionist, and conserved quantity accounts of (efficient) causality.
For further information, please contact Tobias Henschen (corresponding guest editor): tobias.henschen@uni-konstanz.de
The deadline for submissions is 31 March 2026.
Papers invited for Synthese Topical Collection.
The collection explores how philosophy of science may better engage public policy.Deadline: April 10, 2026
A Workshop for Early-Career Researchers organized by Rene Almeling and Sarah Richardson
April 16-17, 2026
Yale University
New Haven, CT
Details and application form here: https://www.renealmeling.com/gametic-politics.html
---Full CFP---
Call for Papers...
Gametic Politics: Eggs, Sperm, and Gender/Sex in the 21st Century
A Workshop for Early-Career Researchers organized by Rene Almeling (Yale) and Sarah Richardson (Harvard), to be held April 16-17, 2026 at Yale University in New Haven, CT
Inspired by rapidly emerging developments in the science and politics of fertility and by the rise of gametocentric definitions of sex, as well as a decades-long tradition of gender scholarship about gametes in relation to sex, race, sexuality, and health, we invite contributions to a workshop for early-career researchers in the social sciences and humanities who are developing the next generation of scholarship about eggs and sperm. Our aim is to provide mentorship for further development of works-in-progress, either in the form of dissertation chapters or publishable articles.
We invite proposals from early-career researchers – e.g. graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, assistant professors – in the social sciences and humanities as well as interdisciplinary scholars in the health and life sciences who are studying any aspect of eggs and sperm. We are especially interested in creative and innovative theoretical and/or methodological approaches, and we intend for the topic of “gametic politics” to be understood broadly. Potential topics might include (but are definitely not limited to):
-analyses of how gametes have figured into historical and contemporary definitions of sex;
-the politicization of gametes across multiple domains, such as medicine, education, sports, and law;
-the intersection of gametic politics with myriad forms of inequality, such as those associated with gender, race, class, and sexuality;
-how various scientific approaches to gametes are mobilized in political discourse;
-individual experiences of and beliefs about gametes, including in relation to one’s gender identity;
-the emergence of gametic metaphors and their implications for science and society.
Timeline. Applications are due December 1, 2025. To apply for the workshop, early-career researchers (e.g. graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, assistant professors) should fill out this google form, which asks for contact information, a CV, an abstract (200 words), and a draft manuscript (3,000-4,000 words). Manuscripts may be co-authored, but all authors must be early-career researchers.
Decisions will be made by January 10, 2026. We plan to invite 10-15 applicants to a fully-funded two-day workshop to be held April 16-17, 2025 at Yale University in New Haven, CT. A full draft of the manuscript (7,000-9,000 words) will be due March 15 and will be circulated to all workshop participants. Each participant will be expected to read all drafts, and we will spend the in-person workshop discussing drafts and providing feedback for further development.
Workshop organizers will provide mentorship toward the development of manuscripts for submission for publication. In addition, some workshopped manuscripts may be considered for publication in a special issue of an academic journal, in which case final drafts will be due July 1, 2026.
If you have any questions or if you are unsure whether your paper fits the call, you are welcome to send a brief inquiry to rene.almeling@yale.edu and srichard@fas.harvard.eduwith the subject line: Gametic Politics Inquiry. Please include an abstract of your proposed paper (150-250 words), including your research question and methods.
Application form for the Gametic Politics Workshop: https://forms.gle/7tji42U196sWwr1FA
The Rotman Institute of Philosophy is pleased to announce the 2026 Rotman Graduate Student Conference, taking place on Saturday, May 2, and Sunday, May 3, 2026, at the University of Western Ontario. This year’s theme is “Philosophical Issues in the Life Sciences.” We invite submissions addressing metaphysical, epistemological, and conceptual questions that arise within and across the life sciences. Graduate students working at the intersection of philosophy and the empirical sciences are especially encouraged to apply.
We welcome papers of up to 5,000 words and poster abstracts of up to 300 words.
Submission Deadline: January 15, 2026
We invite submissions for the virtual special issue “Scientific understanding and Machine Learning in science: From traditional themes to recent developments and new vistas”, to be published with Studies in History and Philosophy of Science.
Machine Learning (ML) systems are increasingly central to scientific inquiry, from climate modeling and drug discovery to astro- and particle physics. These developments raise fundamental questions about the nature, role, and value of understanding in science:
-
Does scientific understanding require interpretable models, or can it also be achieved through opaque models?
-
What is the role of methods from ‘explainable Artificial Intelligence’? How do these connect to traditional notions of understanding and explanation?
-
How do ML methods shift epistemic priorities between explanation and prediction?
-
Can advances brought about by ML models in science shed new light on the relation between understanding and explanation?
-
Are new forms of understanding with or without explanation emerging in data-intensive, ML-driven science?
-
How does understanding with ML models trade on traditional notions related to understanding, such as grasping, skill, or the subject, object and medium of understanding?
-
Historically, how did ML in science evolve from being mostly a classification device into a rich source of novel representations, knowledge and, potentially, understanding?
-
In this capacity, how does today’s Neural Network-driven ML compare to historically dominant forms of AI, including symbolic ones?
The VSI seeks to critically examine how ML is reshaping the epistemic landscape in science, with a particular focus on the concept of scientific understanding. It aims to provide a forum for philosophers of science and ML, as well as philosophically inclined ML practitioners, to assess whether and how ML methods are altering the conceptual and methodological foundations of scientific inquiry. By bringing these debates together in one collection, the VSI will clarify ongoing debates, identify emerging philosophical topics and frameworks, and situate ML within longer historical trajectories of scientific reasoning and inquiry.
The VSI will be open towards interdisciplinary contributions, covering both philosophical analysis and empirical case studies across a range of scientific domains where ML is currently playing a transformative role, including the physical, life and social sciences.