Conference Theme
The concepts of nature and environment are complex and multifaceted. âEnvironmentâ suggests that space surrounding a focal point or entity, yet any such focal being depends on its environment for survival. âNatureâ refers at once to that which is or exists and to how entities should be or behave. Nature can furthermore be understood as the opposite of artificial, perverse, mental, supernatural, immaterial, acquired, cultural and more. It has indeed been argued (e.g., by Bruno Latour) that ânatureâ is no longer a viable philosophical concept, while âenvironmentâ may suggest anthropocentric positing of value as opposed to acknowledging any intrinsic value beyond human interests. Such concerns relate in interesting ways with the account of âdisenchantmentâ of nature developed first by Max Weber. The loss of a sense of the sacred in nature may be a source of its transformation into a mere resource for human productivity. In Lynn Whiteâs well-known account such a transformation is already implicit in the Judeo-Christian understanding of creation. This conference seeks to take up these themes and explore the plurality or responses to them.
Since Leopoldâs âland ethic,â environmental philosophy has grappled with the question of intrinsic value and its implications an issue that continues to animate the work thinkers like Baird Callicott and Arne Naes. This brings with it important environmental-ethical questions regarding the scope of ethical responsibility and sources of value. Eco-feminists and deep ecologists strive to transcend instrumentalist approaches to nature demonstrating how environmental destruction mirrors oppressive social practices. Both meta-ethical and applied ethical questions lie at the core of environmental philosophy, namely: does value derive from human beings or nature itself? And, relatedly, what ethical responsibility do we have in the face of animal suffering, loss of biodiversity and the effects of climate change? In tackling normative issues in environmental ethics, significant questions arise concerning the conflicting values at play in the difficult decisions prompted by the climate crisis. Such choices require sustained engagement with the science of climate change alongside the development of moral frameworks to guide ethical choices at policy, societal and individual levels.Â
While environmental philosophy tends begin with ethical or value-focused questions rather than metaphysical issues, the philosophy of nature â or Naturphilosophie â tends in the opposite direction. The philosophy of nature has a diversity of sources. The most prominent is German Romanticism, beginning with Goethe, Herder and Schiller and most clearly represented by Schelling and Hegel. Indeed, this tradition has been revitalised in recent decades â particularly in the English-speaking world â with a revival of interest in Schelling. Alfred North Whitehead, whose metaphysics of nature presents a rich ontology, while also developing key ideas with respect to an ethics of nature and an environmental aesthetics, is another important source. Within the phenomenological tradition, a growing realisation of the centrality of nature in the later work of Husserl and in Heideggerâs development of the concept of âearthâ is also evident. Merleau-Pontyâs lecture courses on nature draw on Schelling and Whitehead, amongst others, to develop a phenomenology of nature. A revival of interest in ârealist Phenomenologyâ has led in recent years to increased engagement with the works of Max Scheler and Conrad Martius amongst others, disclosing rich avenues of research in the phenomenology of plant and animal life. The New Materialist and the Speculative realists have in recent decades sought to develop new ontologies and new metaphysics which take account of sources of agency and value beyond the human and by so doing deconstruct the claims to human exceptionalism and privilege.
The Irish Philosophical Society welcomes submissions that respond to these and other themes relating to âPhilosophy of Nature / Environmental Philosophyâ from a variety of standpoints and/or working in a wide-range of philosophical methodologies and traditions.
Note: there will be an Undergraduate panel as part of this conference and we welcome submissions from Undergraduate students for that panel. Undergraduate students should follow the same format for applications detailed below but in the subject line please insert: Undergraduate Submission.
Keynote speakers
We are delighted to have three great keynote speakers for this conference:
Amber Broughton is a multidisciplinary artist and a lifelong practitioner of drawing. Amber resides on the Beara Peninsula, on the south-west coast of Ireland, where she has forged a deep connection with nature. Through the use of colour pencils and paper, she transcribes her personal experience of this connection into a visually perceivable form, proposing moments of mutual witnessing, respect and understanding.
Kian Mintz-Woo is a lecturer a University College Cork and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He is a moral philosopher working predominantly on climate ethics. His interdisciplinary work covers topics including the ethics of carbon pricing, negative emissions technologies, climate Loss & Damage, and climate-driven societal collapse. He won the 2021 Andrew Light Award for Public Philosophy from the International Society for Environmental Ethics. He recently was an advisor in the Irish Government's Carbon Budgets Working Group.
Nora Ward is a lecturer in the discipline of Philosophy at the University of Galway. Her research focus is on environmental ethics and philosophy, with a particular interest in ecological attention, rewilding, and ecofeminism. Her present work concerns the role of ecological attentiveness in addressing ethical concerns relating to animal welfare and biodiversity conservation.
Daniel Whistler is Professor of Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is author and editor of a series of works on philosophies of nature in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France, Germany and the Dutch Republic, co-editor of Images of the Plant Humanities (Bloomsbury, 2025) and led the projects, The Philosophical Lives of Plants and Caring about Plants in Modern Philosophy.
Abstracts
If you wish to present a paper, please send an anonymized abstract of 500-750 words free of any identifying information, and in Word format, to irishphilosophicalsociety@gmail.com by 14 May 2025 (midnight Irish time). We welcome abstracts addressing the theme of this conference from a variety of standpoints, methodologies and traditions. We welcome abstracts from academics, postdoctoral scholars, independent scholars and from postgraduate researchers. Areas include, but are not limited to:
- Ethical issues concerning loss of biodiversity
- Naturphilosophie in German Romanticism and German Idealism
- Intrinsic and instrumental value in nature
- Disenchantment and Re-enchantment of Nature
- Eco-feminism and the gendered discourse on nature
- The notion of âDominionâ over nature in Judeo-Christian thought
- Phenomenology of Nature
- Biocentrism and ecocentrism
- Indigenous Ontologies/Ethics
- Deep and Surface Ecology
- Climate Policy and Ethics
- Environmental Aesthetics
- New Materialism
- Speculative Realism
- Agency of non-Human Entities
- Plant-Life and Plant-thinking
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Conference format:
The conference will be held in person (with the facility to attend online). Papers will be 20 minutes in length with 15 minute questions and answers.
Conference costs:
> Free to members of IPS.
> Non-members of the IPS can become members by joining the IPSÂ during registration if their abstracts are accepted.
Timeline:
> 31st March 2025: CfA opens
> 14th May 2025 (midnight Ireland): CfA closes
>Â Mid-June 2022: Abstract submission outcomes communicated
> Early August 2022: Speaker and delegate registration opens
Selection process:
> The deadline for the submission of abstracts is Monday 14th May 2025 (midnight Irish time).
> Abstracts will undergo blind peer-review by members of the conference committee who represent the University of Galway and The Irish Philosophical Society.
Felix Ă Murchadha
Philosophy
School of History and Philosophy
University of Galway