Hobbes and the Enlightenment (August 2023)
(8. – 10. August 2023) |  |
We are pleased to announce the fourth biennial conference of the European Hobbes Society (EHS) which will take place in Regensburg, Germany, in August 2023.
The conference focuses on how Hobbes’s ideas are discussed and taken up by other thinkers of the 17th and 18th century. Its aim is to provide a better understanding of the manifold – and often indirect – ways in which Hobbes’s theory influenced the philosophy of the Enlightenment and to stimulate dialogue between Hobbes scholars and other historians of early modern philosophy.
Conferences of the EHS traditionally employ a workshop format: Speakers will provide written papers which are pre-circulated to all participants. At the conference, papers will be commented on by preassigned commentators and discussed in the plenum.
Please find further information about the upcoming conference below.
If you would like to attend the conference, please register by sending an email to daniel.eggers@ur.de. Registration is open until July 24th.
Organizers: Daniel Eggers, Eva Odzuck, Dietrich Schotte
Speakers
List of speakers
Stephen Darwall (Yale), Hobbes, Pufendorf and modern moral philosophy
– Commentator: Sonja Schierbaum (Würzburg)
James Harris (St. Andrews), Hobbes, Pufendorf and Locke on the multitude/people distinction
– Commentator: Heikki Haara (Helsinki)
Susan Meld Shell (Boston College), Republicanizing Leviathan: Kant's Cosmopolitan Synthesis of Rousseau and Hobbes
– Commentator: Michael Walschots (Mainz)
Ursula Goldenbaum (Emory University), Leibniz as Hobbes’s best student
– Commentator: Sarah Tropper (Graz)
Sarah Hutton (York), Hobbes, More and Conway
– Commentator: Ariane Schneck (München/Bielefeld)
Robin Douglass (King’s College London), Self-love, Dominion, and Sociability: Campbell and Mandeville in the Shadow of Hobbes
– Commentator: Monica Brito-Vieira (York)
Amy Chandran (Harvard), Leviathan’s Theodicy: The Justice of God and the Politics of Grace
– Commentator: Gonzalo Bustamante Kuschel (Santiago de Chile)
Signy Gutnick Allen (Zurich), Adam Ferguson, Thomas Hobbes and the Return to Politics
– Commentator: Sarah Str?mel (Regensburg)
Claudia Dumitru (Princeton), Hume and Hobbes on scarcity
– Commentator: Johan Olsthoorn (Amsterdam)
Theodor Berwe, (Mainz/Bochum), Hobbes’ constructive legacy: The role of genetic definition in early modern philosophy
– Commentator: Hans Rott (Regensburg)
Program
Conference "Hobbes and the Enlightenment"
Altes Finanzamt, Landshuter Str. 4, Room ALFI 319
Conference schedule
Tuesday August 8
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch
14.00 – 14.15 Welcome Introduction
14.15 – 15.15 Robin Douglass (King’s College London), Self-love, Dominion, and Sociability: Campbell and Mandeville in the Shadow of Hobbes – Commentator: Monica Brito-Vieira (York)
15.15 – 15.30 Break
15.30 – 16.30 Sarah Hutton (York), Hobbes, More and Conway – Commentator: Ariane
Schneck (München/Bielefeld)
16.30 – 17.00 Coffee
17.00 – 18.00 Susan Meld Shell (Boston College), Republicanizing Leviathan: Kant's Cosmopolitan Synthesis of Rousseau and Hobbes – Commentator: Michael Walschots (Mainz)
18.00 – 18.15 Break
18.15 – 19.00 Meeting of the European Hobbes Society
20.00 Dinner
Wednesday August 9
9.30 – 10.00 Coffee
10.00 – 11.00 Theodor Berwe, (Mainz/Bochum), Hobbes’s constructive legacy: The role of genetic definition in early modern philosophy – Commentator: Hans Rott (Regensburg)
11.00 – 11.15 Break
11.15 – 12.15 Claudia Dumitru (Princeton), Hume and Hobbes on scarcity – Commentator: Johan Olsthoorn (Amsterdam)
12.15 – 13.15 Lunch
13.15 – 14.15 Ursula Goldenbaum (Emory University), Leibniz as Hobbes’s best student – Commentator: Sarah Tropper (Graz)
14.15 – 14.30 Break
14.30 – 15.30 Amy Chandran (Harvard), Leviathan’s Theodicy: The Justice of God and the Politics of Grace – Commentator: Gonzalo Bustamante Kuschel (Santiago de Chile)
15.30 – 16.00 Coffee
16.00 – 17.00 James Harris (St. Andrews), Hobbes on people and multitude: Context and argument – Commentator: Heikki Haara (Helsinki)
19.00 Dinner
Thursday August 10
9.00 – 9.30 Coffee
9.30 – 10.30 Stephen Darwall (Yale), Hobbes, Pufendorf and modern moral philosophy – Commentator: Sonja Schierbaum (Würzburg)
10.30 – 10.45 Break
10.45 – 11.45 Signy Gutnick Allen (Zürich), Adam Ferguson, Thomas Hobbes and the Return to Politics – Commentator: Sarah Str?mel (Regensburg)
11.45 – 12.45 Lunch
End of official program
Download program
For participants staying on afterwards, we plan to arrange an informal hiking or kayaking event on Friday, August 11, to give them the opportunity of enjoying some of the nice scenery around Regensburg. Participation is, of course, voluntary, and at the present time, we cannot safely say whether a sufficient number of participan