[PHILOS-L] Call for abstracts - Concepts at work - Amsterdam - deadline 15 October 2026

[Celine]

Call for abstracts

Concepts at Work, Amsterdam, 3-4 May 2027

https://www.conceptsatwork.net/call-for-abstracts 

Invited speakers and panellists: 

- Katharine Jenkins, University of Glasgow

- Matthew Cull, Trinity College Dublin

- Guido Löhr, VU Amsterdam

- Reema Patel, Elgon Social 

- Daniel Stanley, Future Narratives Lab

- Rachel Noble, Oxfam GB

The conference is about concepts, broadly understood: the way we structure our thoughts, categorise phenomena, define objects. The starting point of the conference is that many contemporary problems have a conceptual dimension: practices or institutions structured by old concepts failing to keep up with new circumstances; mainstream concepts representing the status quo and limiting our political imagination; concepts designed for certain purposes breaking down in other contexts. 

Concepts like intelligence, data, woman, disability are neither just ideas 'in our heads' nor realities 'out there': they are ways of thinking about the world that structure the way we act, what we imagine to be feasible or permissible, how institutions distribute rights and duties. In the past, social change has been accompanied by, or even driven by, a change in our conceptualisations: rethinking disability as the product of social exclusion rather than a purely physical impairment; the introduction of new terms in our vocabulary such as sexual harassment or femicide; the reappropriation of derogative terms such as 'queer’. 

Yet, the process through which this change happens is messy, difficult, and unevenly distributed. Today, publics and organisations with unequal power advocate competing ways of conceptualising and organising social life, while new technologies unsettle many of our concepts formed under very different conditions.This conference aims at bringing together different kinds of expertise to examine conceptual problems and the methods used to address them. Thinking critically about concepts is not (only) an idle activity for philosophers, but a crucial tool for understanding and pursuing social change.

Rationale

• Conceptual problems are encountered in every area of social and professional life. In practice, much of the conceptual work is done outside of academia, by institutions, organisations, publics, focus groups. 

• Philosophers are trained to work with and on concepts. They have developed sophisticated methodologies to analyse, refine, evaluate, create concepts.

Yet, there is little interaction between these different communities. We want this conference to be a space for genuine dialogue and collaboration, in which philosophical methods can provide tools to guide practice and practice can inform, test and reshape philosophical approaches.

Possible themes and topics

Possible topics include, but are not limited to: 

• Methodological questions: What are the best methods for analysing or assessing concepts? What are the practical constraints on these methodologies? What would conceptual engineering look like 'in the wild'? What methods are currently used to define or evaluate concepts in practice, e.g. in civil society, medicine, technology, activism? What kinds of expertise should be involved in the process?

• Critical questions: Is the focus on concepts really advisable? Can intervening on concepts produce social change, or are concepts merely epiphenomena of social and institutional practices? Can intervening on concepts increase miscommunication and polarisation? 

• Concepts and power: Who gets to say what our concepts should be? Who should be included in the practices of analysing, evaluating, changing concepts? What is the relationship between concepts and ideologies? 

• Applied cases: Presenting a (historical or contemporary) problem with a conceptual dimension, and how an organisation or social movement dealt (or is currently dealing) with it.

• Concepts and technology: Which concepts are disrupted by new technologies? How do we adapt concepts originally devised for human interactions to human-AI interactions? What is the role of big tech companies vs general public in the recalibration of our vocabulary?

• Concepts and social change: Can concepts be obstacles to and/or instruments of social change? Can conceptual change happen through activism? What are successful examples of this?

• Concepts and the law: How does conceptual change happen in the legal domain? Does it merely register changes already happening in society, or can it anticipate changes? How are concepts debated and shaped in civil law and common law?

• Concepts and measurement: How do operational definitions, metrics, polls, and other measuring practices represent complex phenomena? What gets lost in the process? Whose values and assumptions shape the instruments, scales, and questions used?

Criteria and requirements

*Who can apply? The conference is aimed at both philosophers and non-philosophers, and we aim at a 50/50 mixed attendance. In the call for abstracts, you can apply either as a philosopher or as a non-philosopher, the categories are defined by your primary activity or occupation. 

If you apply as a non-philosopher, no academic background is needed. We are open to submissions from various fields, such as the non-profit sector, medical fields, technology and innovation sector, social activism, law, other academic fields. In the submission form, you will need to briefly explain who you are and your interest in the topic of the conference.

If you apply as a philosopher, you will need to briefly explain how you will make your work accessible and relevant for a non-specialist audience. This also needs to be evidenced in the abstract.

* Format of submissions. Abstracts should be 350-400 words and suitable for a short talk (15-20 min). 

* Evaluation: Abstracts will be subject to a blind review by at least two reviewers.

* Where can I apply? https://tally.so/r/jaYkaY 

* Deadline: 15 October 2026 23:59 CET.

*Outcome: We aim at communicating the outcome by mid- or end of November 2026.

Conference website: www.conceptsatwork.net 

—————

Céline Henne

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellow

Department of Philosophy

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

www.celinehenne.com

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