[PHILOS-L] Michel Bitbol on "Transcendental epistemologies and probabilism" in UCLouvain MEPHISTO seminar

[Julien Tricard]

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Dear Colleagues and List Members,

On Friday, 24th October 2025, Michel Bitbol (CNRS, Archives Husserl, Paris, France) will give an online talk entitled "Transcendental epistemologies and probabilism" in the context of UCLouvain’s new monthly seminar MEPHISTO ("MEtaphysics and PHIlosophy of Science: Transcendental Orientations").

Please note that this conference will be streamed live on the youtube channel of the CEFISES. No registration required.

When?: Friday, 24th October 2025, from 14h to 16h CEST (1h of talk + 1h of Q&A)

Where?: Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), Place Cardinal Mercier 14, Salle Ladrière + live on youtube

All info: ISP website + CEFISES website

Abstract: "Transcendental epistemologies and probabilism" 

Transcendental epistemologies, in their Kantian and Husserlian varieties, can be characterized by two basic tenets: (1) It is possible to regress from objects to the preconditions for their givenness, and (2) The constitution of objects involves anticipating phenomena—both intellectually and practically—through structural assumptions that conform to these preconditions. Anticipation is the key concept here, one to which Husserl ascribes an ambivalent status in his Crisis. According to Husserl, anticipating future appearances is a basic function essential to life. But this is also, unfortunately, the task to which modern natural sciences restrict themselves—far from the ideal of genuine theoretical knowledge that had inaugurated the project of science. In this talk, I wish to show that when its anticipatory status is fully embraced by physical science in the form of probabilism, an about-turn occurs—bringing us closer to Husserl’s ideal of a comprehensive science wholly aware of its own foundation, rather than distancing us from it. This paradoxical development is not difficult to grasp. Indeed, with probabilism, we move away from the deceptive traditional static, demiurgic, objectivistic, naturalistic, third-person, and falsely omniscient view of science. Instead, we move toward a dynamic, practical, first-person, engaged, and inherently finite conception. In this new framework, probability is no longer regarded merely as a mathematical tool reluctantly employed to cope with temporarily incomplete knowledge. Rather, it emerges as the foundational principle of all cognition, finally revealed by the most advanced scientific developments. In this light, quantum physics becomes the paradigm of a new science – one that (unlike classical physics) can no longer ignore its transcendental preconditions.

* The complete programme of the MEPHISTO seminar:

· Friday 26/09/2025: Sami Pihlstrom

· Friday 24/10/2025: Michel Bitbol

· Friday 28/11/2025: Harald Wiltsche

· Friday 09/01/2026: Kristina Engelhard

· Friday 06/02/2026: Samuel Descarreaux

· Friday 06/03/2026: Brigitte Falkenbourg

· Friday 10/04/2026: Olivier Darrigol

· Friday 05/06/2026: Eran Tal

For any further information, please contact either my co-organizer (daniele....@uclouvain.be) or myself (julien....@uclouvain.be).

Best regards,

Julien Tricard

Post-doctoral Fellow, ANR Access ERC, Sorbonne Univeristé, Paris

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