History of Women Philosophers and Scientists

New Voices Women's Ideas in the History of Medicine
2025-05-14 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin)
Viktorya Vasilyan: A History of Breastfeeding: Its Iconography and Medical Importance

During human history, infants were fed human milk for survival, either through breastfeeding by their mothers or adoptive breastfeeding by other women. From antiquity to today, breastfeeding has been valued, reflected in mythology, philosophy, art, and religion worldwide. In ancient Armenia, it was prized for its health benefits, with wet nurses serving the upper classes while rural women breastfed for economic reasons. Colostrum was once deemed harmful but gained recognition in 1699 through Michael Ettmüller. During the European Renaissance, breastfeeding saw renewed appreciation in art, with depictions like suckler Lady and suckler Eve symbolising respect for motherhood.

Figures such as Hildegard of Bingen and Regina Areshian, founder of the Research Center of Maternal and Child Health Protection in Armenia, studied maternal hygiene and wet nursing. This work explores sociological, medical, and moral treatises on these themes, informed by research on the Virgo Lactans and Virgin of Humility. Iconography studies, such as those by Williamson, Sperling, Rivera, and Bergmann, provide critical insights into the Eve-Mary relationship and sacred images, though scholarly consensus on breastfeeding and wet nursing in the Middle Ages remains elusive.

About the Speaker…

Viktorya Vasilyan holds a PhD in History and serves as a researcher and the head of the Scientific Organisational Department at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, NAS RA. Additionally, she is a lecturer at the Traditional Medicine University of Armenia. Currently, she manages the “100 Archaeological Monuments of Armenia” project, an initiative aimed at exploring and documenting significant archaeological sites across the nation. More information about this project is available at https://ama100.am/en. She is also honoured to serve as a Goodwill Ambassador for Peace, Human Rights, and Humanity with the IHRO in Armenia.

Everyone is welcome to attend. Please register here and you will get the Zoom-Link after registration.

Research Colloquium - Dr. Gabriele Schimmenti -(History of) Philosophy, Politics, and Art in Louise Dittmar (1807–1884): A Feminist Perspective
2025-05-15 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Building O, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 51, Paderborn, NRW, 33098, Germany
Dr. Gabriele Schimmenti, Post Doctoral Fellow and Adjunct Lecturer at the University Roma Tre (Italy), will introduce us into his research on (History of) Philosophy, Politics, and Art in Louise Dittmar (1807–1884): A Feminist Perspective.
The talk is part of the regular research colloquium and will take place at the Colloquium of Philosophy, organized by the department of Philosophy at Paderborn University.

The talk will start at 4 pm.
Everybody is welcome to attend.
Room: O2
Building O
Adress: Pohlweg 51, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

Research Colloquium - Dr. Andrea Reichenberger - Grete Hermann: From Quantum Physics to Politics and Ethics
2025-05-19 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Dr. Andrea Reichenberger, research group leader at the Department of Mathematics at the University of Siegen, will introduce us into her research on Grete Hermann: From Quantum Physics to Politics and Ethics.
The talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organized by Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber.
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Everybody is welcome to attend.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

New Voices Women's Ideas in the History of Medicine
2025-05-29 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin)
Martina Guzzetti: Pregnant Women’s Wellbeing in Jane Sharp’s “The Midwives’ Book” (1671)

Women’s health, wellbeing, and medical conditions have always been at the centre of gendered debates concerning, among other things, who has the necessary knowledge and authority to discuss and provide advice about them. Of the many branches of medicine involved in these debates, midwifery certainly holds a prominent position: in particular, between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these controversies saw the rivalry between midwives and the emerging men-midwives encapsulated in their own publications. While men’s textbooks on midwifery were limited to the description of women’s anatomy and the discussion of the birth event itself (without taking into consideration what happened to women before, during, and after pregnancy), the midwives’ manuals offered a different point of view,

that is, one of a skilled practitioner (despite the misogynist stereotypes) who could also share with her patients the same experience, thus having access to a kind of knowledge which went beyond the purely technical one. This contribution deals in particular with Jane Sharp’s The Midwives’ Book (1671) and offers to focus precisely on an aspect often overlooked in men’s textbooks, that is, pregnant women’s wellbeing, be it physical and/or mental. The analysis considers the creation of discourses related, for example, to factors helping the conception of a child, to easing labour, and to preventing diseases after childbirth. In the discussion, particular attention will be devoted to the peculiar connection between midwives and pregnant women, and to the references to professional and private experience used to back up such knowledge.

About the Speaker…

Martina Guzzetti is a Post-Doctoral Researcher and Lecturer of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Insubria and the University of Milan. Her research is based around language and gender studies in historical perspective, with a focus on news discourse, lexicography, and the popularisation of medical knowledge. She is currently working on a project about pregnant women’s wellbeing in midwifery manuals and domestic dictionaries.

Everyone is welcome to attend. Please register here and you will get the Zoom-Link after registration.

Research Colloquium – Felix Grewe: Innovating Knowledge for the Future: Haraway's Storytelling from Cyborg to Companion Species
2025-06-02 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Felix Grewe, Research Fellow and Doctoral Student at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists, will introduce us into his research on Donna J. Haraway and her concepts of Storytelling. The talk Innovating Knowledge for the Future: Haraway’s Storytelling from Cyborg to Companion Species will give an introduction into the genesis of her innovative concepts of knowledge (re-)production including her concepts from the cyborg up to the more recent concept of companion species.
The talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organized by Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber.
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Everybody is welcome to attend.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

Online Workshop The Living Forces Debate across Europe (1686?–1743?)
2025-06-05 14:30 - 2025-06-06 19:00 (Europe/Berlin)
The Online Workshop “The Living Forces Debate across Europe (1686?–1743?)” is organized by Dr. Pedro Pricladnitzky and Dr. Stefano Veneroni. It is a collaboration between the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists and the Istituto per la Storia del Pensiero Filosofico e Scientifico Moderno (ISPF-CNR).

The debate on living forces in early modern Europe was a pivotal intellectual conflict concerning the nature of motion, energy, and the fundamental principles governing the physical world. The conventional framing of the living forces debate situates its chronological boundaries between 1686, marked by the publication of Leibniz’s Brevis demonstratio, and 1743, with the first edition of d’Alembert’s Traité de Dynamique. However, this periodization warrants critical reconsideration, both on historical and theoretical grounds. Emerging in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, primarily revolving around the competing ideas of René Descartes, who advocated for the conservation of momentum (mass times velocity), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who introduced the concept of vis viva (living force), proposing that the true measure of force was proportional to mass times the square of velocity.
Émilie Du Châtelet played a crucial role in this debate, providing a comprehensive synthesis of the competing theories, and articulating an original and influential defense of the vis viva principle. In her seminal work, Institutions de Physique (1740), she argued that the quantity conserved in nature was not simply the Cartesian momentum but rather what we now understand as kinetic energy. Du Châtelet’s contributions were instrumental in clarifying and advancing the discussion, influencing the eventual development of classical mechanics. Her critical engagement with both Newton’s Principia Mathematica and Leibniz’s writings demonstrated her profound understanding of complex physical concepts and underscored the importance of empirical evidence and mathematical rigor in scientific discourse.
The major works central to this debate include Descartes’ Principia Philosophiae (1644), Leibniz’s essays on dynamics, particularly his Brevis Demonstratio (1686) and Specimen Dynamicum (1695), and Du Châtelet’s Institutions de Physique (1740) and her discussion with Dortous de Mairan presents on the second edition in (1742) and influecing Kant’s early views on natural philosophy Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte (1746–49).
These texts reflect the rich intellectual exchanges of the period, marking a significant evolution in the scientific understanding of motion and its causes. Beyond physics, the debate explored the nature of reality and the methodologies for understanding physical phenomena. It reflected broader shifts in scientific and philosophical thought having a major influence in the further developments on the natural sciences on the following centuries.
The program of the conference will soon be published.
If you want to register and receive the Zoom-Link, please click here.

Research Colloquium – Dr. Dr. Luka Borsic: The Proto-Radical Feminism in 16th Century Dubrovnik: The Strange Case of Maruša Gundulić and Cvijeta Zuzorić
2025-06-16 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Dr. Dr. Luka Boršić, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy Zagreb (Croatia), will introduce us into hisresearch on Radical Feminism in 16th Century Dubrovnik: The Strange Case of Maruša Gundulić and Cvijeta Zuzorić.
The talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organized by Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber.
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Everybody is welcome to attend.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

Workshop Women in the History of Medicine and Philosophy
2025-06-18 14:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Workshop on Women in the History of Medicine and Philosophy
June 18, 2025, 2pm – 5 pm (hybrid)

Preliminary Program:
14.00-14.10 Welcome Dr. Jil Muller
14.10- 14.30 Dr. Ivana Skuhala Karasman (Senior scientific fellow at IFZG Croatia) – Croatian Women Philosopher and Psychologist: Elza Kučera
14.50-15.10 Dr. Ilaria Ferrara (adjunct professor at the University of Salerno, Italy; former Post-doc at University of Ferrara) – The Logic of Exclusion: Prejudice and the Fallacy of Generalization in Dorothea Christiane Erxleben’s Rigorous Investigation.
15.30-15.45 Break
15.45-16.05 Vanessa Sabbatini (PhD Candidate at the Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy) – Medical women in the Marche region in the Contemporary Age: the case of Giulia Bonarelli and her “method of gentleness.”
16.25-16.45 Ivana Zečević (PhD Candidate at University of Groningnen, the Netherlands) – From Hospitals to Village Outreaches: Changing Ideas Around Motherhood and Childcare in Villa Maria and Mua Hospitals, 1900s-1980s.
Invited Discussants (Q&A for each paper will last 20 minutes): Dr. Fabrizio Bigotti (CSMBR, Pisa); Dr. Michele Vagnetti (Paderborn University); PD Dr. Friedrich Markewitz (Paderborn University) and Dr. Jil Muller (HWPS, Paderborn).

More information will be provided soon.
To participate please register via our registration platform: https://indico.uni-paderborn.de/event/115/registrations/143/
Organizer:
Dr. Jil Muller, Paderborn University

Wissenschaft außer Kontrolle? Von Hühner-Dinos, OncoMäusen und rauchenden Affen – Wie weit darf Forschung gehen?
2025-06-18 19:00 - 21:00 (Europe/Berlin) | AKKA Paderborn
Kneipengeflüster – Triff Wissenschaft an der Theke
Talk by Felix Grewe: Wissenschaft außer Kontrolle? Von Hühner-Dinos, OncoMäusen und rauchenden Affen – Wie weit darf Forschung gehen?
Mittwoch, 18. Juni 2025, 19 Uhr
AKKA, Paderborn
Wissenschaft trifft Kneipenatmosphäre: Unter diesem Motto rufen die Universität Paderborn und die Servicestelle Antidiskriminierung (ADA) des Caritasverbands Paderborn e.V. eine neue Veranstaltungsreihe ins Leben. Künftig sollen Expert*innen eingeladen werden, um über aktuelle, spannende und manchmal auch brisante Themen in lockerer Runde zu diskutieren. Den Auftakt zur Reihe „Kneipengeflüster – Triff Wissenschaft an der Theke“ macht Felix Grewe vom Lehrstuhl für Praktische Philosophie der Universität Paderborn am Mittwoch, 18. Juni, mit dem Thema „Wissenschaft außer Kontrolle? Von Hühner-Dinos, OncoMäusen und rauchenden Affen – Wie weit darf Forschung gehen?“. Interessierte sind ab 19 Uhr herzlich willkommen in der Kneipe „AKKA“ (Giersstraße 31) in Paderborn. Der Eintritt ist frei, eine Anmeldung ist nicht erforderlich.
„Die Veranstaltungsreihe ist so konzipiert, dass jede*r vorbeikommen kann – mit oder ohne Vorwissen, Hauptsache mit Neugier“, sagt Laura Maring, Referentin für Diversity der Universität Paderborn. Bei der ersten Veranstaltung im Juni möchte Grewe mit den Gästen u. a. darüber sprechen, wie die moderne Forschung zwar immer wieder neue Möglichkeiten, aber auch neue Fragen mit sich bringt. Er wirft in einem kurzen Impulsvortrag einen kritischen Blick auf die Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Neugier und öffnet anschließend den Raum für Diskussion, Austausch und Kneipengespräche auf Augenhöhe.
Eine Fortsetzung der Reihe ist bereits geplant: Gemeinsam mit der Prodekanin für Nachhaltigkeit, Gleichstellung und Diversität der Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften, Dr. Larissa Eikermann, und der Geschäftsführerin des Zentrums für Geschlechterstudien / Gender Studies, Dr. Claudia Mahs, plant Maring weitere Termine ab Oktober dieses Jahres.
Organisator*innen:
Laura Maring, Referentin Diversity der Universität Paderborn
Dr. Larissa Eickelmann, Prodekanin für Nachhaltigkeit, Gleichstellung und Diversität der Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften der Universität Paderborn
Dr. Claudia Mahs, Zentrum für Geschlechterstudien der Universität Paderborn
Matthias Zimoch, Servicestelle Antidiskriminierung (ADA) des Caritas-Verband Paderborn e.V.
Quelle: https://www.uni-paderborn.de/veranstaltung/neue-veranstaltungsreihe-in-paderborn-kneipengefluester-triff-wissenschaft-an-der-theke

Research Colloquium - Dr. Jil Muller: Holistic Philosophical Anthropology
2025-06-30 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Dr. Jil Muller, Deputy Director of The Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists, will introduce us into her research on Holistic Philosophical Anthropology.
The talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organized by Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber.
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Everybody is welcome to attend.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

XX IAPh Symposium
2025-08-01 - 2025-08-05 | University of Tokyo, aculty of Law & Letters Bldg.2, Hongo Campus, Tokyo, Japan
XX. Symposium of the International Association of Women Philosophers (IAPh)
The XX. Symposium of the International Association of Women Philosophers (IAPh) takes place from August 1-5, 2025 at the University of Tokyo. The XX. Symposium is organized by:
Prof. Dr. Noburu Notomi, University of Tokyo (Japan)
Prof. Dr. Yuko Murakami, Rikkyo University (Japan)
IAPh Secretary Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber, Paderborn University/Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists (Germany)
IAPh Speaker Prof. Dr. Cris Sánchez, Complutense University Madrid (Spain)
The IAPh invites everbody to register for participation at this outstanding event. More information about the program and links to the venue can be found here.

Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize 2025
2025-08-04 17:00 - 18:00 (Asia/Tokyo) | University of Tokyo, aculty of Law & Letters Bldg.2, Hongo Campus, Tokyo, Japan
Since 2018, this prize is sponsored by Professor Dr. Ulrike Detmers and awarded in cooperation with Professor Dr. Ruth Hagengruber, the director of the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. “The Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists is pleased and proud to join with Professor Detmers in awarding a prize that explicitly honors scholars whose work best acknowledges the contributions of women philosophers in history,” says Professor Dr. Ruth Hagengruber.
The Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize is intended to acknowledge an internationally known scholar whose work best preserves the memory of women in philosophy. “The awareness that women have contributed to the philosophical tradition is not very common. But it is important to celebrate our knowledge that women of past centuries were active philosophers who raised their voices and have been heard in former times,” explains Professor Ruth Hagengruber.
The prize is awarded to an outstanding contemporary philosopher in memory of Elisabeth of Bohemia (1618-1680). She was the eldest daughter of Prince Friedrich V. of the Palatinate and his wife Elisabeth Stuart, a granddaughter of Maria Stuart. In her time Elisabeth of Bohemia was also a well-known European intellectual and pupil of Descartes. “I have been fighting for many years to ensure that women get the place in society that they deserve,” says Professor Ulrike Detmers. “It is important to raise awareness about women in the history of philosophy and thereby to revitalize the relevance of the philosophical discipline.”
The Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize will be awarded this year within the XX. IAPh Symposium at the University of Tokyo.
The Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize is awarded by this years award comittee consists of:
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Detmers – Professor of Business Administration | University for Applied Sciences Bielefeld | Entrepreneur | Donor of the Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize
Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber – University of Paderborn | President of the German Society for Philosophy
Prof. Dr. Yuko Murakami – Rikkyo University, Japan
More Informations can be found at the Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize – Main Page.

EcoTechGender. Women Philosophers on Economics, Ecology and Technology
2025-08-05 09:00 - 11:30 (Asia/Tokyo) | University of Tokyo, aculty of Law & Letters Bldg.2, Hongo Campus, Tokyo, Japan
EcoTechGender. Women Philosophers on Economics, Ecology and Technology
Panel within the XX. IAPh Symposium.
Panel Contributor:
Prof. Dr. Kateryna Karpenko (Kharkiv National Medical University) – Women and digital technologies in wartime
Prof. Dr. Asha Mukherjee (Visva-Bharati University) – Eco-tech gender: Search for more Objectivity?
Dr. Ingrid Becker (University of Sankt Gallen/Ruhr-University Bochum) – Giving between inexhaustibility and exhaustibility
Prof Dr. Prijanka Iha (Banaras Hindu University) – Ecological Underpinnings in the Gendered Philosophies from India
Prof. Dr. Ruth Edith Hagengruber (Paderborn University) – Time is money. A proposal for a new kind of economic calculation
More information can be found here.

Ruth E. Hagengruber: Time is money. A proposal for a new kind of economic calculation
2025-08-05 09:00 - 11:30 (Asia/Tokyo) | University of Tokyo, aculty of Law & Letters Bldg.2, Hongo Campus, Tokyo, Japan
On August 5, 2025 Prof. Dr. Ruth Edith Hagengruber gives her talk on Time is money. A proposal for a new kind of economic calculation. The talk is part of the Panel EcoTechGender. Women Philosophers on Economics, Ecology and Technology of the XX. IAPh Symposia.
More information about the panel and the conference can be found here.

Libori Summer School 2025 - Day 1 - Enlightenment perspectives on ethics and moral theory
2025-09-08 | L3 204, Building L, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 57, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Monday, 8 September 2025: Enlightenment perspectives on ethics and moral theory: Commentary on Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees
Experts: Judith P. Zinsser and Ana Rodrigues
For further Information visit our conference main page. Registration is required!
If you are interested to participate, please register here.
The full program can found here.

Libori Summer School 2025 The Early Works of Émilie Du Châtelet
2025-09-08 - 2025-09-12 | L3 204, Building L, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 57, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Libori Summer School 2025 – The Early Works of Émilie Du Châtelet
We are excited to announce the Libori Summer School 2025, dedicated to exploring the early works of Émilie Du Châtelet, one of the most influential women in the history of philosophy and science.
Led by Prof. Dr. Ruth Edith Hagengruber and organized by Dr. Jil Muller with the support of Felix Grewe the Summer School invites Master’s and PhD students from around the world to engage in a collaborative, in-depth exploration of Du Châtelet’s early writings and intellectual legacy.
This year’s program offers a rare opportunity to engage directly with the first digital and historical-critical edition of Du Châtelet’s early manuscripts—produced in collaboration with the National Library of Russia, Saint Petersburg. These texts, rich with philosophical insight and annotated by Du Châtelet herself, reveal how her thought shaped and was shaped by the major metaphysical debates of her time.
More information about the current running CfP and additional information about the speakers, program, venue and registration can be found on the conference’s webpage:
https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/libori-summer-school-2025/

Libori Summer School 2025 - Day 2 - The nature of liberty and free will
2025-09-09 | L3 204, Building L, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 57, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Tuesday, 9 September 2025: The nature of liberty and free will: Chapter 5 On Liberty
Experts: Ruth E. Hagengruber, Julia Jorati and Eszter Kovács
For further Information visit our conference main page. Registration is required!
If you are interested to participate, please register here.
The full program can found here.

Libori Summer School 2025 - Day 3 - The foundations of natural philosophy
2025-09-10 | L3 204, Building L, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 57, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Wednesday, 10 September 2025: The foundations of natural philosophy: Chapter 4 On the Formation of Colours
Experts: Bryce Gessell, Fritz Nagel and Andrew Janiak
For further Information visit our conference main page. Registration is required!
If you are interested to participate, please register here.
The full program can found here.

Libori Summer School 2025 - Day 4 - On language and ontology
2025-09-11 | L3 204, Building L, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 57, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Thursday, 11 September 2025: On language and ontology: Chapter 6 On Grammar
Experts: Pedro Pricladnitzky, Katarina Peixoto and Viridiana Platas Benítez
For further Information visit our conference main page. Registration is required!
If you are interested to participate, please register here.
The full program can found here.

Libori Summer School 2025 - Day 5 - On metaphysics, eternity, immortality of the soul and an eternal being
2025-09-12 | L3 204, Building L, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 57, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Friday, 12 September 2025: On metaphysics, eternity, immortality of the soul and an eternal being: Treatise on Metaphysics
Expert: Ulla Kölving
For further Information visit our conference main page. Registration is required!
If you are interested to participate, please register here.
The full program can found here.

Research Colloquium- Dr. Manaswini Sen: From Practice to Philosophy: Trade Unionism, Communism, and Feminist Intellectual History in Late Colonial Bengal.
2025-10-13 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Dr. Manaswini Sen will introduce us into her research on Trade Unionism, Communism and Feminist Intellectual History in late colonial Bengal.
She is an Assistant Professor of Modern South Asian History at the Department of History, Easwari School of Liberal Arts, SRM University Ap (India). Her research interests lie within the fields of Labour History, the History of Decolonisation in South Asia, Intellectual History, the History of Surveillance, and the History of Communism in the Global South.
The Talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organised by the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists.
Everybody is welcome to attend!
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building: Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn

Research Colloquium - Dr. Pierpaolo Betti: Atomism and Monadism Combined: Continuities between Du Châtelet’s and Kant’s Accounts of Matter
2025-10-20 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Abstract: Most scholars emphasize the discontinuity in Kant’s early accounts of matter, reinforcing the longstanding view that the young Kant explored various positions without committing to a specific one. More specifically, commentators tend to read the shift from atomism to monadism or, conversely, from monadism to atomism, as a turning point in Kant’s pre-critical account of matter. I challenge these readings by arguing that the young Kant did not conceive of atomism and monadism as mutually exclusive alternatives. Rather, he developed an account of matter that combined monadism in metaphysics and a version of atomism known as corpuscularism in physics. I further show that, prior to Kant, Du Châtelet had already articulated such a hybrid account of matter by drawing on Wolffian ideas. By comparing Du Châtelet’s Institutions de physique with Kant’s early texts on natural philosophy, I suggest that Du Châtelet’s views may have influenced Kant’s early account of matter more significantly than has generally been acknowledged in the literature.
Pierpaolo Betti obtained his PhD from KU Leuven in 2025. His doctoral research focused on the evolution of the concept of monad in Kant’s philosophy in light of the early reception of Leibniz’s monadology. As of November, he will be a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists at Paderborn University, where he will contribute to the historical-critical edition of Du Châtelet’s Institutions de physique. His publications include “Kant’s Mature Account of Monads as Objects in the Idea” (The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2024) and “The Influence of Leibniz’s New Essays on Kant’s Account of Impenetrability in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science” (book chapter in Leibniz in der klassischendeutschen Philosophie, edited by Gregor Schäfer. Springer/Metzler, forthcoming).
The Talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The research colloquium is organised by the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists.
Everybody is welcome to attend!
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building: Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn

New Voices - Aneta Kohoutova: Through my absent body, I perceive you. Spatiality and female corporeality in public spaces
2025-10-31 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | online
Hannah Arendt Today
The Winter Term Talk Series 2025/26, organised by Samantha Fazekas (Trinity College Dublin) and Maria Robaszkiewicz (UPB), is an online talk series dedicated to Hannah Arendt.
Arendt could aptly be described as a thinker of the crisis, or perhaps rather of multiple crises. This motif is ever-present in her work and, indeed, it is a concept that is becoming ever-present in our own time. This is one of the reasons why academic and public interest in Arendt’s writings is currently skyrocketing. It is because so many politically acute challenges today call not for dogmatic, but for critical and practical perspectives. In her works, Arendt seems to be looking for crises: cracks in the fabric of the everyday, which offer an opening, enabling individuals to appear before each other and become political actors. It is not that action necessarily needs a crisis, but a crisis definitely needs action. Crisis, for Arendt, is always ambivalent. It presupposes a destructive moment, but also a constructive one. As she states, “The opportunity, provided by the very fact of crisis – which tears away façades and obliterates prejudices to explore and inquire into whatever has been laid bare of the essence of the matter.” A crisis only proves disastrous when the reaction to it consists of recourse to the ways of thinking prescribed by tradition, answered in conventional, schematic ways.
In line with Arendt’s critical spirit, and especially her concept of natality (every human’s capability of striking new beginnings in the world), this edition of the New Voces talk series introduces contributions of emerging Arendt scholars addressing issues of philosophic and political relevance for the world in which we live today. Topics include the female body, speech and speechlessness, dwelling and home, meanings of property, and natality in times of dictatorship. Everyone is welcome to join us in discussing Hannah Arendt’s relevance today!
Everyone is welcome to attend. You will get the Zoom-Link here or at maria.robaszkiewicz@upb.de.

Research Colloquium - Laura E. Herrera Castillo: Beyond Passive Reception: Liselotte von der Pfalz and G.W. Leibniz on F.M. van Helmont
2025-11-03 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
While the historiography of philosophy has increasingly integrated marginalized figures, the philosophical exchanges between Leibniz and his female correspondents remain understudied. Beyond well-known exchanges with figures like Lady Damaris Masham and Caroline of Ansbach (within the Clarke-Dispute), significant correspondences still await scholarly attention. This paper examines a rich thread in Leibniz’s correspondence with Sophie of Hannover, focusing on the critical intervention of Elisabeth Charlotte (Liselotte) von der Pfalz, whose challenges prompted an exchange on the thought of Francis Mercury van Helmont. As the first study, to my knowledge, dedicated to this episode and to treating Liselotte’s letters as philosophical documents, its primary aim is to present and analyze this correspondence. Through this analysis, the study seeks to elucidate Liselotte’s distinct philosophical attitude and, to a lesser extent, Sophie’s. Ultimately, this microhistory addresses a broader meta-philosophical question: What does this episode reveal about early modern intellectual networks and the strategies women used to engage in philosophical discourse from the margins of official academic life?
Dr. Laura Herrera Castillo currently serves as the Deputy Director of the Leibniz-Forschungsstelle in Münster and teaches as an adjunct lecturer (Lehrbeauftragte) in Philosophy at the University of Münster. Originally from Colombia, she earned her doctorate on Philosophy in Granada, Spain, with a thesis on Leibniz’s concept of function across his mathematics, physics, and metaphysics. She has conducted research at the universities of Münster and Hannover and has held a visiting professorship at LMU Munich.E-Mail: laura.herreracastillo@uni-muenster.de
The Talk is part of the regular research colloquium held at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists.
Everybody is welcome to attend!
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building: Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn

Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab - The falls of Europe and Critical European Philosophy
2025-11-04 09:00 - 11:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Lecture Hall O2, O-Building, Paderborn University
The falls of Europe and Critical European Philosophy
Talk by Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Doha Institute for Graduate Studies
Much of critical European philosophy has emerged in response to situations of European collapse such as the rise of fascism, World War II, the annihilation of European Jewry, and the Gaza war. To what extent was the non-European a consideration in those efforts of philosophical critical self-reflection? In other words, to what extent was the history of Europe outside Europe part of that self-reflection? My talk examines this question by looking at a few samples of those efforts, namely Adorno’s analysis of the “Authoritarian Personality,” Sartre’s Existentialism and Levinas’s ethical prima philosophia. It compares them with readings of the same epoch and the same phenomena by philosophers from outside Europe, such as Aimé Césaire, W.E.B. Dubois and others. My talk ends with a few remarks on some of the findings of this contrapuntal reading and some reflections on the last episode of Europe’s fall in Gaza.

Inputtalk - Felix Grewe: Donna Haraway: Storytelling for Earthly Survival - TU Dresden
2025-11-05 20:00 - 22:00 (Europe/Berlin) | TU Dresden
On November 5, 2025 the Office of the Equal Opportunities Officer of the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (Sca DS.AI) invited our colleague Felix Grewe to give an input talk on the life, works and expertises of Donna J. Haraway.
The input talk is part of the movie presentation Donna Haraway: Storytelling for Earthly Survival held on November 5, 2025 at the Technical University Dresden. The talk and movie presentation are part of the event Visual Takes – Cyborgs in the Colors of the Spectrum that is a section of the series Pillars and Umbrellas organized by Dr. Jutta Luisa Eckhardt and Dr. Stephanie Feilitzsch at TU Dresden.
Felix Grewe is research fellow at the Chair for Practical Philosophy and the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists at Padeborn University. His research and PhD Project focus on the works and theories of Donna J. Haraway.
More information about the venue and the event series can be found here.

New Voices - Magnus Ferguson: Speaking Others into the World
2025-11-07 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | online
Abstract: In certain contexts unreciprocated speech can be an important form of care for persons who would otherwise find it difficult to retain their place in shared worlds of linguistic meaning, such as those who lose capacities for linguistic expression due to illness. Philosophers and political theorists often underscore the importance of reciprocated speech for sharing in a human world. Hannah Arendt makes this point especially forcefully in The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition, in which she suggests that ‘speechless’ persons are excluded from the linguistic ‘web of relationships’—they are, she writes, ‘literally dead to the world.’ I reconstruct several of Arendt’s analyses of speech and speechlessness, and argue that they are prima facie exclusionary to nonspeaking persons. I also identify resources in Arendt’s corpus for theorizing unreciprocated speech as a mode of care that can offer listeners footholds in the linguistic spheres of meaning around them.
Magnus Ferguson (Ph.D.) is a Collegiate Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago and a Harper-Schmidt Fellow in the University of Chicago Society of Fellows. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston College in 2023, and his B.A. in Religion from Columbia University in 2014.
More about the New Voices Winter Term Talk Series 25: https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/new-voices-talk-series/

Research Colloquium - Sebastian Luft: Toward an Ontology of Social Communities - With an Appendix on the Phenomenology of Social Communities
2025-11-10 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Technologiepark 8, Technologiepark 8, Paderborn, 33098, Germany
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Luft will present his and Rodney K. B. Parker’s newly published book Gerda Walther. Toward an Ontology of Social Communities (De Gruyter, 2025) as part of the regular Research Colloquium at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists.
Luft, S. & Parker, R. (2025). Gerda Walther. Toward an Ontology of Social Communities: With an Appendix on the Phenomenology of Social Communities. De Gruyter.
Abstract:
This is the first full-text English translation of a seminal book within the phenomenological movement.
The work was orginally published in 1922 in Edmund Husserl’s yearbook Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, and has had a wide impact on work in phenomenology (Husserl, Heideger, Stein) and social ontology. Gerda Walther broaches the topic of social ontology, i.e., a study of social communities. She carries out this task by using the phenomenological method, that is, a study of the first-person (both singular and plural) experience of being a part of a community, what it feels like internally (and its constitutive elements), how it relates to other individuals or other communities, and how unifications between individiuals and communities or between communities take place.
The book is an important contribution to the phenomenology of intersubjectivity or the study of social ontology. Social ontology has been an important and fruitful field of research in contemporary social theory, cognitive science, and other disciplines. It will be a crucial contribution to current research.

Pioneering study of the nature of the social world
Author was student of Edmund Husserl
Important work of early phenomenology

About the translators:
Sebastian Luft is Professor of Philosophy at Paderborn University, Germany. Rodney K.B. Parker is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at King’s University College, Western University, Ontario, Canada.

Everybody is welcome to attend!
The talk will start at 4 pm.
Room: TP8.1.46
Building: Technologiepark 8
Adress: Technologiepark 8, 33098 Paderborn

New Voices - Catherine Koekoek: Towards an architecture of democratic infrastructures
2025-11-14 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | online
Hanna Arendt Today
The Winter Term Talk Series 2025/26, organised by Samantha Fazekas (Trinity College Dublin) and Maria Robaszkiewicz (UPB), is an online talk series dedicated to Hannah Arendt.
Arendt could aptly be described as a thinker of the crisis, or perhaps rather of multiple crises. This motif is ever-present in her work and, indeed, it is a concept that is becoming ever-present in our own time. This is one of the reasons why academic and public interest in Arendt’s writings is currently skyrocketing. It is because so many politically acute challenges today call not for dogmatic, but for critical and practical perspectives. In her works, Arendt seems to be looking for crises: cracks in the fabric of the everyday, which offer an opening, enabling individuals to appear before each other and become political actors. It is not that action necessarily needs a crisis, but a crisis definitely needs action. Crisis, for Arendt, is always ambivalent. It presupposes a destructive moment, but also a constructive one. As she states, “The opportunity, provided by the very fact of crisis – which tears away façades and obliterates prejudices to explore and inquire into whatever has been laid bare of the essence of the matter.” A crisis only proves disastrous when the reaction to it consists of recourse to the ways of thinking prescribed by tradition, answered in conventional, schematic ways.
In line with Arendt’s critical spirit, and especially her concept of natality (every human’s capability of striking new beginnings in the world), this edition of the New Voces talk series introduces contributions of emerging Arendt scholars addressing issues of philosophic and political relevance for the world in which we live today. Topics include the female body, speech and speechlessness, dwelling and home, meanings of property, and natality in times of dictatorship. Everyone is welcome to join us in discussing Hannah Arendt’s relevance today!
Everyone is welcome to attend. You will get the Zoom-Link here or at maria.robaszkiewicz@upb.de.

75 Years German Society for Philosophy/75 Jahre Deutsche Gesellschaft für Philosophie
2025-11-20 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Historisches Rathaus, Rathauspl. 1, Paderborn, (NRW), 33098, Germany
Thinking Europe Anew.
Seventy-five years ago, Germany joined the Council of Europe. Seventy-five years ago, the German Society for Philosophy was founded. We are celebrating this coincidence with our anniversary event.
The ideals of the Council of Europe—rule of law, human rights, and democracy—are the result of centuries of philosophical reflection and debate. The European idea and the universal values it embodies cannot be understood without the great European philosophical tradition.
The motto of the anniversary celebration of the German Society for Philosophy is therefore: Rethinking Europe’s Philosophical Tradition in Light of Contemporary Challenges.
Prior registration required
Historic Town Hall Paderborn
Room: Main Council Chamber (1st Floor)
Rathausplatz 1, 33098 Paderborn
Further information: DGPhil
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Europa neu denken.
Vor 75 Jahren wurde Deutschland in den Europarat aufgenommen. Vor 75 Jahren wurde die Deutsche Gesellschaft für Philosophie gegründet. Diese Koinzidenz würdigen wir mit unserer Jubiläumsfeier.
Die Ideale des Europarates, Rechtsstaatlichkeit, Menschenrechte und Demokratie, sind das Ergebnis jahrhundertelanger Auseinandersetzungen. Die europäische Idee und die von ihr getragenen Universalien sind ohne die große europäische philosophische Tradition nicht zu verstehen.
Das Motto der Festveranstaltung zum 75-jährigen Jubiläum der Deutschen Philosophischen Gesellschaft lautet daher: Europas philosophische Tradition angesichts aktueller Herausforderungen neu denken.
Vorherige Anmeldung erforderlich
Historisches Rathaus Paderborn
Raum: Großer Sitzungssaal (1. Obergeschoss)
Rathausplatz 1, 33098 Paderborn
Weiterführende Informationen: DGPhil
