Early Modern Philosophy Workshop

From 28–30 August 2025, the Department of Philosophy will host the workshop “Probability and the Soul – Metaphysical and Epistemological Issues in German and British Early Modern Philosophy” in Jakobi 2, room 336.

The event is organised in cooperation between the University of Tartu and the University of Würzburg. The workshop is convened by Associate Professor of History of Philosophy Roomet Jakapi and Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy Gareth Hugh Paterson from Tartu, together with Sonja Schierbaum and Jon Bornholdt from Würzburg.

Online participation is not possible.

Tartu, August 28–30, 2025
Jakobi 2, room 336.

Probability and the Soul –
Metaphysical and Epistemological Issues in German and British Early Modern Philosophy

Thursday, 28 August

13:30 Coffee and Welcome

14:00–15:00 Takaharu Oda (Jiangsu University): A Timeless God and the Cogitating Soul: Berkeley’s Pragmatist Theory of Time

15:15–16:15 Ove Averin (University of Tartu): Structuring Sciences—Interdisciplinary Nature of Soul in Early Modern Ramist Academia

16:30– 17:30 Gareth Paterson (University of Tartu): The Mysterious World(s) of Christian August Crusius and the Fate of Departed Souls

Friday, 29 August

9:30–10:30 Jon Bornholdt (University of Würzburg): Hoffmann’s Logic: Between Formalism, Psychology, and Probability

10: 45–11:45 Sonja Schierbaum (University of Würzburg): Crusius on Probable Cognition and Moral Certainty

12:00–13:00 Valtteri Viljanen (University of Turku): On the Crusian Origins of the Kantian Moral Agent

Lunch Break

14:30–15:30 Martina Reuter (University of Jyväskylä): Catherine Macaulay on Moral Necessity

16:00–17:00 Clara Carus (Harvard University): Christian Wolff’s Principle of Contradiction

Saturday, 30 August

09:30–10:30 Roomet Jakapi (University of Tartu): Henry More on the Separation of the Soul in the Ecstasy of Witches

10:45–11:45 Fr. Bonaventure (The Catholic University of America): Crusius’ Cantankerous Pneumatology? Spirits and Souls in Pietist Metaphysic

12:00–13:00 Tamás Demeter (Corvinus University of Budapest): Hume's Epistemic Ideal and His Science of Man