Conference Announcement: Dialectic and Aristotle’s Logic

Below is a call for papers received from Matt Duncombe (Groningen); please do consider applying if you are working on Aristotelian logic!

Dialectic and Aristotle’s Logic

September 2-4 2013
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen (Netherlands)

https://sites.google.com/site/therootsofdeduction/conference-dialectic-in-aristotle-s-logic

Aristotle’s logic is often treated as though it falls into two quite distinct parts: the deductive syllogistic system, discussed in the Prior and Posterior Analytics and the dialectical system, discussed in the Topics and Sophistical Refutations. Each of these parts has received sustained, independent attention: logicians have done much to articulate the structure of Aristotle’s syllogistic, while commentators have seen Aristotle’s dialectic as key to his whole philosophical enterprise.

This conference aims to examine the (putative) dialectical grounding for Aristotle’s logical theories in general (in particular, but not exclusively, syllogistic), and thus to emphasize the coherence and continuity of his logical writings by taking multi-agent dialogical interactions such as dialectic as the founding concept.

Confirmed speakers

Luca Castagnoli (Durham)
Marko Malink (Chicago)
Mathieu Marion (UQAM, Montreal)
Ana Maria Mora (Copenhagen)
Carrie Swanson (Bloomington)
Paul Thom (Sydney)
Matthew Duncombe (Groningen)
Catarina Dutilh Novaes (Groningen)

Call for Papers

There will be a number of slots for contributed papers. Contributions may address the following themes, among others:

The pragmatic context of Aristotle’s syllogistic
Game-theoretic construals of Aristotle’s logic
Aristotle’s account of fallacies
Dialectic in the Organon (including the Categories and On Interpretation)
Dialogical readings of Aristotle’s logic by ancient and (Latin and Arabic) medieval commentators

The organizers invite submissions from scholars at all levels (graduate students, junior and senior researchers). Please submit abstracts of up to 1000 words (in PDF format) by March 15th 2013 to rootsofdeduction ‘at’ gmail.com.

Abstracts should be prepared for blind review. Notification of acceptance will be sent by April 15th.