International Conference 2018

from November 15 - 18, 2018 in Graz/Austria.

The congress aims to reflect and analyze the increasingly complex processes of today. It is an invitation to philosophy to take up the challenges and to rethink the interdependencies between science and technology on the one hand and social and democratic principles on the other.

Two central dimensions form the focus of the congress: First, the recognition and the changing of life-determining boundaries in relation to science and technology. In this context, multiperspectivity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity are increasingly required. What new and innovative approaches have been established under interdisciplinary perspectives and approaches in recent years? Is a new culture of science, in the making, as more and more people have access to more and more knowledge? What is meant by the terms "multiperspectivity" and "inter-, multi- and transdisciplinarity"?

The second dimension of the congress includes the, rapid changes, dominant social processes in pluralistic democracies concern, which require philosophical sensitivity. Here, too, numerous questions need to be addressed: What does pluralism mean? How does one deal with heterogeneity? What opportunities and challenges arise from migration movements? What opportunities does demographic change offer and what problems will we be confronted with? What does this mean for the practice of living together? How is the relationship between the individual and the collective changing? How can basic democratic principles be strengthened on the basis of human rights?

This congress will focus on the interrelation of these two dimensions. The attempt to bring these two dimensions closer together can promote the potentials for scientific-technological and social freedoms in a substantial way. This ultimately means that scientific-technological and ethical-social principles can represent a complex unity. At the same time, it is a matter of exploring the possibilities of philosophy to support society in these processes of change. Philosophy must therefore go out into the public, into schools and educational institutions. In particular, "philosophizing with children and young people" can be seen here as an essential impulse for a new positive focus in our educational intentions.

This year's congress is planned as an inter/transcultural forum to enable philosophical discussions of contemporary phenomena, as well as to draw a bow to other scientific disciplines. An important goal of this event is to initiate an exchange of different approaches and thus make explicit further knowledge bases for both educational conceptions and educational policy initiatives.

The topics of the congress will focus on the following areas: