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Alexandre Declos and I had the opportunity to present our paper “Mental Artworks” at the workshop “Mental Artifacts and Artifactual Events”, held at the University of Genoa from 25 to 27 November 2025.

On that occasion, we received excellent feedback and are hopeful that this will help us bring the paper to publication in the near future.

Ravi d’annoncer la parution, avec mon collègue Simon-Pierre Chevarie-Cossette, d’une tribune dans Le Temps. Nous y défendons le salaire minimum en réponse à l’argument de notre excellent collègue Olivier Massin.

À lire ici : https://www.letemps.ch/opinions/le-juste-salaire-minimum

Together with Agnès Baehni, we’ve just published an open access article on what we owe to our past-selves. It’s arguably one of the most puzzling questions I’ve had the chance to explore—I hope you find the piece engaging.

Read it here: https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqaf053

Abstract:

This paper offers a positive account of moral duties to past-selves, based on two plausible beliefs, (1) we have moral duties toward persons who are no longer present; and (2) we have moral duties toward ourselves. Specifically, our inquiry centers on moral duties toward our past-selves. We begin by addressing various objections challenging the viability of such duties and subsequently present three arguments supporting their plausibility. These arguments draw from hypothetical time-travel scenarios and the arbitrary exclusion of past-selves from the moral framework. In conclusion, we argue that recognizing moral duties to our past-selves is paradoxically crucial for combating moral egocentrism in its temporal dimension.

I’m thrilled to share our latest open-access paper, “Mereological Anti-Conservatism,” co-authored with Alexandre Declos, now published in Acta Analytica.

Read it here: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-025-00630-w

Abstract:

In this paper, we examine an overlooked answer to the Special Composition Question (SCQ), termed “Mereological Anti-Conservatism.” This view posits that extraordinary objects exist but that ordinary objects do not. For example, while tables and chairs do not exist, the mereological sums of these items do correspond to real objects. Although such a claim may initially seem absurd, we argue that (i) it is entirely derived from the claims and commitments of traditional rival theories—Nihilism, Universalism, and Conservatism; (ii) it resolves several issues that plague Conservatism, such as problems of vagueness, change and persistence, and the shortcomings of common sense; and (iii) it offers a more plausible perspective than Conservatism when considering the vast scale of possible worlds with differently segmented realities. Ultimately, we contend that if Anti-Conservatism is deemed implausible, then Conservatism must be as well, for structurally similar reasons.

Looking forward to your thoughts !

Je suis ravi d’annoncer la parution du 57ᵉ numéro de la revue philosophique Klesis, consacré au thème « Philosophie et sens commun », sous la direction de Jean-Baptiste Guillon.

Frédéric Lelong et moi-même avons eu le plaisir de contribuer à ce numéro avec notre article : « Ni subjectivisme, ni scientisme : pour une réévaluation de l’intuition cartésienne ».

Notre article est disponible en libre accès ici.

Robin Bianchi and I are pleased to invite you to a two-day workshop titled “Time, Causation, and Responsibility”, which will take place on December 9 and 10 at the Faculty of Arts, University of Neuchâtel. While the detailed program is still being finalized, the poster and list of speakers are already available. Feel free to reach out to me if you’re interested in attending.

We hope to see many of you there!

J’ai le plaisir de vous annoncer que je donnerai une séance dans le cadre du cours interfacultaire « Voyages au cœur du temps » à l’Université de Genève. Cette séance se tiendra le jeudi 24 octobre 2024, de 16h15 à 18h, à Uni Dufour, salle U259.

Le thème abordé sera : « Intuitions et science : une réconciliation impossible sur la nature du temps ? »

Ce cours est ouvert à tous les étudiant.e.s de l’UNIGE ainsi qu’aux auditeurs et auditrices externes.

I am delighted to announce that I will be speaking at the Ninth Annual Conference of the International Association for the Philosophy of Time (IAPT 9), which will take place from June 24-28, 2024, in Lugano.

My presentation, titled “Diachronic Indeterminacy”, is scheduled for Monday, June 24, at 11:20 AM.

For the complete conference program, please visit this link

Agnès Baehni and I are excited to announce our upcoming presentation of our paper, “Moral Duties to Past-Selves”, at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, V.V.I. Join us on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, at 1:30PM for this insightful discussion.

For online access, please follow this link: join our talk online.

Excited to share that I’ll be participating in this workshop organized by the Centre for Philosophy of Time at the University of Milan. Join us for a stimulating session!

The Dynamics of Change

Università Degli Studi di Milano
(Sala Napoleonica, Via Sant’Antonio, 12, Milano)

18-19 March 2024

The goal of this workshop is to shed new light on the dynamicity of change. Clearly, changes enfold over time, but what exactly makes change dynamic? Are specific changes made dynamic by specific features, or is there a general feature of dynamicity shared by all changes? If so, where is this feature to be found? In the physical underpinnings of world, in an account of time, the change makers; or might it be found even more fundamental in a proto-temporal understanding of dynamicity?

Speakers

Sonja Deppe (Erlangen)
Alison Fernandes (Dublin)
Florian Fischer (Siegen)
Vincent Grandjean (Zurich)
Cristian Mariani (Lugano)
Tim Maudlin (New York)
Martin A. Lipman (Leiden)
John Pemberton (Durham)
Giuliano Torrengo (Milano/UAB)
Federico Viglione (Milano)

Schedule & abstracts

For the workshop schedule and abstracts of all talks, please visit ccm.uni-siegen.de/dynamics-of-change.

Registration

If you would like to participate, please send an e-mail to Change and Change-Makers <ccm@uni-siegen.de>.

Organization

Florian Fischer, Giuliano Torrengo