The idea of the conference is to bring together scholars who can shed light on the philosophy of nature in the epoch between  XVIII and XIX century Germany, which saw classical German philosophy, romantic Naturphilosophie as well as natural sciences all embarking upon the exploration of natural phenomena. All these philosophical movements and individual thinkers (such as Goethe and Herder) developed paradigms to think about nature and natural phenomena which offer interesting alternatives to mainstream approaches to nature. 

This conference aims at exploring both the general philosophical views about nature as well as  approaches to particular phenomena, tracking the relations and influence among conceptual frameworks developed by various movements of the epoch. German philosophy of nature, broadly understood, is often considered as a dead end, infected with outdated methodology and flawed views. Recently, however, numerous studies have shown it to bear original views, a much closer connection with the sciences than previously acknowledged and a sharp awareness of the conceptual issues at stakes, which bear potential for the current conversation on various topics.

The conference will investigate key notions such as  “life”, “organism”, “plants” as well as concepts regarding other natural phenomena, such as “colors”, etc. from various perspectives. This requires a cross- and interdisciplinary approach that intertwines insights coming from philosophy, history of science, historically informed philosophy of science and intellectual history. So far, however, these various disciplines have by and large been working independently from each other, focusing on individual philosophical movements or thinkers. We envision this conference as a place where representatives from these disciplines can meet and share their insights on this field. We believe that such “cross-pollination” can be fruitful and stimulate new research in this field.