The Philosophy of Nature Circle was founded on 6 August 2008 in Paris. Its aim is the renewal and reinterpretation, in the light of the current state of knowledge and reflection, of a number of problems of natural philosophy.

Since the 19th century there has been a tendency to consider that the content of the philosophy of nature has been definitively assimilated by the natural sciences and by epistemology or the philosophy of science, thus leaving natural philosophy without an object. It is only an appearance. The conviction that animates the members of the Circle is that this assessment is wrong. The truth is that the problems of the philosophy of nature have been ignored or buried alive. In the first place, there is no science without explicit or implicit metaphysics and, conversely, a metaphysics that contradicts the facts and the ideas scientifically verified is fiction; then epistemology and the philosophy of science study usual or scientific knowledge, while the object of natural philosophy is to think, primarily and directly, about nature.

Activities

Composed today of more than a hundred professors or researchers from various specialities and from several countries — without interdisciplinarity there is no natural philosophy — the activity of the Circle presents the robustness and richness of any research exposed to criticism from different intellectual traditions. The participants' research has been presented at eight symposia and one seminar, and published in eight collective volumes. The members exchange ideas by correspondence, material that can be used, among other things, for the preparation of courses and for the elaboration of dissertations or theses.

Symposia

The first symposium was held at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales de Paris (ÉHÉSS) in March 2010 thanks to Professor Luciano Boi. The second meeting, organised by Professor Héctor Velázquez Fernández at the Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City, took place a year later. In November 2013 the Universidad de la Frontera in the city of Temuco, Chile, hosted the Third Symposium, where we were welcomed by Professors Rubén Leal Riquelme and Samuel Herrera Balboa. At the end of 2014, during the IV Symposium, the Circle was again received by the ÉHÉSS. The V Symposium took place at the University of Malaga in February 2016 at the invitation of Professor Antonio Diéguez.

Then, hosted by Professor Eugenio Andrade, we met for the sixth time at the Universidad El Bosque in Bogotá at the beginning of November 2017. The Seventh Symposium took place at the Universidad Austral de Chile, in the city of Valdivia, organised by Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy Mauricio Mancilla, towards the end of November 2018. The Eighth Symposium, in early June 2021, took place at the Institut de Philosophie Comparée de Paris thanks to its Dean, Emmanuel Brochier, an institute where we also gathered together during a Seminar in June 2022.

From 14 to 16 June this year we will hold the IX Symposium at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México where we will be hosted by the Coordinador del Colegio de Filosofía, Mr. Professor Miguel Zapata.

Scripta Philosophiæ Naturalis

To channel and disseminate the Circle's output, the journal Scripta Philosophiæ Naturalis was created in 2011. Twenty-three issues have been published to date. It has a reading committee, is digital, open access, biannual and trilingual (Spanish, French, English).

The growth of the Philosophy of Nature Circle, the continuity and invariance of its orientation, the existence of symposia that bring together people who are spatially so far apart and the series of collective publications reveal, day by day, the solidity of its roots.

Programme of the IX Symposium of the Philosophy of Nature Circle

Host: College of Philosophy, National Autonomous University of Mexico

Wednesday, June 14th

10.00-10.50: Presentation
11.00-11.50: Jean-Pierre Llored (France), « Ontologies relationnelles et plates : Quelles perspectives in philosophie de la nature? »
12.00-12.50: Teresa Arrieta (Peru), "Transhumanism"
13.00-13.50: Eugenio Andrade (Colombia), "Mental representation. A problem for the philosophy of nature?"

13.50-15.00: Lunch

15.00-15.50: Samuel Herrera (Chile), « Imaginative activity and intellect in Gassendi »
16.00-16.50: Ricardo Mauricio Ágreda Rojas (Peru), « Gaston Bachelard's philosophy of no. Are there non-Lavoisian chemistries? »
17.00-17.50: Arturo Romero (Mexico), "Simondon, philosopher of nature".

Thursday, June 15th

10.00-10.50: Miguel Espinoza (France), « The causal continuity of nature »
11.00-11.50: Joseph Hubert Ngon Biram (Cameroun), « De l'ontologie du monde naturel : vers une approach minimaliste ? »
12.00-12.50: François-Winner Omba Kalonda (République Démocratique du Congo), « Matière-Énergie-Existant »
13.00-13.50: Martín López Corredoira (Spain), "Cosmology for skeptics"

13.50-15.00: Lunch

15.00-15.50: Luis Cabrera (Mexico), "Gersonides' arguments against the Ptolemaic model of epicycles"
16.00-16.50: Isabel Gutiérrez (Mexico), «Philosophy of nature in modern empiricism»
17.00-17.50: Leonel Toledo (Mexico), «Philosophy of nature in Early Modernity».

Friday, June 16th

10.00-10.50: Carmen Silva (Mexico), « Christian medieval medicine »
11.00-11.50: Yves Zarka (France), "Pasteur"
12.00-12.50: Ruth Castillo (Venezuela, Italy), "Thinking science from philosophy: a renewed vision"
13.00-13.50: Charfeddine Boughdiri (Tunisie), « La mondialisation et l’avenir de la Philosophie »

13.50 -15.00: Lunch

15.00-15.50: Óscar Javier Pérez Lora (Colombia), « The essence-existence problem seen through model theory »
16.00-16.50: Diego Rivas (Peru), "On an active understanding of ethical impasses since Wittgenstein"
17.00-18.00: Round Table.