From June 25-28, 2025, the Philosophy and Ethics Group of the Faculty Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences of the Eindhoven University of Technology will host the 24th biennial international conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology.
Conference theme: “The Intimate Technological Revolution”.
Modern technology permeates every aspect of our lives: the technology nestles itself in us (for example through brain implants), between us (through social media like Facebook), knows more and more about us (via big data and techniques such as emotion recognition), and is continually learning to behave more like us (robots and software exhibit intelligent behaviour and can mimic emotions). We refer to this as the intimate technological revolution.
These intimate technologies offer numerous (potential) advantages, such as improving health, enhancing efficiency, increasing safety, and fostering human connection, but they may also entail undesirable developments. As it often affects people directly and personally, intimate technology sparks many social, ethical, and philosophical issues. The intimate character of these technologies introduces novel forms of vulnerabilities and risks, influencing our physical well-being, personal identity, social relationships, and broader societal structures. They also create new roles and tasks for engineers, policy makers and other societal stakeholders and raise new questions for philosophers of sciences and ethicists. The opportunities, vulnerabilities, and risks of technologies must be picked up to direct the intimate technological revolution in a responsible way. At this conference, we aim to reflect on the societal and ethical issues of these technologies, which requires us to rethink and reformulate ethical frameworks and social practices, and maybe even requiring novel methods, concepts and values.
Based on M. Birna van Riemsdijk (2018), Intimate Computing, Abstract for the Philosophy Conference “Dimensions of Vulnerability”, and Rinie van Est et al. (2014), Intimate technology. The battle for our body and behaviour (Rathenau Instituut).
The conference will start on Wednesday, June 25, and will end on Saturday, June 28. In principle, SPT2025 will be conducted in person, all speakers will present their work on-site. Online sessions (live-streamed) will be set up for the keynote presentations and some of the panels and paper sessions in the main conference room. Furthermore, we will make use of a virtual conference environment where online participants (as well as on-site participants) can interact socially.
Important dates
Conference
- Draft-paper deadline for Author-Meets-Critics session: December 16th 2024
- Abstract submission deadline for SPT: January 15, 2025
- Expected notification of acceptance decision: February 15, 2025
Awards
- Paper submission deadline for SPT Graduate Student Paper Award: January 6, 2025
- Paper submission deadline for SPT Early Careerd Award, April 1 2025
Registration
- Registration opens: February 1, 2025
- Registration with early bird fee: February 1 - April 1, 2025
- Registration with regular fee: April 2 - June 18, 2025