Charles S. Peirce’s Neglected Argument for the Reality of God: Contemporary Perspectives

International Conference from June 9-11, 2025 in Tübingen

Charles S. Peirce's article "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God" represents the most extended treatment of a religious topic that he produced during a half-century of philosophizing.

Published in 1908, it has continued to remain somewhat neglected, drawing the interest over the years of only a handful of scholars specializing in the study of Peirce's thought.The rationale for this conference is the conviction that it deserves much more serious attention from contemporary philosophers and theologians. It embodies not only the outline of a pragmatic philosophical theology, but also one of the most mature articulations of Peirce's theory of inquiry

The twelve presentations included in this conference are dedicated to the careful interpretation of selected features of Peirce's argument, as well as comparisons with other thinkers and points of view.

Contact and registration: sekretariat.st-1spam prevention@ev-theologie.uni-tuebingen.de

 

 

 


Monday, June 9 th

9:20 Gathering in front of Hotel Domizil, for a joint walk (guided) to the conference location (Theologicum)

10:00 Opening Remarks
Prof. Dr. Gesche Linde (Faculty of Protestant Theology • Eberhard Karls Universitaet Tuebingen • Tuebingen)

10:30 Belief, Meaning and Action. A Pragmatist Theme in Peirce's ‘Neglected Argument for the Reality of God’
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schlösser (Philosophical Seminar • Eberhard Karls Universitaet Tuebingen • Tuebingen)

11:45 Refreshments

12:00 The Place of Phaneroscopy in the Muser’s Bag of Edge-Tools
Prof. Dr. André De Tienne (Department of Philosophy • Indiana University • Indianapolis, IN • U.S.A.)

1:15 Lunch Break (Catering)

2:30 Aesthetic Dialogicality in the Play of Musement: Does the NA offer a new Grounding of the Normative Sciences?
Prof. Dr. Alessandro Topa (Department of Philosophy • The American University in Cairo • Cairo • Egypt / Institute of Greek and Latin Studies & Philosophy • University of Bamberg • Bamberg)

3:45 Refreshments

4.00 Charles S. Peirce and Simone Weil on Quality of Attention: Towards an Ethics of Perception
Dr. Kathleen A. Hull (Independent Scholar • Boston, MA • U.S.A.) 

5:15 Refreshments

5:30 The “Neglected Argument”: The Rest of the Story
Prof. em. Dr. Douglas Anderson (Philosophy Faculty • Southern Illinois University • Carbondale, IL • U.S.A.) 

6:45 Dinner on your own

Tuesday, June 10th

9:00 Scotistic Love, Purpose, and Apophasis in Peirce’s Neglected Argument
Prof. Dr. Greylyn Robert Hydinger (Philosophy/Theology Department • Gannon University • Erie, PA • U.S.A.) 

10:15 Peirce's NA and Iqbal's Philosophical Test for the Reality of God
Prof. Dr. Basit Bilal Koshul (Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences • Lahore University of Management Sciences • Lahore, Punjab • Pakistan)

11:30 Refreshments

11:45 Maps, Graphs, and God
Dr. Gary Slater (Institute for Christian Social Sciences • Faculty of Catholic Theology Universität Muenster • Muenster)

1:00 Lunch Break (Catering)

2:00 Reflections on Peirce's Argument-Argumentation Distinction in Light of the Contemporary Epistemology of Theological Reasoning
Dr. Winfried Lücke (Faculty of Protestant Theology • Eberhard Karls Universitaet Tuebingen • Tuebingen)

3:15 Mediation of the General and the Particular in a ‘Divine Pedagogy’? Notes on the Revelatory Character of the ‘Pure Play’
Anne-Kathrin Fischbach (Faculty of Theology • Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg • Freiburg)

4:30 Joint walk to the Evangelisches Stift

5:00 Guided tour through the Evangelisches Stift

6:00 Punting boat trip on the Neckar

8:00 Conference dinner

Wednesday, June 11th

10:15 God and Experience
Prof. Dr. Christoph Seibert (Department of Protestant Theology • University of Hamburg • Hamburg)

11:30 Refreshments

11:45 Peirce’s Experimental A Posteriori Version of the Ontological Argument
Prof. Dr. Michael Raposa (Department of Religion, Culture & Society • Lehigh University • Bethlehem, PA • U.S.A.)

1-2:30 Concluding Remarks
Prof. Dr. Raposa
Lunch Break and Farewell