Please find the book of abstracts here.
Registration, opening and closing ceremonies and all keynote presentations will be held at Aula Parva.
Parallel sessions with odd numbers will be held at room 301, Faculty of Philosophy.
Parallel sessions with even numbers will be held at room 302, Faculty of Philosophy.
Day 1 June 20, Monday
8:45 - 9:15 Registration (Aula Parva)
9:15 - 9:30 Opening ceremony (Aula Parva)
9:30 - 11:00 Keynote 1 (60+30 min) (Aula Parva, chair Vilius Dranseika)
Florian Cova (University of Geneva, Switzerland) Can Belief in Free Will Be a Biological Adaptation?
11:00 - 11:30 Coffee break 1
11:30 - 13:00 Parallel Sessions 1, 2 (30 min/person)
Parallel Session 1 Free Will and Responsibility (room 301, chair Oscar A. Piedrahita)
Amit Pundik (Tel Aviv University, Israel) Predictive Evidence in Criminal Trials: Why Criminal Law Should Treat People as If They Have Unpredictable Free Will
Przemysław Zawadzki (Jagiellonian University, Poland) Is It Justified to Punish Non-Neurotypical Agents on the Grounds of Free Will and Moral Responsibility?
Siegfried Van Duffel (online) (Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan) The Will and Morality
Parallel Session 2 Beyond the Traditional Perception of Fate (room 302, chair Geir Sigurðsson)
Vytis Silius (Vilnius University, Lithuania, and Sun Yat-sen University, P.R. China) Against the Passive Psychology of Fate
Ville V. Kokko (University of Turku, Finland) Time to Move Beyond the Question of Determinism
Paulius Rimkevičius (Vilnius University and Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania) On the Nature of Philosophical Beliefs
13:00 - 14:30 Lunch break (own expenses)
14:30 - 16:00 Parallel Sessions 3, 4 (30 min/person)
Parallel Session 3 Free Will and Necessity in the European Tradition (room 301, chair Paulius Rimkevičius)
Nadezda Volkova (online) (independent scholar) Plotinus on Free Will and Descent of Souls into Bodies
Vaiva Kubeckienė (Vilnius University, Lithuania) Necessity and Choice in the Context of Vanitas in the Baroque Culture
Matthew Norris (University of Reading, UK) A Thomist-Molinist Synthesis, Necessity, and Creaturely Freedom
Parallel Session 4 Varieties of Luck (room 302, chair Ville V. Kokko)
Tori Cotton (The University of Arkansas, USA) Aristotle’s Luck
Oscar A. Piedrahita (University of California, Irvine, USA) The Modal Moral Luck Problem
Filippos Stamatiou (online) (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) Mental Luck
16:00 - 16:30 Coffee break 2
16:30 - 18:00 Parallel Sessions 5, 6 (30 min/person)
Parallel Session 5 Cultural Varieties of Agency (room 301, chair Przemysław Zawadzki)
Vilius Dranseika (Vilnius University, Lithuania) Threats to Free Will. Ordinary Concerns vs Philosophical Theories
Lieke Asma (Munich School of Philosophy, Germany) Free Will, First-Person Authority, and Cultural Perspectives
Jūratė Charenkova (online) (Vilnius University, Lithuania) Cultural, Social and Individual Facets of “Choice” in the Context of Informal Care Decision-Making
Parallel Session 6 Buddhist Perspective on Agency (room 302, chair Vytis Silius)
Rafal K. Stepien (online) (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) Does a Buddha Do? A Buddhist Conception of Non-Conceptual, Non-Intentional Volition
Gediminas Giedraitis (online) (Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary) Spontaneity as a Path to Freedom: A Few Notes on Spontaneity and Karma in the Treatise on Eighteen Kinds of Emptiness (Shiba kong lun 十八空論)
Timothy M. Kwiatek (online) (Cornell University, USA) Bodhisattvas and Above Average Agency
18:00 - 21:30 Reception buffet dinner (for conference speakers only; "Valdovų Rūmai" restaurant, the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, Katedros a. 4)
Day 2 June 21, Tuesday
9:30 - 11:00 Parallel Sessions 7, 8 (30 min/person)
Parallel Session 7 Alternative Conceptions of Freedom (room 301, chair Katerina Gajdošová)
Agnė Veisaitė (City University of Hong Kong) Accumulative Identities as Precondition for Freedom in the Zhuangzi
Mercedes Valmisa Oviedo (Gettysburg College, USA) We Are Not So Free, But Oh, That’s Why We Can Be Free at All
Geir Sigurðsson (University of Iceland) Confucian Challenges to Contingency: the ‘Daological’ Limitation to Human Freedom
Parallel Session 8 Destiny, Freedom and Luck in Islamic and Jewish World (room 302, chair Audrius Beinorius)
Emilio González Ferrín (University of Seville, Spain) Tawakkul: Muslim Sense of Fate in the Light of Modernity
Ina Kiseliova (Lithuanian Culture Research Institute, Lithuania) The Akbarian Tradition: The Mystery of Destiny (sirr al qadar) and Free Will (ikhtiyār) in Ibn Arabi
Gad Marcus (University of Haifa, Israel) The Creation of Luck in Jewish Sources
11:00 - 11:30 Coffee break 3
11:30 - 13:00 Keynote 2 (60+30 min) (Aula Parva, chair Renatas Berniūnas)
Rebecca Empson (University College London, UK) Freedom in Constraint: The (Geo)Politics of Peoples and Nations
13:00 - 14:30 Lunch break (own expenses)
14:30 - 16:00 Keynote 3 (60+30 min) (Aula Parva, chair Vytis Silius)
Robin R. Wang (Loyola Marymount University, USA) The Gift of Heaven and the Perplexity of Human Mind: The Daoist Transformation of Ming 命 (Destiny, Fate, Allot)
16:00 - 16:30 Coffee break 4
16:30 - 18:30 Parallel Sessions 9, 10 (30 min/person)
Parallel Session 9 Fate Navigators and Negotiators Today (room 301, chair Gad Marcus)
Michele Hanks (New York University, USA) “There are No Coincidences”: Navigating Fate, Time, and Coincidence among New York City Psychics
Audrius Beinorius (Vilnius University, Lithuania) Negotiating Fate: On Divination, Agency and Indian Astrologers
Kristina Šliavaitė (Vilnius University, Lithuania) “Grace Came Upon Me”: Negotiating Human Agency in the Process of Religious Awakening Among Members of Russian Orthodox Church Community in Lithuania
Drew Chastain (online) (Loyola University, USA) Divination, Free Will, & Spirituality
Parallel Session 10 Freedom, Karma, and Destiny in the Chinese Culture (room 302, chair Margus Ott)
Katerina Gajdošová (Charles University, Czech Republic) Being One with the Dao – Notion of Freedom in the Chinese Huang-Lao Texts
Federico Brusadelli (University of Naples "L'Orientale", Italy, and Polish Institute of Advanced Studies, Poland) Han Fei and Thomas Hobbes: A Trans-Chronic Dialogue on Free Will, Power and Politics
Xing Lan (online) (The University of Edinburgh, UK) Dance Steps in the Heaven: A Preliminary Discussion on “Stars and Creatures”
20:00 FILM SCREENING “Managers of Luck” (directed by Eglė Vertelytė) - a documentary about astrologers of West Bengal (Cinema "Pasaka", Šv. Ignoto g. 4; registration for non-speakers)
Day 3 June 22, Wednesday
11:00 - 13:00 Parallel Sessions 11, 12 (30 min/person)
Parallel Session 11 Autonomy, Agency, and Fate: Practical Aspects (room 301, chair Michele Hanks)
Renatas Berniūnas (Vilnius University, Lithuania) Bound to Share or Not to Care? The Force of Fate, Chance, Luck, God, and Choice
Mieke Matthyssen (Ghent University, Belgium) Negotiating Fate in Contemporary China: The Paradoxical and Changing Role of Ming in Psychological Wellbeing
Robert A. Carleo III (online) (East China Normal University, P.R. China) Intersubjective Autonomy in Medical Decision Making
Miklós Nyírő (University of Miskolc, Hungary) Free Will versus Medial Agent. What the Voice Systems of Languages Tell Us about Notions of Agency
Parallel Session 12 Choice and Autonomy (room 302, chair Vilius Dranseika)
Concetta Papapicco (online) (University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy) The Free Will of Choice: The Case of Brain Drain People from Italy
Shuang Liu (Leiden University, Netherlands) “A Moth Darting Into the Fire” and “Drinking Poison to Quench Thirst”—Representations of “Choice” in Chinese Migrant Worker Literature
Jos van de Mortel (Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands) The Sasquatch of the Educational World: In Search of the Autonomous Teenager
13:00 - 14:30 Lunch break (own expenses)
14:30 - 16:00 Parallel Sessions 13, 14 (30 min/person)
Parallel Session 13 Psychological and Neuroscientific Dimensions of Control (room 301, chair Renatas Berniūnas)
Algirdas Tiuninas (Charles University, Czech Republic) Tracing the Psychological Underpinnings of the Free-Will Debate
Paweł Zięba (Jagiellonian University, Poland) Can Unconscious Perception Guide Action?
Filip Stawski (Casimir the Great University, Poland) Affordances and Self-Control: A Neuropsychological View
Parallel Session 14 Transcultural View of Freedom, Choice, and Autonomy (room 302, chair Agnė Veisaitė)
Margus Ott (Tallinn University, Estonia) Transforming Freedom
Paul J. D’Ambrosio (online) (East China Normal University, P.R. China) A Reflection on Free Will and Contingency (with Reference to Confucianism)
Jana S. Rošker (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) Choice and Autonomy in the Chinese Context: Li Zehou’s Concept of Free Will
16:00 - 16:30 Coffee break 5
16:30 - 18:00 Keynote 4 (60+30 min) (Aula Parva, chair Audrius Beinorius)
Rick Repetti (City University of New York, USA) Freedom of the Mind: A Buddhist Argument for Soft Compatibilism
18:00 Closing remarks (Aula Parva)
Day 4 June 23, Thursday (for conference speakers only)
9:00 - 10:15 Guided tour of Vilnius University architectural ensemble
10:15 - 10:30 A short break before the bus
10:30 - 11:30 Bus to Trakai (from the conference venue)
11:30 - 13:00 Free time (and/or lunch - own expense)
13:00 - 14:30 Tour to Trakai castle (or continued free time)
14:30 - 14:45 A short break before the bus
14:45 - 15:45 Bus back to Vilnius University (to the conference venue)
