Frederick the Great and the Philosophy of the Enlightenment

International Conference, University of Bucharest, 3-4 November 2023

Venue: 7-13 Pitar Moș St. (and online)

Sala de Consiliu (3 November) British Cultural Studies Centre (4 November)

Programme

All times are Bucharest times (UTC/GMT +2)

Friday, 3 November 2023

(Room: Sala de Consiliu)

09:45 – Welcome and Introduction

Chair: Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet

10:00-11:00 – Avi Lifschitz (University of Oxford), Frederick the Great at the limits of Enlightenment

11:00-11:15 – Coffee break

11:15-12:15 – Sorana Corneanu (University of Bucharest), “To be in error is our lot in life”: Frederick and the controversy over prejudices

12:15-14:15 – Lunch break

Chair: Sorana Corneanu

14:15-15:15 – Henny Blomme (University of Brussels), Frederick on the innocence of errors of the mind

15:15-15:30 – Coffee break

15:30-16:30 – Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet (University of Bucharest/Romanian Academy), “En le faisant raisonner lui-même”: Frederick on the autonomy of reason and the philosophical spirit

16:30-16:50 – Coffee break

16:50-17:50 – Stephen Howard (University of Leuven), Frederick, Kant, deception, and Enlightenment

19:00 Conference dinner

Saturday, 4 November 2023

(Room: British Cultural Studies Centre)

Chair: Alexandra Bacalu

09:30-10:30 – François Duchesneau (University of Montreal), Maupertuis’s last memoir to the Berlin Academy: epilogue to a scientific controversy

10:30-10:45 – Coffee break

10:45-11:45 – Fritz Nagel (University of Basel), Frederick the Great, the Bernoulli and Leonhard Euler. Some modest remarks concerning the King’s attitude towards science and scientists

11:45-12:00 – Coffee break

12:00-13:00 – Alessandro Nannini (University of Bucharest), “Viel Glück zum neuen collegio”! Frederick the Great, Wolffianism and Meier’s course on Locke

13:00-14:30 – Lunch break

Chair: Alessandro Nannini

14:30-15:30 – Jan Forsman (University of Iowa) and Jani Hakkarainen (Tampere University), The Prince and the Philosopher: Frederick and Émilie Du Châtelet’s “On Freedom”

15-30-15:45 – Coffee break

15:45-16:45 – Richard Elliott (University of London), Nietzsche’s Frederick the Great: the will to deceive, and tensions in the Enlightenment project

16:45-17:15 – Coffee break

17:15-18:30 – Discussion of Alessandro Nannini’s book Il segno e l’immagine. Estetica e semiotica delle arti da Du Bos a Lessing (Mimesis, 2023) with Márcio Suzuki (University of São Paulo) (in English)

Conference venue: 7-13 Pitar Mos Str., Bucharest

Zoom link available from

tinca.prunea@icub.unibuc.ro or alessandro.nannini@icub.unibuc.ro

A conference from the UEFISCDI research grant Between Truth and Freedom: Enlightenment Answers to Thinking for Oneself (code 105/2021)

organized by Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet and Alessandro Nannini