On 24-25 of October 2025 we will hold a graduate conference at the University of Potsdam.
The conference is dedicated to Wittgenstein’s 1929 Lecture on Ethics – its content, its method, and its relation to other philosophical texts. Participants will examine the importance and lasting significance of Wittgenstein’s text by exploring how it is reflected, echoed, anticipated, or followed by the writings of other philosophers, as well as how its claims can be challenged or critically assessed when read alongside related works.
Most of the speakers at the conference are advanced graduate students from the University of Potsdam and from the University of Tel-Aviv. The conference will also include presentations by the organizers: Prof. Eli Friedlander, Dr. Nimrod Matan, Dr. Gilad Nir and Dr. Jonathan Soen.
On the evening prior to the conference (23.10, 16:00), Dr. Nimrod Matan will give a lecture on Wittgenstein and Weil at the Philosophy Institute Colloquium at the University of Potsdam. The colloquium takes place at Campus am Neuen Palais, Haus 11, Raum 0.09.
The conference on Friday and Saturday (24-25.10) will take place at Campus am Neuen Palais, Haus 8, Raum 0.58.
If you would like to attend, please email us at loecentenary@gmail.com
Here is the program for our conference:
Thursday 23.10
16:00-18:00 Philosophy Institute Colloquium
Nimrod Matan (Beit-Berl): Wittgenstein and Weil: Total Exhaustion
Friday 24.10
9:45-10:00 Opening
10:00-10:40 Elisa Gläser (Potsdam): Wittgenstein on Ethics and the Challenge of Groundlessness: Towards a Practice of Authenticity
10:40-11:20 Noam Goldstein (Tel-Aviv): Knowing from Within and the Very Existence of the World: Between Bergson and Wittgenstein
11:40-12:40 Eli Friedlander (Tel-Aviv): Sub Specie Aeternitatis: Art, Ethics, Religion
14:00-14:40 Einat Aviram (Tel-Aviv): Blessed blue: Wittgenstein’s Lecture on Ethics in Light of Schopenhauer’s Aesthetics
14:40-15:20 Freya Gerz (Potsdam): Acknowledgment as Philosophical Praxis: Reframing Skepticism through Wittgenstein, Cavell, and Aesthetic Media.
15:50-16:30 Leo Sonntag (Potsdam): Wittgenstein's Confession on Ethics
16:30-17:10 Eli Greisman (Tel-Aviv): Sharing a Thought and Sharing a Life: On the Significance of the First Person in the Lecture on Ethics and Cavell
17:30-18:30 Jonathan Soen (Tel-Aviv): "That it is good": Maimonides and Wittgenstein
Saturday 25.10
9:45-10:25 Inbal Tamir (Tel-Aviv): Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard on Ethics and Anxiety
10:25-11:05 Jonathan Dési (Potsdam): Benjamin, Wittgenstein and Chatter
11:20-12:00 Frank Burr (Aberdeen): Ethics and the supernatural in Wittgenstein and Tolstoy
13:30-14:00 Alon Roe (Tel-Aviv): Finitude's Pace: Wittgenstein and the Ethical Tendency
14:00-14:40 Bodo Beyer (Potsdam): The Paradox of Absolute Value
15:00-15:40 Attay Kremer (Tel-Aviv): That the World Exists At All: Wittgenstein and Rosenzweig on Miracle
15:50-16:30 Alexandra Blickhan (Potsdam): TBA
16:30-17:10 Carmel Ben Asher (Tel-Aviv): Imagine a Book: A Reading of the Imaginary Corpora of Wittgenstein and Borges
17:30-18:30 Gilad Nir (Potsdam): Openness to the Enigmatic
The event is supported by the Humboldt Stiftung.