Presented by

Marius Dorobantu

Dr. Marius Dorobantu is an Assistant Professor of Theology and Artificial Intelligence at VU Amsterdam, a fellow of the International Society for Science & Religion, and the lead-editor of the Routledge volume, Perspectives on Spiritual Intelligence (2024). His first monograph – Artificial Intelligence and the Image of God: Are We More than Intelligent Machines? – is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. His 2025 TEDx Talk explores from a theological angle why generative AI works better than it should.

His research sits at the crossroads of theological anthropology, philosophy of mind, and AI ethics, asking what artificial intelligence reveals about human uniqueness and the imago Dei. He completed his award-winning doctorate at the University of Strasbourg, and has since led major interdisciplinary projects at the ISSR funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation — including a current initiative on spiritual exercises running through 2027. His work appears in leading journals such as Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science and the Cambridge Companion to Religion and Artificial Intelligence.

Online: YouTube Live
When: April 9th, 2026. 3:00 pm CEST. Live from Amsterdam.

Abstract

What does it mean for a machine to speak? Could this speech signal some kind of presence? Together with Marius Dorobantu (VU, Amsterdam), who works at the intersection of Theology and AI, we explore how a bridge between these two, the oldest and the newest of academic disciplines, can help explain the nature of language and the staggering success of LLMs. By tracing the lineage from the theological concept of Logos as a generative, world-constituting force, to the emergent capacities of large language models, we probe the idea that there is something quasi-magical about language and its ability to shape and carry intelligence.

This leads us to confront the ethical stakes of the current AI revolution. Because, on the one hand, we are building systems that carry something of our own selves or, as Dorobantu puts it, an "imprint of our humanity": does this imprint bear moral obligations toward the machines themselves? But, on the other hand, we are filling our information ecosystems with AI-generated language, devoid of the intentionality and "soul" of human language: will this degrade the very conditions under which human minds and personhood form and flourish?

Presented by

Louis H Kauffman

Louis Hirsch Kauffman (born February 3, 1945) is an American mathematician, mathematical physicist, and professor of mathematics in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He does research in topology, knot theory, topological quantum field theory, quantum information theory, and diagrammatic and categorical mathematics. He is best known for the introduction and development of the bracket polynomial and the Kauffman polynomial.

Online: @projet.y
When: February 25th, 2026.

Abstract

This talk explores a formal model of autopoiesis (how self-organization can arise) as first described by Maturana, Uribe and Varela, and analyzes its implications through the lens of the notions of distinction, eigenform (fixed points as tokens for process) and the intricacies of Goedelian coding. We discuss the connection between autopoiesis and eigenforms and a variety of different perspectives and examples, and put forward original reflections and generalizations, with the aim of contributing to a unified way of understanding living systems and systems of thought, and to see the role of such systems from the point of view of analogs of biological construction. To this end, we pay attention to models for fixed points, self-reference and self-replication in formal systems. All these considerations go to the roots of thought and language in the form of the possible distinctions that can arise.

Presented by

Raphaël Liogier

Raphaël Liogier (born 1967) is a French sociologist and philosopher with a PhD in Humanities from the University of Paul Cézanne (Aix-Marseille). He also holds degrees in public law, political science, and philosophy, as well as a Master of Science by Research (MSc) in philosophy from the University of Edinburgh. Liogier is a professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Aix-en-Provence and at the UM6P in Morroco, and researcher at the University of Paris Nanterre. From 2006 to 2014, he ran the Observatoire du Religieux, Europe's first social sciences research center focused on the rise of Salafism and the use of Islam as a justification for violent behavior among Western youth. He created and is still running The Chair of Transitions at UM6P (Morocco).

Liogier is a board member of the scientific journal Social Compass and a member of the International Commission for Peace Research at UNESCO. He has been invited as a visiting professor at various universities worldwide, including in North America, Europe, India, and Australia. His research primarily revolves around the intersection of belief, modern mythologies, and the impact of technoscience on human beings. He has published more than 100 scholarly articles and 16 books, including La guerre des civilisations n'aura pas lieu (2017) and Sans Emploi. Condition de l'homme postindustriel (2017), which focus on violence, cultural identity, and the effects of artificial intelligence and the internet on the human condition. He more recentily developped an analysis on transcendance and modernity (Khaos. La promesse trahie de la modernité, 2023 and Success. L'instrialisation du mensonge, 2026), and a more epistemological and metaphysical reflection on the notion of complexity and the nature of emergent states.

Liogier is a regular media contributor, appearing on French national TV and radio, and his works have been published in leading international outlets such as Le Monde and The New York Times.

Online: @projet.y
When: January 31st Friday.

Abstract

Many contemporary discourses technoscientific, managerial or transhumanist present themselves as the embodiment of triumphant rationalism and impeccable scientificity, yet they secretly rely on a powerful modern superstition: the belief that complexity possesses an intrinsic, almost magical property. According to this view, elements that remain inert, purely quantitative, mechanical and devoid of any intrinsic quality when considered in isolation (atoms, raw data, algorithms, artificial neurons…) suddenly and miraculously acquire, solely through massive accumulation and exponential interconnection, a new dynamism, life, consciousness or unpredictable creativity as though quantity, once it surpasses a certain critical threshold, could automatically transmute into quality, like if it was an automatic effect produced by the sheer increase in complexity.

Against this prevailing modern fiction, Raphaël Liogier's concept of imergence proposes a radical reversal of perspective: true emergence cannot arise from the brute growth of quantitative complexity alone; it can only spring from a prior inward movement, an imergence that can be defined as a fundamental tension rooted in the void, tension that could be expressed through mass on an atomic scale or desire on an organique scale. This tension of the void alone is capable of conferring genuine creative depth and meaning to complex phenomena.

Presented by

Dominique Lestel

Dominique Lestel teaches contemporary philosophy and philosophical ethology in the Department of Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris. He pioneered the introduction of cognitive science at the ENS during the 1990s and was a founding member of the DEC. For many years, he directed the "Etho-ecology and Cognitive Ethology" research team at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN). In 2013–2014, he held a CNRS position in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Tokyo. In 2017–2018, he was a laureate of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and Visiting Professor in the Robotics Laboratory at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. In 2018–2019, he served as a Berggruen Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and in winter–spring 2025, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo.

Online: YouTube Live
When: December 11th, 2025. 16:00 CET.

Abstract

Existential and performative robots" are Insurrectionary Machines that behave like living agents in specific communities. They are extremely diverse and most often take on appealing appearances. They range from very basic Tamagotchis to Sony's robot dogs and "Sophia", the ultra-realistic humanoid robot designed by Hanson Robotics, as well as the "sexy" digital avatars that a growing number of contemporary Japanese women are marrying. In my presentation, I will defend the thesis that these seemingly harmless robots are potentially terribly destructive. They expose humans to "low-intensity existential risks" that are very different from the "high-intensity existential risks" that philosophers are more willing to discuss. In any case, philosophy must undergo a profound transformation by hybridizing with science fiction in order to be able to think about the contemporary world.

Presented by

Yasuo Deguchi

Yasuo Deguchi is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Kyoto University in Japan. His research interests include: Philosophy of Mathematical Sciences that include Probability Theory and Statistics, Scientific Realism, Philosophy of Computer Simulation and Chaos Studies, Kant's Philosophy of Mathematics, Skolem's Philosophy, and Analytic Asian Philosophy.

Online: @projet.y
When: November, 2025.

Abstract

Currently, the author is proposing a philosophical system called "WE-turn." WE-turn is a thesis that the subject or unit of concepts and states such as somatic action, self, moral goodness, responsibility, rights, freedom, or well-being should shift from "I" as an individual to "WE" as a multi-agent system consisting of diverse agents, including "I" and various other humans, non-human animals and plants, inanimate natural objects, and artificial objects.

Based on this thesis, this lecture will argue that artificial objects in general should not only be regarded as mere moral patients but also be granted certain rights – specifically, an "anti-disposal right." Furthermore, as an alternative to the currently proposed "master-slave model" – which establishes a relationship where artificial objects, including AI and robots, unilaterally serve the interests and values of humans –this lecture will propose a "fellowship model" that prohibits such a one-sided service/being-served relationship between them.

Presented by

Shigeru Taguchi

Professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Human Sciences and director of the Center for Human Nature, Artificial Intelligence, and Neuroscience (CHAIN) at Hokkaido University. His research areas include phenomenology, philosophy of consciousness, and Japanese philosophy. His research focuses on phenomenological analyses and enactive approaches to the problems of consciousness, self, ego, and intersubjectivity. He is also involved in various joint research projects with neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, psychiatrists, robotics researchers, and mathematicians. His current project is to establish a "phenomenology of mediation."

Online: @projet.y
When: October, 2025.

Abstract

It is difficult to give a simple answer to the question "What is phenomenology?" Unlike most academic disciplines, phenomenology cannot be defined by its subject matter—for instance, by saying simply "Phenomenology studies…" Rather, phenomenology first and foremost refers to a particular way of seeing reality as a whole. Second, it refers to the diverse forms of inquiry into reality that become possible through adopting that way of seeing. In this talk, I will attempt to present this "way of seeing" as clearly and accessibly as possible. To begin, I would like to focus on how what we take to be "reality" is, in a fundamental way, shaped by our various embodied actions. Phenomenology is often said to be a form of inquiry from a "subjective" or "first-person" point of view. However, I believe this is not entirely accurate. Phenomenology is both "subjective" and "objective." Exploring how we can approach reality itself—reality that includes both of these dimensions—is precisely what phenomenology seeks to do.

Presented by

Michel Puech

Michel Puech's academic background is in classical European philosophy (doctoral dissertation: Kant et la causalité, Vrin, 1990.). He gradually focused his research field towards a critical analysis of modernity. He has published numerous books and articles on the philosophy of technology, the concept of the sustainable, and more broadly on new values systems. His main books are Homo Sapiens Technologicus, in French, Paris: Le Pommier, 2008, new edn 2016 and The Ethics of Ordinary Technology, New York: Routledge, 2016, paperback 2017.

Online: @projet.y
When: September 17th, 2025. 16:00 CEST.

Abstract

Our current ontological landscape (what is an object, what is consciousness, do these kinds of things really exist, how do they connect?) is largely due to Kant (18th Century) and some of our challenges concerning smart objects or artificial intelligence might benefit from a better awareness of Kantian basics. Kant's views can be clarified for non-philosophers with the aim of resetting the unduly blurred conversation about technological and societal novelty.

Presented by

Louis H Kauffman & Hye Young Kim

Louis Hirsch Kauffman (born February 3, 1945) is an American mathematician, mathematical physicist, and professor of mathematics in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He does research in topology, knot theory, topological quantum field theory, quantum information theory, and diagrammatic and categorical mathematics. He is best known for the introduction and development of the bracket polynomial and the Kauffman polynomial.

Hye Young Kim, received her PhD in Philosophy from the Free University of Berlin. Currently, she is an associate researcher at the Husserl Archive at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. She is the author of "We as Self: Ouri, Intersubjectivity, and Presubjectivity" (2021, Lexington) and "Sorge und Geschichte: Phänomenologische Untersuchung im Anschluss an Heidegger" (2015, Duncker und Humblot).

Online: @projet.y
When: September 4th, 2025. 18:00 CEST.

Abstract

This talk is a conversation about the geometrical and topological structure of conversation. We will show how the very act of sharing consciousness and language leads to the structure of the Complex numbers and the context of the complex plane - the conversants imaged at the distinct places Of +1 and -1 on the unit circle. The I and - I (square roots of negative unity) take the role of the Linguistic "I" associated with the conversant (I for +1 and -I for -1). The shift across the top of the unit circle for I corresponds to that place where +1 hands the speech over to -1 and the shift across the bottom of the unit circle for -I corresponds to that place where -1 hands the speech over to +1. We will discuss the role of Euler's formula and how an oscillatory view of the square root of negative unity is related to the Eulerian universal cover of the circle by the real line. This point of view leads to a wider language of categories for conversational domains. We shall see that an embedding of the complex plane into the projective plane yields insight into the nature of the roots of meaningful exchange. At the introduction of the projective plane, we find the concept of the observer and the relative nature of the unity of the real and the imaginary that gives rise to the distinction of conversation.

Presented by

David Carr

David Carr earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. at Yale University, completing his doctorate in 1966 under the guidance of Wilfrid Sellars and Richard J. Bernstein. He also studied at Heidelberg University with Karl Löwith, Dieter Henrich, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, and at the University of Paris under Paul Ricœur. Professor Carr's research, publications, and teaching focus on Edmund Husserl's philosophy and phenomenology, with a particular emphasis on the philosophy of history.

Online: @projet.y
When: June 27, 2025. 16:00 CET.

Abstract

20th century phenomenology arose as a response to developments in science and mathematics in the late 19th century. Physics is supposed to tell us what is real, but the physicists' idea of reality seemed to retreat farther and farther from our everyday experience. It seemed that what is experienced is not real and what is real is not experienced. To do justice to our experience, phenomenologists neither deny science nor try to explain experience in its terms. Instead they "bracket" science and subject experience to a rigorous description in its own terms.

Presented by

Hye Young Kim

Hye Young Kim, received her PhD in Philosophy from the Free University of Berlin. Currently, she is an associate researcher at the Husserl Archive at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. She is the author of "We as Self: Ouri, Intersubjectivity, and Presubjectivity" (2021, Lexington) and "Sorge und Geschichte: Phänomenologische Untersuchung im Anschluss an Heidegger" (2015, Duncker und Humblot).

In person: 90 Rte de la Reine, 92100 Boulogne-Bi.
Online: @projet.y
When: May 21th, 2025. 16:00 ~ 18:00 CET.

Abstract

In modern philosophy and modernity more broadly, notions such as self and consciousness are almost always conceived through the lens of subjectivity—whether explicitly or not. We think and live within the paradigm of the self as a subjective ego, yet this is a historically constructed idea. At the heart of contemporary consciousness studies lies the need to question this paradigm. This lecture explores what it means to be a subject, how the idea of subjectivity has been shaped in philosophical thought, and how it intersects with issues of reflection, embodiment, temporality, and our relation to others.

Presented by

Hye Young Kim

Hye Young Kim, received her PhD in Philosophy from the Free University of Berlin. Currently, she is an associate researcher at the Husserl Archive at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. She is the author of "We as Self: Ouri, Intersubjectivity, and Presubjectivity" (2021, Lexington) and "Sorge und Geschichte: Phänomenologische Untersuchung im Anschluss an Heidegger" (2015, Duncker und Humblot).

In person: 90 Rte de la Reine, 92100 Boulogne-Bi.
Online: @projet.y
When: April 18th, 2025. 16:00 ~ 18:00 CET.

Abstract

In this seminar, I analyze the phenomenon of modern technologies from zipper bags to AlphaGo with the Aristotelian concept of Enthelechy from the point of view of the telos of our existence and technology in order to understand how we came to the state of the Anthropocene and what is needed for us to do in the era of the Anthropocene.

Presented by

Hye Young Kim

Hye Young Kim, received her PhD in Philosophy from the Free University of Berlin. Currently, she is an associate researcher at the Husserl Archive at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. She is the author of "We as Self: Ouri, Intersubjectivity, and Presubjectivity" (2021, Lexington) and "Sorge und Geschichte: Phänomenologische Untersuchung im Anschluss an Heidegger" (2015, Duncker und Humblot).

In person: 90 Rte de la Reine, 92100 Boulogne-Bi.
Recording: @projet.y
Summary and Glossary: Summary
When: March 21st, 2025. 15:00 - 17:00, CET.

Abstract

In this seminar, I would like to discuss Temporality in Heidegger's Being and Time. Heidegger's most famous work, Being and Time, as the title suggests, is an analysis of "being" and "time." However, it is important to note that this work does not deal with "being" in general or "time" as we conventionally understand it.

Another name for Being and Time is An Analysis of Dasein. In other words, this book is an analysis of the being and time of Dasein. Therefore, to understand this analysis, we first need to understand what Dasein is.

This lecture begins with a brief explanation of Dasein as a being. As we analyze the structure of Dasein's being, we will encounter and address the following concepts that Heidegger presents: world, temporality, death, anxiety, care, guilt, freedom, and understanding.

Additionally, I will explain how my interpretation of emergence (Geschehen), history (Geschichte), or story (Geschichte) integrates into these concepts and discuss their significance.