The hybrid workshop, Ethics and Aesthetics in Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein took place on 12th-13th January 2026 at the University of Southampton. It brought together an international selection of esteemed philosophers, interested in broad questions of Value Theory in the work of Arthur Schopenhauer and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The presentations and their proceeding discussions examined previously unexplored resonances and disparities between the two thinkers on these topics, making previously underrecognised links between Wittgenstein’s mystical understanding of value, and the influence it takes from the quasi-religious, salvific role beauty and ethics play in Schopenhauer’s system of thought.
Our first session was a talk by Dr Michael Wee (Wolfson College, Oxford) linking together the resonant mysticality of ethics in Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, and the work of G. E. M. Anscombe. This was followed by Dr Vandana Sharma (University of Delhi), who spoke about the centrality of ‘a change in vision’ in the methods of both thinkers, and the impetus this understanding takes from Indian thought. We ended our first day, then, with a keynote talk by Prof Severin Schroeder (University of Reading) on the sense in which Wittgenstein is a relativist.
Day two opened with a presentation by Fr Juan Rivera-Castro (Boston College) on the centrality of responses to suffering in both Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein’s ethical outlooks. Then, we had our second keynote talk from Prof Hanne Appelqvist (University of Helsinki), arguing that Wittgenstein’s Aesthetic Formalism shows favour to his Kantian influences over Schopenhauer. Tom Bildstein (Université Libre de Bruxelles) led an investigation in our sixth session, tracing Wittgenstein’s idea of “The Problem of Life” to an indirect Schopenhauerian influence, by means of the former’s reading of Tolstoy. Finally, we closed our event with another excellent talk from Dr David Hommen (HHU Düsseldorf) on how we can read Schopenhauer as a proponent of Wittgensteinian “Aspect-seeing”, avant la lettre.
Each talk had a healthy in-person attendance between fifteen and twenty, and a further online attendance between eight and twelve. This range included a wonderful mix of nationalities, genders, and academic positions (from graduate students to emeritus professors). Bringing much-needed conversations to bear between such a diversity of experts on two closely related philosophers has proven thoroughly fruitful. The atmosphere was wonderfully friendly and collegiate, and breaks between presentations were filled with networking, comparative investigation, and a wealth of shared learning. Our hope is that the work done here influences publications which advance the fields of ethical and aesthetic theory from the perspectives of two philosophers who are rarely – though now a little less rarely – brought to bear on Value Theory in unison.
We again thank the BSA for their generous financial support.
BPA/SWIP Good Practice Statement
We maintained fidelity with our initial commitments to this scheme, as outlined in the initial funding application. We intentionally chose to have 1 male and 1 female Keynote speaker.
Dates and times were checked with both keynote speakers well in advance, and dates and offers of childcare provisions were made explicit in all our advertising (including calls for abstracts).
Academic titles were given in all our advertising for both male and female speakers.
Additionally, when selecting our open speakers, we made anonymous rankings to ensure no unconscious gender prejudice in our reviewing; we then made additional reviews of our choices after deanonymisation to ensure we had not selected an all-male line up. We discovered then that we had already selected an excellent female scholar in Dr Vandana Sharma. This did lead to a slight imbalance of males presenting (5 males to 2 females), but we were content with the level of balance we had managed to achieve, given that of the eighteen abstracts we received, only three were by women. This latter point only impressed on us more the importance of ensuring female representation in our conference – as such, we spared no effort to try to have both our female speakers attend in person.
Ultimately, however, we did not find that we had enough funds to support Dr Sharma to come to the UK from Delhi. This meant we were forced into the regrettable decision to have Dr Sharma speak online, having one less female philosopher in physical attendance. At the least, her session worked well online and added credence to our commitment to the hybrid setup of the conference, but we do think it a missed opportunity that she was not there in person. As such, we are committed to learning from this mistake for any future events.