2026 Jerome S. Simon Memorial Lectures (Barbara Vetter, Freie Universität Berlin)

We are pleased to announce Barbara Vetter as our esteemed speaker for the 2026 Jerome S. Simon Memorial Lectures. Dr. Vetter is a professor of theoretical philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin, and co-director of the “Human Abilities” project (www.human-abilities.de). Her work focuses on the metaphysics and epistemology of modal properties — dispositions, abilities, and so on — and their role in the metaphysics and epistemology of modality. She published Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality with the Oxford University Press in 2015. In 2026, she received a Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz prize.  Dr. Vetter is currently working on a book that develops an agency-based approach to the epistemology of modality.

The title of the series is “Modal Knowledge in Action.” A Zoom link is listed below in case you can’t attend in person.

Lecture 1

(September 22, 3-5 PM)

Title

Introducing Agentive Modality

Abstract

Why do we modalize, what is the point of modal thought? I submit that the answer to that question should be: to enable our agency. Guided by this thought, I identify a form of modality that is of particular importance for our actions: agentive modality, which comprises an agent’s abilities and the affordances in their environment. Despite its importance, modal epistemology as we have it does not provide an epistemology of agentive modality. This sets the agenda for the following lectures.

Lecture 2

(September 23, 3-5 PM)

Title

Agentive Modal Knowledge

Abstract

We know a great deal about agentive modality: our abilities and the affordances around us. This lecture does two things. First, it develops an account of how this knowledge arises from our experience in acting itself. Second, it argues — by way of “creature construction” — for the feasibility of a modal epistemology that starts with such agentive modal knowledge.

Lecture 3

(September 24, 3-5 PM)

Title

An Action-First Epistemology of Modality

Abstract

Action-first modal epistemology takes our agentive modal knowledge – knowledge of abilities and affordances, as acquired in and used to guide our agency – as fundamental to modal knowledge in general. This lecture explores and defends such an epistemology of modality, looking in particular at the potentially troubling cases of our inference from actuality to possibility and knowledge by imagination. It ends with a brief look at our knowledge of metaphysical modality.

Zoom link

https://utoronto.zoom.us/s/85888690116
Meeting ID:  858 8869 0116
Passcode: 123119

About the Simon Lectures

One of the department’s several endowed lecture series, the Jerome S. Simon Lectures are a biennial series of colloquia given by a philosopher of international distinction. After a brief hiatus, we are thrilled to reinvigorate the series in 2021. Past Simon lecturers have included Cailin O’Connor (UC-Irvine), David Velleman (Michigan), David Wiggins (Oxford University), Anil Gupta (Pittsburgh), Barbara Herman (UCLA), John Campbell (UC-Berkeley), Donald Rutherford (UC-San Diego), Jennifer Hornsby (Birkbeck, London), Samuel Scheffler (NYU), Holly M. Smith (Rutgers), and Rainer Forst (Goethe University, Frankfurt).