International Workshop on Computational Ontology and Metaphysics (Dec 4, 2025)

and

Kurt-Gödel-Prize 2025 Winners' Symposium (Dec 5, 2025)

University of Bamberg

International Workshop on Computational Ontology and Metaphysics

• Thursday, December 4, 2025, 9:00-17:00, University of Bamberg, Room: TBA
• Organisation: by Christoph Benzmüller and Andrea Vestrucci in collaboration with the Center for Innovative Applications of Computer Science at the University of Bamberg. 

Kurt Gödel Prize 2025 Winners' Symposium

• Friday,December 5, 2025, 9:00-15:00, University of Bamberg, Room: TBA
• Organisation: Christoph Benzmüller and the Berlin-based Kurt-Gödel-Freundeskreis

Planned is also a joint dinner event on the evening of Thursday, December 4, 2025

Descriptions

The Kurt Gödel Prize 2025 Winners' Symposium (Dec 5, 2025) presents the winners of this year's essay award and offers them a forum for presenting and discussing their contributions with other researchers and the general public. The central question of the 2025 essay prize was: “How are Gödel's conceptual and mathematical realism, his argument against the existence of time, and his ontological argument compatible with a coherent ontology?” Contributions were sought that shed light on the topic from a logical, philosophical, and physical perspective and refer to the work of Kurt Gödel. For further information see https://kurtgoedel.de/kurt-goedel-award-2025/ 

The International Workshop on Computational Ontology and Metaphysics (Dec 4, 2025) brings together researchers interested in the use of computer-based methods and tools for researching and evaluating fundamental ontologies and metaphysical theories.  On the one hand, this event focuses on disseminating the latest developments in the field of computational ontology and metaphysics. At the same time, a special focus on Gödel's concept of “ontology” is highly welcome in order to fruitfully link the event with the 2025 Kurt-Gödel-Prize Winner Symposium the following day. The latter kind of contributions may, e.g., include novel insights from the Princeton Nachlass of Gödel to contemporary logic, metaphysics, and computer science, and novel studies on his writings and notes on ontology notions. The projected sessions will combine textual work, formal reconstructions, and conceptual discussion, culminating in a roundtable on the prospects for a unified (or deliberately plural) notion of ontology – following Gödel’s footsteps.

A combination of invited and contributed talks are currently being solicitated. The duration of the talks is expected to vary between 30min and 60min. The list of confirmed or possible speakers, including tentative topics, currently includes:

• Edward Zalta (Stanford University and 2025 Johann von Spix Visiting Professor at the University of Bamberg); Ed is the main developer of the Principia Logico-Metaphysica (https://mally.stanford.edu/principia.pdf)
• Daniel Kirchner (University of Bamberg); Daniel has encoded abstract object theory and major parts of the Principia Logico-Metaphysica in Isabelle/HOL using shallow semantical embeddings.
• Christoph Benzmüller (University of Bamberg); in joint work with Dana Scott, Christoph has recently published some new “Notes on Gödel’s and Scott’s variants of the ontological argument” (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00605-025-02078-x) in Monatshefte für Mathematik.
• Silvia Jonas (University of Bamberg); topic to be provided
• Andrea Vestrucci (University of Bamberg); topic to be provide.

Envisioned is also the organisation of a roundtable debate.

In case you are interested to join and contribute to this event please send a tentative title and one page abstract to christoph.benzmueller(at)uni-bamberg.de and andrea.vestrucci(at)uni-bamberg.de