CEU Philosophy Department

TODAY IS GRADUATION!

Congratulations to the Department of Philosophy graduates of 2026! This year's cohort includes our one- and two-year Masters of Philosophy students alongside our 5 PhD graduates.

Each of you has poured dedication, curiosity, and rigorous thinking into your studies, and today that effort is celebrated and recognised. We hope you leave not only with your qualification, but with a genuine sense of excitement and purpose, ready to carry your philosophical thinking out into the world and make your mark on it.

Congratulations to you all! 👏

🧠 If you are interested in starting an MA in Philosophy at CEU, check out our course pages at www.ceu.edu/departments/philosophy. Last and final cutoff date for a 2026/27 start is July 15th!

CEU ranks #3 in Austria and places among the world's top 250 universities in its first appearance in the overall QS rankings.

Come and join us at the department of Philosophy and secure your spot in a internationally competitive university!

Final cut-off date for 2026/27 start is July 15! Or enquire about starting in 2027!
https://www.ceu.edu/departments/philosophy

Read more below 👇

🎉 A historic milestone for Central European University

For the first time, CEU has been included in the QS World University Rankings and has debuted among the world's top 250 universities, ranked #239 globally and #3 in Austria in the QS World University Rankings 2027.

This recognition reflects the dedication and excellence of our entire community and affirms CEU's commitment to academic rigor, impactful research, open inquiry, and global engagement.

Among Austrian universities included in the rankings, CEU ranks:

🏆 #1 in Citations per Faculty
🏆 #1 in Employment Outcomes
🏆 #1 in International Faculty
🏆 #1 in International Students
🏆 #2 in Faculty–Student Ratio

CEU also received a perfect score of 100/100 for both International Faculty and International Students, highlighting the truly global character of our university community.

As one of only 94 institutions worldwide making their debut in this year's rankings, this achievement marks an important moment in CEU's journey and a strong foundation for the future.

Thank you to our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and partners whose work and commitment made this possible.

Learn more: https://www.ceu.edu/news/2026-06/ceu-makes-historic-debut-qs-world-university-rankings-ranked-among-worlds-top-250

Head of Department, Ferenc Huoranszki, published 'Dreams of a Final Normative Theory: An Essay on the Changing Role of Utopia in Contemporary Political Thought' as a chapter in Utopia and Democracy, which is part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Utopianism.

It seems to be a natural task for any normative social theory to provide an account of the basic structure of a political community in which human beings can flourish. To the extent that this structure represents an ideal, it also seems natural to interpret normative social theory as a rationally grounded utopia. Nevertheless, it is a striking feature of contemporary practical philosophy that “being utopistic” often counts as a criticism about any normative project, while the popularity of dystopias representing the gloomy future of human societies grows. The chapter is an attempt to understand this phenomenon from the perspective of ethics and philosophy in general.

Read the chapter here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-89913-3_4

🔥 Come along for a fireside chat with CEU Professor Tim Crane and Rumman Chowdhury!

📍 Tuesday 9th June at Central European University

It is a free event but registration is required! Book your tickets here:
https://events.ceu.edu/2026-06-09/what-intelligence-really

There is no shortage of hype around artificial general intelligence and the dawn of “superintelligence,” but what about intelligence itself? In this fireside chat, Rumman Chowdhury and Tim Crane move beyond the headlines to interrogate the fundamental nature of the mind. They will tackle common misconceptions that obscure the similarities and differences between human and artificial cognition—from our tendency to anthropomorphize machines, to the idea that human thought is merely a series of computer-like calculations.

They’ll also address the way we judge progress in the field, discussing why our current benchmarks seem to fail to capture true understanding. By starting off thinking in the wrong terms, we may be measuring the wrong things entirely.

This conversation is open to researchers, industry professionals, and the interested public alike, and will be followed by a reception.

This event has been organized by the FWF Österreichischer Wissenschaftsfonds Cluster of Excellence Knowledge in Crisis and by Central European University in cooperation with European Forum Alpbach as part of its democracy in a digital age event series.

Dylan Trigg, an FWF Senior Researcher at Department of Philosophy CEU recently spoke to Der Standard about nostalgia and childhood.

The article, Wie uns Geschmäcker und Gerüche in die Kindheit zurückversetzen' (How tastes and smells take us back to childhood), talks about how 'sensory impressions can make past worlds of life present again in a matter of seconds. However, associated nostalgic feelings are more than just remembering'.

Curious? read the article, in German, in DER STANDARD by Paul M. Horntrich from May 16 2026.
https://buff.ly/qWDVD4l

💥 Our current MA student, Ilgar Gapagov, has published "Nietzschean Self-Overcoming as Self-Annihilation: The Limits of Intelligibility in Bloodborne and Lovecraft" in Games and Culture (Sage Journals).

This essay provides an interpretation of Bloodborne, with the aim of shedding light on an issue that late modernity is facing. The paper argues that Bloodborne exemplifies a tragic allegory of Nietzsche's philosophy within a Lovecraftian universe: the will to overcome the limits of intelligibility either leads to madness or self-annihilation. Through a careful examination of Lovecraftian horror via the notion of intelligibility, and drawing on insights from Western philosophers, the game is shown to exemplify a central Lovecraftian idea: that with greater knowledge comes the confrontation with the incomprehensible, and with it, the descent into madness.

Continue reading the full essay here >> https://buff.ly/OqdWL4d

Nietzschean Self-Overcoming as Self-Annihilation: The Limits of Intelligibility in Bloodborne and Lovecraft - Ilgar Gapagov, 2026 This essay provides an interpretation of Bloodborne, with the aim of shedding light on an issue that late modernity is facing. The paper argues that Bloodborne ...

Yesterday, visiting researcher Matteo Pascucci presented 'Responsibility Criteria for AI-generated Outcomes' at Asia-Europe Foundation - ASEF Class Net 19 — a teacher training programme fostering innovation, collaboration and co-creation among educators across Asia and Europe. 🎓

This session explored an overview of the obstacles encountered by traditional theories of responsibility ascription when they are applied to delicate contexts where AI technology is used, such as contemporary education. More recent approaches to responsibility ascription, often borrowed from other domains, are then introduced and compared in terms of the advantages they offer in addressing those obstacles.

Read more about the ASEF classroom network here: https://asef.org/projects/19th-asef-classroom-network/

Our PhD alumna Valentina Martinis received the 2025 Roland Atefie Prize of the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, (Austrian Academy of Sciences) for her dissertation 'Perceiving and Thinking: Inquiry into Two Types of Phenomenology'. The 4000 euro Roland Atefie Award recognises an outstanding doctoral thesis in the fields of philosophy, theology or indology written at an Austrian university no more than two years before the date of submission.

Congratulations Valentina! 👏

Valentina completed her PhD here with the department of Philosophy at CEU under the supervision of Prof. Katalin Farkas and Prof. Tim Crane.

https://stipendien.oeaw.ac.at/preise/geisteswissenschaften/roland-atefie-preis/preistraegerinnen/valentina-martinis

Department Professor, Tim Crane presents 'Against Intelligence' over the next two days as a two part lecture.

These lectures aim to answer a simple question arising from Alan Turing’s famous 1950 paper, ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’, and to draw some conclusions from this answer. Turing’s paper is often taken as one of the foundational texts of the discipline of Artificial Intelligence (AI), whose birth is usually dated from 1956. But what does Turing actually say about intelligence? Almost nothing: the word ‘intelligence’ occurs only twice in the paper, and ‘intelligent’ only once. So what was Turing really talking about, if not intelligence? And what has this got to do with today’s AI?

Today he presents: 'What is Intelligence?' at 4pm!

Petrus Hispanus Lectures 2026 – Lancog April 7, 2026 Petrus Hispanus Lectures 2026 School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon   April 28 2026 16h-18h – Sala A201 Anfiteatro III April 29 2026 16h-18h – Sala B112.D (near the Library of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities)   Against Intelligence Tim Crane, Central European Uni...