Call for Abstracts: Philosophy of Human-Technology Relations (PHTR) Conference

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

 The collective in the seemingly individual:

Highlighting the world in human-technology relations​

We are happy to invite you to the 4th international Philosophy of Human-Technology Relations (PHTR) conference, to be held in person at TU Delft's Campus Spui in The Hague (the Netherlands), on September 21-23, 2026.

Emerging technologies can't avoid being entangled with world-consequential events that raise questions about how humans relate to one another, their conflicts, and their collective potential to overcome current crises. Therefore, this edition of PHTR aims to highlight the collective dimension of seemingly individual human-technology relations by revealing the world that is always present within them—politically, culturally, environmentally, and otherwise.

Although originally grounded in philosophy and design, we invite submissions from different disciplines, as long as they address the conference theme. Potential submission themes include:

·       Politics and power in Human-Technology-World (H-T-W) relations

·       Designing for relationality

·       Social, cultural, and historical embeddedness of H-T-W relations

·       Methodological contributions

·       The role of Empirical Philosophy in studying H-T-W relations

·       Disciplinary and domain applications

Submission formats include individual paper presentations, design and multimedia contributions (e.g., pictorials, artifact-based provocations), panels, and interactive sessions. For details, guidelines, and abstract submission, see the CfP.

Deadline for all submissions: March 20, 2026.

The keynote speakers include Helen Hester (University of West London), Elisa Giaccardi (Politecnico di Milano), and Peter-Paul Verbeek (UvA/KNAW). After the conference, all participants are invited to submit their work to the free diamond open-access Journal of Human-Technology Relations, companion journal to PHTR. The conference is chaired by Olya Kudina (TU Delft) and co-organized by an interdisciplinary committee of philosophers, designers, and computer scientists. For more information: https://www.aanmelder.nl/phtr26