As part of the Metaphilosophy project of the Croatian Science Foundation (IP-2022-2550) at the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Philosophy, we had the pleasure of hosting Prof. Mark Balaguer from California State University, United States of America on Friday 23.10.2026. and Saturday 24.10.2026.
Visiting Lecture
On Friday, 23.10.2026., Prof. Balaguer delivered a lecture titled
“What is Neo-Positivism and How Could We Argue For It?“,
which attracted graduate and PhD students and faculty members.
During the lecture, Prof. Balaguer presented his metaphysical framework which he calls neo-positivism. He summarizes neo-positivism in the following way: For any metaphysical question MQ, MQ decomposes (exhaustively) into some component subquestions, call them Q1, Q2, etc., such that for each of these subquestions—i.e., for each Qi—either (a) scientism about Qi is true, or (b) metaphysically innocent modal-truth-ism about Qi is true, or (c) non-factualism about Qi is true, or (d) some combination of these views is true of Qi.
Workshop
Later on Friday and the following day, on Saturay, 24.10.2026., Prof. Balaguer led a workshop titled
“Workshop with Mark Balaguer“, in which he delivered a talk titled “Welcome to Flatland: Against the Layered View of Reality“.
In this talk prof. Balaguer argued against a set of views which we can put under the label of Layerism (physical reality is structured into a hierarchy of layers by metaphysical generation relations (or metaphysical dependence relations, or some such thing)) and in favor of Flatlandism ((a) There are no layers (or levels, or anything of the kind) in physical reality, and (b) nothing is metaphysically generated or dependent).
Members of the Research Group of the MetPhil project Boran Berčić, Vito Balorda, Matija Rajter, Filip Čeč, Filip Grgić, and Andrej Jandrić also presented their talks on the workshop. Boran Berčić delivered the talk titled “Balaguer on Conceptual Analysis,” Vito Balorda gave the talk “Rethinking Cascades: The Causal Profile of Metastasis,” Matija Rajter gave the talk “Against Platonism in Conceptual Engineering,” Filip Čeč gave the talk “Torn Humean Compatibilism: Alternative Possibilities Without Miracles,” Andrej Jandrić gave the talk “Balaguer on Presentism,” and Filip Grgić gave a talk titled “The Puzzle of Practical Knowledge“.
Participants engaged in group discussions of the delivered talks. The workshop created a productive and collaborative environment, enabling attendees to explore the intersections between philosophy and cognitive science more deeply.
These events were organized within the framework of the Metaphilosophy project, funded by the Croatian Science Foundation (IP-2022-2550). We extend our sincere thanks to Prof. Balaguer for his contribution and to all participants for their engagement and insightful discussions.
We look forward to future events and continued collaboration.
