The international colloquium " Connaissance philosophique et connaissance des essences " (Philosophical knowledge and the knowledge of essences ) will follow in the footsteps of Prof. Claudine Tiercelin, who has been working on this topic for many years: how, within the framework of a rational inquiry that is as legitimate as it is indispensable, can we specify the distinctive methods and validation criteria of authentic "metaphysical knowledge" (La Connaissance métaphysique, Leçon inaugurale, Fayard, 2011, p. 21)? In other words, how can Metaphysics and Philosophy of Knowledge be combined to meet what Christopher Peacocke calls the "challenge of integration": "the general task of providing, for a given field, a simultaneously acceptable metaphysics and epistemology, and showing that they are acceptable" (Peacocke 1999, pp. 1-2). How can we "reconcile a plausible analysis of what is involved in the truth of propositions of a certain kind with a credible analysis of how we can know these propositions, when we know them" (ibid.)?
To meet this challenge, we need to combine metaphysical reflection, on the nature of things and their properties, with epistemological reflection, on the nature and modalities of their knowledge. The stakes are high, since failure to integrate the two in a given domain "characteristically makes explanations of what it is for a content concerning that domain to be true appear manifestly defective". To understand this "would be not only to have a key to the epistemology and metaphysics of the domain in question, but also to access an essential part of our self-understanding" (Peacocke 2004, p. 267). More broadly, as Jacques Bouveresse also clearly saw, the challenge concerns the very question of the nature of "philosophical knowledge" (Abstract des cours du Collège de France 2007-2008, p. 399).
Over the last ten years, research into the nature of philosophical knowledge, the challenge of integration, and the knowledge of essences, has been greatly enriched. The aim of this international colloquium, which will bring together philosophers working on these issues, is to take stock of this hotly debated research and identify its future prospects. It will examine the relationship between metaphysical and philosophical knowledge, the nature of essences and their knowledge, the links between essences and modalities, the role of essentialism and natural species in elucidating the latter, and how a priori and a posteriori forms of knowledge should be articulated.