Call for submissions: Annual Conference of the Société de Philosophie du Québec (SPQ)

Deadline to submit an application: November 15, 2025.

The SPQ’s annual conference will be held at Collège Montmorency (Laval) from June 1 to 4, 2026, under the theme “Politics and Truth.”

What links existed between truth and politics in the past and continue to exist today? There has been a tension between truth and politics since the times of ancient Greece, where Plato opposed the reign of opinion in democracy and proposed an ideal city where philosophers would rule, as they were the only ones who embodied truth, justice, and goodness. The power wielded by religion in the Middle Ages further conflicted the links between truth and politics and interfered in the sciences to regulate truth. Consider the policies implemented by the Church through the Inquisition and censorship. While the Renaissance attempted to move beyond this period by rediscovering the heritage of Greco-Roman antiquity through Arab scholars, it was undoubtedly the Enlightenment that took up the question of truth more radically, placing it back in the hands of humans themselves. Modernity was marked by revolutions and regimes of terror, giving rise to new mobilizations around the question of truth in politics. Today, our world is preoccupied with the question of truth in politics, but also politics in the realm of truth. We have come to talk about the era of post-truth and alternative facts.

In an era of rapid developments in artificial intelligence, social media, alternative news, and the rise of populism, how should we view politics and truth? From an epistemological perspective, how can we understand the concept of truth? How can we evaluate discourse, writing, the arts, and research? How can we understand and define arbitrariness, impartiality, relativity, and neutrality? How can we guard against the possible ideological appropriation of the concepts of politics and truth? How can philosophy contribute to the development of critical thinking capable of addressing these questions?

The Société de philosophie du Québec invites its members and anyone else interested in this topic to participate in its annual conference in order to bring fresh perspectives to the concepts of truth and politics, whether from a strictly philosophical approach or based on a multidisciplinary methodology, in the form of round tables, workshops, symposiums, or open discussions. We also welcome non-traditional philosophical approaches. Proposals that do not strictly relate to the conference theme are also welcome. It should be noted that the SPQ values diversity and inclusivity in proposals, while encouraging plurality within the discipline.

The conference will be held in person and presentations must be in French, the official language of the SPQ. They must be submitted by November 15, 2025, via the following link.

The SPQ Award for Best Student Submission

A prize will be awarded for the best student paper submitted to the SPQ conference. This includes papers presented as part of an open communication session and round tables. To enter the competition, the final version of the paper (anonymized for blind review) must be sent to the organizers at the following email address before May 4, 2026. Only papers submitted in this manner will be considered. The length of the paper should be approximately 3,000 words.

The recipient of the SPQ Award for Best Student Submission will be announced during the conference cocktail reception.

For any questions, do not hesitate to contact the conference organizers, Christian Djoko Kamgain et Jérôme Vigneault, via the following email address.