Our Mission

Project Mission

Our goal, at the Conceptual Foundations of Conflict Project, is to find the philosophy at the center of interpersonal conflict. Many scholars in other fields have contributed greatly to our understanding of conflict.  But it is our guiding conviction that our understanding of the nature and dynamics of interpersonal conflict is enhanced when the tools, techniques, and theories developed in philosophy are added to the approaches of these other fields. Our mission is to encourage and promote new work in and adjacent to philosophy that sheds light on the nature, sources, structure, dynamics, and consequences of interpersonal conflicts at all scales.

What We Do

Founded in December of 2019, we are just getting started. But the model of the Project is to bring together a core group of faculty and graduate fellows in a process that brings together foundational philosophical work from ethics, epistemology, philosophy of language, political philosophy, feminist philosophy, philosophy of race, and other areas with translational applications to many different aspects of interpersonal conflict, broadly understood. We hold regular workshops with physical and virtual visitors from all over the world, sponsor public talks and other events, and aim to produce a range of public-facing outputs, including podcasts, interviews, animated videos, instructional handouts, and more, to help spread important ideas explored in our workshops to a wider audience. We also offer a home for visiting scholars with sabbatical research time to devote to projects concerned with the conceptual study of conflict. Eventually we hope to do more.