Press release
Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP)
«Bioethics in Context XIII: The Natural and the Artificial. Bioethical Reflections»
The Inter-Institutional Master’s Programme in Bioethics, offered by the Department of Philosophy, School of Philosophy, University of Crete, is organizing an international Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) Summer School entitled “Bioethics in Context XIII: The Natural and the Artificial. Bioethical Reflections.”
The Summer School will take place from 13 to 18 September 2026 on Gallos University Campus in Rethymno, Crete.
The aim of the summer school is to explore critically, through in-depth philosophical inquiry, the evolving relationship between nature and human-made, artificial systems. More specifically, by bringing together perspectives from philosophy, bioethics and the sciences, the summer school/BIP aims to deepen interdisciplinary dialogue. Foundational philosophical questions as well as application-oriented bioethical challenges will be addressed during the course of the upcoming international event.
The overall objective is to establish an educational and research forum for systematic conceptual and normative reflection on the above evolving relationship and consequent transformations between the “natural” and the “made”, by bringing together scholars, researchers, PhD and MA students to exchange arguments from different perspectives and reach a common understanding of some of the most pressing questions of our times. Its grounding presupposition is that the distinction between the natural and the artificial is neither fixed nor self-justifying. It is historically shaped, philosophically contested, and ethically impregnated. For the above reasons, it needs to be subjected to robust conceptual and normative, that is philosophical, scrutiny. What counts as natural in the biosciences has changed across historical periods, and the artificial has moved from being viewed as mere external intervention to becoming increasingly integrated into the conditions and processes of nature, particularly life itself. This conceptual shift generates profound cognitive and socio-practical, including ethical, implications. The latter will be the object of philosophical investigation during the current BIP.