KLI Colloquia are invited research talks of about an hour followed by 30 min discussion. The talks are held in English, open to the public, and offered in hybrid format.
Fall-Winter 2025-2026 KLI Colloquium Series
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https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5881861923?omn=85945744831
Meeting ID: 588 186 1923
25 Sept 2025 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
A Dynamic Canvas Model of Butterfly and Moth Color Patterns
Richard Gawne (Nevada State Museum)
14 Oct 2025 (Tues) 3-4:30 PM CET
Vienna, the Laboratory of Modernity
Richard Cockett (The Economist)
23 Oct 2025 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
How Darwinian is Darwinian Enough? The Case of Evolution and the Origins of Life
Ludo Schoenmakers (KLI)
6 Nov (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Common Knowledge Considered as Cause and Effect of Behavioral Modernity
Ronald Planer (University of Wollongong)
20 Nov (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Rates of Evolution, Time Scaling, and the Decoupling of Micro- and Macroevolution
Thomas Hansen (University of Oslo)
4 Dec (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Chance, Necessity, and the Evolution of Evolvability
Cristina Villegas (KLI)
8 Jan 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Embodied Rationality: Normative and Evolutionary Foundations
Enrico Petracca (KLI)
15 Jan 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
On Experimental Models of Developmental Plasticity and Evolutionary Novelty
Patricia Beldade (Lisbon University)
29 Jan 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Jan Baedke (Ruhr University Bochum)
Event Details

Topic description:
Despite its pervasiveness, the concept of ‘levels of organization’ has received little attention in its own right. In this presentation I will argue that, contrary to recent claims of its uselessness, the 'levels' concept can be revealed as a uniquely effective and flexible conceptual tool tailored to perform a wide host of scientific tasks. This approach posits a fragmentary concept that balances a striking variation in conceptual content between instances of usage with a remarkably conserved and sufficiently unifying significance attributed to it across these instances. Key to this 'fragmentary account' will be a reconstruction of 'levels’ that situates the concept within an interest-relative matrix of active usage within scientific practice. To this end I posit here two important components that comprise my fragmentary account: the term’s content fragments, which replace meaning and reference as carriers of the term's conceptual content, and the epistemic goal (sensu Brigandt 2010) motivating the term's usage, which delegates tasks whose execution fill these fragments in a given instance. Together, these show the concept of levels to be minimally but sufficiently coherent and unified. This heuristic, usage-based treatment of levels does not diminish the concept's general importance to science, but rather allows for its use in, and usefulness for, scientific practice to be better contextualized to particular tasks encompassing varying breadths of activity.
Biographical note:
Daniel holds Bachelor´s degrees in Philosophy and German Studies from the University of Cincinnati and a Master´s degree in Philosophy from Bielefeld University. In 2014 he completed his Ph.D. studies in Bielefeld under his dissertation project “The Concept of Levels of Organization in Biology”. Before his postdoctoral fellowship at the KLI, Daniel taught graduate and undergraduate seminars in current topics in the philosophy of science and epistemology at the University of Münster.