Join us for a morning session with philosopher Mark Leegsma, who will present new work that moves between climate science, posthumanism, and the limits of modern thought. In The End is Immanent: How Nothing Can Really Happen, Leegsma explores a difficult but urgent question: if the world as we know it is coming to an end, what does that say about our ability to think change—especially when that change might be so total that nothing remains? Drawing on his recent essay Het oog van de catastrofe, published by Boom uitgevers, Leegsma invites us to look closely at the idea of ‘facticity’—the brute fact that there is something rather than nothing—and what happens when we push beyond the limits of what philosophy usually allows.
After the talk, we’ll gather in a small group to reflect together: what does it really mean to say that the end is immanent? How do we think about collapse when it may be beyond words or understanding? This will be a space not just for ideas, but for shared exploration of what it means to live in a time when the unthinkable feels increasingly close.
| 10:00 | Welcome |
| 10:15 | Presentation of The end is immanent: ho nothing can really happen |
| 11:00 | Group discussion |
Mark Leegsma (1980) received his doctoral degree in philosophy from Radboud University Nijmegen in 2022. Last year, his philosophical essay The Eye of the Catastrophe came out, as well as his Dutch translation of Donna J. Haraway's tome When Species Meet. He is currently working at the (yet to be created) intersection of discourses on facticity, blocked possibility and posthumanism.
Daniël Hogendoorn is policy fellow at IAS, looking at how to reason about bringing urban systems within planetary boundaries. He also works as a long-term planner and senior strategist at the Municipality of Amsterdam on how to get Amsterdam within planetary boundaries.