The meeting was called to order at 12:14 p.m. by Jane McIntyre, President of the Hume Society, who announced the agenda: 

1.  Approval of the minutes of the 2004 business meeting.

2.  Motions of Gratitude

3.  Report of the President

4.  Report of the Secretary-Treasurer

5.  Report of Hume Studies Editors

6.  Report of  Conference Organizers

7.  New business

Under item 1, Approval of the of the 2004 minutes was moved and seconded.  Rachel Cohon asked that the minutes be amended to correct a misspelling of her name.  This was accepted as a friendly amendment. The amended minutes were then ratified by the members present. 

Under item 2, the following motions of gratitude were made by Jackie Taylor, seconded by Rachel Cohon, and passed unanimously:

Motion One:  I invite all here assembled to join me in expressing the Hume Society’s deepest gratitude to the University of Toronto for its gracious hospitality as the host institution of the 32nd Annual Hume Society Conference, convened in Toronto, Ontario, July 19-23, 2005.

In particular we thank the Philosophy Department, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the departments of English, French, Political Science, and Religious Studies, as well as the Institute for the History of Philosophy of Science and Technology and Trinity College for their generous suppport.

It is  further moved that copies of this motion be sent to the appropriate officers of the University of Toronto and to all of the co-sponsors named above.

Motion Two: I further invite all here assembled to join me in expressing our congratulations and acknowledgement of indebtedness to the conference co-directors

Donald Ainslie, University of Toronto

David Owen, University of Arizona

Stanley Tweyman, York University

In particular, we commend:

(1) their willingness to undertake shared responsibility for planning and jointly organizing the conference;

(2) their judiciousness in creating a splendid conference program on the theme of Hume and the French;

(3) their resourcefulness in seeking and securing funding and support for the conference from an impressive range of departments and programs;

(4) the generous provision of breakfast, lunch, coffee, snacks, and t-shirts;

(5) and their energy in overseeing the countless arrangements and details that contributed to the great success of the event.

I further move that copies of the above expression of gratitude be sent to the appropriate administrators of the University of Toronto, the University of Arizona, and York University.

Claudia Schmidt moved that we also thank the Fisher Library and Staff and Rick McCarthy moved that we express our gratitude to the students and staff members who assisted with registration.  These motions were taken as friendly amendments. 

The Motion passed unanimously and with resounding applause.

Under item 3, The Society’s President, Jane McIntyre, reported on the EC’s business in 2004-2005.

1.  Selection of new editors for Hume Studies.  After a process of careful review and lengthy discussion, the EC selected new editors for Hume Studies.  The new editors are Peter Loptson, The University of Guelph and Peter Millican, Oxford University.  Jacqueline Taylor, University of San Francisco will serve as Associate Editor for Moral Philosophy and Peter Kail, Edinburgh University, will be the new Book Review Editor.  The offices of the journal are now at the University of Guelph.

Jane asked the membership to join her in thanking the current editors, Elizabeth Radcliffe and Ken Winkler, as well as the book editors, Tony Pitson and Don Baxter, and for the splendid work they have done over the last five years which has contributed so greatly to the continued success of the journal.

2.  The EC appointed David Norton to replace Jackie Taylor who resigned from the EC to become Hume Studies Associate Editor for Moral Philosophy.

3.  At this point the EC has approved the following conference sites:  2006 Koblenz, 2007 Boston, 2008 Iceland, 2010 Antwerp.  The EC recently received an invitation for a 2011 conference  in Scotland.  2009 is still open.  The Society welcomes invitations for that conference, which is to be held in North America.

4.  The EC appointed new program chairs for the joint meetings that the Hume Society holds with the APA.  Karann Durland will be organizing the programs for the Hume Society group meetings at the Central Division from 2006 to 2008 inclusive, and Kathleen Wallace will be organizing the programs for the Eastern Division meetings from 2006 to 2008 inclusive. 

Under item 4, Corliss Swain presented the following reports from the Secretariat and from the Treasurer :  

Report from the Secretariat

1. Executive Committee Elections In the 2004 Executive Committee elections, Jacqueline Taylor was re-elected, and David Owen and Tatsuya Sakamoto were elected to their first terms as members of the Executive Committee.  Terms expire in 2008.  David Norton, the fourth candidate, also received substantial support. 

The regular EC members whose terms will expire at the end of 2005 are Kate Abramson, Rachel Cohon, and Lorne Falkenstein.  Only Lorne is eligible for re-election since both Kate and Rachel have already served two consecutive terms.

A call for nominations will go out in early September, with elections, conducted electronically on the humesociety.org website, in November.  Members must have usernames and passwords to vote.   

Continuing members of the EC are Jane McIntyre (President), Don Garrett, Michel Malherbe, David Owen, Tatsuya Sakamoto, David Norton, and Corliss Swain, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, who serves ex officio. David Norton was selected by the EC to replace Jacqueline Taylor.  Professor Norton’s term will end in 2008, and he will be eligible for re-election at that time.

2.  Membership Data. The Society currently has 506 members.  The majority are from the U.S. (288). Canada (52), the United Kingdom (36), and Japan (29) also have large contingencies.  The Hume Society has a strong presence in Europe, with a total of 83 members—not counting those from the UK.  France and Italy have the largest numbers of members (14 each), followed by Germany (11), Spain (10), Finland (6), Turkey (5), and Greece (4).  Nineteen members come from other European countries. Central and South American countries have 11 members, with the largest contingency in Brazil (7).  Five members reside in Australia and New Zealand.

Last year the Society welcomed 74 new members.  As of June 30, 2005 another 31 members had joined.  In addition, 24 new memberships are currently pending payment of dues.  Names and affiliations of new members can be found at New Members. 

As of 30 June 2005, 35% of Hume Society members had yet to pay their dues for 2005.  Dues may now be paid electronically on the web, using PayPal.

As of 30 June 2005, 427 members (84%) had valid usernames and passwords.  Usernames and passwords are required for voting in elections, for member services, and for accessing the most recent volumes in the Hume Studies on-line archives.

3.  Conference Submissions.  65 papers were submitted for the Toronto conference.  For last year’s conference in Tokyo there were 38 submissions.

4.  New Hume Blog for members on the web at <http:x.humesociety.x>.  Since this blog is for members only, when you register, please enter your Hume Society e-mail address.  Use your real name for your username.  This name will appear on any entries you make. 

5. Hume Studies archives are available to members on a CD, which has more search options than the on-line archives.  The CD, which costs US $55 (including shipping), can be ordered on the website in the For Members Only section at  http://www.humesociety.org/members/membersonly/cd-sales.html. Special rates are available for students.

Report from the Treasurer 

The treasurer reported that the Society is in good shape financially.  We began the year with assets equaling $42,737. (US).  Dues payments continue to be our major source of income ($14,727 in 2004).  Our major expenditures are support for Hume Studies ($7,500) and graduate student travel stipends ($2,500). 

Copies of the Annual Financial Report for 2004 and the Interim Financial Report for 2005, were circulated at the meeting and are available on the Society’s website at Annual Report 2004 and Interim Report 2005.

Under item 5, Elizabeth Radcliffe, co-editor of Hume Studies along with Ken Winkler, circulated copies of the Hume Studies Editorial Report for 2005, which is available on-line at   Hume Studies editorial report.  The editorial report included the following information:

Subscriptions:  The journal has over 250 institutional subscribers and 506 subscribers who are members of the Hume Society.

Production:  November 2003 and April 2004 appeared in the fall of 2004.  The November 2004 issue is now in press.  The April 2005 issue should appear in the fall term of 2005. 

Finances:  A single issue of the journal now costs about $8,500.  There is enough money in the budget to cover the expenses for the production of November 2004 and April 2005 issues, but since income and expenses are now closely matched, the journal will not be running a large surplus in the future. 

Submissions and Acceptances:  Over the current editorial team’s term (August 1999 to May 2005), there were 194 submissions, including 19 resubmissions.  Of the 175 first-time submissions, 20% were by scholars outside North America; 16 % were by women.  The journal has an overall acceptance rate of 30% (for all papers evaluated).  34% of the papers by scholars outside of North America and 36% of the papers submitted by women were accepted.

Transition:  The editors affirmed their willingness to help out the new editors through the transition, which began this spring.  They also thanked their book review editors, A.E. Pitson and Don Baxter for their excellent work and the members of the journal’s editorial board for their advice and assistance. 

Special thanks went to Richard McCarty of East Carolina University for his creation of and continuing assistance with the internet-based submissions database.  Rick has been especially helpful with the transition, having already modified the database at the request of the new editors.

The new editors, Peter Millican and Peter Loptson, also expressed gratitude to Rick McCarthy for his service to the Hume Society in setting up and maintaining a database for Hume Studies.   They asked that the Hume Society as a whole thank Rick as well as the outgoing editors and book editors for their contributions to the success of  Hume Studies.  This request was met with a lively round of applause from the members. 

Under item 6, Hume Conferences 

1.  Koblenz (2006)  Lorne Falkenstein announced that the dates for the conference were changed to Monday, August 7, 2006 (arrival day) through Thursday, August 10, 2006 .  The website is up, and paper submissions are now being accepted.  The deadline for submissions is November 1, 2005.

The themes of the Koblenz conference are:  Hume and Culture, Hume and German Philosophy, and Hume’s Aesthetics.  Four plenary sessions are planned:  Plenary speakers are Paul Guyer, Manfred Kuehn, Donald Livingston, Mary Mothersill and Jane McIntyre.  The conference will be held at Universität Koblenz-Landau, Koblenz campus, which is a new campus--founded only 12 years ago. 

Because the conference immediately precedes Rhein in Flammen, a popular annual fireworks display which will be held on Saturday, August 13, accommodations may be hard to find, so you are urged to make reservations as soon as possible, particularly if you would like to stay in the city to see this event.   

2.  Boston (2007)  Kate Abramsom reported on planning for the 34th  annual conference to be held in 2007 in Boston.  Conference organizers are Manfred Kuehn, Kate Abramson,  and Aaron Garrett.  The themes of the conference will be the Four Dissertations, in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the publication of the Four Dissertations, and Economics and Politics.  The conference will be held at Boston University. 

Under Item 7: New Business 

David Norton urged the Society to revive the practice of having group meetings in conjunction with the Canadian Philosophical Association.

Georges Dicker asked conference directors to provide some guidance regarding the appropriate length and form of responses to commentators. 

At 12:50 Kate Abramson moved to adjourn.  The motion was seconded by David Norton and approved by a unanimous, walking vote. 

Respectfully submitted,

Corliss Swain, Executive Secretary-Treasurer  [November 24, 2005]