Kiitos and Kudos for
Helsinki!
The 29th Hume Society Conference was held in Helsinki, Finland, August 6th-10th, 2002, under the title "Born for Action? Born for Reason?". Those who participated in the conference were convinced that the right question would have been, "Born for Enjoyment?", and that the right answer is an emphatic, "Yes!"
The Helsinki Conference was held at the House of Sciences on Kirkkokatu, hosted by the Department of Social and Moral Philosophy of the University of Helsinki. It was supported, in addition, by the Academy of Finland and the Finnish Philosophical Society.
The Conference opened with a brief address by Professor Georg Hinrik von Wright, who provided a selection from his collection of rare books for display in the Conference office. This was a deeply appreciated gesture of respect for the work of the Hume Society and of the Conference organizers from the Grand Old Man of Finnish philosophy and one of the leading philosophical figures of the 20th century.
Four days of interesting papers and panels were punctuated in the middle by a day-trip by boat to Tallin in Estonia. This was an exciting experience and provided a break from immersion in philosophy—just the sort of thing that Hume liked to do himself.
The Conference was thoughtfully and meticulously planned and ran like clockwork. Excellent information and services were provided by the local staff, and always with a smile. An innovation at the Helsinki conference were the book revival sessions, in which books which have been largely forgotten were reviewed and discussed—perhaps to be revived. Terry Penelhum and Amy Schmitter performed the resuscitations. It is to be hoped that future conferences will continue with the book revivals. The four panel sessions were another special feature. Four members of the Society were invited to organize panels on topics of their choice and to recruit panelists. While the panels were perhaps not equally successful, many participants felt that this was a thing to be repeated at future Hume Conferences. Lilli Alanen of the Universities of Helsinki and Uppsala was the only invited individual speaker; she presented a paper on "Expression and Reflection in Hume's Account of Emotion".
On the evening of August 9th, there was a wonderful conference banquet at
the Töölönranta Restaurant, which specializes not only in umlauts, but in
excellent food and wine (though the white was much better than the red), not to
mention Gemütlichkeit. It was at this point, at roughly 11 p.m., that the
Conference organizers finally began to relax. The banquet was mercifully free
of lengthy speeches, but the opportunity was taken to present the Conference
Directors—
After the close of the conference on August 10th, many participants rushed off to a pre-planned post-conference trip to St. Petersburg, which lasted for four days.
All in all, participants were hard put to recall another Hume Conference
with a friendlier or more enjoyable atmosphere. This was one to remember with
great fondness. At the business meeting, resolutions were passed thanking the
organizers, staff and supporters of the Conference and thanking the retiring
Secretary-Treasurer,
| Home | Conferences | Publications | For members | Join the HS |