Bulletin of the
The Executive Committee announces a Call for Nominations for the
position of Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Hume Society. The current
term of office expires on December 31, 1997. The Secretary-Treasurer is
elected by members of the Executive Committee for a once-renewable term of
five years. He or she takes office January 1 of the year he or she is
elected. The Secretary-Treasurer has both general duties and routine
duties that must be executed at certain times of the year. The
Secretary-Treasurer maintains the membership database, collects dues,
edits and publishes the Bulletin of the Hume Society, prepares
calls for papers for Hume Conferences, collects and distributes submitted
papers for blind refereeing, maintains the Society's World Wide Web site,
and handles nominations and balloting for elections to the Executive
Committee and presidency. A more complete description of the
Secretary-Treasurer's responsibilities may be found at
http://www.oxy.edu/~traiger/hume/duties.html.
If you are
interested in serving as Secretary-Treasurer, or would like to nominate
someone for the position, please contact Wade Robison, President by
January 31, 1997. If you would like more information about the postion,
contact Saul Traiger.
Nottingham Fondly
Noted
The Hume Society met at Nottingham,
England this past July for its 23rd Annual Conference. The University
setting was superb -- with the look in places of an old estate, with open
fields, huge trees, and a manor house. The papers were intriguing --
covering a wide range of Hume's works and controversial enough to generate
discussion. And the gatherings were convivial -- encouraged by having
enough time during the discussion period to ensure a thorough examination
of the issues and the sort of give-and-take that encourages further
discussion after a session is over, by having a pub on hand so that it was
easy to slip in for a quick pint and even easier to stay for an evening of
conversation, and by a wonderful group of participants with whom it was
easy to talk. This conference was marked in particular by sustained
discussion, by conversations that spilled out beyond the confines of the
rooms in which the papers were presented into the breakfast and lunch
tables, into the pub, and onto the excursions to Sherwood Forest and to
the medieval banquet.
It is an irony well felt by Conference directors that the more
successful they are at ironing out all the difficulties that can arise
before and during a conference, the less likely it is that their labors
will be appreciated. The smoother the experience to participants, the less
visible the immense labors that were needed. This Conference was smooth
indeed, and the Society owes John Biro and Roger Gallie its warm and
heartfelt thanks for having put on such a fine conference.
24th Hume Society Conference Progress Report
Plans for the 1997 conference, which will be held at the Doubletree Hotel at Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey, California, from July 29 to August 2, are well underway. Events scheduled include invited papers by Jerome Schneewind (on Hume and moral rationalism, one of the conference themes), Wade Robison (on nature and convention, a second conference theme), and Ryuei Tsueshita, president of the Japanese Society for the History of British Philosophy. There will be six other talks representing the present state of Hume studies in Japan, and a panel including Margaret Wilson, Robert Fogelin, and Peter Millican will discuss Don Garrett's book Cognition and Commitment in Hume's Philosophy. Information on the conference site is available on the conference homepage.
Those who would like to serve as chairs or commentators, please submit your names and areas of specialization to one of the conference directors by December 15th, 1996. We look forward to seeing all of you in California this summer.
Elizabeth Radcliffe eradcliffe@scuacc.scu.edu
Tatsuya Sakamoto saka@econ.mita.keio.ac.jp
Kenneth Winkler kwinkler@wellesley.edu
News from Members
Donald Ainslie was recently appointed as an Assistant Professor
at the University of Toronto.
Paul Russell will be
at the University of Pittsburgh Philosophy Department as a visiting
Associate Professor for 1996-1997. His address there is: Department of
Philosophy, 1001 Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh,
Pittsburgh PA 15260, Fax: 412 624-5377.
Elizabeth Radcliffe has been awarded a 1996-97 Fellowship for
College Teachers from the National Endowment for the Humanities, to pursue
work on her project, "Passion and Judgment: Hume's Motivational and Moral
Psychology". She is spending this school year on leave from Santa Clara
University as a visiting scholar in the Philosophy Department at the
University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill.
Hume Sessions at Regional APA Meetings
Sessions sponsored by the Hume Society will be held at each of the
divisional meetings of the American Philosophical Association.
At the Eastern Division Meetings, the speakers will be Michael Gill,
Purdue University, "Moral Sentimentalism, Rationalism, and the Charge of
Arbitrariness"; and Kathleen Schmidt, Ohio State University, "Identity and
Imagination." The meeting will be on Saturday, Dec. 28, from 5:15 to 7:15
pm in the Cabinet Room.
The Central Division session will
be an author meets critic style session on John Bricke's, Mind and
Morality, An Examination of Hume's Moral Psychology (Oxford, 1996).
Stephen Darwall will serve as commentator.
Pacific Division
information was not available at press time.
Call for Papers: Rousseau Association Tenth Biennial
Conference
The Rousseau Association is
seeking papers and paper proposals for its Tenth Biennial Conference which
will be held at Université Laval, Quebec, from May 29 - June 1, 1997. The
theme of the conference is Rousseau, Juge de Jean-Jacques. One-page
abstracts or twelve-page completed papers (in English or French)
discussing the Dialogues should be sent to Philip Knee, Faculté de
philosophie, Université Laval, Québec, Québec G1K 7P4, Canada. Or e-mail
<Philip.Knee@fp.ulaval.ca> by October 10, 1996.
Call for Contributors: Dictionary of Literary
Biography - Second Notice
A series of
volumes of the Dictionary of Literary Biography (DLB) will be devoted to
British and American philosophers of the last several centuries, and
contributors are still needed for some of the entries. The DLB is edited
at Bruccoli Clark Layman Inc. of Columbia, S.C., and published by the
noted publisher of reference materials, Gale Research Inc. of Detroit. It
is an open-ended series that currently consists of about 160 volumes.
(Volumes are published at a rate of about one per month.) Although the DLB
is called a "dictionary," the articles in each volume are not terse,
dictionary-style entries but fully illustrated, in-depth
biographical-critical essays on significant writers of a specific genre,
literary movement, and/or time period. This unique arrangement allows
users to study a group of authors in their literary context and to examine
their collective impact. Each DLB entry is written by a recognized scholar
and discusses its subject's life, career, and works and summarizes the
critical response to the works from initial publication to the present.
Each entry also contains a complete list of the subject's works and a
bibliography of secondary sources on the subject. DLB volumes can be found
on the reference shelves of college, university, and public libraries
throughout the United States and Great Britain.
Hume
Society member Donald T. Siebert edited volume 101, British Prose
Writers, 1660-1800, First Series, in which articles on Berkeley by
Kenneth Winkler and on Locke by G.A.J. Rogers appeared, and volume 104
[same title], Second Series, with articles on Hume by Don Livingston and
on Adam Smith by Ian Ross. Anyone thinking of contributing to these new
volumes might want to consult these articles as models.
Entry lengths and fees are as follows: for a relatively minor figure,
3,000 words ($50); for a second-rank figure, 5,000-6,000 words ($75); for
a first-rank figure, 10,000-12,000 words ($100); for a "giant," as long as
is required by the subject's canon and career ($125). Also, a DLB entry is
a significant publication credit that identifies the contributor as an
authority in his or her field. Subjects still available at this writing
include Francis Bacon, Jeremy Bentham, David Hume, John Locke, John Stuart
Mill, A.J. Ayer, Stuart Hampshire, G. E. Moore, Karl Popper, Sir David
Ross, L. Susan Stebbing, Robert Nozick, and John Rawls. Generally, after a
contract is signed we allow three months for the completion of an entry,
but the deadline is negotiable.
For more information,
please contact the philosophy series editor, Dr. Philip B. Dematteis,
Bruccoli Clark Layman, Inc., 2006 Sumter Street, Columbia SC 29201-2157;
phone (803) 771-4642; fax(803)799-6953; e-mail PhilipD882@AOL.com.
McGill Hume Studies
Still Available
We
still have many copies of both the paperback and hardcover editions of
McGill Hume Studies, generously donated by David Fate Norton. The
volume, which contains papers from the McGill Bicentennial Hume Conference
in 1976, is edited by David Fate Norton, Nicholas Capaldi, and Wade L.
Robison. To order a copy, send a check for $7 U.S. (or its equivalent in
your currency) for paper, $15 for hardcover, to the Executive
Secretary-Treasurer. An order form is enclosed with this
Bulletin.
Seminar on
"Theories and Practices of Religious
Toleration/Intolerance"
The Advanced Study
Center of the International Institute, University of Michigan, invites
applications and nominations to its 1997-98 seminar on, "Theories and
Practices of Religious Toleration/Intolerance." The seminar will be
directed by Edwin Curley and Stephen Darwall of the Department of
Philosophy and will be broadly interdisciplinary while including issues of
special interest to philosophers.
Residency fellowship opportunities are available on a competitive basis to University of Michigan students, faculty, and staff as well as to pre-doctoral and post-doctoral scholars, community organizers, media professionals, and cultural practitioners from outside the University. Pre-doctoral fellows who are in the advanced stages of dissertation writing are especially encouraged to apply. The ASC will offer a small number of long-term fellowships and a larger number of short-term fellowships (one week to one month). It is possible and also encouraged to combine support from the ASC with supplementary sources of funding: sabbatical support, other fellowships, or foundations grants. Applications from Ph.D. students, junior and senior scholars, and professionals are due JANUARY 10, 1997. Applications must include application form, cover letter, research proposal of no more than 1200 words responsive to the described field of inquiry for 1997-98, CV, and three letters from referees who are familiar with your work and the proposed project. Nominations of senior scholars and practitioners are due DECEMBER 20, 1996. Nominations must include letter of recommendation, the nominees qualifications and affiliation, contact information of nominee, CV, and one additional nominator or referee.
Contact Rebecca Armstrong, Program Coordinator, ASC of the International Institute, U. of Michigan, 340 Lorch Hall, 611 Tappan St., Ann Arbor, MI 49109-1220; tel: 313-764-2268; fax:313-763-9154; e-mail: rebecca@umich.edu.
WWW: http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/asc/index.html
Further information is also available from Stephen Darwall
(sdarwall@umich.edu) and Edwin Curley (emcurley@umich.edu).
Hume in the News
The New York Times, Sunday, August 4, 1996 edition ran a story
called "Measuring Riches in Ideas, Not Gold" by Sana Siwolop. The article
was a sidebar to a feature on Rebecca Goldstein, a former Barnard College
philosophy professor and a winner in this year's MacArthur Foundation
competition. The article quotes Hume Society member Geoffrey Sayre McCord,
who suggests that a disdain for money is a deep and abiding tradition in
philosophy. Of interest to Humeans is the second paragraph of the three
paragraph article:
Even philosophers who have treated money
with less disdain have viewed it not in a practical light but in terms of
grand social uses. In 1762, David Hume wrote that rather than being the
"wheels of trade," money was "the oil which renders the motion of the
wheels more smooth and easy." In the 19th century, the utilitarian
philosophers, like John Stuart Mill, saw money as a tool for either
distributing or procuring happiness, although that didn't prevent them
from addressing its disadvantages.
Clark Library Announces New Acquisition
The following announcement was published in The
Center and Clark Newsletter, Number 28, Fall, 1996. a publication
of the UCLA Center for 17th and 18th Century Studies and the William
Andrews Clark Memorial Library. It is used with the permission of the
author of the announcement, Clark Library librarian Bruce
Whiteman.
A very important manuscript was
added to the Clark's holding of early modern material this year. It
concerns the famous quarrel between David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Hume had given Rousseau shelter in 1766 as an act of friendship, but the
high-strung Rousseau took it into his head that Hume was his enemy, and
spread rumors to that effect. Hume wrote an account of the fracas and sent
it to D'Alembert in Paris so that his French friends would not
misunderstand what had happened. D'Alembert added to Hume's manuscript,
modified it, and arranged fro it to be translated by J.-B.-A Suard and
published as the Exposé succinct de la contestation qui s'est élevée
entre M. Hume et M. Rousseau ([Paris], 1766). This version of Hume's
manuscript was in turn retranslated into English and published in London
as A Concise and Genuine Account [etc.]. Hume's original account
was, however, also copied and sent to his friend Jean-Charles Trudaine de
Montigny, who made his own faithful translation of the text without any
interpolations. It is this manuscript, formerly in the collection of Sir
Thomas Phillipps, which the Clark has acquired; and as Hume's original
manuscript has disappeared, the Clark manuscript represents the most
accurate recension of the Scottish philosopher's narrative of l'affaire
Jean-Jacques. The Clark already owned a holograph letter from Hume to
Gilbert Stuart, the editor of the Edinburgh Magazine and Review,
together with an extensively revised proof of Hume's review of Robert
Henry's History of Great Britain that appeared in Stuart's journal.
Recent Books and
Monographs
Badía-Cabrera, Miguel A., La reflexión de David Hume en
torno a la religión, San Juan, PR: Editorial de la Universidad de
Puerto Rico, 1996, 420 pp. (ISBN 0-8477-0198-0).
This book is the result of an attempt to formulate a
comprehensive and organic interpretation of Hume's philosophy of religion.
In Parts I and II, the author approaches Hume's theory of religion from a
unitary perspective of his grandiose philosophical project; he examines it
from the vantage point of its main ontological, epistemological, and
ethical principles, its historical roots, and enlightened aims.
Badía-Cabrera also relates Hume's reflection on religion to the thinker's
own historical works and, conversely, takes the investigation into the
origin and development as the leading thread to the discovery of a Humean
philosophy of history. In the final chapters, Hume's theses concerning the
eminently irrational and feigned character of religious faith and its
inevitable negative effect on morality, are critically analyzed.
Part III examines Hume's attack against
the validity of the conclusions of rational theology through his critique
of the traditional proofs, such as the ontological argument, the appeal to
testimony about miracles, and the argument from design. The last two
chapters tackle the question: what and how much can human reason really
establish about the existence and nature of God. On this issue, the author
argues that Hume's view is a kind of mitigated theism. The latter, even
though it recognizes that the belief in God does not arise from an
instinct and that the empirical evidence does not sufficiently justify it,
upholds it both as a natural and reasonable belief.
Bricke, John, Mind and Morality: An Examination
of Hume's Moral Psychology, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. 263
pp.
John Bricke presents a
philosophical study of the theory of mind and morality that David Hume
developed in his Treatise of Human Nature and other writings. The
chief elements in this theory of mind are Hume's accounts of reasons for
action and of the complex interrelations of desire, volition, and
affection. On this basis, Professor Bricke lays out and defends Hume's
thoroughgoing non-cognitivist theory of moral judgement, and shows that
cognitivist and standard sentimentalist readings of Hume are
unsatisfactory, as are the usual interpretations of his views on the
connections between morality, justice, and convention.
Hume rejects any conception of moral beliefs and
moral truths. He understands morality in terms of distinctive desires and
other sentiments that arise through the correction of sympathy. He
represents moral desires as prior to the other moral sentiments. Morality,
he holds, in part presupposes conventions for mutual interest; it is not,
however itself a matter of convention.
Mind and Morality demonstrates that Hume's sophisticated
moral conativism sets a challenge that recent cognitivist theories of
moral judgement cannot readily meet, and his subtle treatment of the
interplay of morality and convention suggests significant limitations to
recent conventionalist and contractarian accounts of morality's
content.
Haakonssen,
Knud, ed., Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in
Eighteenth-Century Britain, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996.
This book
reassesses the relationship between Enlightenment and religion in England.
It has long been accepted that liberal, rational dissenters developed an
Enlightenment agenda, but most literature on this topic is out of date.
These interdisciplinary essays provide a fresh analysis of rational
dissent within English Enlightenment culture from a variety of viewpoints.
Its wide perspective and new research make Enlightenment and
Religion an important and original contribution to eighteenth-century
studies.
Papers should be no more than thirty minutes reading
length with self-references deleted for blind reviewing; the author's name
should appear only on a front cover sheet. Papers may be in English,
French or German, but an abstract in English is required for all papers.
Authors are requested to submit papers and abstracts in triplicate.
The Hume Society has set aside up to $1000 for the
support of graduate students reading papers at the annual Hume Society
meetings, to be given at the discretion of the Conference Co-Directors to
those whose papers have been accepted through the normal vetting
process.
Membership stands at 435, an increase of 5% from last
year. The Society's new website is an important source of new members. The
treasury stands at $20,079.93 as of 5/31/96. Occidental College continues
to cover all the regular operating expenses of the secretary-treasurer's
office.
As a result of the action of the Executive Committee,
the Society will set aside up to $1000 for support of graduate students
reading papers at the annual Hume Society meetings, to be given at the
discretion of the Conference directors to those whose papers have been
accepted through the normal vetting process. It is presumed that these
grants will be distributed in a fair way, with the same amounts to
everyone the presumption, and it is presumed that not all the $1000 need
be spent. This action is to be in effect for two years only, to be
reconsidered after that time. The EC also voted that we not impose a
surcharge on checks drawn from non-US banks, that we encourage everyone to
pay be credit card, pointing out that it costs the Society to cover check
conversion costs for non-US checks. This change will begin in 1997.
The Conference site for next year is Monterey,
California, and those who wish further information about it should first
look at the website for the conference and then, if they have further
questions, contact Elizabeth Radcliffe. University College Dublin July 25th through August
1st. John Biro and Mikael Karlsson worked out the details, and we are
meeting in Cork. Desmond Clarke (Cork) and Steve Darwall (Michigan) are
the co-directors. Desmond is to be assisted by his
colleague, Garrett Barden, who is currently President of the Irish
Philosophical Society. This conference is to be held July 19th through the
23rd, jointly with the Irish Philosophical Society, and immediately prior
to the Enlightenment Congress. It should be noted that Hume "visited Cork
for several weeks when returning from the expedition to the coast of
France with General St. Clair in 1747 and planned to move there...in 1764
or so...but was persuaded it would be too dangerous both for himself and
his patron Lord Hertford, who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland."
Toshihiko ISE, Ritsumeikan University, Philosophy,
"Hume on the obligation of promise"
Hitoshi TAMURA, Nagoya University, Philosophy, "The
Modern Concept of Man and the problem of Personal Identity in Hume"
Tohru SAKURAI, Kobe University, Jurisprudence, "The
Correlation between Hume's Theory of Ideas and his Liberalism"
Satoshi NIIMURA, Okayama University, History of
Economic Thought, "The Difference between Hume's and Smith's Concepts of
Sympathy"
Tomoko MORITA, Seikei University, History of Political
Thought, "The Liberty in David Hume"
The variety among the speakers' main subject fields
and their chosen topics is impressive and arguably
represents the present state of Hume studies in Japan. The age and gender
composition of them (all of them in their late thirties and early forties
and one female included, i.e. .Ms. MORITA) is noteworthy. Furthermore, we
invited Professor Ryuei TSUESHITA, Emeritus, Tokyo University, as the
special guest speaker. He is certainly one of the pioneering and the most
authoritative scholars on Hume and the Anglo-American Philosophy in
general. It is additionally important that he is President of the Japanese
Society for the History of British Philosophy and will continue to be so
at the time of the conference.
Besides, these main speakers, Kiyoshi SHIMOKAWA, Takao
KATSURAGI, and possibly myself wish to work as commentators on the papers
by non-Japanese speakers in line with the original agreement. Though we
actually promised five commentators, as the number of the speakers
increased from the original agreement, we thought that the reduced number
of the commentators might be acceptable to the non-Japanese participants.
As a matter of fact, these three are the core members of the newly-formed
Hume Study Group here and they found it preferable to step aside from the
group of the main speakers and to give as much opportunity as possible to
other active members of the group.
The Kemp Smith Critique on
the Web The following is an account of the World Wide Web
edition of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, translated by
Norman Kemp Smith. The website and search engine is the work of Tze-wan
Kwan at Chinese University of Hong Kong, using the electronic text
prepared by Stephen Palmquist of the Hong Kong Baptist University. The
account below was written by Tze-wan Kwan and may be found on the website
as well. ( http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr/)
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is no doubt one of the
greatest books of Western philosophy. The book is epoch-making both as the
foundation stone of Kant's "critical philosophy" and as a watershed
dividing the dogmatic and critical mode of thinking in the history of
Western philosophy. Kant published this work in two editions in his own
life time, appeared in 1781 and in 1787 respectively, usually referred to
as Edition A and Edition B) The translation of the Critique from the
German original into English has also a long history. Schopenhauer nearly
became the first translator if he followed through his original intention.
To this day the English speaking world has seen three translations of the
Critique. The first translation was published by J.M.D. Meiklejohn
in 1855. The second translation appeared in 1881 through the labour of Max
Müller. These two translations, making use of the second and the first
original edition respectively, were very soon superseded by the third
translation provided by Norman Kemp Smith in 1929.
To satisfy the English readership's urge for a
translation that covers both of Kant's original versions Kemp Smith based
his translation not on either of the editions alone, but on a parallel
edition (with A/B paginations) provided by Raymund Schmidt (1925/26). Kemp
Smith excelled his two predecessors in being himself a dedicated Kant
scholar. His Kant scholarship, though very much challenged today, is
testified by his A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason
which appeared as early as 1918.
The HKBU edition: The electronic version of
Kemp Smith's text was originally prepared by Stephen Palmquist of the Hong
Kong Baptist University. The text was placed in the Oxford Text Archive in
1985 for private dissemination.
Terms on the Executive Committee will
expire for Charlotte Brown, Geoff Sayre McCord and Stephen Darwall at the
end of 1996. Darwall is eligible for a second term. Terms of office for
Wade Robison, President and Saul Traiger, Executive Secretary-Treasurer
will expire in 1997. Robison is not eligible for re-election. Traiger is
eligible for re-appointment by the Executive Committee, but he will not
seek a second term.
The Executive
Committee of the Hume Society meets continuously by e-mail, and among its
items of business this past year, we considered the status of the
International Corresponding Members. Their role is to provide support for
Hume studies and for the Society in their countries, serving as a liaison
between the Society and those scholars in their countries concerned to
further the study of Hume. They receive a free membership to the Society
for their services. It was decided that we should provide for a more
regular reporting system than we currently have, asking for them to report
on what they have done to increase Hume Society membership, for instance,
so that we could have a better idea what the Society might be able to do
to further encourage Hume scholarship.
This past year I asked for the members of the Society to
contact me if they had any concerns about how the Society was being run,
how it was organized, what it was planning on doing, and so on. I heard
not a word, but I would urge any who do have concerns to contact me.
Otherwise the presumption will be made that everything is fine, and faults
will not be corrected. I am in the process of drafting a "Guide for
Conferences" so that those planning future conferences will not always
have to start afresh. I would be delighted to hear from any members who
have suggestions for that. In response to a concern expressed at the
Nottingham business meeting, the Executive Committee will soon be
considering whether to require that copies of papers and comments at the
Conferences be available at the Conference. Even for those of us whose
native tongue is English, having copies would help our understanding of a
paper's point and also further discussion. So that is one example of how
your comments can help further the Society's aims.
The Conference site for 1998 is Stirling, Scotland. Tony Pitson
is the on-site director, and Jane McIntyre and Peter Millican are the
co-directors. In accepting Peter's offer to put on the Conference in
commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the publication of the first
Enquiry, the committee hoped that it would be held at Leeds or some
relevantly similar city in England or Scotland. Tony has graciously agreed
to have it in Stirling. The Executive Committee voted to switch the on-off
pattern for 1999/2000 so that we are meeting off the North American
continent in 1999 rather than on. That was to take advantage of a
suggestion by David Raynor that we meet in Ireland in conjunction with the
Enlightenment Congress to be held at
The Executive Committee solicits offers
for 2000 and 2001. It is presumed that both of these meetings are to be on
the North American continent. That would return us to the normal on/off
pattern, and 2002 would thus see a conference off the North American
continent.
Editor's Note: The following is a synopsis of Professor Tatsuya
Sakamoto's report at the business meeting in Nottingham. Professor
Sakamoto is one of three co-directors of the 1997 Hume Conference, and he
has been charged with organizing sessions involving Japanese Hume
scholars.
The Japanese
speakers for the 1997 Conference have been almost settled and an
invitation for a special guest speaker has been readily accepted. There
will be six speakers in all which is one more than anticipated when the
initial arrangements were made at the Park City conference. This is mainly
because of the quick and enthusiastic response of the six to our
invitation and we found it rather difficult to persuade either one of them
not to join but also because we though it might possibly, but not
desirably, happen that either one or two of them withdrew at the final
stage. The names, their affiliations, their majors and their proposed
topics are as follows:
Masaki
ICHINOSE, Tokyo University, Philosophy, "Hume's three concepts of
cause"
Palmquist scanned in and repeatedly proofread the text over
years of personal use. In preparing the electronic text, page numbers of
the English text (but not the original A/B pagination) were reproduced.
Line structures (including all end-of-line hyphens) were also preserved
(by using the <pre> and </pre> markup tags). With these two
features, the electronic text prepared by Palmquist conforms by and large
with the page layout of the paper version of the Kemp Smith text as was
published by the MacMillan Book Company.
Palmquist also used the Oxford Concordance Program (OCP) to
generate a concordance and a word index for the Kemp Smith translation.
The WWW version of the Kemp Smith text together with the concordance and
index output files (not online searchable) made their first appearance in
October 1995, in the Hong Kong Baptist University where Steve is
working.
The CUHK edition:
Soon after the appearance of Kemp Smith's translation of the
Critique at the HKBU, initiative was taken at the Chinese
University of Hong Kong to further process the text. The first step was to
set up an online searchable index and have it appended to the HKBU edition
of the Kemp Smith text, enhancing thus the overall value of the electronic
edition of the Critique.
Basic features of the online search engine: 1.Boolean operation
supported; 2.Text unit(s), line number(s) (with reference to file
containing the text unit), and the line(s) of text containing search
argument(s) returned for each matching string; 3.Clicking on the index
output brings the user to the very line of the respective text
unit.
After the construction of the
online search engine, it gradually turns out that, for the search engine
to be effective, some major modifications have to be made on the text
database files themselves. In this regard, we again have to thank
Palmquist for giving his consent for such a move. He even sent us some of
the original working copies of his database to facilitate the setup of
this present CUHK edition. For timing and manpower reasons, the
restructuring of the text database files has to be carried out in stages,
starting with more urgent and structural related matters. Other more
labour intensive work has to be done sometime in the future, probably
during summer vacation!
Modifications made in the CUHK edition: 1.The
Critique is divided into 21 (instead of 8 as in the HKBU edition)
text units, each entailing a more or less unique theme of philosophical
significance. Shorter text units also quicken text retrieval; 2.While
still maintaining the page layout and line structure of the English text,
all end-of-line hyphens (except hard hyphens) are removed. The
dehyphenated words are put either at the end of the preceding line or at
the beginning of the following line (depending on calculation with a Perl
script). Removal of end-of-line hyphens was necessary for more accurate
search results; 3.The online search engine has been debugged and revised
to work on this new (CUHK) edition; 4.An internal page/line concordance
was created so that, in the search output, page numbers of the MacMillan
text together with line numbers (with reference to the respective pages)
are returned. In this way, our online search engine becomes an
indispensable tool for all serious students of Kant using the MacMillan
text of the Critique.
Modifications planned for the future: 1.The Original A/B
pagination will be restored; 2.All original footnotes will be separated
from the main text to improve text flow; 3.All alternative readings
(Lesearten), emendations etc. left out in the HKBU edition will be
reinstated; 4.The online search engine will be overhauled to keep in line
with whatever changes made.
E-Mail the EC
To facilitate communication with the Executive
Committee, a special e-mail address has been set up by Peter Millican. To
send a message to members of the EC, direct your mail to
humemail@scs.leeds.ac.uk. The EC asks that you use this address only to
communicate matters for the entire executive committee. Business e-mail
correspondence, such as membership information, should be addressed to the
Executive Secretary-Treasurer.