Spring 2000, Vol. XXIX, No. 1

Executive Committee Elections 1999

The election of members to the Hume Society's Executive Committee ran late and the results were not announced until 29 February. There were six excellent candidates for three positions.

Simon Blackburn was re-elected to a second 3-year term. Kate Abramson and Rachel Cohon were each elected to 3-year terms. These terms run until the end of 2002.

The Hume Society expresses its deep thanks to the retiring members of the Executive Commitee, Steve Darwall and Dan Flage, for their excellent service, and extends its congratulations to those elected. Thanks are also extended to those who consented to run for office but were not elected; in making themselves available, they performed an important service to the Society.

The Society's Executive Committee consists of ten members. Nine persons are elected to staggered three-year terms, so that in principle three members are elected each year. The Executive Secretary-Treasurer is appointed by the Executive Committee to a five-year term and serves on the Committee ex officio.

In addition to those recently elected, other members of the Executive Committee are: John Biro (President), Jane McIntyre and Jaqueline Taylor (terms running to the end of 2000); Tito Magri, A. E. Pitson and John Wright (terms running to the end of 2001); and Mikael M. Karlsson (Secretary-Treasurer, appointed through the end of 2002).

Twenty-eighth Annual Hume Society Conference to be Held in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada 23rd-27th July 2001

An Announcement and Call for Papers was issued in March for the Twenty-eighth Annual Hume Society Conference, which will be held in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, July 23rd-27th, 2001. The University of Victoria is the host institution.

Co-directing the conference will be David Fate Norton (McGill University, University of Victoria), James Tully (University of Victoria), Paul B. Wood (University of Victoria) and Don Garrett (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

Papers on any aspect of Hume's life and works will be considered for the program. However, submissions on the following topics will be especially welcome: Hume and Locke, Hume and the Passions, Hume as Storyteller.

The Program Committee has also invited brief (1200 words maximum) submissions for a symposium on Hume's remark, 'A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence' (EHU 10.4). This symposium, which will include ample opportunity for discussion by the participants and the audience, comes as a welcome innovation.

Special funds have been set aside to help in covering the travel costs of graduate students reading papers. These funds will be given at the discretion of the conference co-directors to those whose papers are accepted through the normal refereeing process.

Submissions must be postmarked by November 1, 2000. Send triplicate copies of both abstracts and papers to:

Professor Mikael M. Karlsson
Executive Secretary-Treasurer
The Hume Society
University of Iceland
Main Building
 IS-101 Reykjavik
Iceland

Members should watch the Society's web site http://www.hi.is/~mike/hume.html  for up-dates.

Twenty-seventh Hume Society Conference Coming Up in Williamsburg, Virginia 24th-29th July 2000

Members of the Hume Society are now looking forward to the Twenty-seventh Hume Society Conference, "A Feast of Reason", which will be held in Williamsburg, Virginia, 24th-29th July 2000, hosted by the College of William and Mary.

Co-directing the conference are: Dorothy Coleman (College of William and Mary, USA), James Dye (Northern Illinois University, USA), Tito Magri (University of Rome, Italy) and Adam Potkay (College of William and Mary, USA)

Registration and program information are now available on line at the conference web site: <http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~phildept/Hume/>. This site can also be accessed through the Hume Society home page.

The conference bureau at William and Mary has set a sliding scale for the registration fee, so that it will cost a bit more to register after 15 May and significantly more after 15 June.

The final program is not yet available, but a draft program follows herewith (for up-dates, please consult the conference web site):

                               
Monday, 24 July

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Morning & Afternoon - Registration
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Session I A - Metaphysics

Chair: John Biro (University of Florida)

14:00: P. J. E. Kail (Cambridge), "Sceptical Realism, Mental Causation, and Hume's Second Thoughts about Personal Identity"
Comments: Jane McIntyre (Cleveland State)

15:00: Vijay J. Mascarenhas, "Hume's Recantation Revisited"

16:00: Donald L. M. Baxter (University of Connecticut), "Hume on Steadfast Objects and Time"

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Session I B - Ethics

14:00: Andrew S. Cunningham, "Extensive Sympathy and Hume's Moral Philosophy"

15:00: A. E. Pitson (University of Sterling), "Hume on Morals and Animals"
Comments: William Davie (University of Oregon)

16:00: Kate Abramson, "The Humean Spectator: Not Much to Complain About, After All"

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18:00 Welcoming Reception
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Tuesday, 25 July
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Session II - Representation

10:00: Keith Lehrer (University of Arizona), "Hume and Reid on Reason and Representation"

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Session III A - Utilitarianism and Social Theory

14:00: Elizabeth Ashford (Oxford), "Hume: A Subtle and Non-utopian Utilitarian"

15:00: Syd M. Johnson, "Hume on the Origins of Society and Government: the Siren Song of the Proximal"

16:00: Carl Wennerlind (Elon College), Hume on Promises and Money

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Session III B - Dialogues concerning Natural Religion

14:00: Peter McLaughlin (Universität Konstanz), "Philo's Embarrassment: Hume's Argument from Design"

15:00: Martin Bell (Manchester Metropolitan University), "Writing and Philosophy: Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion"

16:00: Klaas J. Kraay (University of Ontario), Arguing with Cleanthes in His Own Way: Philo's Use of Parody in Dialogues, Part XI

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Session IV - Rhetoric

Chair: Dorothy Coleman

20:00: Discussion of Adam Potkay's The Passion for Happiness: Samuel Johnson and David Hume

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Wednesday, 26 July
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Session V - Causation

9:00: Charles R. Twardy (Indiana University), "Hume, Newton, and Maclaurin"

10:00: Andrew Ward (Georgia Institute of Technology), "Hume's Proof of the Causal Relation"

11:00: João Paulo Monteiro (University of Lisbon), "Hume, Association, and Causal Belief"  

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12:30: Tavern Lunch and Colonial Williamsburg Guided Tour -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Thursday, 27 July
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Session VI - Hume's Fiction

Chair: Adam Potkay

10:00: Susan Manning (University of Edinburgh), "Hume's Fragments of Union and Scottish Enlightenment Fiction"

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Session VII A - Epistemology

14:00: Eric von der Luft (SUNY Upstate Medical University), "What Was Hume Really Doing in the Essay on Miracles?"

15:00: Ward E.Jones (Rhodes University), "Can We Infer Naturalism from Scepticism?"

 16:00: Thomas Kiefer, "Hume's Experimental Method"

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Session VII B - Hutcheson, Human Nature, Hume's Revision

Chair: Elizabeth Radcliffe (Santa Clara University)

14:00: Michael Gill (College of Charleston), "Hume's Progressive View of Human Nature"  
Comments: Rachel Cohon (SUNY at Albany)

15:00: Frederick Rauscher (Michigan State University), "Moral Realism and the Divine Essence in Hutcheson and Hume"  
Comments: John Corvino (Wayne State University)

16:00: Frits L. Van Holthoon (University of Groningen), "From Sentiment to Utility: Hume's Rewriting of Book III of the Treatise"

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Friday, 28 July
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Session VIII - Religion

Chair: James Dye (Northern Illinois)

10:00: Stanley Tweyman (York University), "Cleanthes' Uses and Abuses of the Articulate Voice Illustration"

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Session IX - Reason

Chair: Tito Magri (University of Rome)

14:00: Discussion of David Owen's Hume's Reason
Don Garrett (University of North Carolina)
Ted Morris (Illinois Wesleyan)
David Owen (University of Arizona)

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18:00: Reception
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19:00: Banquet
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    Saturday, 29 July
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Session X - Scepticism

Chair: Mikael Karlsson (University of Iceland)

9:00: James King (Northern Illinois), "The Sceptic's Sensibility"

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11:00: Hume Society Business Meeting

Chair: John Biro, President

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New From Thoemmes Press: Early Responses to Hume

Thoemmes Press has recently launched a new series, Early Responses to Hume's Writings, a collection of 18th and 19th-century critical publications on Hume's philosophical, political, economic and historical works:

Volumes 1 and 2:  Early Responses to Hume's Moral, Literary and Political Writings

Volumes 3 and 4:  Early Responses to Hume's Metaphysical and Epistemological Writings

Volumes 5 and 6:  Early Responses to Hume's Writings on Religion (2001)

Volumes 7 and 8:  Early Responses to Hume's History of England (2002)

Volumes 9 and 10: Early Hume Biographies and Bibliographies (2003)

Series Index

Volumes 1 and 2 have already appeared. About to be published are Volumes 3 and 4. These contain 40 responses to the Treatise Books 1 and 2, the metaphysical and epistemological portions of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and the "Dissertation on the Passions". Many of the selections have not been reprinted since their original publication and are therefore accessible to scholars only with difficulty. The selections are edited, annotated and introduced by James Fieser, founder of two philosophy web sites, the Hume Archives and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; he is also editing the other volumes in this series. Topics included in the new volumes are causality, personal identity, free will and determinism, scepticism, and the nature of the passions. The set includes responses by William Wishart, Henry Home, John Leland, Thomas Reid, Joseph Highmore, James Oswald, James Balfour, James Beattie, James Burnett, Joseph Preistly, John Allen, Henry James Richter, Richard Kirwan, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown and Lady Mary Shepherd. Also included are new English translations of five foreign language reviews of Hume's Treatise and Enquiry.

ISBN 185506796 X : 2 vols : Cloth : £175 / $280. Available May 2000.

Theommes Press issues many items of interest to scholars of Hume and the Enlightenment. Members may be interested in consulting the firm's web site: http://www.thoemmes.com/ 

Newly Formed: Michael Oakeshott Association

The membership of the Hume Society may be interested in the existence of a new society, the Michael Oakeshott Association, devoted to the promotion and critical discussion of the work of British philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990). The convener is Mr. Leslie Marsh.

Oakeshott is thought by many to have been the last of the great British sceptics; and in his writings, Oakeshott exhibited a strong affinity with Hume's approach to moral and political subjects. The new association has established a website at:  http://www.michael-oakeshott-association.org/