Fall 2000, Vol. XXIX, No. 2
Bulletin of the
HUME SOCIETY
Department of Philosophy -
University of Iceland, IS-101 Reykjavík, Iceland
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Call for Nominations to the
Executive Committee
and for President of the Hume
Society
The Hume Society now invites
nominations to the Executive Committee and to the Presidency of the Society.
Only members of the Hume Society are eligible for nomination; they must be
proposed by at least two other members and must agree to serve if elected in
order to be officially nominated. Proposals should be sent to the Executive
Secretary-Treasurer of the Hume Society by 15 October 1999 for the elections to
be held by mail ballot in November. Please note that according to the Society's
constitution, "A member of the Hume Society shall be a person who has paid dues
for the current year." Nominations may be sent to the Secretary-Treasurer by
post (see address of the Hume Society, above) or e-mail <hume@hi.is> .
The Executive Committee is meant to
be composed of ten members, nine of whom, including the President of the
Society, are elected by the membership (in groups of three) to staggered
three-year terms. The Secretary-Treasurer (elected by the Executive Committee to
a five-year term) serves ex officio
as the tenth member of the Executive Committee.
Those whose terms expire at the end
of 2000 are Jane McIntyre, Jaqueline Taylor and our current President, John
Biro. Of these three, only Jackie is eligible for re-election, Jane and John
having now served two consecutive three-year terms. In any case, John does not
seek re-election to the Presidency.
Hence, three persons must be elected
this fall to three-year terms which will run through the end of 2003, one of
them as President and the other two to regular seats in the Executive Committee.
Nominators and seconders should make it clear whether they are proposing a
candidate for a regular seat in the Executive Committee or for the
Presidency.
Other members of the Executive
Committee are currently: Tito Magri, A.E. Pitson and John Wright* (terms running
to the end of 2001); Kate Abramson, Simon Blackburn* and Rachel Cohon (terms
running to the end of 2002) and Mikael M. Karlsson (Secretary-Treasurer,
appointed through the end of 2002).
*Will not be eligible for
re-election when current term expires.
Williamsburg: a Sumptuous "Feast of
Reason"
The Twenty-Seventh Hume Society
Conference, "A Feast of Reason", was hosted by the College of William and Mary
in Williamsburg, Virginia from the 24th through the 29th of July 2000 and will
be remembered as a well-organized, congenial event, remarkable both for its
scholarly interest and its relaxed pace. The "Feast" was co-directed by Dorothy
Coleman, James Dye, Tito Magri and Adam Potkay. The Society is extremely
grateful to the conference directors and to the many other people who helped to
make this a successful Hume Conference, and formal thanks were expressed at the
business meeting in Williamsburg, held on July 29th (see below). The
organization of a Hume Conference is extremely demanding and time-consuming.
Conference organizers should be in no doubt that the Society very much
appreciates their efforts. In keeping with the Society's traditions, the
co-directors of the "Feast" were presented with gifts at the conference banquet
by our President, John Biro: Dorothy, Jim and Adam received bottles of Scottish
single malt, while Tito Magri was presented with a book.
Business Meeting. The Society's annual
business meeting began promptly at 11:00 a.m. on July 29, 2000 and was chaired
by Hume Society President John Biro. The agenda was announced in five parts: (1)
Approval of the 1999 minutes, (2) Report of the President, (3) Report of the
Secretary-Treasurer, (4) Announcements and (5) Other business.
(1) The 1999 minutes, as previously
published, were unanimously approved.
(2) John Biro's report outlined the
arrangements which have been made for future meetings:
(i) The Twenty-eighth
Hume Society Conference is to be held in Victoria, British Columbia in late
July, 2001, co-directed by :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). The
preparations for this conference are well advanced, and a conference web site
should be operational by September.
(ii) The Society has
accepted an invitation from Helsinki University to hold the Twenty-Ninth
Conference in Helsinki, Finland in early August, 2002. It was evident from the
letter of invitation that there is local interest in hosting the conference and
firm institutional support. Wade Robison and Mikael M. Karlsson have made
themselves available to be co-directors along with Olli Loukola and Timo
Airaksinen in Helsinki. Olli Luokola will head the committee responsible for
local arrangements. The conference theme will be announced by September.
(iii) The Thirtieth Hume
Society Conference is to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2003, with Craig Walton
chairing the organizing committee. Themes and precise dates have yet to be
decided, but the commitment appears firm.
(iv) No site has yet been
determined for the Thirty-first Hume Society Conference in 2004. The Society has
received with interest an invitation to return to Marburg, Germany.
Possibilities of holding this meeting in Spain or Italy are also being looked
into. An attempt will be made to have a firm plan for this conference by
December of this year.
(v) A suggestion has been
made for organizing the Thirty-second Hume Society Conference in Chicago in
2005.
The President's Report was well
received with brief discussion. An alternative suggestion was made from the
floor to hold the 2005 conference in Toronto, Ontario. A follow-up to this
suggestion will be forthcoming from David Owen and Stanley Tweyman.
(3) Mikael M. Karlsson submitted an
annual financial report for 1999, reporting that the assets of the Hume Society,
expressed in US$ amounted to $23,385.95 as of 31 December 1999. He also
submitted an interim report, covering the period 1 January-30 June 2000,
reporting that the assets of the Hume Society, expressed in US$, stood at
$34,752.64. Mike also reported on the changes that have been made in the
Society's web site, including the ELECTRONIC Bulletin of the Hume Society,
which most members now accept in lieu of the printed Bulletin. He also explained that the
transfer of the Internet post list "hume-l" to Iceland had been delayed for
technical reasons but should be accomplished by September. (The full
Secretary-Treasurer's Report is accessible through the Society's web site.)
The Secretary-Treasurer's Report was
discussed briefly. Some suggestions were made for further improvements to the
web site.
(4) Announcements:
(i) Elizabeth Radcliffe
made these announcements concerning Hume
Studies.
(a) The 1990
double issue has appeared and has been sent to the membership.
(b) The April
2000 issue, which is the 25th Anniversary issue of Hume Studies, is in active
preparation and
will be sent out this fall.
(c) The November
2000 issue will be sent out just before, or shortly after, the end of this
year. With the
mailing of this issue, Hume Studies
will effectively be back on schedule.
(ii) A web site for the
Leeds Hume Project was announced. The URL is: http://www.etext.leeds.ac.uk/hume/
(5) A motion expressing the
Society's gratitude to the organizers of the Williamsburg Conference—Dorothy
Coleman, James Dye, Tito Magri and Adam Potkay—was passed by acclamation.
Mikael Karlsson reminded members
about the year-end Executive Committee and Presidential elections. Three persons
should be elected to three-year terms; two to regular EC seats and one to the
Presidency. Of the current EC members whose terms are ending, only Jacqueline
Taylor is eligible for re-election; Jane McIntyre and the Society's current
President, John Biro, have served two consecutive terms on the EC; and John does
not seek re-election to the Presidency. A call for nominations will go out at
the beginning of September.
The meeting was adjourned at
11:59.
Twenty-eighth
Hume Society Conference
to be
Held in Victoria, British Columbia
Dates Revised to July 25th-28th, 2001
As previously announced in the Bulletin, by special advertisement, and
via the "hume-mem" Internet post list, the Twenty-eighth annual Hume Society
Conference will be held in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, hosted by the
University of Victoria. At the suggestion of the conference organizers, and with
the approval of the Society's Executive Committee, the dates for the Victoria
Conference have been changed slightly from those announced earlier. The purpose
of the change is the minimization of travel and hotel costs to the
participants.
On the revised schedule, the
conference will begin on Wednesday, July 25, and will end Saturday night, July
28, 2001. This change shortens the conference to four days (four hotel nights)
means that delegates can begin their homeward journey early Sunday morning after
(it is hoped) qualifying for a lower airfare by staying over a Saturday
night.
Co-directing the Victoria conference
are: 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, the conference directors
especially welcome submissions on the following topics:
• Hume and Locke
• Hume and the
Passions
• Hume as Storyteller
Papers should be no longer than
thirty minutes in 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 of up to 150
words is required for all papers. In addition, the Program Committee invites
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). Several such
submissions will be selected for presentation at this symposium, which will
include ample opportunity for discussion by the participants and the audience.
The submissions deadline for contributions of both kinds is November 1, 2000,
which is now rapidly approaching.
The following persons will be
featured as invited speakers: Dario Castiglione (University of Exeter), Rachel
Cohon (State University of New York at Albany), Susan James, (Birkbeck College,
University of London), Eugenio Lecaldano (University of Rome -"La Sapienza"),
Mark Phillips (University of British Columbia), Geoffrey Sayre-McCord
(University of North Carolina). Lecture titles will be announced on the
conference web site (see below)
Several book panels are
scheduled.
A conference web site, containing additional information about the Victoria Conference, is now up and running: http://web.uvic.ca/~humcon01/
Seventh Annual California Conference
in Early Modern Philosophy to be Held at the University of California at
Berkeley, October 13-14, 2000
The Seventh Annual California
Conference in Early Modern Philosophy, organized by the California Scholars in
Early Modern Philosophy and sponsored by the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the
Humanities and the Department of Philosophy at Berkeley, will be held at the
University of California at Berkeley, October 13-14, 2000.
Program
Friday, Oct. 13
1:50-3:30: "Locke and Hume on
Belief, Judgment and Assent"; David Owen (U. of Arizona)
3:45-5:00: "Descartes on Achieving
Clarity and Distinctness"; Lex Newman (U. of Utah)
9:30-10:50: "Demons That Deceive,
Gods that Perceive, and the Limits of Skepticism"; Charles McCracken (Michigan
State University/Claremont)
11:00-12:20: Paper on Kant (title
TBA); Tyler Burge (UCLA)
2:00-3:20: "Leibniz on the Eternal
Truths"; Alan Nelson (UCI)
3:40-5:00: "Leibniz on Spontaneity
and Self-Determination"; Donald Rutherford (UCSD)
Further information may be obtained
from Tim Crockett at <phlos-bc@socrates.berkeley.edu>.
Antony Flew Awarded Schlarbaum Prize
The
2001 Schlarbaum Laureate is Antony G. N. Flew, emeritus professor of philosophy
at the University of Reading, England. The prize, which is granted by the Ludwig
von Mises Institute and carries a $10,000 cash award, recognizes Professor
Flew's outstanding lifetime achievement in the cause of liberty.
Throughout his long career, Flew has stressed conceptual clarity in philosophy
and has resolutely defended human freedom.
Flew was born in 1923 and
attended St. Faith's Preparatory School, Cambridge, from 1930 to 1936, Kingswood
School, Bath, from 1936 to 1941. His father was a clergyman, and Flew developed
a strong interest in religion at an early age. Like many men of his generation,
his progress toward an academic career was interrupted by the outbreak of World
War II. Flew served in Royal Air Force Intelligence and was later attached to
the Air Ministry.
OBITUARY: Paul G. Kuntz