I have posted some photos from the 12th International Conference on Persons in Lund last month on the conference website. It is likely that more will be added.
Category: Philosophy
Thomas Hill Green
12th ICP: Thank You
I want to extend my warmest thanks to all sixty-one participants, presenting as well as non-presenting, for your contributions to this year’s International Conference on Persons. It was a pleasure to receive you at Lund. Together, you made the event a success.
Most of all, my co-organizer, Randall E. Auxier of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, the current editor of the Library of Living Philosophers, deserves credit for making this a memorable conference.
Special mention must also be made of our wonderful conference assistant Rebecka Klette, a promising student in our department of the History of Ideas, who took care of the welcome reception, the coffee breaks, and much else; without her, the meeting would not have been possible.
My friend and colleague Jonas Hansson also set aside much time and energy to see to that everything ran smoothly.
A number of partners or accompanying persons who attended the conference dinner and in some cases a few of the sessions also contributed to the event.
My thanks go, finally, to Kungliga Humanistiska Vetenskapssamfundet i Lund; to Prof. Marianne Thormählen; to Prof. Thomas Kaiserfeld, Christel Anderberg, Kristiina Savin, Karin Salomonsson, and Susann Roos in the department of Arts and Cultural Sciences; to MediaTryck; and to the staff of Hotel Concordia and of the Grand Hotel.
I, Randy, Tom Buford and other past organizers of the ICP whom you met hope we will get an opportunity to see you all again at future ICPs.
At least two prominent publishers have expressed an interest in publishing the proceedings in book form; we will come back to you with information about this as soon as possible.
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Read more about the 12th International Conference on Persons under Uncategorized or on the conference website.
Alf Ahlberg: Humanismen
Historiska perspektiv och aktuella synpunkter
Dualis, 1992 (Sveriges Kyrkliga Studieförlag, 1951)
Dualis’ beskrivning:
Alf Ahlberg sätter i denna klassiska bok in den västerländska humanismen i ett större historiskt perspektiv och försöker därmed belysa dess egenart och situation i modern tid. Den bygger på övertygelsen att den humanistiska kulturtraditionen, sedan den utformats genom en syntes av det antika arvet med kristendomen, är den stora linjen i vår kultur, på vars bestånd och livskraft hela dess framtid beror. Humanismen företer många skiftningar och nyanser, men gemensamt för dem alla är tron på människan – inte på människans naturliga godhet men på hennes möjligheter till ett liv med förnuft och mening och där ord som rätt och orätt får en bestämd innebörd.
Ahlbergs förord:
Huvudsyftet med denna skrift är att sätta in den västerländska humanismen i ett större historiskt sammanhang och därmed söka belysa dess egenart och dess situation i dagens läge. Den bäres upp av den övertygelsen, att den humanistiska kulturtraditionen, sådan denna utformats i främsta rummet genom en syntes av det antika arvet med kristendomen, är den stora linjen i vår kultur, på vars bestånd och livskraft hela dess framtid beror. Någon “humanismens historia” vill boken däremot icke vara. Jag har i den del, som jag kallat “historiska perspektiv”, blott dröjt vid de andliga makter, som jag anser mer än andra ha byggt upp den västerländska humanismen, men förbigår mycket, som i en sådan historik borde haft sin givna plats. Större uppmärksamhet skulle jag ha velat ägna den svenska humanismen, ty ehuru den naturligtvis är blott ett skott på den allmänna västerländska humanismens vittförgrenade träd, företer den likväl vissa bestämda och karaktäristiska drag. Men en särskild framställning av den skulle ha sprängt skriftens ram.
En “stridsskrift” är boken blott såtillvida, som den för humanismens talan men icke i den meningen, att den söker sak med den s.k. “profana” humanismen. I det beträngda läge, i vari humanismen i våra dagar befinner sig, har det förefallit förf. mera angeläget att ta sikte på vad som förenar dess olika riktningar än vad som skiljer dem åt. Däremot har jag icke gjort någon hemlighet av att det enligt min mening icke finns någon “profan” humanism i ordets konsekventa mening, som skulle innebära, att människan blott betraktades som “ett stycke natur”. Även den humanism, som kallas profan, är i grunden en “religiös” humanism, såtillvida som dess anhängare blott kan hävda sin position genom att idealisera “människan” eller “det mänskliga” och ge detta begrepp en religiöst-metafysisk innebörd. Detta förhållande uttryckes i det ord av Thomas Mann, som jag valt som motto [In der Idee der Menschenwürde, des Wertes der Einzelseele, transcendiert das Humane ins Religiöse].
Att humanismen lika litet som någon annan på värderingar byggd livsåskådning kan vetenskapligt bevisa sin hållbarhet ligger i sakens natur. De yttersta värden, efter vilka vi vill inrätta vårt liv, är varken tillgängliga för vetenskaplig bevisning eller vederläggning. Det kan tyckas vara att slå in öppna dörrar att så pass utförligt som skett i boken dröja vid denna punkt. Men erfarenheten visar nogsamt, att denna insikt långt ifrån är allmän egendom varken bland den bildade allmänheten eller representanterna för specialvetenskaperna. I sitt anförande i UNESCO generalförsamling 1946, på svenska utgivet under titeln “Människornas rike på jorden”, talar Julian Huxley om en “vetenskaplig humanism”, som tydligen skall skilja sig från den äldre religiösa humanismen därigenom, att den är tillgänglig för vetenskaplig bevisning. Men någon vetenskaplig humanism finns icke och kan heller icke finnas.
Då jag tillägnat denna bok minnet av en av vårt lands finaste humanister [Albert Nilsson] vill jag därmed blott ge ett fattigt uttryck åt min tacksamhet för en mångårig vänskap, som för mig är oförgätlig.
Brunnsvik i augusti 1950
JOBs kommentar:
Man måste skilja mellan vetenskapen (i betydelsen naturvetenskapen) och dess bevis, å ena sidan, och filosofins (i dess rätt förstådda, fullständiga mening) analyser och argument rörande såväl livsåskådningar som de värden Ahlberg talar om, å den andra.
12th ICP: Recommended Restaurants
Since you will go out on your own for all lunches and dinners except the conference dinner on Thursday, August 8, some recommendations are needed:
Read about these and other restaurants in English on the Tourist Office’s site and InfoLund. And ask us about them at the Welcome Reception and we will tell you more!
Read more about the 12th International Conference on Persons under Uncategorized or on the conference website.
12th ICP: Program
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Tuesday, August 6
1:00-3:00
Registration, Tea and Coffee
Room 227
3:00-3:30
Welcome and Conference Information
Jan Olof Bengtsson, Lund University (Sweden)
Gunnar Broberg, Lund University (Sweden)
Room 201
3:30-4:15
Opening Panel on the History and Purpose of the ICP
Thomas O. Buford, Furman University (USA)
Responses:
Randall E. Auxier, Southern Illinois University Carbondale (USA)
Jan Olof Bengtsson, Lund University (Sweden)
Room 201
4:15-4:30
Break
4:30-5:30
Keynote Address
Keith Ward, Oxford University (UK)
Absolute and Personalist Idealism
Room 201
5:30-8:00
Welcome Reception
Room 227
Wednesday, August 7
9:00-10:20
Session A:
O. A. Oyowe, University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa)
Velleman and the Dis-guises of Self
Geraldine Ng, University of Reading (UK)
Persons, Agency, and the Operations of Blame
Commentator: Richard C. Prust
Room 202
Session B:
Anthony L. Cashio, Manchester University (USA)
Embracing a Personalist Approach to Environmental Philosophy
Jason M. Bell, University of New Brunswick and Mt. Allison University (Canada)
Toward a Methodology Against Genocide
Commentator: Federico Lauria
Room 109
10:20-10:40
Tea and Coffee
10:40-12:00
Session A:
Robert F. DeVall, Jr., West Chester University of Pennsylvania (USA)
Keeping the “I” in the “I-Thou” Relationship: Pringle-Pattison’s Rejection of an Impersonal Absolute
Douglas McDermid, Trent University (Canada)
Are Selves Sui Generis? McTaggart on Immortality and the Argument from Impermanence
Commentator: Jan Olof Bengtsson
Room 202
Session B1 (10:40-11:20):
Anne Runehov, Copenhagen University (Denmark)
The Process of Believing
Commentator: Eike-Henner W. Kluge
Session B2 (11:20-12:00):
Janne Kontala, Åbo Akademi (Finland)
Eastern Spirituality in Sweden: Identifying Emerging Worldview Patterns Amongst Practitioners
Commentator: Ferdinando Sardella
Room 109
12:00-2:00
Lunch
2:00-3:45
Plenary Panel on Hindu Personalism
Kenneth R. Valpey, Oxford University (UK)
Personhood as Multivalent Reality in Premodern Indian Theography
Ithamar Theodor, University of Haifa (Israel)
Resorting to Aesthetics: The Articulation of Divine Personhood in the Vaishnava Vedanta Tradition
Ferdinando Sardella, Uppsala University (Sweden)
Modern Hindu Personalism
Room 201
3:45-4:30
Tea and Coffee
4:30-5:50
Session A:
Lucian Delescu, Berkeley College (USA)
On Darwin’s Account of Consciousness and its Implications for a General Theory of Person
Victoria Höög, Lund University (Sweden)
Persona and Ethos in Contemporary Technoscientific Cultures
Commentator: Anthony L. Cashio
Room 202
Session B:
Soyoung Park, Independent Scholar, Vancouver, BC (Canada)
Suspended Subjectivity: Artistic Intention in Making Art
Jonnie Eriksson, Lund University and Halmstad University (Sweden)
Realist by Nature, by Nature Abstract: Personalist Aesthetics in Mounier and Henry
Commentator: James McLachlan
Room 109
5:50-6:00
Break
6:00-7:00
Plenary
Juan Manuel Burgos, CEU San Pablo University (Spain)
A New Personalist Proposal: Modern Ontological Personalism
Room 201
Thursday, August 8
9:00-10:20
Session A:
Bogumił Gacka, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University (Poland)
Personalism in Brazil
Andris Sevels, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (Poland)
Personalistic Mariology of John Paul II
Room 202
Session B:
James Beauregard, Independent Scholar, Manchester, NH (USA)
Neuroethics: A Personalist Approach
Eike-Henner W. Kluge, University of Victoria (Canada)
Personhood, Brain Death and Resource Allocation: The Implications of Aquinas’ Conception of Human Persons
Commentator: Juan Manuel Burgos
Room 109
10:20-10:40
Tea and Coffee
10:40-11:40
Plenary
Fredrik Ullén, Karolinska Institutet (Sweden)
The Creative Person: Neuropsychological Perspectives
Room 201
AFTERNOON FREE
7:00
Conference Dinner
Friday, August 9
9:00-10:20
Session A:
Randall E. Auxier, Southern Illinois University Carbondale (USA)
Scheler and the Existence of the Impersonal
James McLachlan, Western Carolina University (USA)
Levinas, the Person, and Eschatology
Commentator: Philip Cronce
Room 202
Session B:
Jerzy Król, State University of Higher Education in Chełm (Poland)
Upbringing and Education from the Personalist Perspective
Inger Enkvist, Lund University (Sweden)
Personalism: Identifying Two Opposite Views of the Teaching Profession
Commentator: Thomas O. Buford
Room 109
Session C:
Agnieszka Gąsior-Mazur, Independent Scholar, Lublin (Poland)
The Development of Person vs. Building the Value of a Company
Ewa Smołka, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (Poland)
Openness to Others as a Way of Personal Development
Room 022
10:20-10:40
Tea and Coffee
10:40-12:00
Session A:
Richard C. Prust, St. Andrews University (USA)
The Ragged Edge of our Personal Past
Federico Lauria and Alain Pé-Curto, University of Geneva (Switzerland)
The Situationist Boomerang
Commentator: Michael Thompson
Room 202
Session B:
J. J. MacIntosh, University of Calgary (Canada)
Persons, Identity, and Irenaean Theodicies
Joseph Diekemper, Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland)
Temporality, Creation, and Divine Personhood
Commentator: Eoin O’Connell
Room 109
12:00-2:00
Lunch
2:00- 3:45
Plenary Panel on the Roots of the Philosophical Problem of the Person
Lorenzo Greco, Oxford University (UK)
Hume and the Narrative of the Self
Michael Thompson, University of North Texas (USA)
The Antinomy of Identity: Personal Identity and Time in Modern Philosophy
Daryl L. Hale, Western Carolina University (USA)
Persons as Supra Pretium: Kant’s Neglected Argument for Personalism?
Room 201
3:45-4:30
Tea and Coffee
4:30-5:50
Session A:
Argun Abrek Canbolat, Middle East Technical University (Turkey)
Personhood: From Physical to Social
Simon Smith, Independent Scholar, Haslemere, Surrey (UK)
A Convergence of Cosmologies: Personal Analogies in Modern Physics and Modern Metaphysics
Commentator: Daryl L. Hale
Room 202
Session B:
Ian Winchester, University of Calgary (Canada)
Collingwood’s Conception of Personhood and its Relation to Language Use
Giusy Gallo, University of Calabria (Italy)
Dialogue and Language: The Way to Be a Person
Commentator: Randall E. Auxier
Room 109
5:50-6:00
Break
6:00-7:00
Plenary
Claes G. Ryn, Catholic University of America (USA)
“Idealistic” Dreaming: The Imagination of Unbounded Egotism
Room 201
Saturday, August 10
9:00-10:20
Session A1 (9:00-9:40):
Erik Persson, Independent Scholar, Harlösa (Sweden)
The Catholic Critics of Personalism: Before and After Father Meinvielle
Commentator: Jerzy Król
Session A2 (9:40-10:20):
Philip Cronce, Chicago State University (USA)
Dewey, Rorty, and Honors Education after the Fall of the Academy
Room 202
Session B1 (9:00-9:40):
Susanna Åkerman-Hjern, Independent Scholar, Stockholm (Sweden)
Swedenborg and the Grand Human
Commentator: James McLachlan
Session B2 (9:40-10:20):
Kerstin Maria Pahl, Humboldt University (Germany)
Timing Life: Portraiture and Biography in 18th Century England
Commentator: Jonnie Eriksson
Room 109
Session C1 (9:00-9:40):
Guillermo Barron, Red Deer College (Canada)
Gender and Personhood
Commentator: Giusy Gallo
Room 022
10:20-10:40
Tea and Coffee
10:40-12:00
Session A:
Christina Conroy, Morehead State University (USA)
Branch-Relative Identity
Eoin O’Connell, Manhattan College (USA)
Inferences to Personhood
Commentator: Randall E. Auxier
Room 202
Session B:
Kenny Siu Sing Huen, Universiti Brunei Darussalam (Brunei)
The Crux of Living a Human Life: From Heidegger to Wittgenstein
Alastair Beattie, University of the Andes (Venezuela)
Person as Platonic Idea Form
Commentator: Douglas McDermid
Room 109
12:00-12:10
Break
12:10-12:40
Closing Panel: Conference Overview and the State of the Person
Randall E. Auxier, Southern Illinois University Carbondale (USA)
Jan Olof Bengtsson, Lund University (Sweden)
Thomas O. Buford, Furman University (USA)
Room 201
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Read more about the 12th International Conference on Persons under Uncategorized or on the conference website.
New Encyclopedia Article
After the one in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy written together with Thomas D. Williams, another encyclopedia article on personalism, this time by me alone, is now published in Springer’s new Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions.
12th ICP: Conference Dinner
The conference dinner will be held at Lund’s historic Grand Hotel on Thursday, August 8. The price for the three-course dinner, including pre-dinner drink, wine, and coffee, is 300 SEK (approx. 45 USD, 35 EUR, 30 GBP) for those who pay the full registration fee. Both fees are payable either in advance by direct bank transfer or upon arrival in Lund, in accordance with the instructions here.
See more posts about the 12th International Conference on Persons in Lund, Sweden, August 6-10 under Uncategorized, or visit the conference website.
Keith Ward: More than Matter?
What Humans Really Are
Lion Hudson, 2010 Amazon.com
Book Description:
“The question of what it is to be a human person is the biggest intellectual question of our day.” Keith Ward has taught philosophy and theology in British universities for the past 40 years, and he is now weighing in on a major intellectual battle: whether human persons are purely materialistic – nothing but matter – or whether there is another, deeply valuable part of us, which transcends our bodies in nature and moral worth: the soul. For centuries philosophers have debated the question, but the battle has taken the limelight through the works of the New Atheists. In this book Professor Ward guides the reader through a panoply of thinkers and traditions, arguing that there is more to humanity than bodies. In fact, he argues, there is more to the entire universe than the naked eye perceives. (And contrary to the New Atheist assertions, there are good philosophical arguments to back this up.)About the Author:
Keith Ward is Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy. A well-known broadcaster and presenter, his work straddles the boundaries between science, religion and philosophy, while his career has addressed topics from materialism to medical ethics. His work in these fields is internationally respected, and he is today known as one of Britain’s foremost philosopher-theologians.
JOB’s Comment:
See my discussion of Keith Ward’s analysis of materialism in the Idealism category. Ward will be the keynote speaker at the 12th International Conference on Persons in Lund, Sweden, August 6-12.
12th ICP: Conference Fee
The conference fee is 400 SEK (currently approx. 60 USD, 45 EUR, 40 GBP), and payable
– in advance by direct bank transfer to the conference account in Handelsbanken; those who register and indicate that they wish to pay by this method will receive by email the requisite information;
or
– on August 6, the first day of the conference, at a Handelsbanken branch in Lund (just two blocks from Hotel Concordia) or at the conference venue. More information about this option will be added on the conference website shortly.
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See other posts about the 12th International Conference on Persons in Lund, Sweden, August 6-10 under Uncategorized, or visit the the conference website.
Olle Bengtsson 