Category: Philosophy

Högre och lägre romantik, 4

Betoningen av personligheten, gärna den stora personligheten (undantagsmänniskans, geniets, hjältens, den skapande konstnärens, upptäcktsresandens, grundarens – typen förändras allteftersom förborgerliganadet framskrider), såväl som det filosofiska teoretiserandet kring personlighetsbegreppet, var i mycket en både naturlig och nödvändig replipunkt i ett läge där de traditionella strukturerna antingen upplösts eller i hög grad börjat förlora sin betydelse. Stundom skedde detta med bävan, i synnerhet inför den samtidiga hotande relativismen. Stundom präglades personlighetstänkandet av en ny tilltro, ett nytt hopp. Den distinktion Leander analyserar i etiska termer sammanhänger också med den fråga om den mänskliga och indviduella identiteten som tidsförhållandena gjort påträngande.

Leander presenterar sitt projekt för den grundläggande distinktionen inom romantiken på följande sätt:

“Ett ensidigt betonande av de sanningar, som antiromantikerna ha sett, måste visserligen leda till en sorts reaktionär konservatism…I det följande skall jag emellertid framställa icke blott den antiromantiska kulturkritiken utan även vissa kompletterande motsanningar, sådana jag fattar dem, och resultatet blir så till vida en genkritik mot ett alltför ensidigt uppfattningssätt. Jag skall skilja mellan högre och lägre former av romantik, av vilka de senare äro en sorts parodier på de förra. Den antiromantiska kritiken drabbar blott den lägre romantiken, ej den högre, som förefaller mig vara ett med allt det bästa i den moderna världen sedan renässansen.” [Romantik och moral, 22.]

Leander lägger i begreppet högre romantik mycket av det essentiella i den svenska personlighetsidealismen – och dess motsvarigheter i andra länder – åtminstone som mer allmän kulturhistorisk strömning. Han erkänner kristendomens betydelse som en av västerlandets källor till etisk livsvisdom, men betonar främst klassicismen. Antikens visdom “fortverkade med sin fulla styrka i sexton- och sjuttonhundratalens klassicism”, heter det med en något svepande formulering; och

“Klassicismens väsen var självkritik, val mellan impulserna och infallen…Fastidium et electio sui var klassicismens motto – granntyckthet och urskillning. I dikten krävde man sannolikhet, och intet var klassicisten mera främmande än att kritiklöst släppa sin fantasi lös. De uppeggade känslostämningar, som romantikerna hängåvo sig åt, kände han väl också, ty de äro allmänmänskliga; men han föraktade att hängiva sig åt dem och kallade dem vidunderliga, ‘monstruösa’. Sin fantasi ville han icke släppa lös i sådana banor.” [Ibid. 71.]

Leander är dock själv ingen ensidig klassicist, liksom inte heller Babbitt var det. Babbitt skriver utförligt om klassicismens förfall, stelnade konventionalism, reduktion till blott yta, ja, stundom till en falsk fasad som dolde helt nya romantiska krafter (innefattande såväl den framträngande nya borgerliga sentimentalismen som den franska revolutionens paroller om dygden och republiken) – vad Babbitt kallade “pseudoklassicismen” [Analyser av detta slag förekommer framför allt i Rousseau and Romanticism.] – och Leander följer honom i mycket: ”Med tiden blev dock denna klassicism konventionell och oinspirerad. Därför kom romantiken i viss mån som en välbehövlig reaktion”; [Ibid. 72.] ”tiden våndades under ensidig förståndsodling, under tryckande legalism, despotism och onatur. Alla ansatser till frigörelse mottogos med entusiasm, och man var inte nogräknad med att skilja mellan olika slag av befrielse.” [Ibid. 74.]

Men Leander går utöver Babbitt i förståelsen av romantikens högre sida. Det är här Leander, medförande och tillämpande sin egen centrala distinktion, närmar sig personlighetsidealismen, och han åberopar signifikativt nog också Geijer:

“I diktning som i livsföring skulle varje människa – för att använda Almqvists term – ‘följa sitt eget väsens lag’. Men dubbeltydigheten i detta uttryck är lätt att avslöja; det kan ha en djupare mening men också betyda rena impulsiviteten. I djupare mening är det ofrånkomligen sant, att diktaren måste vara sig själv, att Bellman är Bellman och Anakreon Anakreon; det är också riktigt, som Geijer framhöll, att varje människa måste finna sig själv och förverkliga sina särpräglade anlag. Men denna originalitetstanke degenererar, om samtidigt bemödandets och arbetets roll underskattas. Resultatet blir en programmatisk kult av nycken, infallet och genialitetens yttre åthävor…Hos Almqvist själv blir det fruktansvärt tydligt, vad det innebär att ‘följa sitt eget väsens lag’.” [Ibid. 72.]

Leander fortsätter så att ringa in romantikens karaktäristiska problematik på ett mer rättvisande och nyanserat sätt. Även Almqvist kunde försvara sig mot kritik genom att “draga sig tillbaka till uttryckets djupare mening”, och skriva vackra och sanna ord om frigörelsen från oriktiga, överflödiga, skadliga, naturvidriga bojor på människans sedeliv, om nödvändigheten att skilja falska plikter från sanna, om att icke överge alla band för de orättas skull, om hur de dygder som är sådana blott till namnet är den verkliga dygdens fiender och lastens stöd. Tyvärr märker man emellertid, skriver Leander, föga av denna anda i Almqvists egen diktning och eget liv. De insiktsfulla formuleringarna är i själva verket “blott en försvarsposition mot kritiken. Så snart han övergår till att predika sitt egentliga evangelium, få orden om att följa sitt eget väsens lag en helt annan mening.” Samma dubbeltydighet återfinns i Frödings tal om “‘den individuella självbestämningsrätten’” och om “rättigheten att förverkliga ‘sitt väsens grundsubstans’”. [Ibid. 72 f.]

Leanders sätt att förstå dubbeltydigheten i dessa uttryck, och därmed hela romantikens moraliska ambivalens, kan tolkas som att han menar att det finns en neutral romantik, en romantik som ännu inte är vare sig högre eller lägre, som ännu inte tagit den ena eller den andra riktningen, men som förr eller senare måste göra det. Man kan kanske närmare förklara innebörden av eller åtminstone komplettera Leanders analys genom att förstå denna oavgjorda romantik som framlyftandet av just personligheten eller subjektet i sig (bortseende från den på denna analytiska nivå kanske ännu inte helt avgörande skillnaden mellan dessa) i dess med romantiken fullt erkända individuella karaktär. Denna kategori, detta potentiella subjekt för inte bara den lägre romantikens formlösa degeneration utan också för den högre romantikens konvergens mot klassicismens objektiva etiska normer, saknas hos Babbitt. Och det är inte orimligt att uttrycka det så att den lägre romantikens personlighet ytterst helt enkelt blir naturalismens, under det den högre romantikens blir idealismens.

Hos Babbitt finns, i stort sett, endast de klassicistiska normerna å ena sidan och den lägre-romantiska upplösningen å den andra. Men inte heller för de förra finns hos Babbitt något filosofiskt konceptualiserat och systematiskt definiterat individuellt subjekt. Måste inte också de klassicistiska normerna uppbäras av ett sådant? För Babbitt tenderar betoningen av subjektet, indvidualiteten och personligheten som sådana att tillhöra den lägre romantiken. Även om han erkänner bättre sidor av romantiken, som ett moment i hans bejakande av den “moderna andan”, åtminstone tenderar all romantik i Babbitts faktiska framställning i alltför hög grad att bli lägre romantik. Leanders förståelse av ambivalensen öppnar däremot – fastän inte heller Leander själv närmare filosofiskt genomför detta tema – ett utrymme för individualiteten och personligheten och för förståelsen av deras avgörande betydelse: ”Individualiteten, som…satts på svältkur under pseudoklassicismens tid, hävdade sig med explosiv kraft i Rousseau – en explosion som även den hade sitt historiska berättigande.” [Ibid. 81 f.]

En tvekan eller rentav motsägelse återfinns dock hos Leander när det gäller förhållningssättet till indvidualiteten som sådan. I en central formulering betraktar Leander icke entydigt denna i sig som värdefull eller ens “neutral”, utan närmar sig istället åter Babbitt. I linje med samtida och senare romantikforskning kastar Leander på följande sätt en blick på samtiden som en romantikens fortsättning och förlängning:

“Var och en, som har något sinne för sin egen tids verkliga problem, torde…se, att vi i våra dagar framför allt måste skilja mellan två slag av autonomi eller självbestämdhet: en högre och en lägre. Medan man tidigare intensivt kände behovet att hävda individualitetens rätt till fri expansion, har det blivit senare släktens uppgift att bättre skilja mellan sund och osund individualism. Individualiteten, passionerna, naturen – ropade man då – böra icke undertryckas och pressas in i konventionens Prokrustesbädd, ty de äro förutsättningen för allt gott och ädelt mänskligt. I vår tid är det vida angelägnare att framhålla, att de blott äro förutsättningen för det goda, blott det rebelliska material, varav något skall göras, och vilket alltid bjuder motstånd mot värdeförverkligandet.” [Ibid. 81.]

Individualiteten förblir visserligen “förutsättningen”, men samtidigt tycks Leander mena att den “alltid”, även förr, var rebellisk, att den “alltid” bjuder motstånd. Skillnaden är endast att Leander här bejakar möjligheterna att av detta material, i enlighet med den högre romantikens riktlinjer, dana något värdefullt i överensstämmelse med de allmänna värdena, men där då också individualiteten bidrar till värdeförverkligandet.

Strax efter detta heter det emellertid – och dessa rader avslutar Leanders korta bok – att ”[d]en romantiska insikten, att varje människas storhet är just hennes individualitet, och att högsta allmänmänsklighet tillika är högsta utbildning av egenarten, är ett dyrbart arv – för oss och för kommande släkten. Den antiromantiska kritik, som här ovan utvecklats, riktar sig heller icke mot denna tanke.” Det allmänna finns med även här, men påståendet att ”varje människas storhet är just hennes individualitet” går utöver uppfattningen att storheten är individualiteten blott som förutsättning, ja blott såsom bärare av de allmänna värdena. [Ibid. 82.] Den har också ett värde i sig.

Som vi redan sett är Leander inte blind för det faktum att många av de främsta romantikerna vacklar mellan högre och lägre romantik. Ofta har tvetydigheten möjliggjort tolkningar som enligt honom blir missvisande och osanna. Att som vissa Nietzschetolkare vilja förvandla dennes filosofi till “ett vackert och humant evangelium” innebär “ett frankt förnekande av att det finns något sådant som en frihetslidelse på avvägar”. [Att behandla Nietzsche som romantiker innebär att ifrågasätta hans egen självförståelse, men ett sådant ifrågasättande är självfallet nödvändigt.] Rousseau har stundom “gjorts till en sokratisk moralist”, och det vore, skriver Leander, inte svårt att bevisa detsamma om Almqvist. Sanningen är att fastän sådana tolkningar kan finna stöd i somliga passager hos Rousseau och Almqvist, “så ligger dock drivkraften och tyngdpunkten i deras verk i den lägre meningen av orden om att följa sitt väsens lag. Hos båda pendlar meningen ofta oklart mellan den högre och lägre innebörden, och detta förklarar att Rousseau kunde vinna ett sådant inflytande på personer som Kant och Geijer.” [Ibid. 73 f.]

Högre och lägre romantik, 3

Separationen av de två idealistiska flödena kan, tror jag, visas vara central för förståelsen av några av huvuddragen i 1800-talets hela kultur, dess filosofi, moral, politik, estetik, religion, personliga biografier. Det är i egenskap av panteister av visst slag som flera mer eller mindre romantiska filosofer blev den idealistiska personalismens främsta eller s.a.s. omedelbara motståndare, och som panteist hamnade även Hegel i motståndarlägret. Förbiseende vidden av frågan om innebörden av den historiska dynamik som den moderna panteismen var ett uttryck, brukar detta oftast förklaras med eller beskrivas i termer av att man helt enkelt, liksom teologer alltid gjort, uppfattade panteismen som etiskt förkastlig åtminstone i sina konsekvenser.

I sin negativt-kritiska aspekt är den svenska utvecklingen generellt sett en parallell till Jacobis kritik av panteismen och vad Jacobi kallade nihilismen i framför allt de nya rationalistiskt-idealistiska formerna, men den innebär också en kritik av de distinkt romantiska. En avsevärd skillnad gentemot Jacobi består i att Biberg, Grubbe, Geijer och Boström menar sig kunna genomföra detta övervinnande med bibehållande av väsentliga inslag i äldre och nyare idealism. Det var hos dem icke som hos Jacobi på samma sätt fråga om en återgång till en mer ortodox kristen ståndpukt, eller till en “realistisk” sådan. Här överensstämmer man istället i mycket med den sene Schelling och de s.k. senidealisterna och spekulativa teisterna i Tyskland. Mot romantiska såväl som rationalistiska panteister gäller det att försvara personlighetens självständighet. Även den ledande svenske, starkt Schellinginfluerande romantikern, Atterbom, har på 1830-talet entydigt övergått till det teistiska lägret och i eminent mening blivit en “svensk personlighetsfilosof”, som det senare kom att kallas.

En linje har etablerats, som tydligt undviker såväl vad Leander kallar den “lägre” romantiken som de varianter av idealism som åtminstone med tiden förenas med denna i stundom alltmer nihilistisk och demoniserad form, och även alltmer övergående i naturalismen. Med hänvisning till skönlitteraturen och ett närmast psykologiskt plan gör Leander med Babbitt gällande att det är ett misstag att sätta romantik och naturalism i motsättning till varandra:

“[I] verkligheten äro de komplementära företeelser. Hallströms naturalistiska pessimism är den desillusionerade, besvikne romantikerns, som väntat för mycket av livet. Naturalisterna se klart, att romantikens drömvärld är overklig och illusorisk; och eftersom denna drömvärld för dem är liktydig med idealism överhuvud, förklara de bittert, att all idealism är omöjlig och att våra bästa och vackraste drömmar äro för goda för denna världen. Därför att en osund form av idealism gjort bankrutt, förkasta de all idealism. Romantik och naturalism kunna mötas hos samma individ och i samma diktverk; den romantiska ironien visar det…i den mäktiga romantisk-naturalistiska strömningen äro livsdyrkan och livsleda förbundna i den stora längtans tecken.” [Romantik och moral, 46 f.] 

Men till skillnad från Babbitt anser Leander i högre grad att detta blott gäller en typ av romantik, nämligen vad han kallar den lägre.

Morse Peckhams analys av romantiken – utsträckt över hela 1800-talet – som ett sökande efter identitet efter den gamla samhällsbestämda identitetens upplösning [Se Beyond the Tragic Vision: The Quest for Identity in the Nineteenth Century (1962) och i de uppsatser som samlats i The Triumph of  Romanticism (1970).] ansluter sig delvis väl till Barzuns tolkning av romantiken – likaledes utsträckt över hela 1800-talet – som sökande efter en ny ordning efter den brytning som den franska revolutionen utgjorde. Ordningssökandet ägde förvisso rum i alla möjliga olika riktningar, vilket starkt bidrar till romantikbegreppets vaghet och mångtydighet. Men den nya identiteten upplevdes ofta som möjlig blott i det egna självet, som nu framstod som den enda källan till värde, och som nu ensamt förlänade världen och naturen en ny mening. Detta var den karaktäristiska blandningen av subjektivistisk individualism och panteism till ett helt nytt tillstånd av moralisk tvetydighet och hotande nihilism, men som Peckham, som själv skriver utifrån en radikalmodernistisk, romantisk-ironistisk position, framlyfter som tidens stora framsteg.

Peckham tar sin utgångspunkt i en egen men samtidigt typiskt amerikansk psykologisk-pragmatisk modell för mänskligt beteende. Produkterna av ett biologiskt betingat behov av “orientation”, den kristna teologins, platonismens och upplysningsklassicismens overkliga, i sin dualism och sina hierarkier falskt entydiga, i själva verket ohjälpligt paralogistiskt motsägelsefulla strukturer och ordningskonstruktioner, upplöses i Goethes, (den sene) Beethovens, (den tidige) Wordsworths, C. D. Friedrichs konst, samtidigt som dessas nya identiteter, som i sig upptar och bejakar tillvarons konstitutiva motsägelsefullhet, inte heller kan undgå att själva delvis konstitueras av samma orienteringsdrift, om än på annat sätt: driften förenas hos dem för första gången med ett bejakande av vad Peckham menar vara “verkligheten”. Schopenhauer inser att konsten förmår genomskåda orienteringsdriften, och den nihilistiska viljan avslöjas som verkligheten. Först med Nietzsche har paradoxerna slutligt bejakats, men det nya har länge att kämpa en ojämn kamp med de kvardröjande illusionerna i 1800-talets samhälle och kultur. Med Kants kritik av det praktiska förnuftet och den med Hegel kulminerande postkantianska idealismen gör sig också orienteringsdriften i dess totalitära blindhet åter, på nytt sätt, gällande:

“[T]he Kantian-Hegelian…[line] of thinking inevitably led to a restoration of value to nature and society, as they exist. And that affirmation of an absolute morality stripped the individual of moral responsibility, leaving him only conformity to a morality maintained by power, as in the past. Though such thinking started by deriving value from the self, it ended by stripping value from the self.” [Beyond the Tragic Vision (1962 (1981)), 172 f.]

Fastän den framlyfter bristerna i ett visst slags äldre rationalism, och fastän den i mycket på riktigt sätt beskriver den moraliska ambivalensen i romantiken, förefaller mig Peckhams ironistiska modell, orienteringsdriften contra ”verkligheten”, sakna förståelse för väsentliga aspekter av såväl den platonska som den postkantianska idealismen. Den även av viss modern idealism bejakade intellektiva medvetenheten eller högre förnuftsuppfattningen ligger bortom alla försök till heltäckande logiska system, och denna idealisms rationella strukturer är blott tentativa, relativa approximationer till ett innehåll som i princip är outtömligt och för det ändliga subjektet aldrig möjligt att definitivt behärska. Ordningen är enligt denna idealism verklig, icke illusion, men den kan blott ofullkomligt avspeglas eller uttryckas på det relativa planet. Det absoluta är verkligt, men kan aldrig fullständigt uppfattas eller kvarhållas av oss som ändliga varelser, begränsade till detta plan. I vår bristfälliga, begränsade och relativa verklighet är emellertid enligt denna idealism vad vi dock verkligen kan uppfatta av ordningens och det absolutas normativa objektivitet likafullt oundgängligt – religiöst, etiskt, estetiskt, och även samhälleligt och politiskt.

Peckhams delvis i sak postmodernistiska tolkning skiljer sig dock fördelaktigt från den som var vanlig i de nyfideistiska och nypositivistiska lägren och som fortfarande är vanlig, såtillvida som han uppfattar skillnaderna t.o.m. mellan den transcendentalistiska (i Carlyles och Emersons mening) hjälteidealismen och de senare dionysiska urspårningarna. Det heter rentav att “[i]f the Nazis had understood Wagner they would have banned him; if they had been capable of believing him, they would never have been Nazis”. [Ibid. 241.] Men hans ironistiska modell förbiser i vilken utsträckning de totalitära systemen själva bygger på och möjliggörs av den “lägre” romantikens relativism och nihilism. Även om den första vågen av historisk kritik av nazismen ofta präglades av missvisande överdrifter, enligt vilka inte bara Wagner och Hegel, utan Goethe, Luther, allt tyskt var orsak till nazismen, kvarstår likafullt hos de tidiga kritiker som i likhet med den sene Meinecke eller exempelvis Peter Viereck vill bygga på en mer genuin värdeobjektivism flera här väsentliga perspektiv på idealismens uppblandning med naturalistiska idéer. [Vierecks Metapolitics: From the Romantics to Hitler, som utkom redan 1941 och redan året därpå översattes till svenska av Alf Ahlberg, bygger specifikt ifråga om nazismen delvis på tvivelaktiga källor och tolkningar (vilket inte är märkligt vid denna tidpunkt), men hans allmänna förståelse av de här aktuella aspekterna av moderniteten, senare utvecklad i andra verk med politisk tillämpning och delvis inspirerad av Babbitt, är viktig. Ryn har skrivit en längre uppsats om Viereck, ‘Peter Viereck: Unadjusted Man of Ideas’, i Political Science Reviewer, vol. 7 (1977); se också min artikel om Viereck i Svensk Tidskrift, 4-5, 1989.]

Hegels idealism med dess nya “orientering” var inte den enda varianten av idealism under 1800-talet. Den förenade förvisso nytt och gammalt, men trots att Hegel själv inte menade sig vara romantiker och att han i sin orienteringssträvan förvisso i mycket fortsatte upplysningens projekt, var det nya avgjort av sådant slag som på visst sätt integrerade moment av den nya panteistiska moraliska relativismen. Liksom Mefistofeles s.a.s. förblir enrollerad vid Fausts sida, om än “besegrad”, legitimeras ytterst även allt av lägre art i världsandens dialektiska rörelse. Enligt Peckhams pressade tolkning är det snarare Mefistofeles som med sin magi representerar Gud, eller åtminstone religionen, som det strävande, självständiga subjektet alltfort delvis förlitar sig på – en tolkning som ju inte minskar dramats moraliska tvetydighet. [På säkrare mark rör sig Gillespie; se hänvisning i not i del 2.] Leanders analys framstår som sannare: ”Dionysos var…hela 1800-talets gud, som vid århundradets slut uppenbarade sig i all sin härlighet genom profeten Nietzsche. Men rusets gud dyrkades lika mycket av de första romantikerna.” [Op.cit., 53.]

Men den typ av personalistisk idealism vi inte minst i det svenska 1800-talet har att göra med, och dess motsvarande nyskapande traditionalistiska kulturyttringar i 1800-talets samhälle, är, förefaller det, att beskriva dels som en reaktion mot den revolutionära upplysningsrationalismen och den lägre romantiken, dels som ett partiellt bejakande av den nya subjekts- och individualitetsförståelsen och ett teologiskt, metafysiskt, moraliskt, estetiskt och politiskt inordnande av densamma i vederbörligen modifierade former av alltfort kristet-klassiskt inspirerade ordnings- eller orienteringsstrukturer. Såväl Peckhams som Barzuns beskrivning, förklaring och förståelse av denna sida av 1800-talet framstår därför som otillräckliga. [Se också exempelvis Peckham, Beyond the Tragic Vision, 234 f.] Såväl romantikens identitetsfråga som dess ordningsfråga finner i den personalistiska idealismen en typ av åtminstone partiell lösning som Peckham och Barzun förbiser.

Förvisso var det inte en fullständig lösning. Det skulle 1900-talet komma att visa. Men det var en partiell lösning som jag tror att vi bör förstå för att vinna en riktig uppfattning av moderniteten i dess helhet, även när vi mobiliserar andra och vid den här behandlade tiden ännu inte fullt tillgängliga perspektiv.

Idealism and the Renewal of Humanistic Philosophy, 7

Idealism and the Renewal of Humanistic Philosophy, 1

Idealism and the Renewal of Humanistic Philosophy, 2

Idealism and the Renewal of Humanistic Philosophy, 3

Idealism and the Renewal of Humanistic Philosophy, 4

Idealism and the Renewal of Humanistic Philosophy, 5

Idealism and the Renewal of Humanistic Philosophy, 6

The experiential whole and the reason that is adequate to it is the whole and the reason of individual finite beings, even as we, as such beings, understand that in explicating, as it were, the whole of experience we also explicate the larger whole of which we are “parts”. The necessary reference of the absolute as distinct from our relative perspectives and eternally complete, is of course easily conceivable for non-“modal” philosophical purposes, and even when still merely a regulative idea, as more objective than any realist conception that we may work out of correspondence with an independent, external physical structure could ever be.

Yet even Croce’s understanding of intrinsic rationality is connected with a version of the calamitous older idealist ambiguity concerning the relation between the finite subject and the absolute, or, put more simply, the lack of a clear understanding of the necessity of distinction between them – the weakness which British absolute idealism inherited from the pantheistic Germans. It is not necessary to exemplify further this position according to which the individual lacks independent reality from the perspective of the absolute and even, ideally, in some respects from his own, and his separateness and integrity is reduced to a relative, temporary fragment of the comprehensive historical self-actualization of the absolute, to a passing contribution to the absolute experience, or to a presupposition of the mode of practice, to be cultivated for what it is worth as a feature of everyday experience.

It is not just from the perspective of an anti-pantheistic traditionalism that a humanist philosophy taken to this point of anti-essentialism must be rejected – even as in some ways expressed by such a traditionalist as Burke, for all the insight he possessed into the difference between the classico-Christian understanding of human nature and the moral order and the modern rationalist one. It is also because of the nature of the historical genesis of this conception of the absolute in the first post-Kantian idealists and Green, as critically analysed by Pringle-Pattison. Yet as Pringle-Pattison immediately makes clear, this does not mean that the concept of the absolute itself, even as in other respects understood in absolute idealism, should be rejected. There are certainly ways leading from consciousness to the absolute, or from the finite to the infinite consciousness. But these ways are other than the standard absolute idealist one. My consciousness and experience are not the absolute’s consciousness and experience, although I may indeed fragmentarily share them through their piecemeal communication and reproduction; philosophical progress takes place only in some finite individuals. Philosophy is only ideally and potentially a system in development, and even where this ideal is realized, there is, again, for philosophy, in contradistinction to modern gnosticism, no general historical progress toward a final, immanent redemptive consummation.

A deeper view of the finite centres as distinct persons is necessary for many reasons, not least for the understanding of perspectival relativity and of how precisely the modes of experience are not in every respect independent either of each other or of philosophy. Experience has its modes, we ourselves, as subjects of experience, are not modes. In one sense, we are of course part of the absolute experience, but as Bradley had to admit, the absolute must comprise both unity and diversity, it must, no matter how paradoxical it might seem from the standpoint of a reifying logic, be relational.

The closed immanentism of idealism as part of the pantheistic revolution, with a number of typical concomitant philosophical positions, must be rejected. I cannot see that there is any problem with saying that there is a transcendent dimension to the absolute, even if we hold merely that the absolute is absolute experience and that this experience, distinct from ours, has a subject conceived in the terms of personal idealism. If the personal idealists are right that our experience never exhaustively coincides with that of the absolute, there would still be no need to insist on the strict Kantian meaning of transcendence. Oakeshott’s putting religion on a par with scientism, Marxism, and Freudianism as a rationalism claiming to yield knowledge of how reality is apart from how we experience it, as well as his own later doubts about idealism itself as rationalism, can, I think, be shown to be superficial even from the position of idealism’s own emphasis on experience, as including religious experience.

But of course the absolute is both immanent and transcendent, and since there is both unity and diversity in the whole, even our ordinary experience can partly coincide with or participate in it to various degrees, depending not only on philosophical insight but also on the moral preconditions of such insight. To that extent it would be more correct to say that in relation to our experience the absolute is “implicit”, in Oakeshott’s sense, than “unconscious” or beyond anyone’s possible experience and conception.

To a degree that I think it is today possible to see is problematic, the understanding of the nature and the order or sequence of the modes in both early and later idealists was determined by the in some respects, as it were, substitute culturalism of the nineteenth-century secular humanist world of Wissenschaft and its modified perpetuation in the early twentieth century. But the more general idealist positions I have pointed to represent lasting contributions and insights of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century humanistic Bildung, apart from what could perhaps be called the management of knowledge and its sometimes too context-specific divisions. Idealism in its highest forms represents this culture at its best, restoring badly needed elements of philosophy as the love of, and the quest for, wisdom. The potential for retrieving elements of the pre-pantheist synthesis, for rethinking the modes and their relations to each other and to philosophy, and for further thought on the complex issues associated with some of the positions I have defended, is considerable within the general framework of idealism.

Apart from its contribution to all of the branches of philosophy which it uniquely and organically connects, idealism could contribute to the renewal of humanistic philosophy especially by demonstrating anew the partial, modal nature of “non-humanistic” thought, and indeed by explaining the deeper significance and value of the humanistic modes: by explaining, when they are invaded and distorted by rationalism and scientism, why and how they must again be conceived as humanistic. It could thus contribute to the restoration of the larger context and framework of human culture and practice which sustains philosophy even as philosophy dialectically transcends it, and which both analytic and continental philosophy have undermined in the twentieth century through different yet not unrelated forms of nihilism.

As a description of the current state of philosophy, the distinction between Anglo-American analytic philosophy and continental philosophy is, increasingly, at least geographically obsolete. This marks a step forward. Although it has long been clear to me that “non-humanistic” philosophy in any of the forms produced by the two wings of the pantheistic revolution is going nowhere and has indeed been disastrous, there are of course still many partial truths floating about in contemporary philosophy that are humanistic and relevant to humanistic philosophy in the deeper, integral sense that idealism at its best represents.

It seems to me, for instance, that even the insights into the nature of intersubjectivity and alterity of dialogical philosophy are not, as is the common understanding, incompatible with idealism – namely, if idealism is conceived in the terms of personal idealism. For as I have tried to show elsewhere, these insights first arose long before twentieth-century continental philosophy in the thinkers and currents of thought that are the origin precisely of personal idealism. In order not to be lost, such truths need to be taken up in idealism thus conceived. And it seems that for this purpose, and for the purpose of their necessary supplementation, the forgotten resources of idealism must be made available and comprehensible through a revised restatement of the kind I have tried to suggest in outline.

Theodicy

Keith Ward on Materialism, 15     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14

Ward thus begins to refute the argument directly produced by what he rightly finds to be the main drive behind materialism, the rage at the injustice, suffering and evil we find in the universe. This really requires a whole theodicy, and this is also what he proceeds to set forth in outline in the next few paragraphs. It contains several classical themes.

“In a universe generated in such a way, chance and necessity, the conditions of open creativity and intelligible structure respectively, may be bound together in a complex way. Perhaps the general structure of the universe has to be the way it is, because the forms of its being are necessarily laid down in the basic mathematical array of possible worlds.”

As I have already tried to argue, the basic array of possible worlds, in which the forms of the universe’s being, of its being the way it is, cannot possibly be conceived as exclusively mathematical. It is not clear how closely the conception of the necessity of the general structure of the universe is for Ward tied to the mathematical nature of the array of possible worlds. If it depends on it, the argument would, it seems, be untenable. It then has to be rethought so as to make possible the conception of the necessity in terms of non-formal forms, as it were, in the basic array determining the general structure of the universe.

“And the selection of actual universes”, he continues, “may be determined by goals that are worthwhile but hard to achieve and unavoidably susceptible to failure.” This introduces the question of the nature of the goals. And this is a vast issue, involving problems of the philosophy of history and of eschatology. Depending on how the goals are conceived – in terms of a secular futurology of wholly immanent, desirable states of affairs in human society, or in terms of a spiritual culture open to the transcendent dimension – the argument may be acceptable or not.

“Plato and Aristotle struggled with this problem at the beginning of the European philosophical tradition. Their proposal (or one of them) was that the cosmic mind does not create matter, but shapes it to imitate and participate in the divine perfection as far as such a thing is possible. The material realm is one in which chance and necessity combine to form a structure with definite limits but also with possibilities for a certain amount of free creativity. The divine mind shapes the material in accordance with the intrinsic values of beauty and perfection that are inherent in its own being. But even the divine mind cannot annul the elements of chance and necessity that are inseparable from any material universe.”

Plato’s and Aristotle’s teachings on matter are complex. What is translated as matter is not the same as the matter of classical materialism. But it is possible to isolate and identify to an extent that is sufficient for this argument that which is comparable with it. If “elements of chance and necessity” are to be ascribed to this matter as such, however, we must again raise questions about its nature and indeed about whether such a thing exists at all. And, in general, rather than speaking in philosophical analyses of a material realm or universe, with the tacit assumptions or implications of such a concept, what we should perhaps say, and what we can safely say, is that there is a phenomenon, something that we as finite beings experience as matter, and to which elements of chance and necessity may be ascribed. But of course, Ward here speaks of a Platonic and Aristotelian conception.

“What seems to be cosmic injustice or indifference to suffering may be in fact”, Ward suggests, “an unavoidable consequence of the interplay of chance and necessity, inseparable from any material world, influenced but not wholly determined by the attraction of a divine mind that seeks to draw all things towards itself.” Via Plato and Aristotle, we have moved here from the basic (mathematical) array of possible worlds to an actual world of “matter”. But it is the former that determined the latter, inasmuch as the forms of its being are necessarily laid down in it. Yet is is not wholly determined by the divine mind. The latter must thus be more than the basic array, although the array must be conceived as part of it. While the basic array of possibility determines the interplay of chance and necessity in actual “material” universes, the part of the divine mind that is not identical with the array seeks to draw the actual universe (“all things”) to itself, an influence which cannot be a complete determination because of the nature of the array. Again, it is clear that the divine mind must be more than the basic array if the latter is conceived purely in terms of mathematics. But even if it is not, even if it is conceived in terms of “non-formal forms”, the divine mind must be something more than it.

And again, there arises the question of what the drawing of all things to the divine mind means more precisely, with regard to the worthwhile goals and intrinsic values, the state of the realized goals and values. Is “matter” going to be somehow perfected in itself by the imitation of and participation in the divine perfection, by the closeness to the divine mind in a future scenario, or will that which lives in matter, that which experiences matter, the finite beings, transcend matter altogether through this drawing? There are important differences of worldview implied in the different answers to these questions. Either the “material” realm becomes translucent with the intrinsic values, and the worthwhile goal is a state of matter itself as thus perfected. Or the intrinsic values are merely guiding and ever imperfectly realized ones in a “material” universe – any “material” universe – which knows no such definite goal but remains finite and ever to some extent imperfect, so that the orientation of the finite beings that is indicated by the intrinsic values is primarily and ultimately the purely transcendent one towards the divine mind itself and as such (the divine mind that has more dimensions than that of the basic array of possibilities of universes), quite regardless of any accidental relation to phenomenal universes.

“In general, this philosophical approach does provide a robust theoretical response to the reproach that good and bad fortune are wholly accidental, or that no alleged cosmic consciousness could seriously intend to create a universe containing so much suffering. A universe in which free creativity and genuine personal relationships are important has to be a world in which chance (undirectedness by some determining force) has to play a part – though chance always works within the limits of a more general determinate structure.”

Again, chance and necessity are “bound together in a complex way”, since it seems chance cannot be explained by reference to “matter” itself but must somehow be part of the basic array of possibilities which determines any actual universe. Good and bad fortune are not wholly accidental but they are partly accidental, and the cosmic consciousness intended to create the actual universe as it is, as partly determined and partly accidental, since the basic array of possible universes in its own mind is the way it is. Free creativity and genuine personal relationships are part of the goals and intrinsic values, and they require chance in the sense of “undirectedness by some determining force” (a discussion of freedom could be added here). But given the premises with regard to the original source and nature of chance and necessity, the meaning of the creation in terms of an actuality of “matter” would seem somewhat unclear if the source and nature are not exclusively conceived in mathematical terms. There arises the question of the distinctive properties of the experienced materiality as a defining part of actual universes. There are of course many kinds of actual universes or phenomenal worlds that can arise within the divine mind or the cosmic consciousness from its basic array of possibilities.

“And the primordial creative mind does not intend to create suffering. Suffering is a possibility that cannot be eliminated from the necessary set of possibilities in the divine mind. Some suffering is unavoidably necessary in any universe that generates personally created values by beings that are an integral part of a developing, creative, dynamic and interconnected physical system. And much suffering is intensified in kind and degree by the self-centered choices of finite, free intelligences.”

While Ward seeks to refute materialism, I have asked some further questions about the nature of matter or the “physical system” mentioned here. I have also asked some questions about the nature of the goal, and thus the purpose, of creation as Ward loosely conceives it in the Biblical tradition, questions which I have discussed at greater length elsewhere in direct connection with Biblical theology and eschatology. It seems to me these questions are important for the precise understanding of the “personally created values”, the beings that are the persons creating them, and the nature of the “system” of which they are parts. The residues of Biblical theology in terms of “material” creation produce some philosophical difficulties. But on a general level which can be identified apart from the worldview differentiation introduced by these questions, I think I agree with this formulation of Ward’s.

But Ward says “some suffering” is “unavoidably necessary” in “any universe” with the specified intrinsic qualities. It would seem this suffering must then be part not only of the process leading to what Ward considers the “goal” of “creation”, but of that goal itself, of the universe as already drawn to the divine mind etc., if the goal is indeed the goal of the universe itself. It is then a matter of the definition of this suffering. But if the goal is that of the finite beings only and not wholly of the universe itself, the transcendent goal of the finite beings as distinguishable from the universe, the transcendent goal that is not reducible to the universe’s determinating structure, there would be no unavoidable necessity in it of the kind of suffering Ward has in mind.

Ward says that philosophy “cannot take us much further than this”. With regard to the specific questions I have raised, I would be so bold as to suggest that philosophy, as distinct from Biblical theology, can take us a little further. But these are not the questions that are central to Ward’s position, and his answers can be reformulated as applicable within the framework of a philosophy that takes us a little further with regard to my questions.

“But it may suggest that if there is a cosmic mind that is inherently perfect, yet has knowledge of every actual event, knowledge of suffering will be transmuted in the divine mind by its conscious inclusion within a wider and deeper experience. Since the divine mind has infinite time at its disposal, and intends the existence of distinctive values, there is some reason to hope that evil can eventually be overcome and eliminated, and might even be used to generate distinctive sorts of values – so that, while evil can never be justified by its consequences, all evil may nevertheless be turned to some otherwise non-existent good.

Here it seems to me that “evil”, if there is reason to hope it can be overcome and eliminated, must be distinguished from “some suffering” in the preceding paragraph. The main question that arises here is, again, the one about where and when precisely, in terms of Ward’s ontological categories, or rather, metaphysical levels, the eventual overcoming and elimination takes place, especially if we continue to speak of a matter that still, after the refutation of materialism’s view of matter, is still somehow distinctive enough to define a particular kind of “created” universe.

Ward further explains his position: “Finally, it seems possible that the divine mind could enable finite intelligences to share in this divine experience of ‘redeemed’ evil. If that could be, materialist objections to the pointlessness and injustice of life would be overcome by giving all sentient beings a share in a supremely valuable reality, to the precise nature of which they had made an important contribution.” It certainly seems possible that the divine mind could enable finite intelligences to share this experience. But does it imply that, as a result of a temporal processes, the whole of the actual “material” universe, i.e. the universe of or with finite intelligences, will at one point be without as yet unredeemed evil (but only  with some suffering), that such evil will then be forever a thing of the universe’s and the finite intelligences’ past alone? That there will be in the totality of reality, i.e. in the divine mind conceived as all-inclusive cosmic consciousness, a state where there is no longer any as yet unredeemeed evil in the (or any) actual universe? And is the acceptance of such a state necessary for the tenability of Ward’s theodicy? Elements of a Biblical eschatology and the historical mode of thinking that it leads to seem to produce here a position that is not really needed for the validity of the general argument.

It also seems there are other positions, having to do with the freedom – and the meaning of the freedom – of the finite intelligences (Ward only briefly mentions one aspect of this above), that could be adduced here in order to account for the existence, without any such cosmic history, in the totality of reality of such parts of it in which at least periodically the injustice, suffering and evil which produce the primarily psychological reaction that produces materialism are indeed experienced. But sufficient stress should certainly be placed, with regard to the finite intelligences that primarily experience this, on what Ward here says about the general possibility of their being enabled to share in the divine experience of it as “redeemed”, and their contribution, through their experience and their way of dealing with it, to a supremely valuable reality.

Pantheism, Postmodernism, Pop, 5

Pantheism, Postmodernism, Pop, 1

Pantheism, Postmodernism, Pop, 2

Pantheism, Postmodernism, Pop, 3

Pantheism, Postmodernism, Pop, 4

All of the following Pattison theses about the nature of romantic pantheism and popular culture are convincing, in need of merely a few minor adjustments: “Ours is a more homogeneous culture than we generally allow, in which elite and popular cultures subscribe to a single set of ideas”; “Prominent among these ideas is Romantic pantheism”; “In its pure form, Romantic pantheism encourages vulgarity”; “American democracy provides an ideal setting for the growth of romantic pantheism” (this clearly depends on how American democracy is defined); “Poe’s Eureka and the Velvet Underground are products of a single cultural force”; “What separates elite from popular culture is its unwillingness to embrace the vulgarity inherent in its own premises”; “There is more ideological vigor and consistency in the music of the Talking Heads than in the paradoxes of the academy”; “Nineteenth-century Romanticism lives on in the mass culture of the twentieth century, and the Sex Pistols come to fulfill the prophecies of Shelley”; “Vulgarity is no better and no worse than the pantheism and the democracy out of which it grows” (the latter certainly imply the sanctioning of the former, but neither has to be accepted or sanctioned); “Believing in Whitman, the democrat should also glory in the Ramones” (the democrat does not have to believe in Whitman). [Op.cit. xi-xii.]

What is being described is increasingly the fate of the whole of radical modernist and postmodernist culture. Again, there is really no distinction between the new élites and the masses. Rock “recognizes no class boundaries. Rich and poor, well-bred and lumpenproletariat alike listen to rock, and in the age of vulgarity, Harvard Square shares its musical tastes with Peoria.” [Ibid. 9.] The institution of the romantic secular bard is sublated in the popular culture of romanticism. Judging from sales statistics, almost all citizens of the leading rocking country, the United States, from which the new cult has spread across the globe, must own copies of the records and CDs of at least some of the leading bards of democracy. Rock stars flock to the White House (and Downing Street), and presidents accede to the office cheered by 120-decibel court jesters.

Yet arguing that we should now accept the vulgarity that has already triumphed, it is in a new, desperate attempt at sophistication that Pattison, probably considering all of the previous ones of radical modernism and postmodernism to be by now hopelessly trite, takes his point of departure in classicist humanism’s definition of vulgarity, finds it still standing, and bluntly analyses his subject-matter in its terms:

“The romantic revolution has made vulgarity an ineluctable issue for this century as well as the last. In politics, the vulgar mob has wrested power from its genteel rulers. Youth, which is noisy and uncontemplative, has usurped the cultural privileges of maturity. The heroes of Romantic civilization are no longer the disciplined patriots of Horace’s odes but unrefined primitives who pledge allegiance to self or the universe. In the West, the masses now have the leisure to indulge their vulgarity, and they have done so.” [Ibid. 13-14.]

Pattison follows the same strategy in his book on Newman, The Great Dissent: John Henry Newman and the Liberal Heresy (1991). Having devoted the major part of it to demonstrating the possible validity of at least some aspects of Newman’s criticism of modernity, he simply asserts, without arguments, in one short sentence on one of the last pages that ”as [Newman] presents them, heresy is in every way superior to truth”. [Op.cit., 215.] One suspects that it is in fact not necessary to side with Newman in the more specific theological controversies and to accept his identification of truth with orthodox dogma  in order to feel that, together with the celebration of Newman in the previous chapters (on Pattison’s own showing, much more was involved than the content of the Athanasian trinitology), this studied, defiant gesture signals a more general attitude on the part of some contemporary radical liberals, namely that they are now prepared to face, and deeply understand, any argument, any analysis, and perhaps even to admit that it is true, but that still they are never ever going to change their minds. But if so, it is of course just another version of the nihilistic end of academic discourse, brought about by the pantheistic revolution.

The aspect of the challenge against a non-pantheistic understanding of the person, inspired by classicism and Christianity, that on a superficial view stands at the opposite end from romanticism is the direct philosophical criticism produced today by the scientistically motivated physicalist materialism within the philosophy of mind – represented by the Churchlands and similar thinkers – which denies either the reality or the distinct quality of intentional agency, purposiveness, and nonphysical states of consciousness. Positivism having long since collapsed as a philosophy, this form of scientistic materialism has not only proved impervious to postmodern criticism, but, as in the work of Richard Rorty, compatible with it. [See my article ‘Richard Rortys filosofihistoriska program: Fysikalism och romantik i den amerikanska postmodernismen’ (‘Richard Rorty’s Program for the History of Philosophy: Physicalism and Romanticism in American Postmodernism’), in Att skriva filosofihistoria [Writing the History of Philosophy], Ugglan. Lund Studies in the History of Science and Ideas, VIII, 1998.]

Babbitt shows that it is a mistake to consider romanticism and naturalism to be opposites; in reality, they are mutually dependent and reinforce and support each other in countless subtle ways. Romanticism provides emotional “elevation” (Babbitt analysed an earlier historical period, but even then the elevation was merely that of romantic dreaming) and release for the hard-nosed technologist, while at the same time the latter provides the technologies for the former’s enhanced expression. [The interdependence is clearly – if indirectly – brought out also, for instance, in some of Neil Postman’s books.]

These currents in turn display central ingredient parts both of the psychological makeup and the ideological expression of what Eric Voegelin terms “gnosticism”. But I would add that this whole complex also tends inexorably in the direction of impersonalism. Christopher Lash analysed central aspects of contemporary culture in terms of “narcissism”. Personality, in this culture, tends to be reduced to a powerless escapist diversion as vicariously experienced in the stars of popular culture and sport – democracy’s version of the morally ambiguous personalism of romantic hero-worship. Or perhaps, stardom is democratically disseminated, as predicted by Andy Warhol, to everyone for fifteen minutes each.

For the rest of their lives, people are, as Rorty prescribes, to be allowed to dream in totally unrestrained relativistic subjectivism, but only in the strictest privacy that does not interfere with the workings of the public technological machinery. Today’s uncompromising scientistic reductionism can be shown to have been reached by the same concerted influence of lower romanticism, rationalism, empiricism, and a psychological disposition favouring “gnosticism” – all of which are not only inimical to the classical and Christian traditions in the general aspects that are relevant here, but also to the qualified modern understanding of the person and personal consciousness which is in harmony with these traditions not least in its retention, at least to some extent and in some form, of a spiritual dimension.

It is a commonplace in contemporary intellectual history that the individualism proclaimed by romanticism and liberalism was accompanied by an ever increasing social conformity and rational regimentation of man. In the connection here discussed, the partial truths of this perspective, introduced in the works of Michel Foucault, Norbert Elias, and others, are certainly relevant as a part of the historical and cultural perspective I try to introduce. But in recent scholarship it has unduly overshadowed other perspectives that are equally necessary for a deeper understanding. The common explanation of romanticism as a mere escapist reaction, powerless in the long run against the new historical realities of industrialism, true as it certainly is in many cases, also disastrously ignores the factual readiness of romanticism to accept and join the modernist forces of rationalism and technology, and the extent to which the whole of modernity, and postmodernity, are quintessentially if sometimes obliquely romantic phenomena. The specific romantic combination of pantheism and narcissism in what Pattison calls a vulgarized form, with no qualms about embracing the ever new marvels of rational technology, and enthusiastically surrendered to by the rational technologists themselves in leisure hours, is what determines what has been analysed by several critics as the conformity of the globalized mass-culture of liberal capitalist democracy. The nature of globalization makes my references to American literature increasingly relevant in other parts of the world, and not least of course in Europe.

Romantic pantheism which issued, not only in unison with but as including the forces of a renewed rationalism, in radical modernism and postmodernism, is, I suggest, the central underlying dynamic factor in the decline of the traditional Western culture that was shaped by the general aspects of the traditions of Christian theism and classical idealism and humanism that I have indicated loosely yet with sufficient precision for the limited purposes of the present argument. This decline has today assumed crisis-like forms and symptoms more acute and decisive than anything previously seen in the long undermining process in some respects philosophically and imaginatively set in motion centuries ago. But it is this same process that is being brought to a culmination. In a “physicalist” postmodernist like Rorty, the Babbittian analysis of the confluence of Rousseauism and Baconianism is irrefutably confirmed on all levels.

12th ICP: Alternative Accommodation

Among cheaper hotels (i.e., cheaper than Concordia, which offers the special conference rate mentioned in the Call for Papers) are Ahlström and Sparta.
More expensive ones are Lundia and the Grand.
All of these are right in the centre, with the exception of Sparta, which, however, is still within walking distance of the conference venue.
There are quite a few other hotels both in central Lund (like Lilla Hotellet, Oskar and Duxiana) and in the high-tech sprawl surrounding the centre.
Find more hotels, and compare prices, at Hotels.com or Booking.com.
Bed & Breakfast and private rooms are also available, at lower prices than the hotels.
See also:

12th ICP: Accommodation

Hotel Concordia
Hotel Concordia

A limited number of rooms are available at the reduced conference rate of 1150 SEK (single) and 1350 SEK (double) at Hotel Concordia in central Lund.

Please mention that you are attending this conference and the name of the local organizer, Jan Olof Bengtsson, in order to obtain this rate.

The hotel is within walking distance of the conference venue, the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences of Lund University.

See also:

12th International Conference on Persons: Call for Papers

History of the International Conference on Persons

12th ICP Keynote Speaker: Keith Ward

12th ICP: Lund and Lund University

12th ICP: Lund and Lund University

From Lund University’s YouTube Channel:

Some links to websites providing information about Lund and Lund University have been added in the sidebar on the conference site: one to Lund’s Tourist Office, one to InfoLund, and one to the official website of Lund University. Two Wikipedia articles which have been deemed passable have also been added, one about the city and one about the university.

See also:

12th International Conference on Persons: Call for Papers

History of the International Conference on Persons

12th ICP Keynote Speaker: Keith Ward

12th ICP Keynote Speaker: Keith Ward

We have the pleasure to advertise the internationally well-known philosopher – primarily but not exclusively philosopher of religion – Keith Ward as our keynote speaker.

Ward has not only written much on personhood and its meaning, but has also done pioneering work in comparative philosophy and comparative theology, studying most of the world’s major traditions of thought. The latter too is relevant since we seek to make comparative perspectives on personhood one theme of this conference (not to the exclusion of anything else!), hoping to have more scholars – and also representatives – of non-Western traditions as speakers.

Ward has been F. D. Maurice Professor of Moral and Social Theology and Professor of the History and Philosophy of Religion at the University of London, and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. After retiring from the last of these posts in 2004, Ward has taught at Gresham College in London as Gresham Professor of Divinity; this is one of his lectures there (1-6):

See also:

12th International Conference on Persons: Call for Papers

History of the International Conference on Persons