Conference Report: British Personalist Forum International Conference 2015; Episode 2

We return now to our new 72 part series: The 2015 British Personalist Forum International Conference, A Report.

Part 2: First Philosophy, then Booze

     To return to the presentations: besides the choice selection already mentioned, there were, of course, many other fine speakers.  Our chairman, Alan Ford – he of the rippling deltoids and Betty Marsden eyes – took time out from his own wine-tasting adventures to explore the logical and metaphysical foundations of modernity on our behalf.

     I was fortunate enough to see Alan do something similar at the 2009 International Conference on Persons in Nottingham, also organised by Richard.  That presentation, however, was on a far grander scale.  Much like the buffalo of the old West, Alan had ranged freely: not across the plains but through every form of artistic and literary expression known to our species.  Sad to say, he was, on that occasion, cut tragically short after only several hours. A number of those attending had, so they said, to return the United States; apparently their visas had expired.  Feeble excuse.  It was a truly epic performance we saw that morning; we can only hope that one day it turns up on BBC 2 of a Thursday evening.

     This time, however, our son of a coal miner (and not, as I had assumed, a sea cook) chose to focus on the tendency of modern thought to mystify some of the most vital aspects of human experience: namely, our values and, in particular, the ethical.  Without these, one might say, we are barely human at all.  The consequences of that “surreptitious slippage” to philosophy are well known; the consequences to what we might loosely term “the real world” are insidious and becoming increasingly, and depressingly, obvious.

     Citing Wittgenstein, specifically in the Tractatus, as a key culprit would not escape Charles Conti’s attention; for Charles himself is working on a new analysis of Wittgenstein which seems almost entirely to oppose Alan’s view.

     The challenge was made, the gauntlet thrown down.  Two men eyed one another in steely fashion.  In a flash, coal miner’s son and stonemason’s son were stripped to the waist and fully oiled up.  The assembled crowd began to take bets on who would emerge the victor from this titanic struggle.  Like caged animals they circled each other.  And then, with a mighty roar, they clashed.  Like King Kong and Godzilla, they duked it out in the Basil Mitchell Room.

     Long before these titans had finished battering one another over Wittgenstein, an armistice -- however temporary -- had to be negotiated.  There was one last speaker that blood-spattered afternoon.  In the end, hands were shook, backs were slapped, and teeth swept into the corner of the room.

     Thus did Jan Nilsson bravely take the floor and offer up a discussion of Rowan Williams on Dostoyevsky (or is that Dostoevsky?).  In so doing, he too plunged us into the mystery of “personhood”, brought us face to face with the “unfathomable being” that, through Dostoyevsky, Williams sees us to be.  This “unfathomableness” stems, we were told, from that characteristically human freedom which orients us towards what Friedrich Waismann might forgive us for calling an “open horizon” of possibilities. There is, in Jan’s talk of “unfinished dialogue” something quite close to Waismann’s conception of the “open texture” of language; a vitally important application, perhaps, of his reminder that we cannot foreclose on the language of description.  Nor, perhaps, can we foreclose on the extemporised enactment of our own existence.

     The upshot of this, Jan has dubbed a kind of “apophatic anthropology”; a striking phrase, given the vital importance such a via negativa have for any attempt to make sense of “God-talk”.  It is grounded in a significantly richer conception of our finite nature; not in ontological deficits, as necessitarian thinkers would have it, but rather a kind of personal plenitude which carries personhood far beyond the limits of description and definition.  From now on, I, for one, will gladly temper my over-confident talk of the “infinity” of “personhood” in future, while continuing to press for something a little less strident, something more like “indefinity” or “unfinalisability”, as Jan (borrowing from Mikhail Bakhtin) put it.  The point is clear: those who would limit consciousness or “personhood”, either physically or metaphysically, are on the wrong track.  Any limitations we may have are self-imposed not inherent, the consequence of separation and isolation from those others among whom we may fulfil our potential, our selves.

     Such, then, was the first day of the British Personalist Forum International Conference.  But that was not all, for that evening promised further excitement in the shape of Professor Raymond Tallis.

     Before that, however, we ambled untidily back across the road to the main college buildings where we were to encounter the curious culinary marvels of their kitchen.  Little did we know what was in store for us, what gastronomic abomination would rise, dripping and seething and slithering monstrously, from the cyclopean gravy and utterly destroy our appetites.

     By then, Charles Conti had wisely abandoned us.

     As hinted in episode one, it was not all bad, however.  There was, for instance, a wine that was both pleasant and plentiful; freely imbibed, you may recall, entirely at James Beauregard’s arm-twisting insistence.  Thus, we conclude this episode fully clothed and with a review of that same Château Oriel by our internationally renowned neuro-gourmand, Italian-American, and fearless consumer of alliums far and wide.

Oriel College House Red (served at the conference dinner, thank God!)

A blend of Carignan Noir and Granache Noir, this is an apparently young wine, deep purple, with a dark/opaque core and light purple rim.  The nose brings red fruit aromas of strawberry and plum.  On the palate this is a medium bodied red with medium tannin, good acidity and good balance of components that reflect and extend the nose, with pleasing flavours of plum, strawberry and some hints of raspberry.  It would pair well with Modern Ontological Pizza.  The finish is of medium length.  85 points

James Beauregard Ph.D., Advanced Certificate

(Wine and Spirits Education Trust, London, England)

Look out for episode 3 of this 84 part series, The 2015 British Personalist Forum International Conference, A Report.