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.

Conference Report: British Personalist Forum International Conference 2015; Episode 1a

… 2… 1

We bring you now the next instalment of our new 42 part series dedicated to The 2015 British Personalist Forum International Conference. In this episode, our intrepid reporter describes the daily life of conference-goers, with details of both feeding and mating rituals. Readers are warned that the following report may contain distressing scenes.

Episode 1a: Sing “Macmurray!” every day, that’s what my Grandma used to say

     Deep within the labyrinthine bowels of Oriel college stood we.  Shadows clung cobweb-like about our shoulders; a strange sepulchral chill had settled upon the room.  It was the first day, the first hour, the first moment of the conference.  Who knew what horrors were to come, what appalling rites would be conducted, to what Stygian depths a human soul might sink, and what ancient nightmares would be released up when it did?

     Suddenly, before a very old joke could be plagiarised in toto, Richard Allen and Alan Ford welcomed us all and opened the conference.

     The scene was set.  On with the presentations.

     You may recall from Part 1 that the philosophy of John Macmurray was well represented.  In this regard, David Treanor and James Beauregard did a fine job.

     David flew in from Tasmania for the event; just he had last year, in fact.  His arms were recovering from the ordeal and he was enjoying being the right way up for a change; so much so that he was not, I am sure, remotely put out by the chairman of his session being ten minutes late.

     Yes, of course it was me.   I managed to get lost between Lecture Room II in the aforementioned sepulchral bowels, where Richard and Alan opened the conference, and the Basil Mitchell Room about a hundred yards away.  A dedicated Ariadne, armed with her ball of yarn, would, no doubt, have made short work of it, but I was lost.  The block in which we were housed -- behind the Provost’s rooms, I think -- has two distinct alleyways, if you can imagine such a thing.  I picked the wrong one; of course I did.

     Luckily, after what seemed like hours in this benighted wilderness, I was found, tired, cold, and hungry, by a couple of other lost souls.  Pooling our mighty intellectual powers, we decided that the other alleyway was worth a try.  And it was.  Everyone was waiting for us.  David, at last, could begin.

     Consider two things: first, this was a personalist conference, organised by the British Personalist Forum; second, John Macmurray is generally acknowledged to be a -- if not the -- central figure in British personalist thought.   He is, in David’s words, ‘an aberration to a homogeneous philosophical pedagogy.’  And jolly good too.   (Not only an important figure in his own right, Macmurray was also Farrer’s tutor at Balliol, making him a contributory factor in the development of one of the most important thinkers of the 20th Century.)  Given these two things, it might seem a little peculiar that David should wonder whether Macmurray was, in fact, a personalist after all.   He’s lucky he wasn’t lynched.  

     The question, it seems, arises from the practical or pragmatic emphasis of Macmurray’s philosophy: the substitution, as David put it, of doing for thinking.  This same emphasis on (as I would say) intelligent action over sheer or mere speculation, Farrer would go on to develop both metaphysically and epistemologically.

     Pragmatic personalism: excellent stuff.  What struck me as interesting was the way in which David applied, as is his wont, Macmurray’s thought to matters of crucial social import; in this case, education, health-care, and social services.  This speaks of a social consciousness, sadly lacking from much modern philosophy, but which David always does supremely well.

     This aspect of David’s paper soon gave rise to an interesting conversation about the experience of educational, health, and social-care professionals.  In his recent book, The Common Good (to which a issue of Appraisal will soon be dedicated) Jonas Mortenson cited research suggesting that health-care professionals, in particular, are frequently rather unhappy people.  This is something I can corroborate from my own experience.  Being married to one, I have long associated with such folks and they are as odd a bunch of people as you or I are ever likely to meet.  But if Macmurray et al. are right about the proper route to a fulfilling life, a fully human life, being through our thoughtful and caring participation on one another’s lives -- as I am sure they are -- then the question is, ‘why are health-care professionals so miserable, not to mention, peculiar?’  No great conclusions were reached that day, although it was mooted that much may result from the depersonalising systems within which they are forced to work; but I do not think that is all.

     This is, I suspect, a topic to which we shall have to return at some later date.

     Following David’s fine application of Macmurray’s principle ideas, James Beauregard also sought to draw some of the lessons of Macmurray’s thought.  James’ concern was twofold: one the one hand, the neuroscience’s; on the other, signalling some of the vital connections between Macmurray’s thought -- and personalism in general -- and the insights of modern psychology and psychotherapy. Such connections are not, of course, particularly surprising; but they are very exciting.  James focused primarily on Object Relations Theory, which was developed during the early part of the 20th Century (whence I have now returned).  The key players in this development, we were told, included Melanie Klein (sister of Calvin) and the famous Hollywood Swashbuckler, Ronald Fairbairn Jnr., whose seminal work, Object Relations Theory in the Clinical Setting, was, I believe, written while Fairbairn was playing Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood.

     It is curious that Object Relations Theory isn’t better known among personalists given the parallels with the central insights of our tradition, especially in the area of interpersonal relations.   Perhaps Shakespeare was simply wrong: a rose by any other name has a distinctly fishy pong about it.  Badly named as it is, ORT , as James ably demonstrated, offers valuable psychological support to the philosophical personalist and as a contribution to the proceedings was very welcome indeed.

     And that, children, is why the ICP should be a compulsory element of all psychology courses too. And, now I think about it, neuroscience courses.

     Taking the first, neuroscientific, hand, James’ presentation concerned the inevitable limitations of any conception of persons undertaken in such terms alone.  The attempt to eliminate deep metaphysical questions about personal consciousness, freewill, morality, and so on is not, of course, remotely scientific.   It is, as one commentator has observed, merely witchcraft with clipboards.

     Otherwise put, there is an irreducible logical gap between the MRI scans or what have you which supposedly show us the mind at work and the claim that the neurological activity depicted by the scan really is the mind and nothing else can be.  David Hume is usually blamed -- not altogether fairly -- for this kind ersatz empiricism, although I can’t help wondering what he would have made of that inferential leap.

     Fortunately, we were saved such abstract speculations as James, with Macmurray’s help, set to filling out the picture of persons.

     Then suddenly, I heard the unmistakable twang of elastic....

     This concludes Part 1a of our new 56 part series: The 2015 British Personalist Forum International Conference, A Report.  Unfortunately, we are, once again, unable to bring you the remainder of this episode.   It has emerged that the detailed descriptions of feeding and mating rituals among conference-goers, which we hoped to bring you, are libellous; mere fabrications of our correspondents fevered, and frankly degenerate, imagination.   We hope that readers are not too disappointed and will continue to join us for the remainder of this 69 part series.

Yet Another Conference!

We interrupt this interruption to our usual, if somewhat irregular, service to bring you this Very Important Announcement. 

Just in case there are any readers out there -- that is, just in case. And on the off-chance that, there should in fact be any, one or two might be interested to know that the 13th International Conference on Persons is this year being held at Boston University from the 3rd to 7th August.

     Anyone who read my report on the last one in Lund (August 2013) will be aware that I am strongly in favour of these events. If it were up to me, they would be made a compulsory part of all philosophy and theology courses at every level, anywhere. Psychology courses too, for reasons that will become clear in a later post.

     Should any of you choose to attend, you will find the most interesting philosophy being done anywhere, and at the very highest levels too. It is, I am convinced, almost as exciting as our very own BPF Oxford Conference -- almost. And if the prospect of encountering exceptional ideas proves insufficient to tempt you, the conference-goer would also meet some of the finest and best people in this or any other business. 

     I readily confess a bias in this matter. As well as knowing a number of the key-players such as Jan Olof Bengtsson, Phil Cronce, and Randy Auxier (who really ought to arrive at every lecture on horseback) -- excellent fellows, all -- I also know the local organiser. It is, if you can believe it, the now legendary James “snake-hips” Beauregard, philosopher, neuropsychologist, wine connoisseur, pizza maker. He’s worth the price of the ticket alone.

     Besides these bums, I am also fortunate enough to know the founders of the ICP: Tom Buford and Charles Conti. Two finer men, better teachers, and more exciting philosophers, one could not wish to meet. Tom always attends; Charles hasn’t done for many years, which is a great shame. In his absence, however, Tom, when called upon to talk about the founding of the ICP, tells the tale of the plate of tacos over which he and Charles dreamt up the idea and so brought us all together in the first place. God bless those tacos. 

     Exactly what Charles Conti -- alleged Italian-American and most definite hater of alliums large and small -- was doing eating tacos, I cannot begin to imagine. 

     Nevertheless, here is the Call for Papers for this year’s conference. I strongly recommend going if at all possible. If it was within my power to force you all to go, I would do so without the slightest hesitation; for your own good, naturally. It will, without a doubt, be the best thing anyone will have been to all year. 

     With, of course, the single, vital, exception of our own BPF Conference in Oxford. 

     So, for anyone thinking that they might attend, stop thinking and, like the chicken that crossed the road, just do it.

13th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PERSONS

Aug. 3rd to Aug. 7th, 2015

Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

CALL FOR PAPERS

Papers in any area or discipline are welcome, so long as their themes are of concern to the ideas and concepts of persons, personhood, and personality as a philosophical, theological, psychological, social, political, historical, creative or linguistic concern.

Papers must not exceed a length of 3000 words and should be prepared for blind review. In the e-mail sent with the submission, we require the following eight items:
1. word count -3000 words maximum
2. author’s name
3. academic status (professor, unaffiliated, graduate student)
4. institutional affiliation (if any)
5. mailing address
6. e-mail address
7. the paper s title
8. an abstract -200 words maximum

Submission deadline for abstracts is MAY 25th, 2015. Abstracts will be accepted on that date, with full texts of paper due by July 1.

Submissions which do not include items 2-8 (if only abstract is being submitted) will be disqualified. Word count is due when full paper is submitted. No more than one submission by the same author will be considered.

Email as an attachment a copy of your paper and/or abstract in rich text format to: PersonsConference2015@gmail.com

Papers and/or abstracts will be reviewed by a committee. Notification of acceptance will be made via email in early June.

COMMENTATORS: Each paper will have a commentator. Those interested in commenting should send a note to PersonsConference2015@gmail.com by May 25th detailing availability and areas of interest. Persons whose papers are accepted will be expected to serve as commentators, if asked.

Copies of papers will be available by July 1st. Emails of authors will also be available for purposes of sending your commentary in advance of the conference.

CONFERENCE WEBSITE: For updates and information, visit our website: http://bostonicp2015.com/.

REGISTRATION: from noon on Mon. August 3rd. Further details about meals, schedules, and conference fees will be provided as they become available.

That concludes this Very Important Announcement. . We return you now to the previous interruption of normal service. Interruption resuming in 5… 4… 3…

Conference Report: British Personalist Forum International Conference 2015; Episode 1

We interrupt our usual, if somewhat irregular, service to bring you this 17 part report from the 2015 British Personalist Forum International Conference.  Temporarily fleeing 14th Century Ireland, our fearless correspondent returned, all too briefly, to attend this two-day event, which was generously supported by the British Society for the History of Philosophy.

Conference Report:

British Personalist Forum International Conference

18th - 19th March 2015, Oriel College, Oxford

Episode 1: The Golden Dawn of a New Republic

What a bright blue and brilliant sunshine morning that Wednesday morning was.  Bright blue, celestial blue, blue as ol’ Blue Eyes blue eyes; a green-spring sunshine smiling day specially made, or so it seemed, for those of us making our way to Oxford for the 2015 BPF conference.  From the four corners of the earth we came but mostly England.  Some of the finest scholars the world has ever known foregathered there, great minds all; also the usual crowd of loafers, loungers, and barflies.

     We came to do philosophy, which is as good a thing as any to do in Oxford in the springtime; and do it we did.

     We came, moreover, to see one another; old friends and new, well met all; we came to share ideas, to lark about and generally make a nuisance of ourselves.  All these we did likewise and with considerable vim.

     

     Richard Allen was, in every way, the founder of our intellectual feast.  More than a little gratitude is owed him for his efforts in bringing everyone together and providing us with such a fine space -- physical and personal -- in which to assemble.  Thanks are also due to the British Society for the History of Philosophy for the financial support, which enabled us to stage the whole thing in the first place.

     And thanks to Oriel College for hosting us? Indeed, though somewhat grudgingly, perhaps.  The college, it turns out, is something of a dump; not a full-scale crap-hole but certainly crummy.  For accommodation, we were supplied with grim student digs.  Dandruff flakes of grey-pink plaster stirred restlessly in drifts about a carpet of curious shade.  A grimy bathroom aroused strange, dark, half-memories of horrors unnameable and, God protect us, unthinkable.  The beds, low-slung and squat, clung to the carpet of curious shade with stumpy legs, reminding me thereby of my relations.  Upon them -- the beds, not the relations – lay several weirdly fine and diaphanous objects which turned out to be mattress, pillow, and blanket.  All in all, the perfect setting for a suicide.

     Dinner, served in the main hall, was not quite that.  And nor, fortunately, was it precisely inedible, although it did leave one thinking enviously of the survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571.  Should any of those antediluvian comedians who once specialised in the Classic British Rail Buffet Car Joke care to visit Oriel, they will no doubt find sufficient material for a ‘comeback’ tour; along with a considerable quantity of shoe leather.  

Example of Classic British Rail Buffet Car Joke 1:

BR Buffet Car Waiter: Would sir like a traditional British Rail Pork Pie?

BR Buffet Car Customer: Is it fresh?

BR Buffet Car Waiter: I don’t know but the ingredients are written in Aramaic.

     On applying the Sheffield steel, I could not but wonder whether this was the prelude to a visit from Inspector Morse on some deadly gastrointestinal investigation, or to the greasy kebab van (Abra-Kebabra) parked outside the college; quite possibly, the same thing.  Fortunately, I was sat next to James T. Beauregard, he of the lantern jaw and rugged pizza-dough recipe.  A fine fellow indeed, who encouraged me to drink more stomach-cleansing red wine (Château Oriel) than might otherwise have been advisable. In this case it was entirely necessary.

But more on this later.

Example of Classic British Rail Buffet Car Joke 2:

BR Buffet Car Customer 1: I say, I say, I say.  This British Rail Sandwich has no nose!

BR Buffet Car Customer 2: How does it smell?

BR Buffet Car Customer 1: Like post-war economic decline, rising unemployment, and the unions gaining a stranglehold on the government! And asbestos!

     The conference itself, which is all any of us were really interested in, was a great success in every way imaginable.  A very fine collection of papers was presented to a crowd eager with anticipation and positively thrumming with excitement.  Brows were furrowed, heads were scratched, and notes were scribbled.  We were, as James B. would say, one giant ear.  No sooner had the speakers gasped their last syllable than discussion and debate flowed most energetically -- on one occasion, almost excessively so -- as we giant ears opened our big mouths and jumped in with both feet.   

     The conference theme, should any of you be unaware (for shame), concerned the contribution of British philosophers to the Personalist tradition.  The resulting haul was excellent; so good, in fact, that there wasn’t room for all and a number of first-class papers had to be turned down. Fortunately for us all, we expect to be able to bring you some of those in the next few issues of Appraisal.  Abigail Klassen‘s analysis of Galen Strawson on the “self”, which appears in the Spring Issue, is a prime example; and there are more to come.

     Of those that made the conference ‘cut’, the usual suspects -- Farrer, Macmurray, and Polanyi -- were well represented.  Fearlessly, David Treanor, James Beauregard, Tihamer Margitay, Endre Nagy, and, of course, myself stepped forward to do our duty.  As one would expect, Collingwood and Kolnai also made their appearance; the former presented by Anna Castriota, the latter by Elizabeth Drummond Young.  Thanks to Francesca Norman, John Gibbins, and Richard, a few new names were also brought to the table; names such as H. L. Mansel, John Grote, and W. R. Sorely, for example.  Personally, as it were, I was delighted to see Stuart Hampshire and P. F. Strawson represented by Karl Simms and Charles Conti respectively.  I cut my philosophical teeth on Hampshire and Strawson thanks, as it happens, to Charles.  Their anti-Cartesian conception of the “self” as physically embodied, socially embedded, was the ladder I climbed to reach the difficult and subtle heights of Farrer’s Finite and Infinite.

     All of these, however, we shall return to over the remaining 34 instalments.  

     Most important of all, of course, the cup of friendship was filled many times and passed freely among us.  Fortunately, a number of those who swigged that cup drank deep enough to let themselves be persuaded to join the BPF and pay real money for the privilege of doing so.  All such new members are very welcome, not least because their contributions mean that we shall not be forced to embezzle money from St. Anna Glypta’s Orphanage again this year.  On behalf of the BPF Committee and the orphans, you have our sincerest gratitude.

     Among those new members, Anna Castriota and Benjamin Bacle deserve special mention as they have agreed to join the committee; Anna as secretary taking over from Mark Arnold. Benjamin, who arrived in the guise of innocent bystander, was warned of the likely consequences.  That he succumbed and took the ‘King’s Shilling’ is his own fault and none other’s.  Likewise, David Treanor has also joined the committee and now represents the Southern Hemisphere (second-best hemisphere there is).

     Another successful, and most noteworthy, coup on the recruitment front, was our acquisition of a president.  Thanks to the sterling efforts of our charming and persuasive chairman, Alan Ford, Raymond Tallis made the leap from keynote speaker to Big Cheese.  The title is, for the moment, purely honorary, which means Ray will not have access to the launch codes for any nuclear arsenals and cannot declare war on other countries or philosophical societies (for now; so just watch it, Macmurray Fellowship).  Nevertheless if all goes to plan, you may expect to see the town halls of Great Britain adorned with giant posters of Prof. Tallis, while members of the BPF, dressed in alarmingly smart uniforms, march through the streets.   

¡Viva El Presidente! ¡Viva La Revolución!

     Needless to say, Ray doesn’t know anything about this yet.

     This concludes the first in our new 25 part series: The 2015 British Personalist Forum International Conference, A Report, the remainder of this episode having been redacted for security reasons.  We hope you will join us again during the next few weeks for the remaining parts 2 to 34.