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The Bertrand Russell Society celebrated its 30th anniversary in Plymouth New Hampshire this past June 18-20 when it held its 31st Annual Meeting, hosted by Ray and Karen Perkins on the campus of Plymouth State University. The conference was well attended, with 50 Russellians of various stripes there from 4 or 5 different countries. The talks were excellent, as was the company. It was a special affair. The conference began Friday night with a meeting of the Society’s Board of Directors, which passed a resolution on Iraq condemning the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq “as contrary to the principles of the U.N. Charter which Bertrand Russell long advocated” and calling for the “immediate withdrawal, under U.N. auspices, of U.S. forces in Iraq and for the concurrent establishment, also under U.N. auspices, of a democratic secular state by the Iraqi people themselves.” On Saturday and Sunday, papers of high quality and great interest were read and discussed. Talks by three young graduate students attending the meeting, Irem Kurtsal of Syracuse University, James Connelly of York University, and Iva Apostolova of the University of Ottawa, were especially strong. Everyone was pleased to have these new Russell scholars in attendance. The talks began with a “master class”, really an open discussion, on Russell and the soul, led by BRS President, Alan Schwerin. Materials for the session had previously been made available, and a lively discussion ensued comparing Russell’s views on values, especially on the value of philosophy, to certain aspects of Buddhism. Irem Kurtsal, one of two BRS Student Essay Prize winners this year (James Connelly was the other) followed with a talk on ‘Russell on Matter and Our Knowledge of the External World’, in which she argued that in the light of Russell’s claims that he never abandoned either a causal theory of perception or realist understanding of objects, his seemingly phenomenalistic use of the method of logical constructions in the 1914 Our Knowledge of the External World, can be explained by the collapse of his 1913 Theory of Knowledge project. James Connelly, the other Student Essay Prize winner, followed with a talk on ‘Russell and Wittgenstein on Propositions’, in which he argued that difficulties with Russell’s views of propositions in his 1903 Principles of Mathematics, and his attempts to solve them, ultimately lead to the picture theory of propositions in Wittgenstein’s 1921 Tractatus. After Saturday lunch, David Blitz cut short his own talk on ‘Russell and Kant on War and Peace’ to present a televised debate between Edward Teller and Russell on the arms race. Blitz has been working at McMaster University this past year collecting such radio and television appearances of Russell and preserving them for the Russell Archives there in digital form. Henrique Ribiero, of the University of Coimbra in Portugal, followed this with a talk on ‘Wittgenstein and Russell on “A believes p”’, which was concerned with the Tractatus’s impact on Russell’s views on prepositional attitudes. During his talk, Ribiero introduced the idea of a partial semantic holism that he attributed to Russell, and a syntactical holism that he attributed to Wittgenstein. A lively debated ensued about the possible sense and validity of these views. This debate continued in the following weeks in the online discussion group, russell-l, and a further explication of these ideas will appear in the November issue of this journal. Jane Duran, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, finished the session with a talk ‘On Russell on History and Intrinsic Value’ concerning Russell’s anti-causal view of historical events. Sunday’s talks were equally enjoyable. Iva Apostolova, a graduate student from the University of Ottawa, began the session with a talk entitled ‘From Acquaintance to Neutral Monism’, in which she argued that Russell’s shift from acquaintance to neutral monism was driven by his problems in describing the cognitive faculties of sensation, memory, and imagination with his acquaintance theory. Her talk is published in this issue of the BRSQ. Chad Trainer followed with a delightful talk on Russell’s stay in Pennsylvania, based on his own trips to the places Russell stayed while there, together with local newspaper accounts of Russell’s stay and reminiscences from people with first hand accounts that Chad contacted on his visits to Russell’s old haunts. Kevin Klement finished Sunday’s session with a paper on ‘The Origins of the Propositional Functions Versions of Russell’s Paradox’. Less narrowly focused than the title might suggest, Klement’s talk went a long way to explaining what Russell was doing between 1902 and 1904, when he claimed to have sat before a blank sheet of paper for two years, unable to proceed. Saturday evening’s banquet was a pleasure, and closed with the presentation of awards, and delivery of memorable remarks and stories by the Society’s special guests that night. Nicholas Griffin received the BRS Book Award for The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell, which he edited [and which was reviewed in the February 2004 issue of the BRSQ]. Arguably, Nick’s introduction to the Companion alone qualifies him for the award this year, for in that introduction, one will find as succinct and yet accurate and insightful a description of Russell’s life and work as one could imagine. Ronald Jager, author of an early authoritative work on Russell (the 1972 Development of Bertrand Russell’s Philosophy) that is still the most comprehensive view of Russell’s entire work, won a special book award this year. In accepting the award, Jager entertained the audience with a story of his visit to Russell in the early 1960s, where he found Russell to be dauntingly lucid. Honorary Russell Society member, Taslima Nasrin, a special guest at the dinner, was also asked to speak afterwards, and she told of her flight from persecution in Bangladesh, hidden under clothes in the back of a car and in a bare upstairs room without food or water. The winner of the Annual Bertrand Russell Society Award this year was Daniel Dennett. While Dennett could not attend the evening’s ceremonies, he sent the following letter of acceptance, which was read aloud to the assembly after dinner: To Members of the Bertrand Russell Society: The weather through the entire weekend of the annual meeting was clear and temperate during the day and cold at night for good sleeping, and the surrounding hills were covered in early summer greenery. Driving through the hills on the way to and from the conference was an extra scenic bonus. There was a large biker convention occurring in the area on the same weekend, and those driving up to the BRS conference had found themselves traveling in the middle of a seeming endless procession of rumbling Harleys, ridden by bearded American romantics, come to meet together and race their bikes in the state whose slogan is “live free or die”.The Russell Society conference ended with a cookout lunch on Sunday afternoon from 12:30 to 2 pm. Those staying to the end of the conference and getting a late start home were again treated to the exotic spectacle of traveling through an endless stream of bikes and bikers, who were heading home from their own conference at the same time. Sources: Chad Trainer, Ken Blackwell. |