A Quarter Century of Value Inquiry: Presidential Addresses Before the American Society for Value Inquiry

A Quarter Century of Value Inquiry: Presidential Addresses Before the American Society for Value Inquiry
ISBN-10
9051836651
ISBN-13
9789051836653
Category
Philosophy
Pages
516
Language
English
Published
1994
Publisher
Rodopi
Author
Richard T. Hull

Description

This volume contains all of the presidential addresses given before the American Society for Value Inquiry since its first meeting in 1970. Contributions are by Richard Brandt*, Virgil Aldrich*, John W. Davis*, the late Robert S. Hartman*, James B. Wilbur*, the late William H. Werkmeister, Robert E. Carter, the late William T. Blackstone, Gene James, Eva Hauel Cadwallader, Richard T. Hull, Norman Bowie*, Stephen White*, Burton Leiser+, Abraham Edel, Sidney Axinn, Robert Ginsberg, Patricia Werhane, Lisa M. Newton, Thomas Magnell, Sander Lee, John M. Abbarno, Ruth Miller Lucier, and Tom Regan*. Autobiographical sketches* by all of the living contributors and one recently deceased, biographical statements of the remainder, together with photographic portraits of all the contributors*, make this volume a unique record of value inquiry during the past quarter century. (* indicates previously unpublished or unpublished in the present form; + indicates substantial new material has been added.) The addresses cover diverse topics, from broad, general ones, to value inquiry into literature, bioethics, and public policy; to philosophy of mind, to critical studies of other philosophers' work, defenses of philosophy and of applied ethics, individual-, role- and cultural-relativism of values. The American Society for Value Inquiry is nearing its 25th anniversary. Its leadership is elected annually, often with a vice president becoming president-elect, then president, then past president: a structure that serves to insure a measure of continuity. Its members are drawn to the society not by a particularly credo or ideology or philosophical position, but by a common interest in questions of value, ranging from abstract meta-value inquiry to disciplinary and trans-disciplinary value inquiry. For those who share this range of passions, the volume will preserve, collect, organize, and in a number of cases recover material in danger of being lost to them. The Presidential Address is a unique genre, resembling in some ways a sermon. Indeed, preparing a presidential address before a philosophical society is often an exercise in developing an exhortation to members to take up a neglected topic, to embrace as important a particular viewpoint; it may as well be a cautionary to avoid a particular error. It is often a dramatic moment: as a last act of the presidency, having observed closely the trends and winds blowing through the discipline, the speaker is afforded the opportunity to hold forth on a topic at once intensely personal and believed to be of wide interest. While some societies publish presidential addresses in newsletters or informal proceedings, and occasionally in professional bulletins or journals, rarely have a substantial bloc of a society's presidential addresses been collected and published under one cover. Too often the presidential address is delivered, discussed by those present, perhaps summarized in a paragraph in a newsletter to members, and filed as a fond memory of a moment of honor in the papers of the author - sometimes to be forgotten, lost, discarded, or otherwise removed from availability to scholars of the history of philosophy. This volume inaugurates a series aiming at preserving presidential and other major addresses before philosophical societies. It seeks to be a historical record, not only of the address but also of the reflections and recollections of the author. It seeks to preserve as a part of the historical record a photograph of the author. And, with the personal character of an autobiographical statement, it seeks to humanize and render lively and real the professi...

Similar books

  • Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on what it is and why it Matters
    By Karen Warren

    Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 27 . 32. Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 49 . 33. Seager , New State of the Earth Atlas , 121 .

  • Each Day a Renewed Beginning: Meditations for a Peaceful Journey
    By Karen Casey

    7. Sometimes the things that frighten you the most can be the biggest sources of strength. —Iris Timberlake or Most of us learn as we mature that strength.

  • Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy
    By Todd May

    28 It is therefore not difficult to reconcile Badiou«s references to historical ... On the one hand, Badiou«s major essays on Rancière all deal with the ...

  • Pierre Bayle's Cartesian Metaphysics: Rediscovering Early Modern Philosophy
    By Todd Ryan

    Bayle offers a similar assessment in a letter to Minutoli: There has just been ... touchant la tran[s]substantiation, et leur conformité avec le calvinisme.

  • Negotiating a Settlement in Northern Ireland, 1969-2019
    By John Coakley, Jennifer Todd

    However, acceptance of the deal was driven in part by threats of worse to come should agreement ... see Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006, s.

  • The Philosopher's Way
    By Pearson Education, Pearson Education Staff, Inc.

    Several versions of Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products exist for each title, including customized versions for individual schools, and registrations are not transferable.

  • Swimmer in a Dark Sea
    By Pierce Timberlake

    Take a tour through the mind of America's undiscovered philosopher: Pierce Timberlake. Swimmer in a Dark Sea is a dizzying ride through a dazzling array of profound concepts.

  • Bringing Peace Home: Feminism, Violence, and Nature
    By Karen Warren, Duane L. Cady

    "This collection of works is ambitious, well documented, thoroughly—though not turgidly—referenced, and comprehensively indexed.

  • Ecological Feminism
    By Karen Warren, Barbara Wells-Howe

    The essays in this volume deal with a wide variety of subjects - the essential distinction between the "ecofeminist" and the "ecofeminine," the link between violence and environmental exploitation, feminism's relationship to animal rights ...

  • Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment
    By Karen Green

    6 Davies, Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren, 228; Franklin Bowditch Dexter (ed.), The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, ...