|
The Annual Meeting of the Eastern APA (December 27-30) shares in the emotional angst of the holiday season in which it occurs. Like the extended visits with extended family these holidays involve, the normal person approaches the Eastern with mingled excitement, resentment and dread. This year’s conference location, Times Square, being what it is, is unlikely to sooth these feelings. This is especially true if, like me, you’re ignorant of the fact that the Square contains two Hilton Hotels. Yes, my unplanned run-walk from Hilton A to Hilton B was a “special” joy, as was my subsequent disheveled Grand Entrance to the APA, gripping tatty plastic bags stuffed with Quarterlies and flyers in each sweaty hand. Hilton B, though grander than Hilton A, is something of a disappointment: what on earth did they do with the chairs? Are they outlawed in New York along with cigarettes, or are the hoteliers trying to prevent riffraff from settling down for a rest? There were some chairs, to be sure, but they were fiercely guarded, and whole stretches of hallway, vast acres of registration area, and echoing chambers of bookseller space were chair-free zones. I did notice a father and his three children sitting on the floor in front of the ATM (and thereby inconveniently blocking access to it), but none of the gilt-tongued concierges seemed to notice. After locating the room in which the BRS session was to occur, I therefore laid out my Society trifolds and other wares and had a seat. But what a sitting it was! The first session of the day, hosted by the History of Early Analytic Philosophy Society, and chaired by Stefanie Rocknak (Hartwick College), boasted Sandra Lapointe (Kansas State) speaking on “Husserl and Frege on Formal Meaning”, Karen Green (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia) speaking on “Fregean Existence and Non-Existence” with commentary by Kevin Klement (U Mass/Amherst), and Chris Pincock (Purdue University) speaking on “An Overlapping Consensus Model of the Origins of Analytic Philosophy” with commentary by Aaron Preston (Malone College). Sandra Lapointe’s paper remains an unknown to me, as I stepped out at for a bit to get money from the ATM (where I found the encampment mentioned above) and to register for the conference. I returned in time to hear Karen Greene deliver a very persuasive paper that received high praise from Kevin Klement, followed by a debate between Chris Pincock and Aaron Preston, on the topic of whether we analytic philosophers have a topic, to a large and sometimes electrified audience. As convener of these events, it behooves me to count heads: I counted 24. The BRS group session immediately followed the HEAPS session with three speakers of its own: Gary Cesarz (Southeast Missouri State University), speaking on “McTaggart and Broad on Leibniz’s Law”, Nikolay Milkov (Bielefeld University), with a paper titled “Lotze’s Influence on Russell” and John Ongley (Edinboro University of Pennsylvania), with a paper on “Lotze and Anti-Psychologism”. John Symons (The University of Texas at El Paso) served as Chair and as commentator of Gary Cesarz’ talk, while David Sullivan (Metropolitan College of Denver) commented on Nikolay Milkov’s paper. The lack of a respondent for John Ongley’s paper turned out to be fortunate, as each speaker ran so overtime that no commenting would have been possible in any case, and John’s talk was written as a follow-up commentary to Milkov’s paper anyway. Milkov argued that Russell’s turn from idealism and monism actually preceded Moore’s, despite Russell’s own story to the contrary, and that in turning this way, Russell exhibited the influence of Hermann Lotze, a forgotten but influential philosophical muse of the 19th century. Some historians in the audience argued for a broader view, and Sullivan began to summarize his own objections, which were based on his claim that Russell studied Lotze’s Metaphysics and not his Logic so that the influences from Lotze that Milkov claimed to find in Russell and Moore (from the Logic) could not have been from Lotze, but Ongley’s analysis of the historical influence of Lotze in at least some ways supported Milkov’s general point. Counting heads was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Warren Allen Smith, Peter Stone and other BRS regulars, crashing into our midst with their boys like gangsters before a shootout. Even after the dust settled, I still counted two-dozen heads.—Rosalind Carey |