Revue des Sciences philosophiques et theologiques. 1907-2007

Institute Catholique de Paris - Le Saulchoir is hosting the celebration events marking 100 years since the first issue of Revues des Sciences philosophiques et theologiques. The conferences will take place at Paris between 20th and 22nd November 2007. The inaugural lecture will be delivered by Professor Alain de Libera. Only one particular conference attracted my attention: "Cent ans d'etudes medievales: lire Thomas d'Aquin en historien et en philosophie", with Emmanuel Falque, Ruedi Imbach, Fergus Kerr and Adriano Oliva as keynote speakers.

Url: http://www.rspt.org/Centenaire/Centenaire.html

Universality of Reason - Plurality of Philosophies in the Middle Ages
XIIth International Congress of Medieval Philosophy

The Twelfth International Congress of Medieval Philosophy will be held in Palermo (Italy), 16-22 September 2007. The general theme of the Congress is: Universality of Reason - Plurality of Philosophies in the Middle Ages. There are six Plenary Sessions scheduled for the Congress. Lecturers invited by the Bureau of the SIEPM and by the Organising Committee will speak on the following topics:
1. Introduction: Universality of Reason – Plurality of Philosophies in the Middle Ages (Loris Sturlese)
2. Reason and Universality in the Middle Ages (Olivier Boulnois, Stephen Gersh, Pasquale Porro)
3. Religion and Plurality (Georgi Kapriev, Charles Manekin, Marwan Rashed)
4. Plurality of Philosophical Traditions (Paolo Lucentini, Constant Mews, Thomas Ricklin)
5. Language and Plurality (Cristina D'Ancona, Dag Hasse, Irène Rosier)
6. Region and Plurality (Giulio d'Onofrio, Richard Cross, Josep-Ignasi Saranyana)

More details can be found at the following address:
http://www.siepm.uni-freiburg.de/congress/congr_congress_2007_2nd_en.html

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A preliminary programme has been made available here.

Personally, I think this is the biggest event in the field and its contribution to imposing research directions is essential. Unfortunately, only members of the SIEPM may present papers at this event.

The international conference
Ethics and the Professional Culture
A multi-disciplinary approach
Cluj-Napoca, October 5-6th, 2007

The unique development of the subdivision known as "applied ethics" has had a great impact on the moral philosophy during the last years. It appears as a new paradigm in practical philosophy, and a new model to conceive morality by challenging the deontological and teleological approaches. It prefigures comprehension of ethical relations, starting with those that the individuals develop within a professional community. The norms and the rules that structure the moral conduct of the individuals do neither constitute, nor validate themselves exclusively at the level of personal consciousness. They must be traced in the persons' interactions inside the professional community, and in the connection of the professional community with the entire social system and with the norms and principles on which its policy is based. This has as a consequence the need for codifying the professional practices and developing of specific independent institutions with the precise purpose of managing moral conflicts. [more]

The matters of moral and professional integrity, and of ethics in professional culture are of crucial significance, not only from a theoretical point of view, viz. the reassessment of moral theories that are currently adjusting to the type of conducts that contemporary society emphasizes, but also from a practical one, especially from the perspective of social changes that Romanian society expects.

To conclude, the main objective of the conference demands significant commitment and theoretical analysis of the practical and moral implications of the process of implementing new rules and guidelines in new Romania's organizations.

Organizers:

• Center for Applied Research in Phenomenology, Babeş-Bolyai University

Co-organizers:

• Academic Society for the Research of Religions and Ideologies (SACRI), Cluj-Napoca
• Research Center in Applied Ethics (CCEA), Bucureşti
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More details can be found here: http://hiphi.ubbcluj.ro/hiphi/confe_etica/princip.htm

Medieval Dream - conf. follow-up

In November 2006, the Bucharest Centre for Medieval Studies held its first annual conference: Le reve medievale et ses metamorphoses au Moyen Age. It was a special moment for us because it was the result of almost 6 years of team building efforts. Although per total the event went very well, some minor problems did arise. But we have been very glad to host such an event and to establish direct contact with international scholars in our own academic space (a practice not so well developed in Romania). Personally, I presented a paper entitled St. Thomas Aquinas on Dreaming, but I did not have the time to review it and publish it in the Proceedings. The same happened with other colleagues caught with bureaucratic issues. Most of the papers presented at this conference dealt with dream/dreaming in the medieval literature, but some theological and philosophical aspects have been discussed.

[I wrote the above lines because I have long thought about writing a conference follow-up, but I did not find the chance to do it. Today, after finding a book on medieval dreaming (J. Stephen Russell, The English Dream Vision. Anatomy of a Form) I decided to finally write down some brief thoughts on the conference.]