Henry Sidgwick Blog

The 5th meeting will take place on March 18th, at the University of Catania, Ex Monastero dei Beneditti, in the Corro di Notte, ancient church where the monks used to sing the night prayers.

The intervenants will be:

Roger Crisp, Fellow and Tutor in Philsophy, St Anne’s College, University of Oxford, who will talk about “SIDGWICK, ON INCOHERENCE AND DISCORD: reflexios”

And,

Philip Schofield, Professor of History of Legal and Political Thought, University College London, Director dof the Bentham Project and associate editor of Utilitas, who will talk about “SIDGWICK ON BENTHAM: the double aspect of utilitarianism”

The meeting will start at 4:00 pm with the greetings of variour leaders of Catania University:

Antonio Recca, Chancellor of the University of Catania, Enrico Iachello, President of the College of liberal arts, Maria Barbanti
Director of the Culture, Human and Territorial Science Department, Francesco Coniglione, Director of the Development Process Department, Biagio Saitta, Director of the Human Science Department.

Then at 4:30 pm, the Introduction to the Congress by Francesco Coniglione and the lectures of the two foreign intervenatns, followed by a debate about the interventions.

This Congress is a public event open to every one interested in moral philsophy and utilitarianism.

Website for the Congress:
http://2nd-international-congress-catania.henrysidgwick.com.henrysidgwick.com/index.html

Sidgwick on twitter: http://twitter.com/HenrySidgwick
Sidgwick on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Henry-Sidgwick/179846669366?ref=search&sid=100000383480286.867919914..1

Page of the Congress on Academia:
http://unict.academia.edu/WorldCongressHenrySidgwickUniversityofCatania

The 4th meeting of the 2nd International Congress: Henry Sidgwick Ethics, Psychics, Politics was a great success, many students attended the convention as many Professors spoke, such as Rob Shaver, University of Manitoba (Winnipeg-Canada) spoke about the importance of the axiomes in Sidgwick’s Ethics and how those axioms are important in Sidgwick’s conception of morality of common sense.

Giuseppe Acocella, President of S. Pio V University (Rome-Italy) and vice-president of the CNEL, made a fascinating intervention which lasted about 45 minutes as the audience was captivated. It was also in italian, which made the speech more easelly understandable by the italian students.

Placido Bucolo, Associate Professor of Moral Philosophy (University of Catania-Italy) started the meeting by presenting my book: “POLITIQUES COMPAREES, Henry Sidwick et la politique moderne dans les Eléments Politiques”, which is the 1st book ever published in french about Sidgwick and the 1st one, on a worldwide scale, published about his politics.

Bart Schultz paper’s was “Sidgwick, the Educator”, he unfortunately could not be present and speak himself to the Congress but his paper was very interesting too.

Giuseppe Giarizzo former President of the Faculty of Litterature and Philosophy (University of Catania-Italy), made a very interesting intervention about Sidgwick’s desire of a qualified Democracy quoting many other thinkers and philosophers with whom Sidgwick was friend or that he knew as intellectuals or University Colleagues.

Giovanna Barba, PhD of Moral Philosophy, was a great help in the coordination of the interventions and as liknking each intervention to the other.

At the end of 2010, the proceedings of the Congress will be published on www.henrysidgwick.com

I am glad to inform you that the 3rd meeting of the 2nd International Congress : “Henry Sidgwick: Ethics, Psychics and Politics”, Congress to which I participated on May the 22nd, 2009, will take place on Friday, November 6th, 2009, at the University of Catania in the “Aula 31″.

The intervenant invited,Disuke Nakai, Ph.D M.A. B.A. History of economical thought, Japan Society for British Philosophy, Kinki University, Osaka, will speak about:
“SIDGWICK UTILITARIANISM AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY”

Prof. Bucolo, Associate Professor of Moral Philosophy, College of liberal arts, University of Catania, who organises the Congress will speak about:
“HENRY SIDGWICK: FOR MOLRAL POLITICS”

You will find the details of the programm on my website:
http://2nd-international-congress-catania.henrysidgwick.com.henrysidgwick.com/index.html

The first Congress was about “Henry Sidgwick: Happiness and Religion”, You will find the proceedings of this 1st Congress on my website at this Page: http://www.henrysidgwick.com/1st.int.congress.cat.eng.html

The proceedings of the second congress will be published on www.henrysidgwick.com , end of 2010.

I’ve never wrote anything in this blog, although I’m its creator and administrator. Then if I am writting, it must be for something extroardinary… I appologize to every one who come here and don’t find anyting interesting. Well, I have something very interesting to talk about.
As there are not many advertisment about Henry Sidgwick, which is a pity, because he did a lot, I should feel ashamed of not managing this blog at all.
Anyway, enough of this. 

Henry Sidgwick’s philosophical thought in utilitarianism is very intersting for us, people of the 21st century. It can seem strange that a philosopher of the end of 19th century was such a visionaire that he could anticipate many political as well as ethical turns that we witnessed in the past and present century. Also, his intense activity in psychical research had a great influence on the new experimental psychology initiated in the end of the 19th century.

Very competent and active scholars, who study Henry Sidgwick, do an amazing work to get this great british philosopher as well-knwown as he deserves adn as his very usefull thought and theories should be.
In order to exchange research and thoughts, Placido Bucolo, Associate Professor of Moral philosophy at the University of Catania-Italy, Roger Crisp, Uhiro Fellow and Tutor of Philosophy at St. Anne’s College Oxford-UK, and  Bart Schultz, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Civic Knowledge Project, Dvision of the Humanities, University of Chicago-USA, organized an international congress, in 2007, about Henry Sidgwick’s thought concerning Happiness and Religion.

The cooperation hoped by the contributors of this congress continues as the Catania 2nd International Congress about Henry Sidgwick, will take place in Catania and the first meeting will be on April 7th, 2009, in a few weeks. I personnaly hope that some or maybe many of you who have the kindness to visit this blog and Henry Sidgwick’s website will be tempted by this exchange and willing to participate. This 2nd Congress will be about Henry Sidgwick’s ethical, psychical and political thought. 
I will try, from now on, to be faithfull to this blog and keep you informed of the evolution of this second International Congress.

This congress will be chaired by Placido Bucolo.
The website of the Congress is accessible at this address: http://2nd-international-congress-catania.henrysidgwick.com.henrysidgwick.com/

At the end of 2010, all the proceedings of the congress will be published. This volume, as the previous one for the first congress of 2007, Henry Sidgwick Happiness and Religion, will be edited by Placido Bucolo, Roger Crisp and Bart Schultz.

Hortense Geninet contact@henrysidgwick.com

http://www.henrysidgwick.com/