Book 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 (* indicates previously unpublished or unpublished in the present form; + indicates substantial new material has been added.)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...