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News
News: Autumn 1993
Unpublished Hume Manuscript Sold
A recently-discovered manuscript by David Hume (often called the greatest British philosopher) was auctioned at Sotheby’s in July. The manuscript was estimated at £8,000-£10,000 but in the event surprised the auctioneers by selling for £36,700 to a London dealer.
The four handwritten pages may date from the 1730s, when Hume was in his twenties. In them Hume argues that you cannot show that God is benevolent except by looking at the world and seeing whether good predominates over evil. In the opening paragraph he says “Attempts to prove the moral Attributes from the natural, Benevolence from Intelligence, must appear vain, when we consider, that these Qualities are totally distinct & separate. Reason & Virtue are not the same; nor do they appear to have any immediate Connexion, in the Nature of things.” This may be the earliest ever instance of Hume’s famous and crucial argument that conclusions about what ‘ought’ to be cannot be derived solely from premises stating what ‘is’ the case.
Unlike the unpublished Descartes manuscript we revealed in Issue 2, this is not a spoof!
The same sale also included a batch of Wittgenstein’s papers, from the period when he was writing his first revolutionary book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The papers consist of corrected proofs and letters which taken together are said to chronicle the entire production of the Tractatus. The typescript for the English version of the Tractatus (with corrections written in by Wittgenstein and by C.K.Ogden) fetched the highest price of the day, selling for a truly epic £41,100.
Happy Days
The 3rd Century BC Greek philosopher Epicurus has been climbing the bestseller charts in Italy over the last six months. His Letter to Menoeceus has been reissued in a new translation by Italian classicist Angelo Pellegrino, and renamed Letter on Happiness. It is a slimline pocket paperback only thirty pages long, costing the equivalent of 50p, and sold at supermarket check-outs. For your money you get the Italian translation, a Greek parallel text and a short biography of Epicurus himself. The new edition has already sold more than 1.4 million copies.
World Congress of Philosophy
The World Congress of Philosophy, held in Moscow in August, attracted around a thousand delegates, half of them from the Commonwealth of Independent States. Proceedings were conducted in five languages.
Govt. Campaigns Against Single Mothers
The Government showed its continuing concern for the moral welfare of the British public by launching a crusade against single mothers. The argument was that unmarried women were getting pregnant deliberately in order to jump the queues for council housing. The statistics for the number of single mothers were flourished with some aplomb, though the campaign lost some steam a few days later when it was pointed out that 80% of those single mothers were single as a result of marriage breakups.
Launch of Education Ginger Group
A group has been established “to promote new thinking in education via new thinking in philosophy”. The group was formally launched at a conference at the University of East Anglia on 19th June. Its provisional title is the Philosophic and Educational Renewal Group. Further details can be obtained from the group’s chairman, Chris Ormell, at UEA, Norwich.
Talking Heads Club
Channel 4 Television is starting a new club (called ‘Talking Heads’) for viewers interested in philosophy, religion, politics and the arts. It will enable members to take part in events and discussions following on from Channel 4 programmes. Members will receive a newsletter three times a year and there is also talk of perhaps setting up small local groups which would meet regularly to discuss ideas sparked off by programmes on Channel 4. The initiative has a bias towards the discussion of ethical matters such as abortion, euthanasia, racism, equality and so on. Membership will cost £12.50 per year, and more details can be obtained from: Talking Heads, PO Box 4000, Cardiff CF5 2XT
Joint Session
Our report of the 1993 Joint Session in Birmingham has been held over for reasons of space and will appear in Issue 8.