An interdisciplinary conference in December 16–18, 2019, Helsinki, organised by the CoE in Reason and Religious Recognition and funded by the Academy of Finland and University of Helsinki

Venue: The House of Sciences and Letters (Tieteiden talo), Kirkkokatu 6

The aim of the conference is to examine how medieval and early modern Christian, Jewish and Muslim thinkers (in theology, philosophy, history, and law) accommodate figures of otherness in their work, either as parts of specific theological, philosophical, legal and political arguments or as tangible beings that have to be reckoned with. Theoretical and methodological approaches are welcome, and interdisciplinary perspectives are encouraged.

Main themes include:

• Toleration and recognition (cultural, ethnic, religious)
• Identity (formation of the self and the group)
• Rights, needs and liberties
• Virtues; common and individual good

These themes call for several questions, such as the identification of the group in terms of who and what are to be recognized, and why; as well as interrogating and interpreting the moral bases of the question of otherness together with rights, responsibilities or virtues. Naturally, this also raises historical investigations of events and institutions in this vein, including crusades, missionary work, slavery, the Inquisition, colonialism, and others.

KEYNOTES:

Frederick Neuhouser

Professor of Philosophy, University of Columbia

Isabelle Mandrella 

Professor of Philosophy, Ludwig-Maximilian-University, Munich

Jukka Korpela 

Professor of History, University of Eastern Finland

PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME

MONDAY 16 DEC.

9.30  Registration (hall 104)

9.50  Opening words, Virpi Mäkinen (hall 104)

10.00–11.00  KEYNOTE (hall 104):

Isabelle Mandrella                                                                                                    Encountering Others in Medieval Ethics: The Case of Thomas Aquinas

11.00–11.30 COFFEE BREAK (hall 504)

11.30–13.00  SESSION 1 (hall 505)

Ritva Palmén (Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies): Hope, Shame and Self-evaluation in Thomas Aquinas’s Moral Philosophy

Nicolas Faucher (University of Helsinki): Scientia, fidesor opinio? Aquinas on the Epistemic Status of Heretical and Demonic Belief

Juhana Toivanen (University of Jyväskylä/University of Gothenburg): Conditions for a Conceptual Distinction between Common and Individual Good

13.00–14.00   LUNCH BREAK

14.00–15.00   SESSION 2 (hall 505)

Samuel Fernandés (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile): Origen’s Doctrine on the Pre-existence of the Soul: A Speculation about Prehistory or a Biblical Enquiry about Our Present Identity?

Virpi Mäkinen (University of Helsinki): Domingo de Soto on the Duties of Public Power in Relation to the Rights of Foreign Poor

15.00–15.30  COFFEE BREAK (hall 404)

15.30–17.00   SESSION 3 (hall 404)

Reima Välimäki (University of Turku): The Worst of All Heresies: Polemical Responses to Waldensianism ca. 1200–1400

Michael Dunne (University of Maynooth): Conflicts, Controversies and Confrontations: The Irish, the Armenians and the Muslims in the Thought of Richard FitzRalph (1300-1360)

Stefan Schröder (University of Helsinki): “O what a strange unnatural fast, fit only for carnal and beastly men!” The Interrelation between the ‘Other’ and the ‘Self’ in Late Medieval Travel Reports to the Holy Land

18.00–20.00  RECEPTION, Faculty of Theology, Faculty Hall (Vuorikatu 3, 5^thfloor)

TUESDAY 17 DEC.

10.00–11.00  KEYNOTE (hall 104)

Frederick Neuhouser, Rousseau on the Nature and Source of Social Inequality

11.00–11.30 COFFEE BREAK (hall 504)

11.30–13.30  SESSION 4 (hall 505)

Tim Stuart-Buttle(University of York) and Heikki Haara (University of Helsinki): Recognition and the Acknowledgement of Equality: from Hobbes to Smith

Kaisa Iso-Herttua (University of Helsinki): The Conflict between Religious Identity and Political Order – Lockean Solution

Risto Saarinen (University of Helsinki): Farewell to Early Modern Accounts: Recognition in Schleiermacher’s On Religion (1799)

13.30–14.30  LUNCH BREAK

14.30–16.00  SESSION 5 (hall 505)

Emanuele Lacca (University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic): Justice, Dignity and the Care of the Others in Pedro de Ledesma (1544-1616)

Ryan Manley(Texas A&M University): A Friend Within: Montaigne on Friendship and Conscience

Vili Lähteenmäki(University of Helsinki): Anthony Collins on Powers and Selves

16.00–16.30   Coffee break (hall 504)

16.30–18.00   SESSION 6 (hall 505)

Mikko Posti (University of Helsinki): Medieval Christian Encounters with Pagan Views of Divine Causality

Susan Gottlöber (University of Maynooth): How Tolerable is Cusa’s Tolerance? Revisiting Cusa’s Encounter with Islam

Panu-Matti Pöykkö(University of Helsinki): Some Help from Two Medieval Friends: Levinas, Maimonides and Judah Halevi on Idolatry

18.30–23.00   CONFERENCE DINNER (Unioninkatu 33)

Music: Nelli Saarikoski (vocals/piano), Mikko Posti (guitar), Kimmo Vainio (bass)

WEDNESDAY 18 DEC.

10.00–11.00   KEYNOTE (hall 104)

Jukka Korpela:  Does the Law Need Reason and Recognition? Cases from Eastern Church and Politics

11.00–11.30 COFFEE BREAK (hall 504)

11.30–13.00  SESSION 7 (hall 505)                                                                                                         

Joanna Comes (University of Porto): Translating Religious Differences: An Impossibility?

Päivi Räisänen-Schröder (University of Helsinki): Encountering Reformation Others in Early Modern German Administration

Joonas Tammela (University of Jyväskylä): The Limits of the “New Israel”? The Collective Lutheran Identities and the Recognition of “the Others” in Swedish Local Sermons, 1790–1820

13.00–14.00  LUNCH BUFFEE (hall 504)

14.00–15.00  SESSION 8 (hall 505)

Patricia Calváro (University of Porto): The Contribute of the Palamite Controversy (14^thc.) for the Formation of the Hesychast Identity

Jukka Ruokanen (University of Jyväskylä): Dimensions of Tolerations in the Political Theory of Johannes Althusius

15.00–15.15   CLOSING WORDS, Virpi Mäkinen (hall 505)

Faculty of Theology
Vuorikatu 3, 2nd floor’s library (209)
For more information: nicolas.faucher@helsinki.fi

Program:
10 am Introduction by Risto Saarinen
10.15 am Ritva Palmén: “Free Movement of the Mind: Wonder in Twelfth-Century Philosophical Psychology”
11.15 am Mark Boespflug: “Faith, the Akrasia Objection and the Possibility of Believing Voluntarily in Peter of Ailly”
12.15 Lunch break
1.45 pm Nicolas Faucher: “Conscience and Authority: James and Peirce on the Medieval Views on Belief”
2.45 pm Sami Pihlström: “The Will to Believe and Holistic Pragmatism”
Break
4.15 pm Dan-Johan Eklund: “Doxastic Voluntarism and Christian Faith”
5.15 pm Conclusion
6 pm Dinner at Ateljé Finne (for the speakers)

In his famous essay on “The Will to Believe”, William James has this to say on scholastic thought: 

“Scholastic orthodoxy, to which one must always go when one wishes to find perfectly clear statement, has beautifully elaborated this absolutist conviction in a doctrine which it calls that of ‘objective evidence.’ If, for example, I am unable to doubt that I now exist before you, that two is less than three, or that if all men are mortal then I am mortal too, it is because these things illumine my intellect irresistibly. The final ground of this objective evidence possessed by certain propositions is the adequatio intellectus nostri cum re[the agreement of our intellect with the thing known]. The certitude it brings involves an aptitudinem ad extorquendam certum assensum[an aptitude for extorting a certain assent from our intellect] on the part of the truth envisaged, and on the side of the subject a quietem in cognitione[ a quiet rest in knowledge], when once the object is mentally received, that leaves no possibility of doubt behind; and in the whole transaction nothing operates but the entitas ipsa[entity itself] of the object and the entitas ipsaof the mind.”

“Scholastic orthodoxy” seems to refer here more to Aquinas and his school than to any other scholastic thinker or trend. But James’ general view nonetheless aptly reflects the medieval scholastic common opinion. It is indeed true that, for virtually all medieval thinkers, there are some propositions that, whether, as James affirms, they “illumine” the human intellect, or they are known through the intellect’s light, can be assented to with perfect and irrefragable certainty, which constrains the intellect, and beyond which no further intellectual examination is required, or indeed possible.

There is, however, another kind of light, afforded by grace, that many medieval thinkers accept. This light, which was described in many different ways all along the 13^thcentury, neither constrains the human intellect to assent to the truth of the objects of faith, nor does it put its investigation to rest. Rather it makes it see the objects of faith as things that must be believed.

The vocabulary medieval authors use to describe this apprehension is strikingly similar to James’ vocabulary when he describes what might be called, in his terms, our passional relation to live hypotheses. Where he speaks of “scintillat[ing] with credibility”, where he says that,“for us, not insight, but the prestige of the opinions, is what makes the spark shoot from them and light up our sleeping magazines of faith”, Aquinas speaks of a “simple light” of faith which “non-discursively” shows that we must believe this or that object. More strikingly, Peter John Olivi, a crucial author among 13^thcentury scholastics, speaks of the relucentia, the “light-reflection” of objects of faith, as well as, more generally, the scintillatiothat characterizes actions we must perform, as they are presented by our conscience, including acts of faith. Many other authors provide similar descriptions.

Light metaphors are omnipresent in both James and medieval thinkers as regards belief, faith, or credulitas, but does that mean that there is anything in common in their philosophical views? Our working hypothesis is that there is, inasmuch as both James’ view and the medieval family of views describe an experience that is supposed to be universal; not founded on reason but on volition, emotion, and desire; and leading us to propositional belief in a certain set of objects.

Even more crucially, perhaps, that our religious belief be a choice in the most proper sense of the term is an essential feature of both James’ view and the whole medieval Latin tradition’s family of views. The idea that believing is a full-fledged choice for which we may be considered responsible; that our affective relation with what must be believed and the proponent of what must be believed (God, the Church, a certain community, etc.) plays a fundamental role in our coming to believe; that taking into account our interest in believing (whether it be coming to know the truth or reaching salvation) is at the basis of our choice are all features of both pragmatist views of belief and medieval Latin views.

Of course, there are some obvious differences. Whether James defends a kind of direct doxastic voluntarism remains an open question, while medieval authors usually clearly defend either a direct or indirect conception of doxastic voluntarism. It also seems that, while James appears to think our will to believe is triggered even before we adopt any view of our ability to reach the truth, whether empiricist or absolutist, to reprise the alternative he presents, the medieval authors seem to think of the light of faith in an absolutist framework: one can know that they ought to believe something, even though they do not immediately apprehend its truth.

 Beyond such differences, it seems possible and of great interest to ask some common questions of these different conceptions. What is the experience of having to believe? What are the warrants of belief that can be constructed on the basis of this experience? What is the precise role of the will in the process leading to belief? What kind of influences determine what we want to believe, what we feel we must believe, what we end up believing? More broadly, what are the common elements of medieval Latin and Pragmatist epistemologies? The proposed workshop is an invitation to examine the answers to these questions provided by the medieval Latin tradition and the Pragmatist tradition, and to see whether, across the centuries, their confrontation might allow us to glimpse some universal feature in philosophical conceptions of belief, especially voluntary belief.