THE SEVENTH ANNUAL ISNS CONFERENCE, KRAKOW, POLAND, 18-21 June 2009

Sponsored by the Jesuit University of Philosophy and Education “Ignatianum” in Kraków

PLEASE SEE THE ISNS 2009 KRAKOW CONFERENCE SITE FOR IMPORTANT DETAILS AND THE LATEST INFORMATION.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS (last updated 10 January, 2009)

TRAVEL AWARD: DEADLINE MARCH 31 (last updated 24 January, 2009)

We will be awarding a $750 travel grant to the authors of three particularly good abstracts that have been properly submitted for the June 2009 ISNS Conference in Krakow. This award is designed specifically for graduate students and those just beginning their academic careers, and will be given to scholars who:

1) are participating in this year's annual meeting in Krakow
2) have had their abstracts approved by the organizers
3) have paid their 2009 membership dues

Those interested in applying for this grant should send a copy of their abstract to Mike Wagner (mwagner@sandiego.edu) and John Finamore (john-finamore@uiowa.edu). The deadline for receipt of abstracts is March 13, 2009.

REGISTRATION, HOTELS, AND TRAVEL (last updated 21 December, 2008)

The registration fee for the conference will be 72 Polish zloty (1EU approx. 4.10 zl. and $1 is aprox. 2.90, as of today). There will be an optional banquet on Saturday, 20 June. The meal will be a typical Polish feast, and participants will have a choice of a meat, vegetarian, or vegan menu. The cost is 100, 77, and 65 zloty respectively. Unfortunately, we cannot offer a vegan dessert.

Payment will be made either in cash in Krakow at the start of the conference or by bank transfer (wiring money) in Polish zlotys to Ignatianum’s bank account. Detailed information on this procedure will be provided later. Please note: all prices can be guaranteed in zlotys only.

There are two conference hotels, and many smaller, cheaper hotels in the vicinity. The Hotel Campanile (http://campanile.com.pl/krk_cmp_eng.html) charges 325 zloty for a single room and 349 zloty for a double (breakfast and all taxes included).

To reserve a room, download and fill our special reservation form and fax it to +48 12 424-26-01 or mail it to krakow@campanile.com.pl, mentioning ISNS conference and/or reservation number: 62775. The ISNS conference price is valid until April 15, 2009 and is offered for the period of June 17–22, 2009 and beyond. You will have to provide your credit card number. All rooms are identical in size, and can host one or two people on one large (almost King size) or two smaller beds. You must make your choice at the time of reservation.

The Hotel Ascot (http://www.hotelascot.pl/?lan=1) charges 289 zloty per single room (buffet breakfast and all taxes included).

To reserve a room, call +48 12 384 06 00 or mail rezerwacja@hotelascot.pl mentioning ISNS conference and/or reservation number: 48/11/2008. The ISNS conference price is valid until March 31, 2009. We have not reserved double rooms in the Ascot. The conference price is offered for the period June 17–22, 2009. You will have to provide your credit card number (Visa/Visa Electron, MC, AE) through a form, which will be sent to you via e-mail with your personal reservation details.

Please note: the reservation forms provided on the websites of the two hotels will give you higher prices.

To learn where the hotels and the conference venue are located, please visit the Google map: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=108056872589788791554.00045ac613d28e1cf57de&z=14

If someone prefers a home-like atmosphere, we highly recommend independent apartments for reasonable price at Antique Apartments (http://www.antiqueapartments.com) and Blue Bells (http://www.bluebells.pl). The number of apartments is very limited. A nice and cheaper accommodation (but also a much more distant one) is The Secret Garden Hostel (http://www.thesecretgarden.pl). You can find numerous other options on www.booking.com.

Kraków has an international airport (Kraków-Balice John Paul II airport), located close to the city. It is connected with the main train station via a shuttle, circulating every 30 minutes. You can find more details on (http://www.krakowairport.pl/en/3/176/35/pl). Both conference hotels are located close to the main train station (Kraków Glówny). It is the best way to get to the hotels. The first and last departure hours are coordinated with plane arrivals and departures.

Please note that Katowice airport (Katowice-Pyrzowice) is sometimes marketed by the airlines as Kraków-Katowice or Kraków-Pyrzowice. It is located, however, over 80 kms (50 miles) from Kraków. If the airline cannot provide a shuttle to Kraków (up to 2 hours in heavy traffic), we do not advise taking advantage of this apparently cheaper option.

Numerous museums and amazing historical and architectural monuments await visitors to Krakow, including the Royal Castle (pictured here), the Medieval Salt mines in Wieliczka, and the Old Jewish City of Kazimierz, with the only gothic synagogue in the world.

Please let us know if you have any questions. We hope to see you in Krakow.

Marcin Podbielski: marcin.podbielski@kul.lublin.pl
Anna Zhyrkova: zhyrkova@post.tau.ac.il
John Finamore: john-finamore@uiowa.edu

PROPOSED PANELS (last updated 24 January, 2008)

Panels Proposed for the 2009 ISNS Conference in Krakow

Please send your abstracts to the email addresses of the panel organizer(s).

1) Platonism: Freedom, Providence and Fate 
Organizer Jean-Michel Charrue, jmcharrue@aol.com



This panel will cover the relationships between freedom, providence and Fate in Neoplatonism and Platonism
Differences and similarities between fate or providence in Platonism and others schools, such as Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Peripateticism
The roles of divination and foreknowledge in Platonic philosophy
Platonic theology of divine providence
Treatment of human freedom in any particular Platonist
Platonic fatalism or determinism and responses thereto
The roles of the gods and daemons in Platonic fate and providence

The panel will concern the entire Platonic tradition about Freedom, Providence, and Fate, including Middle Platonism (which contains multiple points of view and a rich tradition of studies), various Platonic dialogues such as the Laws, Timaeus, etc., and the confrontation between or agreement among schools such as Stoïcism, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Peripateticism.

Divination and foreknowledge are present in Platonic philosophy, even if their place must be evaluated in each author. There is also the Platonic theology of divine providence. Nonetheless human freedom subsists, in spite of Platonic fatalism or determinism. Thus, panelists may wish to address this fatalism or determinism. It is possible also to consider the role of gods and daemons in Platonic fate and Providence.

2) John Finamore (john-finamore@uiowa.edu): "Platonic and Other Psychologies"



This panel will explore the make-up, function, and essential nature of soul in Pre-Platonic, Platonic, and Post-Platonic philosophy. Possible areas of focus include the soul's nature, composition, simplicity/complexity, interaction with the body, and immortality.

3) Jolanta Jaskolowska (jolaj@att.net) Aristotle's Poetics : Its Meaning and Reception in Antique, Neo-Platonic and Medieval Thought

Papers for the panel should focus on the epistemology or logic of poetic understanding, interpreted from the perspectives of its composition in antiquity or in terms of its interpretation by the Neo-Platonic and Alexandrian Schools and its reception during the medieval period by Byzantine, Arabic or Latin thinkers. Examples of paper topics would include: analysis of the text in terms of Aristotle's work as a whole, the meaning of poiesis for Aristotle and/or its influence (and contrast with) the understanding of poiesis in Neo-Platonic and Arabic thought; the logic of imaginative understanding as developed in Arabic thought on the basis of the Poetics, etc.

4) Ben Schomakers (mailto:ben-sch@dds.nl) and Ernst-Otto Onnasch (ernst-otto@onnasch.eu), Proclus’ Elements of Theology in focus

Recent years have seen a surge of philosophical interest in Proclus but not so much in the Elements of Theology, arguably Proclus’ most influential and at any rate a philosophically pivotal work. We are therefore proposing a panel dedicated to this neglected work, which will coincide with the imminent publication of our new German translation. We plan also an accompanying volume with interpretations. The session might serve as a first collection and inventory of contributions.

Possible themes are abundant.

1. its literary character (what are its pretensions and method, what is stoicheioosis, what is its position in the corpus of Proclus?).

2. its philosophical content, which has

a. metaphysical aspects (causation, immanence/presence, the self-constitu­ted, henads, the intellect, participation);

b. religious aspects (relation metaphysics and theology);

c. anthropological aspects (relevance of this metaphysics for human life).

3. its historical and historical-systematical position (from its predecessors Plo­ti­nus and Porphyry to the 18th reception with Hegel and Creuzer).

The full text of our session description is retrievable both here (pdf) and at www.onnasch.eu/proklos.htm

5) Suzanne Stern-Gillet (s.stern-gillet@plotinus.demon.co.uk) and Oiva Kuisma (oiva.kuisma@helsinki.fi), Post-Platonic Poetics and Myth

Plato’s criticism of poetry and his reluctance to rely on allegorical and otherwise symbolic interpretations of myth presented problems for later Platonists. From Plotinus onwards, Neoplatonic philosophers evolved various strategies to explain - or to bypass - Plato’s objections. So doing, they hoped to be able to give poetry and myth a privileged place in their systems. This panel will explore how later Platonists reinterpreted Plato’s stance against poetry and allegory. We particularly welcome papers on Plotinus, Proclus, and Hermias, as well as on the lesser known aspects of Platonic and Neoplatonic attitudes to allegorical interpretations.

6) Anna Zhyrkova (anna.zhyrkova@gmail.com), Patristic Re-interpretation of the Classical Ontological and Logical Notions

As the Greek and Latin traditions sought an adequate expression and explanation for the content of the Christian theology, a process of transformation of classical philosophical notions took place over time.

I invite papers analyzing the ways in which these notions were transformed, the reasons for the transformation and the consequences for philosophical discourse. Of particular interest is the comparison between the patristic notions and the notions that were in use in the Platonic tradition.

7) Michael F. Wagner (mwagner@sandiego.edu), Moral and Aesthetic Value in the Platonic Tradition

In the Platonic tradition ‘good’ and ‘beauty’ are entwined (at times, almost indistinguishable) concepts. Plotinus, for instance, even characterizes an individual soul’s moral development or ‘purification’ as a sort of self-sculpturing. This panel invites papers addressing Platonic (including of course Neoplatonic) approaches to such normative topics as goodness, virtue, right action, art, beauty, purification, volition, and the like. Please submit papers or substantive abstracts to Michael F. Wagner.

8) Leonard George (lgeorge@capilanou.ca), Ecstatic Experience in the Platonic Tradition

"The greatest of blessings come to us through madness, when it is sent as a gift of the gods" (Phaedrus 244A). Plato’s discussion of mania opened the door to a role for ecstatic experience in the Platonic quest for wisdom. Late Antiquity saw a rising emphasis on ecstatic experience, reflected in aspects of the ‘Platonic underworld’ of Hermetism, Gnosticism, Magic and Theurgy. And in Ficino’s Florence, mania was central to the praxis of the Platonic world view in Natural Magic. I invite papers on ecstatic experience within a broadly Platonic framework from a variety of angles, which might include: interpretations of Platonic mania; ritual and contemplative inductions of ecstatic experience; ancient terminologies for altered states of consciousness; Neoplatonic epiphanies; philosophical vision and ecstatic vision; the fate and legacy of the ‘shamanism’ concept in classical studies; initiatic and oracular experience in Platonism; modern psychological perspectives on ancient ecstatic experience.

9) Gary Gurtler (gurtlerg@bc.edu), "Plato's Use of Paradox and Parable"

A look at the unusual ways Plato constructs his philosophy, including myths and stories, but also the adaptation of methods from the plastic arts such as painting.

10) Deepa Majumdar (dmajumda@pnc.edu), Mysticism, Metaphysics and Religion: The Experience of Neoplatonism

The mystical experience is often supported by a metaphysical and religious scaffolding that provides technologies of ascent and philosophical acuity. Thus mysticism is intertwined with philosophy and religion, but in ways that can be complex and questionable. Should its degree of philosophical clarity determine the credibility of the mystical experience? To the extent that it “explains” mysticism and religion, is philosophy the highest of the three? Should philosophy limit itself to the discursive boundaries of “philosophical mysticism,” avoiding the extremes of “the positivist-like rejections of such [mystical] experience as ‘nonsense’” on the one hand, and “the position which rejects logic, criteria, and analysis on the dubious grounds that they are out of place in the discussion of mysticism,” on the other? In this panel, we welcome any papers that explore the relationship between mysticism, religion and philosophy in Neoplatonism.

11) Luc Brisson (lbrisson@agalma.net), L’âme humaine: ses facultés chez Plotin. (Human Soul: its faculties in Plotinus)

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