conference updates will continue in principle

A number of readers have asked me to continue the conference updates. I will do so unless: (a) participants start seeming annoyed by it, or (b) my laptop battery runs out and I find no outlet near my seat. The latter is important, since all the speakers have assigned seats with name cards in UN-like fashion (it’s a well-organzied conference).

I should also have said that Roland Faber began the conference with some interesting announcements. The most interesting to many readers of this blog will be the fact that the Whitehead family (the literary executor is a grandson living in the USA) has given the people in Claremont the right to start working on a critical edition of everything written by Whitehead, including all the books still in print. Faber estimated 25 years as the time frame for the critical edition to be completed, but even if it takes 50 years, we’ll all start seeing the fruits much sooner than that.

I’d previously met Faber in Norway two years ago. Great guy, though we have a big disagreement about whether he was hearing a flashy, stylish hat in Stavanger or not. He agrees with me that he was smoking a cigar, but insists that the hat is impossible since he doesn’t even own one. But I’m sticking to my story: I clearly remember Faber in a broad-brimmed brown hat in Stavanger. It’s more likely that I’m wrong than that he is, of course, but the memory is so extremely vivid for some reason. It wasn’t that long ago: just a day or two after Obama was elected.