Crafts, Traditions, Ideologies:
Relations Between Theory and Practice in the Thought of Alasdair MacIntyre

Grand Valley State University, July 25-28, 2013

The 7th annual conference of the International Society for MacIntyrean Enquiry

Conference Secretary: Mark Moes

Keynote Speakers
Kenneth Sayre, University of Notre Dame
Ruth Groff, Saint Louis University
David Solomon, University of Notre Dame

POSSIBLE PRESENTATION TOPICS:

  • The ancient craft analogy

  • The craft analogy and the Relation between theory and practice in Plato and Aristotle

  • Relationship between skills and virtues n ‘Homo creator’ in Scotus Erigina, Nicholas of Cusa, and Vico

  • Relation between theory and practice in art, religion, and philosophy in Collingwood

  • Neuroscientific perspectives on relations between theory and practice 

  • Value theory: goods, common goods, and the distinction between internal and external goods n Marx’s labor theory of value

  • Injustices institutionally built into capitalist modernity

  • Problems with liberal theories of justice

  • Consumerism and pleonexia

  • Dilemmas and problems of pluralist democracy

  • Ideology, self-deception, and the separation of theory from practice

  • Philosophy and theology as crafts

  • Is Business a Craft?

  • Is Teaching a Craft?

  • Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman and Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soul Craft 

  • Technology and craftsmanship: similarities and differences

  • Practical Reasoning n Partial truth and/or “pragmatist” theories of truth 

  • Virtue epistemology

  • What is a tradition? John Henry Newman, Blondel’s History and Dogma, Yves Congar, etc.

  • Theory and Practice, Intellectual Passions, in Michael Polanyi’s Philosophy of Science

  • Charles Taylor on the Modern “Excarnation” of Religious, Epistemic, and Moral Practices

  • Charles Taylor on “Code Fetishism” and Bureaucracy

  • Charles Taylor’s narrative of the “Construction of the Modern Epistemic Predicament”

  • Theory and practice in Maurice Blondel’s L’Action

  • Jacques Maritain on Cognitivity and Creativity in Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry

  • What is it to Follow a Rule? What is a Rule, and What Kinds of Rule exist? 

  • Wealth, Waste, and Modernity in Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo