The International Society for MacIntyrean Philosophy
Second Annual Conference

Theory, Practice, and Tradition:
Human Rationality in Pursuit of the Good Life

July 30 through August 3, 2008, St. Meinrad, Indiana, USA


Plenary Speakers Include:
Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University
Ronald Beiner, University of Toronto at Mississauga


Other Speakers Include:
o Kelvin Knight, editor of The MacIntyre Reader (1998) and author of Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre (2007).
o Paul Blackledge, co-editor of Alasdair MacIntyre's Engagement with Marxism: Essays and Articles, 1953-1974 (forthcoming 2008).
o David Lorenzo, author of Comunitarismo contra individualismo: una revisión de los valores de Occidente desde el pensamiento de A. MacIntyre (2007).
o Christopher Stephen Lutz, author of Tradition in the Ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre (2004).
o Marco D’Avenia, translator of Italian edition of Alasdair MacIntyre, Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue (forthcoming).
o Peter McMylor, author of Alasdair MacIntyre: Critic of Modernity (1994).

Suggested topics include:
o What is the good life?  Can we still talk about the good life?
o Is practical rationality necessarily moral? Is moral reasoning necessarily practical?
o What is a practice? Can practices be normative?  Must practices be teleological?
o What is a tradition? Are traditions rational? Are traditions normative?
o How do theories and practices form traditions? How do traditions bear theories and practices?
o What are some sources of conflicts within and between traditions?
o Must the good life be religious?  Can the religious lead a good life?
o Is any kind of metaphysical biology necessary or possible today?
o Is universal human nature a philosophical discovery or an oppressive ideological imposition?


The conference will be held in the comfortable, renovated, air conditioned conference facilities of St. Meinrad School of Theology, guests will stay in private rooms with private bathrooms.

Saint Meinrad is located in southern Indiana, 75 miles west of Louisville, Kentucky. It is accessible by Louisville International Airport-Standiford Field (SDF) and by Evansville Regional Airport (EVV). It is between exits 63 and 72 on Interstate 64. A shuttle service from either airport is available for $50 round trip by prior arrangement.

2008 Conference Papers