COMMENSAL ISSUE 94

You might well be asking yourselves what happened to September’s issue of Commensal ? Well, I got too busy at work. I was nearly ready at the back end of August, with the issue drafted & the margins replete with annotations ready for transfer. I’d decided to pause for breath before pouncing on Roger Farnworth’s latest offering, when suddenly the 15-hour days hit me and I had neither time nor energy for anything else.

Roger phoned me up yesterday to ask what was going on & gave me the good advice to just get the issue out, minus annotations, lest we all lose the thread. So, I’ve abandoned the September issue & any commentary. If I get time, I’ll post remarks on this edition’s contributions along with the rest of you in the next edition. As thing stand, I can pretend we’re early with the November edition !

So, on we go. Apologies for the delay. It’d help me greatly if you could send me contributions for the January edition on diskette, or at least in high-quality typescript. Otherwise, your contributions will have to queue until next year when I’ve hopefully got the time to re-type them.

As usual, we start off by welcoming new members to the SIG. Eight new members this time, so welcome to :-

• Kelvin Clayton
• David Fisher
• Nicholas Cade
• Aleksander Kowalski
• Ms J. Johnstone
• Ms A. McLeod
• Ms V. Rose
• Robert Bucknor

Unfortunately, I have to report that a number of former contributors to the SIG have failed to renew their Mensa Membership, or have otherwise decided enough is enough. These include Sheila Blanchard, Nina Burton, E. Ron Kermode & Peter McCarthy. Best wishes to you all.

The date of our first conference is settled on 7^th - 9^th May 1999 This is not the "default" date announced last time, but is the other possibility I gave. My preferred date had been booked in the interim.

Thanks to those of you who responded to the questionnaire. I had thought there were 6 of you, but researching my records reveals only 5 (Aleksander Kowalski, Leslie Haddow, Mike Rossell, Michael Nisbett & Roger Farnworth). All reasonably keen & two supplying cheques. What about the rest of you ? For the convenience of those who didn’t get around to it last time, I attach another copy of the questionnaire. The invitation has now gone out to ISPE, though two of the above respondents are in ISPE (Aleksander & Roger).

One important point. A few of you were boggled by the question "would you be prepared to present a paper". The event is a small, informal event, so this is not an idle question - if no-one has anything to say, then nothing will be said. Don’t be intimidated though.

Please note the start of this season’s Royal Institute of Philosophy lectures, listed below. Annoyingly I forgot all about them and so missed out on Bernard Williams’ lecture last week. I’ll definitely have to make the last in the series, given that it’s on "the fact-value distinction", one of my hobby-horses !

I had written the following ... "You will see that I’ve caught up the schedule to issue at the beginning of the month. Helped by your prompt responses !".

Well, by a subterfuge, we have, so we’ll try for 15th December as the closing date for contributions to C95.

Best wishes,

Theo