Hawaii’s World
ONE of the University of Hawaii's first attempts to make a dramatic break out of parochialism was to stage an East-West Philosophers' Conference in 1939. Topic: "The Significance of Eastern Ways of Thinking for Western Thought." East-West Philosophers’ Conference
After World War II, advocates of Hawaii statehood seized on the East-West bridge concept as one of the values Hawaii as the 49th state (our goal then) could bring to the Union.
Gregg M. Sinclair, UH president from 1942 to 1955, was an ardent backer of both statehood and the East-West concept. He helped arrange the Second East-West Philosophers' Conference here in 1949, this time with the mouth-filling topic: "Expanding Philosophical Consciousness Toward a More Global Perspective."
Next Sunday at 3 p.m., UH President Kenneth Mortimer will convene the eighth conference with a record attendance of some 180 scholars from 30 countries and the topic, "Technology and Human Values on the Edge of the Third Millennium."
Almost all of the scholars also will be presenters before a Jan. 21 adjournment. The public is invited free to every session. Most of them will be at Keoni Auditorium in Jefferson Hall at the East-West Center, with the center a co-sponsor for the first time. Details can be had by calling 956-6685.
The Hawaii business community is due thanks for the funding that brings many of the scholars here and keeps sessions free to all.
Hung Wo Ching of Aloha Airlines, who died in 1996, became convinced of the value of the conferences, attended many of the sessions himself and persuaded business colleagues to join in support. The Hung Wo and Elizabeth Lau Ching Foundation has contributed two-thirds of the $300,000 in community support for conference eight.
Panels of academic all-stars will make up most of the morning and afternoon sessions in Jefferson Hall starting Monday and try to enunciate philosophical and ethical approaches to the technology-speeded advances facing environment, biomedicine, genetic engineering, religion, homelands under global pressures, the arts, authority, politics, violence, the media, agriculture, science, artificial intelligence and more.
GENERAL 7 p.m. sessions will offer featured speakers Earl Bakken, inventor of the heart pace-maker, at Jefferson's Keoni Auditorium next Tuesday, William LaFleur of the University of Pennsylvania discussing transplants from brain-dead persons at Keoni on Wednesday and a music focus at Orvis Auditorium next Thursday.
UH's famous cloner of mice, Ryuzo Yanagimachi, will speak in Keoni at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 17. Tuesday night will feature Meheroo Jussawalla of the East-West Center on the role of culture in the new economy of globalization and cyberspace. Participants will meet at the Honolulu Academy of Arts Auditorium at 7 p.m. Wednesday for a talk on the eloquent stillness of stone in Japanese landscape culture. Graham Parkes of UH will speak.
The final evening lecture will be 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 21, on "Virtual Minds" by Jane M. Healy, educational psychologist, author and lecturer.
Co-chairpersons of the conference, both distinguished philosophers, are Marietta Stepaniants, from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, and Roger Ames of the University of Hawaii. They will pay particular tribute to the late Charles A. Moore, a beloved University of Hawaii philosopher who directed the first four conferences.
A.A. Smyser is the contributing editor
and former editor of the the Star-Bulletin
His column runs Tuesday and Thursday.