TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF PHILOSOPHICAL COOPERATION
My cooperation with the philosopher Kjell S. Johannessen is a long story.
It started with some pages on the crisis in the examen philosophicum programme - the obligatory philosophy courses which all students in all faculties have to take in the beginning of their studies ( ”Krise i examen philosophicum” , published in the university's news letter in 1969.) I had come to the University of Bergen in 1968, and professor Tranøy was happy to hand over the chairmanship to me. In the autumn of 1969, the introductory programme was badly overcrowded with new students. I was surprised to discover that noone had undertaken the task of analysing the future needs of the university in relation to expected enrollment, and sat down to do so together with Kjell S. Johannessen. We found that the examen philosophicum programme would need some 10 new university lecturers within the next few years. The department eventually got those posts, but it took some time.
Then, in the beginning of the 1970s, I was asked to join a newly formed group concerned with problems of aesthetics. The group included young researchers like Kjell S. Johannessen (philosophy), Tor Bastiansen Trolie (theatre studies), Gunnar Danbolt (art history) and some more. So I did, which led to fruitful cooperation for many years to come.
My cooperation with Kjell S. Johannessen lasted for 25 years. During that long period, we arranged many seminars, symposia and conferences.
I should like to mention six of them in particular.
For some years in the 1970s, we led the work in the Nordic countries on themes from the history of science within the framework of the Nordic Summer University. This led eventually to a book, Vitenskapenes vekst. Grunnlagsproblemer i vitenskapenes historiografi, Bergen 1996, edited by Kjell S. Johannessen and myself.
In 1978, we arranged a course in Bergen for researchers within the humanities on themes from the history of the human sciences. We got financial support from the Nordic Council, which enabled us to invite people like Allan Janik (U.S.A., now Austria), Dietrich Böhler (Germany), Dominique Lecourt (France) and Peter J. McCormick (Canada, now Liechtenstein) as lecturers. The course lasted for two weeks and led to long-lasting personal ties (including one marriage!) and an informal international network which continued to flourish for many years.
In 1980, we arranged a symposium in Bergen with the title Wittgenstein – Ästhetik und transzendentale Philosophie / Wittgenstein – Aesthetics and Transcendental Philosophy. The iniative came from the Austrian ambassador to Norway at that time, Dr Karl Wolf, who also wrote the preface to the book with the same title which was published by Hölder – Pichler – Tempski in Vienna in 1981. The Austrian consul in Bergen came to see me in my office at the University of Bergen, and made the proposal. The conditions were generous. The conference should be about Wittgenstein, but the theme and programme was up to me; all expenses would be covered by Austria; it was up to me to choose the Norwegian participants; the Austrian participants would be elected by some Austrian authorities. I said yes on two conditions which were immediately accepted, viz. that I should be free to choose a partner to help with the arrangements, and that there would be a book afterwards.
In 1982, we arranged an Inter-Nordic Philosophical Symposium in Bergen. The general theme of the conference was Language, Art and Action. The list of invited speakers included Joseph Margolis (Philadelphia), Peter Winch (London), et al.
From left to right: Gajo Petrovic, Allan Janik, D.Z. Phillips, Joseph Margolis
For several years at the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s, Kjell S. Johannessen, Gajo Petrovic and myself arranged postgraduate courses on Wittgensteinian themes at The Inter-University Centre i Dubrovnik. We managed to recruit well-known philosophers as lecturers, D.Z. Phillips, Allan Janik, Ben Tilghman, Cyril Barrett, Ilham Dilman and others. The civil war in Yugoslavia put an abrupt end to the series of courses. The final conference was arranged by Ben Tilghman in Manhattan, Kansas.
The Austrian Wittgenstein Society has organized annual international conferences in Kirchberg am Wechsel in Austria since 1977. I had taken part in several of those conferences (including the first one) when I was asked in 1994 to arrange the next one. I gladly accepted, once again on condition that I could choose a suitable partner to share the burden. The conference was attended by around 200 participants. The summaries of the contributions became a book of 795 pages. The conference proceedings were also a substantial volume, 372 pages long. To do all this with an organisation committee consisting of two people with no secretarial assistance stretched the limits of the possible. This exercise in philosophical heavy weight lifting also marked the end of an unusually long period of unusually stimulating cooperation in the academic field.
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