Another Prominent Philosopher Withdraws from an Event in Hungary in Light of the Attacks on Philosophers There

Timothy Williamson, Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford, writes:

Readers of this blog will be aware that there have recently been political attacks on philosophers in Hungary. On February 11, Professor Huw Price (University of Sydney) announced his withdrawal from a conference on his work scheduled for May 2011 in Pécs, one of a long series organised by Professor János Boros (University of Pécs), who has been reported in the Hungarian press as endorsing some of the accusations against the philosophers under attack, in his capacity as Director of the Research Institute of Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Some time before I had accepted an invitation from Professor Boros to what was to have been the next conference in the series, in May 2012, on my work. After consulting philosophers in Hungary, I have decided to withdraw, on grounds similar to Huw Price’s. Had the 2012 event gone ahead, news media might have presented it in ways detrimental to the Hungarian philosophical community. I was looking forward to the conference and am very sorry to inconvenience Professor Boros, but it is clear that the wider issues must take priority. Let us hope that the political environment for philosophy and intellectual life as a whole in Hungary rapidly improves.