THE ACADEMY OF PHILOSOPHY & LETTERS
2025 Annual Conference
Forms that Fit:
The Permanent Things in a Turbulent Time
June 5-7, 2025
College Park, MD
College Park Marriott & Conference Center
Register for the conference here.
View a list of featured speaker bios here.
View the conference schedule here.
In his magisterial study of the character of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville notes that, in democratic ages, the formalities tend to be abandoned and undermined. This is because, he says, “Men living in democratic ages do not readily comprehend the utility of forms: they feel an instinctive contempt for them”.
The abandonment of forms in our democratic age is apparent: from the coarsening of language, to the abandonment of dress codes, to the removal of ornamentation—and even outright ugliness—in the built environment, to the mindlessness of our popular culture, American social life seems to be increasingly trending toward the base and the low. In the name of freedom, Americans have tended to jettison formalities that they deem unnecessary and restrictive. But at what cost?
Tocqueville concludes his assessment by noting that, far from stifling liberty, forms and formalities are its precondition. Forms restrain and channel power and, through institutions and symbols, give structure to social and political life. Another function of form involves the channeling of nature into social order. Aristotle’s metaphysics helps us see this connection through his discussion of the relationship between “form” and “matter”. While matter is the raw material taken from nature, form is what makes the thing what it is.
In this sense, though forms are contingent and “socially constructed” (as the jargon has it), they serve an indispensable role in preserving and expressing the nature of the “permanent things” in the social and political order by refining and adorning natural distinctions and roles.
This conference will consider questions that include, but are not limited to:
· What role do forms and formalities play in preserving and extending liberty rightly understood?
· What is the relationship between nature and custom and how is that relationship expressed in forms and formalities?
· What can the great thinkers of the Western tradition teach us about the nature and importance of forms and how they reveal the permanent things?
· What are the moral aspects of forms and formalities?
· What do forms and formalities suggest about the metaphysical and anthropological assumptions of political communities?
· What are the prospects for reviving forms in American culture and society?
Join us in College Park, MD on June 5-7!