tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post702521939237438340..comments2024-03-28T15:48:11.151-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: MEMOIR VOLUME TWO CHAPTER FOUR THIRD INSTALLMENTRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-72781209945744211182010-05-23T18:07:24.482-04:002010-05-23T18:07:24.482-04:00I am impressed with the pride you show towards you...I am impressed with the pride you show towards your children. My father was the same way, often to my embarrassment but now that he is gone I realize he meant no harm in it and also how lucky I was to have a father who cared. Often he carried me in the car to deliver my newspapers when it was raining and I'm sure that was a strain on him as he was a manager and had to slip out of the office to help but he always did. But he easily made friends particularly with others with the same enthusiasm for their children so I hear the other men who are still on this earth talking about their children and sometimes I think it is a fault, but then I never had children of my own so I cannot truly understand this phenomenon. But there are those unlucky persons whose fathers had no time for them nor talked about them or showed any interest in them and I realize what a gift that it was to have someone who cared about you enough to go to ball games and holler at me to hold the bat right or something of that nature but then there was the matter of the umpire and I had to ask my father to quit coming to my games because of those few incidents. <br /><br />I also appreciate your comments about feminism. My wife is constantly correcting me on such matters and even the church she requires me to attend has changed the hymnal so that even God, who I am agnostic about is often not referred to as a man. But I do hope when I enter the pearly gates that she will allow me entrance. <br /><br />There was only one time that I took offense at something you said on the blog here and that was when the young lady was dressing up in an enticing manner and one of your colleagues was sure she was doing it to bedevil him. Now that I'm over fifty I think I should point out that it was probably the copy boy or some other person in the department about her age that she dressed up for. But you are forgiven for that but I don't think my wife would let me go if I told that story so I've taken on her role here and would ask you to reconsider those memories. <br /><br />But carry on sir, this blog is quite a bit of fun reading the story of another person's life told in the narrative way that you do it and I have enjoyed this journey. But I'm sure it was the boy working in the other department or something like that when it came to the young hippie lady who was later arrested.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-105562942937579892010-05-21T17:43:05.447-04:002010-05-21T17:43:05.447-04:00He did. He also played the violin. But the viola...He did. He also played the violin. But the viola was his favorie instrument. hem hem.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-73296415012633245202010-05-21T16:42:26.020-04:002010-05-21T16:42:26.020-04:00I thought Mozart played the pianoforte!I thought Mozart played the pianoforte!Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02508381261535877414noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-36350832275899872402010-05-21T16:35:08.923-04:002010-05-21T16:35:08.923-04:00sigh. What is the difference between a viola and ...sigh. What is the difference between a viola and a lawnmower? Answer. You can tune a lawnmower. We don't get no respect. Just remember, Mozart was a violist.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-18247870447935000722010-05-21T16:28:52.215-04:002010-05-21T16:28:52.215-04:00Professor,
I am in Athens, where anarchist athei...Professor, <br /><br />I am in Athens, where anarchist atheist Marxists are quite welcome! <br /><br />(violists are subjected to the standard jokes)Γιάννηςhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01126579663203703504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-51813705073133483422010-05-21T15:46:52.744-04:002010-05-21T15:46:52.744-04:00Ioannis, I maintain a steady 77% win rate at Spid...Ioannis, I maintain a steady 77% win rate at Spider Solitaire, and I watch The Young and the restless every day. Where in Greece?Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-55776720915168827402010-05-21T14:51:17.439-04:002010-05-21T14:51:17.439-04:00On a different register: "Hit Points", a...On a different register: "Hit Points", a Star Wars reference, reading comics (if only but 'a couple of dozen')... Professor, with all due respect, is the viola really your sole geeky hobby?<br /><br />All the best from Greece!Γιάννηςhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01126579663203703504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-31326308470066391872010-05-21T14:47:57.103-04:002010-05-21T14:47:57.103-04:00Bob, the questions you raise call for rather compl...Bob, the questions you raise call for rather complex answers. Let me try, at the risk of running on.<br />(1) First of all, although they published very little, they were individually and as a group well respected in the field, known to other philosophers, etc. They were invited to speak at conferences, their students got pretty good jobs, all of that. I was not personally interested in their work, but that says something about me, not about them. If they had accorded us the same respect and space and role in the graduate program that we were perfectly happy to accord them, there would have been nothing wrong. Just different philosophers doing different things. <br />(2) Although they had few if any ties to scholars doing work in other parts of the university, there was one exception: Linguistics. Barbara Partee was a member of both departments, and Linguistics was rightly considered a star department at UMass.<br />(3) Despite the efforts Bob and I made, we could not convince the Dean that there was something wrong in the department, despite the obvious contrast in levels of scholarly productivity. I wasn't joking when I said that Bob and I, each one of us, had published more than all of them put together!<br />(4) Eventually, as you will see in several more installments, a big change took place, and I think the willingness of the administration to make that change was a consequence of the manifestly grotesque disparity in our respective roles in the department.<br />(5) The strangest thing to me was their scorn for the sort of work I did. I was a serious Kant scholar who then moved into fields like Game Theory and Collective Choice Theory. Did it never occur to them that if the person who did that work also did political philosophy, there might be some merit to it? Why on earth did they not send their students to study with me? Bob Ackerman had written books on logic and on the philosophy of science. In the philosophical world out of which I came, those were high status sub-fields, however narrow. When Gareth Matthews wrote two books on talking philosophy to children, they thought that was just fine [as did I], but when Leonard Ehrlich wrote a book on Karl Jaspers, their reaction was that it would have been better had he not written it. I saw a good deal of evidence that their mode of judgement had a baleful effect on their students who, like all students, imitated them.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-50122251519488062682010-05-21T12:47:27.511-04:002010-05-21T12:47:27.511-04:00After your story about not hiring Dunn, I wondered...After your story about not hiring Dunn, I wondered how the department got away with what they did. First, they were not doing the kind of philosophy that might be interesting to people in other areas of the humanities or sciences (with exception of the non-analytic faction). Second, they were not at all engaging with other disciplines in their teaching or academic interests. Third, within their own field of analytic philosophy they were not publishing significant works. Fourth, they were not hiring people who were publishing. How did Deans, etc. let this happen?<br /><br />Also, I wonder if similar things happened in other departments with a circle of narrowly focused philosophers creating a power-bloc and focusing on promoting and protecting themselves as a group at the expense of hiring the most interesting and talented people they could.<br /><br />Finally, given that you spent time studying and working with various major analytic philosophers at Harvard and Columbia. I wondered what you thought of the work that went on at UMass. I don't know much about Feldman and others, but I assume their work is reasonably mainstream. What did you think of the problems that they worked on and their approach? What was missing from it?Bob Unwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05711106065863074715noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-17049632850415129362010-05-20T16:41:54.642-04:002010-05-20T16:41:54.642-04:00Andrew, I did indeed get an offer to leave UMasas ...Andrew, I did indeed get an offer to leave UMasas [several, actually], and that is a major part of the story, but it is coming up in a couple of episodes [God, I feel as though I am writing a soap!]<br /><br />I think I have never actually met either Black or Malcolm. Somehow, though they were major figures in the field when I was younger, our paths never crossed. Indeed, I have never visited the Cornell Department.<br /><br />Hang on. The story gets better. :)Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-23816006946072548092010-05-20T16:06:47.799-04:002010-05-20T16:06:47.799-04:00Professor Wolff,
Did you ever have offers to get...Professor Wolff, <br /><br />Did you ever have offers to get out of UMASS??? Alright, so you leave Columbia because you like a home in Mass. We all do such things, but surely you could have gotten out, no? We would have taken you, with some pleasure I think (but I was a graduate student so who knows, one thing is for sure it was also snake pit so maybe that is just the way it goes) at the Graduate Faculty at the New School. <br /><br />Also on a bit more serious note: in retrospect, I know you touched on this a bit, do you really think now (today as you think about this and what you wrote in response to Professor Ryckman) it was wise to leave Columbia? Also, did you have any interactions --going back a bit in the memoirs --with Max Black and Norman Malcolm? I studied philosophy as an undergraduate with someone (who became my mentor and close friend) who did his PhD at CU at the time they were there. He seems to have followed your track in the sense he went from analytical philosophy to more continental phil. You were in the generation of graduates just before him, he recalls when you were at Chicago he was an undergrad at the time there. He is a Weber scholar and just co-authored a fine book on Joan Robinson, whom you mentioned on the other blog. I guess I ask about Black, Malcomb etc. because I get the sense these "hardcore" analytical philosophers seem oddly disconnected (uninterested) in the history of phil. continental phil. etc. And if you disagreed with them, it was career death: re: your remark that folks thought "you did not do real philosophy" it seems utterly absurd to me and, if I may: not very logical either :-)Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09311799067243518683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-90573327381534325232010-05-20T15:12:11.732-04:002010-05-20T15:12:11.732-04:00Tom, I find it hard to believe that I acted as you...Tom, I find it hard to believe that I acted as you say, because I tried very hard to keep the anger at my colleagues (which was very great) from affecting the students. But if that is how I appeared to you, that is my fault, and I am very, very sorry. I apologize, albeit much too late. I realizae it would have been very hard for you to say anything then, but I wish you had. Perhaps this just shows how poisoned the entire atmosphere had become. I never experienced anything remotely like it at the other universities where I taught.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-27264425375089627062010-05-20T13:53:18.788-04:002010-05-20T13:53:18.788-04:00I was a graduate student at UMASS during the time ...I was a graduate student at UMASS during the time period you are talking about. Whenever I passed you in the hall, I said "Hello," or "Good morning," or "Good afternoon." Your response? Act like I wasn't there. I am reasonably confident that I never did anything to offend you. Perhaps some of your problems at UMASS didn't have anything to do with people conspiring against you. (Thomas C. Ryckman)TCR@LUhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02439302679570040105noreply@blogger.com