Major Publications by UCSD Philosophers 1990-1999

KEY PUBLICATIONS 1990-1999

1990: Henry Allison, Kant's Theory of Freedom (Cambridge). Richard Arneson, 'Liberalism, distributive subjectivism, and equal opportunity for welfare', Philosophy and Public Affairs. Gerald Doppelt, 'The Naturalist Conception of Methodological Standards in Science: A Critique', Philosophy of Science. Nicholas Jolley, The light of the soul: theories of ideas in Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes (Oxford).

1991: Robert Pippin, Modernism as a Philosophical Problem: On the Dissatisfactions of European High Culture (Oxford). Gila Sher, The Bounds of Logic: A Generalized Viewpoint (Cambridge, MA).

1993: Patricia Kitcher, Kant's Transcendental Psychology (Oxford, 1993). Philip Kitcher, The Advancement of Science (Oxford). Stanley Moore, Marx versus Markets (University Park).

1994: Georgios Anagnostopoulos, Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of  Ethics  (California). Pat Churchland, 'Can neurobiology teach us anything about consciousness?' (Presidential address delivered before the sixty-seventh annual Pacific division meeting of the American Philosophical Association in San Francisco, March 26, 1993), Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 67. Michael O. Hardimon, Hegel's Social Philosophy (Cambridge); 'Role Obligations', Journal of Philosophy 91. Avrum Stroll, Moore and Wittgenstein on Certainty (Oxford).

1995: Paul Churchland, The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul: a Philosophical Journey into the Brain (Cambridge, MA); Nicholas Jolley, (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz (Cambridge). Patricia Kitcher, Freud's Dream: A Complete Interdisciplinary Science of Mind (Cambridge MA). Frederick A. Olafson, What is a Human Being? A Heideggerian view (Cambridge).

1996: Henry Allison, Idealism and Freedom: Essays on Kant's Theoretical and Practical Philosophy (Cambridge). Philip Kitcher, The Lives to Come: the genetic revolution and human possibilities (New York and London).

1997: Henry Allison, 'We Can Act Only under the Idea of Freedom: Presidential address delivered before the seventy-first annual Pacific division meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Berkeley, California, March 28, 1997', Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 71. Wayne Martin, Idealism and objectivity: understanding Fichte's Jena project (Stanford).

1998: Philip Kitcher, 'Truth or Consequences?' (Presidential address delivered before the seventy-second annual Pacific division meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Los Angeles, California, March 28, 1998), Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 72. Frederick A. Olafson, Heidegger and the Ground of Ethics (Cambridge). Avrum Stroll, Surfaces (Minneapolis); Sketches of Landscapes: philosophy by example (Cambridge, MA); 'Proper names, names, and fictive objects', The Journal of Philosophy.

1999: Nancy Cartwright, The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science (Cambridge 1999). Gila Sher, 'Is There a Place for Philosophy in Quine's Theory?' The Journal of Philosophy 96.

From Historical to Eliminative Materialism (via German Idealism), part 2: the 1970s

Please help me improve this essay with corrections, comments, or suggestions.

The 1970s

Although Paul Henry and Richard Popkin had left the Department by 1973, UCSD Philosophy continued to build on its strengths throughout the decade of the 1970s, adding several faculty members who remain among its most active and important.

In the history of philosophy, Georgios H. Anagnostopoulos had been hired as an Assistant Professor in 1969. His research focuses on Aristotle. Georgios chaired the department from 1983-1987 (and again from 1999-2001 before becoming Acting dean of the Division of Arts and Humanities in 2001-2002). In 1974 Professor Henry E. Allison, a major scholar of modern philosophy and extremely able replacement for Richard Popkin, was hired. Henry was later named Research Professor 1995 and is currently Emeritus (as of 1997). Henry chaired the department immediately before Georgios from 1979-1983. Rapidly adding to its strength in German idealism, the department hired as Assistant Professors Robert B. Pippin in 1975, and S. Nicholas Jolley in 1978. In 1976 UCSD added Professor Edward N. Lee to its roster of Greek philosophers, and he remains Emeritus Professor (as of 1995).

These five recruitments in the history of philosophy continued the strong tradition in history of philosophy that Popkin had established, and three other hires during the decade also strengthened its position in social and political philosophy, adding to the already formidable presence in the department of Herbert Marcuse and Stanley Moore.

In 1971, UCSD recruited away from Harvard’s School of Education Professor Frederick A. Olafson in 1971. Olafson soon became Chair of the Department from 1973-1977; he remains Emeritus Professor (as of 1992). The department made two further hires of Assistant Professors who remain active on the faculty today as full Professors: Richard J. Arneson joined the faculty in 1973, and Gerald. D. Doppelt in 1975.

In the area of philosophy of language, linguistics, metaphysics, and epistemology, an area in which Avrum Stroll had established a name for UCSD, the department hired Professor Zeno Vendler in 1975 (Emeritus, 1988). Vendler had been a founder of the Philosophy Department at the University of Calgary. Avrum Stroll and Fred Olafson wrote an interesting remembrance of him that was published in the Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association.

Avrum Stroll and Richard Popkin, having already written together two best-selling introductory philosophy textbooks (Philosophy Made Simple, New York, 1954; Introduction to Philosophy, New York, 1961), revised the Introduction to Philosophy into a second edition (New York, 1972), and also produced a companion volume, Introductory Readings in Philosophy (New York, 1972). Although Stroll and Popkin went on to produce two other introductory philosophy textbooks (!), the two published in 1972 are of particular interest because of what they show about the UCSD undergraduate philosophy curriculum in the 1960s and 1970s. The curriculum is grounded in the reading of extended passages from primary sources from the history of philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Spinoza, and Hume). This tradition of introducing students to philosophy through the reading of primary sources in the history of philosophy continues in the department to this day. For contemporary philosophy, the introductory students in the 1970s read J. L. Austin. In political philosophy, they were made to read Herbert Marcuse’s most influential piece of writing, the essay “Repressive Tolerance”, reprinted in Introductory Readings in Philosophy in its entirety. In the Introduction to Philosophy, Stroll and Popkin both explain and criticize Marcuse’s political philosophy. This shows an extraordinarily high level of collegiality, collaboration, and mutual criticism in the department. One can only hope that the UCSD Philosophy department remains as vibrant today.

Major Publications by UCSD Philosophers 1980-1989

Please help me make this a better list-- I know I have missed some important items.

1980: Stanley Moore, Marx on the Choice between Socialism and Communism (Cambridge, MA).

1981: Henry Allison and Nicholas Jolley, ‘Locke’s Pyrrhic Victory’, Journal of the History of Ideas 42.

1982: Robert Pippin, Kant's Theory of Form: An Essay on the Critique of Pure Reason (New Haven). 

1983: Henry Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense (New Haven).

1984: Paul M. Churchland, Matter and Consciousness (Cambridge, MA). Nicholas Jolley, Leibniz and Locke: a study of the New Essays on Human Understanding (Oxford). Zeno Vendler, The Matter of Minds (Oxford).

1985: Richard Arneson, ‘Marxism and Secular Faith’, American Political Science Review 7. Paul M. Churchland, ‘Reduction, qualia and the direct introspection of brain states’, Journal of Philosophy 82.

1986: Patricia Smith Churchland, Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain (Cambridge, MA).

1987: Frederick A. Olafson, Heidegger and the Philosophy of Mind (New Haven).

1988: Robert Pippin, Andrew Feenberg, C. Webel (eds.) Marcuse: Critical Theory and The Promise of Utopia. 

1989: Richard Arneson, 'Equality and Equal Opportunity for Welfare', Philosophical Studies. Paul Churchland, A Neurocomputational Perspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science (Cambridge, MA). Gerald Doppelt, 'Is Rawl's Kantian Liberalism Coherent and Defensible?' Ethics. Robert Pippin, Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness (Cambridge). 

Dick Arneson photographed by Steve Pyke

Our very own Richard Arneson has been photographed by Steve Pyke for inclusion in his collection of portraits of famous philosophers, entitled Philosophers II. The photos are accompanied by short quotations from the philosophers.

"At UC Berkeley in 1967, when I started graduate school in philosophy, you could hardly avoid the question: What conception of social justice makes most sense? I have always resisted answers that suppose a society could be just and fair independently of whether or not its members are leading genuinely good lives."

Chairs

SEE NOW THE UPDATED CHRONOLOGY PAGE which is more accurate.


I think that I have now succeeded in determining the dates and names of all the chairs of the UCSD philosophy, from its founding to the present day.

1963-1966 Richard Popkin
1966-1967 Avrum Stroll (Acting Chair)
1967-1968 Richard Popkin

1968-1969 Jason Saunders
1969-1972 Avrum Stroll
1972-1976 Frederick Olafson
1976-1978 Edward Lee
1978-1982 Henry Allison
1982-1986 Georgios Anagnostopoulos
1986-1990 Paul Churchland
1990-1992 Robert Pippin
1992-1996 Richard Arneson
1996-1998 Patricia Kitcher
1998-2000 Georgios Anagnostopoulos
2000-2007 Patricia Churchland
2007-2010 David Brink

Stanley W. Moore Remembrance

A remembrance of Stanley W. Moore (1914-1997), founding member of the Philosophy Department at UCSD, by his colleagues Richard J. Arneson, Frederick A. Olafson, Avrum Stroll, and Georgios H. Anagnostopoulos.

Stanley Moore, who taught at the UCSD Philosophy Department from 1965 until his retirement in 1974, died on December 5, 1997 in Santa Barbara at the age of 83. Stanley was a distinguished social and political philosopher, whose specialty was the work of Karl Marx. He was the author of numerous papers and four books--The Critique of Capitalist Democracy (1957), Three Tactics (1963), Marx and the Choice Between Socialism and Communism (1980), and Marx Versus Markets (1993).

The first of these works is more expository than critical. The latter three relentlessly explore a deceptively simple question: Why does Karl Marx call for the elimination not only of the inequalities he associated with capitalist private ownership but also the institution of market exchange? In other words, why does Marx envisage the ideal of humane and decent social order in the form of communist society? The issue goes to the core of Marx's intellectual legacy. Stanley Moore's writings analyze the issue with scrupulous scholarly care in the interpretation of Marx's text, a generous sympathy with the values of solidarity and emancipation he discerned in these texts, and a rigorous intelligence directed to the exposure of Marx's mistakes and evasions that have a bearing on his historical prophecies and revolutionary urgings. Moore's conclusion is that Marx has no good arguments that should persuade us to follow him beyond the condemnation of exploitation to the rejection of markets and exchange. For many years after his formal retirement, Moore continued his sensible and nuanced reflections as to how to extract the rational kernel of Marx's radicalism from the romantic and utopian shell in which it seemed to be encased. In his last writings he proposed a pairing of Rousseau's emphasis on economic transformation. All of Stanley Moore's writings felicitously combine the qualities of a rigorous scholar and staunch social critic.

During the nine years of his stay at UC San Diego Stanley was an invaluable colleague and a sane, steadying influence in the affairs of the Department of Philosophy. He was a man of excellent judgment, realistic, unsentimental, and concerned above all for academic and humanistic values. He was also that rare thing--a gentleman in the best sense of that much abused term--and as such he contributed to the broader education of his students as he did to their progress in philosophical studies. He was a very effective teacher at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels, blessed with an extraordinary memory for the literal wording of texts; and the directness and clarity of both his thought and his manner were great assets to him as a teacher. He was also a most congenial companion with a fine sense of humor and a strong allergy to cant of all varieties. Altogether, he combined the qualities of a scholar and a humane commentator on the life of his time in a wholly admirable way.

Stanley was a person of principle--fearless, and fair-minded. He became nationally famous in the profession because of his courageous stand against the encroachments of McCarthyism on academic freedom. In 1954 he lost his tenure position as Professor of Philosophy at Reed College when he refused to answer questions about his political affiliations before the House Un-American Activities Committee. In characteristically witty fashion Stanley remarked at the end of the hearings, "When this investigation started, I predicted that I would win the argument and lose the job. My prediction . . . has now been confirmed."

Stanley was right. He won the argument. In 1996, the Oregon Historical Quarterly published an 80-page article by Michael Munk entitled "Oregon Tests Academic Freedom in (Cold) Wartime: The Reed College Trustees versus Stanley Moore," that meticulously described the events that resulted in Moore's dismissal. In this essay, Munk reproduces a statement of "regret" by the Board of Trustees and the Reed administration, that was published in 1981. This statement formally revised the judgment of the 1954 trustees. In 1993, the president of Reed invited Stanley to visit the College, and in 1995 the last surviving member of the Board that fired Stanley expressed his regret and apologized to him.

As Munk reports, Moore waited 24 years to surprise both sides by telling the Oregonian in 1978 that he had been a member of the Communist party when he came to Reed but that he had left it before the HUAC hearings began. While still describing himself as a Marxist (albeit a "more critical one") he said he quit the party 18 months before the HUAC hearings because, "I couldn't stomach the American organization's kowtowing to Moscow on the so-called 'doctor's plot,' which had been announced in January 1953 and was declared a 'fabrication' shortly after Stalin's death just two months later."

Thus, had Moore been willing to accept the authority of his interrogators, he could have passed the trustees' political test. That is, he could have told them, truthfully, that he was not now a Communist. But as he stated at the time, he had decided not to do so in order to help Reed defend its historical attachment to academic freedom "against the fickle tides" of public opinion. As Michael Munk writes at the end of his essay, "Those who chose to play the historical moment of McCarthyism, and therefore dishonored Reed's proud distinction, still have Moore's challenging question echoing against their reputations: "If the careful deliberate judgment of the academic community is reversed in order to placate influential demagogues, who--more than forty years later--stands condemned?"

Having been fired under these conditions, Stanley was unable to find a permanent teaching post for another decade, even though he was widely regarded as one of the most knowledgeable philosophical historians in America. He did teach during the period of 1955-1965 on a part-time basis at Barnard College. During this hiatus most of his time was spent researching and writing. In 1964, the new UCSD philosophy department, chaired by Richard Popkin and whose other members were Jason Saunders and Avrum Stroll, proposed a symposium on the topic "Marx Today." With financial support from Chancellor Herbert York and Dean Keith Brueckner, the department arranged for a three-day conference that was held in Sumner Auditorium. The main speakers were Stanley Moore, Herbert Marcuse, Lewis Feuer, and the moderator was Joseph Tussman of UC Berkeley. This conference caused a sensation on campus. It had virtually one hundred percent attendance from the scientific community. Its stars were Moore and Marcuse, and with the enthusiastic support of York and Brueckner, and such faculty members as S. J. Singer and James Arnold, we managed to hire both of them. It began an auspicious period that gave international visibility to the department. Those of us fortunate enough to have known Stanley will sorely miss him.

Source: University of California: In Memoriam, 1998 David Krogh, Editor. A publication of the Academic Senate, University of California, Available at:

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb1p30039g&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entire_text