WEBVTT 00:00:02.839 --> 00:00:04.839 Hello, this is Matthew Jernstead interviewing Professor Richard Crieff on 00:00:07.860 --> 00:00:14.665 February 20, 2019 at 10:38 a.m. in Life Sciences C building. This 00:00:14.698 --> 00:00:18.265 interview is part of the Barrett Oral History Project. Our goal was to 00:00:18.298 --> 00:00:21.907 preserve a record of Barrett's history in honor of our 30th anniversary. 00:00:21.940 --> 00:00:24.747 Professor Crieff, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with 00:00:24.780 --> 00:00:29.706 us and share your experience. So we'll begin with some personal history. 00:00:29.739 --> 00:00:33.426 Uh, what was your own experience as an undergraduate student like and how 00:00:33.459 --> 00:00:38.957 did you become, uh, interested initially in the field of philosophy? Well 00:00:38.990 --> 00:00:42.875 , I actually started out in an entirely different direction. I thought I 00:00:42.908 --> 00:00:47.796 wanted to become a lawyer, uh, and I would major in political science and 00:00:47.829 --> 00:00:52.436 , uh, actually I liked my American National government courses and all 00:00:52.469 --> 00:00:57.515 that sort of stuff, but I became, I mean I took a philosophy course in my 00:00:57.548 --> 00:01:01.476 freshman year and I was intrigued by I don't think it was particularly 00:01:01.509 --> 00:01:07.096 well taught, uh, but I was interested in the topic. And I sort of moved 00:01:07.129 --> 00:01:11.257 off in that direction. There was no point at which I said, OK, now today 00:01:11.290 --> 00:01:15.936 I'm a a philossy major. I just moved more and more in that direction and 00:01:15.969 --> 00:01:21.007 like it was a very gradual process. Uh, there was no date on which I made 00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:27.977 a decision, uh, but it has proved to be a perfect choice for me. Wouldn't 00:01:28.010 --> 00:01:32.686 be for other people, but it was for me. It's wonderful. And uh did either 00:01:32.719 --> 00:01:37.087 of your schools have any programs that were, um, you know, similar to the 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:40.426 honors college, what is today? 00:01:40.459 --> 00:01:45.367 Well, yes, I wrote an honors thesis as an undergraduate. Um, you have to 00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:49.477 understand that it was a very small school, vastly smaller than Barrett 00:01:49.510 --> 00:01:53.117 itself. The whole, the whole college was smaller. It was about 1200 00:01:53.150 --> 00:01:57.915 students. Um, Knox College. This was Knox College. It's in western 00:01:57.948 --> 00:02:00.967 Illinois. It's a small. 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:09.000 Coed liberal arts college. Um, it's uh fairly old and uh There you were 00:02:11.278 --> 00:02:16.805 thought to to uh I mean you went off and you were sort of isolated there 00:02:16.838 --> 00:02:22.207 uh cars were not allowed and students were not allowed to have cars um uh 00:02:22.240 --> 00:02:26.406 but it was an excellent school and I could have gone elsewhere but this is 00:02:26.439 --> 00:02:34.439 what appealed to me and I enjoyed my time there very much um and so I uh. 00:02:35.179 --> 00:02:40.797 As I say, I wrote an honors thesis, um. In which I was able to do original 00:02:40.830 --> 00:02:48.237 work, uh, and I didn't have as much guidance as one gets in Barrett these 00:02:48.270 --> 00:02:55.406 days, um. In part because I started with one instructor um who got me 00:02:55.439 --> 00:03:01.245 particularly interested in philosophy of science, and um for reasons 00:03:01.278 --> 00:03:06.126 having to do with the degree he was working on, he suddenly had to leave 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:12.596 at the end of the that calendar year at that academic year. And uh so my 00:03:12.629 --> 00:03:17.646 Thesis was officially overseen by someone else. Um, he couldn't offer much 00:03:17.679 --> 00:03:22.116 guidance cause his field was very different, but he could offer me expert 00:03:22.149 --> 00:03:27.436 commentary and feedback on it, which I, uh, very much enjoyed, and he 00:03:27.469 --> 00:03:31.886 remained a friend for the rest of his life. Wonderful. And we'll revisit 00:03:31.919 --> 00:03:35.957 that. Issue of mentorship in a moment, but I wanna capture a phrase you 00:03:35.990 --> 00:03:40.036 used about a minute ago, which was I could have gone elsewhere, you know, 00:03:40.069 --> 00:03:44.555 regarding your choice of college. So what made you choose to come here to 00:03:44.588 --> 00:03:47.436 teach at Arizona State University when again you could have gone elsewhere 00:03:47.469 --> 00:03:52.237 , um, and certainly now given your sta given your stature in your field, 00:03:52.270 --> 00:03:55.555 uh, what made you choose to come here to continue your research into the 00:03:55.588 --> 00:04:01.316 philosophy of science? Well, I came for the food. Um, that is to say, they 00:04:01.349 --> 00:04:08.297 offered me a job and I like to eat. Um, jobs were scarce and um this, this 00:04:08.330 --> 00:04:14.656 was a good job to have, um, I stayed and I have stayed for a very long 00:04:14.689 --> 00:04:21.515 time, as you know, um, because ASU became a. 00:04:21.548 --> 00:04:27.067 A very good place for me to do my research, not because uh it was a, you 00:04:27.100 --> 00:04:31.467 know, highly ranked program, but because it gave me the freedom to do my 00:04:31.500 --> 00:04:37.426 weird sort of work and, and had I gone to a more prestigious place at the 00:04:37.459 --> 00:04:43.437 time. Uh, I would have been forced in a way to be more fashionable, uh, 00:04:43.470 --> 00:04:50.567 and, um, this place gave me the freedom, uh, to do what I needed to do and 00:04:50.600 --> 00:04:55.726 moreover, the, the department as a whole improved dramatically and uh 00:04:55.759 --> 00:04:58.356 there have been a lot of changes. I was in the philosophy department for 00:04:58.389 --> 00:05:03.995 34 years and sort of still am. Uh, though 100% of my time is over here at 00:05:04.028 --> 00:05:07.395 the School of Life Sciences, where the program in History of Philosophy of 00:05:07.428 --> 00:05:14.676 Science, which I direct, uh, has moved and so, uh, it's extraordinary in a 00:05:14.709 --> 00:05:19.236 way to be able to do history and philosophy of science, uh, in the context 00:05:19.269 --> 00:05:24.476 of a science unit. uh, I remain the same philosopher I always was in a way 00:05:24.509 --> 00:05:31.805 , but context matters as any historian will tell you and uh the. And 00:05:31.838 --> 00:05:36.166 connecting it to the lifeblood of science, whether it's biology or physics 00:05:36.199 --> 00:05:41.086 or whatever else, is 00:05:41.119 --> 00:05:48.296 Made is facilitated by uh being here uh in a science unit. Um. I think 00:05:48.329 --> 00:05:54.575 most of the um administrative divisions that one has to have, especially 00:05:54.608 --> 00:06:00.976 in a university of this size, but still one has um anywhere, um, are 00:06:01.009 --> 00:06:08.176 somewhat artificial and so I uh don't. Well, philosophy is a profession, 00:06:08.209 --> 00:06:14.096 it's a, it's a community of people who um have their professional 00:06:14.129 --> 00:06:18.656 standards and so on and talk with one another. Uh it's important for me to 00:06:18.689 --> 00:06:24.356 be able to talk with people outside of philosophy and and uh. This is an 00:06:24.389 --> 00:06:28.765 opportunity that that we have here at ASU that we don't have or one 00:06:28.798 --> 00:06:33.356 wouldn't have in most places. So, um, you know, as you just said, you have 00:06:33.389 --> 00:06:37.265 been here for quite a long time, uh, meaning you've had a chance to 00:06:37.298 --> 00:06:41.717 observe a lot of, you know, pivotal moments in the department's history, 00:06:41.750 --> 00:06:45.995 um, you know, certainly under Professor President Crowe, um, there's been 00:06:46.028 --> 00:06:50.877 an emphasis on more interdisciplinary departments, um, so could you talk 00:06:50.910 --> 00:06:55.346 more about. Those pivotal moments, um, particularly one that you might 00:06:55.379 --> 00:07:00.596 have had a, a strong role in here in the department. 00:07:00.629 --> 00:07:06.926 Well, um, I'm not sure exactly what um. 00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:14.106 Is most pivotal and so on, that's that's hardly uh. 00:07:14.139 --> 00:07:19.026 Hardly hard for me to say but uh certainly the development of a history 00:07:19.059 --> 00:07:24.036 and philosophy of science program and one that's in fact quite good, um, a 00:07:24.069 --> 00:07:31.916 graduate program, PhD program, all the rest, um, and having around me a. 00:07:31.949 --> 00:07:38.276 Set of colleagues that I very much admire um and we all have to work to 00:07:38.309 --> 00:07:43.317 for that. I I'm not sure that my work is more pivotal than anyone else's 00:07:43.350 --> 00:07:51.350 but certainly I have worked uh to make it uh a community um where uh. It's 00:07:52.588 --> 00:07:58.637 not a question of, of what one personally gets out of it, but what one 00:07:58.670 --> 00:08:06.067 contributes to it, and the community is, is. I mutually reinforcing in a 00:08:06.100 --> 00:08:14.100 way that uh the sometimes highly competitive programs lack. So I'd like to 00:08:15.608 --> 00:08:20.137 ask now about your relationship with Barrett the Honors College. And 00:08:20.170 --> 00:08:24.257 because you've been here since 1974, of course, you were at the school 00:08:24.290 --> 00:08:29.096 before it was Barrett the Honors College. It was simply the Honors College. 00:08:29.129 --> 00:08:32.717 Um, so how did that relationship begin and how have you seen the honors 00:08:32.750 --> 00:08:36.255 college evolve over your tenure? Actually, it wasn't even the honors 00:08:36.288 --> 00:08:39.826 college at that point. There was no college. There was an honors program, 00:08:39.859 --> 00:08:47.859 um, and I'm not sure when it began, um. But it certainly was um. 00:08:48.580 --> 00:08:56.580 A minor part of campus life at best. Uh, yes, and fairly early on in my 00:08:57.190 --> 00:09:02.287 tenure here, uh, Ted Humphrey, who later became the dean of the Honors 00:09:02.320 --> 00:09:07.807 College, um, was chair of the philosophy department and asked me to 00:09:07.840 --> 00:09:15.840 participate in the human event which hadn't been. Started yet um and uh so 00:09:16.418 --> 00:09:24.418 the the. Going from Um, Very small beginnings, rather haphazard program, I 00:09:27.509 --> 00:09:35.509 would say, um, um, but the The university was fairly young still and um as. 00:09:38.969 --> 00:09:46.336 As the program developed, uh, it became a college, um, and it became a 00:09:46.369 --> 00:09:54.369 superb college, uh, and so the, the. It couldn't have been more different 00:09:54.570 --> 00:10:00.217 then. Um, it wasn't that there weren't good people, um, it was that it was 00:10:00.250 --> 00:10:05.775 um the acorn instead of a mighty oak that it is today, uh, certainly after 00:10:05.808 --> 00:10:11.736 the Barrett's made their very generous donation. Um, so going back to 00:10:11.769 --> 00:10:16.366 philosophy for a moment. You've stated um that the study of philosophy 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:20.686 could help navigate differences in perspective among, you know, family, 00:10:20.719 --> 00:10:26.326 friends, and more broadly among fellow citizens. Uh, with that in mind, 00:10:26.359 --> 00:10:29.486 how do you think the principles of philosophy can be applied to create 00:10:29.519 --> 00:10:33.686 better dialogue, particularly here on university campuses? 00:10:33.719 --> 00:10:40.917 Well, One of the things that one has to begin with is the idea that there 00:10:40.950 --> 00:10:45.826 are alternative perspectives. It's not simply that I'm right and other 00:10:45.859 --> 00:10:53.859 people are wrong, um, that's true, of course, uh, but, um, um. 00:10:54.158 --> 00:10:59.316 That there are other perspectives that sometimes can help to solve 00:10:59.349 --> 00:11:03.255 problems that I might have difficulty solving or by looking at it in a 00:11:03.288 --> 00:11:09.076 different way offers possibilities that I hadn't seen. Um, so the first 00:11:09.109 --> 00:11:13.395 thing is to recognize that there are alternatives, and that's one of the 00:11:13.428 --> 00:11:16.917 things that I tried to teach in my introductory philosophy courses is that 00:11:16.950 --> 00:11:20.946 there are genuinely different perspectives, and that in a way philosophy 00:11:20.979 --> 00:11:26.917 is the study of some of those. Um, where the perspectives differ in very 00:11:26.950 --> 00:11:34.469 fundamental ways of approaching morality, knowledge, the world in general. 00:11:34.700 --> 00:11:36.700 And second, those, those alternative perspectives can be understood. Um, 00:11:40.119 --> 00:11:44.885 it's not as though when someone starts from different assumptions from 00:11:44.918 --> 00:11:50.186 mine, uh, that, well, there's the only thing I can do is try to map what 00:11:50.219 --> 00:11:54.366 He or she says into my own language and sure enough they turn out to be 00:11:54.399 --> 00:12:01.206 thinking just like me um no we can understand them in their differences 00:12:01.239 --> 00:12:06.206 and we can begin to evaluate them uh uh now these different perspectives 00:12:06.239 --> 00:12:10.157 are in a way different. 00:12:10.190 --> 00:12:16.356 Modes uh or methods or approaches to evaluation to be sure, but I can 00:12:16.389 --> 00:12:22.677 understand what someone else's mode of evaluation is and why that person 00:12:22.710 --> 00:12:26.586 says something rather different and sounds contradictory to what I might 00:12:26.619 --> 00:12:32.677 be inclined to say and um and that's a skill we have to use in science 00:12:32.710 --> 00:12:38.717 it's a skill we have to use in philosophy um because some of the apparent 00:12:38.750 --> 00:12:42.986 disagreements. that we face are not real disagreements at all, but 00:12:43.019 --> 00:12:49.917 differences in ways of speaking. No, but there are real differences and 00:12:49.950 --> 00:12:57.950 Insofar as. Um, Our coordinated action depends on it. Uh, we need to uh 00:12:59.830 --> 00:13:03.866 find out what other people are thinking, what, how they're going to 00:13:03.899 --> 00:13:08.116 understand what I say. I think it can be done. Now this is a controversial 00:13:08.149 --> 00:13:14.875 claim. Bizarrely to my way of thinking, but nonetheless, uh, that we can 00:13:14.908 --> 00:13:20.467 understand alternative perspectives, um, And evaluate them and one of the 00:13:20.500 --> 00:13:26.547 things that that tells us is that there are things that haven't been 00:13:26.580 --> 00:13:33.625 thought of by my own thinking yet um it introduces a kind of humility into 00:13:33.658 --> 00:13:38.537 the enterprise uh that uh. 00:13:38.570 --> 00:13:43.486 is I think valuable for all sides. So it happens in when a student asks a 00:13:43.519 --> 00:13:47.686 question, I have to figure out, well, what is that question? Where is that 00:13:47.719 --> 00:13:52.946 student coming from, so to speak. Um, and sometimes it requires me to ask 00:13:52.979 --> 00:13:57.547 another question of the student who's who's who's raising the articulate 00:13:57.580 --> 00:14:04.096 their thought process in the classroom, yes, and, um. 00:14:04.129 --> 00:14:11.717 And it's the same thing in speaking to a spouse or a neighbor or um. 00:14:11.750 --> 00:14:19.750 In one's professional life. Um, that. Fact is that whether one is. 00:14:19.960 --> 00:14:25.846 Going on in philosophy or not, one is going to have to be working with 00:14:25.879 --> 00:14:31.005 other people who don't have exactly the same views that you do, who don't 00:14:31.038 --> 00:14:35.167 think about the world in exactly the same way that you do, and you're 00:14:35.200 --> 00:14:39.116 going to have to be able to understand them. You may be able to persuade 00:14:39.149 --> 00:14:46.145 them that your approach is a better one. But if you can't recognize that 00:14:46.178 --> 00:14:53.217 theirs is different, that is almost a hopeless cause. Um. And so these 00:14:53.250 --> 00:14:57.395 kinds of skills which 00:14:57.428 --> 00:15:04.096 I don't know whether they can be taught, but they can be learned. Um, that 00:15:04.129 --> 00:15:10.986 is to say, we can help students who are inclined to do so, uh, Improve 00:15:11.019 --> 00:15:15.907 their skills at understanding one another. And uh that doesn't solve all 00:15:15.940 --> 00:15:22.895 the world's problems. Uh nothing by itself will, uh, but it is something 00:15:22.928 --> 00:15:29.346 that philosophers think about and I think about as a professional matter, 00:15:29.379 --> 00:15:37.379 um, that I think has enormous relevance for everyday life, for the academy 00:15:37.619 --> 00:15:43.936 more broadly, uh, for science, for society, and the like. So, um. I don't 00:15:43.969 --> 00:15:48.135 think of philosophy as an irrelevant discipline that being pursued in an 00:15:48.168 --> 00:15:53.765 ivory tower. There are a lot of practical applications, there are, and um 00:15:53.798 --> 00:15:57.816 this is not to say that every philosophy needs to work on only practical 00:15:57.849 --> 00:16:01.635 applications, uh, but. 00:16:01.668 --> 00:16:09.125 Has to understand that the work, however abstract and uh. Weird, it may 00:16:09.158 --> 00:16:14.417 seem, um, nonetheless is connected with that larger world. And I want to 00:16:14.450 --> 00:16:18.496 hold on to what you said about how students can be taught um if they have 00:16:18.529 --> 00:16:23.616 the inclination to do so. Um, over your, you know, long tenure of teaching 00:16:23.649 --> 00:16:31.649 , have you noticed that inclination has, um, Become more common or less 00:16:32.320 --> 00:16:38.047 common, what trends have you observed as a professor? Well, um. 00:16:38.080 --> 00:16:44.736 Fashions change uh the social. Situation changes, students come. Over the 00:16:44.769 --> 00:16:51.856 decades, with different expectations and anticipations. Um. There have 00:16:51.889 --> 00:16:57.616 been decades when students wanted to know, OK, how will this affect my net 00:16:57.649 --> 00:17:02.456 earnings? I think that's a very unfortunate question, but still, um, it is 00:17:02.489 --> 00:17:05.416 a practical one, 00:17:05.449 --> 00:17:08.276 and, um. 00:17:08.309 --> 00:17:12.535 And other students come with, they're interested in learning the material 00:17:12.568 --> 00:17:15.696 , and they're not interested in that sort of thing at all. And that has 00:17:15.729 --> 00:17:23.186 varied over the, the decades. Um. I hate to make generalizations, um, 00:17:23.219 --> 00:17:29.217 including this one, about, um. 00:17:29.250 --> 00:17:33.776 How the character of one class of students. 00:17:33.809 --> 00:17:39.335 Differs from that of previous groups of students, um, but one notices the 00:17:39.368 --> 00:17:44.416 change, um, some of that of course will be the vagaries of of who happens 00:17:44.449 --> 00:17:48.976 to sign up for one's own classes. um, some of it is more nearly social 00:17:49.009 --> 00:17:55.776 fashion of a sort, um, but it has not gone all in one direction, and so, 00:17:55.809 --> 00:18:00.416 um, there may have been decades in which people wanted to know exactly how 00:18:00.449 --> 00:18:08.449 much more money they would make by taking your course. Um, which, um, 00:18:08.630 --> 00:18:11.246 Falsely 00:18:11.279 --> 00:18:17.686 May or may not have that kind of Outcome 00:18:17.719 --> 00:18:24.335 In fact, the, the I'm told that the uh the major that has the highest rate 00:18:24.368 --> 00:18:28.766 of success of getting their students into medical school is philosophy um 00:18:28.799 --> 00:18:34.706 that's what I'm told. um it's a bit. Misleading, of course, because you 00:18:34.739 --> 00:18:40.107 have to take all of these organic chem and all these courses to to even to 00:18:40.140 --> 00:18:43.946 apply. It provides a sound foundation. Well, it, it's not so much that it 00:18:43.979 --> 00:18:47.545 provides a sound foundation, but if you could do all of that and major in 00:18:47.578 --> 00:18:55.026 philosophy, which is often a different set of courses, uh, then, um. 00:18:55.059 --> 00:18:59.805 Then you're, you've done something above and beyond what those who take 00:18:59.838 --> 00:19:04.097 only those courses and try to choose a major that That that will largely 00:19:04.130 --> 00:19:12.130 satisfy, um, could do. But I think also, um, philosophers, uh. 00:19:14.049 --> 00:19:21.226 can step back, or at least they can be taught to step back and ask more. 00:19:21.259 --> 00:19:24.847 Interesting questions about what they know as a physician or what they 00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:32.880 don't know and what the evidence is and so on, um, in a way that um. 00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:39.026 That benefits them in the long run. So I, I'm not suggesting that that 00:19:39.059 --> 00:19:44.926 philosophy doesn't help in those regards. It does, um, but it's, I think 00:19:44.959 --> 00:19:50.065 primarily a matter of, of being able to do all of that philosophy stuff in 00:19:50.098 --> 00:19:55.825 addition to the required courses. Sure. And continuing along this um topic 00:19:55.858 --> 00:20:00.026 of student interactions, whether they're positive or negative or somewhere 00:20:00.059 --> 00:20:05.936 in between. Um, you've been a mentor to many students over your tenure 00:20:05.969 --> 00:20:11.496 here, uh, many of whom have later attested to how, you know, you know, 00:20:11.529 --> 00:20:16.936 formative that relationship was in the career they pursued, or, um, you 00:20:16.969 --> 00:20:22.726 know, going on to study philosophy at a graduate level perhaps. Uh, one of 00:20:22.759 --> 00:20:26.176 whom was actually my philosophy professor at Phoenix College, Eddie Jenna 00:20:26.209 --> 00:20:31.045 , who, uh, taught me for about 2 years. Um, so what motivates you to 00:20:31.078 --> 00:20:36.285 continue, um, you know, working in that capacity as mentor to students? 00:20:36.318 --> 00:20:41.647 Undoubtedly there are a lot of different motivations, but, um, one of the 00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:49.085 most Satisfied, um. Things is first to see the light bulb go off in the 00:20:49.118 --> 00:20:53.186 first place. Um 00:20:53.219 --> 00:20:59.496 When students bloom. Um, it is the most marvelous experience simply to be 00:20:59.529 --> 00:21:07.529 present. Um They have a kind of Excitement and and uh warmth, that it's, 00:21:07.578 --> 00:21:10.785 it's very difficult to duplicate. 00:21:10.818 --> 00:21:18.818 But the second. Point is perhaps even more important. Um, And that is 00:21:20.059 --> 00:21:23.805 What do they 00:21:23.838 --> 00:21:26.887 What are, what are they thinking? What are they like, what are they 00:21:26.920 --> 00:21:34.397 feeling, if you like, uh, 10 years down the road or 20. Um, 00:21:34.430 --> 00:21:40.555 The real measure of an education is not whether it gets you your first job. 00:21:40.588 --> 00:21:46.357 Um, excuse me, uh, there's a knock at the door. Pardon? I can just cut it 00:21:46.390 --> 00:21:51.276 out of the audio. That's OK. 00:21:51.309 --> 00:21:57.357 Yes, OK, thank you. 00:21:57.390 --> 00:22:00.575 That'll be uh taken out, don't worry. 00:22:00.608 --> 00:22:05.575 Or it'll be archived forever. Yes, OK, uh, the, the second point, which I 00:22:05.608 --> 00:22:10.295 think is, is more important is, is how has your teaching affected the 00:22:10.328 --> 00:22:15.377 student in 10 or 20 years? That's the sort of thing that no board of 00:22:15.410 --> 00:22:20.416 regents wants to pay to study. I, if they want outcome measures and so on 00:22:20.449 --> 00:22:26.897 , I think that's, it's, it's not practical. To go find out whether an 00:22:26.930 --> 00:22:32.217 instructor has an impact 20 years later. So one gets only anecdotal 00:22:32.250 --> 00:22:39.387 information like that from Eddie. Um, and, um, I've been fortunate to have 00:22:39.420 --> 00:22:46.055 a number of students for whom. The questions I've raised. Um, 00:22:46.088 --> 00:22:51.117 That they've annoyed the student for a very long time. Um, that's a mark 00:22:51.150 --> 00:22:57.276 of success, but it's also a mark of the university in general. Um, is 00:22:57.309 --> 00:23:02.357 there a broader perspective? Do you understand a wider variety of views? 00:23:02.390 --> 00:23:07.315 Can you assess a wider variety of views? Can you apply those skills, uh, 00:23:07.348 --> 00:23:13.766 in everyday life? And um, Sometimes the student doesn't know that he or 00:23:13.799 --> 00:23:20.446 she's been changed in this way, but that's the real measure of, of success 00:23:20.479 --> 00:23:25.967 um in this business. And uh I've, I've been fortunate to have some 00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:33.236 wonderful students, um. Who at least said that they uh. Have have 00:23:33.269 --> 00:23:38.776 benefited from the process, but I'm sure all of their other instructors 00:23:38.809 --> 00:23:45.496 have left. Um, a mark as well on them, that it isn't one professor's doing 00:23:45.529 --> 00:23:52.627 , and it's, it's uh. Just gratifying when it happens. Now, um, two 00:23:52.660 --> 00:23:57.706 questions, but the first I'll ask is, looking back, um, during your time 00:23:57.739 --> 00:24:04.347 at Knox College or later on, uh, was there a mentor who particularly 00:24:04.380 --> 00:24:09.285 modeled Um, you know, mentorship that you now use, like how to be an 00:24:09.318 --> 00:24:16.285 effective mentor, how to be an impactful mentor. 00:24:16.318 --> 00:24:24.318 I've had lots of different mentors over the years. Um, In 00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:28.637 Perhaps the first one that stands out is the person who got me excited by 00:24:28.670 --> 00:24:36.670 lousy signs. Uh, remember, this is a college of 1200 students, he could. 00:24:36.789 --> 00:24:43.367 Get 125 of them to sign up for a single course. That's more than 10% of 00:24:43.400 --> 00:24:51.400 the entire student body. Um, in a single course, um. I found his seem very 00:24:51.420 --> 00:24:55.545 exciting and I began to think about some of the topics that he was. I 00:24:55.578 --> 00:25:03.196 suspect he was not a very good philosopher. Uh, but he made this. Um, 00:25:03.229 --> 00:25:11.229 These ideas. Um, interesting and living for me. Um, he went back, uh, 00:25:11.549 --> 00:25:15.877 before my honors thesis was finished, and it was taken over, uh, the 00:25:15.910 --> 00:25:18.276 direction of it was taken over by a person in an entirely different field 00:25:18.309 --> 00:25:26.309 , um, who was kind and gentle and, and an extremely good critic, and um. I 00:25:27.209 --> 00:25:35.209 have tried to um follow some of that example as well. And finally my um. 00:25:37.699 --> 00:25:42.785 The various members in my of my committee, especially in, in the graduate 00:25:42.818 --> 00:25:49.266 school, but, uh, in particular, the director of my. Dissertation work. Uh 00:25:49.299 --> 00:25:55.526 , Wilfred Sellers, um. Was 00:25:55.559 --> 00:26:00.967 An extraordinary person, uh, an extraordinary philosopher. Um, I didn't 00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:09.000 always agree with him, but, um, He had a kind of breadth of vision. And 00:26:09.328 --> 00:26:13.877 Systematic approach where all of the issues of philosophy were tied 00:26:13.910 --> 00:26:21.910 together, um, um, in ways that was almost breathtaking. Um, and. His Way 00:26:23.650 --> 00:26:25.906 of 00:26:25.939 --> 00:26:30.867 Lecturing, it's hardly the right word. It's a kind of dialogue that was 00:26:30.900 --> 00:26:36.835 going on uh through the classes, um. I mean, the first course I had with 00:26:36.868 --> 00:26:41.196 him, he showed up for class and said, OK, now what are we going to talk 00:26:41.229 --> 00:26:48.085 about this semester? Um, he was prepared on everything. Um, and if you 00:26:48.118 --> 00:26:51.967 wanted him to teach a specific course on a specific subject, you simply 00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:56.206 conspired with other people who would take the course and all say the same 00:26:56.239 --> 00:27:01.486 thing on the first day and the majority rule for the topic, yes, yes, um, 00:27:01.519 --> 00:27:06.406 but it was a matter of. 00:27:06.439 --> 00:27:13.217 Sparring back and forth at a very high level. And um. And I find this kind 00:27:13.250 --> 00:27:16.717 of intellectual engagement. 00:27:16.750 --> 00:27:24.750 Enormously bracing and uh. Uh, rewarding, so, uh, it's fun. So, um, going 00:27:25.779 --> 00:27:31.246 back to this concept of education as an ongoing dialogue. Um, one of the 00:27:31.279 --> 00:27:34.676 most striking things professor once said to me when I was still thinking 00:27:34.709 --> 00:27:39.486 about going into teaching myself, and then wisely I changed my mind, is 00:27:39.519 --> 00:27:43.486 that, uh, just as you're teaching students, you have to retain that 00:27:43.519 --> 00:27:47.686 capacity to be taught by students, and I think that also goes back to what 00:27:47.719 --> 00:27:51.006 you were saying about humility and what one knows and what one doesn't 00:27:51.039 --> 00:27:53.686 know, even if you're in the role of teacher, the role of mentor, the role 00:27:53.719 --> 00:28:00.226 of students. Um, so, what has been the most striking lesson a student has 00:28:00.259 --> 00:28:08.085 taught you, whether about teaching or perhaps even about philosophy? 00:28:08.118 --> 00:28:16.118 Well, uh, one tries to be clear. In teaching. And one learns every day at 00:28:17.689 --> 00:28:25.689 every moment, how one is not clear. Um, And so I'm, I'm constantly 00:28:25.719 --> 00:28:30.805 learning from students because they ask the questions in a different way. 00:28:30.838 --> 00:28:35.835 They asked me to think about something that I hadn't. I guess I knew, but 00:28:35.868 --> 00:28:39.877 I didn't think about in quite the way that they've asked the question. So 00:28:39.910 --> 00:28:44.426 this is, this is more or less a constant. But there's something more that 00:28:44.459 --> 00:28:52.459 I get from. Students and successive generations of them, um, in a way it's. 00:28:53.029 --> 00:28:59.186 Their incredible optimism, especially Barrett. Um, that no problem is too 00:28:59.219 --> 00:29:06.075 big to be tackled. Um, And their enormous goodwill, I'll get back to that 00:29:06.108 --> 00:29:12.847 in a moment. Um, but also their unwillingness to believe, thank heaven. Um 00:29:12.880 --> 00:29:20.880 , their unwillingness to believe that academic. 00:29:21.199 --> 00:29:26.785 Departments And the administrative apparatus of dividing things into 00:29:26.818 --> 00:29:33.176 colleges and schools and departments and so on. Um, well, that may be 00:29:33.209 --> 00:29:39.686 necessary for a variety of reasons. Um, They don't see that that matters 00:29:39.719 --> 00:29:46.627 much and it doesn't. Uh, it's true that the individual. Professions are 00:29:46.660 --> 00:29:51.305 the bearers of standards within their profession of philosophy within 00:29:51.338 --> 00:29:55.756 among philosophers and so on. And it's absolutely essential that it be so 00:29:55.789 --> 00:30:02.315 , uh, without that community of criticism, philosophy would not advance. 00:30:02.348 --> 00:30:07.035 On the other hand, uh, dividing off the humanities from the sciences or 00:30:07.068 --> 00:30:11.956 dividing off, um, one science from another, that's at most at 00:30:11.989 --> 00:30:17.516 administrative convenience and and students, especially the best of them, 00:30:17.549 --> 00:30:22.647 understand this from the get-go. They see no reason why they should not 00:30:22.680 --> 00:30:30.680 have a big sprawling honors thesis that covers everything uh from physics 00:30:31.358 --> 00:30:38.367 to morality. uh, now it's sometimes a little bit unwieldy, but um it is 00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:43.805 enormously refreshing that we are not born with the idea that profession 00:30:43.838 --> 00:30:50.315 the the departments matter. Uh, that that's at For the best of students, 00:30:50.348 --> 00:30:57.035 that is it merely administrative fact of life to which one pays as little 00:30:57.068 --> 00:31:03.266 attention as possible. So I'm enormously grateful for that, um. 00:31:03.299 --> 00:31:10.946 I talked about optimism. I've talked about their. Their refusal to. 00:31:10.979 --> 00:31:14.006 Admit that there are departmental boundaries, which I'm, for which I'm 00:31:14.039 --> 00:31:22.039 grateful. Um, but it's also the case that they, uh, Are willing to tackle. 00:31:23.719 --> 00:31:30.526 Big problems rather than small ones. And they are Or at least in my 00:31:30.559 --> 00:31:37.486 experience, have been enormously generous, both to me and to um one 00:31:37.519 --> 00:31:44.097 another. I think that this is very important. Um, I taught the human event 00:31:44.130 --> 00:31:50.097 very early on. And I then I taught it again many years later, uh, for, uh 00:31:50.130 --> 00:31:54.176 , because certain issues had arisen and I was asked to come back and teach 00:31:54.209 --> 00:32:01.877 it again. Or at least one of the semesters again. And uh. By that time, 00:32:01.910 --> 00:32:07.436 there had been instituted in the Honors College, a program of peer review. 00:32:07.469 --> 00:32:13.565 Um, I was not sure at all that it could work. Not merely that it would 00:32:13.598 --> 00:32:18.815 work, but that it could work. And I was proved magnificently wrong by the 00:32:18.848 --> 00:32:24.756 students, um, who Now granted, they were being judged on how helpful they 00:32:24.789 --> 00:32:28.825 were to one another, but 00:32:28.858 --> 00:32:35.387 They didn't need my coaching as to how to do that, and they were genuinely 00:32:35.420 --> 00:32:42.107 trying to help one another improve. From The point of view of the 00:32:42.140 --> 00:32:49.717 recipient of the commentary and review. Um, I found this also true in our 00:32:49.750 --> 00:32:55.186 graduate program here, um, that's housed within biology and society. It's 00:32:55.219 --> 00:33:00.506 a genuine community in which the students are not competitive. They were 00:33:00.539 --> 00:33:04.545 when I was in graduate school, the students were fiercely competitive with 00:33:04.578 --> 00:33:11.347 one another. Um, but. Here, the attitude is quite different. It's one of 00:33:11.380 --> 00:33:14.666 mutually helping one another because they're, they're working on different 00:33:14.699 --> 00:33:19.276 projects. Um, they're gonna be judged, you know, for what they've become, 00:33:19.309 --> 00:33:26.387 not whether they're better or worse than than. on a 10 point scale or a 00:33:26.420 --> 00:33:31.065 100 point scale or whatever else, um, they're, they're going to be judged 00:33:31.098 --> 00:33:36.387 on, on what they're doing and whether they have learned to be helpful, uh 00:33:36.420 --> 00:33:40.847 , since I think that's one of the important skills that professors can. 00:33:40.880 --> 00:33:44.805 have. So, um, you know, all these respects, I've learned from the students 00:33:44.838 --> 00:33:51.446 , um, that there is Far more willingness to tackle big projects. They are 00:33:51.479 --> 00:33:56.647 far more optimistic. They are far more skeptical than one supposes about 00:33:56.680 --> 00:34:01.367 administrative boundaries, and they're far naturally perhaps far more 00:34:01.400 --> 00:34:05.766 cooperative than one has any right to expect. As a current student, I'm 00:34:05.799 --> 00:34:10.606 glad to hear that assessment of our of our capabilities, um, but that is 00:34:10.639 --> 00:34:14.767 also an excellent segue into my next question about the human event and 00:34:14.800 --> 00:34:18.287 specifically its origins and the role you played. Um, so the human event 00:34:18.320 --> 00:34:22.546 is very ambitious that it attempts to encapsulate so much of human 00:34:22.579 --> 00:34:27.166 knowledge and human endeavor. Um, could you tell me more about, I guess, 00:34:27.199 --> 00:34:32.126 the genesis of it? Like, how did you, um, you know, come to think about 00:34:32.159 --> 00:34:35.807 designing a course like this, and what support did you receive in 00:34:35.840 --> 00:34:38.805 designing a course this ambitious? 00:34:38.838 --> 00:34:44.467 Well, the course began before uh there was a college. 00:34:44.500 --> 00:34:51.296 And consequently before it was honors, uh, before it was Barrett, um. 00:34:51.329 --> 00:34:56.925 I was asked by my chair. Ted Humphrey To teach this course because a new 00:34:56.958 --> 00:35:01.575 person, I think it was a new person had taken over. Jacob had taken over 00:35:01.608 --> 00:35:09.608 the leadership of the program. He was a physicist and he was worried that 00:35:10.668 --> 00:35:12.807 Uh 00:35:12.840 --> 00:35:17.655 The sciences and the humanities were pulling too far apart and there was 00:35:17.688 --> 00:35:19.736 nothing. 00:35:19.769 --> 00:35:25.256 That was pulling them together. And so he thought that that uh a history 00:35:25.289 --> 00:35:33.289 of science program, a history of science course. Uh, built around, um. 00:35:33.938 --> 00:35:40.106 Jacob Bronowski's book, The The Ascent of Man. Which was not a very good 00:35:40.139 --> 00:35:46.615 title and not a very good. It has problems of its own, but. They called it 00:35:46.648 --> 00:35:50.885 the human event because they thought that that title was copyrighted. Uh, 00:35:50.918 --> 00:35:55.445 now you can't copyright titles of books, but that's another matter. Um, at 00:35:55.478 --> 00:35:59.425 any rate, they, they thought there should be some, it was a, uh, the book 00:35:59.458 --> 00:36:07.458 was um. The product of or became one of the other like around, um, a big 00:36:07.489 --> 00:36:13.566 glossy PBS series of Things of which he would go various places and say. 00:36:13.599 --> 00:36:19.686 On this spot, mathematics was invented, which of course is nonsense, um, 00:36:19.719 --> 00:36:23.615 and, uh. 00:36:23.648 --> 00:36:28.376 At any rate, I was said, OK, now just, I was told to do the history of 00:36:28.409 --> 00:36:36.409 science from the beginning to today. Plato to NATO, as they say. Um, 00:36:37.269 --> 00:36:40.706 And I was one of the few people on the campus who had any kind of graduate 00:36:40.739 --> 00:36:45.456 training in history of science. But I have a master's besides my work in 00:36:45.489 --> 00:36:51.276 philosophy, I have a master's in history, philosophy, science, and my 00:36:51.309 --> 00:36:55.467 Doctoral work is very close to it, and it turns out that I do history for 00:36:55.500 --> 00:37:00.276 a variety of reasons. My methods and philosophy are historical ones. Um, 00:37:00.309 --> 00:37:06.416 at any rate, I was asked to do this, um, I, at the same time received a 00:37:06.449 --> 00:37:11.706 grant to uh to go back to. 00:37:11.739 --> 00:37:17.026 Graduate institution and do some archival work uh to get a big archive 00:37:17.059 --> 00:37:24.986 that's still going on the, on the way. Um And so it's, it's entirely 00:37:25.019 --> 00:37:29.066 possible that I was not the first person to teach the course, although I 00:37:29.099 --> 00:37:32.865 was part of one of the first people I may even been the first person to be 00:37:32.898 --> 00:37:37.356 asked to teach it, I had to delay for a year. Uh, well, I used the book 00:37:37.389 --> 00:37:43.276 that I was told to use and discovered that it was not very useful, but no 00:37:43.309 --> 00:37:50.845 matter, I just taught a course, you know, all this, um, trying to Um, Put 00:37:50.878 --> 00:37:56.767 together just some sort of sequential narrative in which the episodes hang 00:37:56.800 --> 00:38:04.800 together. Um, And the first. First semester up to or through Newton and 00:38:06.378 --> 00:38:10.686 the um The second one. 00:38:10.719 --> 00:38:13.827 Emphasizing much more of the chemical revolution and the Darwinian 00:38:13.860 --> 00:38:18.865 revolution and so on, so I taught that for a couple of years and it was by 00:38:18.898 --> 00:38:24.537 and large success um we had some outstanding students, um, one I remember 00:38:24.570 --> 00:38:32.477 that seemed to have almost total recall, um, that is to say. Um, I ask a 00:38:32.510 --> 00:38:36.307 question and the answer that would come back on the exam is almost 00:38:36.340 --> 00:38:40.155 verbatim what I what you said. Could you clarify, when did you stop 00:38:40.188 --> 00:38:43.845 teaching the human event? And I don't remember the answer. It was, I 00:38:43.878 --> 00:38:51.445 taught it for several years, um, and so I must have. 00:38:51.478 --> 00:38:57.456 I think I was here for. 3 years. 00:38:57.489 --> 00:39:02.845 Before I, before I went away, and I was away for one year and and taught 00:39:02.878 --> 00:39:09.247 at the next and for the next several years. Um, but the idea was, yes, I 00:39:09.280 --> 00:39:13.445 would be willing to teach this course, and there still was not a honors 00:39:13.478 --> 00:39:18.767 college, um, but, uh, 00:39:18.800 --> 00:39:22.385 But I didn't want that to be all I did because I was interested primarily 00:39:22.418 --> 00:39:28.865 in philosophy of science and my philossy work and um tenure requires work 00:39:28.898 --> 00:39:34.756 in my department and so on. Um, We 00:39:34.789 --> 00:39:40.796 Rather a lot when I first came, but, but, um. Nonetheless, my, my research 00:39:40.829 --> 00:39:48.057 was. Related to this and uh I thoroughly enjoyed teaching that course. Now 00:39:48.090 --> 00:39:56.090 , as the years passed. The nature of the course reflected more nearly 00:39:56.389 --> 00:40:01.356 those who were teaching it. And they were by and large not trained in 00:40:01.389 --> 00:40:06.706 philos uh in history of science that no longer became the central thread 00:40:06.739 --> 00:40:11.986 of it. So it has deviated from that original goal. uh, yes, and for all I 00:40:12.019 --> 00:40:17.345 know the other people who were teaching it from the outset were given a 00:40:17.378 --> 00:40:22.227 different brief because they, they were not in the philosophy department, 00:40:22.260 --> 00:40:28.066 um, and. I met them only very briefly. 00:40:28.099 --> 00:40:30.166 Um, 00:40:30.199 --> 00:40:36.586 At any rate, um. As things changed over the years, it was found that once 00:40:36.619 --> 00:40:42.566 again, the human event. No longer met the needs of people who were in 00:40:42.599 --> 00:40:47.247 science or engineering because there was no scientific content in it 00:40:47.280 --> 00:40:54.256 anymore. It was more nearly Western siv or history of culture and a very 00:40:54.289 --> 00:41:01.747 heavy emphasis on literature, um. And Uh, which is fine. I, I'm not 00:41:01.780 --> 00:41:08.686 quarreling with that at all, but especially the second semester, uh. 00:41:08.719 --> 00:41:14.845 From the Renaissance on, um, well, it's in a way dominated, intellectual 00:41:14.878 --> 00:41:20.296 matters are dominated in a way by science, um. Uh, and that's not to take 00:41:20.329 --> 00:41:23.986 away from the magnificent art and music and all that sort of stuff that 00:41:24.019 --> 00:41:29.146 was going on at the same time. So I was asked to come back. Um, they had 00:41:29.179 --> 00:41:33.425 very few people with scientific training on the the honors faculty at that 00:41:33.458 --> 00:41:38.905 time. They had some, but, but not very many, and they began hiring more, 00:41:38.938 --> 00:41:43.865 but in the interim they wanted. They were trying to construct 3 flavors of 00:41:43.898 --> 00:41:48.865 the second semester, a humanities version, a natural science version, and 00:41:48.898 --> 00:41:52.267 a social science version. I'm not sure, I was asked to do the natural 00:41:52.300 --> 00:41:58.477 science version. Um, Odd in a way that The person, one of the people 00:41:58.510 --> 00:42:02.227 chosen for the the natural science version is someone who's squarely in 00:42:02.260 --> 00:42:07.467 the humanities, but it was never thought that in doing this I would be 00:42:07.500 --> 00:42:11.706 giving just the Reader's Digest version of physics or or something of that 00:42:11.739 --> 00:42:17.287 sort, but rather to connect it with the the wider culture and to see. The 00:42:17.320 --> 00:42:23.206 broad threads that connect. The decades and centuries, uh, that make up 00:42:23.239 --> 00:42:29.666 the scientific enterprise, um. And so I was given carte blanche, but it 00:42:29.699 --> 00:42:36.967 was supposed to be a natural science version. And I made up something, um. 00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:43.695 That still strikes me as as audacious. Um, I began with the Copernican 00:42:43.728 --> 00:42:50.356 Revolution. And talked about physics and astronomy and how um that the, 00:42:50.389 --> 00:42:55.115 the wrenching changes that happened in the Renaissance. Um, we're in part 00:42:55.148 --> 00:43:02.247 a product of a great deal of prior work, um, But had to be understood in 00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:08.967 the context of their time and. The development of perspective that I mean 00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:14.566 this literally in the geometric sense of perspective um and how that's 00:43:14.599 --> 00:43:20.247 done differently in Italy in painting than it is in Northern Europe in 00:43:20.280 --> 00:43:28.217 painting um even. Questions about The non-Euclideanness of the spaces that 00:43:28.250 --> 00:43:33.497 people were developing and so I tried to connect that with the broader 00:43:33.530 --> 00:43:36.086 political religious. 00:43:36.119 --> 00:43:40.885 Social artistic climate of that time, and that would be the 1st 3 of the 00:43:40.918 --> 00:43:47.977 course. And the 2nd. Was on 00:43:48.010 --> 00:43:56.010 A later period, uh, the Enlightenment. Um, we talked about. Music and art 00:43:56.938 --> 00:44:01.106 and architecture, and politics, because the people, for example, who 00:44:01.139 --> 00:44:08.506 founded the US thought that they were, they were engaged in an experiment. 00:44:08.539 --> 00:44:15.126 Um. Uh, and that they were going to be governing rationally and that they 00:44:15.159 --> 00:44:21.646 , the, the, the way they set up the government was not some romantic dream. 00:44:21.679 --> 00:44:29.679 Romanticism hadn't started yet, um, except in a way. One moment. 00:44:30.898 --> 00:44:35.046 Sorry to interrupt, I know you're busy doing important things. Do you, 00:44:35.079 --> 00:44:39.695 Karen and I could go get lunch and bring it back to you? Would that work? 00:44:39.728 --> 00:44:46.606 Um, sure, uh, I can, I can, we'll be through by 12, I assume. Oh, before 00:44:46.639 --> 00:44:51.106 that, yeah, before that, yeah, OK, OK, I hear you're the crackerjack 00:44:51.139 --> 00:44:55.816 excellent interviewers. Oh, I hope so. Thank you. OK, I'll bring you back 00:44:55.849 --> 00:45:03.456 something. Um, so. I had them watching operas. I had them reading novels. 00:45:03.489 --> 00:45:11.489 I had them. Thinking about how science, uh, and. The development of late 00:45:13.438 --> 00:45:20.537 18th century democratic ideals, um. are interwoven, almost all of the 00:45:20.570 --> 00:45:24.925 founders of the country started, not merely members, but started 00:45:24.958 --> 00:45:32.287 scientific societies in their individual states. Um, Um, I had to look at 00:45:32.320 --> 00:45:40.320 , at, um. Marriage of Figaro, Mozart. Um, the libretto was written by a 00:45:40.750 --> 00:45:43.006 terrorist. 00:45:43.039 --> 00:45:47.307 I was he a terrorist? He's sending guns to the US to fight the American 00:45:47.340 --> 00:45:53.217 Revolution. The whole, the whole plot of the thing is about the clash 00:45:53.250 --> 00:46:00.276 between the rising middle class and the their um the traditional um count 00:46:00.309 --> 00:46:07.026 , um. Who thinks that he has rights that we don't think he should have, um 00:46:07.059 --> 00:46:13.865 , at any rate, it's, it's, um, thinking about these things in a different 00:46:13.898 --> 00:46:17.307 way, but I was also interested in the architecture and Jefferson's work 00:46:17.340 --> 00:46:23.936 and all that sort of stuff and then I moved to. A 20th century reprise of 00:46:23.969 --> 00:46:29.736 the. The Enlightenment. And I began a little bit earlier than that with 00:46:29.769 --> 00:46:35.376 the rise of non-Euclidean geometries and how those Develop and how you 00:46:35.409 --> 00:46:40.175 think about philosophy and its relation to politics and so on, but how the 00:46:40.208 --> 00:46:46.227 changing scientific scheme of of relativity and so on, with its underlying 00:46:46.260 --> 00:46:53.227 non-Euclidean geometry. Um, develops and so. 00:46:53.260 --> 00:46:57.986 The theme in each of these is the relation between science and philosophy 00:46:58.019 --> 00:47:04.925 and uh. And the wider community and it's one of the most exciting things 00:47:04.958 --> 00:47:10.807 I've ever done is to teach that course. Um, now my guess is that the idea 00:47:10.840 --> 00:47:15.967 , and you can tell me better than than I, um, my suspicion is that they're 00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:20.445 no longer aiming at having three different flavors of the second semester 00:47:20.478 --> 00:47:27.316 of the human event that's fine, um, but to have, have it rely on having a 00:47:27.349 --> 00:47:34.146 . A body of instructors that come from different backgrounds, so that 00:47:34.179 --> 00:47:39.706 there will be some who can meet the needs of those students who come from 00:47:39.739 --> 00:47:44.827 science and engineering backgrounds. Um. Again, you might have noticed, 00:47:44.860 --> 00:47:52.860 and undoubtedly you did, um, uh, that even in that course, I'm Trying to 00:47:53.349 --> 00:48:00.807 break down the boundaries that that. have been put up by Of necessity by 00:48:00.840 --> 00:48:05.445 well-meaning administrators, uh, dividing the world into humanities, the 00:48:05.478 --> 00:48:10.356 sciences and the academic world from the political world and and so on, um 00:48:10.389 --> 00:48:14.717 , and if nothing else I think the course has retained that wonderful, uh, 00:48:14.750 --> 00:48:18.557 interdisciplinary quality, you know, trying to merge the the sciences and 00:48:18.590 --> 00:48:22.236 the humanities and show the interrelations that exist between them as long 00:48:22.269 --> 00:48:26.655 as it's under. As long as it's interdisciplinary rather than merely 00:48:26.688 --> 00:48:29.506 undisciplined. 00:48:29.539 --> 00:48:33.026 So as a transfer student, I actually took a a modified version 00:48:33.059 --> 00:48:38.546 specifically for um upper division students. Uh, mine was taught by a 00:48:38.579 --> 00:48:42.986 Doctor Michael Stanford, um, and as a former defense attorney, he taught 00:48:43.019 --> 00:48:47.186 quite extensively on poetry and the law. So we read a measure for measure 00:48:47.219 --> 00:48:52.747 by Shakespeare, we read a Snow falling on Cedars to understand more uh 00:48:52.780 --> 00:48:56.385 comprehensively the Japanese American experience of the legal system. So 00:48:56.418 --> 00:49:02.086 like you were saying, um, Each individual human event class is very much 00:49:02.119 --> 00:49:07.405 molded by The I guess proclivities of the professor who's teaching it, um 00:49:07.438 --> 00:49:12.115 , it could be about Japanese literature, the law, more poetry, more, you 00:49:12.148 --> 00:49:17.396 know, physics, more science, and, um, that can be exciting because you 00:49:17.429 --> 00:49:20.155 don't know exactly what you're gonna get, but it could lead to that lack 00:49:20.188 --> 00:49:25.546 of discipline that you were talking about, um, so it's terrifying too is 00:49:25.579 --> 00:49:31.115 the way, uh, both teaching it and or it should be taking it as well, um. 00:49:31.148 --> 00:49:36.816 But it was among the most rewarding things that that I've done and I, uh, 00:49:36.849 --> 00:49:42.026 very much value history. Thank you for sharing that. Um, so to briefly 00:49:42.059 --> 00:49:45.526 move away towards something else, and this is more of a sweeping, I guess 00:49:45.559 --> 00:49:50.166 , broader narrative of the honors college. Um, how have you seen honors 00:49:50.199 --> 00:49:55.095 education at Barrett change from when you first came here, when it was a, 00:49:55.128 --> 00:50:00.506 uh, Very much an afterthought, as we were saying to this very, uh, you 00:50:00.539 --> 00:50:04.666 know, extensive program that is the model for honors colleges all 00:50:04.699 --> 00:50:07.787 throughout America, you know, in Europe even, there are a lot of colleges 00:50:07.820 --> 00:50:11.267 that look look at what we're doing here at Barrett. Um, so how have you 00:50:11.300 --> 00:50:19.300 seen that, I guess, broader arc of the progress of honors college here? 00:50:20.329 --> 00:50:27.807 It's bigger. It's better. The students are better Um, A program of 00:50:27.840 --> 00:50:33.945 actively recruiting students and actively recruiting a wide variety of 00:50:33.978 --> 00:50:40.445 students. Um, has enriched that program enormously. It's been well 00:50:40.478 --> 00:50:46.756 supported by the senior administration. It's been, um. It's had the 00:50:46.789 --> 00:50:54.789 advantage of wonderful administrators within. The, the college But um. 00:50:56.489 --> 00:50:58.489 Somehow it has. 00:51:00.280 --> 00:51:04.885 Caught on to what I think the students believed all along, that there's 00:51:04.918 --> 00:51:10.936 nothing that couldn't be done if only we have the audacity to try it. um. 00:51:10.969 --> 00:51:13.986 And so 00:51:14.019 --> 00:51:18.477 The college itself. And to a certain extent the university as a whole, but 00:51:18.510 --> 00:51:22.106 the college in particular. 00:51:22.139 --> 00:51:27.296 Has the same kind of optimism. The willingness to tackle big things, the 00:51:27.329 --> 00:51:33.106 willingness to disregard disciplinary boundaries, the, the willingness to 00:51:33.139 --> 00:51:38.827 connect up what one does. Um, 00:51:38.860 --> 00:51:45.945 In an intellectual way. With the broader needs of the society and the 00:51:45.978 --> 00:51:50.936 community. We live Um, 00:51:50.969 --> 00:51:57.747 I mean, it's, it's that that's that's made it a great institution. Um, 00:51:57.780 --> 00:52:03.385 They say insanity is is hereditary, you get it from your children. Um, in 00:52:03.418 --> 00:52:08.747 a way, these wonderful features are features that the college has, if 00:52:08.780 --> 00:52:16.780 anything, gotten from its students. Um Um, one likes to think. That the 00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:21.365 flow of information goes from us, the pro the professors to the student, 00:52:21.398 --> 00:52:26.986 but in fact, um, the character of the place. 00:52:27.019 --> 00:52:32.385 as encouraged as it may be by those of us who are teaching, um, but the 00:52:32.418 --> 00:52:35.865 real character of the place comes from the character of the students that 00:52:35.898 --> 00:52:41.445 are in. Um, and for that I will always be grateful. 00:52:41.478 --> 00:52:47.385 So, um, 2 more questions, and the first question is continuing along this 00:52:47.418 --> 00:52:53.876 idea of students at Barrett. Um, so can you tell me more specifically 00:52:53.909 --> 00:53:00.807 about um honors feces that you have overseen and second to that, what is 00:53:00.840 --> 00:53:05.405 the value of requiring undergraduate students in philosophy, or for that 00:53:05.438 --> 00:53:09.885 matter, any field of study to complete such an undertaking because not all 00:53:09.918 --> 00:53:14.885 honors colleges require students to put this much um effort into something 00:53:14.918 --> 00:53:19.977 so, you know, rigorous and so challenging for its students. 00:53:20.010 --> 00:53:24.477 Well, 00:53:24.510 --> 00:53:31.175 I, I hate to generalize uh about the character of. Theseces and how that's 00:53:31.208 --> 00:53:36.057 changed, but it has become a central feature and we've tried to have it 00:53:36.090 --> 00:53:39.896 insofar as we can with the resources we've got over here even for 00:53:39.929 --> 00:53:45.336 non-owners students, um, because it's, it is extraordinarily valuable. It 00:53:45.369 --> 00:53:51.436 allows one to do something original. Which most classes don't. I mean, you 00:53:51.469 --> 00:53:56.756 can have the stray original thought, but to do something original and and 00:53:56.789 --> 00:54:02.997 to to to work on it with a depth is is is difficult under the best of 00:54:03.030 --> 00:54:08.456 circumstances. And what the the thesis allows you to do. is to learn how 00:54:08.489 --> 00:54:15.727 to take a big shaggy idea and. molded into a shape that you can address. 00:54:15.760 --> 00:54:19.727 How do you turn, um, 00:54:19.760 --> 00:54:25.526 A question or a worry into a researchable problem. And then how do you 00:54:25.559 --> 00:54:32.267 organize, begin to organize that research and to carry it out, um. 00:54:32.300 --> 00:54:35.945 One of the best things that ever happened to me was writing an honors 00:54:35.978 --> 00:54:43.978 thesis, because when I went off to my. Graduate work I had already done. 00:54:45.119 --> 00:54:49.287 Original work and what was the topic of your honor's thesis? It had to do 00:54:49.320 --> 00:54:52.606 with meaning change in the sciences and I didn't realize it, but that 00:54:52.639 --> 00:54:57.327 would become a a permanent thread of my work thereafter and the chair of 00:54:57.360 --> 00:55:02.166 your thesis, their name was, uh, my, my, uh, undergraduate thesis, your 00:55:02.199 --> 00:55:06.956 undergraduate, um, uh, officially it was Ken Pale. uh, Kenneth Pale was an 00:55:06.989 --> 00:55:14.256 ethicist, um, who really didn't know much science. Uh, but I was helped by 00:55:14.289 --> 00:55:17.376 people who were in the sciences. The dean of the college was a Rhodes 00:55:17.409 --> 00:55:21.577 scholar in physics, and he said, Oh, you don't bother with the, the year 00:55:21.610 --> 00:55:25.296 of philosophy. Don't bother with, uh, the, uh, the, the lab courses in 00:55:25.329 --> 00:55:28.977 this. Come into my office and we'll talk about relativity. And so I would 00:55:29.010 --> 00:55:34.405 come into this office and the dean of the whole college of the whole 00:55:34.438 --> 00:55:39.767 institution, um. And we would talk about relativity physics and how you 00:55:39.800 --> 00:55:45.316 could, you know, do various things, and I began to understand. In a way 00:55:45.349 --> 00:55:48.595 that I probably wouldn't have if he hadn't taken me more or less by the 00:55:48.628 --> 00:55:53.436 scruff of the neck and said, OK, come in here, we'll deal with it um so I 00:55:53.469 --> 00:55:59.155 had access to faculty in a way that most. Well, most of the other people 00:55:59.188 --> 00:56:02.856 who had gone to graduate school with me didn't, they had come from fancy 00:56:02.889 --> 00:56:08.686 institutions. Uh, many of them. Um, and they had been allowed to talk 00:56:08.719 --> 00:56:16.256 primarily with DAs. Um, And they had letters from impressive people 00:56:16.289 --> 00:56:22.695 undoubtedly, but I had done some of them. Uh, I had worried a problem 00:56:22.728 --> 00:56:27.787 through and it was, I'm sure quite idiosyncratic and very weird and very 00:56:27.820 --> 00:56:32.675 strange and, uh, I'm not sure would have been recognized as professional 00:56:32.708 --> 00:56:38.345 and all that sort of stuff, um, but I had worked it through. And in 00:56:38.378 --> 00:56:44.006 philosophy, that's an enormous advantage. Uh, to have done this, it gives 00:56:44.039 --> 00:56:52.039 you the sense that maybe I can do it again. Um, and so, um. My I had that 00:56:53.239 --> 00:56:56.095 advantage. I was scared to death in graduate school, but I had that 00:56:56.128 --> 00:57:01.186 advantage is that I had done something and carried it through. And the 00:57:01.219 --> 00:57:07.256 depth and originality of an honors thesis at Barrett. Is more than enough 00:57:07.289 --> 00:57:14.385 reason. Um, these don't have to be deathless works of literature. They 00:57:14.418 --> 00:57:19.816 have to help the student grow. And to convince the student that, yeah, I 00:57:19.849 --> 00:57:26.736 can do this. And uh I can do it again and I can do it better. Um, and if 00:57:26.769 --> 00:57:30.135 the student learns nothing else in the process of writing a thesis, and 00:57:30.168 --> 00:57:34.865 I'm talking about whether it's honors, uh, Barrett honors thesis or one of 00:57:34.898 --> 00:57:41.767 the Capstow and papers, that's, that's more than just a term paper in any 00:57:41.800 --> 00:57:48.227 other field. Um, it's an enormously valuable experience. Um, we have 00:57:48.260 --> 00:57:56.195 graduate courses in How to develop a prospectus, how to think about 00:57:56.228 --> 00:58:00.376 managing your research, and so on. There was no such thing for me in 00:58:00.409 --> 00:58:04.456 graduate school. There was no such thing for me as an undergraduate. Uh, I 00:58:04.489 --> 00:58:09.247 sort of had to pick it up on my own. Um, 00:58:09.280 --> 00:58:17.280 And Having a set of willing able mentors. To guide that process. Um, And 00:58:19.389 --> 00:58:23.195 they'll each bring different skills to bear on it, just as the student 00:58:23.228 --> 00:58:29.767 will, but having a project that's ambitious, Um, is an enormous benefit. 00:58:29.800 --> 00:58:32.626 Whether they go on in the field or not, whether they, they, and in many 00:58:32.659 --> 00:58:35.807 cases, I know students are going on in entirely different fields than what 00:58:35.840 --> 00:58:41.436 they're doing. But they're asking an interesting question. And they're 00:58:41.469 --> 00:58:47.586 providing an interesting answer. And that answer is going to be 00:58:47.619 --> 00:58:52.037 problematic in various ways, and they will have. 00:58:52.070 --> 00:58:57.276 If properly mentored, had their feet held to the fire until they 00:58:57.309 --> 00:59:02.206 recognized that there are problems, um, and. 00:59:02.239 --> 00:59:08.026 Cope with them as best they can and that is an absolutely invaluable 00:59:08.059 --> 00:59:15.816 experience, um, that is perhaps the most relevant thing. That happens in a 00:59:15.849 --> 00:59:19.436 university. 00:59:19.469 --> 00:59:25.796 Taking courses. Taking the exams, um. Looking at the answers in the back 00:59:25.829 --> 00:59:30.256 of the book and then going and learning to to write proper answers that 00:59:30.289 --> 00:59:33.635 answer the question and so that's those are all valuable skills and you 00:59:33.668 --> 00:59:37.717 get a lot of information and so on but that's not what's gonna happen 00:59:37.750 --> 00:59:40.595 later in life. I mean whether you're going in as an academic or not or 00:59:40.628 --> 00:59:45.195 you're going on to business, um, whatever questions there are and there 00:59:45.228 --> 00:59:50.706 are many, uh. Well, life does not come with answers at the back of the 00:59:50.739 --> 00:59:57.796 book. Um, it requires you to say, OK. 00:59:57.829 --> 01:00:04.006 How, what's the problem and how can we deal with it? And you're gonna have 01:00:04.039 --> 01:00:09.126 to be able to see that there are alternatives. You're going to have to be 01:00:09.159 --> 01:00:13.776 able to weigh them. And you're going to that then have to persuade people 01:00:13.809 --> 01:00:19.736 with different perspectives that this way of weighing the alternatives is 01:00:19.769 --> 01:00:24.767 the best we can do. And 01:00:24.800 --> 01:00:29.925 That's called research. That's what you learn to do in an honors thesis. 01:00:29.958 --> 01:00:35.675 You ask an interesting question to which You have at least not yet found 01:00:35.708 --> 01:00:40.566 the answer. You try to see what some of the alternatives for answering 01:00:40.599 --> 01:00:46.006 that question are. Um, in that case, looking at literature or what other 01:00:46.039 --> 01:00:50.776 people have done is enormously valuable. But if it answers the question by 01:00:50.809 --> 01:00:54.195 itself answers the question, then your question wasn't very interesting in 01:00:54.228 --> 01:01:01.595 the first ones certainly wasn't very original, um. And so You begin to 01:01:01.628 --> 01:01:07.717 weigh the evidence that you're given. Weigh the alternatives that are. And 01:01:07.750 --> 01:01:13.747 then to persuade the reader that this is a good way of thinking about the 01:01:13.780 --> 01:01:18.227 problem that's the most practical thing I can think of and that's what it 01:01:18.260 --> 01:01:23.026 has to be profound, right? um, it doesn't have to answer all of the 01:01:23.059 --> 01:01:28.537 questions of the universe, um, it has to answer one of them, preferably an 01:01:28.570 --> 01:01:33.106 interesting question, um, but that's what life is going to demand of you. 01:01:33.139 --> 01:01:36.925 That's what family life is going to demand of you. That's what living in 01:01:36.958 --> 01:01:40.686 the community is gonna demand of you, and that's what being at work, 01:01:40.719 --> 01:01:45.486 regardless of what your work is, is going to demand of you and. It's an 01:01:45.519 --> 01:01:51.845 enormously valuable skill and you can't start too soon or practice too 01:01:51.878 --> 01:01:55.747 often. That's applicable to all these different aspects of life. Yes, 01:01:55.780 --> 01:01:59.626 that's a great way of looking at it. And that's why research, that's why 01:01:59.659 --> 01:02:06.066 professors doing research themselves is absolutely essential for their 01:02:06.099 --> 01:02:11.967 teaching, because you wouldn't want to hire a guide. Who's never Been 01:02:12.000 --> 01:02:17.126 through the territory who's never tried to organize terra incognita into 01:02:17.159 --> 01:02:23.086 some sort of intelligible something or other who hasn't learned to map the 01:02:23.119 --> 01:02:28.046 territory and so that's the skill we want to communicate and that's the 01:02:28.079 --> 01:02:33.626 skill that professors need to bring to bear. And that's what research is. 01:02:33.659 --> 01:02:37.787 It's not the particular news of that research that's important. It's the 01:02:37.820 --> 01:02:43.997 having. Organized or having mapped terra incognito, that's a valuable 01:02:44.030 --> 01:02:48.195 skill that we need to teach. So for my final question, well, first of all 01:02:48.228 --> 01:02:53.836 , you've been um enormously generous in sharing your, your knowledge of 01:02:53.869 --> 01:02:57.876 Barrett and Arizona State University, so thank you for that. And for my 01:02:57.909 --> 01:03:02.037 final question of you, I'd like to simply invite you to think toward the 01:03:02.070 --> 01:03:07.396 future. And thinking toward the future, what do you hope that your legacy 01:03:07.429 --> 01:03:12.155 will be, your legacy, uh, for students who come to bear it or come to ASU 01:03:12.188 --> 01:03:17.945 , you know, 1020 years from now, you know, generations from now, and study 01:03:17.978 --> 01:03:21.876 philosophy. You know, when they think of your contributions, what would 01:03:21.909 --> 01:03:29.909 you like them to think, think about? 01:03:30.208 --> 01:03:37.106 Some of the things we've talked talked on already, uh, but. I would like 01:03:37.139 --> 01:03:40.115 them to. 01:03:40.148 --> 01:03:43.787 Be able to see that. 01:03:43.820 --> 01:03:47.106 There are different perspectives, different points of view, even at a very 01:03:47.139 --> 01:03:51.997 basic level. Um, 01:03:52.030 --> 01:03:56.166 And that it's, I think the assumptions that one brings to bear the 01:03:56.199 --> 01:04:00.845 perspective and so on. This is not a matter of truth or falsity, it's a 01:04:00.878 --> 01:04:05.796 matter of how well they work as a practical matter, how how they allow us 01:04:05.829 --> 01:04:11.767 to navigate around the problems. I'd like to have students have a kind of. 01:04:11.800 --> 01:04:15.126 Appropriate modesty. 01:04:15.159 --> 01:04:20.776 About the ambitions of philosophy. Um, it may be that philosophers once 01:04:20.809 --> 01:04:23.256 thought that they could answer all of the questions of the universe. I 01:04:23.289 --> 01:04:29.155 don't think they can. Um, and so I would like to see them. Appropriately 01:04:29.188 --> 01:04:34.876 modest, and that's not to say, uh, wringing their hands, but, um, 01:04:34.909 --> 01:04:38.316 appropriately modest and appropriately ambitious as well. I want to see 01:04:38.349 --> 01:04:45.537 them attack the Big questions and the questions that have tentacles that 01:04:45.570 --> 01:04:49.606 go out all. Over the place. 01:04:49.639 --> 01:04:56.646 I'd like to see them Be appropriately skeptical about the latest fashions. 01:04:56.679 --> 01:05:00.445 Philosophical fashions, I mean, intellectual fashions more generally, uh 01:05:00.478 --> 01:05:08.425 , uh, even old fashioned, um, I mean, I work on two characters from the 01:05:08.458 --> 01:05:13.425 mid and late 20th century, um. But if I thought that they answered all the 01:05:13.458 --> 01:05:21.095 questions. Of the universe, um. 01:05:21.128 --> 01:05:26.936 I would, I think I would be making a dreadful mistake. Um, and to think 01:05:26.969 --> 01:05:32.816 that some philosopher, however new or late, is the answer to all the 01:05:32.849 --> 01:05:38.206 questions is, is, I think, a problem. We tend to have this problem. In 01:05:38.239 --> 01:05:42.445 philosophy, in particular, perhaps, uh, about the latest fashions in 01:05:42.478 --> 01:05:46.175 philosophy, in part because there isn't the kind of hard evidence that 01:05:46.208 --> 01:05:50.086 we're forced to wrestle with, uh, in the way that physics or chemistry or 01:05:50.119 --> 01:05:54.646 biology or psychology might be. So, I'd like to see a certain amount of 01:05:54.679 --> 01:06:01.146 skepticism about Whatever it is that's popular these days, uh, maybe it's 01:06:01.179 --> 01:06:05.456 just that I'm a contrarian, um, maybe I just, you know, tell me to do 01:06:05.489 --> 01:06:09.106 something, I do the opposite. Um, maybe that goes with the territorial 01:06:09.139 --> 01:06:16.876 philosophy, I don't know. But I'd also like to see flossers. 01:06:16.909 --> 01:06:22.365 Rather than knowing more and more about less and less. 01:06:22.398 --> 01:06:30.398 Be willing to connect what they. Do Um, with broad intellectual interests 01:06:31.918 --> 01:06:37.017 and broad political, social, and. 01:06:37.050 --> 01:06:44.445 Other community community interests. Um, That is to say, connect up with 01:06:44.478 --> 01:06:48.206 science, um, and you don't, I don't think you have to be a philosopher of 01:06:48.239 --> 01:06:54.486 science to think of it that way. What do we know? How do we know? Um, it 01:06:54.519 --> 01:07:00.416 seems to me a pretty basic philosophical. 01:07:00.449 --> 01:07:06.345 Question or collection of questions, um. What's knowledge in history? Like 01:07:06.378 --> 01:07:13.445 , what's knowledge in. Art history or psychology, what's uh what's 01:07:13.478 --> 01:07:19.166 knowledge in ordinary life? Um, How does that then connect up with the 01:07:19.199 --> 01:07:25.126 other dimensions of our lives, um, the aesthetic ones, art. I've, over the 01:07:25.159 --> 01:07:28.365 last few days I've had a chance to go to the National Gallery in 01:07:28.398 --> 01:07:36.398 Washington and to several other art galleries. Uh, I find it. Ever a 01:07:36.570 --> 01:07:44.086 source of enlightenment, um. And to try and think about. Connecting my 01:07:44.119 --> 01:07:48.655 work with the broad 01:07:48.688 --> 01:07:56.688 Themes of of human endeavor, um, that are. Um, 01:07:57.000 --> 01:08:01.666 That are represented there. But there are so many aspects of life outside 01:08:01.699 --> 01:08:05.747 of philosophy. I think it's important not only to try and integrate all of 01:08:05.780 --> 01:08:09.537 the various philosophic issues, but to integrate them into a larger 01:08:09.570 --> 01:08:13.445 picture of our place in the world. 01:08:13.478 --> 01:08:16.585 So, um. 01:08:16.618 --> 01:08:21.066 Those are a lot of ambitions that I'd like. Um, if I can make a small 01:08:21.099 --> 01:08:29.099 contribution to that, um, move us. An inch Or perhaps more scientifically 01:08:29.829 --> 01:08:37.476 a millimeter. Um, in that direction. Uh, I would figure that it's a career 01:08:37.509 --> 01:08:42.196 well spent. Well, that is an excellent place to stop. Uh, thank you, 01:08:42.229 --> 01:08:46.335 Professor Crieff, for your participation. If you have any more thoughts to 01:08:46.368 --> 01:08:50.465 share later, please feel free to reach out. And if you have any questions 01:08:50.498 --> 01:08:54.474 regarding this interview or the 30th anniversary oral history project, 01:08:54.507 --> 01:09:00.296 please contact Vicetein Nifo. Thank you. Thank you. 01:09:00.329 --> 01:09:03.229 Make sure I stop this correctly.