American philosopher (1921–2004)
Sidney Morgenbesser (September 22, 1921 – August 1, 2004) was an American philosopher and professor at Columbia University. He wrote little but is remembered by many for his philosophical witticisms.
Life and career.
Sidney Morgenbesser was born on September 22, 1921, in New York City and raised in Manhattan's Lower East Side.
Morgenbesser undertook philosophical study at the City College of New York (B.S.S., 1942) and rabbinical study at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (B.J.P., 1941). Following World War II, he pursued graduate study in philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. There he obtained his M.A. in 1950 and, with a thesis titled "Theories And Schemata In The Social Sciences," his Ph.D. in 1956. It was also at Pennsylvania that, Morgenbesser reports, he held his first teaching job in philosophy and met Hilary Putnam as a student.
Morgenbesser taught at Swarthmore College and then The New School for Social Research. He then took a position at Columbia University in 1954. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1963, and by 1966 he was made a full professor at Columbia. He was visiting professor at the Rockefeller University in 1967—1968 and in 1975 was named the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia. This position he held until retirement in 1991.
Morgenbesser's areas of expertise included the philosophy of social science, political philosophy, epistemology, and the history of American Pragmatism. He founded the Society for Philosophy and Public Affairs along with G.A. Cohen, Thomas Nagel and others.
Morgenbesser appeared on in an interview by Bryan Magee on the topic of American Pragmatism in 1987 that is available on YouTube.
He died on 1 August 2004 at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan at the age of 82, from complications due to ALS.
Influence.
Morgenbesser was known particularly for his sharp witticisms and humor which often penetrated to the heart of the philosophical issue at hand, on which account "The New York Times Magazine" dubbed him the "Sidewalk Socrates." According to one anecdote, when J. L. Austin claimed that, although a double negative often implies a positive meaning ("e.g.", "he is not unlike his sister"), there is no language in which a double positive implies a negative, Morgenbesser retorted: "Yeah, yeah." In another commonly reported story, Morgenbesser was asked by a student whether he agreed with Chairman Mao's view that a statement can be both true and false at the same time, to which Morgenbesser replied "Well, I do and I don't."
Another anecdote is given as follows by the "Independent":
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;[An] unfortunate encounter with the police occurred when he lit up his pipe on the way out of a subway station. Morgenbesser protested to the officer who tried to stop him that the rules covered smoking in the station, not outside. The cop conceded he had a point, but said: "If I let you get away with it, I'd have to let everyone get away with it." To which Morgenbesser, in a famously misunderstood line, retorted: "Who do you think you are, Kant?" Hauled off to the precinct lock-up, Morgenbesser only won his freedom after a colleague showed up and explained the Categorical Imperative to the nonplussed boys in blue.
Morgenbesser published little and established no school, but was revered for his extraordinary intelligence and moral seriousness. He was a famously influential teacher; his former students included Jerry Fodor, Raymond Geuss, Alvin Goldman, Daniel M. Hausman, Robert Nozick, Hilary Putnam, Gideon Rosen, Mark Steiner, and Michael Stocker. In 1967, Morgenbesser signed a letter declaring his intention to refuse to pay taxes in protest against the U.S. war in Vietnam, and urging other people to also take this stand.
Works.
Books, (co-)edited
Select articles, book chapters (co-)authored
For a more complete record of publications see in the below.
Festschrift
References.
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