Jay Rosenberg at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has penned (in the November 2003 Proceedings and Addresses of the APA--APA members can access it on-line here) a splendid memorial notice for his late colleague Paul Ziff (1920-2003), that richly evokes both the man and his philosophical work. (I think it's the most memorable such notice I've read since Thomas Kelly's equally splendid and evocative memorial notice for his teacher, Robert Nozick a year or so ago.)
Two interesting bits from the memorial notice:
"Paul never did a lick of administrative work or served on a single committee. He was anything but a team player. He was a born soloist." At the same time, "when he discovered that North Carolina Central University in Durham--a 'predominantly black' relic of segregation that had been absorbed into the University system--had no philosophy department, he volunteered his teaching services, cost free. Discerning the potential of one young student there, Paul took him, not just under his wing, but literally into his home--and into our doctoral program....Today he is a successful and productive university professor...."
And from the conclusion:
"I choose to remember him, at the height of his powers--standing up at the Chapel Hill Philosophy Colloqium and explaning to Thomas Nagel that, of course, one could know what it was like to be a bat. Imagine that you are a blind sonar operator aboard a submarine."
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