Philosopher Allen Hazen (formerly Melbourne, now teaching at Alberta) writes:
It is perhaps worth noting that Leigh Cauman (under her maiden name, Steinhardt) was Quine's first Ph.D. supervisee (at "Radcliffe College," Harvard University in those days not giving degrees under its own name to women), in 1940. Her dissertation was about "the variable" and semantics-- I think that Quine's well-known emphasis on the analogy between variables and pronouns was something she also stressed. I am sure that student learned from teacher and also teacher from student: I have no idea to what, if any, degree Quine's ideas should be attributed to "Miss Steinhardt," who is credited in footnotes with a few minor improvements to his "Mathematical Logic."Mrs. Cauman believed that a male philosopher writing a thesis under Quine would have had more opportunities for a (non-adjunct, non-editorial) academic career than she had: doubtless wanting to live in the same city as her husband (who was, I think, an art historian, though I am not sure of that) limited her ability to seek teaching appointments.I was never officially affiliated with the Columbia philosophy department, but often called on it when visiting family in the neighborhood. My sense is that Leigh's general friendliness and generosity contributed a great deal to the sense of a philosophy "community" there.
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