Date of last letter: 3 Jan 2008

January 21, 2008

Dear Colleague:  

    Emily Auerbach invited me to give a talk in the Emeritus Faculty Lecture series. I agreed. She assumed that I would speak on "Space and Place," but I offered, instead, "Human goodness," which probably surprised her, for it is not a topic one would expect to find in a geographer's repertoire. That was a year ago. Since then a handsome brochure appeared featuring the speakers. My turn was to be on April 27. A couple of months ago, the phone rang. It was Emily calling to ask whether I would mind switching places with anthropologist Herb Lewis, who was scheduled to speak on March 30, a date that unfortunately collides with his granddaughter's bat-mitzvah in New York. I said that I would not mind, and hung up. Almost immediately, I picked up the phone again. When Emily answered it, I could detect a note of wariness in her voice: she probably wondered whether I had second thoughts. Instead, I said to her, "You know, Emily, I have no real choice in the matter. How can I be a jerk, say 'no' to you and Herb, and still speak on 'Human Goodness'?"

    If only I chose to speak on "Space and Place"—a topic that doesn't commit me to good behavior! One benefit that I gain from the switch is that it has led me to wonder about the degree of consistency between a scholar/thinker's life and his articulated thoughts. No consistency is demanded if one's subject matter is technical: being a good chemist doesn't commit one to being a good father or citizen. But what if one is a moral or political philosopher? How can one be a moral philosopher and abuse his spouse, or a political philosopher and systematically cheat on his income tax? Consistency or inconsistency shows up best, perhaps, at the time of death. Hume was consistent: in life he argued against immortality, a view he serenely retained on his deathbed. The two great American philsophers, William James and George Santayana, were consistent. James believed that a person's philosophy is an index to his innermost character, his own being "openness." Near death, his last words were, "There is no conclusion..." Santayana, in old age, lived in a convent, cared for by the sisters. His one dread was that the sisters might try to convert him on his deathbed. Of those who failed the test of concordance between life and thought, I include Jean-Paul Sartre. All his life he argued for authenticity, yet, in extreme old age and near death, he sought to hide life's sordid facts with the connivance of his friend, Simone de Beauvoir. Sartre did not exactly move into an Old People's Home, with its manufactured delusions of well-being, but he came close. Wittgenstein more successfully lived his philosophy. Near death, he thought he would struggle with the overwhelming question of oblivion and judgment ("When we meet again at the last judgment" was a constant refrain), but instead, to his surprise, he found himself puzzling over certin technical points in philosophy. He should be pleased, for he abhorred any sort of grandstanding. Bertrand Russell was a far-ranging philosopher who contributed to everything from mathematical logic to politics, but he avoided moral philosophy, perhaps out of fear that it might crimp his sex life. (David Palfrey, "How Philosophers Die," British Academy Review, 10).

    A final thought: I am glad that my talk on "Human Goodness" is to be given a month earlier, in March rather than in April, for I already feel the strain of behaving well!

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu