昨天是一個小型的 conference，主要是慶祝我的老師 Barry Stroud 在 Berkeley 教了五十年；他二十六歲開始當助理教授，今年已七十六歲了（在同一著名大學教了五十年或以上的教授相信是罕見的，但 Berkeley 的哲學系卻有兩個這樣的教授，另一個是 John Searle）。Conference 有 Tyler Burge 等有名的哲學家演講，Stroud 的學生中只有兩人負責概述他的哲學，各講三十分鐘，我是其中一個，當然感到很光榮，但最高興的還是 Stroud 在我的短講後多謝我將他的哲學詮釋得那麼準確和清楚。
不少舊同學都有出席，有些已多年未見過面，大家在演講之間的 breaks 和午餐時談哲學、話當年，很有 reunion 的感覺，亦有點錯覺，好像回到當研究生的日子。晚間聚餐大約有五十多人出席，我們一班舊同學本來想坐在一起繼續敘舊，誰知座位已安排了，我被編到的一枱，竟一個舊同學也沒有，真是的！
坐在我旁邊的是以研究 Heidegger 和 Foucault 稱著的 Hubert Dreyfus，我當年沒有修過他的課，他亦記不起我是誰。然而，既然同枱相鄰而坐，便要談談話；我完全不懂 Heidegger，倒讀過一點 Foucault，便跟他談起來，還算頭頭是道。呀，各位讀歐陸哲學的朋友，有一點不得不提，我問 Dreyfus 對 Derrida 有甚麼評價，他說他讀不懂 Derrida 寫的東西！
Wong,
回覆刪除//一切依然是那麼熟悉//
Envious... My old friends back in college...long gone.
Envious. I came back to my old school in June. The old dept bldg was not gone (yet?) but the whole dept moved out completely. I knew where the new bldg was (was there once before) but there was constructions blocking easy access and I was w/ my kids, so I gave up (promised them ice-creams and had to go.) I was wondering if the big board, posting the dept's most famous prof's achievement and research info, on the wall of the entrance hallway (several boards together covering the entire length of the hallway) would be somewhere in the new bldg. I guessed so. What about another, smaller board somewhere away but close by for another (2nd most famous?) prof's achievements? And the 1st "photo" in the 3rd floor taken of the 1st confined (for a long time, and isolated) atom? (Difficulty? Think: Uncertainty Principle. 1st here means 1st or one of the 1st few.) Of course, the big banner Con-Fusion (hehe) in the bldg protesting the false claim of the occurrence of cold fusion (wow!) in an expt then by some scientists in whatever university must have been long gone. All the labs... and most of all, such an old, small bldg hosting some pioneering, big expts, which outgrew the bldg eventually... now is just memory.
Well, I couldn't imagine back then I would be so lazy so soon (like now). (Okay, let me sugarcoat it: laid back, if you're tired of the word 'lazy.')
The only thing I know of the new bldg is that it is built on a big pool of sand. High tech. (haha, don't know much about building tech.) The million $ question is: why is it on sand? It has nothing to do with a man-made beach. LOL. That's for sure. --zpdrmn (babbling here again)
Good for you!
回覆刪除Thank you.
回覆刪除Stroud 兩個代表學生中你是其中一個, 他一定很看得起你了!
回覆刪除R.
R.
回覆刪除是否看得起我不敢說，但我相信他認為我頗了解他的東西。