Winter 2012–13

• previous
• Winter 2012–13
• next

Philosophy professor David Sidorsky ’62 GSAS would rather not be interviewed, especially for an article predicated on his many years at Columbia.

“It’s an awkward thing, after all — this whole, praise as longevity,” he says from his office in Philosophy Hall. “Longevity is not a virtue. Excellence is a virtue; scholarship is a virtue. Longevity reflects tenacity. [C.S.] Peirce — when he describes the four kinds of methods of fixing belief — he says there’s tenacity, there’s intuition, there’s authority and there’s science. Tenacity is not necessarily the best. Longevity correlates with tenacity.”

The explanation befits a man who is more comfortable talking about ideas than about himself. After all, ideas are the business the Canadian-born Sidorsky has been in for upward of 50 years, having taught philosophy at NYU (where he earned an A.B. in 1948 and an A.M. in 1952) before being hired by Columbia in 1959. He earned a Ph.D. in 1962 in philosophy.

“I have wonderful memories from all my early teachers and colleagues at Columbia — an extraordinary group,” he says, citing among others historian and sociologist Frank Tannenbaum ’21 as well as philosophers James Goodman, Horace Friess Ph.D. ’19, ’26 GSAS and John H. (Jack) Randall Jr. Ph.D. ’18, ’22 GSAS.

Sidorsky describes himself as initially a disciple of John Dewey, though he soon became interested in “ordinary language analysis,” which holds that the key to investigating philosophical questions lies in paying close attention to the use of everyday language. The school developed largely at Oxford in the 1940s under philosophers such as J.L. Austin and Gilbert Ryle. “I always say my heart is in the coffin with Austin, who died young,” Sidorsky says.

As he expands his explanation of his beliefs — offering for context a brief course in older philosophical schools, with stops at Spinoza, Descartes, Newton and Kant — it’s easy to see that teaching is his default. His speech pattern amplifies the effect, one sentence following the next with the smoothness and surety of a triple play. Evidence of his impact, meanwhile, comes in many forms: a book, To Do the Right and the Good, which its author Elliot Dorff ’65, ’71 GSAS, a rabbi and former Ph.D. student, dedicated to him; a recent letter from Peter Lushing ’62, ’65L, thanking Sidorsky for the gesture of offering him weekly tutorials when a conflict prevented his enrolling in a lecture section for the semester. Lushing called them “the best academic experience I had in college.”

Sidorsky acknowledges that teaching has formed the cornerstone of his professional life.

“It’s partly the challenge students give to you when they raise issues or questions. It’s partly that I enjoy structuring a narrative for them, structuring a discourse for them …. Developing a good lecture involves quite a few challenges: You have to have some substance, have to have some good jokes, have to make some points directly and simply and some points obliquely and subtly.”

Case in point: A question about the most valuable thing a professor can do for his students elicits an answer from Plato’s dialogues. Sidorsky quotes Minos and Protagoras, on whether excellence can be taught, before concluding with the elliptical: “How you teach what’s important is very, very difficult to know, and whether you’re teaching what’s important is very difficult to know …. Subject matter can be taught. Students do learn. How we teach them is another matter.”

Early on, Sidorsky taught Contemporary Civilization and, on occasion, Literature Humanities, along with history of philosophy. “I’ve also taught moral philosophy or equivalent topics in ethics all the years from the beginning, and political philosophy.” In the 1960s he developed a class in 20th-century philosophy “which, at that time, I only had to teach the first 60 years of,” he says, laughing. “I still teach that every year. It’s my favorite course, and 20th-century philosophy has had an extraordinary road.”

Teaching is his default ... Sidorsky acknowledges that teaching has formed the cornerstone of his professional life.

There are two separate issues when it comes to considering philosophy’s place in the modern era, Sidorsky says. “One is the great importance and value of the study of the history of philosophy, and the second is the question of the role of philosophy in understanding the world given the major development of the sciences in understanding the world. It’s still extremely important to appreciate the work of the philosopher, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it’s important to understand the way in which science displaced philosophy in various fields of knowledge.”

In recent years, Sidorsky’s interests have strayed into the philosophy of literature, and he’s completed several essays on literary modernism. But his scholarship has focused most often on the nature of disagreement and issues of conservatism and liberalism (political philosophy) and the objectivity of ethics (moral philosophy).

The latter — in which he believes strongly — “means that when you say something is good, you say it’s good because there are reasons. And the question is, what constitutes a reason? Let’s assume somebody says, ‘The Aztecs said we can sacrifice human beings because of the good reason that we need their blood to move the sun across the sky.’ You say, ‘Oh no, the reason has to be true.’ … So not every reason constitutes a reason. But if you have true reasons and relevant reasons and strong reasons, then the good is justified. And if you have false reasons or absurd reasons or rationalizations, then the objective claim is false.

“Even attitudes that are prejudicial usually are justified by reasons,” he adds. “It’d be one thing if people said, ‘I’m going to do this terrible thing for no reason,’ but they don’t. They say, ‘This is the reason,’ and often the reason is false. So that means they feel compelled to give a reason, and when the reason is false, then you have an argument against that action. It’s interesting that even the great dictators of the 20th century, who showed great moral regression, gave reasons for their actions in some cases that are obviously false.

“Now the tragedy is, of course, those actions were carried out. But from the point of view of philosophy, the fact that reasons were given that can be demonstrated to be false shows something about the objectivity of morals.”

As it relates to his students, the subject provides one of his most interesting and long-running challenges.

Students understand that “mathematics can be true, science can be true. But [they wonder] how can an ethical statement be true? It’s opinion, it’s attitude .... Also, when you say there’s an objective morality, then the assumption — which isn’t necessarily true — is that you’ll be intolerant of the opposite. Whereas if you say it’s relative, then you’re tolerant. Students don’t want to be considered intolerant.”

Sidorksy also is quick to point to the enjoyment he derives from “collegial discussion,” citing his 1975-80 chairmanship of the University Committee on General Education, which aimed to foster interdisciplinary dialogue at Columbia. Sidorsky also was chairman of a University Seminar on modernism and post-modernism and, for about six years, chaired the John M. Olin Colloquium in Political Philosophy; the latter brought in international figures such as the English philosopher Maurice Cranston, the Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski and the French historian Annie Kriegel.

Sidorsky’s late wife, Rhoda, graduated from Teachers College with an M.A. in fine arts. They met, in fact, when he enrolled in her painting class in 1950. “After a few sessions she informed me that I ‘mixed nice colors,’” he recalls. “I immediately grasped that this was a polite and euphemistic way to provide a student with a minimal courtesy passing grade of 51.” The couple married two years later, and their three children all earned graduate degrees at Columbia. 

“I’m happy to have been here these many years,” he continues. “I’ve had interesting experiences at Columbia, interesting friendships, interesting disagreements through the years. I think Columbia’s place in the neighborhood should be affirmed more strongly. It contributes a great deal to Upper Manhattan.”

He begins to talk about culture in New York at large — about classical music and a recent concert he attended at Alice Tully Hall — before trailing off, his self-consciousness reasserting itself. Asked whether he’d like to add anything more, he responds with a sigh.

“No, mostly I would want to subtract.”

• previous
• Winter 2012–13
• next