To my
memory I met Fred Dretske twice. The first time was at Rutgers Epistemology
Conference 2011. During one long coffee break (30 mins or so), he was left
alone in the middle of the crowds by random. I was not going to talk to him,
since although my thesis back then was related to his hyper OVERFLOW view about
the content of consciousness (i.e., an extreme version of Ned Block's relevant
view), at that moment I was not ready to ask questions about it. But in any
case he had been left alone for a while (which is not normal given who he is),
so I made a move and brought up the issues I'd like to talk about. He was keen
to discuss it and found a table for us, which was unexpected - I thought he
might have simply said something quickly and tried to leave. As a result we
discussed relevant issues for at least 20 minutes. The overall message is that
he was provoked by Daniel Dennett's extreme sparse view and attempted to count
against it, and my position was that Fred's view is an overreaction and is not
well supported by his arguments. I still hold this verdict today.
The
second time we came across was at Pacific APA 2012, where he presented his
critic of Susanna Siegel's book on the content of visual experience. My view
was different from both, but I learned something important from Fred's
comments. I was surprised by the fact that he not only showed up at conferences
given his age, but also presented something for us. During that conference I
did not have a chance to further talk to him, but both of us attended a session
where Josh Weisberg and Adrienne Prettyman were presenters and Richard Brown
was a commentator. Fred asked helpful questions during the session. He saw me
in the audience and waved to me. I believe he might not recall my name but it
does not matter. That was a nice farewell.
Given
that Fred was still active last year, I presume his last days were not too
painful. I might be wrong, but that is my wishful thinking.
Like
many philosophers in my generation, I have not had a chance to study his
classic works carefully. But I will. My thesis at CUNY has the title
"Consciousness and the Flow of Attention," which was unabashedly
inspired by Fred's seminal work. I am glad that as a philosopher in this
generation I overlapped with this great philosopher.
So
long, Fred. We will miss you.
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