More Sidney stories

A reader emails me three further Sidney Morgenbesser stories:

At a conference on cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind, one scholar was presenting what was at the time a popular line on how 'madness' had no real referent and was merely a product of power-laden 'othering'. Sidney chimes, "You mean to tell me that it's all in my head?"

In the 1970s a Maoist student asks, "Professor Morgenbesser, do you mean to say that you disagree with Chairman Mao when he states that a proposition can be true and false at the same time." To which Sidney replies, "I do and I don't."

Morgenbesser was the first to teach a class on Marx at Columbia's philosophy department in the late 1960s. A young faculty member, a Marxist, sat in. Sidney's own reading of Marx was very methodological individualist, very Jon Elster like. After the semester, Sidney asked his young colleague what he thought of the course. The guy replied, "Sidney, that was the best class on David Hume I've ever taken."

See here, here and here for earlier episodes in the series.

Update on August 4, 2004: See, now, here and here for the death of Sidney Morgenbesser.