Getting Started
September 10, 2015

Over the last week or so, the Fellows have been arriving in ones and twos. They take their first walk down the hallways, guided by Karen or Joyce, meet whoever happens to be in and then settle into their new offices.

Today, finally, the moment has come. All the Fellows are here and they are all sitting around the table in our lounge for their first meeting. It is an important event. This is where I try to set the direction of what will follow. Will we have lone scholars who toil quietly in isolation in their offices and elsewhere? Or will this be a group that likes to talk and sees the value, personally and academically, in getting to know each other? I will press hard for the latter.

To this end, there are many little rituals now to be completed. First is the food. Joyce had dashed out shortly before the meeting to the Pittsburgh Popcorn Company for fresh popcorn. She arrived just in time to burst through the door at the start of the meeting, laden with the goods. It was an entrance.

We had cheese popcorn, caramel popcorn and chocolate popcorn. It was all laid out in big bowls.

“Here’s what you should do,” I offered, “You take some of the cheese popcorn and then some of the caramel and put it in one of the bags. Shake it. I know it really doesn’t seems like it is a good idea. Try it. It’s surprisingly good.”

Nancy looked up at me, aghast, and managed to form the words. “But the chocolate popcorn . . . ?!”

“Oh no. Not the chocolate popcorn. THAT would be sacrilege!”

The popcorn ritual had warmed the room so we could now move to the weightier rituals.

First, I had some serious requests. “Please use your offices; be in your offices; work in your offices.” That, I explained, is what makes the Center function. The point of coming here at all is to meet and interact with others. That cannot happen if your office door stays closed and you stay away.

Then I moved to the speech I make every year. I lament that philosophy of science has become needlessly combative. “Philosophy of science is not a blood sport,” I mutter. When there is real and deep disagreement, of course you must dispute and do it with all the clever stratagems you can muster. But why dispute just for the sake of it? Be the audience that you want when you give a talk or when you try out a new idea in idle conversation. Be the audience that listens and takes the speaker’s project on board, looking for ways to advance it.

All that remained was to get our weekly reading group started. We need 12 pages—-12 pages of anything—-to read. This is usually the moment when things stall. But not in this group. In the course of just a few minutes, we had three bids to supply the 12 pages; and, after a little horse trading, it was decided.

Now it was time for the physical rituals. First, everyone gets a Center mug. They must swear on a baby polar bear to use it instead of disposable cups. The ritual of sustainability was initiated last year. The Fellows en masse grab mugs and begin writing their names on them, using the special paint-ink pens we provide.

While the chaos of the claiming and naming of the mugs is underway, I pass around taking the instant photos that will go up on our Wall of Fame. Once everyone has a photo they can live with, the photos go up on the wall.

Then there is our new map. Every Center Fellow has a color coded pin on a map of the world in our front foyer. Each new Fellow now takes a pin and places it on the map.

We are settled around the table once again. The popcorn is still laid out and the main event can start. I ask the new Fellows to introduce themselves, properly. Academically speaking, who are you? What do you care about? At first it seems like an impossible request for this speech to be given, right now, off-the-cuff. So I start and tell my story. “I began as a chemical engineer. I used to make gasoline, but I’d taken some philosophy and HPS classes . . .”

Everyone has a story and everyone can tell it to receptive ears with ease. They did. As the story telling proceeded, each realized that the problem was not to find out what to say. It was to figure out how to stop.

As ever, I found the stories enthralling. Philosophers of science are an extraordinary bunch. No one has a simple story. Each followed a winding pathway to philosophy of science.

There were commonalities. Kant was lurking in the background of a few more than I expected. Several had started in science and had found the first experience of working in a real lab one they did not want to repeat. There was even an unexpected Minnesota connection.

We were supposed to finish at 3pm and I’d worked hard to keep us to time. But there was a momentum that could not be stopped. We ran over.

The discussions kept going, even when the personal stories were finished. Eventually, I had to interject that, as far as I was concerned, the formal meeting was over, but everyone could continue to discuss as they pleased.

We would meet again shortly. At 4pm, we had arranged a reception for the new Fellows where they would have a chance to meet local faculty. We hold it at the Schenley Park Visitor Center. It is a charming Victorian building overlooking the park and just few minutes walk from the Cathedral of Learning.

John D. Norton