My Last Last Donut
August 2016

Long ago, sometime in 2004, I am guessing, I was finishing up my term as Chair of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science. Adolf Gruenbaum and Nick Rescher summoned me to the Center for Philosophy of Science and offered me the position of Director. Jim Lennox, after many years of service as Director, was stepping down.

When I refused politely, explaining that five years of administration as a Chair was enough, they persisted. I resisted and they persisted. It soon became clear that this was not really an offer but an obligation and a demand. Eventually I succumbed to the inevitable. How bad could it be, I asked myself.

I had just made one of the best decisions of my professional life.

For slightly over a decade, as Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science, I have had the most fulfilling of my academic appointments. It was quite unexpected. What made it so was the Fellows.

Each year over the past decade, a new group of Fellows arrives. With just a little prodding from me, they form themselves into a supportive and collaborative community. As I was struggling for the words to explain what I saw, I received an email from a past Fellow. He recalled his visit and spoke of “the awesome power of the Center.” Then, “I came out of the Center a much better philosopher because of the environment.”

It was for many the most academically productive period of their lives. Nothing can match the satisfaction of knowing that I had some small role in this transformative experience. I thank you all for letting me have a part in it.

Indeed I owe thanks to many. My colleagues here at the University of Pittsburgh have supported the Center in many ways. They contributed their time as Officers to help run the Center; and they have provided the larger community within which the Center lives.

The Provost’s office, under two Provosts, Jim Maher and Patty Beeson, have been quite wonderful to work with. I feel fortunate that my time as Director coincided with their tenures. I sensed from the beginning that they and their staff were no-nonsense administrators that would do whatever was needed to support us.

My greatest thanks, however, must go to the Center’s staff. What everyone should realize is that, for the past decade or so, I have actually had to do very little in the Center. All the real doing has been done by the staff.

Karen Kovalchick was my Assistant Director for most of the decade, until she retired last January. Then Carolyn Oblak took over. Carol Weber was, for many years, our web and technology master, until she retired and Cheryl Greer replaced her. We have also benefited greatly from a steady stream of HPS graduate students who have worked part-time for a year or more in the Center.

Most importantly, I owe my greatest debt to Joyce McDonald. Joyce and I began working together long ago, sometime in the 1990s. I was then an Associate Director of the Center and had been charged with running the Annual Lecture Series. It was our joint project. That was before the days of the internet and email. It was a simpler, but not an easier time. I had young children at home and often worked from there. We would communicate by faxes, which we then thought was a wonder of high technology!

Joyce then made my job easy; and it has been that way ever since. Joyce knows everything there is to know about putting on talks and conferences. She knows to block out hotel rooms well before anyone has thought of booking a room. She knows to watch for noisy university events that will disrupt a conference. And so on and on. More importantly, if the Center is a family, she is everyone’s mother. She knows your pain before you do and will provide just the advice and soothing words needed. There is a lot I will miss in the Center. Foremost is that I will no longer be working with Joyce.

The photo at the top of the page shows something I snipped off some junk mail perhaps a year or two ago and stuck on my door. It was a little joke then, but gradually took on more meaning.

The Center for Philosophy of Science is a collaborative venture. It is owned by no one. It is shared. So it is with the Directorship. There is no permanent Director. We each take our turn and do our best. And then we move on to give a new Director a chance. That is the secret of a vibrant Center. No Director can maintain the level of energy, enthusiasm and creativity of their first few years. After a while the job becomes too routine and too easy.

Now it is time for me to hand over to someone new. I look forward to Edouard Machery seeing and solving the problems that I did not see. He will surely bring new ideas that eluded me or, in my growing lethargy, were too much trouble to bother with. Bienvenu, Edouard!

John D Norton