Liz Camp

I was not strictly speaking a student of Barry's.  He was not on my committee, I never taught for him, and I only took a couple of classes with him.  But he affected who I am as a philosopher at a profound level, as much as anyone else during my time at Berkeley.  

Above all, Barry exemplified and taught the value of patience.  I think he would say that he attempted to teach us the value of going slow: of ruminating on the possible meanings of a perplexing passage, of becoming puzzled about an obvious assumption, of teasing out the concrete implications of an abstract claim.  Most people who have met me would observe that I rarely manage to actually go slow: it's just too far from my native temperament. (As Barry put it with characteristic succinctness after a talk I gave in Moses last spring, 'You tried to do too much.') I'm fine with that, for myself.  But I do think I've managed to acquire some patience -- some ability to become puzzled and curious about what seems obvious, and to spend time with that puzzlement. Every day, his gently, persistently probing voice inhabits my head, asking –- actually, really asking -- what I mean by what I'm saying.  And for that, I am deeply grateful.

Beyond that sliver of philosophical wisdom, l am also grateful that I managed to pick up a bit of Barry's love for food, wine, and Italy.  At dinners after colloquia, he counseled patience from his tablemates (and the waitstaff), insisting on the importance of slowing down and tasting -- really tasting -- the risotto.  When my husband Dmitri and I were first in Venice on our honeymoon 17 years ago, we clutched an increasingly creased and smudged printout of his emailed advice about tiny restaurants serving strange shellfish.  Again in Rome with our kids 5 years ago, we wandered back alleys to track down his fried artichokes. Each of the places we went shared a common characteristic: simple, elegant, quiet, and focused on the joy of attending to food itself.

At this moment, at least for me, in my absurdly frenetic world -- so many administrative emails! contributions to volumes! kids' lunches! constitutional crises! -- Barry's insistence on taking the time to savor ideas, tastes, images, and friends is especially difficult to acknowledge, but also for that reason especially valuable.  And while he sometimes enjoyed playing the curmudgeon, I'm confident he did know how deeply he had influenced so many of us to move through the world with at least a bit more patience: with that blend of skeptically incisive and wryly appreciative attention to details, as they reside within their real, robust contexts. I'll do my best to carry on that habit, thinking of him as I go.