Matthew Parrott
Remembering Barry
Recently, I was having coffee with a former colleague, a well-respected senior philosopher. About halfway through our conversation, he began to spontaneously praise Berkeley Philosophy, saying that he always had the best philosophical conversations with people from Berkeley. ‘Berkeley philosophers discuss real philosophy. They don’t get distracted by what is happening in “the literature”, or by what is fashionable.’ He then asked me why this was the case, adding ‘is it just because of Barry Stroud?’ I paused for a moment to think about this question, as any good Stroud student would, and I responded, ‘well it is probably not just because of Barry; but, yes, it is mainly because of Barry.’
One of the things I remember most clearly from my years as a PhD student was the way that Barry would constantly probe us graduate students with questions after Departmental colloquia. Many of us would attend these events fairly regularly, in part to hear some famous philosopher speak, but also in part to indulge in wine and cheese. I remember walking into my very first post-colloquium reception thinking that the occasion seemed to be pleasant and relaxed. It was exactly at that point that Barry walked directly up to me and, almost inches from my face, said ‘what did you think of what that person said?’ I was absolutely stunned. I had no idea what the speaker had just said. And I was even more shocked that Barry was asking me. I think I eventually managed to mutter out a few things about some sort of philosophical doctrine like ‘ethical realism’ or something similar. Barry quietly listened to what I said, and then advised me that, ‘it is a surprisingly difficult thing to do, but you must learn to listen to what people say.’ That was my first lesson with Barry.
What I just described was in no way an isolated incident. Barry regularly attended departmental colloquia, guest lectures, and various other events. Afterward, he would casually stroll around 301 Moses sipping white wine and querying graduate students with some version of ‘what did you think of what that person said?’ I recall that nearly all of us were terrified of this question. Did it have a right answer? A wrong answer? Was this some sort of informal test or assessment of our ability? And, if so, what was Barry looking for? What I know now, but didn’t then, was that Barry wasn’t quizzing us and he wasn’t looking for any type of answer. He genuinely wanted to know the answer to the exact question he raised. He wanted to know what we thought. Asking us this, over and over, was one of the ways in which Barry cared for us, and for our training as philosophers.
Barry took us graduate students seriously. And once we began to actually share our thoughts with him, he was generous enough to engage with the substance of our ideas and carefully consider them in their own terms. If we had a bad idea, he said so. If we misunderstood something that a somebody said or wrote, he would let us know. And if we tried to appeal to some fashionable doctrine in contemporary philosophy, he would shut it down. After all, Barry was after what we thought.
By treating us like serious philosophers, after colloquia, during seminars and supervisions, and in the hallways of Moses Hall, Barry gave us all the feeling that we were mutually engaged in the activity of doing philosophy, and that this was a profoundly valuable and deeply important project.
Barry supervised my PhD thesis but I honestly cannot remember ever discussing the details of my thesis with him. Despite that, there is no question that I learned how to be a philosopher from him. Taking philosophy seriously meant, among other things, that I had to listen carefully to what people are trying to express, guard against the various distractions of professionalisation, think things through very carefully, and, above all, try my best to understand the philosophical questions that demanded my attention. I also learned that philosophy, at least when done properly, is very difficult, and requires a significant investment of one’s time. But, at the very same time, Barry also showed me that philosophical reflection can be immensely enjoyable, one of the true lasting pleasures of human life.
Barry’s constant presence in Moses Hall allowed all of us graduate students to see how to do philosophy with seriousness, but also how to delight in philosophical inquiry. Like my former colleague, many of the very best philosophers that I know have come from Berkeley. But, unlike him, I don’t find this surprising. These are all people who, even if never formally supervised, were shepherded into philosophy by Barry.