Sidney Morgenbesser (September 22, 1921 – August 1, 2004) was a Columbia University philosopher. Born in New York City, he attended the Jewish Theological Seminary and the University of Pennsylvania, arriving back at Columbia to lecture in 1953. In 1975, he was named the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy. Although not a prolific writer, Morgenbesser has been known particularly for his sharp witticisms and humor. September 22 is the 265th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (266th in leap years). ... 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... August 1 is the 213th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (214th in leap years), with 152 days remaining. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Columbia University is a private university whose main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City. ... The Jewish Theological Seminary of America The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, known in the Jewish community simply as JTS, is the academic and spiritual center of Conservative Judaism, and is the movements main rabbinical seminary. ... The University of Pennsylvania (or Penn[3][4]) is a private, nonsectarian research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ... John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, whose thoughts and ideas have been greatly influential in the United States and around the world. ...

Stories and quotations

• During a lecture the Oxford linguistic philosopher J. L. Austin made the claim that although a double negative in English implies a positive meaning, there is no language in which a double positive implies a negative. To which Morgenbesser responded, "Yeah, yeah." (Some have it quoted as "Yeah, right." See litotes for the actual linguistic status of this hypothesis.)

• Morgenbesser was leaving a subway station in New York City and put his pipe is his mouth as he was going up the steps. A police officer told him that there was no smoking on the subway. Morgenbesser pointed out that he was leaving the subway, not inside it, and hadn't lit up yet anyway. The cop replied, "If I let you do it, I'd have to let everyone do it." The professor replied, "Who do you think you are, Kant?" The word "Kant" was mistaken for a vulgar epithet and Morgenbesser had to explain the situation at the police station.

• On the independence of irrelevant alternatives: After finishing dinner, Sidney Morgenbesser decides to order dessert. The waitress tells him he has two choices: apple pie and blueberry pie. Sidney orders the apple pie. After a few minutes the waitress returns and says that they also have cherry pie at which point Morgenbesser says "In that case I'll have the blueberry pie."

• During campus protests of the 60s Morgenbesser was hit on the head by police. When asked whether he had been treated unfairly or unjustly, he responded "Unfairly no, unjustly yes. The police hit me unjustly, but since they hit everyone else unjustly, it was not unfair."

• To B.F. Skinner, "Let me see if I understand your thesis. You think we shouldn’t anthropomorphize people?"

• "Moses published one book. What did he do after that?"

• "If P, so why not Q?"

• "Pragmatism is great in theory, but doesn't work in practice."

• Someone asked the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?". His response: "Even if there were nothing you'd still be complaining!"

John Langshaw Austin (March 28, 1911 - February 8, 1960) was a philosopher of language, who developed much of the current theory of speech acts. ... A double negative occurs when two forms of negation are used in the same sentence. ... In rhetoric, litotes is a figure of speech in which the speaker either strengthens or weakens the emphasis of a claim by denying its opposite. ... Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 – February 12, 1804) was a Prussian philosopher, generally regarded as one of Europes most influential thinkers and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment. ... Cunt is an English vulgarism most commonly used in reference to the female genitalia or, more generally, the region extending from the mons veneris to the perineum and inward from the labia into the vagina. ... Independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) is an axiom often adopted by social scientists as a basic condition of rationality. ... Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 _ August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist and author. ... Pragmatism, as a school of philosophy, is a collection of many different ways of thinking. ...

External links

• Columbia Philosophy Department Memorial Page
• The Lives They Lived: Sidewalk Socrates, The New York Times Magazine.
• The Witty Professor, NPR.
• Columbia News
• Sidney, by Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic.