Mary Mothersill

1923-2008

Professor Mary Mothersill, distinguished philosopher and long-time member of the Hume Society, died in New York City on January 22, 2008. 

Mary was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1923.  She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto, and her Ph.D. from Radcliffe College, Harvard University, in 1954, writing her dissertation on “Lewis and Stevenson:  A critical comparison of two theories of value.” 

Mary was a member of a pioneering generation of women in philosophy—although she rarely drew attention to this fact herself.  According to the APA  records, in 1954 only eight women received doctoral degrees in Philosophy.  Mary’s early career was somewhat peripatetic:  She began teaching in 1947, at Vassar College, where she stayed until 1951.  Between 1951 and 1963 she taught at a number of universities, including Columbia and the University of Chicago.  In 1963, however, she joined the faculty of Barnard College, the undergraduate college for women at Columbia University, where she remained until her retirement in 1993.  For most of her years at Barnard, Mary was Chair of the Philosophy Department.  And, although I suspect she would have disliked the term ‘mentor,’ throughout her career, Mary encouraged and supported women in philosophy.

Mary was well known for her publications in aesthetics and ethics: her meticulously argued book Beauty Restored (Clarendon Press:  Oxford, 1984) continues to be recognized as a central part of the literature of aesthetics. An active member of the American Philosophical Association, Mary served as President of the Eastern Division in 1998-99.  She was also a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Philosophy for many years.  In 2003, for her contributions to philosophy, Mary Mothersill was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Mary continued to be engaged in philosophy after her retirement. Not only did she teach introductory humanities courses at Columbia, she also became a frequent participant in the Hume Society, attending conferences and serving as a commentator on papers.  Mary enjoyed the sociability of our meetings, as well as the academic sessions.  She was greatly disappointed when her declining health prevented her from traveling to Koblenz in August 2006, where she had been invited to speak.

I was fortunate to have had Mary Mothersill as a teacher and advisor at Barnard in the late 1960s.  An artful leader of discussions of philosophical problems and texts, she rarely lectured.  Her classes were always demanding and often intense, but Mary’s wit and sense of irony fostered a certain detachment as well. Indeed, the talent for witty conversation was one of Mary’s most notable traits outside the classroom as well.

Mary’s Presidential Address to the APA, on the topic of old age, exemplifies her ability to combine wry observation with serious reflection and analysis.  She referred to herself as one of the “oldies,” although not, by her account, one of the old old:  you had to be at least eighty three,  she said, to be included in that group.  A good deal of  her address critiques the underlying assumptions of various theories about aging, but toward the end Mary turned to a Socratic question:  “If the central question of ethics is, as Socrates claimed, “How shall we live our lives?” then it makes sense to ask how we should navigate the troubled waters of old age.”  She mentions Socrates, Dewey, Russell and especially Hume as philosophers who provide helpful models of how to confront old age and death. Even by the high standards set by these four, Mary acquitted herself very well.  Mary Mothersill will be remembered for her philosophical work, for her influence on generations of women in philosophy, and for a life well lived.

Jane McIntyre, February 2008