Eminent Philosopher a Passion for Languages Physicist and Philosopher

tics from the University of Wisconsin, teaches his class, Linguistic Problems Eminent Philosopher Madison, in 1955. in the Teaching of English as a Foreign With his passion for languages, Saitz Language. “I cannot fi ll his shoes, of !""##$ %&'(&##", 86, a College of was an expert in applied linguistics and course, but for one night a week I can Arts & Sciences professor emeritus of kinesics, or gestures, who “found humor try.” ()&&*+)# ,"-)$ (.%!’16) philosophy, on August 12, 2015. in the way people would say things and One of the world’s eminent philosoph- even in the crazy rules of English,” says Physicist and Philosopher ers and logicians, Hintikka was born in his son, Richard Saitz (CAS’87, MED’87), Vantaa, Finland, in 1929, a BU School of Public Health "*'+) -%&0$'1, 87, a College of and educated at the Uni- professor and chair of com- Arts & Sciences professor emeritus versity of Helsinki, where munity health sciences and a of philosophy and of physics, on Aug- he earned a PhD in phi- School of Medicine profes- ust 8, 2015. losophy in 1956. sor of medicine. “He married Shimony’s research transcended dis- In 1990, he joined the BU my mom, who was primarily ciplinary boundaries and literary genres. philosophy faculty, where Hintikka a Spanish speaker, and he He made lasting contributions to the ar- his expertise in game- seemed to really enjoy people eas of inductive logic, the philosophy of theoretical semantics and epistemic who spoke other languages.” C. S. Peirce, the quantum measurement logic (the logic of knowledge and belief) Saitz was dedicated to teaching problem, and Bell’s theorem. brought students from many disciplines English to non-native speakers, and was Shimony earned a joint degree in to his classes. the founder and fi rst president of the philosophy and mathematics at Yale, a “With his help and industry we at- professional organization Massachusetts master’s in philosophy at the University tracted and educated four generations Educators of English Language Learn- of Chicago, and a PhD in philosophy at of PhD students,” says Juliet Floyd, a CAS ers (MATSOL), as well as a Yale. He earned a second pro fessor of philosophy. “His work is founding member of Teach- doctorate, in physics, at known to members of the mathematics ers of English to Speakers of Princeton University. and computer science departments, as Other Languages (TESOL). After arriving at Boston well as our linguists. His knowledge and He published more than 25 University, Shimony pub- experience drew all of us into enjoyable scholarly books. “We would lished arguably the most and challenging conversation.” meet to discuss a possible Shimony important physics article Hintikka earned numerous honors book project,” says Francine of his career, “Proposed during his career, including a 1979 Gug- Stieglitz, a retired lecturer from the experiment to test local hidden-variable genheim Fellowship and the 2005 Rolf CAS Writing Program who collaborated theories.” The article, coauthored by his Schock Prize in logic and philosophy with Saitz on seven books. “I’d talk out BU graduate student Michael Horne from the Swedish Academy, an award what I had in mind. Bob would take (GRS’67,’70) and two other graduate comparable to the Nobel Prize. He pub- notes in pencil—he always wrote in students (John Clauser at Columbia and lished more than 30 books and hundreds pencil—and the next day, he’d have Richard Holt at Harvard), derived a new of scholarly articles. an outline of the book.” form of Bell’s inequality. “Although he had a world- Saitz joined the BU faculty Among his many contributions to the wide reputation and had in 1962 and is remembered fi eld of philosophy, Shimony was one of attained something akin to as a dedicated professor. the most persuasive proponents of epis- hero status in Finland, he “The door to his o' ce was temological naturalism. He also intro- was philosophically one of always open,” Stieglitz says. duced the term “experimental metaphys- the most generous col- Saitz “Students would often drop ics” (the use of scientifi c experiments to leagues one could imagine, in for help or just to chat. investigate metaphysical questions) and 6 very open to collaboration with others Sometimes they would invite him to din- contributed to its study. and to new lines of research,” says Allen ner at a Chinese restaurant when the When he retired from BU in 1994, Speight, a CAS associate professor and semester was over.” a session of the Boston Colloquium chair of the philosophy department. At BU, Saitz created the program that was organized in his honor, resulting CENTER, BOTTOM 5 !"#" $"$$%%& became the School of Education master’s in two volumes: Experimental Meta- Teaching English as a Second Language physics and Potentiality, Entanglement, A Passion for Languages program, and he founded and directed and Passion-at-a-Distance. "/*$" the Boston Area Seminar for Internation- ,%01/*.2 "&3 3%& 2%4"#3 (."$’69) ; BU PHOTOGRAPHY ; BU PHOTOGRAPHY 6 )$*+)( ,. -"&(. (/"-’49), 86, a al Students, an intensive English program TOP 5 College of Arts & Sciences professor that is now BU’s Center for English Lan- Read more at bu.edu/cphs/about emeritus of English, on March 12, 2015. guage & Orientation Programs. /history/abner-shimony. Alisa Bokulich Saitz earned an AB from BU in 1949, “BU lost an amazing scholar,” says is a CAS associate professor of philoso- an MA from the University of Iowa in Saitz’s former student Christina Michaud phy, and Don Howard is a University of KALMAN ZABARSKY KALMAN ZABARSKY 1950, and a PhD in English and linguis- (SED’02,’16), a CAS senior lecturer who Notre Dame professor of philosophy. Winter–Spring !"#$ !"#$"%&' 79 70-C4 Bostonia_WS16_r1.indd 79 2/1/16 5:16 PM.

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