Professor Elliott Sober has many firsts to his name – first to marry Norma Sober, first to recognize that the problem of altruism isn’t a problem if you’re selfish, first to understand the importance of hiring me. But today we are gathered to celebrate another of Elliott’s firsts: until today (or, more precisely, June 6), Elliott has never been sixty-five years old. Of course, others have turned sixty-five. Some, like Fred Dretske, many, many, many years ago. But, like lots of things, it wasn’t until Elliott discovered the sixty-fifth birthday that it became important. It’s for this reason that I was chosen to open this conference. Important occasions call for speakers like myself, who have a demonstrated capacity to insure that no one’s head gets too big, lest it outsize my own. Some fans tell me that’s impossible. To that, I say, I love you too.

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          When introducing a philosopher as notable as Elliott, it’s tempting to talk about oneself. However, because giving into temptation is always wrong, unless your spouse never finds out, I’ll try to keep my remarks focused on our birthday boy. Every great man stands on someone’s shoulders. This is why I’d rather be a woman. Be that as it may, in the few minutes allowed to me I’d like to talk about some of the shoulders on which Elliott has perched. Who were Elliott’s influences, and, looking forward, whom will Elliott’s shoulders, broad, powerful, and indisputably masculine, support?

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          Darwin, almost certainly, holds pride of place among Elliott’s influences. So besotted was Elliott with Darwin during the earlier years of his career that he used to spend hours inspecting the hulls of Hoofers sailboats for barnacles. Having become so thoroughly familiar with Darwin’s Origin of Species, Elliott grew restless, until he hit on the idea of reading the Origin backwards. It’s from this experience that Elliott produced his most recent memoire. But, of course, it was not Darwin the biologist or Darwin the philosopher who most inspired Elliott. Rather, it was Darwin the wedder of first cousins. Norma confided in me recently that Elliott still insists that she call him ‘cuz’ when he’s looking to enhance his fitness. But I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone.

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          Many of you know that Elliott has a renowned philosophical pedigree. His philosophical grandfather was Hans Reichenbach. So smart was Hans that his name was bestowed on only the cleverest of horses. But he’s known for other things as well. Of special interest to Elliott was Reichenbach’s Common Cause Principle. According to this principle, when having to choose between two causes, one common and one not, the smart money is on the common cause. This insight had a profound effect on Elliott, who quickly saw an application of this idea to the rising sea levels in Venice. Before exposure to Reichenbach’s principle, Elliott had attributed the rising sea levels to a giant ball, with roughly the volume of Rhode Island, that was being slowly immersed into the Mediterranean. He took as no strike against this explanation the uncommonness of the cause, and, indeed, saw this as a virtue. I quote: “That an immense ball, perhaps colored on its surface as a beach ball, is slowly displacing a weight of water equal to the upward force keeping it afloat, to the dismay of Venetians, is hardly in question. The uncommonness of this cause only makes the inference that much more irresistible.” How Reichenbach changed all that. Here’s another quote from Elliott, after he’d read Reichenbach’s The Direction of Time: “Whereas before I sought to explain rising sea levels by appeal to the immersion into the Mediterranean Sea of a large, probably brightly colored, inflatable ball, I now take the uncommonness of such a cause as a powerful reason for doubt. Better to think in terms of more common causes, like the rising price of bread.”

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          Putnam’s shoulders, a hardly promising platform, did nonetheless endure Elliott’s weight for a short time. Nowhere is Putnam’s influence more conspicuous than in Elliott’s frequent discussions of pegs and holes. Overcoming his initial disappointment on discovering that Peg was not a fetching young graduate student, Elliott quickly rallied, and found a deeper philosophical significance in Putnam’s allegory. If credit belongs to Putnam for realizing that square pegs cannot be forced into round holes, it is Elliott we must thank for drawing forth the lesson: being told to shove it is meaningless without specification of contrast class. Alternatively, a hypothesis can be tested only against another, so suck on that peg you goddamned Bayesians. It’s no wonder that in his later years Putnam retired.

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          But Elliott owes an intellectual debt not just to his ancestors. He’s also benefited from long associations with philosophers and biologists. Philosophy at Madison entered its Golden Age soon after Elliott’s arrival here. This was a period that was to last roughly until 1993, coincidentally the year I arrived. From Denny, Fred, and Berent, Elliott learned that for any X, there must be a causal theory of X. This message would remain firmly in Elliott’s mind, and served him well as he wrestled with Reichenbach’s principle and Putnam’s pegs. Elliott was d’Artagnan to Denny’s Athos, Fred’s Aramis, and Berent’s Porthos. The four of them would often charge through the halls of HC White, engaging in swordplay, having donned broad feathered caps and soft leather boots, except for Berent, who more typically bobby-pinned a fez to his thinning hair and insisted on purple silk sandals curved up at the toe. How I wish I could have seen these great philosophical minds hard at work, parrying and thrusting until, spent from their exertions, they’d retire to one or the others’ homes, slaking their thirst with great flagons of gin.

 

          From the biologists, especially Richard Lewontin and David “please use my middle name too” Sloan Wilson, Elliott learned all he could about “sciencey” stuff. Until taking a sabbatical in Lewontin’s lab, Elliott had thought that the unit of selection problem concerned portion size at his local Arby’s restaurant. Norma had been insisting for years that men as smart at Lewontin would never dine at Arby’s, and it was in large part in an effort to prove her wrong that Elliott packed his bags and headed back to Cambridge. Norma was right. Lewontin had never eaten at an Arby’s. The units of selection problem had almost nothing to do with roast beef sandwiches. Frustrated, Elliott persevered. He even experimented with vegetarianism in these years. Quite naturally, thinking about units of selection spurred an interest in altruism, which Elliott pursued with a single-mindedness quite unbefitting the subject. So popular did Elliott’s co-authored book Unto Others become that I began to wish that someone would kick me in the balls, just so that I could do unto all those others who kept talking about it.

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          But enough on Elliott’s influences. Time to pay mention to those whose lives Elliott has touched. I’d like to start with me, on the principle that I should always come first. My relationship with Elliott is tangled owing to the fact that my advisor, Gary Hatfield, was a graduate student in the department here. This makes Elliott a kind of family relation, which is why I’m especially careful not to sleep with his students. Yes – Elliott has been a great friend and teacher to me. Without Elliott, I don’t think I’d have made it out of that coffee shop he insisted we visit in Amsterdam. The Dutch have strange ideas about coffee.

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          Most in this audience know Elliott foremost as a philosopher of biology. But Elliott practices what he preaches. He has successfully reproduced at least once. The jury’s still out on Aaron. Of course, Elliott could not have done this alone, try as he might. By his side since his undergraduate days at the University of Pennsylvania, holed up with him while he was on the lam as a draft dodger, and during those times of unpleasantness otherwise known as Harvard University, Norma has been a fiercely loyal spouse, resisting propositions from philosophers of biology around the world, but especially Florida. Norma begat Sam and Aaron, and, as happens when children reach a certain age, they start having kids of their own. To date, Elliott has two grandchildren. A delightful, precocious, little girl named Lila, and a cuddly tiger named Beagle, in honor of Elliott’s favorite Peanuts character.

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          Last and, let’s be honest, least, are Elliott’s students. There’s a long list of these. Too long by far. Here’s a promise: when the time comes to honor me, my list will be much shorter. The first thing you learn growing up in the depression is how to do more with less. The second thing is that baked beans more than four times a week cause completely foreseeable consequences. But it’s the third thing you learn that’s relevant in the present context: after four or five, the marginal utility of the next graduate student is next to nothing. I guess this is where all of Elliott’s thinking about altruism, and common causes, and square pegs makes a difference. Why? How the hell should I know. If I did, it wouldn’t be a guess.

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          In closing, let me be serious for just a moment. Ok – that went by more quickly than I could have hoped. Elliott is an extraordinary person. Trust me – it takes one to know one. He’s completely deserving of the adoration that brought all of us together this weekend. Like that big elephant that by now must be sore from all those probing hands, we all know Elliott in our different ways. But in each way – advisor, colleague, father, husband, grandfather – there’s still a single Elliott who shines through. It’s the humble, thoughtful, astoundingly generous, occasionally witty, eminently companionable man we’ll be celebrating today and tomorrow. Let’s get things going with a round of applause for Elliott Sober.