Alan Donagan: Some Reminiscences

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A considerable number of people knew Alan Donagan in one capacity or another, and there are certainly many who knew him much better than I did. Nonetheless, since I was invited to provide some reminiscences of him and I agreed to do so, my rather bittersweet duty is clear. What I shall do in fulfilling this duty is give an account of some interactions I had with Alan. I suppose if I knew him better or more closely I would have to be more selective; as it is I don't have to be so very selective, because the occasions of our interaction were, to my regret, so few and far between. I first met Alan Donagan in December 1959, in Minneapolis at the time of the Christmas break. My wife's sister and family lived in Minneapolis, and we had gone there with our children for the holidays. While there I phoned May Brodbeck, the member of the University of Minnesota Department of Philosophy I then knew best, to say hello. She enthusiastically invited me to come over to the department offices to join their Christmas party. I think it was their Christmas party; if it wasn't, there is some evidence that the Minnesota Department of Philosophy in those days, when Alan Donagan was its chairman, partied all the time. I got a ride over there from someone and had no sooner arrived when May put a drink in my hand, introduced me to Fred Dretske, one of her graduate students, and put us in her office for me to interview him for thejob we then had open at the University of Wisconsin. Fred Dretske was only the second person I had ever interviewed, and the first I interviewed as a member of my department's executive committee, and that is the explanation of how Dretske came to Wisconsin in fall of 1960. However, this roundtable is not about Fred Dretske but about Alan Donagan, so I will take Dretske and myself out of May Brodbeck's office, where we had a lively discussion of some unsound idea that one of us had, and back to the party, if only to replenish our drinks. It was there that I met Alan-for a second time. I had been introduced to him upon arrival but was then rushed into the interview situation so quickly that I had forgotten whom I had met earlier. At this point, no doubt owing to my advancing age, I can remember little about the rest of the party, though I do