UCLA philosophy professor dies at 78
By Daily Bruin Staff
June 2, 2002 9:00 p.m.
UCLA News
Rogers Albritton
By Rachel Makabi
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
[email protected]
UCLA philosophy professor Rogers Albritton died Tuesday at age
78 after years of battling emphysema.
“Rogers was an influential and internationally renowned
figure,” said John Carriero, chair of the philosophy
department. “He was widely admired by philosophers who
didn’t agree on much else.”
After earning his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1955,
Albritton taught philosophy at Cornell and Harvard Universities,
serving as chair of Harvard’s philosophy department from
1963-70.
He came to UCLA in 1973, in what philosophy professor Joseph
Almog calls “a total fluke.” Albritton came on a
one-year experimental basis and ended up staying until his death,
serving as chair of the department from 1979-81.
His love of philosophy often left him discussing it into early
morning hours, colleagues say.
“Albritton’s way of doing it ““ sessions that
lasted six, seven and eight hours, starting in the early afternoon
and running into midnight, have become legendary,” Almog said
via e-mail.
Albritton continued discussing philosophy until his final
days.
“In the hospital, he was puzzled by a passage in Isaiah on
the problem of evil,” Carriero said. “I went home and
read what (13th-century philosopher) Thomas Aquinas had to say
about the passage so that I could report back to him.”
Though Albritton retired in 1991, he continued teaching
undergraduate and graduate courses, including the history of Greek
philosophy, philosophy of the mind, metaphysics, Wittgenstein and
Descartes until the mid-90s.
Albritton is survived by his sister, Heloise Frame, and her
children.
In lieu of flowers, contributions should be made to the UCLA
Foundation/Rogers Albritton Memorial Fund to benefit the philosophy
department’s reading room. For more information, contact UCLA
College of Letters & Science Development, 1332 Murphy Hall, Los
Angeles, 90095-1413.
