Ruth Barcan Marcus: Philosopher - NYTimes.com I first met the renowned Yale professor Ruth Barcan Marcus in the ladies" room at the Marlboro Music Festival during the summer of 1977. As a music major in Yale College I had taken only a few philosophy courses, and none with Marcus. But word of the arrival in 1973 of the formidable philosopher had reached even the musty practice rooms in the bowels of Harkness Hall; and I had seen her several times, from a safe distance, on campus. Perhaps because this initial encounter occurred on musical rather than philosophical terrain, I managed to ask the woman adjusting her collar in the mirror next to me whether she was Ruth Marcus, "the famous logician." She laughed and said yes, and then asked what I planned to do with my Yale degree. I told her I wanted to go to graduate school in philosophy, but feared that a major in music, rather than philosophy, would be an obstacle. She replied, "I don't see why that should stop you." Those words were to be my first lesson from Professor Marcus, who died in February at the age of 90. They were emblematic of the whole of her intellectual and professional life. Yes she was brilliant, and famous, and powerful; yes her writings changed the course of philosophical history; and yes she demolished her philosophical opponents when she thought they deserved it. But what made Marcus more than a great philosopher were her unflinching honesty, her unfailing integrity and a will of steel. I first thought to describe her as the most courageous person I've ever known; but really she wasn't courageous. Courage requires fear, and Marcus was fearless. She said what she thought and did what she thought was right, no matter the consequences. Her fight for right began early. At the tender age of 17, Marcus told her mother one afternoon that she was going out to meet friends. In fact she was headed to an anti-Nazi demonstration at Madison Square Garden. She was found out when a neighbor saw in The New York World-Telegram a photo of "Ruthie" kicking a policeman in the shins because he wouldn't let her join the protesters. In 1939, of course, many Americans were ignoring or even denying the existence of Nazi atrocities. This teenager considered the evidence for herself and determined to get involved. Later in life she received death threats after speaking publicly against the Vietnam War, and she refused to sit in her customary place onstage for the 2001 Yale commencement, at which George W. Bush received an honorary degree. Most important, though, Marcus scaled the heights of a field utterly dominated by men, at a time when sexism was rife in academia and the "old boys" network" was still in its prime. She would tell of having to fend off the unwelcome advances of a male professor (thankfully not a philosopher!) with a coat hanger, of being barred from all undergraduate classrooms at Yale while studying there for her Ph.D., and of being forced to publish her landmark papers under her married name - just a few of the indignities she would endure. In her 2010 Dewey Lecture to the American Philosophical Association, Marcus recalled, "Yale had a philosophy club open to undergraduate and graduate students. I was elected president but then received a letter from the chair of the department suggesting that I decline. The reasons given were that Yale was predominantly and historically a male institution and that my election may have been a courtesy. Also, the club's executive committee met at Mory's, which was closed to women. I did not respond to the letter and did not decline. It was, to me, obviously unreasonable. When she returned to Yale in 1973, Marcus was one of only two tenured women in the faculty of arts and sciences. In a recent correspondence, the scholar and M.I.T. professor Margery Resnick, a junior colleague at the time, described Marcus's role among the women on campus: Ruth and I were constantly asked to serve on "how to" panels for undergraduate women. "How to be a female professional," "How to have a husband and profession," "How to be a professional woman with children," etc. ... I remember one panel at which a student asked: "But how can you be assertive, direct and professional and still have the men in the department like you?" [Ruth answered:] "You can't. Whether you smile and bring them coffee, or you demand to be treated equally, they will not like you. So my only advice is to speak your mind, be yourself, and be professional..." Ruth was a constant supporter of every woman faculty member who got in trouble because of her ideas ....[She] gave us hope that things could change. Thanks in large measure to Marcus's efforts as chairwoman of the National Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association, an inequitable hiring system of unadvertised positions was replaced with a transparent, professional placement service, and candidates for faculty positions in philosophy could no longer be asked whether they were or planned to be married, or whether they had or planned to have children. Philosophers who didn't know Marcus well were often amazed to learn that she had four children, as if her intellectual and professional toughness seemed incompatible with mothering. She won her Guggenheim during a year in which the winter was devoted almost entirely to "zipping and unzipping snowsuits." On the contrary, she was one of the warmest, funniest, most supportive people I've ever known. She was a loyal mother hen to her students and junior faculty, coddling and scolding as needed; and many of them became her lifelong friends. Wonderfully down to earth and free of the posturing one sees so often in academia, she would talk philosophy with anyone, anywhere, anytime. It may come as no surprise that she was also endearingly absent-minded, as for example on one late December day when, in the midst of a frantic search, a call came from the Prime Market to say that her final exams had been found in the frozen meats. Perhaps my fondest memory of Marcus is of an evening about 20 years ago when she was my house guest during a stint as a visiting scholar. She had gone to bed and I was watching a small television in the living room. After an hour or so she reappeared. I can't sleep. What are you watching? She peered over my shoulder at the screen. At that moment, David Letterman, covered head to toe in a Velcro body suit, took a running leap and hurled himself onto a Velcro-covered wall. There he stuck, motionless, two or three feet off the ground, limbs splayed like Leonardo's Vitruvian Man. Why is he doing that? "It's ... hard to explain," I said. There came from Marcus a characteristic "harrumph" of dissatisfaction with my answer. She insisted on watching Letterman each night for the remainder of her stay. Diana Raffman is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto. She received her doctorate in philosophy at Yale University, where Ruth Barcan Marcus was her dissertation supervisor. She writes about mind and language, and has recently completed a book, "Unruly Words: A Study of Vague Language," forthcoming from Oxford University Press.