The Making of a Philosopher by Colin McGinn

Author:Colin McGinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

Chapter Five

Belief, Desire, and Wittgenstein

UNTIL 1979 MY PROFESSIONAL LIFE REVOLVED AROUND OXFORD and London, two places not far apart (you go to either of them to escape the other). But my mind was constantly on America; the philosophers I found the most interesting were American, and I preferred to publish my work in American journals, if I could. At this time Britain was becoming decidedly subsidiary to the USA in philosophical heft and influence, despite a British preeminence for most of the twentieth century. America was where the action was, philosophically. American philosophy was so much bigger, for one thing, and much better funded. But it was also the center of philosophical innovation, with Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, UCLA, and elsewhere producing the most influential work. I therefore acquiesced with enthusiasm to Richard Wollheim’s suggestion that I take time off from UCL to visit an American university. He had a contact at UCLA and made inquiries. After looking at my vitae and published work they invited me to visit for two semesters (six months), beginning January 1980, as a visiting assistant professor. This seemed like quite a coup to me, a mark of arrival: I was exportable.

There was a snag, however—I couldn’t drive. There had been no point in learning, since I would hardly have been able to afford a car in London on my meager starting salary anyway. But driving, I was assured, is a sine qua non in Los Angeles, so I set about learning to drive in short order. I passed my driving test only a few days before leaving for L.A. and I really don’t know how I would have managed if I had failed. Still, I was a novice driver, accustomed to small stick-shift cars, and imbued with the stubborn conviction that cars naturally travel on the left-hand side of the road. My road prejudices would have to change, as would my philosophical prejudices.

The English winter was exceptionally cold and wet that year, when I boarded the fourteen-hour nonstop flight for L.A. I had paid a visit to America once before—to New York—in the winter, staying mainly in Brooklyn. But California was quite new to me. I knew it mainly from the movies. I was blearily picked up at the airport by Tyler Burge, a young philosopher from UCLA whom I had met a year or so earlier in London. He drove me to a room on campus in which I was to stay for the weekend before I found an apartment to rent, and I went straight to sleep, exhausted from the trip. The next morning, waking early, I was astonished by what greeted me: palm trees (I had never seen one before), hummingbirds (I thought they existed only in zoos and jungles), and warmth, warmth (in January!). It really was like that scene from the Wizard of Oz—always one of my favorite movies—when Dorothy wakes up in Technicolor Munchkin Land, far from her black-and-white childhood. After the drab, gray, cold English winter it amazed me to find L.

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