Michael Della Rocca (Yale) has invited me to share two items:  the e-mail he sent to "friends and admirers of Ruth Marcus," and the e-mail he and two of Ruth's former students, Don Garrett (NYU) and Diana Raffman (Toronto), sent to the New York Times.  Professor Della Rocca requests that if you e-mail the Times directly, you cc: him, so he can keep a record of supporters (michael.della-at-yale-dot-edu):

Dear Friends and admirers of Ruth Marcus,

Forgive the mass e-mailing, any duplications, or omissions.  As you 

know, Ruth Marcus died over two weeks ago and an obituary has yet to 

appear in the New York Times.  This failure to recognize one of the most 

prominent and pioneering philosophers of the last 60 years is 

appalling.  There have been multiple communications between Yale and 

also NYU (Ruth's undergraduate alma mater) with the obituary editors at 

the Times.  The Times has received a wealth of information from these 

sources and still no obituary.  I fear that they have decided or are in 

the process of deciding that Ruth is not a significant enough figure to 

warrant the recognition of an obituary in the Times.  Don't get me 

started on this -- it's simply outrageous.  Don Garrett, Diana Raffman 

and I  have sent to the Times' obituary editors a strongly worded 

message -- see below.  If you would like to endorse the sentiments in 

this message please let me know and we will pass on this information to 

the Times.  I plan to be in touch with them again soon.  Or if you would 

like to write a message of your own to the Times that would be great.  

The obituary editors are Bill McDonald <wmcdon@nytimes.com>  and Jack 

Kadden <kadden@nytimes.com>.

If there are other philosophers you know of who might be interested in 

helping out here, please feel free to forward this message and to 

encourage them to be in touch with me or Diana or Don.

Don, Diana, and I will be in touch directly with the APA leadership 

about this matter so that they may contact the Times too.

best,

Michael (and Diana and Don)

here is the message that was sent yesterday to the Obituary editors at 

the Times:

Dear Mr. McDonald and Mr. Kadden,

Because time is crucial in this matter, we will be brief, direct, and 

blunt.

Ruth Barcan Marcus -- who died, as we believe you know, on Sunday, 

February 19th -- was one of the central figures in philosophy over the 

last 65 years.   Her work advanced in multifarious ways our 

understanding of logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and moral 

philosophy.  Her results in logic in the 1940's alone -- work whose 

significance is still being plumbed -- is sufficient for her to have a 

permanent place in the pantheon of logicians.  Her discovery of the 

Barcan formula forever changed the way in which we must reason about 

necessity, possibility, and identity.  The seminal essays in which she 

introduced the formula quite simply created a new field of logic -- 

quantified modal logic -- a field which continues to thrive.    Her 

subsequent development of this work changed our understanding of the 

reference of words and proper names and made possible much of the most 

important work in the philosophy of language down to the present day.  

Her pursuits in moral philosophy -- embodied in what is perhaps her most 

widely-cited paper, "Moral Dilemmas" -- changed the way philosophers 

approach the topic of moral obligation.  (This paper was a focus of the 

recent obituary in the _Economist_.)  All of this is enough to be worthy 

of recognition in the Times.

But this brief summary of Marcus' scholarly contributions does not even 

begin to touch on her powerful role in philosophy and in academia 

general.  She was one of the few women in philosophy and especially in 

logic at a time was sexism was rampant in the field.  She persevered and 

succeeded not only in establishing herself in the field but in helping 

to bring about changes in hiring practices so that appointments in 

philosophy were no longer governed by the "old boys network".  For this 

and other roles she played, the American Philosophical Association 

recently awarded her the Quinn Prize for service to the profession.

I know that you have already received much information about Marcus' 

accomplishments and accolades.  So we will not say more about them 

here.  But we feel obliged to point out that the fact that an obituary 

has not yet appeared in the Times indicates that you have not yet 

decided whether to publish such an obituary or that -- absurdly -- you 

have already decided not to do so.  This is, in our opinion, 

outrageous.  The Times has, we are happy to note, provided timely 

recognition of many prominent philosophers in its obituary section in 

recent years.  (A list of several such obituaries was sent to you by 

Michael Della Rocca through Yale.)  None of these other philosophers has 

been more significant both to philosophy and to the profession of 

philosophy than Marcus.  And many of those who were recognized by the 

Times were, we must say, figures who were not nearly as significant in 

these respects as Marcus was.  If the Times were to fail to recognize 

Marcus, this would be not only an embarrassment for the Times, but it 

would reveal that the Times is woefully out of touch with what are the 

most significant developments within philosophy over the last 

half-century or more.  We do not expect the Times' authors and editors 

to be philosophers themselves, but we -- as well as the cultural and 

intellectual community at large -- do expect the Times to be aware of 

the most basic accomplishments in central academic fields, including 

developments in philosophy, the oldest and most fundamental field of 

intellectual inquiry.

We hope that the Times has not failed in its responsibilities.  There is 

still time to rectify this scandalous omission.  We urge you to do so.

Sincerely,

Michael Della Rocca

Andrew Downey Orrick Professor

Yale University

Don Garrett

Professor and Chair

Department of Philosophy

NYU

Diana Raffman

Professor

Department of Philosophy

University of Toronto

UPDATE: Kieran Healy has compiled a list of all obituaries for "philosophers" in the New York Times since 2000.  Perhaps there are a half-dozen philosophers on this 

list who contributed more to the field than Marcus. Her career so clearly dominates most of the list as to make the absence of an obituary a bit suspicious.  Could it be that her campaign

against charlatans like Derrida has offended some former English major at the Times? One begins to wonder.