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In Memoriam: Alvin I. Goldman (1938-2024)

Brian Leiter

MOVING TO FRONT FROM AUGUST 9–UPDATED

For a long time the most important and influential epistemologist in the Anglophone world, Professor Goldman was emeritus at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, but during his long career also taught at the Universities of Arizona, Illinois/Chicago, and Michigan/Ann Arbor.  He died on August 4.  He also made important contributions to the philosophy of mind and action.  Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Goldman, or for those who wish to comment on the significance of his work.

UPDATE:  The Rutgers memorial notice.

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21 responses to “In Memoriam: Alvin I. Goldman (1938-2024)”

  1. Hilary Kornblith

    This is such a great loss to philosophy. I first met Alvin in December 1978. He and a few others interviewed me at the APA for a job at Michigan. My thesis explored some of the implications of Alvin's causal theory of knowledge, and in discussing it, we hit it off immediately, both intellectually and personally. Afterwards, he sent me a copy of a paper of his in progress: What is Justified Belief? It completely reoriented how I thought about a very large set of issues, and, of course, I was not unique in this. Alvin's work on reliabilism opened up possibilities that completely changed the field. He dragged other epistemologists, in some cases kicking and screaming, to take psychology as relevant to epistemological issues. And he brought about dramatic changes in epistemology again when he turned his attention to social epistemology. His work on simulation theory was extraordinarily important. And his first book, on action theory, was unique in bringing psychological work to bear on issues that had previously been approached in splendid isolation from empirical work.

    Alvin could be fierce in defense of his views, but he was also very generous with his time and a constructive critic. That interview in 1978 was the beginning of a long friendship. I have no idea what my work would have looked like without Alvin's influence, but, more than that, I have no idea what the field of epistemology would have looked like without his work.

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  2. Stephen Darwall

    This is very sad news. Alvin and I overlapped one summer in the 1970s when we were both teaching in the summer school (trimester really) at Pitt. He was working on power, important work that never really got its due. But his other work did of course. Really a giant and a mensch. Condolences to Holly.

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  3. Ernest Sosa

    For many decades, Alvin and I were close collaborators. That's how I always thought of him anyhow: as a good friend and *fellow laborer* in the field of main interest to us both. His contributions were very many and very consequential. It is so sad to see the end of such a wonderfully accomplished life!

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  4. Joel Pust

    I wrote my dissertation under Alvin at Arizona. His clarity of expression, broad interests, and rigor were an inspiring model for a young philosopher. He was, as well, unfailingly kind and encouraging to me, especially during some difficult times, when I was struggling personally and intellectually. I will always be grateful to him. Deepest condolences to Holly, Raphe, and Sidra.

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  5. Thomas Kelly

    Very sad to hear this. As I suspect is true of many epistemologists of my generation, I encountered Alvin’s work very early on in my philosophical education. Indeed, for years papers like “A Causal Theory of Knowing” and “What Is Justified Belief?” were absolute staples of standard epistemology survey courses, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. In that sense, Alvin really was part of the canon, almost like Hume or Kant. In any case, the papers made a big impression on me. Years later, I had the pleasure of getting to know Alvin; first professionally, through conferences and the like, and later more personally—when he and Holly were teaching at Rutgers, they lived in Princeton, and together with my wife Sarah the four of us would occasionally have dinner parties together. These were always very enjoyable and much missed when Alvin and Holly retired and moved to the West Coast. (Afterwards I would occasionally have the thought: from the perspective of my undergraduate self, it’s almost as though I grew up to be couple friends with Hume…)
    Anything that I might say here in terms of speaking to the significance of Alvin’s contributions to philosophy would be woefully inadequate, so in lieu of that let me just offer the following. Some years back I contributed a paper to the volume that Hilary Kornblith and Brian McLaughlin edited in Alvin’s honor, Goldman and His Critics (2016). The opening two sentences of my contribution read as follows: “Alvin Goldman’s ‘What is Justified Belief?’ (1979) is one of the great papers of twentieth-century epistemology. In my view, one mark of its richness is the fact that, although it has proven extremely influential and has generated an enormous literature, some of its central themes remain relatively underexplored to this day.”
    I stand by those assessments. Here is an example of the kind of thing that I had in mind. “What is Justified Belief?” is Alvin’s most famous paper, in which he introduces his particular version of reliablism about epistemic justification to the philosophical world. Almost immediately after that paper was published, Alvin’s view came to be called “process reliabilism.” (I always assumed that this was to distinguish it from David Armstrong’s version of reliabilism, which was already on the scene.) Given the emphasis that Alvin placed on cognitive processes, that label is natural enough; but it isn’t the name that he gave to his view in the original paper. There, Alvin calls his view “Historical Reliabilism.” That name reflects his convictions that (i) the really important distinction is between what he calls “historical theories of epistemic justification” (of which “historical reliablism” is a species) and “current time slice” theories of epistemic justification, *and* that (ii) no current time slice theory of justification could possibly be right. (As Alvin notes, the terminology of “current time slice” and “historical” theories is imported from political philosophy, where Nozick had argued that no current time slice theory of distributive justice could possibly be correct.)
    By my lights, the distinction between current time slice and historical theories of epistemic justification is at least as deep and important as the distinction between “internalism” and “externalism” about justification, even though the former distinction has received only a tiny fraction of the attention from analytic epistemologists that the latter has. (In recent years, this has perhaps begun to shift a bit, thanks to the work of philosophers like Sarah Moss and Brian Hedden [and my contribution to the Goldman volume is also concerned with the distinction], but it remains true, I think…

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  6. Frédérique de Vignemont

    Alvin always had strong links with the Jean Nicod Institute in France, whether with us visiting Tucson or him spending his sabbatical in Paris. I was lucky enough to be his research assistant while doing my PhD there. Best job ever. Part of it was to play the devil’s advocate to Simulating minds that he was writing at this time, trying to find objections to everything he claimed… no surprise if years later when we wrote a paper together we could almost yell at each other while being so happy doing it! The other part was to teach him French while going to good restaurant in Paris! He was an amazing mentor, and a role model for all of us.

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  7. Dennis Whitcomb

    This is a huge loss. I wrote a dissertation under Alvin at Rutgers. He was unfailingly kind and supportive, throughout that process and long after. At one point when I was… well… not writing enough, he took me aside and explained very directly that I needed to produce more. It worked, getting me back on track where I have stayed for many years now. I admire him for supporting me through that difficult time. Here is something I admire him for. When I started writing with him, my idea was that his program in *Knowledge In a Social World* was really the way to go. I wanted to fix what I thought were a few problems of detail in the foundations, and then press forward with the paradigm. As time went on, those problems of detail came to seem bigger and bigger. Eventually I decided the way to solve them involved going knowledge-first with the same kinds of issues; and that’s what my dissertation eventually did. So, I started working with him on a project that expanded his own work, but I ended up with something diametrically opposed. Throughout my shift away from his approach, he never wavered in supporting me and helping me push forward. If anything, he preferred it as I struck out further and further on my own. He will be greatly missed.

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  8. V. Alan White

    I did not know Goldman, but I must put in my vote for his "Actions, Predictions, and Books of Life" article (1968) which in grad school had a tremendous influence on my developing interest in free will and action theory. I only remember a few articles I read in the 70s, but this is chief among them, not only for its philosophical impact, but its gripping style and power as writing.

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  9. Steve Pink

    I learned a lot from Al Goldman when I was a colleague of his at the University of Arizona, where I was in the Computer Science department. I remember having a "heated" argument with him on the steps of the Social Science obuilding on campus. I don't remember exactly what the argument was but I think it was about the ascription of beliefs to third parties. Al had a theory that when we ascribed a belief to a third person, we actually simulated their belief in our own minds. Seemed implausible to me on the face of it, but Al got the better of me in that exchange. Al could be pretty cantankerous but he was a wonderful philosopher!

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  10. Christi Favor

    What a colossal loss to the philosophical community — a great philosopher, and a great person. I knew him as a graduate student at the University of Arizona, and my thoughts are with all his colleagues, students, friends, family, and especially Holly, Sidra and Raphe. I know he will be greatly missed.

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  11. Mohan Matthen

    What a huge loss. Aside from his immense positive contributions, Alvin was always a constructive critic in conversations He picked up on ideas very fast and made a point of commending you for work you presented, while also offering gentle criticism that was almost always enormously helpful. You didn't have to have a big ego to chat with Alvin; you weren't constantly buffeted by harsh criticism that made you want to quit philosophy. Instead, he made you feel good about your work and made you want to develop it. Thank you, Alvin.

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  12. Marshall Swain

    I am deeply saddened by the news that Al Goldman has died. Al has been a leader, a giant, in epistemology over the past 40 years or more. He had a unique and very fertile imagination which combined beautifully with his understanding of philosophy, psychology and cognitive science to produce cutting edge work. His causal theory of knowledge, for example, was simply revolutionary and was a powerful influence on our generation of epistemologists. He was able to express his ideas in crystal clear language. He was also just a fine fellow, a delight to correspond with and to discuss things with at conferences and meetings. I know this from the many years that I was active in the field. We all owe Al a sincere thanks for his contributions and for a philosophical life well lived. My condolences to Holly and the family.

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  13. David Zimmerman

    Ditto…. This article still stands up.

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  14. David Zimmerman

    In my brief reply to V. Alan White I was referring to Alvin Goldman's fine article "Actions, Predictions, and Books of Life" article (1968), which has never received as much acclaim as his other important contributions.

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  15. Iris Oved

    I’m very sad to hear this. Alvin was one of my first Philosophy teachers as an undergrad at AZ, and then continued mentoring me as a graduate student at Rutgers. He introduced me to some of my favorite puzzles about belief and knowledge and showed me how to explore philosophical questions with scientific methods. A very kind and generous human as well. He will be so terribly missed.

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  16. J Christopher Maloney

    Alvin Goldman was University of Arizona Regents Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science in the middle of his remarkable career. This beyond brilliant and internationally influential philosopher was my friend. A dear friend. It is that amicable description under which I think of him first when I remember – and miss – him. Alvin loved his family. He was married – and devoted – to Holly M. Smith, herself Dean and a distinguished Professor of Philosophy once also here at the University of Arizona. My friend was a good and loving father to Raphael and Sidra. That alone is more than enough to put him high on my list of champions.
    I was awed by Alvin when he and Holly generously welcomed me into Arizona’ s Philosophy Department and warmly folded my family into the Department’s gregarious clan. But the awe matured into admiration suffused with affection when he knocked on my office door early in my first tenured semester on campus, invited me to lunch at the crowded Student Union, and treated me to the longest, loudest and hottest philosophical discussion of my career then to date. It was also one of the most enriching and finally friendly conversations of my now long life spent wandering philosophy’s corridors. We walked into the Student Union as colleagues but walked out as friends. Honestly, I don’t recall the topic of our vociferous debate. But I cannot forget the man and I cannot help but soulfully mourn his passing. How gut grippingly sad must Holly, Rafe, and Sidra be now that this husband and father is a shadow.
    I was Head of Philosophy for 18 years during a period when Alvin’s never to be diminished preeminence in the intersection of epistemology and cognitive science was even then unsurpassed in this planet’s light cone. One of my departed friend’s finest features was his unrelenting determination to recognize philosophical talent and genuine achievement in those with whom he deeply disagreed. I witnessed that all too rare professional virtue repeatedly when we voted on senior faculty appointments. ‘Truth first!’ would have been on his pennant had this jousting but not errant knight been summoned to contest before the regal court when Ockham sharpened his razor.
    Among the things Alvin patiently taught me was that the philosophy and sciences of the mind share the same genetic code. His always flowing pen filled the best journals and enriched the leading university presses with the same convincing message. And if you were obstinately to deny that, well, Alvin was ready to brawl – no hard feelings – after school in the alley behind the principal’s office. Years ago, Jerry Fodor spoke in our colloquium series. Afterwards, Jerry, Alvin and I had dinner at Tucson’s best Italian restaurant. Before the cork was out of the bottle, Alvin and Jerry were at fire alarm decibels and the din did not desist until the Head signed the check and we dropped Jerry at his hotel. Who won? Truth, as far as I could tell. That, anyway, was always Alvin’s unwavering goal.
    Alvin’s seminars were blue ribbon. Better get to the room early if you were to compete with the graduate students and the faculty for a seat. Philosophers do not need me to say it to know that Alvin not only reinvented epistemology during its dreary post-Gettier doldrums but also created ex nihilo the social side of the theory of knowledge. This extraordinarily original thinker thereby minted and bequeathed to us a conceptual treasure we ought to invest as we now worry our way through the misinformation age while wondering how to get objective traction in the relativist blizzard of public lies. If you like truth, real truth, and nothing but the truth, then recall my friend, gone but not to be forgotten.

    J. Christopher Maloney
    Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Cognitive Science
    University of Arizona
    August 11, 2024

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  17. Pasha

    I never pursued a career in academic philosophy, but I took several seminars with Alvin very early on in my undergraduate career, and they left a tremendous mark. One of them, a very dense seminar on philosophical methodology, was taken perhaps too early–long before I was really familiar with the practice of philosophy (if it can be said that I really ever was)–but it nevertheless was one of the most intellectually enriching experiences I've had.

    Looking back now over my correspondence with Prof. Goldman, I am struck by his enormous generosity, kindness, and encouragement. As an undergraduate, I was perennially suffering from mental health problems, and would often show up for the first few classes and not reappear until the last few. Many professors (perhaps rightly) simply gave up on me, but Alvin always followed up with a certain doggedness (as I look now over our correspondence, multiple times per paper, to my embarrassment) which, combined with my deep admiration for and desire for affirmation from him, meant that in his classes I always made up the coursework and turned in the final paper.

    His laconic (and gently backhanded) comments on my papers are some of my most cherished memories from college; I cannot resist sharing a few:

    Commenting on a paper that made up for lack of genuine insight with rather dense deductive reasoning: "Although I don't follow every step of your argument(s) (they arrive pretty quickly)…"

    Commenting on a paper that, I claimed at the time, had "gotten stuck in my outbox" (and was therefore several days late): "I was beginning to worry that you didn't have a copy of it. (Gasp)"

    Emailing me after my repeated promises to get him a final paper "by that afternoon": "Whatever you do, don't let the "perfect" be the enemy of the "very good". If you run into a snag that you can't solve (on some point), don't throw the whole paper away by not submitting it. Do the best you can given the deadline."

    Thank you Alvin for looking out for me. It meant a lot, and still does.

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  18. Rodrigo Borges

    I had the privilege of taking three (or four?) of his courses at Rutgers, and I learned immensely from each one of them. I cherish every conversation we had, both in and out of the seminar room. Many of those conversations ended up in a similar place: he would say that something was an epistemological problem; I would try to convince him that, from a reliabilist perspective, he had already solved that problem in his book "Epistemology and Cognition"; he would then proceed to explain why that view couldn’t possibly work. Those conversations were always intellectually stimulating—and often funny. Alvin was both.

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  19. Jason Stanley

    Alvin was my colleague for almost a decade. He was kind, generous, and thoughtful. He would mull over talks and we would speak sometimes days later about them, showing the deep reflection that was characteristic of his philosophical bent. I came to him many times with questions about his work, and its connection to other streams in epistemology. He was always deeply engaged in thinking through these connections himself. He was also, uncharacteristically for his generation of philosophers, and even more for mine, remarkably broad.

    Alvin was one of a very small handful of the greatest American philosophers of the last half century. Despite this, he gave no airs about thinking he was always right. He knew his own importance to the field, of course, but he was also the most outwardly humble of all of the great philosophers I have been privileged to know personally. He was devoted to figuring things out, and not to throwing his weight around in the department.

    Steve Darwall is right about Alvin's work on power. I wish it was more widely known in political theory.

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  20. Bernard Molyneux

    I was once assaulted by three youths on the streets of New Brunswick, NJ, who attempted to take my bag. Though I was quickly thrown to the ground, I fought tooth and nail to defend it and, eventually, when a truck pulled up and the driver looked set to intervene, the three delinquents fled empty handed, and I stood up and brushed myself off. Had they succeeded in tearing my bag from me, they would have discovered it contained but two items. A grading roster and a copy of Goldman's "Knowledge in a Social World". "Why would he fight so hard for this?" the young hoodlums would have asked. "It must be really good."

    It was, and so was "A Theory of Action", one of the first philosophy books I ever read. I discovered it at a book sale at some university library. I was 17 years old, anticipating university, and still trying to decide my major. To cut a long story short, it changed the way I thought about human behavior and how to study it, and helped steer me away from psychology towards philosophy. Thus it had a hand in one of the most pivotal (and good) decisions I ever made.

    I felt incredibly lucky, years later, when the author of that book agreed to be my dissertation supervisor. It's thrilling to work with one of your heroes, and especially with an adviser as kind as Alvin. I was not always the perfect student. I sent work to him on a wildly unpredictable schedule and, despite his increasingly desperate pleas, never with numbered pages. But he was there with guidance for my first submission to a journal, my first rejection and, eventually, my first publication. He guided me through some difficult personal times to a successful PhD defense and a TT job. He was there, some time later, to advise one of my own grad students who was specializing in opinion dynamics. He has had as profound and beneficial effect upon my life as anyone outside of family.

    He will be missed.

    That old copy of "Knowledge in a Social World" remains with me, by the way. I still defend it from all comers.

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  21. Bob Beddor

    Alvin was my one of my dissertation advisors. He was unfailingly kind and supportive as I found my philosophical footing and worked my way towards a dissertation project. I first got to know Alvin in his course on philosophical naturalism during my first semester of grad school. He went out of his way to provide extremely generous feedback on my term paper and encouraged me to pursue the project further. This encouragement meant a great deal to me, and it was very much in character for him (he provided similar encouragement to many others). Later, as my research interests developed, he was consistently helpful and enthusiastic about my projects, even when they fell well outside his usual ambit.

    As befitting a veritist, Alvin cared deeply about getting things right. One anecdote that comes to mind: I emailed him when I saw the poll on this blog listing him as the second most important Anglophone epistemologist since 1945 (coming in right after Quine). I made an offhand comment of the form, “I think Quine is a bit overrated here.” He thanked me for sending him the poll results, and then went on to say, “While I understand your puzzlement about Quine, on the other hand, Quine did make major contributions to epistemology…” (and then proceeded to enumerate these contributions). This reply was, I thought, representative of both his humility and his concern for accuracy in all matters.

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