Back in Logan Hall
When we first decided to have this parade,
and after I had rashly promised to give a speech on the steps
of Logan Hall, my first thought was to entertain you with a
long and detailed history of all the buildings that had housed
Philosophy prior to our current lodgings high atop this stone house.
Such a speech would have begun with the first philosophy courses
taught in the College in 1754, in quarters at 4th and Arch Streets,
would have continued to the new building on 9th and Market, and
then on to our four West Philadelphia homes, first in College Hall,
then in Logan, then a temporary home on Market Street, and now
back to Logan. I was prepared to spend hours among dusty
books tracking down the architectural history, room numbers of previous
professors, and photographs of the old buildings, all the while
charting the role of philosophy in the curriculum
from the founding of the College in 1754 to the organization of
the faculty of philosophy, department of philosophy, and then
the graduate program in philosophy, and all the while singing our praises.
I was, I say, prepared to embark on this research, when a delegation
of somber-faced graduate students ask for a private meeting, and
strongly challenged the wisdom of standing here on the porch of
Logan Hall and telling long stories about philosophy, stories
which seemed to have as their point that there is some great symbolic
meaning to the fact that Philosophy is now back right
in the middle and on top of things. (Way up there.)
So I scrapped that plan and turned instead to the theme for our
parade, which had been suggested by my colleague Susan Meyer,
the theme of Plato's cave. As you can see from the text we've been
handing out, Plato's parable of the cave is a story about some
prisoners held fast in a deep cave, with their heads bound so that
all they can see are the shadows of things cast on the wall before
them, shadows cast by "human images and shapes of animals wrought in stone
and wood and every material" carried in front of a fire
burning some distance behind the prisoners' heads. We've brought the statues,
and would have substituted electric lights for the fire, but unfortunately
there was no place to plug them in. In any case, the parable is about
the distinction between appearance and reality. Now this is a very
practical distinction. In many situations, it is better to have
reality than appearance, although appearances are making something of
a comeback in recent times. Our department has learned a sound lesson
about appearance and reality through our move. When Dean Sonnenschein
and the central planners visited us in 1990, they told us that we
had to move from Logan to Market Street because the building was
dangerous and needed to be fixed. They also told us we would be
off campus only two years, and three in the absolute worst case.
These last statements had the appearance of plausibility, and
we wisely nodded our heads and said "yes, sophisticates that we
are, we won't expect to be back for 2 1/2 or three years. But it
could never take longer than that." Then reality set in. Once
Logan was empty, it seemed that everyone wanted a piece of it.
Rumors were rampant. We heard that the Provost's office and the
School of Fine Arts were taking over. Or that Logan would become
a dormitory. We began to think we'd better get to like the food trucks
on Market Street, because it would be a long time before we would
be in striking distance of the Mexican Connection food truck,
or Ali Baba's Magic Food.
But then, contrary to all apearances, a new reality was pronounced:
Logan was to be refilled with Academic Departments and programs.
This was music to our ears. Penn would choose to put central
departments in Humanities and the Social Sciences in the center,
in upstairs apartments over the College.
Well, to make a long story short, after
a few years of planning and a few more years of buiiding, Logan
has been renovated enough to let us back in without fear of collapse.
And what wonderful renovations they are and will be, when they're done.
We're so happy to have shed our cave and emerged into the light,
like Plato's prisoners, that we decided to have a party for everyone else.
So this parade and the reception that will follow are our way of
celebrating the fact that Philosophy, Women's Studies, Benjamin
Franklin Scholars, and the College are back in Logan Hall,
and our way of welcoming Classical Studies, Ancient History, Religious Studies,
the Center for Ancient Studies, History and Sociology of Science,
and the new Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Undergraduate program
to Logan Hall.
Of course, none of this could take place if Logan Hall were not
a place you'd be happy to call home. We are here to celebrate,
and appreciate, Logan Hall itself.
So now I'll turn the microphone over to my colleague
Paul Guyer, Murray Professor of Humanities, and our professor
of aesthetics, who has some remarks in appreciation of
this nice stone building, our ancestral home.
Transcript of speech heard on the steps of Logan Hall, February 13, 1998,
delivered by Gary Hatfield, Department Chair.