Rogers Albritton facts for kids
Rogers Garland Albritton (born August 15, 1923 – died May 21, 2002) was an American philosopher. He was a very respected thinker who led the philosophy departments at Harvard University and UCLA. Even though he didn't publish many books or papers, his ideas had a big impact on other philosophers.
One famous philosopher, P. F. Strawson, even called Rogers "one of the 10 best philosophers in the world." Another important philosopher, Hilary Putnam, agreed, saying Rogers was "quite unique." Putnam also said that Albritton reminded him of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, who also didn't write much but influenced many people through his teaching and discussions.
About Rogers Albritton
Rogers Albritton was born in Columbus, Ohio. His father, Errett Cyril Albritton, was a scientist who studied how the body works. His mother, Rietta Garland Albritton, was a chemist.
He started college at Swarthmore College when he was only 15 years old. But he left school to serve in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. After the war, he earned his first degree from St. John's College, Annapolis in 1948.
He taught at St. John's for a year. Then he went to Princeton University for three years to study more. He earned his Ph.D. (a high-level degree) from Princeton in 1955.
After that, he taught at Cornell University before moving to Harvard University in 1956. At Harvard, he became a tenured professor in 1960. This means he had a permanent teaching position. He was also the head of the philosophy department at Harvard from 1963 to 1970.
In 1968, he was chosen as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This is a special honor for important thinkers. In 1972, he moved to UCLA. There, he led the philosophy department from 1972 to 1981. He also served as president of a major philosophy group, the American Philosophical Association, in 1984.
Rogers Albritton retired in 1991. But he kept teaching classes at UCLA until the mid-1990s. He passed away in 2002 after dealing with a long-term lung condition.
Albritton's Philosophical Ideas
Rogers Albritton was very interested in how we know things and how we think. He didn't focus much on topics like politics or social issues. Instead, he wanted to understand knowledge itself. He explored if what we know is true and how we get that knowledge.
He was especially interested in big ideas like what it means to exist, what time is, and what space is. This led him to study metaphysics and epistemology.
- Metaphysics is a part of philosophy that explores the basic nature of reality. It asks questions like "What is real?" or "What is the meaning of life?"
- Epistemology is the study of knowledge. It asks questions like "How do we know what we know?" or "What is truth?"
Freedom and free will were also very important topics in his philosophy. These ideas shaped his studies throughout his life.
Understanding Free Will
In 1985, Rogers Albritton gave a special speech called "Freedom of Will and Freedom of Action." In this speech, he talked about two different kinds of freedom.
- Freedom of action: This is the freedom to do what we want to do. For example, if you want to eat an apple, and there's an apple, you are free to eat it.
- Freedom of the will: This is about whether we truly choose what we want in the first place. Are our desires and choices truly our own, or are they decided by other things?
This idea was quite new because many philosophers before him thought that free will was the same as freedom of action. Albritton pointed out that just because you can do something if you want to, doesn't mean you freely chose to want it. As he famously said, "Where there's a will, there just isn't always a way." This means that even if you have the will (the desire) to do something, you might not always have the way (the ability or opportunity) to do it.
