A Tribute to Terry Brown

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A Tribute to Terry Brown

• 1939-2005

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A Preview

• Michael Chandler

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• As all of you know, Terry Brown, a remarkable
  Piagetian scholar, a former JPS President, and a
  good friend of many Society members, was
  tragically killed in an auto accident in July of
  2005. Not withstanding other subsequent losses
  from within its ranks, the intervening months
  have given the Society sufficient time to mount
  this brief tribute to Terry. Our aim has been to
  avoid, as much as possible, sentimentalities and
  fond anecdotes. Nor do we intend to especially
  eulogise Terrys life, to line out his many
  accomplishments, or to dwell on why he will be
  sorely missed. Instead, and because he ordinarily
  said just about everything better than the rest
  of us, we have chosen to let him speak for
  himself. We mean to do this by showcasing a few
  brief out-takes from his varied written and other
  public works. Following an opening remark by our
  President, Nancy Budwig, a half a dozen of us
  will simply read out to you something of
  Terryssomething that we hope provides a brief
  glimpse into one or another of the many facets of
  his complex character. While doing this we will,
  as Terry would have insisted, serve some wine.
  So, please start drinking, and in the tradition
  of a good Irish wake, a good fist-fight or two
  would be especially welcome. Here is a short
  preview of the agenda we mean to follow

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Agenda

• 1.) First, Nancy Budwig has agreed to say a few
  introductory words intended to set the tone of
  the next 30 or 40 minutes
• 2.) Second, I will let you in on the fact that,
  in the months before his death, Terry was working
  on a Rhubarb Cookbook. After showing two
  recipes from this work in progress
• 3.) Eric Amsel will comment on Terry as Teacher
  and Mentor
• 4.) Chris Lalonde will share some of Terrys
  thoughts about Telenomy and Reductionism
• 5.) Mark Bickhard will read out excerpts meant to
  capture what Terry imagined he was doing in
  translating so many of Piaget and Inhelders
  writings
• 6.) Michel Ferrari will report on Terry on
  Consciousness
• 7.) Cynthia Lightfoot will report on Terry as
  Choreographer and
• 8.) I will end with some of Terrys Last Words
  Goodbye.

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Opening RemarksNancy Budwig
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Terry as COOKBOOK AUTHOR Michael Chandler
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• No one who knew Terry seriously doubted that he
  cared more about good food and wine than your
  average gourmet, or failed to appreciate that he
  always stood ready to share such things not just
  the knowledge, but the actual food and wine with
  his friends and colleagues. What most do not
  know is that, shortly before his death, Terry was
  working on a cookbook. It was, as it turns out,
  primarily a book about rhubarba plant that
  grows in such abundance that it threatens to
  squeeze-out most of the native plant species of
  western Illinois. Terrys way of fighting back
  was to lure everyone into eating as much rhubarb
  as possible. Here are some of the recipes from
  his unfinished cookbook

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Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie

• A delicious tart and sweet combi-nation. Nothing
  tastes better with vanilla ice cream. Fresh or
  frozen rhubarb may be used.
• RECIPE YIELD 1 pie
• SERVINGS 8
• INGREDIENTS
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 lb. fresh rhubarb, chopped
• 2 pints fresh strawberries
• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons white sugar

• DIRECTIONS
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
• 2. In a large bowl, mix flour and sugar. Add
  strawberries and chopped rhubarb. Toss with sugar
  and flour and let stand for 30 minutes.
• 3. Pour filling into pie crust. Dot top and
  bottom crust with water.
• 4. Apply yolk to top of pie, using a pastry
  brush. Sprinkle with sugar. Cut small holes in
  top to let steam escape.
• 5. Bake at 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) for 35
  to 40 minutes, or until bubbly and brown. Cool on
  rack.

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• Not all of the recipes that he was assembling for
  this book were necessarily about rhubarb. They
  do, however, all contain ample quantities of his
  wit and good humour. Here is one such seafood
  curry recipe

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Shrimp or Fish Curry (Jhinga Kari)

• PRELIMINARIES Take two Zantac (generic is
  acceptable).
• MARINATE SHRIMP OR FISH
• Put 1-1_ lbs seafood to marinate in 2 tsp. salt
  and 3 tsp. cider or white wine vinegar. (If it is
  fish, Indian preference would be for kingfish,
  something we dont have in Ame-rica. Halibut is a
  fine substitute. You may also use monkfish,
  tilapia, red snapper, or catfish. Goldfish have
  too many bones. Silverfish are too small and are
  not fish any-way.) Let stand with occasional
  stirring for 20 minutes. Strain off marinade and
  reserve. Dry seafood on paper towels.

• HAVE READY
• Bowl 1 1tbsp. each of fresh, finely chopped,
  ginger and garlic.
• Bowl 2 _ cup dried or 18 fresh unchopped curry
  leaves.
• BOWL 3 _cup finely chopped onion.
• BOWL 4 1 tsp. each of tumeric, ground cumin
  seed, ground fenu-greek seed _tsp each of
  ground hot red pepper, ground black pepper.
• BOWL 5 _cup finely chopped fresh coriander (aka
  cilantro, dhania, Chinese parsley).
• 1 CAN (usually 13_oz) unsweetened coconut milk.
• _CUP clam juice or fish stock (or _ of a Knorrs
  fish bouillon cube if you are desperate).

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Shrimp or Fish Curry (Jhinga Kari)

• COOKING
• Cover bottom of a large skillet with peanut oil,
  heat until a drop of water flicked into it
  sizzles. Put in seafood, spread it out evenly,
  and cook on each side for one minute.
• 2. Remove seafood to side dish and reduce heat to
  low-medium.
• 3. Put in ginger and garlic. Stir-fry for 1
  minute.
• 4. Add curry leaves. Stir-fry for 30 seconds.
• 5. Add onions and stir-fry until onions become
  translucent.
• 6. Add spices and stir-fry for another minute.
• 7. Add shrimp marinade, coconut milk, and clam
  juice.

• 8. Simmer until the desired thickness of the
  curry is achieved (it should be fairly thick).
• 9. Adjust lemon juice and seasonings.
• 10. Return seafood to pan, coat with curry
  liquids, sprinkle on chopped coriander and
  simmer, turning frequently, for 2-3 minutes
  depending on the size of the seafood pieces.
  Remove from heat.
• EATING Serve over boiled rice with various
  chutneys and Indian pickles. (To be authentically
  Indian, you must eat it with the fingers of your
  right hand. Try not to get sauce above the wrist.
  Keep your left hand in your lap.
• AFTERMATH Call Terry and assure him that you are
  still alive.

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Terry as TEACHER MENTOR Eric Amsel
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• Although seldom a classroom teacher, Terry was
  one of those rare persons from whom one regularly
  learned things. Although he did, for many years,
  serve as director of psychiatric training at the
  University of Chicago Hospital, and he helped to
  supervise the doctoral studies of a number of PhD
  candidates, it was through his conference
  presentations and various publications that his
  skill as a teacher can be most easily put on
  display. It was his special gift to hit upon
  colourful ways of making unfamiliar (and often
  impossibly dense) matters seem familiar and
  clear.
• Let me illustrate this by reading to you two
  short passages from his chapter Reductionism and
  the Circle of the Sciences, that appeared as the
  introduction to his and Les Smiths 2003 edited
  JPS volume entitled Reductionism and the
  Development of Knowledge.
• The first of these examples occurs as part of
  Terrys extended critique of P. S. Churchlands
  notion of inter-theoretic reduction, a suspect
  possibility that corresponds to what Piaget
  called inter-level or interdisciplinary
  reduction. The argument against such attempted
  interdisciplinary reduction, according to Terry
  is that

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• ...the phenomena that define the various fields
  of science are specific to them, and, although
  consistent with, are not contained within the
  laws and theories of the disciplines on either
  side. For example, suppose that Galileo had
  dropped cats or children from the leaning tower
  in his studies of gravitation. The fact that
  such objects are biological when singled out for
  study does not make Galileos experiment a
  biological experiment, nor does it reduce living
  phenomena to the law of gravitation. Only if
  Galileo had studied those properties that set
  cats and children apart from inorganic physical
  objects could one make biological claims (Brown
  Smith, 2003, p. 22).
• Here is a second example from that same chapter

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• To provide a concrete illustration of what is
  wrong with Churchlands (1986) reasoning,
  consider the story of David and Goliath (I Samuel
  1751) The cause of Goliaths untimely death may
  have been an injury to his brain, but that only
  explains how he died it says nothing about why
  he died. A forceful blow to his head caused a
  cerebral hemorrage, increased intracranial
  pressure, uncal herniation, and, following
  physical law, interrupted the function of his
  respiratory center. Again, that is Newtons how
  Goliath died it is not Keplers why he died.
  Why goliath died does not admit of causal
  explanation. Rather, it is necessary to say how
  the causal events involved were set in motion.
  Was Goliath hit on the head by a falling rock?
  Did a horse kick him? Or did David sling a rock
  with deadly force? Without the morphogenetic
  story being known, the case of the dead
  Philistine goes unsolved. It is nothing more
  than a headline or the first sentence of a
  coroners report Local giant found dead of head
  wound. Only when it is discovered that Goliath
  died as a result of Davids ethnically and
  politically motivated hatred (not to mention his
  ambition) that Goliaths death is understood.
  Repeating myself for emphasis Biological
  analysis, however detailed, of just how the rock
  from Davids slingshot fatally disrupted
  Goliaths neurons is essentially irrelevant to
  the explanation of Goliaths death as murder and,
  as I shall eventually argue despite Churchlands
  claim to the contrary, no physiological
  explanation of Davids motivation is possible in
  principle (Brown Smith, 2003, p. 12).

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Terry on TELEMONY REDUCTIONISMChris Lalonde
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• In a 1997 volume entitled La Epistemología
  Genética y la Ciencia Contemporánea (edited by
  Rolando Garcia) Terry published a paper under the
  borrowed title IS TELEONOMY A CATEGORY OF
  UNDERSTANDING? In this account he trades on
  earlier writing by Piaget and by Guy Cellérier,
  all in an effort to wrestle with issues of
  reductionism and so-called life-matter
  problemsproblems that have plagued psychology,
  if not since Plato, at least since Descartes.
  This is not, of course, the place to attempt to
  reprise or critique this densely written chapter.
  Here is Terrys own short synopsis of the paper
• The gist is that you cannot explain intentional
  conduct by attributing logicomathematical
  structure you must do so by attributing
  teleonomic structure. Is that so hard to
  understand?
• If you have not read the paper, it is actually a
  bit hard to understand, primarily because the
  term teleonomic structure is not in most
  peoples working dictionary.

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• Terry goes on to try to make all of this more
  clear by urging us to
• pay close attention to the irreducible
  disparity between the causal and the conscious.
  The kernel idea here he suggests turns on the
  distinction between what Cellérier called the
  epistemic versus the pragmatic
  transformationa distinction what works to drive
  a wedge between procedures and structures
  (Inhelder Piaget, 1979).
• The importance of the structure-procedure
  distinction he insists, is that it makes clear
  that Piagets earlier theory of structural
  attribution must be amended if it is to apply to
  teleonomically regulated objects, including
  people. This follows, according to Piaget,
  because consciousness cannot be reduced to
  cause.

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• Among the implications that flow from these
  distinctions is, according to Terry, that
• it is first of all impossible to explain the
  abstract functional design of teleonomic
  systemswhether organisms, psyches, or
  servomechanisms developed by the psychein terms
  of physics. In particular, neurophysiological
  data, however interesting in their own right,
  cannot even in principleexplain mental data
  because the relation between neurophysiological
  mechanisms and mental mechanisms is multivocal in
  both directions.
• The trouble, Terry goes on to say with many
  if not all of the disputes having to do with mind
  and brain and with reductionism and
  interactionism arise because of confusion among
  levels of organization. The key to avoiding both
  reductionistic and mentalistic explanations
  resides, therefore, in carefully observing
  phenomenal levels.

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• At the inorganic level, this claim appears
  noncontroversial. Whatever the causal effects
  involved, at that level they have come together
  by chance. Attribution of anything other than an
  ateleonomic, logico-mathematical structure would
  be inappropriate.
• For lack of space, let me, in moving to the
  psychological level, by-pass the levels of
  instinctual and habitual reactions and jump
  directly to the level of sensorimotor intention.
  ...Attribution of anything other than very
  specific principles of psychological construction
  to mental phenomena is inappropriate. .....The
  explanation of intelligent conduct proceeds,
  therefore, by establishing psychological laws,
  coordinating those laws in accordance with some
  model of intentional teleonomy, and attributing
  that model to the subject or subjects exhibiting
  such conduct. If that is not done, there is no
  understanding. If it is done but, at the same
  time, levels are confused, false explanations
  resulta problem that I illustrate with the
  following example.

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• Consider two scenarios. Both begin with a young
  woman asking her companion why he has opened
  another bottle of wine. In the first scenario,
  the companion confuses explanatory levels and
  responds Well, you see, there were electrical
  discharges occasioned by the release of dopamine,
  norepinephrine, and serotonin into the
  intersynaptic spaces of my limbic system. This
  resulted in transmission of neuroelectrical
  impusles to my thalamus and produced a cascade of
  activity in my motor cortex and down my spinal
  cord. The next thing I knew I was reaching for
  the corkscrew. In the second scenario, the
  companion does not confuse explanatory levels and
  answers simply, Because the night is young and
  you are beautiful.

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Terry as TRANSLATOR/INTERPRETERMark Bickhard
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Three books on which Terry was the lead
translator

• 1. ) His and C. Kaegis 1981 translation of
  Intelligence and Affectivity
• 2.) His and Kishore Thampys 1985 translation of
  Piagets volume Equilibration des structures
  cognitives, published as The Equilibration of
  Cognitive Structures by The University of Chicago
  Press and
• 3.) A manuscript now awaiting publication that
  translates Bärbel Inhelder and Guy Cellériers
  edited volume Le cheminement des découvertes de
  l'enfant. The English title of this volume is to
  be Pathway to Children's Discoveries.

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• For more than 25 years (working alone or in
  partnership with colleagues) Terry was involved
  in various projects that included the translation
  of some of Piaget and Inhelders most important
  writings. He and others associated with the
  Piaget Societys Translation Advisory Committee
  did much to make the always dense and sometimes
  impenetrable writing of the Genevian group more
  accessible to an English speaking audience.
• Les Smith, who worked closely with Terry on the
  Translation Advisory Committee, forwarded several
  examples of how this was done. Here is a single
  example that turns on the difference between a
  storm or orage in French and an orange, A
  1975 translation of Piagets Equilibration des
  structures cognitives renders a particular
  passage as follows

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• a child of three, for example, will ask if a
  new orange separated from a preceding one by a
  long interval, is the same orange
• Les points out that the original French text
  actually used the word orage or storm. As
  Terry and his co-translator Kishor Thampy noted,
  Piagets original intention was to raise a
  question about how children demarcate where one
  storm ends, and another begins, a real identity
  problem even for adults in Geneva. A good
  question and, as Les remarks, a good
  translation.
• Of course, the real work of translation rarely
  turns on anything a simple as getting single
  words right. This is best seen in three books on
  which Terry was the lead translator. These
  include

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• a.) His and C. Kaegis 1981 translation of
  Intelligence and Affectivityan account of
  Piaget's Sorbonne lectures (originally published
  in French in 1954), that showed new possibilities
  for understanding the interaction between
  psychological and sociological factors in human
  development
• b.) His and Kishore Thampys 1985 translation of
  Piagets dense volume The Equilibration of
  Cognitive Structures by The University of Chicago
  Press and
• c.) A manuscript now awaiting publication that
  translates Bärbel Inhelder and Guy Cellériers
  edited volume Pathway to Children's Discoveries.

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• In addition to these whole volumes Terry also
  contributed to the important 1995 volume edited
  by Les Smith entitled Jean Piaget's Sociological
  Studies by translating Problems of the Social
  Psychology of Childhood, and with M. Gribetz,
  Piagets Logical Operations and Social Life.
• In all of these efforts Terry was quick to
  understand that, not withstanding the small
  recompense usually accorded to translators, there
  was much to recommend doing what he did. Again,
  he says this best in his own words in the
  beginning pages of his and Kishore Thampys
  translation of The Equilibration of Cognitive
  Structures, where he reports
• The publisher has asked us to explain why we
  undertook a new translation. We hesitate to do
  so because we do not wish to criticize a
  colleague. What we will say is that the
  translators task is a thankless one. Four things
  may happen. The original work may be good and the
  translation also. In that case the reader

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• admires the author, and the translator is
  forgotten. The other three possibilities cannot
  be told apart. When a translated book is bad, it
  may be that the original was good and the
  translation bad or that the original was bad and
  the translation good or that both were bad. This
  makes it necessary for the reader to hedge his
  bets. Since writing books, even bad ones, is
  admired and translating them is considered a
  lower calling, he invariably blames the
  translator. There is no winning.
• The one compliment a translator does receive
  takes the following form. When his work has come
  to someones attention, and after he has made his
  apologies for not producing an original piece, it
  is observed that he must know the language from
  which he has translated very well. That is what
  most people think is essential to translation.
  Publishers also often seem to operate on that
  assumption. It is quite erroneous.
• The qualities of a good translator are three. In
  order of

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• decreasing importance, a translator must write
  well in his own language he must know the
  subject and he must know the language from which
  he translates. If the first condition is not
  met, he will produce a bad book no matter what he
  understands. Bad writing obfuscates thinking,
  good or bad.
• Piaget is a hard case. He was a great thinker
  but an inconsiderate if not downright awful
  writer. There are several explanations.
  Cellérier once told one of us that he thought
  Piagets thinking was intuitive. If that means
  incompletely conceptualized and therefore not
  totally available to consciousness, then it might
  explain his writing. Papert believes that it was
  because Piaget had a multiple scientific
  personality. We do not know the reason. We have
  only felt the pain his prose inflicts. His was a
  complex, allusive style, often leaving more
  unsaid or hinted at than fully stated. It is not
  always easy to fill the gaps. One has seldom
  read every writer he alludes to.
• In translating this work, we have tried to
  circumvent

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• Piagets style without altering his meaning. We
  have broken up his endless sentences and made the
  antecedents of his pronouns clear. We have also
  paid careful attention to his allusions and to
  technical terms. And we have tried to translate
  each sentence in the context of everything of his
  we have ever read. If our efforts have been
  successful, the reader will admire Piaget, or at
  least be able or judge him fairly.

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Terry on CONSIOUSNESS Michel Ferrari
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• Having struggled through much of his professional
  life to successfully drive a conceptual wedge
  between teleomatic accounts of brains and
  teleonomic accounts of minds, Terry, like many
  before him, was forced to grapple with the role
  of consciousness. Although he didnt believe
  that he had solved this problem, he did think
  that, in his ongoing romance with the songs of
  Edith Piaf, he had found a source model for
  eventually coming to such an understanding. Here
  is a short summary of those views
• Do we really understand the function of
  consciousness? On my view, we do not, although I
  lean toward the opinion of another great
  epistemologist of our century, Edith Piaf. A
  duet, A quoi ça sert lamour, which she recorded
  around the same time that Piaget was writing
  Psychological Thought begins with a skeptical
  young man singing

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• A quoi ça sert lamour?
• On raconte toujours
• Les histoires insensées.
• À quoi ça sert aimer?
• This may be crudely translated as What is love
  for? People are always telling silly stories.
  What good is it to love? Piaf responds with an
  epistemological theory that I consider a special
  instance of Piagets musings about the function
  of consciousness
• Lamour ne sexplique pas.
• Cest une chose comme ça
• Qui vient, on ne sait doù
• Et vous prend dun coup.

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• Love cant be explained. Thats the sort of
  thing it is. It comes from who knows where and
  suddenly grabs hold of you. The young man
  continues
• Moi, jai entendu dire
• Que lamour fait souffrir,
• Que lamour fair pleurer.
• À quoi ça sert aimer?
• Ive heard it said that loves make you suffer,
  that love makes you cry. What good is it to
  love? At each reprise, Piaf reassures her young
  friend that love does have a function and that
  that function is to lead to other states of
  consciousness, to other feelings. It is, on
  Piafs view, these feelings that give meaning to
  ones life. They are sufficient in themselves.
  At last the young man understands

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• En somme, si jai compris,
• Sans lamour dans la vie
• Sans ces joies, ces chagrins,
• On a veçu pour rien.
• In sum, if I have understood, without love in
  your life, without loves joys, its afflictions,
  youve lived for nothing. To my mind, that is,
  to date, about all we know of why consciousness
  evolved.

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Terry as CHOREOGRAPHER Cynthia Lightfoot
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• In his salad days and somehow in between working
  in the lab of a Nobel laurite in theoretically
  physics and getting a degree in psychiatry, Terry
  spent a period of time as a professional ballet
  dancer. Dancing careers are typically short, but
  love of dance is not, and Terry involved himself
  in ballet throughout his life. During his
  frequent visits to Switzerland during the 1990s
  he associated himself with Le Ballet du Grand
  Théâtre de Genève and, working collaboratively
  with its principal choreographer Giorgio Mancini,
  participated in shaping several dance pieces that
  toured internationally. A performance of one of
  these works, titled Words No Longer, was filmed
  while the company was in Japan in 2000. With
  special thanks to choreographer Giorgio Mancini,
  and to Saba Ayman-Nolley and her husband for
  technical assistance, I would like to show you
  the last 6 minutes of Words No Longer
  interpreted by dancers from Le Ballet du Grand
  Théâtre de Genève.

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Last Words GoodbyeMichael Chandler
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• When improvident death snatches away those close
  to our hearts, an important part of what is also
  lost is the chance to have said our last
  goodbyes. Ordinarily we can do little more with
  such regrets than wonder what might or should
  have been said.
• Although it was a decade ago, and in the closing
  moments of his Presidency of JPS, Terry had, what
  must now pass as an opportunity to say goodbye to
  his friends and colleagues, at least those in the
  Society. As he always did, he would have (had
  fate given him the opportunity) found a different
  and still more elegant way of saying it all
  again. Still, the tone and quality of his
  earlier remarks are both vintage-Terry, and, no
  doubt, his sentiments until the end. What
  follows, then, is a lightly edited (i.e.,
  shorter) version of his earlier goodbyescirca
  1995remarks that appeared earlier in the Genetic
  Epistemologist

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• It is difficult to know just what to say. My
  reflections about the years as president, however
  powerful for me, seem trite in our age of
  hard-sell rhetoric where anything is said and
  feeling comes cheap. It has been an honor to
  serve as president of the Society, to be
  surrounded by colleagues of such class, to be
  part of an organization where, as Katherine
  Nelson recently said to me, intellectual things
  happen.
• When I began translating Piaget in the late
  seventies, I had no idea that this office would
  come to me. I only wanted my students to read a
  few things that were unavailable in English. At
  the time, I even shied away from JPS, imagining
  that it must be some sort of cult. It was not
  until 1987 that my despair over psychiatry's
  conception of mind in terms of brain and
  thorazine drove me to my first JPS symposium. I
  was willing to try anything except
  antidepressants.

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• As president, I have presided over many changes,
  some begun before I arrived, some encouraged by
  me. Their overall thrust has been to open the
  society up to a wider audience. In no case has
  their purpose been to produce converts to Piaget.
  If there is any doctrine that the society wishes
  to promote, it is something like "We are
  interested in people who think about what
  knowledge is and where it comes from. If you have
  similar interests, come and join us." (That, of
  course, is completely Piagetian.)
• Concretely, the society has begun having meetings
  at different sites, and it has increased efforts
  to enrol both national and international members.
  The board is reorganizing in ways that will allow
  it to operate in much more wide-open fashion, and
  it is seeking ways to involve members more fully
  in the workings of the society. We have a fine
  symposium coming up, and we will be represented
  in at least three centennial celebrations of
  Piaget's birth, most notably our own, but not in
  a retrospective spirit. We want to represent the
  cambium layer of Piagetian thought, not the
  supporting wood.

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• But enough, I am no good at good-byes. No matter
  how I cut it, I end up with a list. This old
  horse is willingly put out to pasture. But he
  thanks you for the privilege of being your
  colleague and your president.
• I give this heavy weight from off my head . .
  .The pride of kingly sway from out my heart.
  Etc, etc.
• See you in ,
• Terry Brown

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