Some London Philosophers

For the academic year 1958–59, I was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship which I decided to spend in London. After receiving notification of my award, I got cold feet and planned to ask the Guggenheim Foundation if I could change my proposal so as to allow me to spend my fellowship time in the United States. Having told my friend, Maurice Mandelbaum, a philosopher at that time serving on one of the main Guggenheim committees, of my plan, I awaited the result of his consultation with his colleagues. Briefly the response to my idea was, flatly, no. I could go to England as originally proposed and keep the fellowship, or stay in the U.S. and forfeit it. To this day I am totally grateful to Mandelbaum and his colleagues for their wisdom in rejecting my idea.