Lewis White Beck: A Brief Farewell

Abstract

I regret that I was not able to be present at the meeting of the North American Kant Society honoring the memory of Lewis White Beck. As I suspect is the case for many of Lewis’s former students, I recall him with complex emotions. Respect—for his great learning and philosophical ability—is a given. The remaining emotions, at least in my case, can perhaps best be described as “anxious affection”—“affection” because of the generous support that Lewis gave to me at every stage of my career—opening doors for me that others might have left closed; “anxious” because of my feeling that I was always being judged by him and might not be living up to the standards he had set for me.