Favorite Authors

Ruth Junkins: What initially brought you to Stony Brook?

Gary Mar: I joined the Philosophy Department in 1987 and founded the Philosophy Department's Logic Lab. UCLA had produced a logic tutorial accompany Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning (second edition), one of the four classic textbooks in symbolic logic, which I co-authored with Donald Kalish and Richard Montague. Donald Kalish, my mentor, is famous for having hired Angela Davis at UCLA, and Montague's work in intensional logic is known as "Montague Grammar" in linguistics. Last year the Kalish-Montague-Mar textbook was acquired by Oxford University Press, and I'm contemplating co-authoring a third edition with Nathan Salmon at U. C. Santa Barbara.

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RJ: I noticed that you have broad research interests--St. Anselm, the Prisoner's Dilemma in Game Theory, and Asian American Studies. Can you comment?

GM: Philosophy is the critical examination of any aspect of experience. I have published in philosophy of religion, philosophical logic, and, more recently, I'm doing interdisciplinary work in Asian American studies and critical race theory. My article on Anselm ["The Modal Unity of Anselm's Proslogion"] shows that Anselm's meditations in his famous Proslogion can be viewed a single, multi-faceted argument, a gem with a complex modal structure. The application of cellular automata to Game Theory was submitted to an International Game Theory Conference here at Stony Brook by myself, Paul St. Denis and Ali Bukhari. (The pioneering nature of this research is cited by the Los Alamos SWARM site). This research, along with other computer investigations in philosophical logic, was compiled and was published with Patrick Grim and Paul St. Denis in The Philosophical Computer (MIT, 1998). The book is distinctive because it comes with a CD of all the text. One of the fractal images we found deep within the semantics of paradox using infinite-valued logic were discussed in a Scientific American article ("A Partly Truth Story" Feb. 1993) which mentions Stony Brook University as the place where this "new dynamic logic" was discovered.

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RJ: Can you say something about your advocacy for Asian American Studies at Stony Brook?

GM: In 1993 the Asian American community and my family were deeply troubled by the tragic suicides of two Asian American high school girls, the youngest in the history of the LIRR. That, together, with sponsoring the Asian American Fellowship, headed by then student Karina Kim, and my participating in a conference in Beijing with the Society of Christian Philosophers, led me to advocate for an Asian American Center at Stony Brook. When I received an Outstanding Professor Award from the Alumni Association, I mentioned to President Kenny this idea. A catalyst for the Charles B. Wang Asian American Center, I have been involved in teaching courses in Asian American Studies through the Philosophy Department for the last seven years.

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RJ: What's the difference between Asian American Studies and Asian Studies?

GM: Think about this: "Can you understand the Civil Rights Movement or the experience of Blacks in America by studying the cultures of Africa?" Obvious not. Similarly, the experiences of Asian Americans cannot be captured by merely studying the cultures of Asia. Today Asian American studies includes Asian studies within diaspora studies since more than 50% of Asian Americans were foreign-born and that the field has been reshaped by a global as opposed to a nationalistic perspectives. If the true history of Asians in American had been regularly taught--a history going back before the founding of the United States as a republic--within the public educational system, perhaps tragedies like the ones I mentioned could have be avoided. My students and I are currently working on an anthologies and multi-media projects in Asian American studies with John Kuo Wei T'Chen, director of NYU's A/P/A Institute and Studies Center, with PBS filmmaker Loni Ding, and with the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation.

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RJ: Do you still have time to pursue work in logic?

GM: Last week I received a copy of Logic, Meaning and Computation: Essays in Honor of Alonzo Church published by Kluwer Academic Press. The book notes that "Alonzo Church was undeniably one of the intellectual giants of the Twentieth Century." I have the distinction of being the last of Professor Church's 35 dissertation students have included such "academic offspring" as famous logicians Stephen Kleene, J. Barkley Rosser, Alan Turing, Leon Henkin, John Kemeny, Martin Davis, William Boone, Hartley Rogers, Dan Scott, Simon Kochen, and Raymond Smullyan. I am very humbled to have my paper "Church's Theorem and Randomness" in such company to honor Professor Church.

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RJ: You have won numerous teaching awards. Can you say something about your philosophy of teaching?

GM: I believe that the most power possibilities for teaching occur when the students share those goals and commit themselves to the realization of those goals they understand and embrace the values those goals embody. To be a good teacher you must care deeply about what you are doing. You can't expect students to accept your perspectives until they perceive that you care. Students are attracted to teachers who care about them as persons and who are passionate about the subject they teach. I strive to organize the grading structure of the class and the class time in ways that motivate learning without resorting to oppression. There is a craft to teaching that requires learnable skills; however, in the pursuit of the perfection of pedagogy, it is easy to forget that education goes beyond the classroom. Whenever possible I structure the class to engage students in thinking and caring about their communities.

For example, Alberta Lee, Dr. Wen Ho Lee's daughter, and Eric Yamamoto will be speaking at Stony Brook on Thursday evening April 11th in the SAC at "With Liberty and Justice for All….: Truth and Reconciliation" from 6:00-9:45 p.m. in the SAC in conjunction an Asian food festival. George Lipsitz will be speaking at Stony Brook on Thursday evening May 2nd, 7-9:30 p.m. as a culminating event for diversity training throughout the campus sponsored by Dialogues Across Differences. There will be a jazz band, food, and "food for thought." Being active participants in memorable events like these are the best ways for students to remember and be impacted and to impact others with what they have learned.

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RJ: What kinds of books to you read?

GM: I read a wide range of books. I grew up reading Martin Gardner's books on Scientific American puzzles and I have enjoyed his more philosophical works such as The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivner. In philosophy of religion, I recommend popular works such as Peter Kreeft's Making Sense Out of Suffering and Thomas V. Morris' Pascal and the Meaning of Life as well more meditative writing on spirituality such as Thomas Merton's The New Seeds of Contemplation. I have read C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia numerous times as nighttime reading for both of my daughters. In the area of critical race theory, I recommend George Lipsitz's award-winning book The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, the new book by Dr. Wen Ho Lee and Helen Zia My Country Versus Me: The First-Hand Account by the Los Alamos Scientist Who was Falsely Accused, and Eric Yamamoto's Race, Rights, and Reparation: Law and the Japanese American Internment.

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RJ: Thank you, Professor Mar.

GM: Thank you, Ruth.