• December 11, 2013  From Technologist to Philosopher   Careers
1-7-11  Brian Taylor for The Chronicle  Enlarge Image close
Careers 1-7-11  Brian Taylor for The Chronicle  How does someone
become a technologist?  In my case, it happened in college. I
was an undergraduate at Columbia University, reading and
discussing what were once unrepentantly called "the classics." I
really wanted to understand what the great thinkers thought
about the great questions of life, the human condition, the
whole metaphysical stew. And the problem was: We didn't seem to
be making much progress.  The great questions of philosophy have
a way of defying easy resolution. Confronting them, we all
seemed like such feeble thinkers—students and teachers and dead
white males alike. We make mistakes, we are prone to
inconsistencies, we equivocate. This was very frustrating to an
impatient undergraduate.  Happily, in my case, fate
intervened—in the form of my mother telling me, in no uncertain
terms, that I should take a computer-science c