From Everett Shorey, Yale College, Class of 1973

I too stumbled on your website for JN Findlay. I was a Yale undergraduate in the early 1970's and took his seminar on Plotinus and then his course on Hegel's Logic. I was (and am) an atrociously dim student of philosophy so I probably absorbed less of the nuance of Findlay's thinking than most.

Findlay, for he always spoke of himself in the third person, was for me an inspirational teacher. He was not chummy with students. Rather, he conveyed a true love of his subject and a desire for all of us to share that enthusiasm. He took out of fashion philosophy seriously. He expected us, his students, to do so too.

My memories of Findlay come from those classes. In the Plotinus course there were about eight of us: several classicists who intended to read the text in the original, some graduate students and at least one clueless undergraduate. On the first day, Findlay came in wearing his characteristic suit, took of his glasses, held them behind his back and paced around lecturing. He lectured to the blackboard. He lectured out the window. He lectured everywhere except facing us. He talked about German philosophers, he talked about English ones. He talked about Findlay. I was fascinated. At the distance of 40 years, I have not the slightest idea about neon-Platonic philosophy, but at the time I was entranced.

As I remember, his last class at Yale was on Hegel's Logic. He could have been reading the phone book and I would have taken it. Daniel Breazeale seems to have been in the same class as a graduate student. I have no memory of the other students, except there were probably thirty or so. Findlay wrote his lectures on the board and we all copied madly. I suppose I had some vague vision of The Blue and Brown books. I am sure that the concept of dialectic influenced my later thinking, otherwise Hegel is rather a blur. I seem to remember my paper was on ratio. Mostly I remember a charismatic man and his obvious enthusiasm for his subject.

I also remember being invited to his home for dinner, curried eggs I think. This was the one of the very few times such a thing happened. Again, the warmth from this gesture has helped me reach out to others throughout my career.

On leaving Yale, I quickly abandoned the study of Philosophy but retained a sense of the importance of ideas. I also cherish the joy and excitement of pursuing knowledge and understanding as worthy goals just on their own. Findlay was a major exemplar of that.

Everett Shorey
Yale College, Class of 1973