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Home > News & Events > CLA Today Archive > Winter 2003 : A Choice Beyond Reason

A choice beyond reason

by Joel Hoekstra

“It's a huge competitive advantage to be asking the questions that are integral to philosophy. Why are things the way they are? Not many people are asking that in computer networking.”

Philosophy is a discipline that prizes logic. But sometimes reason is rightly trumped by more heartfelt arguments.

In 1979, Asher Waldfogel faced a difficult decision regarding his choice of graduate schools. He had been accepted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the U of Illinois, but only Illinois had offered financial support. Several people had counseled him to follow the money, but his mentor, philosophy professor John Dolan, prodded him to leave the Midwest.

“It's true, MIT is expensive,” Dolan said, "But when they see how smart you are, they'll give you a fellowship that second year.”

Waldfogel took Dolan's advice—and obtained a fellowship midway through his first year at MIT.

His gratitude for his teacher's counsel has long been evident, but Waldfogel recently went a step further to recognize his mentor Dolan's impact on his life and career. With a significant gift to CLA, he established the John Dolan Professor of Philosophy Fund. The fund, which is well on its way to reaching the $500,000 level necessary to create an endowed professorship, will promote teaching and research in philosophy.

Waldfogel, whose father once served as a professor of art history at the U of M, says he specifically wanted to contribute to the growth of humanities at the U. "I just felt that humanities faculty don't always get the support that they need,” he explains. "They don't get a lot of support for research—there isn't a lot of outside grant money available. I thought that this gift could make a difference.”

For a department with just 20 faculty, Waldfogel's gift is a significant windfall. "It gives us a resource that we can use to support our faculty's research and to recruit and retain high ability faculty in the department,” says chair Douglas Lewis. "It's a tool that we can use to sweeten the pot for faculty who might be inclined to go elsewhere.”

Although he obtained a master's in philosophy from MIT, Waldfogel has spent much of his career in the computer-networking industry. Once an unfashionable backwater of the field, networking has become a hot business in recent years.

Waldfogel had the good fortune to be one of the founders of Redback Networks, Inc., a California company that produces broadband networking products for Internet service providers and carriers. (Launched in 1996, it was one of the hottest stocks in the tech industry when it went public a few years later.) He also has played a part in the formation and growth of Massachusetts-based Wellfleet Communications and California-based TollBridge Technologies, Inc.

Waldfogel, who now lives in Palo Alto with his wife, Helyn, and their daughter Emma, says his familiarity with philosophy was a significant advantage as he worked his way up in the field: "One thing that I've learned is that technologies come and go. Mastery of specific technologies is only an important issue if you're the engineer of some specific project. But the ability to place technologies within the larger trends and context is just as important as mastery of specific areas.

“Over the years, I have mastered the technologies relevant to my business, but the philosophical training of trying to understand why things are the case has been very helpful. It's a huge competitive advantage to be always asking the questions that are integral to philosophy: Why are things the way they are? Not very many people are asking that question in computer networking.”

Dolan, currently on leave from the U, isn't surprised at Waldfogel's success. "If he had chosen to go ahead and build a career in philosophy, I’m sure he would be a tenured professor at a leading university,” Dolan says. That Waldfogel parlayed his understanding of philosophy into such a fortunate career makes the contribution—and recognition, Dolan says—all the sweeter.