Arthur Szathmary

https://philosophy.princeton.edu/node/1332

Arthur Szathmary

Arthur Szathmary (1916-2013) was a member of the Philosophy Department at Princeton University 1947-1986.

Born in 1916, Szathmary was one of six children born to a Hungarian father and an American mother from Rhode Island. After growing up in Quincy, Massachussetts, he attended Harvard University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree (1937), a Master of Arts degree (1939), and a PhD (1942). He joined the Philosophy Department at Princeton as Assistant Professor in 1947, became Associate Professor in 1953, and Full Professor in 1970, a position he held until his retirement in 1986.

Szathmary's family included some notable personalities from the world of entertainment. One of his brothers, Al, played a taxi driver in Rosemary's Baby. His oldest brother Irving, a composer and arranger, wrote the original theme music to Get Smart. Another, Bill Dana, a comedian, actor, and screenwriter, is best known for his characters José Jiménez, as whom he appeared on the Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, and Smothers Brothers shows, and Papa Angelo, as whom he had a recurring role in The Golden Girls. Also a scriptwriter on Get Smart, Dana is credited with having invented that show's series of running jokes: "Would you believe...?"

Immediately after completing the PhD, and with the Second World War in full flight, Szathmary began service with the United States Navy, rising to the rank of Lieutenant. Fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese, he served as an interpreter and interrogator. At the end of the war in the Pacific, he was shipped to the Marianas Islands to help with the repatriation of the many Japanese, Okinawan, and Korean civilians who remained there, interned by US forces.

In 1944, after his discharge from the Navy, Szathmary returned to philosophy, gaining a position as Instructor at Columbia University. He had already attracted considerable attention as a promising philosopher of art, as Harvard University Press had published his Phi Beta Kappa prize-winning essay, The Aesthetic Theory of Bergson, in 1937. He only stayed at Columbia for three years, as after bettering an offer from Swarthmore, Princeton convinced him to move in 1947. The Philosophy Department needed someone to be the backbone of its offerings in aesthetics, and Szathmary was the clear choice.

Szathmary's classes attracted a large and diverse group of students. He taught them about a variety of philosophical theories of art, drawing on a remarkably varied and well-selected array of illustrative material from the visual arts, music, and literature. He published another booklet, Scholar, Critic, and Layman in 1955, and began work on a more substantial book on the theory of artistic expression. He was given a Fulbright Fellowship in 1957-8 to spend a sabbatical year in Italy working on the book project, and, while there, lectured in Italian at the University of Rome and elsewhere to great acclaim.

When he returned to Princeton, Szathmary was appointed chair of the Creative Arts Committee, a position he held until 1967. Together with the program director, R. P. Blackmur, he brought an exceptionally large, diversified, and exciting group of creative artists to Princeton. His contributions were, however, punctuated when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1962. Against all odds, the surgery to remove the tumor was successful and Szathmary traveled to the tiny island of Bequia in the Caribbean to recuperate. The task was formidable, as both his speech and mobility had been severely affected. Despite his best efforts, he was left with permanent damage to his voice and a slight limp, and needed to use a cane.

In the years that followed, Szathmary shifted his research interests towards Chinese and Japanese calligraphy as an art, a topic in which he had first become interested when he worked as an interpreter in the navy. His idea was that such characters provide an example of physiognomic expression—that they possess emotional and, more broadly, psychological characteristics (they can be passionate or cool, elated or reserved), without implying that these are felt either by their makers or by their audience. He also relied on calligraphy as evidence for his view of the cross-cultural significance of non-representational art. With the passage of time, he dedicated himself more and more to his teaching, regularly offering many more precepts than was required. He had a reputation for being a demanding teacher, but kind and generous with his time. 

It is ultimately through his students that Szathmary has had some of his greatest influence. While earning a master's in architecture and urban planning, Jeffrey Ng *76, who remained friends with Szathmary right up until the time of his death, took two of his courses on the philosophy of art. Ng, an architect based in Fairfield, Connecticut, credits Szathmary with having instilled in him an all-important and necessary skepticism of conventional ways of thinking about art and aesthetics. Ints Silins '65 says that it was Szathmary who persuaded him to make his own life in international affairs. After leaving Princeton, Silins became a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, and Ambassador to Latvia under George H. W. Bush. And Gregory Callimanopulos '57, a noted art collector, donated the first Picasso painting to enter the University Art Museum's collection, "Tête d'homme et nu assis ("Man's Head and Seated Nude"), in Szathmary's honor in 2008.

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2013/07/11/arthur-szathmary-philosop...

Arthur Szathmary, philosopher and ‘profoundly generous’ teacher, dies at 97

by Jamie Saxon, Office of Communications July 11, 2013 11:20 a.m.

Arthur Szathmary, a Princeton University professor emeritus of philosophy, died of natural causes July 1 at his home in Princeton, N.J. He was 97.

Over the course of his nearly 40 years at the University, Szathmary’s work probed the philosophical significance of art and the relations between art and philosophy as modes of understanding human experience. He also concentrated on the principle of aesthetic criticism of art and was intrigued by how art enables people from different cultures to understand each other. He retired from Princeton in 1986.

Paul Benacerraf, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, who earned his bachelor’s degree and doctorate from Princeton in 1952 and 1960, respectively, and served twice as department chair, says he felt Szathmary’s influence both as a student and a colleague.

“Arthur was an important member of the Princeton faculty,” Benacerraf said, “partly because he was one of very few with his particular sensibilities and interests — a broad and deep interest and competence in the arts and how to think about them — but especially because of his personal kindness and openness.”

Benacerraf said Szathmary helped him find a place for himself at Princeton in the early 1950s. “As an undergraduate, I wandered around pretty lost for a couple of years, until I found Arthur, and although my philosophical interests eventually diverged from his, he had been the link that enabled me to think that I could make it at Princeton — that there was a place for me here after all.”

Szathmary joined the Princeton faculty in 1947. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard University, the last in 1942. Working with Japanese prisoners as a Navy intelligence officer during World War II sparked his interest in Japanese culture.

His commitment to the arts led to his appointment as chair of the Creative Arts Committee from 1958 to 1967, which oversaw the Creative Arts Program. Under Szathmary’s leadership, along with program director R.P. Blackmur, a succession of poets, writers and critics taught in the program. Szathmary also served as a senior fellow in the humanities.

“His great contribution was in his teaching and his close personal relations with his students,” said Alexander Nehamas, the Edmund N. Carpenter II Class of 1943 Professor in the Humanities and professor of philosophy and comparative literature. Nehamas met Szathmary as a graduate student in the late 1960s, when he led the precept for Szathmary’s undergraduate course on the philosophy of art.

“His courses, especially the undergraduate courses he taught, attracted large groups of students, including, among others, the painter Frank Stella,” Nehamas said. “He was an infectiously enthusiastic teacher, with high standards, but always profoundly generous, encouraging and full of good will.”

Szathmary’s impact on his students often lasted long after they left Princeton. In 2008, Gregory Callimanopulos, a member of the Class of 1957 and a noted art collector, donated the first Picasso painting to enter the Princeton University Art Museum’s collection, “Tête d’homme et nu assis (“Man’s Head and Seated Nude”), in honor of Szathmary.

While earning a master’s in architecture and urban planning at Princeton in the mid-1970s, Jeffrey Ng, now an architect based in Fairfield, Conn., took two courses on the philosophy of art taught by Szathmary. Remaining friends over the years, their last visit took place just before Szathmary’s 97th birthday in April.

“As an architectural graduate student, I found his courses particularly relevant by offering a philosophical context for my studies,” Ng said. “Like a modern day Socrates, he taught us to be skeptical of conventional thinking of art and aesthetics and even of accepted theories and modes of analysis. The world has suffered a great loss of a wise, gentle and inspiring teacher.”

Szathmary is survived by his wife, Lily Hayeem; his brother, Bill Dana; and his children, Robert and Helen.

Both the family and the Department of Philosophy are planning memorial services.

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