I learned earlier this week that Danny Frederick, my good friend and co-author, passed away after a long struggle with cancer. Although I feel we were close, this was a long-distance, internet friendship, as I never spoke to him in person. We met online about a decade ago when we found ourselves arguing a few times on the same side at the now-defunct, “Bleeding Heart Libertarian” site. One thing I noticed early on was how polite and gracious he was even to the less than stellar intellects you inevitably encounter on such blogs. I subsequently learned this was his critical rationalism at work, seizing every opportunity to deepen one’s knowledge by engaging with a variety of different perspectives, including ones that seem clearly false.
My curiosity regarding his views led to more extended off-line discussions regarding various theoretical issues and personal experiences. I learned that we had certain important things in common, in that we had both studied philosophy as undergraduates (he went on to receive a Masters), and then suspended this pursuit while we pursued our professional careers. On the other hand, I had grown up in comfortably middle-class circumstances, while his early years were much more hardscrabble. After college he struggled with alcohol dependency, depression, and frequent bar-room brawls. Through his own self-analysis he was able to identify the root of these pathologies and overcome them. He recounts his early (mis)adventures and ultimate recovery in a series of short, often amusing sketches, collected in his short book, Dancedotes.
Since we were both scholarly “outsiders” without many friends in academia, we gravitated towards a sort of mutual aid arrangement, pursuant to which we would comment on each other’s work. He was a brilliant philosopher with a remarkably wide range of interests and competencies. His paper on free will, published in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy, is the best one I recall reading on this subject. I must admit that some of his more technical work in propositional logic (if that’s even the right term) was too far over my head for me to be of any assistance. I’m sure I got by far the better of our tacit agreement.
I am privileged to have had the opportunity to collaborate with him on our paper, “The Liberal Defense of Immigration Control,” which was a humbling experience. I had initiated this project on my own, starting with a few rough ideas about the duties of a liberal state, and what these might imply about immigration policy. After several drafts, it occurred to me that it would be both stimulating and intellectually profitable if I could interest Danny in a collaboration. Since he had complementary thoughts, we decided to co-author this paper.
What soon became clear to me is that I had been proceeding like a tradesperson building a large house on the basis of a quick sketch drawn on the back of an envelope. While each room might have been satisfactory in its own right, the home would have lacked any overall design or internal logic, so its value as a residence would have been severely undercut. Danny supplied the desperately needed architecture: the guiding ideal of the “open society,” the characteristic nature and duties of such a state, the insistence that our claims be subject to empirical testing, and more. He was also extremely creative in crafting language that would bridge the various theoretical differences we had regarding rights. I am sure my paper would never have been published without his intervention.
Tragically, Danny died in his mid-60s, with many great papers still unwritten. His work in epistemology is just starting to get the recognition it deserves, culminating in a presentation to the Oxford Karl Popper Society early this year, attended by David Deutsch, one of the world’s leading quantum physicists. It is small consolation, but at least he lived long enough to see his book Freedom, Indeterminism, and Fallibilism in print, which sums up much of his work in ethics, epistemology, and political philosophy. He was kind enough to do a guest post on this site (in addition to a number of others), giving a helpful overview of this study.
On a personal level, he was always extremely generous with his time, and always seemed to be in good humor and willing to answer my somewhat random inquiries about subjects where his knowledge far eclipsed mine. He had a genuinely philosophical temperament, with an unusual ability to set aside his ego in order to get closer to the truth, as demonstrated by his willingness to change his opinion when he encountered new arguments. I try to draw inspiration from his example, but I am not a model student.
He was very forthright about the ravages the cancer was inflicting on his body, which if painful to hear must have been infinitely worse to endure, yet he bore this all with great dignity and courage. He was busy writing papers up until the very end. I will sorely miss him.
