September 19, 2003

NYU Bolsters Its Philosophy Dept. With 2 Hires; Journalists Join Boston U. and UC-Irvine

By PIPER FOGG, ALICE GOMSTYN, MEGAN MELINE, and DAVID GLENN

PHILOSOPHICAL SURGE: New York University has lured two top scholars to its prominent philosophy department in an effort to round it out.

Don Garrett, an expert on early modern philosophy, became a professor there this month after leaving the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mr. Garrett, 50, said he was not looking to move, but "NYU came knocking." His work centers on both rationalists, such as Spinoza, and empiricists, such as Hume, an unusual