16. Autobiographical Note

16

BROOKS COLBURN

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

MY BACKGROUND IS IN formal philosophy. My Ph.D. is from UCLA which, in those days—1960s–1970s—was the top logic department in the world. In fact, I was Rudolf Carnap’s assistant during the last years of his life (the logical positivist of all time).

I’ve been a libertarian since I was a kid, having picked up the old Freeman magazine (now Ideas on Liberty) when I was 14, and having as one of my parents’ best friends R.C. Hoiles, who created the Freedom Newspapers and bankrolled various libertarian efforts.

I met Murray Rothbard years ago at an Institute of Humane Studies conference at Pomona College, then later saw him at an American Philosophical Association meeting. It was in the 1970s, lots of pro-Marxist sentiment among philosophers, and I was worried about the reaction he was going to get at an APA meeting.

He spoke on an area of ethics and economics, and nobody laid a hand on him, although they tried. He was funny, charming, not at all caustic, and completely in command of all the areas he referred to. He may be the brightest man I ever met—and funny too! I was Hayek’s assistant when he taught a semester at UCLA, and while he was brilliant, and definitely had a sense of humor, he lacked Murray’s warm personality.

Brooks Colburn is a past president of the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York.