Thomas (Tom) Leddy was born in 1949 in Oakland, California. His
father was an electronics sales representative, and his mother was
an artist. After a few years in Clovis, California, he ended up in
San Mateo where he graduated from Aragon High School in 1967.
Around 1965 he started to think of himself as a philosopher, being
attracted to such figures as Thoreau, Krishnamurti, Russell, Plato,
and Nietzsche. He went to College of San Mateo, and then to UC
Santa Cruz, where he received a BA in Philosophy in 1971. His
favorite philosophers then were Wittgenstein, Marcuse and Kant.
Professor Leddy was strongly influenced by the anti-war movement
and the cultural revolution of that time. After he received his BA,
Professor Leddy went on to gain an MA in Humanities at San
Francisco State, and then taught part-time for Napa College and
Chabot College in Humanities, while taking courses for a second MA
in Philosophy, also at SFSU. Professor Leddy's teachers at SFSU
included Anita Silvers, Eleanor Morrissey, Anatole Anton, Matthew
Evans, and Jacob Needleman. His favorite philosophers at that time
were Plato and Marx.
Professor Leddy went to Boston University to work on his PhD in
Philosophy. There, in 1981, he met and courted his future wife,
Karen Haas. Professor Leddy graduated from BU in 1982 with a
dissertation on the theory of metaphor, and specializing in
aesthetics/philosophy of art. His teachers at BU included Marx
Wartofsky, Erazim Kohak, John Findlay, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Tom
McCarthy. His favorite philosophers were Goodman, Ricoeur, and
Lakoff and Johnson.
After teaching for one year at Alfred University, Professor Leddy
came to San Jose State University in 1983 to fill a temporary
full-time position. He and Karen were married in 1985. Since then,
Professor Leddy has been happily teaching at SJSU, eventually
gaining a tenure-track position, then tenure and finally becoming a
full professor. He continues to be deeply interested in aesthetics
and philosophy of art, attending meetings of the American Society
for Aesthetics about twice a year, and publishing articles, mainly
in this field. Professor Leddy also enjoys teaching the great
philosophers: Plato, Nietzsche, and currently, Aristotle. For the
last few years his favorite living philosophers have been Rorty and
Margolis.
Professor Leddy attended an
intense NEH summer seminar two years ago on pragmatism and culture (with an
emphasis on Dewey), and is still digesting that. He has come recently, and
somewhat to his surprise, to like teaching professional and business ethics.
Professor Leddy is currently Associate Chair of the department, having been
chairperson from 1999-2001. Professor Leddy and his wife Karen (who teaches
watercolor and acrylic classes and is an artist) share a love of the arts and
attend galleries, shows, theater, and dance as often as they can. They regularly
read the New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and the New York Times (they
call them the New Yorks.)
