Krystal Geeson

Staff Writer

An old, beat up fedora has travelled many countries in the world. Its owner started out at, and returned to, Idaho State University.

William McCurdy, associate lecturer in Philosophy, was born and raised in Pocatello.

“I was tied to Idaho State since I was born,” said McCurdy.

He attended elementary school in what is now the parking lot on Fourth Avenue.

“I was already visiting ISU as a first grader. Field trips would be one block up to the campus,” McCurdy said.

His grandparents lived on Fifth Avenue. McCurdy’s father was born in the 1920s in a house in front of ISU’s Liberal Arts Building, where McCurdy’s office is now.

He graduated from Highland High School as the second graduating class and went on to spend a little over 10 years, over three different times, in Hawaii doing graduate work.

McCurdy taught for a short period at ISU in the 1980s and for one year in 1993. He returned in 2000 to help his brother with their parents and teach at Idaho State University.

McCurdy’s travels have taken him to the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.

He taught English at a women’s college in Taiwan for five years and at various private colleges in Japan for over eight years.

Accomplished in philosophy, McCurdy has taught courses in Pocatello and has also traveled to Idaho Falls two days a week since 2002.

“I like [teaching] at both campuses. There is some variation in it,” he said.

McCurdy has always found it satisfying when his students engage in the class, asking questions, or even choosing to major in the subject.

McCurdy’s passion for philosophy came from his father.

“[He] spoke of music around me all the time, and there was this love of asking questions and trying to find out the nature of reality,” McCurdy said.

Recalling a paper he wrote in junior high, he said “I remember starting to use the word philosophy then.”

McCurdy began attending conferences late in his academic career.

In 2006, after having studied Charles Sanders Peirce since 1989, McCurdy decided to start researching venues to present his papers. Until then, he did not think he had more to contribute to Peirce’s work. By the time he returned to ISU, he began finding innovative material to add and said to himself, “You get out there and do something.”

The first conference he attended was in 2007 in Helsinki, Finland, which was devoted to Peirce. McCurdy traveled to New Orleans and Brazil that same year.

He recently delivered a paper, “A Prolegomena to an Algebra for C.S. Peirce’s Topological Logic of Relations,” at the Third Columbian Conference on Logic, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Science. The first day of the conference the convener recognized McCurdy for attending previously and noticed his hat.

“I have become rather famous for my beat-up old hat. I have worn that hat everywhere for quite a few years,” said McCurdy

Since 2007, McCurdy has delivered papers in Finland, Brazil, Colombia, Japan and China.