The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Department of Philosophy recently lost one of its longtime faculty members when Dr. Marjorie Price passed away on May 30, 2024. Her final resting place is Temple Sholom Cemetery in Bridgewater, New Jersey.
Dr. Price joined the UAB Department of Philosophy in 1977 after finishing her Ph.D. at New York University with a dissertation titled "Essentialism and the Doctrine of Natural Kinds." Prior to that she received her B.A. from Barnard College in Philosophy. Her first publication was in the Journal of Philosophy, which was and remains one of the best philosophy journals in the world. Dr. Greg Pence recalls seeing her speak at a meeting of the American Philosophical Association around 1979-1980, where the audience was so large that it had to be held in the ballroom at maximum capacity.
Dr. Price's philosophical research was primarily in metaphysics and philosophy of language. Among Dr. Price's publications were articles on the nature of events, what it is for one thing to cause another, how to understand something as the same even though it changes over time, and the ethical use of personal data on the internet.
Having grown up in a small town in New Jersey, Dr. Price once wrote that she thought of herself as an "ordinary person" and never dreamed that she would end up teaching in a university or specializing in philosophy. As a college student, she was attracted to philosophy because it "emphasizes thinking over memorizing a lot of facts," and it was liberating because it "allows for originality of thought."
After 40 years of service to the university, Dr. Price retired from UAB in 2018. In the years leading up to her retirement, she regularly taught Metaphysics, Introduction to Symbolic Logic, and Contemporary Moral Issues as well as other courses. She appreciated Socrates’ idea of philosophy as a cooperative search for the truth, and put this idea into effect in the classroom by encouraging students to express their ideas and examine them together with the other students in the class.
The Department of Philosophy remembers her as a lively colleague and will miss her authenticity, tenacity, and humor.
In memory of Marjorie Price, donations may be made to the Department of Philosophy, care of the Marjorie Price Scholarship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Gifts can be mailed to UAB Gift Records, AB 1230, 1720 2nd Avenue South Birmingham, AL 35294-0112 or given online at https://go.uab.edu/majorieprice.
