Professor of Philosophy Ingrid Stadler died on March 18 in Cambridge, Mass. She was 85.

A summary statement of Ingrid’s career at Wellesley College would surely mention that she arrived at the College in 1958 and taught for 41 years before retiring. But that would be a mere glimpse of the story. At Wellesley, Ingrid was for many years the most senior member of the Department of Philosophy and served for several terms as department chair. She held the Kenan Professorship of the Humanities. She was a woman of restless intellect, highly educated, receiving her B.A. from Vassar College, an M.A. from Radcliffe, an M.A. from Oxford University’s Somerville College, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Her areas of specialization were the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and aesthetics. In these fields, she produced papers that were published in such highly regarded philosophical journals as the Philosophical Review, the Journal of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, the Philosophy of Science, and others. Two specific books bear mentioning, Contemporary Art and Its Philosophical Issues and A Universe in a Box: The Symbolic Composition of the Japanese Garden (co-authored with Professor Kyogo Chiku of the Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan, and published by the MIT Press).

In addition to teaching at Wellesley College, Ingrid was a visiting professor at several colleges and universities, both here and abroad, including Wheaton College, MIT, Vassar, Holy Cross, the Boston Architectural Institute, and Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand.

Ingrid served the College on many fronts. She was Wellesley’s representative to the Cambridge Humanities Seminars; was a member of the inaugural faculty of the Wellesley College Alumnae Summer Symposium held in 1972; and directed the session in 1973. In 1979, she chaired the College’s internal committee that reviewed and assembled materials for the 1979 external visiting reaccreditation committee. She also made invaluable contributions to the groundwork that helped establish the Center for Research on Women (now the Wellesley Centers for Women).

Steven Stadler, Ingrid’s husband of more than 60 years, was very much part of her Wellesley story. Whether helping Ingrid in warmly entertaining members of the philosophy department at their home in Cambridge, or attending lectures and events at the College, Steve remains a part of our memory of Ingrid. He had a hand in the establishment of the Stadler Fund for the Department of Philosophy, joining Ingrid in creating this fund for the benefit of student events and the lecture needs of the philosophy faculty.

Born in Vienna, Ingrid came to the United States at the age of 10 and, after “breezing” through high school, went on to attend Vassar College, where she majored in philosophy and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. At Vassar, one of her teachers was a certain Ria Stavrides.

Many years later, at Ingrid’s urging, Professor Stavrides came to Wellesley as a visiting professor, even though she had retired from Vassar. A vibrant woman with a mischievous sense of humor, Ria would often hold forth with Ingrid in the department lounge. The colleagues talked philosophy for hours on end as students sat mesmerized on the floor and on armchairs, watching the interaction between their teacher and her teacher. But they also joined the debate. It was a powerful, special opportunity for Wellesley students to see what this business of teaching is all about; to observe for themselves the mind’s unalloyed movement across the link of generations; to know first-hand that important ideas do not get old, but only get stronger with the passage of time.

Ingrid Stadler and Ria Stavrides, two excellent teachers holding forth in Founders Hall, inviting our own bright Wellesley students to join them—and they did so with verve—because philosophy still mattered, still had something important to say about life. Observing this was an important aspect of my own Wellesley experience.