Mark Lance writes in a recent comment, "Jose [Benardete at Syracuse] was one of those figures who had way more influence on the students around him than the reception of his publishing record would attest. (Like Joe Camp at Pitt, Dreben at Harvard, etc.)" In discussion, I also mentioned CB Martin in Adelaide.
I call them "shadow figures," because characters like this don't tend to be noticed outside--they are not cited much and their influence is diffuse. (When I was a student [undergraduate and PhD] the name "Dreben" was bandied around by folk-in-the-Harvard-know, but I had no clue who this could even be.) Moreover, due to an otherwise sensible peculiarity of the Leiter rankings -- where folk are not allowed to vote on the department from which they received their highest graduate degrees -- they also rarely impact public rankings. Anyway, the floor is open for more nominations for "Departmental Shadow Figures."
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