University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Albert Borgmann Papers Manuscript Collections 1-2020 Problems in Philosophy: Henry Bugbee's Inward Morning, edited student notes, 2020 Albert Borgmann University of Montana-Missoula Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/borgmann Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Borgmann, Albert, "Problems in Philosophy: Henry Bugbee's Inward Morning, edited student notes, 2020" (2020). Albert Borgmann Papers. 1. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/borgmann/1 This Documents is brought to you for free and open access by the Manuscript Collections at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Albert Borgmann Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 Notes on Henry Bugbee’s The Inward Morning These notes are from a course on Bugbee’s book: Philosophy 390, Problems in Philosophy: Henry Bugbee’s The Inward Morning, Winter Quarter 1979. I am grateful to the students who took the notes: Greg Barringer Pat Burke John Crist Rae Horan Jim Maher Dave Strong John Wagner I am equally grateful to the Staff of the Philosophy Department and to Rachel Smith in particular who in 2019 transcribed the notes, preserved in a mimeographed copy, to a PDF. The mimeographed version is now in the Albert Borgmann Archive of the Mansfield Library of the University of Montana. A copy is also available at ScholarWorks at the University of Montana. I have checked the PDF against the mimeographed version and corrected obvious errors in either version. I have occasionally checked the PDF against The Inward Morning. I have replaced the gendered language of 1979 with gender-inclusive language, and I have made the format consistent. Underlined dates are those of The Inward Morning. Albert Borgmann John Wagner: January 9, 1979 The theme of the book: Reality (focus and things in their own right) comes to us and graces us in its own right. Reality “does not arrive as a plane does;” sometimes it finds expression in the mode of recollection. Sometimes we are inadequately prepared for its arrival. Reality cannot be secured a priori, its appearance is spontaneous, it may withhold itself, it may be unrecognized, it may be recollected from memory. Reality can be earned but not steered. 2 Comments on Journal Form: Positive Aspects: Journal Form allows the convergence of life and thought; this convergence is liberating. The language is telling, forceful, vivid. Language as the expression of this convergence. Negative aspects: Frailty revealed, no place left to hide. Three modes of discourse: testimony: reality has come to pass (“good days”) struggle: one’s being unequal to reality makes itself felt (“bad days”) reflection: making room for reality Bugbee’s Preface p. 9 – the periodicity of life’s work. Perihodos, a coming around, a crux; one will either fulfill or default wherein one is held accountable for that which transpired, transpires, will transpire. Cf. Heidegger’s Kehre, the turn. Note the emphasis on rhythm: A flowing freely, flow of both the work and the years. p. 10 – the insight of meditations cannot be restrained. One must be open to them and allow them to depart, one doesn’t possess them. The most experiential are meditative; recollection is the presence of reality. “The present day – that is the dwelling of meditative thought.” (Par. 2, p. 10) Here lies the explanation of the Journal Form. Par. 3 suggests the ties between wonder and decision, liberty and liberality, ambiguity and finality. January 11, 1979 p. 10 – “. finality proves to be the unifying theme of the work.” In dealing with the abstractness of “finality,” we can speak of the “abstract mode” of discourse. This mode allows us to connect up the concrete presence of reality with abstract philosophy. Relative to reality, the abstract mode is recollective and anticipatory; it allows one to philosophize without forcing meditation. Reality is realized in “true decision,” the appropriate response to reality. Finality is exposed in the response, response occurs “in the vein of wonder,” forming the will. True decision is a resolution, a decision not made but already decided. In this response to the decided, there arises freedom. A freedom of decisiveness, a calm. Henry’s example was the crisis that arises when a small ship must refuel in heavy seas. The apprehension moves into a commitment to “true decision” wherein the course necessary for success requires a closeness with finality. This may bespeak a certain kind of certainty. The resolution is a calm of true decision, final but not terminal. Henry referred to pp. 118-119 with regard to “true decision.” The spontaneousness of liberality in “true decision” negates the idea of indulgence, trying to make someone feel good. P. 11: “Final word,” the embodiment of the universal spoken in a unique way. The universal: uni- vertere, a turning into one; opposed to the use of universal as applying to all possible worlds and non- particular world. In this latter respect universal has come to be homeless, without referent. H. Bugbee echoes the etymological roots “turning back into one.” 3 Noted was the prominence of the wilderness theme in the articulation of experience. Tuesday, August 26, 1952 p. 33 – Philosophy and poetry must be built, standing on one’s own ground. (Heidegger’s “Building Dwelling Thinking.” “The local is the only universal, upon that all art builds.” The universal comes to be focused in the particular; the universal is grounded, similar to the connection Heidegger makes between the world and thing, cf. “Building Dwelling Thinking,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, p. 154: A bridge as a locus gives rise to space and to localities within space. John Crist: January 16, 1979 The session opened with a question regarding the previous lecture. Greg noted a correlation between Henry’s statement that “a final word . is never said once for all,” (p. 11) and Augustine’s point that God does not speak the world into existence once and for all. A discussion of freedom and true decision ensued. Ambiguity is tied to finality. Finality is a response to a decision (previously made). Who makes the decision? Decision is the moment of the focus of finality. A decision is a response, not arbitrary in nature, rather a person responds to the advent of some force. Decision, however, is bound to freedom and there must be an element of freedom in all decision. The freedom is not exercised arbitrarily, but it is freedom as a result of a force that passes through humans – freedom is the capacity for the advent of reality. Humans are the privileged place for this reality. True decision: “By finality I intend the meaning of reality as realized in true decision” (p. 10). Henry later says that in the case of the convict (p. 119) “To speak here of decision as ‘true’ would be redundant.” What is meant by true? In analytic philosophy only a proposition is true. To speak of a true decision would be regarded as absurd and confusing. The inquiry of analytic philosophy into truth looks, e.g., at the conditions for truth to arise form the combination of elementary propositions (Symbolic Logic). If the question of the truth of the components is raise, truth is defined as the agreement of a proposition with a state of affairs. This way of looking at truth seems restricted in that it only looks at the conditions for truth. We speak of philosophy as the ‘search for truth.’ We cannot mean truth merely in the sense of propositions that meet the truth conditions, rather we are searching for significant truth, truth that 4 matters. This is the notion of truth Henry means when he says, “By finality, I intend the meaning of reality as realized in true decision.” Some philosophers treat reality in the same way they treat truth. In the attempt to get hold of the conditions of reality, reality itself escapes us. In attempting to get hold on the conditions of truth we get only indeterminate truth. We must wrest truth from its indifference, and make it meaningful. We should find truth that is decisive, centers our lives. We must ask true questions – those that reveal decisive truth. True decision and freedom: Decision that is authentic has a consonance with a person’s situation as the person participates in the world. We have the power to respond inasmuch as we realize our destiny. All the efforts of Faulkner’s old man were to acquit himself of his responsibility. If there is a flow to our destiny, we come to junctures of decisive resolution. In difficult matters we find ourselves becoming decided. The decisions come to fruition and we acknowledge them. Libertarian reply: The libertarians are at pains to extoll human eminence. Only if they stress freedom as uncausedness (not subject to any constraint) can they show human eminence. We need not wail over lack of freedom in the sense of arbitrary decision making. Humans can take pride and joy in experiencing themselves as the locus for true decision. We are in the world, and things work on us in a provocative mode. We don’t work against experiences, but we are called upon by them to respond with what is called for. The things we respond to, because of a deep searching, lead to true decision. This is our decisive work. We are free indifferently in small things – matters of little consequence. As things become more important, we are less free (in the arbitrary mode) in our decisions. There is a gradation from indifference to eminence.