The Inward Morning by Henry Bugbee

#literature #seedling

Tuesday, August 26, 1952

Henry Bugbee says "philosophy is in the end an approximation of the poem," a statement which, of course, reminds me of "lyrical philosophy." Before he wrote these words, he mentioned that Williams Carlos Williams said that writing a poem involves moving between one perception to another instantly. This should be philosophy then, according to Bugbee.

He differentiates this from usual "research," which involves a lot of ''tilling.'' This "tilling" may actually bury that which wants to come out.[1] What wants to come out is insight and insight comes out suddenly (insight cannot be predetermined). Bugbee speaks of insight as having a life of its own. It has to be allowed to grow organically. When one moulds it into theory or makes it public, one starts to lose it.

Therefore, Bugbee's admonition is just to write everything down. When they come, write them down without thinking about how they will add up. Just flow. Like a poem, move from one perception to another. And this reminds me a lot of Henry David Thoreau. This is also how he saw insights and perhaps why he valued his journal because it is there where the first development or capture of insight comes from.

This makes me think about the 05 notes/seeds (i.e., field notes I take while walking and fleeting notes I take when reading). I need to publish and share them too, but I don't want to share my daily notes. So what I might try to do is to create separate notes for them. Connect them in the daily note but separate them. These will be the seeds collected on a specific tag.

Wednesday, August 27, 1952

Henry Bugbee reemphasizes that insight comes when we least expect it (insight cannot be predetermined). The right response to something like this is just to let it flow. If we let it flow, one after the other, they will reveal themselves. This process, however, isn't analytic philosophy. This is a release of "truth" that we have within us. Since philosophical truth comes from the depth, it is expected that it isn't clear and it doesn't know where it is going.

Therefore, certainty to truth claims shouldn't be what we must aspire to, but "certainty of action." If an action is sound, we may be certain of it. And we may not articulate the reason for an action clearly. We simply do it. Here, certainty is akin to faith and hope.

I do not know if I am ready to agree with Bugbee here, particularly with the last part. But I understand what he is saying. If certainty is tied to action, it is impossible to be totally certain about the repercussions of action. we learn to live while we are living. We learn as we go. The questions that make us "uncertain" are only answered when we take action. Here, certainty is achieving decisiveness even when one is unsure. Certainty is faith.

Thursday, August 28, 1952

henry bugbee expands his conception of "certainty." He repeats that certainty is a "basis for action." Therefore, it is the trigger to a beginning rather than a landmark for arrival. Certainty is not the closure of an endeavor. It is the beginning of action.

Every situation is absolute. This moment is itself. It will never change. According to Bugbee, when we realize this absolute nature of every moment, when we become sensitive to it, we start interpreting each moment, each action deeply—we start to live in "the depth of our experience."

Certainty is the simplicity—or the "being used to"—this state of being. You are so used to this realization that each moment is absolute that it is who you are. You don't think about it. Certainty then cannot be "attained," Bugbee says. Given this, we have to confront the question: If certainty cannot be "attained," the what use is reflection? Is reflection detrimental or supportive to certainty? Bugbee posits that meditation or reflection is harmonious with the absoluteness of our situation. If that is the case, then reflection or meditation enhances certainty.

At this point, I am reminded of his argument yesterday that "certainty is faith." The moment an individual thrown into this world realizes his throwness, he is confronted by the question of how to respond to this throwness. Should he respond with aggression? Should he kill himself? Or should he befriend this world? At this time, he doesn't know anything or almost know nothing that will help him make a decision. He is just at the beginning of his journey. But at that moment, he needs to make a decision. It is impossible to "research" the situation. The moment he doesn't kill himself, he automatically chooses to befriend his situation and the world (but is he doing this just according to instinct or to preserve himself?). If he is doing this consciously then, yes, he has "chosen" friendship. And if he did this in the depth of his experience (i.e., realizing that each moment is absolute), then he did this decision based on "faith" alone. No evidence was gathered.

This faith is faith that there is smething worthwhile to be had by attempting a friendship with the world. The only things I am bothered about Bugbee's idea about certainty is this rejection that it is something one can attain. I think if one continues to realize the absoluteness of each moment and one couples this with meditation and reflection, these are things that could enhance one's friendship with certainty. In this sense, certainty can be "achieved" and maintained through continuous practice.

Friday, August 29, 1952

I am starting to fear that the more I immerse myself into henry bugbee's philosophy, the more I need to embrace irrationality and related concepts. I hope not. It seems that this is inevitatable as I set myself to study a different brand of philosophy—one that isn't analytical but lyrical (lyrical philosophy).

In August 29, Bugbee shifts his discussion from certainty to wonder (later, he returns to certainty). He agrees with Aristotle and Plato that "wonder marks the inception of philosphy." However, he felt like Aristotle, in particular, failed to elaborate this notion in a manner it deserves. Bugbee seems to propose that wonder and curiosity are opposites, which I think makes sense. When you wonder, you may continue to question but you become contented with basking in those questions. When you are curious, you are propelled to answer the question; you believe that there is an answer and you don't stop until you get it.

Aristotle thinks differently. He sees wonder as what we experience when we feel we cannot articulate why we are moved to research something (?). He also thinks that philosophizing diminishes the initial wonder that started it in the first place. And so, once we begin to articulate the reason for our curiosity, wonder starts to fade away. Once we realize that the object of our wonder is in fact explicable, our wonder diminishes.

There are objects of wonder however that cannot be explained, and in these we experience the "ultimate occasion for incorrigible wonder" and the "irrelevance of explanation." Bugbee uses the example of Aristotle's unmoved mover.

This unmoved mover has no beginning or end. It is unchanging and immovable. This unmoved mover, which Aristotle is prepared to call God, Bugbee argues, would make reflection eventuate into endless wonder. For the unmoved mover, explanation becomes irrelevant. Bugbee also calls the unmoved mover as "self-caused."

This notion works perfectly well with a finitist view of the world (Infinity cannot exist). I get it now. We cannot explain where this unmoved mover came from. We only know that for everything to move, for logic to make sense, this unmove mover must exist.

And since it is probably platonic or in a completely different realm, we have to surrender to the truth that we cannot completely grasp it. So we can explain all we want but when we reach that point—the unmoved mover—explanation becomes irrelevant, mystery takes over, and we are just let in wonder.

Saturday, August 30, 1952

henry bugbee describes explanation as "a discursive affair, a roving of the mind even though not random" and "not aimless." An explanation starts from an object to be explained. The explainer then moves their attention from the object to one "discriminated factor" and another within a context.

Contextual factors create more contextual factors and so on. Every part of the context can be explained. Bugbee aptly concludes that "explanation is an endless business." When one is dedicated to explaining things, one is "committed to the life of a wanderer" who "is not permitted to rest."

Sunday, August 31, 1952

After expressing his thoughts about explanation (The Inward Morning Commentary 1952-08-30), henry bugbee returns to discussing wonder as he did before (The Inward Morning Commentary 1952-08-29). Wonder, he says, occurs during presence. This presence allows us to experience "an intimation of reality" that cannot be understood through explanation alone.

The presence that exudes wonder then makes us realize that our minds are naturally wanderers, dependent and inclined to thinking and explanation. Based on personal experience, Meditation makes us realize we do not control the influx of our thoughts. Our mind just walks around, jumps around from one thought to another. It is not difficult to realize this; one almost realizes it the moment meditation begins.

Bugbee calls this inclination of our minds to wander a manifestation of its homeless nature. We are exiles. We can deny this nature or we can embrace it and patiently wait for "that which can make us at home in this condition."

Is wonder that thing which makes us experience it, that which makes us at home? I believe so. As he said in The Inward Morning Commentary 1952-08-29, an "ultimate occasion for incorrigible wonder" begins when explanation becomes irrelevant, as is the case with Aristotle's unmoved mover. Therefore, wonder is what makes the mind rest. In some way, it does what meditation does but in a more natural and spontaneous manner, unlike meditation that requires discipline.

Bugbee ends his entry by connecting wonder with what he calls the "openness on the part of a person in his entirety." He says that if wonder should be treated not just a prompt for reflection but also as a source of fundamental truth, a notion he introduced in The Inward Morning Commentary 1952-08-29, it has to involve this openness.

This openness is more than openness of the mind for it occurs spontaneously. Although Bugbee is not very explicit about what this openness is, he does compares it with the words "rigidity," "contraction," and "deadness of spirit," words easily associated with analytic philosophy. This helps us understand that, perhaps, what Bugbee refers to as openness is openness to one's choice of form and disposition when philosophizing. Bugbee wants the philospher to be free, to let wonder captivate him and let it lead him to where it needs to go. He confidently suggests that if this openness is a prerequisite to philosophical truth, then failure to embody it in one's philosophizing should be considered equivalent to committing logical contradictions.

September 5, 1952

In his September 5 entry, henry bugbee demonstrates perhaps one of his cryptic writings, an illustration of why he can be difficult to read. Bugbee interestingly connects wonder[1:1] with certainty[2]. Presence, which makes wonder possible bears fruit into certainty. But then he introduces a new concept: Experience. He said that knowing that wonder leads to certainty "must be continuous with the experience in which it is confirmed." In other words, an experience leads to wonder, which leads to certainy. This thread should be established. Seen this way, experience can be used as a "proving ground of philosophic thought." How? He introduces another concept: the Day. He calls a day "the place of meeting with the lives of persons, yes, even with one's own life." Combine a series of days and you can give birth to philosophic thought. This reminds me of what I am already doing with 04 notes/uman. I write daily review reports then consolidate them at the end of the month (interestingly, that is exactly what I am about to do this morning).

Bugbee raises a new criticism to analytic philosophy, which removes intimacy of experience to theorize about them. He says that most philosophers "think of experience in the image of objects." But this is not how we should look at experience. "Experience is a tissue of meaning," Bugbee says. What most philosophers do is use past experiences to create statements about objects. In doing so, the assumption is that experience is a possession of the mind. We accumulate it and use it when needed. But experience according to Bugbee is a tissue of meaning to be understood "not from behind but before our attention." Experience is not an object that we observe objectively. "Experience is our underdoing, our involvement in the world, our lending or witholding of ourselves." Bugbee's understanding of meaning seems to go against mine. I understood fairly recently that writing about my experience is a way to create more meaning about it. Doing it this way, am I treating my experience as a possession, an object of study? Bugbee says, we do this thinking that we can be masters of our lives. Am I guilty of this? "We are not masters of the import of our deeds," Bugbee says. Meaning, Bugbee seems to suggest, must be created simultaneously with the experience. We realize or gail to realize meaning as the experience is ongoing. He says that we desire to objectify experience so we can uncover and implement empirical knowledge and techniques. We want to predict and control. If Bugbee believes in Moral realism, then this statment makes sense: the experiences themselves, not us, brings with them their meaning. I disagree with this.

I am also confused. Despite suggesting that an experience's meaning is created simultaneously with it, Bugbee also says "we understand our experience at our own time." So is meaning different from understanding? This part of Bugbee's entry isn't clear to me.

September 7–12, 1952

For six days (September 7–12), henry bugbee fleshes out one of his lengthier entries. After his discussion on experience[1:2], he introduces two new concept but simply mentions them: immersion and commitment. He then narrates three memories he had—experience—which I think he will dig for meaning in the coming entries. The narratives are entitled Swamping, Building a Dam, and Rowing. He writes them beautifully, which convinces me of the power of poetry to inform one's prose.

September 23, 1952

In his September 23 entry, henry bugbee begins his explanation of the two concepts her claimed to have illustrated in his previous entry[1:3]: immersion and commitment. Bugbee defines immersion as "living in the present with complete absorption." This absorption he says is not the "congeal attention," wich one might experience in zen meditation, where one focuses on one's breathing.

The "present" where absorption happens is not "a discrete moment in a series"; it expands "extensively into temporal and spatial distances." This is definitely not the present that I have been familiar with in zen. It is not the "here, now" if it transcends it. Does Bugbee mean that the mind is absorbed into wandering? Into mental excursions? Into walks? And that the time and space covered by such mental walks is what he refers to as "present"?

During immersion, Bugbee explains that one perceives everything "in alignment with a center." One moves from this center to greet everything. When one moves from thing to thing, they exhibit "sameness as continuing of meaning." This seems to be related to what Bugbee calls "universal meaning."

Bugbee then proceeds by dropping a quote, which I find baffling but which I cannot fully grasp for now:

Metaphysical thinking must rise with the earliest dawn, the very dawn of things themselves. And this is the dawn in which basic action, too, comes into being. It is earlier than the day of morality and immorality.

Although not fully clear to me, Bugbee seems to establish a close connection between metaphysics (thinking about things) and basic actions. Both of them, he seems to suggest, are more funndamental than ethical talk. He proceeds by talking about commitment. We are used to thinkigng that all actions have a reason behind them. However, Bugbee seems to suggest that reason is not always necessary for actions. He introduced the concept of "true affirmation." He says that we are able to commit to actions without always articulating our reasons. Sometimes, the most important action we take eludes "discursive articulation." We can manifest responsibility even "in depth," even without words.

Bugbee does not support a complete rejection of the articulation of goals and reasons for acting. He simply wants us to be cautious in using them. Commitment in depth happens when one acts "consciously with the felt universe" and when universal meaning is collapsed in actions. In such cases, the action itself does the explanation.

September 26, 1952

henry bugbee starts talking about ethics. At this time, he was teaching a course in ethics and this preoccuppied his thinking until October 18, 1952 in his journal. Bugbee claims that ethical inquiry (define) is difficult. This difficulty is due to an issue central to ethical reflection (define). The issue is how can we understand attitudes during ethical reflection or the situation that moves us to action? Usually, when faced with situations requiring action, we summon knowledge we possess to use to inform our action. Bugbee asks whether we do the same thing to the pursuit of the meaning of life. When we inquire about human well-being, can we summon the experience to help us answer our inquiry? If such experience is immediately acessible, shouldn we not use it to ensure our own well-being?

Bugbee proposes that two questions come together:

Since justified action does not occur by following correct procedures, we cannot understand it by following a proper method of inquiry. Bugbee argues that we cannot treat them like objects and think about them as such. He calls them meta-technical and meta-objective.

Here, I am exposed to the difficulties that preoccupy those who adhere to Moral realism like Bugbee. In Error theory, what Bugbee describes is a component of what makes the claimed metaphysical status of morality "weird." If they resist representation and control and they are different from what our minds typically comprehend, do we even have access to them? I am perhaps getting ahead of myself, but I have a gut feel that this is when I'll eventually end up in commenting on what Bugbee will be talking about in the upcoming days.

September 27, 1952

As I read this entry and recall my readings of edward mooney's blog and books, I notice a similarity. This lyrical philosophy is writing beautifully about things these philosophers are reading—books, ideas written by their heroes. henry david thoreau would be apalled! (See Words written outdoors vs indoors.) But why can't we do both—a philosophical life that consists of reading a lot and writing about what onne reads and writing outdoors to open oneself to direct revelation?

In this entry, henry bugbee directly responds to Gabriel Marcel. He returns to the subject of faith.[1:4] He begins by stating that faith (i.e., openness or trustingness) is as important in ethical reflection as in action. Philosophical truth, he claims, arrives to the present from the past via reflection. But this arrival requires faith on the possibility of realization because philosophical truth, the meaning of one's past experiences, comes involuntarily like insight (insight cannot be predetermined). We do not control its arrival artificially. We can only wait and trust (i.e., have faith) that it will arrive.

We become more open to its arrival if we keep ourselves in our "true mode of being," which resides in the present moment.[2:1] The more present we are, the more chance of recollection and the better our odds of capturing meaning. The arrival of such meaning—what is essential in our lives—come when we have already given up, surrendered, and have returned to our normal routines. It is in the middle of mundane life when the most essential realizations arrive, unanticipated and involuntary. Interestingly, when we recollect the meaning of past experiences, we also realize our deepest reality—that of being an existent in the present moment. In his entry, Bugbee repeatedly mentions Marcel, in conversation with him, reacting to his texts. It is the same thing I find in Mooney.

September 28, 1952

In September 28, henry bugbee writes what is probably his most difficult to comprehend entry so far. It is an entry about the possibility of using belief (or faith)[1:5] as a tool for understanding. He first acknowledges that the statement "believe in order to understand" is unclear and invites dishonesty. The statement presupposes that we can believe on something we do not understand.

Bugbee proposes that to make sense of the statement, we must let go of our preoccupation of forms of knowledge and the methods of yielding them. Instead, we must shift our attention to the "inner activity" of the person yielding the knowledge. This consideration of the thinker's inner activity is something the West is devoid of, especially in disciplines like science and mathematics where the subject-matter is not experience but those abstracted from concrete experience. However, Bugbee suggests that when analyzing the epistemological basis of scientific and mathematical knowledge, the experience of the scientist or mathematician cannot be completely removed from the equation, otherwise, they are not revealing what they presupposed, suggesting they are believing to understand.

Bugbee then turns to the question of philosophy's subject matter. Philosophy seems to be strictly devoid of one, forcing it to have a parasitical status, borrowing subject-matters from other disciplines or becoming an arbitter or systematizer of methods and results produced by other disciplines with their own subject-matters. But philosophical reflection is bound with human experience, and experience is not susceptible to objective representation or control. To make sense of the statement "believing to understand," one may need to let go of the supposition that believing is something we do to attain a result (understanding). Treating belief this way is objectionable because it seems to suggest that it has to be done for the sake of a result which is necessarily obscure. In Bugbee's words, "Believing itself must be answerable to something more authoritative than someone's say-so if it is to be a condition of understanding." Bugbee warns us that if belief is a condition for understanding, we must not treat the connection as causal. Faith is not arbitrary. For Bugbee, it is abhorrent to agree with the idea that faith is favoring a set of beliefs that can neither be established nor disapproved because we have nothing to lose and everything to gain if they are true (by belief) and if we believe them to be true even if they are not.

For faith to be a condition for understanding, it must be as authentic and non-arbitrary as the understanding it yields. "Faith cannot be recommended; it can only be called upon." In conclusion, Bugbee suggests that the nature of faith can be clarified by thinking throug the idea of responsibility.

2022-10-12 seeds: Now I get what bugbee is saying. You can't use faith for a practical purpose. You arrive into it. You cant recommend it. Its like when you arrived at the unmoving mover. Faith is the end. You can no longer use reason. But there is nothing beyond faith. There is no understanding after it. Faith is the end.

September 29, 1952

henry bugbee turns to the question of what is essential in a person's life. In his entry just two days ago,[1:6] he mentioned this in his discussion of faith. He mentioned there that the realization of what is essential to us comes unexpectedly in the middle of our normal routines.

Bugbee extends his discussion of this concept by saying that we cannot determine what its most essential to our lives without facing a few other problems. The most important of these problems is universality. Bugbee makes the case that what is essential for one human being may not be what is essential to another.

Bugbee recognizes that every individual can attain insight on what could be essential to them. This ability, however, opens up the possibility of sympathy. Since we can have access to what is essential to us, we could appreciate another person who has a similar essential.

However, Bugbee points out that we can sympathize with a person without standing by them. That said, the more that which is essential to another person is "focalized" in our experience, the more we commit to stand by them. This focalization becomes possible by concentrating on our communion with others.

All of these can only happen if we find a real reason for communing with others. Bugbee raises the issue that the basis for communing with others should be universal.

Bugbee then turns his attention to Imannuel Kant, whose ethical theory he criticizes as not grasping the connection of individuality with universality. In responding to Kant, Bugbee claims that the relevance of universality to action can only be determined through a clear understanding of individuality. For him, "we are only truly individual in so far as we are able to acknowledge and act upon a universal significance in our lives." We understand such universal significance in our individual way. This makes us irreplaceable. The universal may bind all of us, but our expression of it is what makes us unique.

This reminds me of scott barry kaufman and transcend kaufman. maslow heirarchy of needs has a claim to universality. Transcendence happens anywhere. Self-actualization happens everywhere. But each of us self-actualize and transcend in our own unique ways.

After discussing this, Bugbee returns yet again to the subject of faith.[2:2] He says, "the believing conditional to basic understanding is a matter of response to the intimations we receive of an absolute stake in life." I currently have a difficulty understanding what he means here.

October 2, 1952

On October 2, henry bugbee began an intellectual excursion on Socrates, which continued until October 10, 1952. Bugbee begins by the claim that focusing on Socrates' contributions on induction could cloud the real force of his thought. According to Bugbee, Socrates was primarily concerned with an "examined life." In this examination, man was the focus and self-knowledge was the goal. A pursuit of knowledge outside of man should serve the pursuit of understanding oneself. Socrates was never after a system of thought. Bugbee argues that Socrates' questions and themes led us back to ourselves and our capacity for reflection. His own life was the testimony to all these.

Bugbee then shifts by thinking about one of the themes that Socrates brought up: the examined life and is value. Any man, whether his vocation is intellectual or manual, should claim that a life worth living involves his vocation. A life worth living must include a vocation no matter what it is.

One's choice of vocation depends on one's view of what is essential to himself.[1:7] Is the examination of life what is essential to all? For Socrates, it is, because of two reasons. First, man needs knowledge to excel. Second, man consciously avoids the worse course.

Socrates' conception of the examined life and how much we agree with it, Bugbee claims, are great guiding issues for ethical reflection. This actually reminds me of something I wrote in the past: An unexamined life can still be a good life. We can continue living without answering the deepest questions. And even so, we can say that that life was a good life. But I also remember something rem tanauan mentioned a while back. He argued that we were created with creative abilities, therefore, we need to be capitalizing on these abilities and getting out there. The same thing can be said with our intellectual abilities. We were gifted with these. Making the most of them would mean that we are living a life as full as possible. It also means we are capable of deepening and increasing the meaning of our own lives.

References

Bugbee, H. (1999). The Inward Morning: A Philosophical Exploration in Journal Form. The University of Georgia Press.

  1. The Inward Morning Commentary 1952-09-29 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. the inward morning commentary 1952-08-27 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎