The Inward Morning: A Philosophical Exploration in Journal Form

by Henry Greenwood Bugbee

Book Overview

When first published in 1958, The Inward Morning was ahead of its time. Boldly original, it blended East and West, nature and culture, the personal and the universal. The critical establishment,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0007DE49I
• Release Date: January 1961
• Publisher: Collier
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Pathways through the existential wilderness - remarkable reflections on living, in the tradition of

To read "The Inward Morning" is to witness the emergence of thought. Bugbee explores interwoven themes of an experiential philosophy, that finds its grounding in the concretization of thoughts that emerge from a reflective life. There is a kind of lived certainty, that doesn't acquire its certitude from without, either in logical truths or empirical deliverances, but from an internal deepening. Bugbee considers life, existence, reality as such to be best understood along the lines of wilderness, but not, as it once appeared in the context of American life, as what lies beyond the frontier and invites our exploration and subjugation. In the end we must acknowledge we are adrift in a cosmos for which no final map or plan is apparent or forthcoming; and, yet, we do start somewhere and can find our way about from there, and as we explore we can form bonds with others and establish familiar routes, and make for ourselves a semi-permanent dwelling. We may also gain intimations, in our very awareness of our own impermanence, of that which endures, in relation to which alone we can find orientation. Where we begin is not up to us. We find ourselves situated. With each new step, each new acquisition of skill, each seeming arbitrary selection among alternatives, we open up new possibilities but also close them off, setting for ourselves a specific path and limited horizon. Our fundamental options, Bugbee argues, lie between destiny and fate. We can float along or resist and find that either way we end up somewhere we hadn't wanted to be or at least hadn't chosen; or, we can allow that our situation, who we are and what we have become and what options there are for us, is uniquely our own situation, and the possibilities it affords are our givens, our grace, our potentials. Then action becomes more like creation from a sense of compulsion, or like heeding a call, like the acceptance of who we alone can be, of a kind of destiny, than like either resistance of floating. I'm being vague here, and not because the book is unclear (though I should say it's not always easy to follow Bugbee's thought in transition), but because I do not wish to solidify a set of isolated upshots from a text whose message is in the drift of ideas rather than in the form of a set of theses. Bugbee's journal is well worth studying, and ought to be on the shelves that house Emerson and Thoreau and James, but also Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger (and, of course, Marcel); it is, certainly, an important contribution to the idea of philosophy as a way of life, rather than a set of doctrines.

A Dangerous Book Which Should Banned

The Inward Morning is a dangerous book and should be banned. Those who read it do so with notice that is may alter their understanding of what it means to live. As I recall Henry's words: "It is indeed an honor to be a man."

A masterpiece of Socratic/existential reflection on life

Edward Mooney is owed a great debt of thanks for reprinting this lost classic from the 1960s in the tradition of Thoreau's *Walden Pond.* *The Inward Morning* is a reflection on life in journal form comparable to Dag Hammerskold's *Markings,* but far more profound philosophically. Bugbee, a former Harvard professor, records his own most provocative thoughts about the nature of individual selfhood, our relations to others and the environment, how we articulate our goals and passions, our way of finding a place in the world and a sense of attentive/responsive connection to being in general, and so much more. It is a book not only for professional philosophers (who will find it full of insights in moral psychology and philosophical anthropology), but just as much for students and laypersons still searching for answers to life's most profound questions. It would make an excellent addition to a syllabus for a course on the Meaning of Life, or Philosophy in the Wilderness (say along with Thoreau, Emerson), or perhaps even Deep Ecology (along with Leopold and Naess). It would also make a great gift for anyone with a love for a penetrating and endlessly novel perspective on human existence.

Inward Morning is fantastic

After years of studying philosophy, this book stands out as my favorite. Bugbee writes in a journal format. As a result, readers see the development of his ideas. Unlike much philosophy, we get to see the person behind the words. The end result for the reader is a feeling of completeness and candor lacking in much philosophy