From the Chapbook: Philosopher's Holiday

I found Irwin Edman's book Philosopher's Holiday at a used bookstore shortly before Christmas, and C obligingly gifted it to me. Edman was a graduate student and professor at Columbia in the first half of the 20th century; Philosoher's Holiday was published in 1936, about midway through his career (he died in 1954). There were so many things I loved about this book: the reflections on teaching; the meditations on traveling; the relaxed, chummy writing style; and, of course, the sharp observations about philosophers and philosophy. Edman isn't trying to do philosophy in this book, but he does try to make the discipline a little more humane, a little more likeable, to outsiders, and along the way he manages to let us in on his own perspective of the world. He insists it isn't an autobiography, but it is.

I had a hard time winnowing down my quotes for this entry, but have included some of my very, very favorites below. (Keep reading. I've saved the best for last.)

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p. 21: Everyone has had the sense, on making a chance acquaintance. . ., of having known that person always in essence and of two spirits' having for a long time been, unknown to each other, travelling-companions on the same road. One has the sense of having moved in parallel lines, of having touched the same beauties, shared the same truths, or nourished the same errors, found light by or aspired toward the same stars.

p. 108: "I may as well tell you at once," he said, "I do not approve of your country. I am sorry, but I do not. I do not approve of it at all." . . . "Many Americans do not approve of it completely," I said, "though we are not so thorough-going. There are lots of things we Americans do not approve of in our own country."

[NB: I am totally going to say this the next time some confronts me about my country. So good.]

p. 148: There is indeed a good deal to be said against the modern habit of segregating "philosophers" as a special group attached to universities. . . Teaching breeds the habit of thinking in terms that have a specious lucidity or a dangerous winsomeness or credibility. Moving in "professional" philosophical circles nourishes the tendency, moreover, to become involved in the technique of controversy for its own sake, to become calloused to, negligent of, what Plato called "the great business itself." The amateur philosopher outside the academy may often be loose, and frequently inept, but he will, if he has anything of "philosophy" in him, keep to essential issues in philosophy, the only ones there are, and ultimate things; in philosophy there should be no others.

[NB: I think Edman has a rather optimistic view--in this passage and elsewhere--of what the amateur philosopher can actually accomplish on her own. He praises Spinoza, who was a remarkably successful "non-professional" philosopher, but who was also, I am inclined to think, one of a kind. I appreciate the point about "the technique of controversy" though.]

p. 232: I rather wish now that youngsters were brought to philosophy when it naturally springs upon their imaginations. When they come upon it in college, it is a thing to be studied. But I am sure many of them, like myself, come upon it much earlier. The stick broken in the water, the sense of something deep & far, felt by the sea or in the hills on a summer day, the puzzle & the pathos of time, the uneasiness about the good, have raised questions that one ought not to have to wait until late in one's college career to hear treated as questions worthy of being answered--or of being asked.

[NB: Yes, yes, yes. One of my favorite undergraduate courses was Philosophy for Children. I am just waiting for the moment when I can put what I learned to use.]

p. 265-266: For many with the future looming before us so ominous and desperate, it seems illicit to enjoy the present at all. Yet surely. . .the quality of life is the ultimate aim of any way of living. . . . The desperate uneasiness of our lives (the insecurity is moral even where it is not economic) has brought it about that many people one meets have a scorn for the simple or the ultimate things which alone prevent living from being a harried road to nowhere. . . . One of the tragic destructions effected by the bombs, and a reason for nourishing the delicate and the best, is that they are destroying the peace, the clarity, and the sense of proportion of places and persons far beyond their physical range. The goods of life are not evil because they are insecure. Friends do not cease to be precious because the age is torn with enmities, and because there is gathering darkness we should not put out all lights.

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See? I told you: best for last. I am so grateful for light.