Prof. Otto A. Bird, requiescat in pace

I wasn't aware of the death of Otto A. Bird, who passed away on June 5th, until I read Dr. Ralph McInerny's piece over at The Catholic Thing:

My colleague Otto Bird died a few weeks ago just four days shy of his ninety-sixth birthday. Otto came to Notre Dame in 1950 to inaugurate and act as first director of the Program for Liberal Studies, a great books program that owed much to similar efforts at St. John’s College and the University of Chicago, whence Otto came. The original idea was that the program would be a yeast that would eventually transform the whole college of Arts and Letters into its image. This didn’t happen, but the program was hugely successful. For over half a century, under the direct and indirect guidance of Otto Bird, tutors and students became immersed in the great classics of western culture.

There are of course two schools of thought on general as opposed to specialized education. The mark of the latter is a major subject with other courses chosen to bolster it. By contrast, an education based on the great books has a random look; worse, it can seem to put a premium on airy generalizations. The only way to resolve the dispute is mano a mano, comparing products of the two approaches. Otto, say, and the average chaired professor today.

Otto studied under Étienne Gilson at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto. His dissertation dealt with the Provençal poets who had been such an influence on Dante. At the time, Ezra Pound had developed a proprietary air toward Provençal poetry and Otto entered into a lengthy correspondence with the fiery poet. Later Otto told me that Étienne Gilson had stated as the aim of the Institute to prepare scholars who could read Dante intelligently. Since Dante is a compendium of the middle ages, bringing together its theology and philosophy as well as its poetry, liturgy and music, this was more that a well-turned phrase.

Otto was both patriarch and paterfamilias, leaving behind four generations whose members seem to have a knack for choosing walks of life somewhat off the beaten path. It is as if, as a family, they were freed from the dominant banalities about success in life. Unlike most academics, Otto did not saunter about with a metaphorical sign board advertising his publications.

One of Bird's many books was Seeking A Center: My Life as a "Great Bookie" (Ignatius Press, 1991) in which, the descriptive copy states, "Bird shows how, by pursuing the methods introduced by Gilson and Adler, he was able to make sense out of the confusion of philosophers and provides an example in an analysis of the controversy concerning the idea of justice. The center that he sought was found in the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas and in the Roman Catholic church to which he became a convert. Bird's story provides unique insights into the development of the Great Books Movement and its influence upon American college education, to which a large part of his life was devoted by way of teaching, and writing through association from the beginning with the set Great Books of the Western World, published by Encyclopaedia Britannica." And here is a bit more about the remarkable professor, from the obituary on the University of Notre Dame website:

A popular, even revered teacher at Notre Dame, Bird balanced his course load and administrative responsibilities with a lively career of scholarship, publishing such philosophical works as “Syllogistic,” “The Idea of Justice,” and “Cultures in Conflict: An Essay in the Philosophy of the Humanities.” He also was a member of the committee which planned the innovative 15th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and especially its introductory volume on the organization of knowledge.

In his autobiography, “Seeking a Center: My Life as a ‘Great Bookie,’” Bird described his personal search for truth, and how he made use of methods learned from Gilson and Adler to rediscover the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, which eventually led him to the Catholic Church. That search was, in the words of his Notre Dame colleague, Ralph McInerny, “the journey of an intellect, of a soul, that puts before the reader a vision of the intellectual life one wishes were more palpably present in Catholic colleges and universities than it is nowadays.”

Some related books from Ignatius Press:

• The Unity Of Philosophical Experience, by Etienne Gilson
• From Aristotle To Darwin And Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species and Evolution, by Etienne Gilson (available September 2009)
• In The Light Of Christ: Writings in the Western Tradition, by Lucy Beckett
• Ignatius Critical Editions

Comments

[Ed Peters]

"Unlike most academics, Otto did not saunter about with a metaphorical sign board advertising his publications."

What a very, very odd thing to say.

[Dr John James]

Thanks for posting this Carl, and for the article on Pope John Paul 2 and conscience, by Richard Spinello. In a certain sense educating the Intellect and Will, as well as Conscience, which some define as a 'practical judgement of the Intellect',are related and vital topics.