When I was a student at
Colby, Bob Reuman was more than just one of my teachers: he was also a
role model for me. After I joined the faculty here, he was more than
just one of my colleagues: he was also a mentor. But for the last
twenty five years, above all else, he was my friend.
What he meant to
me--and to countless other students, colleagues, friends, and family
members--cannot be put into words, but words are what we have, so if
you’ll allow me a few anecdotes, I will at least try to share a sense of
the man and what he meant to me.
Prof. Reuman was an inspiring
teacher; Dr. Reuman was a marvelously syncretic philosopher; but Bob Reuman was a
delightful and wonderful human being. That, of course, was the most
important thing, but I had thought that I’d talk mostly about others,
about the educator and about the scholar, because those were his
designated roles at Colby. And there is no question that Bob filled
those roles conscientiously, faithfully, and superbly. But part of what
made Bob such an effective teacher and such an insightful philosopher
was that he didn’t--couldn’t--limit himself to just those roles. For
him, they were not separate roles. Philosophy is not something that can
be confined to the study; teaching is not something that ends when you
leave the classroom; and life is not something that happens to you when
you aren’t studying or teaching. He was the teacher and philosopher
that he was because of the person that he was. How fitting that it was
Bob Reuman who introduced the concept of “teachable moments” into the
Colby College vocabulary. Those occasions when the fabric of the
community has been stretched out of shape or torn altogether are the
times when we need to “mend the world.” Teaching is a life’s vocation,
and the most important time to teach is when we most need to learn. Bob
taught us that. He truly was a moral philosopher, in all its senses.
As a teacher,
Prof. Reuman could only be described as, well, “awesome.” I was in awe
of his knowledge, his erudition, and his dedication. And when I say
that I was in awe, I mean exactly that: I was inspired by the example he
set, I was dazzled by the philosophical vistas he opened up, and, to be
honest, I was sometimes a little bit daunted by his presence. And
believe me, he really was a presence. For us, he was philosophy
incarnate, someone who had read and digested everything. Why, he was on
speaking terms with Kant and he could even understand Hegel! And this
was the person who was going to read my papers, too? How could I ever hope to
make them worthy? And yet, he read and listened and questioned and
criticized and suggested and engaged and struggled with my thoughts as
if I were Spinoza reborn and he were the supplicant student.
Sometimes it would
happen in class that you’d ask a question, and Bob would start mulling
it over (“Reumanating,” we would call it.). You’d get the feeling that
you’d asked exactly the right question, the one that would allow Bob to
unlock all the mysteries of Being. You could almost see the thoughts
swirling around, coming together, profoundly connecting and reconnecting
with one another, in that inscrutable and omnipresent hovering halo of
pipe smoke. It was a sublime image--so powerful that it wasn’t until I
told one of my colleagues about it, a few years after I joined the
faculty at Colby, that I realized just how indelible it was: she pointed
out that Bob had given up his pipe at least ten years earlier! It was
indeed a powerful impression.
As a philosopher, Dr. Reuman could
be described in many ways, because he was so incredibly syncretic. He
was a master at making connections, bringing Lao Tzu and Leibniz into
conversation with one another, or showing why the Kantian dictum that
intuitions without concepts are empty, concepts without intuitions are
blind revealed why ethics and epistemology have to be treated in tandem.
That last was one
of Bob’s favorites. It goes straight to the heart of what he thought
philosophy was all about. It articulates a demand for intellectual
integrity in matters philosophical and stands as an indictment of purely
academic philosophy. The philosopher who thinks about ethical matters
without the benefit of a larger theoretical framework is indulging in
idle speculation. The philosopher who concentrates on metaphysics,
ignoring questions of value, is at best half a philosopher. Perhaps worst of
all are the philosophers who dabble in both without connecting them,
because they have compartmentalized and, in so doing, they have
compromised. That, Bob liked to tell me, was the problem with Bertrand
Russell. A good academic philosopher, which is to say a good
half-philosopher, but utterly inadequate as a whole philosopher. I
think that was Bob’s particular cautionary tale for me. To make it into
Bob’s Philosopher’s Hall of Fame, you had to do it all. So, in the
end, even Heidegger, he than whom no one could think deeper, must be
regarded as having fallen short philosophically because his
excavations into Being did not make him a good man.
If Heidegger is
the cautionary tale for all academics, then Robert E. Reuman is the
counterbalancing inspirational because he was a good man--a very good
man. He not only thought intensely and deeply about moral principles,
he lived
his life
by those principles--intensely and deeply. For him, the arguments of
moral philosophy were morally convincing, not just academic exercises.
There is something meet and proper about this. Whenever I think of
Bob, I am reminded of a conference I attended of the American
Association of Philosophy Teachers, in the summer of 1984, just after my
first year on the faculty. The keynote speaker, John Lachs, made quite
an impression on me as he spoke of the special obligations on
professors of philosophy. The medical doctor who does not heed his own
advice about smoking can still be a good doctor; the pharmacist who
abuses drugs can still be a good pharmacist; and so on. But the
philosopher who does not heed philosophical argument, he said, more than
just manifests an inconsistency. He or she undermines his or her own
credibility and status as a philosopher. Teaching is not like other
careers, and philosophy is not like other disciplines. Philosophy
demands engagement. As I remember it, Prof. Lachs then went on in very
general terms to describe the ideal professor of philosophy: morally
committed, intellectually serious, liberally educated, both keenly
analytic and creatively synthetic, and above all passionately engaged
even while striving for the larger perspective of objectivity. As he
spoke, I recognized the description immediately, as do you all: without
ever having met him, Lachs was describing Bob Reuman.
As a teacher of
philosophy, one of the things I like best about the discipline is that I
don’t have to know the answers. I only need to understand the
questions. There is room for us to disagree without acrimony. And yet I
was always nervous whenever I disagreed with Bob--both as his student
and as his colleague--because I could never shake the sneaking suspicion
that I just hadn’t thought about the issue at hand long enough or hard
enough. If he came to a different conclusion, I had better think again.
Of course, Bob and I would often disagree about philosophical matters
and debate them. I grew to relish those debates the best because that
is when I learned the most. It’s not that we came to philosophical
answers, but that we could learn so much from and so thoroughly enjoy
the questions.
There is, however, one philosophical question that I
always thought that deep down I knew the answer to. It was an answer
that I learned from Bob, but not one that he ever taught. You see, Bob
lived a life of
principled engagement. His principles were
non-violence and fairness. If it required an act of civil disobedience
and going to jail, he would do that. If it meant going against the
national charter of his own fraternity because it had a restrictive
clause in it stating that Jews were not welcome as members, Bob would
fight that fight. If it meant taking on the responsibilities of
spokesman and advocate for the African-American students at Colby, he
would do that, too. It was important to me--and to all his students and
colleagues--to know that about him. So I hear Rabbi Hillel’s questions
differently for having known Bob Reuman. Hillel asked, “If I am only
for myself, then what am I? And if I am not for myself, then who will
be?” I knew the answer to that one: Bob would be for me. I could
count on it.
We’ll miss you Bob, but you have left some of you in each
of us, and for that, well, thanks.
