Oets Kolk Bouwsma
Encyclopedia
Oets Kolk Bouwsma was an American philosopher born of Dutch-American parents in Muskegon, Michigan
.
and at the University of Michigan
. In his early years he was an advocate of idealism
, but later found the work of G. E. Moore’s common sense counters to skepticism
more appealing to his inclinations. Still, he was critical of Moore. He developed his own technique of analysis
that focused on uncovering hidden analogies driving Moore’s ways of speaking about sense data
. He worked intensely on Moore, publishing a significant paper, “Moore’s Theory of Sense-Data,” which was eventually included in the Library of Living Philosophers
volume on Moore. The essay reflected the beginnings of a method of philosophical analysis that was soon to be forged by his reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein
.
, a student of Wittgenstein as well as Moore, introduced Bouwsma to Wittgenstein’s revolutionary ideas in “The Blue Book
.” Norman Malcolm
, another of Bouwsma’s students, became a prominent interpreter and presenter of Wittgenstein’s ideas in America, after studying with Wittgenstein at Cambridge. Malcolm, who later taught at Cornell
, was able to persuade Wittgenstein to visit there. Simultaneously, Malcolm arranged for Bouwsma to teach at Cornell during Wittgenstein’s visit. By that time, in 1949, Bouwsma had absorbed the implications of Wittgenstein’s philosophy in The Blue Book. With a leave from the University of Nebraska and a Fulbright Fellowship, he was able to spend much of the next two years discussing philosophy with Wittgenstein at Cornell, Smith College
, and Oxford. Through Wittgenstein, Bouwsma developed an understanding of what he had been groping for in his work on Moore.
After the personal influence of Wittgenstein and much hard work on the The Blue Book and Philosophical Investigations
, Bouwsma emerged with a unique method of philosophical analysis that he applied to a variety of philosophical problems. He continued to attack the skepticism of Descartes that reflected the idealism from which Bouwsma fought to free himself. Applying Wittgenstein’s radical turn of displaying the nonsense in place of refuting a philosophical theory, he turned to Berkeley’s idealism where he teased the failure to make sense of ideas as entities in the mind out into the open. With a focus on the opening question of The Blue Book on meaning, he wrote tirelessly on the idea of “meaning as use,” until he shook himself loose of the notion that Wittgenstein was presenting another philosophical theory of meaning. He came to understand and appropriate the idea that Wittgenstein had developed a set of techniques to arm the philosopher in the struggle against the “bewitchment of his intelligence by means of language.” This understanding culminated in Bouwsma’s accomplished article, “The Blue Book,” which described the aims of the new method of philosophical analysis. With such perennial conceptually puzzling concepts as “time,” “truth,” and “thinking,” he carefully and often humorously compared sentences of philosophers with actual sentences of daily life – earning Bouwsma a notable place in what came to be called “ordinary language philosophy.” With this reputation, Gilbert Ryle
asked Bouwsma to deliver the first of the famous John Locke Lectures
at Oxford University.
With a life-long attachment to the Christian Reformed Church
, Bouwsma philosophically engaged the concepts of Christianity. Applying his acquired techniques of philosophical analysis, he carefully distinguished the uses of the word “belief” in religious settings from uses in non-religious settings. When called upon in philosophy to illuminate puzzling Christian concepts, he drew on his life-long participation in the community of faith and on his reading of the Scriptures to dramatically bring to life their meaning. In addition to Wittgenstein, his work on Kierkegaard was the other great influence in Bouwsma’s philosophical development. He came to understand the significance of Kierkegaard’s concept of “subjectivity” for thinking philosophically about Christianity. On the one hand, “subjectivity” points to understanding the language of religion in the context of particular religious communities – an idea parallel to Wittgenstein’s idea of understanding words and sentences in language-games and forms of life. On the other hand, “subjectivity” makes clear that Christianity is an invitation to new life and not an objective system of metaphysics. His papers in the philosophy of religion are collected separately in a volume with the title, Without Proof or Evidence, published by the University of Nebraska Press
.
With a fine ear for expression, Bouwsma fastened on poetry, James Joyce
’s Ulysses
and Finnegans Wake
, Shakespeare, Dickens, and novelists who artistically capture the expressions of ordinary language. In this regard he reflected often on the writing and reading of literature. He wrote and lectured on the “truth” of poetry, emphasizing its aesthetic value as opposed to its moral value. He also wrote on the puzzling relationship of words to music in “The Expression Theory of Art.” Extensive marginal notes filling his copies of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake indicate how consumed he was by Joyce’s word play and how he appropriated a sensitivity to word play in his own writing style.
Bouwsma taught philosophy at the University of Nebraska from 1928 until 1965 and the University of Texas from 1965 until 1977. His greatest influence came, not so much through his humorously and finely written essays, but through the many graduate students he trained in his unique style of exploring the borderlands of sense and nonsense in philosophical sentences. Although he wrote incessantly and presented numerous papers, he published only one book toward the end of his career – a collection of essays titled Philosophical Essays. He died in 1978. His papers and daily notebooks, the latter filling hundreds of legal pads, are housed in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
at The University of Texas, Austin. J.L. Craft and Ronald E. Hustwit Sr. co-edited and published two additional volumes of his papers and selections of his commonplace book. His notebooks recording his discussions with Wittgenstein, published with the title, Wittgenstein Conversations, 1949-51, have become a primary source for Wittgenstein studies.
Muskegon, Michigan
Muskegon is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 38,401. The city is the county seat of Muskegon County...
.
Education and early career
He was educated at Calvin CollegeCalvin College
Calvin College is a comprehensive liberal arts college located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Founded in 1876, Calvin College is an educational institution of the Christian Reformed Church and stands in the Reformed tradition of Protestantism...
and at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. In his early years he was an advocate of idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
, but later found the work of G. E. Moore’s common sense counters to skepticism
Skepticism
Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...
more appealing to his inclinations. Still, he was critical of Moore. He developed his own technique of analysis
Analysis
Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle , though analysis as a formal concept is a relatively recent development.The word is...
that focused on uncovering hidden analogies driving Moore’s ways of speaking about sense data
Sense data
In the philosophy of perception, the theory of sense data was a popular view held the early 20th century by philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, C. D. Broad, H. H. Price, A.J. Ayer and G.E. Moore, among others. Sense data are supposedly mind-dependent objects whose existence and properties are...
. He worked intensely on Moore, publishing a significant paper, “Moore’s Theory of Sense-Data,” which was eventually included in the Library of Living Philosophers
Library of Living Philosophers
The Library of Living Philosophers is a series of books conceived of and started by Paul Arthur Schilpp in 1939; Schilpp remained editor until 1981. The series was edited by Lewis Edwin Hahn from 1981 until 2001, and is currently edited by Randall Auxier...
volume on Moore. The essay reflected the beginnings of a method of philosophical analysis that was soon to be forged by his reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
.
Later career
Engaged in Moore’s philosophy, Bouwsma sent students from the University of Nebraska, most notably Morris Lazerowitz, to study with Moore at Cambridge. Lazerowitz’s wife Alice AmbroseAlice Ambrose
Alice Ambrose Lazerowitz was an American philosopher, logician, and author.Alice Ambrose was born in Lexington, Illinois and studied philosophy and mathematics at Millikin University. After completing her PhD at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1932, she went to Cambridge University to study...
, a student of Wittgenstein as well as Moore, introduced Bouwsma to Wittgenstein’s revolutionary ideas in “The Blue Book
Blue and Brown Books
The Blue and Brown Books are two sets of notes taken during lectures conducted by Ludwig Wittgenstein between 1933 and 1935. They were mimeographed as two separated books and a few copies were circulated in a restricted circle during Wittgenstein's lifetime. The lecture notes from 1933-4 were...
.” Norman Malcolm
Norman Malcolm
Norman Malcolm was an American philosopher, born in Selden, Kansas. He studied philosophy with O.K. Bouwsma at the University of Nebraska, then enrolled as a graduate student at Harvard University in 1933....
, another of Bouwsma’s students, became a prominent interpreter and presenter of Wittgenstein’s ideas in America, after studying with Wittgenstein at Cambridge. Malcolm, who later taught at Cornell
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, was able to persuade Wittgenstein to visit there. Simultaneously, Malcolm arranged for Bouwsma to teach at Cornell during Wittgenstein’s visit. By that time, in 1949, Bouwsma had absorbed the implications of Wittgenstein’s philosophy in The Blue Book. With a leave from the University of Nebraska and a Fulbright Fellowship, he was able to spend much of the next two years discussing philosophy with Wittgenstein at Cornell, Smith College
Smith College
Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...
, and Oxford. Through Wittgenstein, Bouwsma developed an understanding of what he had been groping for in his work on Moore.
After the personal influence of Wittgenstein and much hard work on the The Blue Book and Philosophical Investigations
Philosophical Investigations
Philosophical Investigations is, along with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one of the most influential works by the 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein...
, Bouwsma emerged with a unique method of philosophical analysis that he applied to a variety of philosophical problems. He continued to attack the skepticism of Descartes that reflected the idealism from which Bouwsma fought to free himself. Applying Wittgenstein’s radical turn of displaying the nonsense in place of refuting a philosophical theory, he turned to Berkeley’s idealism where he teased the failure to make sense of ideas as entities in the mind out into the open. With a focus on the opening question of The Blue Book on meaning, he wrote tirelessly on the idea of “meaning as use,” until he shook himself loose of the notion that Wittgenstein was presenting another philosophical theory of meaning. He came to understand and appropriate the idea that Wittgenstein had developed a set of techniques to arm the philosopher in the struggle against the “bewitchment of his intelligence by means of language.” This understanding culminated in Bouwsma’s accomplished article, “The Blue Book,” which described the aims of the new method of philosophical analysis. With such perennial conceptually puzzling concepts as “time,” “truth,” and “thinking,” he carefully and often humorously compared sentences of philosophers with actual sentences of daily life – earning Bouwsma a notable place in what came to be called “ordinary language philosophy.” With this reputation, Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle , was a British philosopher, a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers that shared Wittgenstein's approach to philosophical problems, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "the ghost in the...
asked Bouwsma to deliver the first of the famous John Locke Lectures
John Locke lectures
The John Locke Lectures are a series of annual lectures in philosophy given at the University of Oxford. They are one of the world's most prestigious academic lecture series, comparable to the Gifford Lectures given in Scottish universities...
at Oxford University.
With a life-long attachment to the Christian Reformed Church
Christian Reformed Church in North America
The Christian Reformed Church in North America is a Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. Having roots in the Dutch Reformed churches of the Netherlands, the Christian Reformed Church was founded by Gijsbert Haan and Dutch immigrants who left the Reformed Church in...
, Bouwsma philosophically engaged the concepts of Christianity. Applying his acquired techniques of philosophical analysis, he carefully distinguished the uses of the word “belief” in religious settings from uses in non-religious settings. When called upon in philosophy to illuminate puzzling Christian concepts, he drew on his life-long participation in the community of faith and on his reading of the Scriptures to dramatically bring to life their meaning. In addition to Wittgenstein, his work on Kierkegaard was the other great influence in Bouwsma’s philosophical development. He came to understand the significance of Kierkegaard’s concept of “subjectivity” for thinking philosophically about Christianity. On the one hand, “subjectivity” points to understanding the language of religion in the context of particular religious communities – an idea parallel to Wittgenstein’s idea of understanding words and sentences in language-games and forms of life. On the other hand, “subjectivity” makes clear that Christianity is an invitation to new life and not an objective system of metaphysics. His papers in the philosophy of religion are collected separately in a volume with the title, Without Proof or Evidence, published by the University of Nebraska Press
University of Nebraska Press
The University of Nebraska Press, founded in 1941, is a publisher of scholarly and popular-press books. It is the second-largest state university press in the United States and, including private institutions, ranks among the 10 largest university presses in the United States...
.
With a fine ear for expression, Bouwsma fastened on poetry, James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
’s Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
and Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake is a novel by Irish author James Joyce, significant for its experimental style and resulting reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years, and published in 1939, two years before the author's...
, Shakespeare, Dickens, and novelists who artistically capture the expressions of ordinary language. In this regard he reflected often on the writing and reading of literature. He wrote and lectured on the “truth” of poetry, emphasizing its aesthetic value as opposed to its moral value. He also wrote on the puzzling relationship of words to music in “The Expression Theory of Art.” Extensive marginal notes filling his copies of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake indicate how consumed he was by Joyce’s word play and how he appropriated a sensitivity to word play in his own writing style.
Bouwsma taught philosophy at the University of Nebraska from 1928 until 1965 and the University of Texas from 1965 until 1977. His greatest influence came, not so much through his humorously and finely written essays, but through the many graduate students he trained in his unique style of exploring the borderlands of sense and nonsense in philosophical sentences. Although he wrote incessantly and presented numerous papers, he published only one book toward the end of his career – a collection of essays titled Philosophical Essays. He died in 1978. His papers and daily notebooks, the latter filling hundreds of legal pads, are housed in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
The Harry Ransom Center is a library and archive at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the United States and Europe. The Ransom Center houses 36 million literary manuscripts, 1 million rare books, 5 million photographs, and more...
at The University of Texas, Austin. J.L. Craft and Ronald E. Hustwit Sr. co-edited and published two additional volumes of his papers and selections of his commonplace book. His notebooks recording his discussions with Wittgenstein, published with the title, Wittgenstein Conversations, 1949-51, have become a primary source for Wittgenstein studies.
Publications
- Philosophical Essays. University of Nebraska Press, 1965.
- Posthumous Works. Collected and edited by J.L. Craft and R.E. Hustwit Sr.
- Toward a New Sensibility: Essays of O.K. Bouwsma. University of Nebraska Press, 1982.
- Without Proof or Evidence: Essays of O.K. Bouwsma. University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
- Wittgenstein Conversations, 1949-1951. Hackett Publishing, 1988.
- The Flux: O.K. Bouwsma’s John Locke Lectures at Oxford University, 1951. The College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio, 1990.
- Bouwsma’s Notes on Wittgenstein’s Philosophy, 1965-1975. Edwin Mellen Press, 1995.
- O.K. Bouwsma’s Commonplace Book – Remarks on Philosophy and Education. Edwin Mellen Press, 1999.
Further reading
- Remembering O.K. Bouwsma: An Interview with Charles and Gretchen Emmons Bouwsma. C& C Video Productions, 2002. Produced by R.E. Hustwit Sr.
- An Annotated Bibliography of O.K. Bouwsma’s Published Writings. 2005. Assembled and annotated by R.E. Hustwit Sr.
- Something About O.K. Bouwsma. The University Press of America, 1991. By R.E. Hustwit Sr.
- O.K. Bouwsma. R.E. Hustwit. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Ed. By Robert Audi. Cambridge University Press, 1995.