Background
Oets Kolk was born on November 22, 1898, in Muskegon, Michigan, United States.
Oets Kolk was born on November 22, 1898, in Muskegon, Michigan, United States.
Calvin C ollege and University of Michigan.
Professor of Philosophy, University of Nebraska, 1928-1965, and University of Texas, Austin, 1965-1978. John Locke Lecturer, University of Oxford, 1950-1951.
Bouwsma was a dedicated and inspiring teacher whose work remained largely unpublished in his lifetime. Two collections of essays and a volume of memoirs have been published from the material deposited after his death at the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
After abandoning his early Hegelianism Bouwsma studied the work of G. E. Moore, attracted by its anti-idealism and attention to language. His essay ‘Moore's theory of sense-data’ was published in The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, and it led him to be invited to give the John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford in 1950-1951.
During the 1940s some of Bouwsma's postgraduate students, including Norman Malcolm, accepted his advice to study with G. E. Moore at Cambridge.
It was through them that Bouwsma discovered Wittgenstein's later work, which had a profound effect on his own approach to philosophy. Bouwsma’s notes of his conversations with Wittgenstein, whom he met at Cornell University in 1949 and at Oxford, were published under the title Wittgenstein: Conversations 1949-1951 (1986).
In his essay ‘The Blue Book’ Bouwsma presents his understanding of Wittgenstein's method in philosophy, a method which Bouwsma himself practiced in his own distinctive manner. He understood Wittgenstein to be concerned, not with the defense of theories or doctrines, but rather with the cultivation of skill in the handling of philosophical problems.
In a later essay, Bouwsma spoke of Wittgenstein helping us towards ‘a new sensibility in the matter of language’, in particular, a sensibility for, or awareness of, the confusion, the nonsense, endemic in language as used by philosophers. Wittgenstein's interest in language. Bouwsma believed, was an interest in ’saving intelligence—which means us—from the corruption that comes so natural to us’.
And in this respect, Bouwsma compared Wittgenstein to Kierkegaard and to Nietzsche.
Bouwsma’s writings are characterized by sensitivity to fine shades of linguistic usage which he exposes through attention to concrete examples. often taking the form of stories exhibiting his humor and playfulness as well as his love of language. When discussing theory or argument he frequently focuses on a sentence or a phrase which he takes to be a source of confusion, showing the unintelligibility ‘by pressing the grammar’ or by using analogies as ‘reminders of sense’. In Philosophical Essays and Toward a New Sensibility Bouwsma addresses questions on the nature of philosophy, on skepticism. on metaphysics and aesthetics.
Without Proof or Evidence (1984) is primarily devoted to problems in religion. But of all this work it may be fairly said, as Bouwsma said of Wittgenstein: ‘He isn’t satisfied with telling the reader something. He nags. He intends to get under your skin, to get into your hair, to make you uncomfortable, to drive you to self-examination and improvement’.