Selections from Bouwsma\u27s Commonplace Book from \u27The Blue Book\u27 on: The Meaning of a Word

Notes for graduate seminars in 1970-71 on Wittgenstein’s Blue Book. The notes collected here were written for students in Wittgenstein seminars at the University of Texas in the academic year 1970-71. The typed notes from those seminars all focus on the opening sentences of The Blue Book: What is the meaning of a word? As was Bouwsma\u27s practice, he wrote in his commonplace book preparing for the weekly seminar meeting. Some students in the class would volunteer to transcribe these preparatory notes and the department secretary would mimeograph them for distribution to the graduate students in the seminar. The notes were not read in the seminars, but distributed some time later. Seminars began with Bouwsma asking: What shall we talk about today? or something very similar to that. He expected of the students to have something ready that was relevant to the reading of the book. With The Blue Book, the class dwelt on the beginning paragraphs for most of the term, with connected paragraphs brought in later. There was no telling ahead of time where the discussions would go, but Bouwsma persistently pulled attention back to his first sentence of The Blue Book and the discussion of meaning.https://openworks.wooster.edu/bouwsma/1001/thumbnail.jp

Sample Notes from Bouwsma\u27s Commonplace Book on Kierkegaard\u27s Fragments and Postscript

O.K. Bouwsma, better known for his imaginative essays of ordinary language philosophy, was a life-long reader of Kierkegaard. Emerging from the Christian Reformed tradition of Dutch Calvinism, Bouwsma initially found a philosophical basis for Christianity in the British Idealism of F.H. Bradley. But while finding his way through that idealism by was or orientation that Wittgenstein provided for dissolving philosophical abstractions with imaginative grammatical investigations, Bouwsma found Kierkegaard the tonic that would cure his philosophical indigestion with Idealism in keeping with his philosophical pursuit of understanding Christianity. As he found his way through the metaphysics of Idealism by way of his fascination with G.E. Moore\u27s common sense philosophy, Bouwsma began reading Kierkegaard, who shared the starting points of Idealism and the desire to think philosophically about Christianity. Daily entries in his notebooks show a regular attention to Kierkegaard\u27s work from the 1930s to the last days of his life in 1977. In spite of the fact that he wrote very few papers on Kierkegaard -- none published on his own -- Bouwsma\u27s philosophical papers aiming at understanding Christianity reflect this life-long attention to his reading Kierkegaard.https://openworks.wooster.edu/bouwsma/1004/thumbnail.jp

Bouwsma’s The John Locke Lectures: “The Flux”, Oxford University, 1951

These John Locke Lectures were delivered during the winter term of l951 at Oxford University. Bouwsma had been awarded a Fulbright Lectureship to lecture in England for the academic year l950-51. He was appointed as Honorary Professor of Philosophy at Magdalene College, Oxford and was sought out to deliver the Locke Lectures later in that year. This leave year followed another leave year from his home university -- the University of Nebraska -- when he spent some time lecturing at both Cornell and Smith Colleges. These two years were the years when he met and came to know Ludwig Wittgenstein -- walking, talking, and keeping a diary of his conversations with him. Wittgenstein had visited the U.S. through arrangements of Bouwsma’s former students and friends Malcolm, Ambrose, and Lazerowitz in his first year of leave from Nebraska. During Bouwsma’s second year of leave, Wittgenstein lived for long periods of time at Oxford where he and Bouwsma continued their friendship and practice of conversing on walks. Wittgenstein died while Bouwsma was at Oxford, in April of that year. This includes 6 lectures on the flow of sense experience in consciousness.https://openworks.wooster.edu/bouwsma/1007/thumbnail.jp

Bouwsma’s 1949-1951 Commonplace Book (selections)

These selections were taken from over 250 handwritten commonplace book entries made over a two-year period when Bouwsma, on leave from the University of Nebraska and on Fulbright Fellowship at Oxford, spent time discussing philosophy with Wittgenstein at Cornell, Smith College, as well as Oxford. The selected entries also contain discussions Bouwsma had with Elizabeth Anscombe, Yorick Smythies, and other prominent American and British philosophers in this time period.https://openworks.wooster.edu/bouwsma/1005/thumbnail.jp

Bouwsma’s Commonplace Book Notes On Yorick Smythies And Related Papers:Assembled, Edited, and Introduced by Ronald E. Hustwit Sr.

Selections: Bouwsma-Smyties discussions at Oxford 1950-51; Bouwsma-Smythies discussions at Oxford 1955-56; selected notes on Smythies 1953-74; notes on Smythies’ paper “Non-Logical Falsity”; Smythies’ paper “Non-Logical Falsity”; Smythies’ letter to Bouwsma on Conversations With Wittgenstein, 1949-51; 16 poems by Yorick Smythies; Smythies’ untitled paper on “action-reaction” and “objects” (Bouwsma’s typed response to this paper (c. 100 pages – are in the Bouwsma collection in the Humanities Research Center). In his commonplace book from 1950 to his death in 1978, Bouwsma kept track of his reflections on conversations and written remarks of Yorick Smythies a student of Wittgenstein. Bouwsma won a Fulbright Fellowship in the academic year 1950-51 to teach and do research at Magdalen College, Oxford University. During that time Wittgenstein, with whom Bouwsma already had a relationship, was often in Oxford, having been diagnosed with cancer, staying with Elizabeth Anscombe and family. Again Bouwsma frequently enjoyed walking and talking with Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein suggested that Bouwsma would also enjoy meeting with the man whom Wittgenstein described as one of his best students – Yorick Smythies. Smythies, it was said, was one of the few, if not the only, of Wittgenstein\u27s students who would argue and disagree with Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein took him very seriously. To understand Bouwsma\u27s fascination with Smythies, one must understand Bouwsma’s interest in Wittgenstein’s understanding of language in relation to philosophy and to Bouwsma’s interest in understanding Christian faith. Smythies was an adult convert to the Catholic Church. He had, I believe, organized his interests in Wittgenstein\u27s philosophy around specific psychological needs which connect to his conversion. It would seem that he had redefined the task of philosophy, as Wittgenstein conceived it, from uncovering the hidden analogies driving the philosopher to uncovering the hidden motives driving the sinner. As Wittgenstein proposed something like psychoanalysis for intellectual pollution, Smythies proposed something like psychoanalysis for spiritual pollution. In Christian categories, Smythies proposed self-examination for “confession” and “absolution of sin.” In connection with this new task of philosophy, Smythies also, in a strongly critical tone, claimed that Wittgenstein abstracted the whole person – with his moral and religious dimension – from the language-game. This made Wittgenstein\u27s view of language technical and dead in Smythies’ eyes. These critical ideas fascinated Bouwsma who was at the same time developed in his understanding of Wittgenstein\u27s thought and of Christianity. I have included in my selections from the commonplace book as many of Bouwsma\u27s reflections on Smythies\u27 ideas as possible. They reveal something central and essential about Bouwsma\u27s struggle to put his own ideas together. They also reveal two strains in Bouwsma\u27s conception of philosophy. One is that philosophy is the art of removing the illusions of metaphysics created by inattention to language. The other is that philosophy\u27s importance nevertheless lies in self-understanding. In relation to Christianity specifically, philosophy\u27s importance lies in showing that Christianity is not proved or defended, but lived.https://openworks.wooster.edu/bouwsma/1002/thumbnail.jp