BOUWSMA

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bouwsma, O.K. ``On `This Is White`.`` Philosophical Review January,1939: 48,71-73.

Ayer`s theory of meaning describes the truth conditions for two kinds of meaningful sentences: tautologies and empirical propositions. ``There are sense contents`` is not a tautology. But Ayer treats it as if it were an indubitable sentence – a tautology. Bouwsma claims that Ayer does not recognize that he has given special privilege to this sentence, treating it as if it were an indubitable sentence when it is not.

The particular sentence, ``This is white,`` is a sentence of sense-content. According to Ayer`s claim, it should be, by analysis, an indubitable sentence. But ``This is white`` allows of the contradictory sentence: ``This is not white.`` And so we have ``p and – p.`` Therefore, ``This is white`` cannot be a tautology and is not indubitable. The positivist then is caught in a contradiction. ``There are sense contents`` is said to be indubitable but it implies ``This is white,`` which is clearly not a tautology.

In this short article, Bouwsma gives a straightforward philosophical argument – a refutation. After 1949-50, he no longer will write such papers with refutations. The argument foreshadows Bouwsma`s later interest in sense and nonsense.

Bouwsma, O.K. ``Stace`s `The Primacy of Sympathy`.`` Journal of Philosophy November,1942: 39,631-635.

This short paper is a critical comment on Stace`s then new book: The Destiny of Western Man. Bouwsma takes up Stace`s proof of the proposition that one ought to be sympathetic. This, presumably, is a moral recommendation. It is offered in conjunction with the proposition that one ought to use one`s reason. ``Be sympathetic`` and Be reasonable.`` Bouwsma proposes to take up Stace`s moral recommendation to be sympathetic.

Sympathy, according to Stace, is primary to the moral life, because it is only by means of sympathy that we can be normal and happy. A similar claim is made for being reasonable. Stace`s argument runs that only a reasonable man will recognize his own infinite value and see that all others have that infinite value as well. His reason therefore will lead him to recognize the primacy of sympathy, i.e. recognition of the infinite value of another.

But, outside a theological context, what does infinite value mean? Where does it come from? Bouwsma wonders how reason is to determine the value of ends that another has. It is possible that reason can determine another`s ends and the means he may choose to get those ends, but how is reason to see the infinite value of the person himself? Bouwsma asks how Stace could come to beg this question without realizing that he was doing so. He proposes that Stace, who wanted to draw this conclusion of the primacy of sympathy without God, has really attached theological significance to the idea of ends without knowing it. He, Stace, has arbitrarily attached ``infinite value`` to the ends that men pursue and hence to the person himself.

The critical reflection on Stace`s thesis reflects two features of Bouwsma`s thought as it becomes fully developed in his later work. One is that of presenting the claims of another philosopher and then asking how he could have come to such confusion. What analogies misled him? In this case, he sees the analogy of a theological idea – that the concept of ``God`` can provide ``infinite value`` – as the driving force in Stace`s argument. But Stace, of course, wants to provide that infinite value by means of reason and without God. The second feature is seen in the idea of God as the only source of infinite value. Bouwsma`s attitude toward metaphysics was that it comes to nothing. Philosophy may expose that. But philosophy can never pull the rabbit of infinite value out of an empty metaphysical hat. Bouwsma`s faith eviscerated his need for metaphysics and metaphysical ethics. This is the man who was immediately drawn to Dostoievski`s Ivan Karamazov: ``If there is no God, then all things are permissible.``

Bouwsma,O.K. ``Moore`s theory of Sense Data.`` The Philosophy of G.E. Moore. Vol.iv The Library of Living Philosophers, 201-221. Ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. Lasalle, Illinois: Open Court, 1952. [written c.1942]

Also in:

––––– Philosophical Essays. Lincoln: Nebraska Press, 1965.

``Moore`s Theory of Sense-Data,`` begins with Bouwsma presenting a quotation from Moore`s ``A Defence of Common Sense,`` for discussion. The quotation is Moore`s response to his observation that some philosopher`s have doubted that there are such things as sense-data.

And in order to point out to the reader what sorts of things I mean by sense-data, I need only ask him to look at his own right hand. If he does this he will be able to pick out something (and unless he is seeing double, only one thing) with regard to which he will see that it is, at first sight, a natural view to take, that that thing is identical, not indeed, with his whole right hand, but with that part of its surface which he is actually seeing, but will also (on a little reflection) be able to see that it is doubtful whether it can be identical with a part of the surface of his hand in question.

Part 1 of Bouwsma`s paper discusses the difficulties presented in Moore`s directions for how to ``pick out`` sense-data. Bouwsma proceeds by means of a series of invented analogies to show the difficulties involved in picking out sense-data. Is it, for example, like looking at your hand and picking out your knuckles? That would give us a clear set of instructions, as we would know the difference between the knuckles and the rest of the hand. If finding the sense-data when looking at one`s hand were like this, then one could follow the directions. The directions would be clear, i.e. would make sense. But Moore`s directions could not be understood according to this analogy, for in Moore`s directions we must pick out something about which it is doubtful whether it is identical with the very thing from which we are to pick it out (namely, part of the surface of the hand). Here the analogy is used to show that something – the directions – has not yet made sense.

A second analogy functions in a way similar to the first. Bouwsma compares Moore`s directions to picking a red marble out of a basket which also contains a red pepper and a red rubber ball. Perhaps there would be no problem in this. But one might imagine that the marble and the ball could be confused for each other, and then, attempting to pick out the marble, one picked out the rubber ball. Here Bouwsma is trying to capture the part of the directions that spell out how one is to feel doubtful over something that is identical, or nearly identical, with something else. But this analogy fails also because there are criteria for distinguishing red marbles from red rubber balls but none for distinguishing part of the surface of a hand from the sense-datum of a hand.

Moore has set the criteria for identifying sense-data as that part of the surface of a hand which is distinguishable yet indistinguishable from part of the surface of a hand. Once one picks out the sense-data of X, a doubt arises about whether it is indistinguishable from the surface of X, but that doubt is never resolvable. Bouwsma wants to focus on this. He produces another analogy that brings one along in picking out sense-data to the point where it is clear that they cannot be picked out. The analogy is that of rubber gloves on a cook`s hands. Visitors to the kitchen at first take the cook to have on rubber gloves that are not a part of the surface of his hands and yet on closer inspection a doubt arises as to whether this is so. The visitors fall to arguing about whether he has gloves on or not. Bouwsma constructs the language of this story to parallel that of Moore`s. The analogy shows what it would be like for there to be a dispute over whether something meeting Moore`s description of sense-data exists or not. But in the process it also shows that there is something flawed in the conception of sense-data that is not flawed in that of rubber gloves. With gloves, one may take them off or pull them away from the skin or hold the hands in a different light. But with sense-data there is no such thing as getting a better look and no such thing as settling the dispute. Moore, in fact, defines them by the criterion that there is no way of settling the doubt over whether they are part of surfaces of objects. They are distinguishable yet indistinguishable from surfaces of objects. Now Bouwsma`s analogy aims at showing the difficulty in understanding the directions to pick out sense-data, but that difficulty is an apparent contradiction or inconceivability. And this latter fact seems to make Bouwsma`s work look like an argument against the existence of sense-data. That in any case is how Moore understood him (``A Reply To My Critics.`` The Philosophy of G.E. Moore, 647).

Another analogy: Sense-data and surfaces are like twins being one person. This must be understood facetiously or as a joke. Each identical body is regarded as fitting perfectly inside the other so that they appear as one person. ``He is Hans and Fritz.`` And which one am I seeing now? If one answers, a doubt arises about that answer, and, of course, there would be no way of settling the doubt. Bouwsma allows the reader to draw the conclusion from this analogy. Sense-data and surfaces are twins. A difference that makes no difference is no difference. Sense-data are completely indistinguishable from surfaces. The concept of sense-data makes no sense. Or is it that sense-data do not exist? Is the latter conclusion also to be drawn? Bouwsma never draws it explicitly. Again, Moore takes him to be drawing that conclusion. In some ways Bouwsma`s discussion of sense-data reminds one of Berkeley`s discussion of material objects. Sometimes one takes Berkeley`s arguments as showing that material objects make no sense, and at other times one takes them to be showing that there are no such things as material objects. The latter makes Berkeley an idealist. But Bouwsma is learning how to resist making metaphysical claims. He does not want to make claims that deny the existence of sense-data nor affirm realism.

Using Moore`s language for picking out sense-data again, Bouwsma now substitutes ``mirror-images`` where he had previously substituted rubber gloves for sense-data. This analogy seems to get us closer to the stuff of which sense-data are made. The mirror-image of one`s hand is at first taken to be identical with part of the surface of one`s hand, but then a doubt arises, etc. Little children and puppies might be taken in, but grown-ups, knowing how to recognize hand mirror-images, are not. This analogy plays out differently than that of the twins, for here there is a difference and at least grown-ups know it. As in the case of the rubber gloves, one knows how to separate what looks identical. But Bouwsma is concerned in this analogy to raise a question about the doubt that is supposed to arise. With seeing a hand, one is to see it and then have doubts about whether it is the sense-data of a hand that one is seeing. But how could that doubt come to be unless one was already familiar with the theory of sense-data? What is there about seeing a hand that would give one the doubts about whether it was really a hand that one was seeing or the sense-data of the hand? How does sense-data come into this? The analogy to mirror-images raises this puzzle for Bouwsma. If one sees a mirror-image of a hand and observes (ala Moore) that it is identical with part of the surface of his hand and then doubts whether it is a part of the surface of his hand, then he has already understood that there are mirror-images in order for the doubt to arise. No concept of mirror-image, no doubt possible – for one needs something to mistake the surface for. So too then, Bouwsma notices: No concept of sense-data, no doubt possible – for one needs something to mistake the surface for. The point, I take it, is that according to Moore`s instructions for picking out sense-data, the doubt about the surface is essential for identifying the sense-data, but that doubt can not arise until after one is already able to identify sense-data. The explanation of the concept begs itself. This concept, like some of the others, while a difficulty in understanding what Moore meant, has some features of a straight-forward philosophical argument. Such features are not typical of Bouwsma`s later work.

The next analogy is to the language of mistaking one thing for another. The case provided is that of Jacob`s tricking Isaac into giving him the blessing rather than his brother Esau. Jacob had attached wool to his hand to match Esau`s hairy features, and Isaac was blind or nearly so. Isaac, noticing a difference in the voice of Esau, might have asked: ``Is this the hand of Esau or Jacob?`` Now Bouwsma develops some of the language of this situation – it is the language of doubt in making a mistake of one thing for another. And what is present to the language of doubt in making a mistake is that there are respects in which two things are similar and respects in which they are dissimilar. Isaac notices that while Esau`s arm is similar to the arm he is feeling, Esau`s voice is different from the voice he is hearing. There may be other similarities and differences as well. If there were no similarities, there would be no mistake, but if there were no dissimilarities, there would be no doubt. Yet the case of sense-data and surfaces has all similarities and no dissimilarities. The sense-data of the hand and the part of the surface of the hand are completely similar. So the two can apparently be mistaken, but no doubt would arise as to when one was taking (mistaking) one for the other. And, of course, once the situation is described in this way, it becomes conceptually impossible for there to be a mistake. The grammar of ``mistake`` involves that of discovering the mistake and of there being respects in which two things differ.

Bouwsma brings Part I to a close by making some observations about the odd sort of way Moore is using the expression ``the surface of my hand.`` Presumably one knows some things about the surface of one`s hand. One can pick out his knuckles, identify blotches, notice a scratch, etc. But suppose, as Moore supposes, that one is possessed by a doubt about whether this surface which one is familiar with, really is the surface of his hand. Now the surface of one`s hand is something one can see, smell, touch, kiss, etc. – it is something physical. But the thing which might be taken for the surface of one`s hand is not something which one can smell, touch, kiss, (or see in a different way) etc. – it is not something physical. So how can ``the surface of one`s hand`` be used to refer to something with physical properties that can then be taken for something else which is identical with the surface of one`s hand which has non-physical properties? Again, Bouwsma is working with the difficulties in understanding the meaning of an expression – with what makes or does not make sense. Here, however, he does it not so much by showing the use of the expression in various ordinary contexts, but by describing Moore`s usages of the expression as having contradictory properties.

In Part 2 of his paper, Bouwsma discusses three sets of facts, reflection about which, would lead him to the sorts of doubt that Moore regards as arising from a little reflection about sense-data. In other words, Bouwsma attempts to imagine for himself what would lead a philosopher to the theory of sense-data. Again, the role of analogy is predominant in these reflections. The first set of facts and reflection is concerned with sounds, odors, and tastes. Bouwsma notices first that it is odd that Moore`s discussion of sense-data is restricted to visual sense-data. The surfaces of objects which can be mistaken for sense-data only exist with respect to vision. There is no surface of an object in connection with hearing sounds, smelling odors, or tasting tastes. But there is something interesting and similar in the cases of sounds, odors, and tastes. In connection with each, when one hears, smells, or tastes, there is a description of the sound, odor, or taste which may be described independently of the object heard, smelled, or tasted. Bouwsma gives three pairs of sentences to help illustrate this point: i) I hear a gnawing sound. I hear a rat. ii) I smell an odor. I smell a rat. iii) I taste a sour taste. I taste a lemon. The first sentence in each pair can be described independently of the second, but the second cannot be described independently of the first. So that if I say, ``I hear a rat,`` then one may ask, ``What did it sound like?`` And I then will say ``It was a gnawing sound.`` And so on with the other pairs. The first sentence in each pair might be thought of as the sense-datum which exists independently of the object. Bouwsma is not recommending that one talk in this way, he is only showing how reflection on certain facts may lead one to Moore`s view of sense-data. The first sentence in the pair, then, represents the sense-datum connected to the sensing of the object, and the second sentence is of the object itself. These pairs could constitute a misleading analogy to the sense of sight for Moore. If one were to construct the corresponding pair of sentences for sight, what would one put as the first sentence? ``I see a rat,`` would clearly be the second sentence. So must there not be a corresponding first sentence which describes the sense-datum connected to the seeing of the rat? ``I see a sense-datum of a rat.`` And of course what it is that you find when you look around for the sense-datum is the surface or part of the surface of a rat. You do not see anything else and so you say that what you see (the surface of a rat) is the sense-datum. So by analogy to the other senses, one is led to equating visual sense-data with surfaces. Bouwsma provides this interesting origin to visual sense-data as arising out of the comparison to sounds, odors, and tastes. It is difficult to assess what roll it actually played in Moore`s reflections. While it is unlikely that Moore was conscious of any such analogy motivating his thinking, Bouwsma`s claim was not that Moore was conscious of such an analogy, but only that such an analogy could unconsciously drive one to Moore`s conclusions.

A second set of facts and reflections about them concerns mirror reflections and the like, and is closely related to the first set. If one is already taken by the analogy of sounds, odors, and tastes to sights, then one may be further motivated by another aspect of this analogy as it relates to mirror reflections and other images. A mirror reflection may be described independently of the surface of an object in some way that can be said to be similar to a gnawing sound being described independently of a rat. It is true that the independent visual description of a mirror image is the same or nearly the same as the description of the surface of the object, and this is unlike the relationship between the gnawing sound and the rat. But this fact does not dissuade Moore from accepting the analogy, and it explains how Moore comes to say that the sense-data is identical or nearly identical with the surface of the object. If both the sense-data and the surface are independently describable and happen to have the same descriptions, then it would be understandable why one would say that they were identical or nearly so and why they could be mistaken for one another.

The third set of facts and reflection involves a misleading grammatical analogy again related to the first that, significantly, can also be seen as a grammatical analogy. The misleading grammatical analogy is captured by reflecting on the differences involved in the following look-alike sentences: i) This sounds like a horse. ii) This smells like an onion. iii) This tastes like a peppermint. iv) This looks like a million dollars. v) This feels like a sponge.

Bouwsma notices the difference between the first three and the last two. In order to grasp the point, focus on i and iv as representative of the different sets. In i, the description is the description of a sound. The sound is a sound like the sound of a horse. In iv, the description is not that of a look, but that of an object. This object looks like a million dollars. The object is a million dollars or perhaps a person. The sentences have different uses and are used to describe different kinds of things. But the sentences have apparently similar grammatical patterns. (A lesson Wittgenstein would later teach by the introduction of the distinction between ``surface and depth grammars.``) And if one follows the analogy of their apparent similarity, one is misled to looking at iv as being about a ``look.`` ``This `look` has the look of a million dollars`` as ``This sound has the sound of a horse.`` And, of course, the ``look`` turns into the sense-data. ``This sense-datum has the look of a million dollars.`` And: ``This sense-datum is identical or nearly identical with the surface of a million dollars.`` And thus the analogy takes one to where one does not belong – to see objects that no one else sees.

In the brief Part 3 of his essay, Bouwsma generalizes about what he has done or tried to do in the first two parts. He states that he has not refuted Moore`s view. Moore has claimed that there are sense-data and has given directions for how to pick them out. Bouwsma has explored the difficulties in following these directions for the discovery of sense-data. He has done this by assembling numerous analogies for following those directions. He has also provided analogies for how Moore may have come to suppose that there are sense-data. In this too Bouwsma has shown that there are difficulties in understanding how sense-data are distinguishable from the surfaces of objects. The failure to understand this distinction is a failure to understand what Moore means by ``sense-data.`` Bouwsma comes very close to saying that there are no sense-data, but only objects. ``... I discover nothing but my hand`` (18). But he does not say directly that there are no sense-data. He restricts himself to what he regards as Moore`s confusions in claiming to have discovered them.

Bouwsma,O.K. ``Russell`s Argument On Universals.`` The Philosophical Review March, 1943: 52,193-199.

Russell claims that there are universals. Bouwsma proposes to examine Russell`s argument for the existence of such things. He focuses on Russell`s attention to resemblances. Triangle A resembles triangle B with respect to triangleness. And B resembles C with respect to whiteness. Thus we have the universals: triangle and white. Bouwsma points out an ambiguity in the expressions ``the same shape`` and ``the same color,`` that transfers to the expressions of resemblance. Pink and maroon are both reds, and so ``the same color`` may be applied to pink and maroon. Yet in another sense of ``the same color,`` they are not the same color. So also with triangles – equilateral and isosceles are both triangles, resembling and not resembling each other at the same time. This presents a problem for the idea of universals resting on the argument that they are required by the resemblance shared between different objects. Bouwsma argues that this ignored ambiguity leads Russell to draw conclusions about the existence of universals. This conclusion that there are ``universals`` –contains a word ``universals`` that must be philosophically ``expurgated.`` I take it that Bouwsma means by this that the word ``universals`` harbors an ambiguity about sameness and must be cleaned up or purged before we can understand what is being claimed.

Again, while Bouwsma would not have written in this argumentative style later, one can see here his early and persistent focus on language and meaning and the seeds of his later awareness of the ``failure to make sense.``

Bouwsma, O.K. ``Jack and Jill On A Log.`` The Prairie Schooner Summer,1944. (The Prairie Schooner is the literary magazine of the University of Nebraska.)

Also in:

–––––. O.K.Bouwsma`s Commonplace Book: Remarks On Philosophy and Education. Ed. Ronald E. Hustwit and J.L. Craft. Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001.

The parenthetical subtitle – ``With Apologies to Mark Hopkins`` – is a reference to a remark of President James Garfield at the inauguration of his former teacher Mark Hopkins to the presidency of William`s College. The remark was: ``Give me a simple bench, Mark Hopkins on the one end and I on the other, and you may have all the buildings, apparatus and libraries without him.``

I

In thinking about education, to put our ideas in order, we should first think about the uses of knowledge. Knowledge may sharpen our wits. It may provide little curious facts which can be entertaining or like collecting treasures. Knowledge may be used to build machines to help in human work. It may open our eyes to the grandeur of nature, and more. Before we set out to teach Jack and Jill, we should be clear that knowledge has various uses and understand something of what those uses are.

II

In further clearing the concepts involved in education, we should also take notice of the fact that any given branch of knowledge has more than one use. Mathematics, for example, does not merely produce discipline of mind – clear analytic thinking. It has other uses as well – counting money and building steam boilers. The same is true for other branches of knowledge. As each branch is complex in its uses, the cataloging of the branches of knowledge for the education of Jack and Jill must reflect that complexity. Nevertheless, the general branches of knowledge may be catalogued in the following ways.

Mathematics, the physical sciences, biology, logic, and metaphysics may be grouped together as branches of knowledge that aim at exhibiting the order of the world. The social sciences and much of psychology may be thought of as describing ``the rags and tatters and slums`` of our the world. Geography and geology, like the social sciences, are descriptive of something less than a royal realm, but rather are providing all sorts of ``curious information about bananas and bears on ice`` and useful information for military strategists. Bouwsma adds: ``My only point is that they are not calculated to develop minds that cut clean and link with strength. Nor do they draw back those folds, the superficies of our world. They are sunk in them and in their manifold `here` and `there` and `next`.`` He also adds to the list of such courses all the survey courses in English, physical sciences, and social sciences. Bouwsma continues his cataloging.

Professional education belongs in professional schools. Here the education of Jack and Jill is simpler. A given professional study is clearest on its aims, understands the uses of its knowledge, and works best to achieve its aims in the education of those who are passed on to it.

Literary studies, including ancient and modern languages, even philology and language studies, while obviously having certain other useful benefits are ``best understood as preliminaries to the enjoyment of the individual wonders of human life. Literature is to be enjoyed. And the enjoyment is tied to the contemplation of the ``wonders of man.`` Yet, Bouwsma hedges the claim with the word ``preliminary.`` They wipe Jack and Jill`s eyes, ``remove film,`` but ``sight is not for them to give.`` So while literary studies may bring enjoyment in the contemplation of the wonders of man, they are not productive of truth in this arena. ``And yet it may be for the sake of what they cannot give that they are so busy.``

In light of this cataloging of the branches of knowledge and their uses, it is no wonder then that in the liberal arts colleges there is nothing but confusion. Not only have we failed to distinguish the uses of knowledge, but each branch of knowledge has multiple uses. One branch has no exclusive claim to one kind of use. The result is: ``Teach anything.`` The art`s curriculum is a kaleidoscope. Most see this but are unable to clear the fog nor lead thru the political decision-making process to make any changes of significance.

III

The first two questions in sorting and ordering thought about college education then are: 1) What are the functions of knowledge? and 2) What function or functions does each branch of knowledge have? A third and greater question is: ``What were Jack and Jill made for? This question is of central importance to orienting ourselves on the education map. The latter question requires a choice between competing pictures of who Jack and Jill are and what their function is. It may be that one may, in planning for Jack and Jill`s education, hold more than one of the competing pictures. But one will have to be chosen as primary and the other as secondary in order to give a coherent account of education.

Bouwsma presents four pictures of who Jack and Jill are and what they were made for. 1) Man is a rational animal. He was made as a thinker. An education accordingly should aim at the perfections of his rational faculties. 2) Man is a creature made by God. His function then is to glorify God and to enjoy the wonders of creation. An education under this picture would serve to develop his powers of enjoyment of these created wonders. 3) Man is made as part of nature and must function in the natural order of things. An education accordingly should teach him how to function best in the natural and human world. This will involve getting control of nature – of one`s environs. 4) Man is to be a good citizen in a good community. An education aims at producing good citizens and good states, presumably democracies, in which to live.

Bouwsma does not present these four pictures in an entirely unbiased manner. For example, in 4, he describes the good citizen as one made to be governed and he worries that attention to the development of the individual citizen may well produce another Socrates. Socrates, remember, presented difficulties to Athenian democracy. And, there is in picture 3, that man, as one part of nature, attempting to control other parts of nature, the possibility of the concentration and abuse of that power. Further, it is difficult to see how general studies (literary, philosophical, and general science) would figure into the picture.

Bouwsma`s bias becomes more evident in his noticing how ``nicely an educational scheme unfolds,`` if we adopt the picture that Jack and Jill were made to glorify God and enjoy his wonders. The sciences and arts come together in this project. The subtle and richness of language enable one to enjoy the glories of God in poetry, song, and novels. In them we may observe and contemplate the wonders of creation – both man and nature.

IV

There is reason to apologize, Bouwsma writes, for disputable and even false statements that he has made in describing the uses of knowledge and presenting the slanted view of some pictures of what man is made for. Nevertheless, it will be necessary to make such claims and choices if one is to proceed to an account of an education schema.

Further, the confusions and disagreements that educators may have about these issues do not mean that nothing good arises from a college education. One teacher may have a cherished scheme and pursue it with a measure of success. And any given student may pursue one or another of these schemes, picturing himself in one of several of these ways, again with a certain measure of success. As there will be failures in this democracy of educational aims, there will, likewise, be successes. Perhaps these last apologies and allowances for success under the kaleidoscope of contemporary college education programs are Bouwsma`s concessions to his circumstances in teaching at a state university (The University of Nebraska). He held no illusions of turning Nebraska into the Calvin College of his youth. Not that Calvin College was without these same difficulties. But the place of the picture of education as suited to Jack and Jill as creatures of God made for glory and enjoyment was one that Bouwsma could only harbor for himself as an individual teacher. So his essay serves not simply to sort and order concepts of education, but to reconcile his own place in a large and multifaceted university underwritten by the state of Nebraska. Nebraskans do need to know something of the ways of beef cattle and soybeans.

Bouwsma, O.K. ``Mr. Murphy On Good Will.`` Journal of Philosophy November, 1945: 42,630-638.

The article is a discussion of an idea in a chapter of Arthur Murphy`s book The Uses of Reason (1943). The chapter is titled, ``Moral Order and Moral Freedom.`` Bouwsma identifies several sentences of Murphy that he wants to examine. They have to do with good will. In his examination, Bouwsma asks if whatever we desire is good and what makes a good will good. These are ideas he has taken from Murphy and questioned. Bouwsma playfully presents illustrations – cases – of someone`s denying something. Is this good? He considers ``the good Samaritan`` and a story from Samuel Johnson caring for a poor woman. Bouwsma follows out expressions of ``good`` and ``good will,`` as well as other sentences of Murphy – exploring how they might actually be used. He explores the meaning of the specific words and sentences of Murphy. ``Let`s see what Murphy means`` and ``Let`s consider what it would be like to actually use this word or this sentence.`` Bouwsma is inventing a way of doing philosophy here that he came to practice the rest of his life. He is, by and large, independent of Wittgenstein in this invention at this point in his life. The content of the paper is not so interesting as the style and method that Bouwsma is developing.

Midway through the essay, Bouwsma describes what he is doing is the following way: `` I have tried so far to suggest by certain analogies . . . what he [Murphy] might mean by . . . `A good will is good.``` Bouwsma, that is, is completely aware of his developing technique in doing philosophy. He is teasing sense and nonsense out of sentences by means of providing analogies. What you say is like what the provided analogy says. And we make sense of the provided analogy in such and such a way. Is this the sense that your sentences have? No? Then what? Further, Bouwsma, in this aside, says that he wants to go ``to study his [Murphy`s] language in order to probe further what he is describing. In this he again acknowledges explicitly a self-awareness of his new developing method. The method is inventing, recalling, and examining the ``language-games`` in which the words of the philosophers might actually be used.

Bouwsma goes on to do this as he has done earlier in the essay. He examines Murphy`s language – his claims, such as: we shall find it hard to deny that a good will is good. In his concluding paragraph, Bouwsma says that his examination of Murphy`s language has led him to either not understanding him or understanding him and denying what he has said. In other words, Murphy has either claimed something that makes no sense or he has claimed something that makes sense but false. I believe that Bouwsma is not completely confident enough yet to merely reject the claim as nonsense. He still entertains the idea that the philosophical claim is false. Later, he no longer entertains ideas of refuting the false claims of a philosopher. In such a paper as ``Berkeley`s Idealism,`` he replaces the philosopher`s task of refutation with showing the nonsense of what has been said.

Bouwsma, O.K. ``Descartes Skepticism of the Senses.`` Mind Oct. 1945: 54,313-322.

Also in:

–––––. Philosophical Essays. Lincoln: Nebraska Press,1965.

In the first part of this essay, Bouwsma presents Descartes` puzzlement in the dream argument. He represents the puzzlement in his own way – in a way aimed at making clear what the puzzle is in Descartes. The dream puzzle about the reliability of the senses follows a general argument about the unreliability of the senses. If one can sometimes be fooled, how can one be sure that he is not always being fooled by the senses? The dream argument mounts up skepticism to the same conclusion. A dream is a sense-experience that represents no real objects behind it. If one cannot see the difference between a dream sense experience and a non-dream sense experience, then we have good reason to doubt the real object behind the waking sense-experience. Bouwsma provides the following analogy: If we can imagine a mirror reflection so fine that we did not see it as a mirror, we could take it as the real object itself. Now imagine two of the same quality. We cannot tell one from the other. This is Descartes puzzlement restated: Do we have here: a) one fact and one mirror reflection (dream); b) two real objects – facts; or c) two mirror reflections (two dreams)? Bouwsma notices that Descartes never goes for b – two factual worlds. Why is that? In any case, what we have here so far from Bouwsma is merely the presentation or re-presentation of Descartes` puzzlement. Bouwsma proposes that he will investigate how Descartes came to lose his confidence in a – that there is a factual world and a dream world – and slides into the skepticism that follows the loss of confidence.

Bouwsma examines Descartes` uncertainty about telling the difference between wakefulness and dreaming while asleep. ``Am I really here by the fire?`` leads to ``Am I awake?`` Consider the analogous questions: ``Is he awake?`` and ``Are you awake?`` Bouwsma puts these two questions into contexts and shows how they make sense and would ordinarily be answered. Notice the contrast between what we know how to do with ``Is he awake?``/``Are you awake?`` and Descartes` questions. We do not yet know what to do with Descartes` question by contrast to these.

Next Bouwsma considers contexts for the question, ``Am I awake?`` There are some: 1) I see someone I thought was long gone and ask ``Am I awake or dreaming?`` 2) I awake from a dream confused and ask ``Am I awake?`` I see the bedroom wall and the pillow. 3) I have an hallucination like Macbeth`s dagger of the mind. I am not sure what is happening and ask ``Am I awake or is this a real dagger?`` So, there are contexts in which the question makes sense and, in those contexts, I know how to answer the question or recognize it as a statement of astonishment. In any case, it is not Descartes` question and the cases do not bear Descartes` puzzlement nor epistemological skepticism.

Bouwsma examines the question Descartes asks directly: Am I really here by the fire, writing, etc.? Am I awake or dreaming? How could one tell? Suppose that Descartes is awake, and he asks, oddly enough, ``Am I awake?`` He could examine himself to see if he were lying down, eyes closed, etc. Or he could get his landlady to come in and take a look at him. Nonsense. Suppose the opposite – that he is asleep, dreaming. Same thing. He can ask the questions that lead to the criteria of being asleep and dreaming. Am I snoring? Do I say that I have been dreaming? I can ask the landlady these questions too. These are the criteria for being asleep and dreaming. And, of course, it is nonsense to apply them to Descartes` situation by the fire.

Bouwsma adds for our consideration the analogous question: Am I alive or dead? The criteria for one`s being alive or dead, again, are well known. Notice here that we check for the condition of the body of another person. Bouwsma is interested in showing here that it matters whether we are asking the question of a body – potential dead body – one that might be alive or dead. He is calling attention to the fact that in Descartes` philosophy, there is a separation of the person into bodies (as it were dead bodies) and mental substances – ``I.`` The criteria for alive-dead is fitted to bodies as is the criteria for awake-dreaming. Yet Descartes blurs the appropriate places for these criteria to be applied – applying criteria meant for bodies to mental substances (res cogitans).

Bouwsma, O.K. ``Variations on a Theme by Mr. Costello.`` Journal of Philosophy March,1946: 43,157-161.

Also in:

–––––. Philosophical Essays. Lincoln: Nebraska Press,1965.

This paper was written as a response to ``The Naturalism of Woodbridge,`` by H.T. Costello collected in Naturalism and the Human Spirit, a book of essays edited by Y.H. Krikorian.

The old lady, obviously simpleminded, finds it fantastic that the pocket of the kangaroo is thought-up or conceived by nature. ``You mean to tell me . . .?!`` She follows the path of her language – her natural expressions – ``conceived,`` ``thought of,`` ``ends and means,`` ``accidental,`` etc. The interlocutor, ``I,`` is not simpleminded; he is modern minded, scientific minded. He listens and tries to explain. He is ``incredulous,`` ``disgusted,`` ``upset,`` even exasperated at her simpleminded difficulties. Although in the end, when she seems to get it at last, she compares the kangaroo developing a pocket to the elephant`s developing a howdah (seat with an umbrella). Just when she seems to get it, she doesn`t at all. Poor man, to have to deal with such simpleminded old ladies.

So there is indigestible language in the theory of evolution. The language of evolution even suggests design – a forbidden word. Maybe we should ban the language of the old lady – ``conceived,`` ``thought of,`` ``means and ends,`` etc. The theory does not readily harbor this language. It only serves to confuse simpleminded people. Maybe then we should get rid of it.

Bouwsma is not putting this forward as an argument against evolutionary theory. He is, however, concerned with the metaphysical theory of ``naturalism`` held by philosophers, such as Krikorian, who have swallowed evolution together with naturalism`s presuppositions. While a scientific theory is not refuted by language, a metaphysical theory can be ``frisked`` by a philosopher to see if it makes sense. And this does involve a linguistic investigation. Unlike evaluating a scientific theory, it is a conceptual as opposed to an empirical investigation.

Bouwsma, O.K. ``Naturalism.`` Journal of Philosophy January,1948: 45,12-21.

Also in:

–––––. Philosophical Essays. Lincoln: Nebraska Press,1965.

The paper was originally prepared for and read at a symposium of the Western Division of the American Philosophical Association Meeting in Iowa City, 1947.

The sentences Bouwsma discusses are taken from Naturalism and the Human Spirit, ed. By Y.H. Krikorian (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944).

In reflecting on how he will proceed with the sentences on naturalism, which he has in front of him, Bouwsma makes some interesting observations about philosophical method. He opines that there are three ways of attacking a philosophical theory: 1) misunderstanding it, 2) refuting it, and 3) trying to understand it. In the year after he met Wittgenstein, he chose 3, but here in 1945, he chooses 2. This is a telling fact about Bouwsma`s development. It is also interesting that he is, at this point, conscious of all three options.

Bouwsma sets out on a course of refutation. The naturalist`s claim is that all knowledge is scientific (experimental) knowledge. This comes to: There is no knowledge that is not scientific knowledge. And now Bouwsma reminds us that there are at least two kinds of knowledge that are not scientific: laws of thought and mathematical knowledge. So the naturalist`s claim stands refuted, but not so for the naturalist. The naturalist knows about the truths of the logician and of the mathematician, but does not allow that ``all knowledge is scientific knowledge`` has been refuted. It must be, he posits, that the laws of thought and mathematics are not knowledge. As knowledge, for the naturalist, is of a certain sort, logic and mathematics are not of that sort. They are not really knowledge.

The naturalist`s view of apriori knowledge is tied into this denial of logical and mathematical knowledge. Apriori knowledge of the sort as laws of thought and the mathematical are a historical accident. That is, the laws of thought are based on grammar and the grammar of our language might have been different. Likewise, mathematics is not based upon some reality; it is an invention, and so it might have been invented differently. These, what seem to be apriori principles, are merely tools invented for a particular purpose. Bouwsma playfully asks: May they, like species that have developed out of usefulness, outlive their usefulness and pass away?

Another refutation of naturalism is that the justification that it is successful is not itself a claim of naturalism. How do we know that ``all knowledge is scientific``? If we say the we know this because ``it pays or is a successful strategy to believe this,`` then we are not believing it to be knowledge on the grounds set down in the basic principle of naturalism that all knowledge is scientific. Bouwsma calls this a second kind of refutation and the reader may recognize it as a kind often used in philosophy. This is the kind in which one turns a principle of a metaphysical position against itself. Eg.: of ancient skepticism we may object: If all knowledge is doubtable, then the claim that all knowledge is doubtable is itself doubtable.

This refutation too, however, does not move the naturalist. The scientist works to develop and refine our expectations. And if our expectations are refined – are successful – then everyone is happy. This confirmation of expectations is all that the naturalist needs. Here the issue comes to: What counts as a ``proof``? On the one hand, we have the language of ``since,`` ``therefore,`` and ``contradiction`` as criterion of proof. On the other, we have the language of ``success`` used as criterion of proof. And so the dispute over the naturalist`s claim is not settled, as what we mean by ``proof`` is not settled. And who will adjudicate this dispute over ``proof``? – the naturalist``?

Bouwsma shows that attempts at the refutation of naturalism has not and will not work to stop the naturalist. This is the Bouwsma, on his way to a later Bouwsma, who sees that refutation in philosophy is a useless activity. He later comes to full realization that refutation presupposes philosophical claims to be intelligible.

The naturalist then is seen to be in a position like the following: He is really and only articulating a policy. He is urging us to be scientific. And he is urging us to renounce metaphysics. He must believe that science and metaphysics are pursuing the same truth and that science succeeds in discovering that truth while metaphysics fails. The success of science becomes the criteria for claiming the validity of the scientific method for producing truth. Bouwsma notices the irony of the naturalist, who, in denying metaphysics, puts forward such a circular and irrefutable, ie. metaphysical claim.

Bouwsma is direct in disagreeing with the naturalist claim that metaphysics and science pursue the same ends. Unlike science, he points out, metaphysics pursues truths about God, morality, the nature of world. Bouwsma agrees that the naturalist is right in denying that metaphysics can produce this knowledge, because there is no agreement about what counts as proof. But naturalism itself, like the metaphysics it rejects, has no clear notion of proof other than success, which is no proof at all.

In his last thought on these matters, Bouwsma says that he can continue to be ``entertained`` by metaphysics, and ``in one instance even love it.`` Does he mean Christianity here? – a comparison he would not have allowed himself at a later time.

Bouwsma, O.K. ``Descartes` Evil Genius.`` Philosophical Review March,1949: 58,141–151.

Also in:

–––––. Philosophical Essays. Lincoln: Nebraska Press,1965.

The paper begins with another evil genius – the devil in the Garden of Eden. He entices Adam to knowledge of good and evil, but, as Bouwsma reminds us, we are not God – without God`s knowledge – and inherit the human condition by Adam`s yielding to temptation. He playfully hints at the place of skepticism and human knowledge in the human condition.

Bouwsma proposes to take up Descartes` ``Evil Genius Argument`` from the ``First Meditation.`` That evil genius creates the illusion of a real world by presenting sense-images to our consciousness when in fact there are no physical objects behind the sense-images, that is, no objects that the sense-images represent. The key word under scrutiny here is ``illusion.`` Bouwsma proposes an investigation into the language of the evil genius to show that the evil genius himself is ``befuddled`` in claiming to create such an ``illusion.`` If we can come to see his befuddlement, we can escape it ourselves.

Bouwsma makes a brief and playful allusion to other similar kinds of illusion to which men have succumbed, namely to Thales` ``all is water`` and materialists` ``all is billiard balls.`` The evil genius is bolstered by the fact that men have fallen for the illusion that what appears as hills, trees, sky, and other people is really water or a collection of atom balls bouncing off each other. Bouwsma`s insight is that the metaphysics of idealism and mind-body dualism are illusions of the same sort as the illusion of materialism. The key to understanding this will be an examination of the word ``illusion.``

For this examination Bouwsma creates a fiction. A certain fellow, Tom, enters a world totally constructed of paper by the evil genius. The evil genius has created a paper world as an illusion for such humans as Tom, expecting that they will be fooled to thinking that the objects of the world are real flowers, real tables, real people (Milly), etc., when they are only paper. Tom, of course, sees what he thinks are flowers, tables, and Milly, but immediately recognizes them as paper.

The aim of the imaginary story is to lay bare the concept of ``illusion.`` An illusion involves being deceived, to be sure, but it also involves the discovery of the deception. Bouwsma writes of an illusion that it involves being deceived, to be sure, but it also involves the discovery of the deception. Bouwsma writes of an illusion that it i