Bouwsma published little in his entire tenure at Nebraska and Texas. The irony in this is that he filled thousands of page of legal notepads with daily writing for hours. Friends urged him to publish and warned him of the dangers of not publishing. In the years 1940-46, he did choose to publish several articles in philosophical journals. These were the first of his published writings, having been at the University of Nebraska for over twelve years, with nothing else to show university administrators since his doctoral dissertation. The articles reveal a coming out after a long struggle with idealism. Though not on idealism, they reflect that struggle with idealism. Three of them address issues raised by the young lions of British philosophy Ð Russell, Moore, Ayer Ð who eclipsed Bouwsma`s dissertation author F. H. Bradley. Bouwsma is critical of each and certainly not developing his own thought as either a realist (Moore and Russell) nor as a positivist (Ayer).
The articles were written for journals and, consequently, are written in more ordinary ways than Bouwsma came to write later in his matured and cultured style. His notebooks too reflect this more ordinary way of proceeding in philosophy. In short, Bouwsma presents positions and counter positions. He presents arguments and counters other philosopher`s arguments. The noticeable exception in this set of articles is Moore`s ``Theory of Sense-Data.`` The latter is a break through piece of writing for Bouwsma in which he, in place of refuting Moore, proceeds to attempt to understand Moore by providing analogies, uncovering Moore`s developing theory of sense-data. Nevertheless, even here there are aspects of philosophy by refutation at work. We should bear in mind in reading Bouwsma later work and style, that he was very good at the traditional form of philosophy. He had, like a painter who developed an innovative, unconventional style, first mastered the traditional techniques of his craft.
So Bouwsma proceeds by presentation and refutation. Ayer claims that there are two kinds of meaningful sentences Ð tautologies and sense-content. But the sentence, ``There are sense-contents,`` is neither. Ayer has refuted himself. This looks ordinary enough. But the seeds of a fully developed and different flowering are visible in these early articles. They are strikingly apparent in ``Moore`s Theory of Sense-Data,`` and less so, though present in others. In the paper on Moore, Bouwsma fastens on the undetected analogy, extracts it, and embellishes it with literary allusions. Are sense-data like a fine surface coating covering everything? Are they like thin gloves on a hand? Is what Jacob did to Essau Ð fooling their father`s poor eyes with a sheepskin covering the back of Jacob`s smooth hand Ð is that like a sense-data? This is Bouwsma flowering from ordinary philosophical refutation to developing a new approach that probes for the hidden analogies underlying the inclinations that produce the philosophical theories.
But even in the minor articles of the period, one can see the seeds of the later Bouwsma`s sensibility to the nature and role of language in philosophy. Bouwsma sees a conceptual confusion in Ayer`s understanding of language. Ayer does not distinguish between saying something in language and saying something about language. Or, if he does, he has forgotten it in making these claims. In the article on Stace, again there are aspects of uncovering conceptual confusions at work. Stace would proceed without theology to make a claim that could only be made by a theologian. Stace claims that each person has infinite value as the basis for his recommendation of the virtue of ``sympathy.`` But, infinite value for a person can only be ascribed by God in a theological system and not by a philosopher. In this, one can see Bouwsma`s separating theology and philosophy. Theology is the grammar of church and scripture. Philosophy stands outside and provides conceptual clarity for what goes on inside. One can hear the words of Ivan Karamazov, ``without God there is no infinite value,`` in Bouwsma`s critique of Stace. Kierkegaard`s influence on Bouwsma, too, can be seen in this conceptual separation of theology`s work from philosophy`s.
In the Stace article one can see the separation forming in Bouwsma`s thought between religion and philosophy. Religious life and belief are not based in philosophy. Philosophy has a different task than providing the reasons for belief in the tenets of religion. This separation is manifested in Bouwsma`s rejection of liberal Protestant theology. He thought Tillich`s theology an unhelpful exercise in abstraction and that the result of most liberal seminary education was to remove the consciousness of sin. Liberal Protestant theology is the triumph of the Pelegian heresy: Knowledge will set you free from sin. Stace`s view fits the pattern. Without revelation he lays claim to an arbitrary assigning of ultimate value to the human being that lays the groundwork for the primacy of the virtue sympathy. This is philosophy laying the groundwork for religion Ð a view that Bouwsma is growing away from in shedding Idealism. His philosophical task now is to attack philosophy Ð Stace`s philosophy Ð with a critical philosophy. What are Stace`s presuppositions? On what grounds does Stace claim infinite value? Critiquing such philosophies as Stace`s, which explains and replaces religion, becomes an essential aspect of Bouwsma`s new approach to philosophy, particularly as he comes to understand the relationship between philosophy and Christianity.
In the article, ``Russell`s Argument On Universals`` in The Philosophical Review, Bouwsma gropes for a technique of analysis of language. The focus is not on Russell`s argument but on the hidden ambiguity of an expression that allows a flawed argument to develop. Russell concludes that there are universals on the basis of resemblances. Triangle a resembles triangle b with respect to triangleness. Color a resembles color b with respect to whiteness. And so on. Hence resemblances become universal in Russell`s argument. But, Bouwsma points out, there is an ambiguity in the expressions ``the same shape,`` ``the same color.`` Pink and maroon are both reds. In this they resemble each other and one could say in that they are both reds that they resemble each other. In another sense of ``the same color,`` however, they do not resemble each other and are not the same color. The same is true for isosceles and equilateral triangles. Bouwsma argues that this ignored ambiguity leads Russell to draw conclusions about the existence of universals. The conclusion that there are universals contains a word Ð ``universals`` Ð that must be philosophically ``expurgated.``
Bouwsma would not have written such an article later. It has an argumentative style that Bouwsma abandoned in developing a later style and method. One can, nevertheless, see in it the seeds of his later focus on language as the key to untying philosophical knots and his idea that a philosopher has not produced an invalid argument but has failed to make sense.
Bouwsma`s paper on Moore, ``Moore`s Theory of Sense-Data`` presents his emergent style more clearly than the other early papers mentioned. They begin with attention to the language of another`s argument. He proceeds somewhat like Moore, perhaps even adapting something of Moore`s method. Moore too would ask questions of another like Bouwsma`s asking of Russell: Are we using ``the same`` in the same way? But Bouwsma is proceeding on a different path than Moore`s Ð his own path. On it, he selects a key sentence in a philosopher`s argument and asks of it whether, on the surface, it is comparable to another sentence. He is adept at supplying such comparable sentences. He is apt at supplying such comparable sentences. With them, he asks if the philosopher means what one would mean by the analogous sentence. And, he asks as well, did the philosopher come to his sentence by the unconscious lead of the analogous sentence. As the analogous sentence makes sense, does the philosopher`s sentence make the same sense? Bouwsma`s play with the comparative sentence is much like the sounding of harmonious and cacophonous notes on a piano as a composer of a musical piece might do as he composes. Is Descartes` ``Am I awake?`` like ``Is he awake?`` and ``Are you awake?`` ``Yes?`` No Ð snoring figures into the comparable sentences, but not Descartes, ``Am I awake?``. And when might I ask ``Am I awake?``? Ð perhaps if I met the famous Soviet Joseph Stalin on a street corner in Lincoln, Nebraska. With this play of comparable sentences over against a philosopher`s key sentence, Bouwsma emerges with his own distinctive philosophical style. It is still developing. It is clearly distinct from Moore`s. It is not fully appreciative of the full impact that Wittgenstein`s will have on him. His meeting and discussions with Wittgenstien are four years in the future and the Philosophical Investigations seven years. Bouwsma`s bold departure from the style of philosophical journal articles is yet to come. His new style would place him with artists and irritate his philosophical colleagues. Though his best was yet to come, these essays published in journals in the early period of 1940-45 are accomplished pieces of philosophical writing and are transitionary to a new method of analysis stamped with Bouwsma`s unique style.