BOUWSMA AND EDUCATION

an interpretive essay on selections of O.K. Bouwsma`s

notebooks on themes in education

by

Ronald E. Hustwit

To understand Bouwsma`s ideas about education, one must understand them in the context of his Christianity. To understand Bouwsma at all, one must understand that all of his thought centered in his Christianity. Many who knew Bouwsma as a philosopher did not know of the relation of his philosophical work to Christianity or perhaps did not know of his Christianity at all. Others that did know of it, objected that he compartmentalized his Christianity and did not have an integrated or consistent world view. But what this objection misses is that Bouwsma did not regard Christianity as philosophical view and that he regarded philosophy as the struggle against the illusions created by inattention to language. There was nothing then to integrate into a consistent world view. But there is, nevertheless, a remarkable consistency in his attitudes and thoughts, if we see his Christianity as the starting and central point of all his thinking.

The relevance of seeing Christianity as central to his thinking is that in coming to understand Christianity Bouwsma came to understand that it was not the job of philosophy to justify Christianity. He came to understand that Christianity does not propose objective truths which are discoverable or supportable by means of philosophical investigation. With regard to this understanding, he developed it over years of reading Kierkegaard – where reading involved writing literally thousands of pages in his notebooks, as well as discussions. But he also came to another understanding of the task of philosophy over years at the same time. It was that philosophy did not produce the objective truth about the world, self, and God as it had promised. There were no ``results`` in philosophy. Further, he came to understand that philosophy was the activity of thinking in connection with these truths such that one might come to see the philosophy which produced such objective truths as illusion. The operative question for his conception of philosophy became: How do these illusions arise? And he found the answers to this question in attention to language – both the language of the philosopher and the ordinary language out of which the philosopher`s problems arose. With regard to this understanding, he developed it in connection with his reading of Wittgenstein, and again over many years and involving writing thousands of pages in his notebooks.

Bouwsma`s notebooks were kept continuously from the mid-1920`s to 1978, with more definite ``habits of mind,`` as he called them, developing around his meeting and talking with Wittgenstein in 1949-51. His reading of Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard and their influence on his thought, however, began in the 1930`s. My interest in his notebooks begins with Wittgenstein in 1949-51 and with those new habits of mind which he began to develop simultaneously. From then until Bouwsma`s death in 1978, the two major writers in connection with whom he developed his thinking were Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. Both, for him, aided in his coming to see his former views of Christianity and of philosophy as illusions – illusions he struggled with all of his life. And his notebooks bear the history of that struggle with the lion`s share of the pages being devoted to his readings of Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. But all of the effort may be seen as of a single piece under the banner of his struggle to understand his Christian faith. This struggle was the center of all his work on Wittgenstein as well as on Kierkegaard. It was, in fact, at the center of all his thinking, as well as his reading of the several other main authors on whom he fed: Joyce, Nietzsche, Dostoievski, Tolstoi, Shakespeare, and various poets. His Christianity explains his special fascination with Wittgenstein`s student Yorick Smythies as well. One cannot understand Bouwsma without understanding that his intellectual struggle started with, centered in, and always remained connected to Christianity. For him there was no compartmentalizing, and no unrelated interest which he took up.

Bouwsma returned repeatedly to the several writers mentioned above in addition to Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein, and wrote on them in his customary ways in legal pad notebooks. Bouwsma`s interest in Nietzsche centered primarily in Nietzsche`s opposition to Christianity. Nietzsche understood the subjective nature of Christianity – what Christianity required – and he opposed it, resisted it with all of his might. But this resistance required that he understand Christianity. It also required that he be prepared to face what it would be like to live in a world without god. These themes were good food for the mind, and Bouwsma saw their value for stimulating his own thought as well as the thought of his students. With Nietzsche too, as with any thinker to whom Bouwsma returned, there was a fine writing style. A command of attention was necessary to command Bouwsma`s continued attention.

With James Joyce, the language more than Joyce`s negative reaction to Catholicism was the reason for Bouwsma`s long efforts to read through Ulysses and Finnigan`s Wake as he did. In addition to his notebooks, Bouwsma filled the margins of these two books with explanations of the puns, allusions, and word play. It is impossible to estimate how many hours Bouwsma had tied up in Joyce. He used dictionaries, encyclopedias, and various other reference books in identifying what he did not readily get on his own. And what was the point of this reading which required such work? In Bouwsma`s account there were two purposes. The first was, simply, enjoyment. This was the point of reading literature. Bouwsma could lose himself in the play of language. One must picture Bouwsma with Finnigan`s Wake, distilled spirits, and a cigar. What is the point of drinking alcohol? – of a cigar? They are to be enjoyed. They are God`s gift. Just so is the language-play of Finnigan`s Wake. Some people can become lost in a hobby such as building model trains. Others can lose hours in playing cards or in films. Bouwsma, and we realize not many others, could become lost in the play of words. He gave himself permission for this pure enjoyment. And the permission came, I am convinced, from his Christianity. One may perhaps think of Christianity in terms of its ethical requirements, and not in terms of aesthetics. One may try to impose these ethical requirements on to the task of literature, perhaps as Tolstoi has done. But Bouwsma accepts the pleasure he found in playing with words, especially in Joyce, but in literature in general, as God`s gift. There were no ethical requirements in Joyce, nor in literature in general, for Bouwsma. Literature was not morality in dress.

There was, in the case of Joyce, a second point, if we may call it that. Because of his love of language and of the play of language in which Joyce engaged, Bouwsma felt the effects of reading Joyce in his own work with language. He noticed and liked the effects which Joyce had upon his own language, especially upon his philosophical writing. In some essays, Bouwsma consciously experimented with a Joyce style. But the effect was more general than merely in those several essays. Joyce played in a certain way and to his own ends. Bouwsma too played in a certain way but to different ends. Each had a conscious style, and though different, one can see the effects of Joyce in Bouwsma`s unique style. Bouwsma avoids clichés and standard means of expression with distaste. Common and copied manners of speaking and lazy habits of word choice he reacted to with aversion. He sought freshness in his style. He delighted in producing the surprise and the unexpected in his manner of expression. His humor and play which came naturally, without effort, nonetheless was affected by his reading Joyce with the diligence he did. Bouwsma`s philosophical humor is based on his recognition of the dislocation of the grammar of a word. He describes the effect of reading Joyce on him as breaking the hold which common, lazy patterns of words had on him. On the one hand, Joyce freed him from these bonds of language – he invited Bouwsma to playfulness. On the other hand, they sensitized him to words in a way that made the philosopher`s uses of words hurt his already sensitive ears. Bouwsma then turned the playfulness into a serious philosophical weapon by means of which he made the philosopher`s uses of words clash with each other and with themselves in language-games. In a Joycean playful manner he made nonsense appear where lazy habits dulled one`s sensibility to language that seemed to make sense. This freedom from the bonds of language – the freedom to play with words was the mainstay of Bouwsma`s work in philosophy. Under Wittgenstein`s directions, Bouwsma turns the play loose on words held bondage by philosophers. ``See how the philosopher has been held captive in the use of this word by this or that grammatical analogy. See how a generality has seemed as if it were the only pattern by means of which a certain word is used.`` And then. Bouwsma frees the word by playing with it as the word, by its place in the many language-games, permits. ``I`ll show you differences`` – Wittgenstein. ``I`ll show you word play`` – Bouwsma.

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