O. K. Bouwsma, one of America's foremost Wittgensteinians, was also
an extraordinarily dedicated and effective teacher. The present
collection, assembled posthumously from his papers, includes twelve
essays, all but one previously unpublished and all characterized by
the humor, common sense, and wisdom that marked his classroom
lectures.
Ranging in subject matter from topics in Wittgenstein to
Descartes to aesthetics, the pieces all show the influence of
Wittgenstein. Some of the questions they raise deal with the
traditional and historical background of twentieth-century
philosophy--"Am I dreaming?" "Is what I see real?" "Are there
material objects?"--while others relate to considerations peculiar
to thinkers today, for example, "What is Wittgenstein doing in his
writing?" "What does philosophy have to do with language?"
Bouwsma wants first to understand the philosophical
questions--to unknit the knit eyebrows it produces. Accordingly,
his major concern is how we as thinkers, readers, writers, and
speakers, separate what we understand from what we do not
understand: hence his consideration, in the opening essay, of "a
new sensibility in the matter of our language." Always approaching
the subject as a practical problem rather than as an abstract,
theoretical issue, these essays demonstrate, with patience and wit,
ways to achieve clarity on puzzles long thought intractable.
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