Selections from Bouwsma's Commonplace Book from 'The Blue Book' on: "The Meaning of a Word"

Authors

Ronald E. Hustwit Sr., The College of WoosterFollow
O.K. Bouwsma

Files

Source

The College of Wooster Philosophy Department ; University of Texas, Austin

Description

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's 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.

Publication Date

2018

Format

PDF

City

Wooster

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Keywords

O.K. Bouwsma, philosophy, University of Texas, class notes, The Blue Book

Disciplines

Philosophy

Subject

Philosophy

Recommended Citation

Hustwit, Ronald E. Sr. and Bouwsma, O.K., "Selections from Bouwsma's Commonplace Book from 'The Blue Book' on: "The Meaning of a Word"" (2018). O.K. Bouwsma Collection. 2.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/bouwsma/2