Education and Early Career
He was educated at Calvin College and at the University of Michigan. In his early years he was an advocate of idealism, but later found the work of G. E. Moore’s common sense counters to skepticism more appealing to his inclinations. Still, he was critical of Moore. He developed his own technique of analysis that focused on uncovering hidden analogies driving Moore’s ways of speaking about sense data. He worked intensely on Moore, publishing a significant paper, “Moore’s Theory of Sense-Data,” which was eventually included in the Library of Living Philosophers volume on Moore. The essay reflected the beginnings of a method of philosophical analysis that was soon to be forged by his reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Read more about this topic: Oets Kolk Bouwsma
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