ABSTRACT
Oets Kolk Bouwsma, an American philosopher, was born of Dutch-American parents in Muskegon, Michigan, in 1898. 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 George Edward Moore (1873-1958) with his commonsense counters to skepticism more appealing. 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.1 The essay reflected the beginnings of his unique method of philosophical analysis.
