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A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Volume 1: The Necessary Presuppositions of Philosophy
This is the pdf copy available online of the old Paideia Press printing.
- GenresPhilosophy
566 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1984
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June 30, 2024
THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE DUTCH CALVINIST PHILOSOPHER’S MAGNUM OPUS
Herman Dooyeweerd was a Dutch philosopher and juridical scholar; the other volumes in this series are The General Theory of the Modal Spheres, The Structures of Individuality of Temporal Reality, and Index of Subjects and Authors.
[NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 1969 Presbyterian and Reformed 566-page hardcover edition, translated by David Freeman and William Young.]
He wrote in the Foreword to the first edition (1935) of this book, “The first rudimental conception of this philosophy had ripened before I came to the Kuyper Foundation (1921)… The great turning point in my thought was marked by the discovery of the religious root of thought itself, whereby a new light was shed on the failure of all attempts … to bring about an inner synthesis between the Christian faith and a philosophy which is rooted in faith in the self-sufficiency of human reason… From a Christian point of view, the whole attitude of philosophical thought which proclaims the self-sufficiency of the latter, turns out to be unacceptable, because it withdraws human thought from the divine revelation in Christ Jesus… If temporal reality itself cannot be NEUTRAL with respect to its religious root, if in other words the whole notion of a static temporal cosmos ‘an sich’ [“in itself”], independent of the religious root of mankind, rests on a fundamental misconception, how can one any longer seriously believe in the religious neutrality of theoretical thought?” (Pg. v-vi)
He states in the Prolegomena, “Meaning is the being of all that has been created and the nature even of our selfhood. It has a RELIGIOUS ROOT and a DIVINE ORIGIN… Only by transcending the speciality of meaning, can I attain to the actual view of totality by which the former is to be distinguished as such… This fixed point from which alone, in the course of philosophical thought, we are able to form the idea of the totality of meaning, we call the ‘Archimedean point’ of philosophy.” (Pg. 4, 8) He adds, “The Archimedean point should satisfy these three conditions: First – it may not be divorced from our own SUBJECTIVE SELF… Second – it may not be divorced from the concentric LAW of the ego’s existence… Third – it must transcend all model diversity of meaning and be found in the totality and radical unity of the latter.” (Pg. 12) Later, he adds, “The Archimedean point of philosophy is chosen in the new root of mankind in Christ, in which by regeneration we have part in our reborn selfhood…” (Pt. I, Ch. I, §9, pg. 99)
He says of the ‘immanence-standpoint,’ that “By this original choice of a position, the attempt is made to detach the logical function of theoretical thought… from the inter-modal coherence of meaning and to treat it as independent. In the nature of the case, this choice is not act of a ‘transcendental subject of thought,’ which is merely an abstract concept. It is rather an act of the full self which transcends the diversity of modal aspects. And it is a RELIGIOUS act, just because it contains a choice of position in the CONCENTRATION-POINT of our existence in the face of the Origin of meaning.” (Pg. 20)
He defines his notion of a transcendental critique: “a critical inquiry (respecting no single so-called theoretical axiom) into the universally valid conditions which alone make theoretical thought possible, and which are required by the immanent structure of this thought itself. In this latter restriction lies the difference in principle between a ‘transcendent’ and a ‘transcendental’ criticism of science and philosophy.” (Pg. 37)
He states, “self-knowledge appears to be dependent on knowledge of God… But a real account of this fact is rendered only by the Biblical Revelation concerning the creation of man in the image of God. God reveals Himself as the absolute Origin excluding every independent counter-power which may be His opposite. He has expressed His image in man by concentrating its entire temporal existence in the radical religious unity of an ego in which the totality of meaning of the temporal cosmos was to be focused upon its Origin. The fundamental dependence of human self-knowledge upon the knowledge of God has consequently its inner ground in the essence of religion as the central sphere of our created nature.” (Ch. I, §5, pg. 55) He asserts, “Critical self-reflection in the concentric direction of theoretical thought to the ego necessarily appeals to self-knowledge… Consequently we may establish the fact, that even the theoretical synthesis supposes a religious starting-point. Furthermore… it is meaningless to ask for a theoretical proof of its religious character, because such a proof presupposes the central starting-point of theoretical thought.” (Ch. I, §5, pg. 59)
He explains, “the term ‘cosmonomic idea,’ because of its critical focusing of the preliminary questions concerning meaning … toward the relation of the cosmic order… and its subject, really designates the central criterion for the fundamental discrimination of the different starting-points and trends in philosophy. In the transcendental basic Idea of cosmic order there runs the boundary line between the immanence-philosophy … and the Christian-transcendence position in philosophy. It is here that the criterion for truly TRANSCENDENTAL philosophy resides, which recognizes its immanent cosmonomic boundaries, and speculative metaphysics, which supposes it can transgress the latter… Let anyone then who has an objection against the term ‘cosmonomic Idea’ avoid it and use the term ‘transcendental ground-Idea’ or ‘transcendental basic Idea.’ In the Netherlands, however, it has become quite current to indicate this whole philosophic movement by the term… ‘Philosophy of the cosmonomic idea.’” (Ch. I, §8, pg. 95-96)
He says, “From the Christian starting-point the cosmonomic Idea of our philosophy obtains the following contents: To the ultimate transcendental question: What is the [origin] of the totality and the modal diversity of meaning of our cosmos with respect to the cosmonomic side and its correlate, the subject-side? It answers: the sovereign holy will of God the Creator, who has revealed Himself in Christ. To the second transcendental question, with respect to its cosmonomic side: What is the totality of meaning of all modal aspects of the cosmic order, their supra-temporal unity beyond all modal diversity of meaning? It answers: the requirement grounded in God’s sovereignty, of the love and service of God and our fellow-creatures with our whole heart. To the same question, with respect to its subject-side, it answers: the new religious root of the human race in Christ… in subjection to the fullness of meaning of the divine law. To the third transcendental question: What is the mutual relation between modal aspects of reality? It answers: SPHERE-SOVEREIGNTY, that is to say: mutual irreducibility, yet in the all-sided cosmic coherence of the different aspects of meaning, as this is regulated in God’s temporal order of the world, in a cosmic order of time.” (Ch. I, §9, pg. 101)
He argues, “The proposition 2 x 2 = 4 is not ‘true in itself,’ but only in the context of the laws of number and the logical laws of thought… There exists no partial truth which is sufficient to itself. Partial THEORETICAL truth is truth only in the coherence of the theoretical truths, and this coherence in its relativity pre-supposes the fullness or the totality of truth. Consequently, also the philosophical view of the mutual relation and coherence of the numerical and the logical aspects… is influenced from the start by the transcendental ground-Idea of philosophical thought and by the religious ground-motive which determines its content… On the other hand, however, it must of course be granted, that the judgement 2 x 2 = 4 refers to a state of affairs in the numerical relations which is independent of the subjective theoretical view and its supra-theoretical pre-suppositions… It has no meaning outside of this temporal order.” (Ch. II, §1, pg. 116)
He says, “In the light of the transcendental ground-Idea, there exists only one ultimate and radical anti-thesis in philosophy, viz., that between absolutizing, i.e. deifying of MEANING, in apostasy from God on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the return of philosophic thought to Christ in God, which leads to the insight into the complete relativity and lack of self-sufficiency of all that exists in the created mode of meaning.” (Ch. II, §1, pg. 123)
He asserts, “Humanistic philosophy has never found a fruitful and deep inner religious contact with a life- and world-view which, as the Christian one, lives spontaneously in the heart of the simple man and calmly retains its pious certainty against all errors of theoretical thought. The Dutch Christian statesmen and thinker, Dr. Abraham Kuyper, discovered this weak point in the relationship between the philosophical theory and the life- and world-view of Humanism. And, in his struggle against the enlightened liberalism of the last century, he concentrated his attack upon this very point. (Pt. II, Ch. I, §1, pg. 172)
Later, he adds, “a radical transcendental critique of theoretical thought is highly necessary and actual. The foundations upon which our culture had sought to build have been shaken everywhere by the storms of a tremendous transitional period. Therefore, the autonomy of theoretical thought can no longer properly be posited as a philosophical axiom… in the present spiritual crisis anyone who thinks he can take refuge on this dogmatic [Humanistic] standpoint, in order to block the way to a radical critical self-reflection in philosophy, thereby displays the fact that he has understood nothing of the deepest causes of the crisis.” (Pt. II, Ch. I, §4, pg. 215)
He then begins a lengthy analysis of various philosophers, after explaining, “It is not our intention to write a history of modern philosophy… Our purpose is only to investigate the development of the polar tensions within Humanist philosophy itself in a few of its most representative systems. Consequently, we shall examine these tensions separately and apart from the complications which arise by the intrinsically contradictory union of the Humanist with the scholastic-Christian ‘realist’ standpoint in philosophy.” (Pt. II, Ch. II, §2, pg. 223)
Later, he summarizes, “we have seen how the basic antinomy in the transcendental ground-Idea of Humanistic thought develops into polar antitheses within and between the various systems… It is now evident that the development of this thought into apparently diametrically opposed systems, in fact, is only the development of an internal dialectic of the same religious ground-motive, namely, that of nature and freedom.” (Pt. III, Ch. I, §1, pg. 499) He adds, “When Christian philosophy accepts this view-point and permits Humanism to force its method of thinking and problems upon itself, then it is not surprising that the crucial problem of Christian synthetical philosophy, the conflict between philosophical thought and Christian faith, remains forever insoluble.” (Pt. III, Ch. I, §1, pg. 501)
He asserts, “The Christian religion cannot tolerate any theoretical conception of cosmic reality which is emancipated from the pure Biblical religious ground-motive, because the conceptions are actually dominated by wholly or partly apostate motives and seek in the last analysis a deceitful restpoint for thought. The Christian religion does not tolerate any hypostatization which ascribes independent being to dependent MEANING. It does not permit these absolutizations, even if they disguise themselves in the garb of a speculative ‘theologia naturalis. (Pt. III, Ch. I, §2, pg. 508-509)
He explains, “The philosophy of the cosmonomic idea… can only be understood as the fruit of the Calvinistic awakening in Holland since the last decades of the XIX century, a movement which was led by Abraham Kuyper. But this philosophy is not to be understood as the exclusive thought of a small clique of Calvinists. On the contrary, according to its basis, by reason of its transcendental ground-Idea, it includes within its range all of Christian thought, as such. No Christian can escape the dilemma that it sets forth, if he really takes seriously the universality of the Kingship of Christ and the central confession of God’s sovereignty over the whole cosmos as Creator… It is in this universal sense that we must understand Kuyper’s Idea of the religious antithesis in life and thought… This antithesis is not a human invention, but is a great blessing from God. By it He keeps His fallen creation from perishing… I definitely reject the term ‘Calvinistic’ as being appropriate to name the ‘Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea.’ I reject the term Calvinistic, even though I fully acknowledge that this philosophy was the fruit of the Calvinistic re-awakening in the Netherlands.” (Pt. III, Ch. I, §2, pg. 523-524)
He acknowledges, “It may be that our transcendental critique has shown the impossibility of the autonomy of philosophical thought in respect to faith and religion. Its argument, however, that even the special sciences lack in principle this autonomy, because they necessarily are founded upon philosophical pre-suppositions, will meet with much more resistance, especially from the side of the exact sciences. And, at least nowadays, we have no occasion to ascribe this resistance merely to a conceited attitude with respect to philosophical reflection as such.” (Pt. III, Ch. II, §3, pg. 545) He adds, “The absolutization in scientific thought of the functionalist view-point is not neutral with respect to philosophy or religion. Rather it must be viewed as the fruit of a nominalist view of science which is grounded in the Humanistic science-ideal…” (Pt. III, Ch. II, §3, pg. 556)
This work is Dooyeweerd’s most significant work---but also by far his most complex and difficult. Those seriously studying Calvinistic Philosophy, or others wanting to explore the background of “presuppositional” apologetic approaches (e.g., as presented by figures such as Cornelius Van Til, and Greg Bahnsen), may very well find its dense prose entirely worth the effort.
Herman Dooyeweerd was a Dutch philosopher and juridical scholar; the other volumes in this series are The General Theory of the Modal Spheres, The Structures of Individuality of Temporal Reality, and Index of Subjects and Authors.
[NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 1969 Presbyterian and Reformed 566-page hardcover edition, translated by David Freeman and William Young.]
He wrote in the Foreword to the first edition (1935) of this book, “The first rudimental conception of this philosophy had ripened before I came to the Kuyper Foundation (1921)… The great turning point in my thought was marked by the discovery of the religious root of thought itself, whereby a new light was shed on the failure of all attempts … to bring about an inner synthesis between the Christian faith and a philosophy which is rooted in faith in the self-sufficiency of human reason… From a Christian point of view, the whole attitude of philosophical thought which proclaims the self-sufficiency of the latter, turns out to be unacceptable, because it withdraws human thought from the divine revelation in Christ Jesus… If temporal reality itself cannot be NEUTRAL with respect to its religious root, if in other words the whole notion of a static temporal cosmos ‘an sich’ [“in itself”], independent of the religious root of mankind, rests on a fundamental misconception, how can one any longer seriously believe in the religious neutrality of theoretical thought?” (Pg. v-vi)
He states in the Prolegomena, “Meaning is the being of all that has been created and the nature even of our selfhood. It has a RELIGIOUS ROOT and a DIVINE ORIGIN… Only by transcending the speciality of meaning, can I attain to the actual view of totality by which the former is to be distinguished as such… This fixed point from which alone, in the course of philosophical thought, we are able to form the idea of the totality of meaning, we call the ‘Archimedean point’ of philosophy.” (Pg. 4, 8) He adds, “The Archimedean point should satisfy these three conditions: First – it may not be divorced from our own SUBJECTIVE SELF… Second – it may not be divorced from the concentric LAW of the ego’s existence… Third – it must transcend all model diversity of meaning and be found in the totality and radical unity of the latter.” (Pg. 12) Later, he adds, “The Archimedean point of philosophy is chosen in the new root of mankind in Christ, in which by regeneration we have part in our reborn selfhood…” (Pt. I, Ch. I, §9, pg. 99)
He says of the ‘immanence-standpoint,’ that “By this original choice of a position, the attempt is made to detach the logical function of theoretical thought… from the inter-modal coherence of meaning and to treat it as independent. In the nature of the case, this choice is not act of a ‘transcendental subject of thought,’ which is merely an abstract concept. It is rather an act of the full self which transcends the diversity of modal aspects. And it is a RELIGIOUS act, just because it contains a choice of position in the CONCENTRATION-POINT of our existence in the face of the Origin of meaning.” (Pg. 20)
He defines his notion of a transcendental critique: “a critical inquiry (respecting no single so-called theoretical axiom) into the universally valid conditions which alone make theoretical thought possible, and which are required by the immanent structure of this thought itself. In this latter restriction lies the difference in principle between a ‘transcendent’ and a ‘transcendental’ criticism of science and philosophy.” (Pg. 37)
He states, “self-knowledge appears to be dependent on knowledge of God… But a real account of this fact is rendered only by the Biblical Revelation concerning the creation of man in the image of God. God reveals Himself as the absolute Origin excluding every independent counter-power which may be His opposite. He has expressed His image in man by concentrating its entire temporal existence in the radical religious unity of an ego in which the totality of meaning of the temporal cosmos was to be focused upon its Origin. The fundamental dependence of human self-knowledge upon the knowledge of God has consequently its inner ground in the essence of religion as the central sphere of our created nature.” (Ch. I, §5, pg. 55) He asserts, “Critical self-reflection in the concentric direction of theoretical thought to the ego necessarily appeals to self-knowledge… Consequently we may establish the fact, that even the theoretical synthesis supposes a religious starting-point. Furthermore… it is meaningless to ask for a theoretical proof of its religious character, because such a proof presupposes the central starting-point of theoretical thought.” (Ch. I, §5, pg. 59)
He explains, “the term ‘cosmonomic idea,’ because of its critical focusing of the preliminary questions concerning meaning … toward the relation of the cosmic order… and its subject, really designates the central criterion for the fundamental discrimination of the different starting-points and trends in philosophy. In the transcendental basic Idea of cosmic order there runs the boundary line between the immanence-philosophy … and the Christian-transcendence position in philosophy. It is here that the criterion for truly TRANSCENDENTAL philosophy resides, which recognizes its immanent cosmonomic boundaries, and speculative metaphysics, which supposes it can transgress the latter… Let anyone then who has an objection against the term ‘cosmonomic Idea’ avoid it and use the term ‘transcendental ground-Idea’ or ‘transcendental basic Idea.’ In the Netherlands, however, it has become quite current to indicate this whole philosophic movement by the term… ‘Philosophy of the cosmonomic idea.’” (Ch. I, §8, pg. 95-96)
He says, “From the Christian starting-point the cosmonomic Idea of our philosophy obtains the following contents: To the ultimate transcendental question: What is the [origin] of the totality and the modal diversity of meaning of our cosmos with respect to the cosmonomic side and its correlate, the subject-side? It answers: the sovereign holy will of God the Creator, who has revealed Himself in Christ. To the second transcendental question, with respect to its cosmonomic side: What is the totality of meaning of all modal aspects of the cosmic order, their supra-temporal unity beyond all modal diversity of meaning? It answers: the requirement grounded in God’s sovereignty, of the love and service of God and our fellow-creatures with our whole heart. To the same question, with respect to its subject-side, it answers: the new religious root of the human race in Christ… in subjection to the fullness of meaning of the divine law. To the third transcendental question: What is the mutual relation between modal aspects of reality? It answers: SPHERE-SOVEREIGNTY, that is to say: mutual irreducibility, yet in the all-sided cosmic coherence of the different aspects of meaning, as this is regulated in God’s temporal order of the world, in a cosmic order of time.” (Ch. I, §9, pg. 101)
He argues, “The proposition 2 x 2 = 4 is not ‘true in itself,’ but only in the context of the laws of number and the logical laws of thought… There exists no partial truth which is sufficient to itself. Partial THEORETICAL truth is truth only in the coherence of the theoretical truths, and this coherence in its relativity pre-supposes the fullness or the totality of truth. Consequently, also the philosophical view of the mutual relation and coherence of the numerical and the logical aspects… is influenced from the start by the transcendental ground-Idea of philosophical thought and by the religious ground-motive which determines its content… On the other hand, however, it must of course be granted, that the judgement 2 x 2 = 4 refers to a state of affairs in the numerical relations which is independent of the subjective theoretical view and its supra-theoretical pre-suppositions… It has no meaning outside of this temporal order.” (Ch. II, §1, pg. 116)
He says, “In the light of the transcendental ground-Idea, there exists only one ultimate and radical anti-thesis in philosophy, viz., that between absolutizing, i.e. deifying of MEANING, in apostasy from God on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the return of philosophic thought to Christ in God, which leads to the insight into the complete relativity and lack of self-sufficiency of all that exists in the created mode of meaning.” (Ch. II, §1, pg. 123)
He asserts, “Humanistic philosophy has never found a fruitful and deep inner religious contact with a life- and world-view which, as the Christian one, lives spontaneously in the heart of the simple man and calmly retains its pious certainty against all errors of theoretical thought. The Dutch Christian statesmen and thinker, Dr. Abraham Kuyper, discovered this weak point in the relationship between the philosophical theory and the life- and world-view of Humanism. And, in his struggle against the enlightened liberalism of the last century, he concentrated his attack upon this very point. (Pt. II, Ch. I, §1, pg. 172)
Later, he adds, “a radical transcendental critique of theoretical thought is highly necessary and actual. The foundations upon which our culture had sought to build have been shaken everywhere by the storms of a tremendous transitional period. Therefore, the autonomy of theoretical thought can no longer properly be posited as a philosophical axiom… in the present spiritual crisis anyone who thinks he can take refuge on this dogmatic [Humanistic] standpoint, in order to block the way to a radical critical self-reflection in philosophy, thereby displays the fact that he has understood nothing of the deepest causes of the crisis.” (Pt. II, Ch. I, §4, pg. 215)
He then begins a lengthy analysis of various philosophers, after explaining, “It is not our intention to write a history of modern philosophy… Our purpose is only to investigate the development of the polar tensions within Humanist philosophy itself in a few of its most representative systems. Consequently, we shall examine these tensions separately and apart from the complications which arise by the intrinsically contradictory union of the Humanist with the scholastic-Christian ‘realist’ standpoint in philosophy.” (Pt. II, Ch. II, §2, pg. 223)
Later, he summarizes, “we have seen how the basic antinomy in the transcendental ground-Idea of Humanistic thought develops into polar antitheses within and between the various systems… It is now evident that the development of this thought into apparently diametrically opposed systems, in fact, is only the development of an internal dialectic of the same religious ground-motive, namely, that of nature and freedom.” (Pt. III, Ch. I, §1, pg. 499) He adds, “When Christian philosophy accepts this view-point and permits Humanism to force its method of thinking and problems upon itself, then it is not surprising that the crucial problem of Christian synthetical philosophy, the conflict between philosophical thought and Christian faith, remains forever insoluble.” (Pt. III, Ch. I, §1, pg. 501)
He asserts, “The Christian religion cannot tolerate any theoretical conception of cosmic reality which is emancipated from the pure Biblical religious ground-motive, because the conceptions are actually dominated by wholly or partly apostate motives and seek in the last analysis a deceitful restpoint for thought. The Christian religion does not tolerate any hypostatization which ascribes independent being to dependent MEANING. It does not permit these absolutizations, even if they disguise themselves in the garb of a speculative ‘theologia naturalis. (Pt. III, Ch. I, §2, pg. 508-509)
He explains, “The philosophy of the cosmonomic idea… can only be understood as the fruit of the Calvinistic awakening in Holland since the last decades of the XIX century, a movement which was led by Abraham Kuyper. But this philosophy is not to be understood as the exclusive thought of a small clique of Calvinists. On the contrary, according to its basis, by reason of its transcendental ground-Idea, it includes within its range all of Christian thought, as such. No Christian can escape the dilemma that it sets forth, if he really takes seriously the universality of the Kingship of Christ and the central confession of God’s sovereignty over the whole cosmos as Creator… It is in this universal sense that we must understand Kuyper’s Idea of the religious antithesis in life and thought… This antithesis is not a human invention, but is a great blessing from God. By it He keeps His fallen creation from perishing… I definitely reject the term ‘Calvinistic’ as being appropriate to name the ‘Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea.’ I reject the term Calvinistic, even though I fully acknowledge that this philosophy was the fruit of the Calvinistic re-awakening in the Netherlands.” (Pt. III, Ch. I, §2, pg. 523-524)
He acknowledges, “It may be that our transcendental critique has shown the impossibility of the autonomy of philosophical thought in respect to faith and religion. Its argument, however, that even the special sciences lack in principle this autonomy, because they necessarily are founded upon philosophical pre-suppositions, will meet with much more resistance, especially from the side of the exact sciences. And, at least nowadays, we have no occasion to ascribe this resistance merely to a conceited attitude with respect to philosophical reflection as such.” (Pt. III, Ch. II, §3, pg. 545) He adds, “The absolutization in scientific thought of the functionalist view-point is not neutral with respect to philosophy or religion. Rather it must be viewed as the fruit of a nominalist view of science which is grounded in the Humanistic science-ideal…” (Pt. III, Ch. II, §3, pg. 556)
This work is Dooyeweerd’s most significant work---but also by far his most complex and difficult. Those seriously studying Calvinistic Philosophy, or others wanting to explore the background of “presuppositional” apologetic approaches (e.g., as presented by figures such as Cornelius Van Til, and Greg Bahnsen), may very well find its dense prose entirely worth the effort.
April 30, 2025
Most of what I am presently more excited about lies in the second volume, but much can be said about the first. The first volume is devoted to illustrating that philosophy never in fact escapes a religious ground-motive of thought. This is primarily a response to the Humanistic philosophy that seeks to ground the project of philosophy in the autonomy of man, but he ultimately must take on the whole history of Western thought in order to make his case. According to Dooyeweerd, philosophy has always based itself on religious pre-suppositions derived from a root motive and taken as axioms, and while the fundamental character of that dialectic changes, the basic fact remains that theoretical thought must commit to something as a foundation, and that "something" will either be biblical or apostate in its character. Further, if the true foundation of the will of God manifest in creation, fall, and redemption is not taken, all that remains is the absolutization of an aspect of temporal experience itself - the intellectual equivalent of idolatry - which abuses the integral character of reality itself and consequently must result in antinomies.
It is evident that Dooyeweerd's system has needed further development and criticism over time; for example, the nature of his modal understanding of theoretical thought as a setting of the logical aspect in opposition to any of the non-logical aspects as Gegenstand makes it difficult to justify the very theoretical undertaking of the New Critique, and some effort has gone into addressing these issues in more recent scholarship. In addition, some of his characterizations are bound to be incomplete or distorted - for example, the form-matter characterization of Greek thought takes a lot of its cues from the Nietzschean sort of division of the Apollonian and Dionysian schools, which in the intervening time has been rightly complicated by historical study. Still, the overall thrust of his argument remains compelling to me, and the contents of the first volume have forced me to school up heavily on Western philosophy. I have required a deeper understanding of philosophers I had partially read (e.g. Kant, Leibniz) as well as any understanding of philosophers I hadn't really braved (e.g. Hume, Fichte). I think that pressure is salutary, but ultimately it asks a lot of study and reflection from me.
Ultimately, I am eager to see him engage in a positive development of the modal theory; it was that which I found wanting in some of his more accessible works (e.g. Roots of Western Culture). But I already feel I have gained a much greater understanding of his approach, both through the pregnant formulations in the Prolegomena (e.g. meaning as being, which is deeply important to his whole view) and the long tour of the first volume proper.
It is evident that Dooyeweerd's system has needed further development and criticism over time; for example, the nature of his modal understanding of theoretical thought as a setting of the logical aspect in opposition to any of the non-logical aspects as Gegenstand makes it difficult to justify the very theoretical undertaking of the New Critique, and some effort has gone into addressing these issues in more recent scholarship. In addition, some of his characterizations are bound to be incomplete or distorted - for example, the form-matter characterization of Greek thought takes a lot of its cues from the Nietzschean sort of division of the Apollonian and Dionysian schools, which in the intervening time has been rightly complicated by historical study. Still, the overall thrust of his argument remains compelling to me, and the contents of the first volume have forced me to school up heavily on Western philosophy. I have required a deeper understanding of philosophers I had partially read (e.g. Kant, Leibniz) as well as any understanding of philosophers I hadn't really braved (e.g. Hume, Fichte). I think that pressure is salutary, but ultimately it asks a lot of study and reflection from me.
Ultimately, I am eager to see him engage in a positive development of the modal theory; it was that which I found wanting in some of his more accessible works (e.g. Roots of Western Culture). But I already feel I have gained a much greater understanding of his approach, both through the pregnant formulations in the Prolegomena (e.g. meaning as being, which is deeply important to his whole view) and the long tour of the first volume proper.
November 29, 2021
No volume um de sua "Nova Crítica do Pensamento Teórico", Dooyeweerd discute as pressuposições necessárias de toda filosofia. A filosofia cosmonômica ou da ideia de lei busca investigar a estrutura da realidade temporal dirigida à totalidade e origem de significado religioso. Os temas centrais dessa filosofia são: as ideias transcendentais de origem, a totalidade supra-teórica, a diversidade temporal de significado nos aspectos modais, e as estruturas de individualidade temporais. O tema do primeiro volume é a crítica transcendental à filosofia imanentista.
Para tanto, o volume um tem três partes. Na primeira, Dooyeweerd defende que toda filosofia tem um fundamento religioso na tentativa de apreender a totalidade de significado a partir de um ponto arquimediano. As filosofias imanentistas escolhem seu ponto arquimediano na realidade temporal e, por isso, não apreendem a totalidade de significado e criam para si reducionismos e antinomias teóricas.
A partir disso, Dooyeweerd faz, na parte dois, uma revisão da história da filosofia a partir de seu conceito de motivos básicos religiosos e demonstra como na modernidade a oposição entre ideal de natureza e ideal de liberdade levou a antinomias humanistas e imanentistas. A partir de Descartes, Hobbes e Leibniz, passando por Locke, Hume e Rousseau, e chegando a Kant, Fichte, Schiller e Hegel, Dooyeweerd demonstra a oposição insolúvel entre o ideal de ciência e personalidade livre.
Na última parte, Dooyeweerd ressalta a profunda distinção entre a estrutura filosófica do pensamento humanista e a estrutura do pensamento cristão e como essas filosofias não podem ser sintetizadas. Dooyeweerd ainda apresenta alguns elementos introdutórios de sua filosofia para preparar o leitor para a discussão do volume dois da Nova Crítica.
É uma obra de fôlego e profundidade teórica singular. Apesar de Dooyeweerd repisar alguns temas de forma repetitiva, sua erudição é notável na apresentação de uma filosofia cristã que dialoga com filosofias não-cristãs ao passo que mantém sua distinção singular.
Para tanto, o volume um tem três partes. Na primeira, Dooyeweerd defende que toda filosofia tem um fundamento religioso na tentativa de apreender a totalidade de significado a partir de um ponto arquimediano. As filosofias imanentistas escolhem seu ponto arquimediano na realidade temporal e, por isso, não apreendem a totalidade de significado e criam para si reducionismos e antinomias teóricas.
A partir disso, Dooyeweerd faz, na parte dois, uma revisão da história da filosofia a partir de seu conceito de motivos básicos religiosos e demonstra como na modernidade a oposição entre ideal de natureza e ideal de liberdade levou a antinomias humanistas e imanentistas. A partir de Descartes, Hobbes e Leibniz, passando por Locke, Hume e Rousseau, e chegando a Kant, Fichte, Schiller e Hegel, Dooyeweerd demonstra a oposição insolúvel entre o ideal de ciência e personalidade livre.
Na última parte, Dooyeweerd ressalta a profunda distinção entre a estrutura filosófica do pensamento humanista e a estrutura do pensamento cristão e como essas filosofias não podem ser sintetizadas. Dooyeweerd ainda apresenta alguns elementos introdutórios de sua filosofia para preparar o leitor para a discussão do volume dois da Nova Crítica.
É uma obra de fôlego e profundidade teórica singular. Apesar de Dooyeweerd repisar alguns temas de forma repetitiva, sua erudição é notável na apresentação de uma filosofia cristã que dialoga com filosofias não-cristãs ao passo que mantém sua distinção singular.
February 17, 2015
simply brilliant. I finished this last week and am now about a third of the way through volume 2.
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