Did Dooyeweerd Contradict Himself?

A Response to D.F.M. Strauss

by
Dr. J. Glenn Friesen
© 2008

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Introduction

In 1975, Dooyeweerd published his last article: “”De Kentheoretische Gegenstandsrelatie en de Logische Subject-Objectrelatie.” [1] It was a sharp critique of D.F.M. Strauss’s doctoral dissertation Begrip en Idee.[2] In his dissertation, Strauss had attacked Dooyeweerd’s account of theoretical thought as a “Gegenstand-Relation.” Strauss argued that the Gegenstand-Relation and its related idea of an intermodal theoretical synthesis involve logical contradictions and antinomies. Dooyeweerd denied any logical contradiction in his thought, and pointed out that Strauss’s own approach involves contradictions and antinomies. He says that Strauss’s approach amounts to “logicism,” and that Strauss’s proposal does not differ from “the most current presuppositions of modern epistemology” that only darken our insight into the correct relation between pre-theoretical and theoretical thought. An English “summary” of Dooyeweerd’s article was published the next year [3], but for some reason, many of Dooyeweerd’s most serious criticisms of Strauss were not included in that summary. I have therefore translated Dooyeweerd’s entire article, and it is this full English text to which reference will be made. The page numbers correspond to the original Dutch article.[4]

Nine years after Dooyeweerd’s article “Gegenstandsrelatie,” Strauss repeated the arguments from his dissertation in the article “An Analysis of the Structure of Analysis (The Gegenstand-relation in discussion).” [5] Strauss had not been convinced by Dooyeweerd. Since Dooyeweerd had passed away in 1977, he obviously could not respond to Strauss’s re-assertion of his arguments. But since Strauss’s 1984 article repeats his earlier arguments, we can look at what Dooyeweerd said earlier in “Gegenstandsrelatie” and other writings.

The Gegenstand-relation is the basis for Dooyeweerd’s view of the nature of theory. The supposed contradiction relates to the issue of how the analytical modal aspect can itself be the subject of analysis by our analytically qualified act of thought. This supposed contradiction in the Gegenstand-relation was not discovered by Strauss. It had already been pointed out by others such as H. van Riessen and J.P.A. Mekkes.

In fact, Dooyeweerd had already anticipated this objection in 1935-36 when he first wrote De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee [6]. Dooyeweerd there provides his reasoning why there is no contradiction or paradox in his theory. There is no contradiction when we recognize that every modal aspect–including the logical aspect–that has been set apart from the other aspects in an intentional (not ontic) relation, can be opposed to our theoretical act of thought, which (like all real acts) functions in all modal aspects.

Dooyeweerd denied ever making some of the statements that Strauss attributes to him. This is evident from Dooyeweerd’s marginal notes in his copies of Strauss’s dissertation Begrip en Idee. These notes contain exclamations like “serious misunderstanding” [ernstig misverstand], “sophistry” [sophistische redenering], “this cannot be maintained” [dit is niet vol te houden], and “I never said this, either!” [Dit is door mij ook nooit beweerd!]. [7]

‘Sophistry’ can be defined as a “subtle, tricky, superficially plausible but generally fallacious method of reasoning.”[8] As we will see, some of Strauss’s arguments may initially appear to be plausible, but they are fallacious even as to their logical form.

Although I will examine their logic, it is even more important to look at the premises of Strauss’s arguments. For if the premises are incorrect, one cannot arrive at a correct conclusion. And Strauss’s premises are incorrect. His analysis relies on a large number of misstatements and misunderstandings of what Dooyeweerd says.

Because the premises of Strauss’s arguments are incorrect, the real issues are not really logical issues. The differences between Strauss and Dooyeweerd go well beyond Dooyeweerd’s supposed logical error in one part of his philosophy; rather, the differences extend to every other major idea. We need to understand what Dooyeweerd really did or did not say, and we need to properly interpret what he said. I have already written about this in another article "Dooyeweerd versus Strauss: Objections to Immanence Philosophy in Reformational Thought,"[9], but I will here analyze the issues in a more detailed way.

Strauss makes several arguments for the supposed contradiction. In some cases, his 1984 article is unclear, and so I will refer to his dissertation Begrip en Idee for clarification. I will refer in particular to pages 101 to 129 of that dissertation, where all 7 arguments can be found with slightly more detail, as well as to the English summary of the dissertation (pages 196-203).

To facilitate further discussion of my analysis of Strauss’s arguments, I will number his arguments from 1 to 7, and I will number the paragraphs of my analysis of those arguments (e.g. 1.00, 1.01 etc).

From Dooyeweerd’s article “Gegenstandsrelatie,” and from the New Critique, we can see that many statements relied on by Strauss were in fact never made by Dooyeweerd. Insofar as he relies on such misstatements, Strauss has set up a straw man. Since these errors recur in several arguments, I will also number the misunderstandings and misstatements, and deal with each of them only once. These errors make the premises in Strauss’s arguments incorrect. A separate list of these misunderstandings and misstatements is found in the Appendix.

In Section 8, I will examine the issue of logical contradictions and antinomies in a more general sense. Both Strauss and Dooyeweerd accused each other of logical contradictions and antinomies. Neither was convinced by the other’s arguments. Strauss accused Dooyeweerd of rationalism and Dooyeweerd accused Strauss of logicism. From Dooyeweerd’s point of view, the Gegenstand-relation can only be understood in relation to his Ground-motive, and that in turn can be understood only in relation to the idea of the supratemporal selfhood. Strauss’s philosophy, since it denies the supratemporal selfhood, is immanence philosophy. The failure to convince each other gives every sign of being related to differences in Ground-motives.

In Section 9, I will discuss Dooyeweerd’s views on formal logic, and the need for a Christian logic and what that might mean.

In Section 10, I will briefly look at how this conflict between Dooyeweerd and Strauss arose and what its implications may be for the future of reformational philosophy. The differences between Dooyeweerd and Strauss come from a deep divergence of views between Dooyeweerd and his brother-in-law D.H.Th. Vollenhoven. And these differences extend to almost every important issue in their respective philosophies. [10]

In my article “95 Theses on Herman Dooyeweerd,” have tried to set out in summary form what Dooyeweerd’s philosophy looks like when it is not interpreted in accordance with Vollenhoven’s ideas. For convenience, and in an effort to shorten this very long and detailed analysis of Strauss, I will sometimes refer to those theses for references supporting what I believe to be the correct interpretation of Dooyeweerd.

1. Strauss Argument #1: Different kinds of antithesis

1.01 This argument is found in the first three points i), ii), and iii) on pp. 40-41 of Strauss’s 1984 article, and on pages 102-104 and the first 3 points on p. 11 of Begrip en Idee.

1.02 In point i) Strauss says

1.03 Strauss here correctly distinguishes between the antithetical relation of our actual thought-function and the modal aspect that is intentionally abstracted as its Gegenstand. The Gegenstand-relation is not between two abstracted or isolated aspects.

1.04 Misstatement #1 But this point i) of Strauss Argument #1 sets up a straw man to attack. For Strauss should also add that Dooyeweerd also talks about an antithetical relation between the actual logical thought-function and its intentionally abstracted logical Gegenstand. The logical aspect can also be the Gegenstand of our act of theoretical thought. Dooyeweerd expressly says that it is possible to analyze the structure of the abstracted logical aspect just like the other abstracted aspects. Dooyeweerd does not restrict the Gegenstand-relation to the non-logical aspects!

1.05 The issue of whether the Gegenstand-relation can investigate the logical aspect itself arises time and again in Strauss’s argument. Strauss repeatedly asserts that Dooyeweerd’s view of the Gegenstand-relation is “restricted” to an analysis of the non-logical aspects, and that the Gegenstand-relation cannot analyze the logical aspect itself. For example:

1.06 Some other examples of this assertion of a “restriction” to the non-logical aspects can be found at Begrip en Idee 111, 117 fn36, and 125, and Strauss 1984, 41, 42, 44 and 54.

1.07 This idea that the Gegenstand-relation is restricted to the non-logical aspects and cannot investigate the logical aspect itself then forms the basis for Strauss’s assertion that Dooyeweerd’s theory of the Gegenstand-relation does not account for an analysis of the logical aspect itself.

1.08 Dooyeweerd already discussed this issue in 1935-36 (WdW II, 395-398, repeated later at NC II, 462-65). Dooyeweerd specifically says there that we can oppose the logical aspect of our real act of thought to the logical aspect. Analysis is not restricted to the non-logical aspects.

1.09 In the pages I have cited from the New Critique, Dooyeweerd asks how it is possible to subject the analytical aspect itself to theoretical analysis. He says that this is only a “seeming paradox,” and that the argument, which at first seems to be irrefutable, is that the analytical aspect cannot be the “Gegenstand” of the analytical aspect itself. But the origin of this seeming paradox is the false view that theoretical synthesis is made up of two isolated modal functions that have been made independent of one another, and the wrong supposition that the analytical aspect would have to analyze itself:

1.10 And in his last article “Gegenstandsrelatie” Dooyeweerd again confirms that he has acknowledged that the logical aspect itself can be analyzed:

1.11 Strauss acknowledges that at least in some places, Dooyeweerd does allow the logical aspect to be investigated (Strauss 1984, 40). But Strauss then goes on to argue as if Dooyeweerd’s main view is that theoretical analysis is restricted to the non-logical aspects, and that the places where Dooyeweerd says the opposite are just internal contradictions in his philosophy. We shall see this in point ii) of Strauss Argument #1.

1.12 Point i) of Strauss Argument #1 continues

1.13 No reference in the article is given for this assertion. But Begrip en Idee (p. 103) gives the reference as NC I, 39-40. It reads:

1.14 Note that Strauss incorrectly states what Dooyeweerd says. He makes two misstatements. Misstatement #2: Strauss refers to the non-logical aspect x and the “remaining non-logical aspects.” But the words ‘non-logical’ are not there in the text.

1.15 Inconsistently, Strauss himself later acknowledges that when a non-logical aspect is analyzed, the “remaining aspects” include the logical aspect. In point iv) of his argument, he correctly says that in the inter-modal synthesis, the non-logical aspects are compared with all other aspects, including the logical one. He says there,

1.16 That is the correct view, as asserted by Dooyeweerd. When in theory, we focus on a non-logical aspect x, the “remaining aspects” include the logical aspect, too. To understand this, we need to look at what Dooyeweerd says about what happens when we focus on a particular aspect as the Gegenstand of our real act of thought.

1.17 In the Gegenstand-relation, our real act of thought (which functions in all aspects, but is qualified by the analytical aspect), selects or concentrates on one of the intentionally (not ontically) split-apart modal aspects.

1.18 Misunderstanding #1. This concentration on a particular aspect is not just logical distinguishing, as Strauss later suggests (Strauss 1984, 42: “systatical or disstatical logical objectification”). Rather,

1.19 Our theoretical concentration may focus on a non-logical or on a logical aspect. But when we try to concentrate on a single aspect, there is a resistance to such isolation. The isolated aspect x continues to express its coherence of meaning with the remaining aspects y. And these remaining aspects include the abstracted logical aspect which has also been set apart by the theoretical act functioning in all aspects. When we focus on the logical aspect, it, too shows a resistance, and continues to express its coherence of meaning with the other aspects.

1.20 Dooyeweerd’s text makes this resistance clear in the following paragraphs of the text at NC I, 40:

1.21 In a footnote on the same page, Dooyeweerd confirms that the structure of the logical aspect can also be analyzed in the theoretical attitude. We analyze it exactly like we analyze the other aspects: by opposing it to the remaining aspects. In this case, the logical aspect is opposed to the remaining (non-logical) aspects.

1.22 Dooyeweerd confirms elsewhere that this opposition to the remaining non-logical aspects is done in order to find the analogies within the structure of the logical aspect:

In these theoretical acts we oppose the analytical aspect to all that is non-analytical, e.g., in order to grasp the modal difference between logical and arithmetical multiplicity, logical and original extensiveness, etc. (NC II, 461).

1.23 But Dooyeweerd is careful to point out that the logical aspect we are analyzing in this way is the abstracted, isolated aspect, and not the whole logical aspect of the real act of thought that is doing the analysis. Dooyeweerd emphasizes that the real act of thought must be separated from the abstracted aspects. The footnote reads:

1.24 Strauss cites this footnote at Begrip en Idee 103-4, so he was well aware of Dooyeweerd’s position that the logical aspect is analyzed in the same way as the other aspects: by opposing it to the “remaining aspects.” So why did Strauss state in point i) of Strauss Argument #1 that the “remaining aspects” were non-logical? Why did he add the words ‘non-logical’ when they do not appear in the text?

1.25 We get some help in understanding why Strauss mistakenly added these words when we look at what he says in Begrip en Idee. On page 103, he cites the passage from NC I, 39 correctly:

In logical analysis the aspect which is opposed to the logical is distinguished theoretically from the remaining aspects. Consequently, if we designate the opposed aspect by the symbol “x” and the remaining aspects by the symbol “y”, then “x” will also stand in an antithetic relation to “y”. (NC I, 39-40)

1.26 Misunderstanding #2. Misunderstanding of the meaning of ‘remaining aspects.’ But Strauss has evidently misinterpreted the first sentence of this passage. He reads it as “the [abstracted] aspect which is opposed to the [abstracted] logical [aspect] is distinguished from the remaining [abstracted] aspects.” If that were the correct reading, then the “remaining aspects” would indeed be non-logical. However, the correct reading is this: “In logical analysis the [abstracted] aspect which is opposed to the logical [aspect of the real act of thought] is distinguished theoretically from the remaining [abstracted] aspects [including the abstracted logical aspect].”

1.27 The paragraph immediately preceding the one in question confirms that “the logical” means the aspect of our real act of thought, and not the abstracted aspect. It begins, “the non-logical aspects stand in an intentional antithesis to the logical function of thought.” Strauss confirms (Begrip en Idee 103), that “logical function of thought” in that paragraph means the the logical aspect of our real act of thought. Why should it mean anything different in the following paragraph? We should try to read Dooyeweerd consistently, and not look for contradictions in his philosophy.

1.28 Based on the proper reading of this passage, in our theoretical thought, we focus on a specific aspect in an intentional (not ontic) way. The aspect that we have selected shows resistance to being isolated, since in reality it is fitted into [ingesteld] a continuous coherence with the other aspects. But in the intermodal synthesis, the aspects are set apart [uiteen-gesteld] and we compare the aspect chosen as Gegenstand with all the remaining aspects. This is how we obtain the structure of each aspect, with its analogies (retrocipations and anticipations to the other aspects).

1.29 Misstatement #3: Addition of words “although in the latter case no inter-modal synthesis is possible.”

Strauss’s Point i) in Strauss Argument #1contains the following:

We have seen that Strauss improperly inserts the words ‘non-logical.’ But the final words ‘(although in the latter case no intermodal synthesis is possible)’ are also not in the text.

1.30 Why would Strauss add those words? It is because he believes synthesis is between the logical and a specific non-logical aspect. Based on Misunderstanding #2– that the “remaining aspects” do not include the logical aspect, he thinks that an antithetical relation here cannot involve a synthesis. But he is wrong about the nature of synthesis, too.

1.31 Misunderstanding #3: Strauss misunderstands the intermodal synthesis. In some places, Strauss regards the idea of intermodal synthesis as a synthesis as a “synthesis of opposed elements.” By that he means a synthesis between “the logical function of our act of thought” and “all the non-logical aspects which are supposed to be opposed [to it]” (Strauss, 1984, 38).

1.32 That view cannot be right. For one reason, Strauss is repeating the error that the Gegenstand-relation is restricted to the non-logical aspects (Misstatement #1).

1.33 Nor is it correct that the intermodal synthesis is merely a synthesis with the logical function of our act of thought. Dooyeweerd says that the intermodal synthesis is an act of our supratemporal selfhood, which functions in all of the aspects.

1.34 Obviously, if one denies the supratemporal selfhood, then one will also object to this view of synthesis. And Strauss does deny the supratemporal selfhood, and he does object to this view of synthesis. See further discussion of this point under Argument #5 (intuition).

1.35 Strauss considers the possibility that the intermodal synthesis involves a synthesis of two abstracted aspects. Strauss rejects that on the basis of his changed meaning for logical objectification (discussed below under Argument 4). Strauss says that, based on his view, “it is clear that two distatically [dis-statically?] objectified abstractions cannot be synthesized by our analytical activity” (Strauss 1984, 43 and again at 48).

1.36 We know from what Dooyeweerd says that the intermodal synthesis is not effected by the abstracted logical aspect:

1.37 As already seen, the intermodal synthesis is effected by an act of our full supratemporal selfhood. All acts arise from out of our supratemporal selfhood (See references in my Thesis 81).

1.38 But even if it is not effected by an abstracted modal aspect, the intermodal synthesis includes a synthesis of all the modes that have been separated or split apart in the theoretical dis-stasis or setting apart: the logical modes as well as the non-logical. This is why we can compare each aspect to the “remaining aspects” in the intermodal synthesis. By the intermodal synthesis, we are able to see how these remaining aspects express themselves in the aspect being analyzed. That is how we find analogies (retrocipations and anticipations) to the remaining aspects in the aspect being analyzed.

1.39 Misunderstanding #4: Strauss misunderstands the nature of the “opposition” or “antithesis” in the intermodal synthesis. Strauss’s Point i) contains the following:

1.40 Strauss correctly says that this antithesis between the aspects when they are compared in the intermodal synthesis is different from the antithesis in point i) where the full act of our thought is opposed to a Gegenstand on which it focuses. Strauss calls this “a second form of antithesis” (Begrip en Idee, 103).

1.41 Strauss makes a further distinction when he refers to the antithesis between the abstracted logical aspect and the remaining aspects. He calls this a “broader” sense of the second form of antithesis (Begrip en Idee 104). Strauss believes that this is a modification of the second form of antithesis. He believes this because he (incorrectly) believes that the unmodified second form of antithesis excludes the logical aspect. We have seen in paragraphs 1.18 to 1.21 above that this is not so. Therefore there is no need to modify the second form of antithesis. Whether we choose to concentrate on a logical or a non-logical aspect as our Gegenstand, that aspect will stand in the same intermodal “antithesis” where it is compared with the “remaining aspects.”

1.42 I agree that it is confusing to speak of even two kinds of “antithesis.” Part of the problem is the English translation. In English, the word ‘antithesis’ has too much of a logical connotation.

1.43 The word translated in English as ‘antithesis’ or ‘opposition’ is often ‘tegenovergesteld’ or “set-over-against.” That has a lesser logical connotation than ‘antithesis.’ For example, in the chapter of the WdW where Dooyeweerd discusses the Gegenstand, he says,

1.44 If we compare this to the English equivalent at NC II, 466, we find a statement that the inter-modal synthesis of meaning “presupposes a theoretical antithesis” and “implies the primordial question: What gives rise to the problem of that which is opposed to the logical function, i.e. the ‘Gegenstand’?”

1.45 It seems to me that the translation of ‘tegenovergestelde’ as ‘antithesis’ has led to many of the problems in understanding the Gegenstand-relation.

1.46 Even the focus or concentration on a Gegenstand is not purely logical:

1.47 Thus, the use of the English word ‘antithesis’ is misleading even for the Gegenstand-relation.

1.48 Even if ‘antithesis’ is suitable for the focus on the abstracted aspect as Gegenstand, it seems to me that it is not suitable for the “opposition” between the isolated aspect and the remaining aspects. The opposition in the intermodal synthesis is a comparing of one abstracted aspect to the others. The resistance to the attempted isolation of the Gegenstand demonstrates its continuity and coherence with the other aspects, and so we learn to see that there are analogies to all the other aspects in the aspect being focused on. To translate this as ‘antithesis’ is only confusing.

1.49 Pages 29 to 69 of Volume I of the New Critique were added in the English translation, and so no direct comparison can be made for the pages 39-40 that are being discussed here. It would be interesting to know what Dooyeweerd’s original manuscript says. We know that Dooyeweerd was unhappy with the translation of Volume I of the New Critique. That is why he changed translators for Volume II, and then he gave up and tried to translate Volume III himself.

1.50 In point ii) on page 41, Strauss continues to refer to Dooyeweerd’s “restriction of the Gegenstand to the non-logical aspects” which he then says is contradicted by Dooyeweerd elsewhere (Strauss 1984, 41 (ii)). So the set-up in point i), which was Misstatement #1, is now used to try to show a contradiction in Dooyeweerd. But Dooyeweerd did not restrict the Gegenstand in this way!

1.51 Why, if Strauss acknowledges that Dooyeweerd sometimes does not restrict the Gegenstand to the non-logical does he continue to say this? It is because he believes that originally Dooyeweerd did restrict it in this way and then only later acknowledged that the logical aspect could also be analyzed as a Gegenstand. Strauss asks whether this was an oversight, or whether it reflects fundamental issues that cannot be resolved (Begrip en Idee, 104).

1.52 What does Strauss mean that “originally” Dooyeweerd restricted the Gegenstand to the non-logical? Dooyeweerd certainly did not restrict this in the original version of the WdW. Already in 1935-36, he indicates that the logical aspect can be analyzed.

1.53 It is true that a footnote about the possibility of analyzing the logical aspect itself seems to have been added to NC I, 40 after the text was written. But this does not mean that the point about analyzing the logical aspect was new. The original WdW contained a section acknowledging the fact that the analytical aspect can be analyzed, and refuting this “seeming paradox” (WdW II, 395-398, discussing this “schijn-paradox”).

1.54 Furthermore, the pages here discussed, NC I, 29-69 are all new to the English version. They do not appear in the WdW. Thus, even the passages that Strauss (incorrectly) says are restrictive are new.

1.55 Dooyeweerd does not help his defence when in "Gegenstandsrelatie," he says:

The original formulation of this antithetical relation in the 1st and 2nd editions of A New Critique of Theoretical Thought apparently had a more limited extent insofar as it spoke only of a setting-over-against of the non-logical modal aspects to the logical function of thought. But later a correction was made in a note that even the logical aspect itself must become the “Gegenstand” of theoretical analysis, whenever we try to obtain an epistemological concept of this aspect in its modal structure. This correction, at first only mentioned in passing, was first worked out in the discussion of epistemology in Volume II. (“Gegenstandsrelatie,” 87).

1.56 Dooyeweerd should have pointed out that even in the original WdW, he had stated that the logical aspect could itself be analyzed.

1.57 Furthermore, the New Critique was published in 1953. My copy of that edition contains the same footnote at NC I, 40, referring to the analysis of the structure of the analytical aspect. It seem that Dooyeweerd just took Strauss’s word that he had originally not included a reference to an analysis of the analytical aspect itself. Perhaps that is why Dooyeweerd uses the word “apparently.” He did not check to see whether Strauss’s citation was correct.

1.58 So this as Misstatement #4: Strauss incorrectly says that Dooyeweerd originally said something else, restricting analysis to the non-logical aspects.

1.59 Continuing Strauss Argument #1, Strauss then says,

1.60 If Strauss is merely trying to say that theoretical analysis can include an analysis of the logical aspect, then he is correct. But he could have said that without point ii) which is not true. And there would be no point in making the argument, since Dooyeweerd clearly says that the logical aspect can be analyzed.

1.61 If Strauss is trying to say that the logical aspect, when analyzed and separated in the dis-stasis, is compared to the other abstracted aspects, that is also true. But no argument is needed to establish that. Dooyeweerd clearly says this at NC I, 40 fn1, which I have cited, and of which Strauss was clearly aware (Begrip en Idee, 103-104).

1.62 So what is Strauss’s reason for this argument? I suggest that it is an attempt to play on two different meanings of ‘antithetical’ (Strauss tries to make it three) and to try to show that Dooyeweerd therefore contradicts himself and that he also speaks of a Gegenstand-relation between abstracted aspects. We already saw this in point i), where Strauss set the “antithetical” relation of the real act of thought next to the “antithetical” relation within the intermodal synthesis, where one abstracted aspect is compared to the others. But that uses terms in multivocal ways in an argument, and is therefore fallacious.

1.63 That is how Dooyeweerd interpreted what Strauss was trying to do: to indicate that the Gegenstand-relation was between abstracted aspects. In “Gegenstandsrelatie,” Dooyeweerd comments on how Strauss should know that the Gegenstand-relation does not take place between isolated and abstracted aspects. Our full act of thought functions in all of the aspects:

1.64 Strauss Argument #1 relies on misstatements, misunderstandings and incorrect citations. Dooyeweerd is clear. The logical aspect can also be a Gegenstand of theoretical thought. There is no restriction to the non-logical. Any aspect (whether logical or non-logical) will then be compared to the others in the intermodal synthesis.

1.65 Even in his own proposal for an intra-modal subject-object relation, Strauss repeats the untrue statement that Dooyeweerd restricted his analysis to the non-logical aspects. He puts forward his own proposal of the subject-object relation as a way of obviating the supposed “restriction of analysis to the non-logical aspects.” (Strauss 1984, 42). And he repeats this at the bottom of the page: “No restriction to the non-logical aspects is any longer necessary.” But as we have seen, Dooyeweerd has no such restriction.

2. Strauss Argument #2: The Circularity of Inter-modal synthesis

2.01 Strauss’s next argument begins on point iv) of page 41 of the 1984 article. He repeats it on page 47. It is also found on pp. 104-105, and part of point iv) on p. 111 of Begrip en Idee. Strauss seems to regard it as one of his best arguments, for he repeats it twice in his article, and complains that Dooyeweerd did not address it.

2.02 This argument also contains a number of assertions which are incorrect. Strauss tries to show that what Dooyeweerd says about examining the analytical mode is contradictory. But Strauss’s own logical argument does not make logical sense. I will divide this argument into separate parts to comment.

2.03 This argument begins

2.04 Strauss concludes that is it not intra-modal. I don’t disagree, but no argument is needed for that. Dooyeweerd himself says that any theoretical concept relies on inter-modal synthesis.

2.05 But I find Strauss’s reason for rejecting an intra-modal idea very interesting: that “if it is intra-modal, then the universal validity of the theory of an inter-modal meaning-synthesis is cancelled.” If we apply this reasoning to Strauss’s own proposal to replace the intermodal Gegenstand-relation with an intra-modal subject-object relation, does he not (on his own reasoning) have a similar problem of establishing the universal validity of the modal aspects as a whole? That was Dooyeweerd’s view. See the discussion of logicism below in paragraph 8.17.

2.06 Dooyeweerd’s says that “universal validity” of judgments depends on the universal supra-subjective validity of the structural laws of human experience. (NC I,160; cf. WdW I, 129). That supra-subjective validity is not logical.

2.07 This is Strauss’s Misunderstanding #5: Strauss does not understand the nature of universal validity, but wants to interpret that in a logical sense of validity.

2.08 Strauss continues with the inter-modal option of analysis:

2.09 This statement is correct. The logical law-sphere can be examined like any other law-sphere. It is by means of the inter-modal synthesis that this opposition with the other remaining aspects is done. But bear in mind that Strauss later denies that any inter-modal synthesis is possible (Strauss 1984, 43; iv) and vii)).

2.10 Strauss continues

2.11 If Strauss is merely suggesting that all the aspects are compared with the other aspects in order to find their analogies, then that is of course correct. But that has nothing to do with the issue of whether or not the logical aspect can be analyzed.

2.12 Strauss concludes:

This is a convoluted way of trying to state a contradiction: not p if and only if p.

2.13 But there seem to be missing steps to the argument (It is at best enthymematic). In formal logic, “p if and only if q” is sometimes stated “p iff q.” Now “p iff q” means that p is equivalent to q, and it requires bi-conditionality. In other words, it requires that we first prove that both “if p then q” and “if q then p” are true.

2.14 In this case, Strauss’s conclusion [not p iff p] would require the following two premises:

Only those two premises could lead to the conclusion that Strauss wants to reach:

2.15 Neither of the premises A or B has been proved or even asserted by Strauss. The conclusion is therefore fallacious.

2.16 Even if Strauss had asserted either A or B, both premises would contain a statement that Strauss knows is not true: the statement that it is not possible to analyze the logical aspect in an inter-modal synthesis. We have already seen that Dooyeweerd says that such an analysis of the logical aspect is possible! Furthermore, such a statement would be in conflict with what Strauss actually states: that the logical aspect can be analyzed in the inter-modal synthesis (see paragraph 2.08 above). Something is very wrong with Strauss’s argument. It just does not make sense.

2.17 Strauss says that although Dooyeweerd quoted this argument in his answer (“Gegenstandsrelatie,” 99-100), Dooyeweerd did not try to counter the “explicitly stated logical contradiction” but that instead Dooyeweerd replied by stating that what Strauss had identified as an ‘untenable circle’ simply was a consequence of the transcendental ground-Ideas concerning the mutual coherence and irreducibility of the modal aspects.

2.18 Strauss complains:

2.19 But Dooyeweerd’s comment was not beside the point. Dooyeweerd was right in seeing this argument not as an attempt to show a logical contradiction, but as an attempt to show that his reasoning is circular. A circular argument is not the same as a contradictory argument. Circularity, or a petitio principii is a formal fallacy otherwise known as “begging the question.” It is an argument, or assertion, which assumes the question it attempts to answer. So Dooyeweerd was attempting to show why this kind of circularity is permissible.

2.20 Indeed, in Begrip en Idee (105), Strauss himself characterizes this argument as circular [‘n merkwaardige en onhoudbare sirkel]:

2.21 Dooyeweerd’s response is that the alleged vicious circle arises because of ideas that that Strauss himself accepts: ideas of sphere sovereignty and universality. Yet the mutual irreducibility of the law-spheres and their mutual irreducible reciprocal meaning-coherence “are not to be separated from the transcendental idea of the root-unity of the modal aspects in the religious center of human existence.” (“Gegenstandsrelatie,” 99).

2.22 Misunderstanding #6: Strauss does not understand Dooyeweerd’s proper (not vicious) circularity. There is a kind of circularity in Dooyeweerd, but it is not a vicious circle. It is a circularity of Idea and concept (although those terms must not be understood in the way that Strauss proposes to redefine them; See Misunderstanding #20 discussed below). Dooyeweerd refers to the meaning of ‘encyclopedia’ which is derived from the Greek enkyklios paideia, meaning “learning in a circle.” But it is not a vicious circle like logicism, which remains wholly within the temporal. Rather, the movement is from the supratemporal central to the temporal peripheral. (See my Thesis 92 and references there).

2.23 With respect to the theoretical analysis of the modal aspects in the inter-modal synthesis, the issue is this: in comparing the logical aspect with other aspects, we find that each of these other aspects can in turn also be analyzed and compared to find their analogies. They even have analogies back to the logical aspect. But this does not result in any logical contradiction. What this does show is the marvelous richness and interrelatedness of the modal aspects. There is no static meaning that can be contained in a concept. Instead, the full meaning of each aspect continues to unfold more and more. The more that we investigate, the more anticipations we see within each structure –analogies that anticipate the fullness of meaning that is found only in the supratemporal center where the meanings of each the aspects coincide in a radical unity (NC I, 106).

2.24 This is why Dooyeweerd can say that it is the religious concentration point that guarantees their sovereignty. “What in the totality of meaning has no meaning is the sovereignty in its own sphere in the particularity of meaning.” (WdW I, 71 and see my Thesis 16 and references).

2.25 This richness means that we can never even obtain a concept of the kernel (nuclear meaning of each aspect. We can only approximate that meaning in an Idea. (See my Theses 16 and 17 and references).

2.26 Even our Ideas are insufficient. We finally recognize their insufficiency and we rest in God our Origin. This makes our theoretical work itself a religious experience. (See my Thesis 94 and references).

2.27 Strauss’s complaint about the way that we cannot achieve conceptual certainty about the meaning of the aspects is indicative of an approach that would impoverish the richness of our theoretical experience.

3. Strauss Argument #3: Logical Identity

3.01 This argument is point 4b) on page 41 of Strauss’s 1984 article. This is another argument that he repeats twice in the article (again on p. 47). It is found at page 106 and the second part of point iv) on page 111 of Begrip en Idee.

3.02 This argument begins:

3.03 In this argument, Strauss considers what happens if only non-logical states of affairs are theoretically or logically analyzable, i.e. identifiable and distinguishable.

3.04 This argument therefore assumes Misstatement #1: that the Gegenstand-relation is restricted to the non-logical aspects. Since that assumption is not true, we really do not need to analyze this argument further. But for the sake of completeness I will, since the argument is also logically fallacious.

3.05 This argument also relies on Misunderstanding #1: that the Gegenstand-relation concerns only the logical identification and distinguishing of aspects. We have already seen that that is also incorrect. This error relates to Strauss’s logicism, which I will discuss in Section 8.

3.06 This argument, Strauss Argument #3, concerns identity judgments in logic. Identity judgments are in the form “S is S.” In formal logic, such identity statements are viewed as tautologies, where the predicate “S” adds nothing to our knowledge of “S.” The subject and predicate of the logical judgment are viewed as identical.

3.07 It is important to note that Dooyeweerd denies that any judgments are tautological or analytical in this sense. He says that formal logic believes its statements are purely logical when in fact the terms that it uses require other modal aspects. See the discussion of formal logic in Section 9 below.

3.08 Strauss continues his argument: if analysis is restricted to non- states of affairs, then identity judgments are possible only about non-legal states of affairs.

3.09 “Legal is legal” is a translation of “Recht is recht.” A more colloquial way of saying this in English would be “The law’s the law.”

3.10 Misunderstanding #7. Strauss is here confusing the analysis of states of affairs that operate in all aspects with the analysis of a modal aspect. The judgment “legal is legal” arises in relation to a legal system. That legal system may be legally qualified, but it is an individuality structure that functions in all aspects. Strauss is therefore incorrect in saying that this juridical state of affairs is “non-logical in nature.” No individuality structure is completely non-logical.

3.11 Even if “legal is legal” refers to the juridical aspect, that aspect also contains logical analogies. It is a non-logical aspect, but it is not “illogical.”

3.12 Strauss’s argument therefore relies on a view that tries to have a “pure logic” that is restricted to the analytical mode. Dooyeweerd denies that any logic can be pure in that way and criticizes Strauss’s logicism.

3.13 Even Strauss admits that the non-logical aspects are not purely non-logical, for each non-logical aspect possess in principle a logical analogy (Begrip en Idee, 106). Why is Strauss therefore advancing an argument that the use of logic in states of affairs qualified by non-logical aspects is itself non-logical? He is trying to shift the meaning of “non-logical” aspect to mean “illogical.” And a shift in the meaning of terms results in an invalid argument.

3.14 Misunderstanding #8: In this argument, Strauss is confusing identity judgments with self-referential statements. Self-referential statements are notorious for the paradoxes they can cause. An example is “This statement that you are presently reading is false.” If the statement is true, then it cannot be false, and if it is false, then it must mean that it is true.

3.15 Strauss is attempting a similar paradox: “This logical statement “Recht is recht” is illogical.” But the argument is sophistry because by ‘illogical’ he is referring to the fact that it occurs in a state of affairs qualified by the juridical aspect, which is a non-logical aspect, but which is not “non-logical” in the sense that Strauss needs it to mean, i.e. “illogical.”

3.16 Misunderstanding #9. “Recht is recht” is not just an identity judgment in the sense of a tautology. When we say, “The law’s the law,” we are not just asserting a logical tautology in the form “S is S.” Here, the predicate contains more information than the subject. We are saying that the law cannot be questioned. In other words, we are saying that we must follow the law even if, as Dickens said in his novel Oliver Twist, “The law is an ass.” [12]

3.17 Another non-tautological understanding of “The law’s the law” would be in support of a positivistic understanding of law as judge-made. The expression would then mean that we cannot ask whether a law is just. Law is just whatever a judge says it is.

3.18 A similar issue would arise in respect to an ethical situation if we said, “What’s right is right.” Again, we would not be merely asserting an empty tautology. We would be emphasizing that one must do what is right–that something is the right thing to do–even if we do not want to do it. We would be emphasizing the need for moral willpower.

3.19 Based on these (wrong) assumptions, Strauss then considers what happens if we try to make an “identity judgment” about the logical itself:

3.20 Let’s disregard for the moment theimportant issue of whether these states of affairs are purely logical or non-logical. There is still something tricky in this premise. Note the word “also” in this argument: “also pertains to non-logical states of affairs.” Why would it apply to non-logical states of affairs? The first premise, “ all identification and distinction is always directed only to non-logical realities” is ambiguous. Its proper meaning in this argument should be all identity judgments are restricted to non-logical states of affairs. That is not the same as saying that all identityjudgments, including those attempted of logical states of affairs, also apply to the non-logical states of affairs. But the argument depends on this ambiguity.If identity judgments are restricted to non-logical states of affairs, then “logical is logical” cannot be asserted.

3.21 We can see the argument better when we clarify the ambiguity and put in the word ‘restricted’:

From those premises, we cannot derive a conclusion that “Logical is logical” pertains to non-logical states of affairs. Strauss says, “It stands to reason that this identity judgment also pertains to non-logical states of affairs.” But it does not stand to reason. It would have to be asserted as a separate [and false] premise.

Conclusion (G) depends on the additional premise (F) which is false. But if all valid logical analysis is restricted to non-logical states of affairs, the conclusion (I) would follow. We would just not be able to validly assert “Logical is logical.”

3.22 Strauss concludes
Consequently, the identity judgment: logical is logical is valid if and only if logical is non-logical. (Strauss 1984, 41, 4b))

3.23 Again, this conclusion uses “if and only if.” To support that conclusion, Strauss needs two premises:

Those premises are not asserted or proved. “Logical is logical” has not been proved to pertain to non-logical states of affairs. All that has been proved is that it may not be validly asserted. That is intuitively wrong, and so we then go back to see what is wrong with the premises.

3.24 In this argument, Strauss is seeking (by a reductio argument) for us to acknowledge that the analytical mode to be able to analyze itself. But isn’t that what he was initially objecting to in his (wrong) understanding of the Gegenstand-relation?

3.25 It would be interesting to see how Strauss would account for identity judgments on his own theory of theories. For he says that logical identity and distinguishing always depends on a given diversity. How then does he himself explain identity judgments?

3.26 Strauss complains that Dooyeweerd doesn’t say a word about this argument in “Gegenstandsrelatie.” That is not surprising, since the argument is based on a false premise (“If identification and distinction are always directed only to non-logical realities”). Dooyeweerd already showed that he disagreed with any view that assumes that states of affairs can be non-logical or that logical judgments can be purely logical. If the premises are false, why would Strauss expect Dooyeweerd (who had retired 10 years previously) to waste his time on this kind of spurious logic game? And even if Strauss’s premises are granted, Strauss’s conclusion “logical is non-logical” does not at all logically follow. The proper conclusion is that we would not be able to make any logical identical judgments applying to the logical aspect. And that of course is not the situation.

3.27 In fact, Dooyeweerd had already an account of how we can make the identity judgment “S is S” (NC II, 460-61).

3.28 Dooyeweerd rejects the distinction between (purely) analytical judgments and synthetic judgments. He says that all theoretical judgments bear a synthetical character, just as without any exception they all have an analytical aspect. Even the judgment S is S can only be conceived in its analytical aspect in an inter-modal synthesis of meaning (NC II, 460).

3.29 Dooyeweerd distinguishes between those that have an explicit synthetical structure of meaning and those that have merely an implicit structure of meaning.

3.30 Thus, Dooyeweerd rejects any view that the judgment “S is S” is a tautology in the sense of a purely analytical judgment:

3.31 Dooyeweerd says that in this formalized judgment, the synthesis of meaning is only explicit. All that has been implied in the judgment can only explicitly enter our consciousness by a further theoretical analysis and synthesis of meaning. (NC II, 461)

3.32 Dooyeweerd says that in the theoretical synthesis of meaning between the analytical aspect and the other aspects, our concern is explicit knowledge. But our focus in such theoretical logic is not the knowledge of other modal meaning-structures that are opposed to the analytical modus, but to “explicit knowledge of the analytical states of affairs as such.” (NC II, 461)

3.33 This explicit knowledge, obtained by the synthesis of meaning, involve the comparing of the analytical aspect to the non-analytical aspects:

Such a theoretical abstraction is indeed only possible in a theoretical analysis and intermodal synthesis of meaning. In these theoretical acts we oppose the analytical aspect to all that is non-analytical, e.g., in order to grasp the modal difference between logical and arithmetical multiplicity, logical and original extensiveness, etc. (NC II, 461).

3.34 This inter-modal synthesis, whereby the analytical aspect is compared to the others in order to find these analogies, is the only true meaning that can be given to “abstraction from any Gegenstand.’ The incorrect view of abstracting from any Gegenstand is Husserl’s view of logic, which was discussed a few pages earlier (NC II, 451). Husserl was incorrect in viewing analytical judgments as completely formalized propositions.

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Endnotes

[1] Herman Dooyeweerd: ”De Kentheoretische Gegenstandsrelatie en de Logische Subject-Objectrelatie,” Philosophia Reformata 40 (1975) 83-101.

[2] D.F.M. Strauss: Begrip en Idee (Assen, 1973).

[3] Herman Dooyeweerd: “The Epistemo-logical Gegenstand-relation and the Logical Subject-Object-Relation,” Philosophia Reformata 41 (1976) 1-8.

[4] Translation online at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Mainheadings/ Kentheoretische.html] [“Gegenstandsrelatie”].

[5] D.F.M. Strauss: “An Analysis of the Structure of Analysis (The Gegenstand-relation in discussion),” Philosophia Reformata 49 (1984) 35-56.

[6] Herman Dooyeweerd: De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, (Amsterdam: H.J. Paris, 1935) [‘WdW’]. This work was revised and translated A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997; Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1969; first published 1953) [‘NC’].

[7] Marcel Verburg: Herman Dooyeweerd: Leven en werk van een Nederlands christen-wijsgeer (Baarn: Ten Have, 1989), 401.

[8] Random House Dictionary, online at [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sophistry].

[9] J. Glenn Friesen: “Dooyeweerd versus Strauss: Objections to immanence philosophy within reformational thought,” (2006). [http://www.members.shaw.ca/ hermandooyeweerd/Objections.html].

[10] J. Glenn Friesen: “Dooyeweerd versus Vollenhoven: The religious dialectic within reformational philosophy,” Philosophia 70 (2005) 102-132. Online at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/hermandooyeweerd/Dialectic.html].

[11] J. Glenn Friesen: “95 Theses on Herman Dooyeweerd,” Philosophia Reformata (forthcoming), online at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/hermandooyeweerd/ 95Theses.html].

[12] In Oliver Twist, the character Mr. Bumble says that “the law is an ass” when he is informed that “the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.”

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Revised May 1/08