Dooyeweerd versus Strauss:
Objections to immanence philosophy
within reformational thought

by

Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

© 2006

Part 1

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I. Background to the Disagreement

In his last article, Gegenstandsrelatie [1], written two years before his death, Dooyeweerd criticized many of the ideas in D.F.M. Strauss’s dissertation, Begrip en Idee [2]. In this article, Dooyeweerd refers to ‘”logicism,” to “serious misunderstanding” and to “insoluble antinomies” in Strauss’s views. And Dooyeweerd says that Strauss’s ideas of the nature of theory reflect “the most current prejudices of modern epistemology” (Gegenstandsrelatie 97, 100). Insoluble antinomies are a sign of a religious dialectic, and Dooyeweerd normally uses such strong criticism against those who adhere to a different Ground-Motive.

But in 1984, nine years after Dooyeweerd’s article criticizing him, and seven years after Dooyeweerd’s death, Strauss published an article that Alan Cameron references in the footnotes to 2002 Translation of The Encyclopedia of the Science of Law [3]. Cameron says at p. 28, fn 1 of the Encyclopedia (2002 Translation):

I shall refer to this 1984 article by Strauss as ‘Discussion.’ In Discussion, Strauss refers again to his dissertation, and he reiterates what he had said there. Strauss says:

In Discussion, therefore, Strauss attempts to re-argue the very points that Dooyeweerd had so decisively rejected in Gegenstandsrelatie.

Strauss was obviously very unhappy with Dooyeweerd’s strong criticism. Strauss says, “[Dooyeweerd] completely side-stepped my arguments,” that a certain remark by Dooyeweerd was “completely besides the point,” that there are “Inconsistencies in Dooyeweerd’s epistemology,” and that “only some of my points were handled, leaving aside some of the most crucial ones” (Discussion, 45-47).

II. Strauss’s Criticism of Dooyeweerd

Let us now look at some of the ideas that Dooyeweerd rejected in his last article Gegenstandsrelatie, and which Strauss brings forward again in Discussion.

1. Strauss’s rejection of the Gegenstand-relation

Strauss rejects Dooyeweerd’s Idea of the Gegenstand-relation. In his last article, Gegenstandsrelatie, Dooyeweerd of course defends the Gegenstand-relation. The Encyclopedia of the Science of Law also affirms its importance.

2. Strauss’s incorrect view of aspects as properties

Like Vollenhoven before him [4], Strauss refers to modal aspects as being abstracted from entities [5]. In Gegenstandsrelatie, Dooyeweerd had already criticized this view as a “serious misunderstanding.”[6] Aspects are not deduced from individuality structures [7]. Rather, individuality structures function in the aspects, which have an ontical priority [8]. This is a view that can be found not only in Dooyeweerd’s last article, but also in one of his first articles [9]. Dooyeweerd finds in Strauss “a continual confusion between the “ontical” and the epistemological states of affairs.” [10]

3. Strauss’s incorrect view of abstraction

Strauss regards abstraction as occurring intra-modally within the logical subject-object relation. But for Dooyeweerd, theoretical thought is an act, which functions in all of the aspects. The splitting apart of the aspects, the dis-stasis from the systasis or continuity of cosmic time, is such an act [11]. It is not based on the logical function alone. So although the Gegenstand-relation sets the logical function of thought over against other aspects, this opposition is not itself of a logical nature. This is something that Dooyeweerd also says in the Encyclopedia [12]. And if we distinguish in this way between the functions of an act of thought, opposing to itself an abstracted aspect, then there is no reason why the act of thought cannot investigate the logical aspect itself. [13]

4. Intra-modal logical subject-object relation

Strauss substitutes the intra-modal logical subject-object relation for the Gegenstand-relation. He says that there need no longer be any difference between them (Discussion, 43). Strauss says,

But that is not what Dooyeweerd means by “opposed” or “set over-against” [tegenovergesteld]. The initial setting-over-against [What I call ‘Gegenstand Level 1’ in the discussion below] is not purely logical. It sets the act of thought over-against a Gegenstand that is isolated from out of the continuity of cosmic time. As already discussed, although the act of thought involves the logical aspect, it also takes place in all aspects. And it is the entry of our supratemporal selfhood into cosmic time that causes this dis-stasis, the initial setting over-against. What Strauss is referring to by the “disclosed subject-object relation,” where modal aspects are logically objectified within the analytical modality itself, is what occurs in Gegenstand Level 3 (see below).

In Gegenstandsrelatie, Dooyeweerd had already strongly criticized Strauss’s substitution of the intra-modal logical subject-object relation for the Gegenstand-relation [14]. Dooyeweerd said that Strauss’s view (a) leads to logicism [15], (b) threatens the irreducibility of the aspects, since what is intra-logical can only be analogies of the non-logical aspects, and not their nuclear meaning [16], (c) leads to a genuine insoluble antinomy, since although Strauss could not maintain irreducibility of the aspects, he still wants to affirm such irreducibility. This gives rise to an antinomy between the logical aspect and the other aspects [17], (d) that the irreducibility of the aspects can be maintained only on the basis of the (supratemporal) religious root, the selfhood [18] (which Strauss denies) (e) that Strauss’s identification of the Gegenstand-relation with the logical subject-object relation reflects “the most current prejudices of modern epistemology” [19], (f) that Strauss’s view of theory as an intra-modal logical subject-object relation blurs the distinction between naïve pre-theoretical experience and theoretical experience. [20]

Dooyeweerd concludes that Strauss has failed in his attempt to eliminate the Gegenstand-relation [21]. That does not mean that the Gegenstand-relation does not presuppose the subject-object relation, since as an act, the Gegenstand-relation functions in all aspects. But it cannot be reduced to the subject-object relation within the analytical aspect.[22]

5. Strauss’s claim of abstraction in everyday life

Strauss says that we frequently abstract in everyday life [23]. Strauss also asserts that we have implied knowledge of the aspects in our naïve experience, and that theoretical thought merely makes explicit what was implied:

and

In Gegenstandsrelatie, Dooyeweerd specifically denied this. Dooyeweerd said that such an idea blurs the distinction between pre-theoretical and theoretical thought. (Gegenstandsrelatie, 92). Naïve experience knows nothing of abstraction in the sense of dis-stasis, and although it experiences the aspects [24], it has no articulated or even implied knowledge of the aspects [25]. Dooyeweerd says,

and

and

and

Dooyeweerd’s rejection of any implied knowledge of the aspects in naïve experience is also consistent with what he says in the New Critique:

6. Strauss’s criticism of the transcendental critique

Strauss criticizes Dooyeweerd’s transcendental critique [26]. His criticism is related to Strauss’s rejection of the Idea of the supratemporal selfhood. For the transcendental critique is based on understanding Ideas in their relation to the supratemporal selfhood. Dooyeweerd makes this point in the Encyclopedia. The Gegenstand-relation allows us to form Ideas of the transcendental supratemporal conditions, while nevertheless remaining bound to philosophy [27].

Strauss says that Dooyeweerd’s transcendental critique has a rationalistic tendency (Discussion, p. 45). It need hardly be stated that Dooyeweerd’s philosophy is directed against rationalism. You need only look at the Encyclopedia for Dooyeweerd’s opposition to rationalism. Dooyeweerd had already responded to this accusation in Gegenstandsrelatie, 96, where Dooyeweerd says that Strauss’s argument of rationalism contains an “obvious logical contradiction” which Strauss does not himself seem to be aware of. Dooyeweerd says that Strauss’s criticism of the transcendental critique was based on Strauss’s “penchant” for formal logic. But Dooyeweerd says that to show logical contradiction cannot possibly relate to transcendental criticism, which refers to antinomies:

In Discussion, 45, Strauss compounds his criticism of Dooyeweerd, saying that not only is Dooyeweerd’s transcendental critique contradictory, but that it involves antinomies that lead to contradictions.

So Dooyeweerd accuses Strauss of antinomies, and Strauss accuses Dooyeweerd of antinomies. Who is right? The debate between Dooyeweerd and Strauss gives every indication of being a conflict between conflicting Ground-motives. Antinomies arise in the religious, supratemporal dimension of our experience. As discussed below, Strauss denies the supratemporality of the self. It is in this religious, supratemporal dimension that antinomies arise. I therefore think that Dooyeweerd is right, and that Strauss can speak only of logical contradiction, whereas Strauss’s own thought is involved in genuine antinomies because of his logicism. And Dooyeweerd says that Strauss’s method does not fulfill the requirements of a true transcendental critique:

7. Abstraction and synthesis

Strauss says, “Abstraction and synthesis are opposed to each other” (Discussion, 55, fn37). Strauss does not seem to understand either term correctly. Strauss sees analysis as distinguishing and synthesis as identifying (Discussion 55). That ignores the Dooyeweerd’s whole idea of relating what has been analyzed to the supratemporal selfhood.

As discussed, Dooyeweerd’s use of ‘abstraction’ is not the abstraction of properties, but the abstraction from the continuity of cosmic time, by our supratemporal selfhood entering into cosmic time. And for Dooyeweerd, theoretical synthesis involves restoring that cosmic continuity of time, by relating the results of our theory back to the unity of our selfhood, by means of our intuition (see discussion below). Strauss says that synthesis must be either intra-modal or inter-modal (Discussion, 41). Strauss has himself chosen the intra-modal solution, within the logical subject-object relation. He assumes that for Dooyeweerd it must be inter-modal, in the joining together of aspects that were split apart.

But for Dooyeweerd, synthesis already occurs in the (non-logical) opposition between the analytical aspect and the non-logical aspects![28] For Strauss, such opposition is still a part of abstraction. But for Dooyeweerd, this opposition of the aspects is only a stage in the synthesis, because synthesis does not remain purely temporal or functional; what has been analyzed in the theoretical dis-stasis must be related back to the unity of our selfhood. This relation back to the supratemporal selfhood is what Strauss does not seem to appreciate. In other words, the theoretical synthesis (in its final form) is not merely inter-modal, but an act that relates the aspects that have been split apart to our transcendent selfhood. The synthesis is beyond inter-modal.

Dooyeweerd says that the synthesis can never be explained by means of the isolated functions of consciousness (NC II, 479). The Gegenstand-relation brings about the dis-stasis through our supratemporal selfhood entering time, and the synthesis involves relating it back to the unity of our selfhood. The opposites in theoretical thought [29] are relative and not absolute, and we must search in theory for their higher synthesis [30]. The diversity of temporal meaning can come to a radical unity only in the religious center of human existence, in which we transcend time (NC I, 31) [31]. Dooyeweerd says that it is our intuition that relates the analyzed Gegenstand to our supratemporal selfhood:

In intuition, we recognize the theoretical datum, the Gegenstand, as “our own” (NC II, 475-480). In other words, our intuition relates our theoretical investigation to the experience of our supratemporal self. The Gegenstand is then no longer foreign [vreemd] to our selfhood [32]. Dooyeweerd says that theoretical truth is meaningless without its relation to our cosmological self-consciousness (WdW II, 512; NC II, 578). For those who begin with a dualistic Ground-Motive, no ultimate synthesis is possible; they are left with a primary religious dualism. Those caught in such a primary dualism may argue for the use of a dialectical logic to attempt to overcome antithesis in starting points (NC II, 37). But this results only in a dialectical-logical unity, not a real unity (NC I, 89).

8. Strauss’s criticism of intuition

Strauss criticizes Dooyeweerd’s idea of intuition, but that is because Strauss fails to see it relating to the supratemporal selfhood. Dooyeweerd describes Strauss's view:

Notice in this quotation how Dooyeweerd speaks of the antithesis and synthesis between our analyzing act and the abstracted aspects. And Dooyeweerd’s point is that both the antithesis and the synthesis come when we actively step out of the enstatic character of pre-theoretical experience. We do this by entering into cosmic time with our supratemporal selfhood, in the intentional act [34] of theoretical thought.

9. Strauss’s objection to circularity

Strauss says that Dooyeweerd’s philosophy is circular. He even uses the phrase ‘vicious circle.’ But Dooyeweerd had already dealt with this in Gegenstandsrelatie. He says that Strauss’s conclusion is based on an incorrect [foutieve] use of formal logic. He cites Strauss and then says,

Strauss says, “This remark is completely besides [sic] the point. What is at stake is not the mutual coherence and irreducibility of the modal aspects, but the contradictory implications of his antinomic conception of the Gegenstand-relation!”

Strauss doesn’t get the point. We may compare what Dooyeweerd says here with what he says in the 1946 Edition of the Encyclopedia about the meaning of ‘encyclopedia’ being teaching in a circle. This is Dooyeweerd’s view of the relation of Ideas and concepts to the Center and periphery! “Research proceeds from the Center to the periphery; it is egkuklios” [34].

Now it is evident from other writings that Strauss rejects the Central/peripheral distinction. In response to my pointing out Dooyeweerd’s similarity to Baader, who also emphasizes the distinction between a Central Totality and a peripheral Center, Strauss says:

and again,

and again,

But in view of Dooyeweerd’s statements in the Encyclopedia, Strauss is clearly wrong. Dooyeweerd does use the distinction Central/peripheral, and it is basic to his Idea of encyclopedia [36].

Because of his Central/peripheral distinction, Dooyeweerd’s view of concepts and Ideas is also different from Strauss’s. Strauss says that concepts describe states of affairs displaying themselves within the limits (modal boundaries) of a specific aspect, and that ideas designate states of affairs, which transcend the limits of the aspect in which the descriptive term has its original seat (Discussion, 35). Strauss says that an idea concentrates a conceptual diversity upon (or refers it to) that which transcends the limits of all concept-formation (Discussion, 37). And at p. 53, Strauss relates the whole-part relation as an original spatial relation, and says that it functions, under the guidance of our theoretical thought, as the basis of the introduction of the idea of the ‘at once infinite.’

But Dooyeweerd relates Ideas not to the whole/part relation, but to Totality, which is transcendent and supratemporal [37]. Although Ideas certainly transcend concepts, this is because they refer to the supratemporal religious root, where all concepts coincide. Ideas approximate in the transcendental direction that which cannot be comprehended in a concept (WdW I, 71). Ideas open up the anticipatory meaning within each aspect [38]. Ideas do this by pointing to the transcendent (WdW I, 55), by relating them in the transcendental direction towards the supratemporal selfhood. Ideas seek to approximate the fullness of truth, which is religious and supratemporal. Ideas relate our temporal conceptual understanding in an opened up way to what transcends the temporal, and points beyond the temporal.

There is also a central and peripheral relationship between the nuclear meaning moment and its analogies within each law-sphere. Dooyeweerd says that the nucleus or kernel of the modal aspect is the center, and the other aspects surround it [39]. The same article says that the kernel or nucleus of each aspect is that which gives that aspect its sphere sovereignty. By this kernel or nucleus, the aspect maintains its individuality with respect to all the other aspects of temporal reality. It is the central and directive moment within each aspect. The article also says that we know the kernel of an aspect in its retrocipations and anticipations:

This same article says that we cannot define the kernel or each aspect because by this kernel an aspect maintains its individuality even against the logical aspect.

The kernel meaning of the law-sides of reality is therefore in the supratemporal center [40]. Steen points out that for Dooyeweerd there is an eternal moment in each sphere of law (Steen, 170).

The WdW confirms that the sovereignty in its own sphere of the nuclear meaning is an expression of the vertical order, as opposed to the horizontal order of coherence.

And Dooyeweerd says,

The law-order is horizontal in that it spans across all law-spheres. The coherence of the aspects is maintained “horizontally” by cosmic time. There is a systatic coherence between the kernel and its analogies (Crisis, 102-103). But the meaning of each law-sphere is related to its expression from the center. That is why the kernel or nuclear moment of each sphere is supratemporal. Because it is beyond time, we cannot obtain a concept of it, but only an Idea.

The kernel of the aspect, the sovereignty in its own sphere, is related "vertically" to the sovereignty of God, and to humanity as the image of God, who expresses the aspects. It is not just the kernel of the law-side that is found in the supratemporal. All of our acts come out of our supratemporal selfhood, and Dooyeweerd says that this is our actuality. He relates it to the kernel of each subject function. The kernel of each subject function is the actuality that is referred to in phenomenology (WdW I, 78; NC I, 101).

III. The supratemporal selfhood

1. The relation of the Gegenstand-relation to the supratemporal selfhood

In Gegenstandsrelatie, Dooyeweerd says that Strauss’s views threaten the irreducibility of the law-spheres. And he says that the Ideas of the mutual irreducibility and unbreakable reciprocal meaning-coherence of the modal aspects 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, 100). This statement is partially explained by the above discussion of the supratemporality of the central nuclear moment, as an expression from out of the supratemporal root. And the religious root is in the religious dimension of our experience, which is supratemporal (NC II, 560).

Let us look at this issue of supratemporality in more detail. For in my view, most of Strauss’s criticism of Dooyeweerd arises because of Strauss’s rejection of the supratemporal selfhood. Strauss asks, …how is it possible to ‘oppose’ the ‘Gegenstand’ to our logical function without having knowledge of the ‘Gegenstand’ at this stage?” (Discussion, 44). Dooyeweerd’s answer is that it is our supratemporal selfhood that enables us to do this. For example, the 1946 edition of the Encyclopedia says

Dooyeweerd confirms this in his 1940 article on time:

Totality is supratemporal, but we also function within temporal diversity. We live in two worlds, the supratemporal and the temporal, and it is only because we have a supratemporal selfhood that we can have the Gegenstand-relation! The Gegenstand-relation allows us to form Ideas of the transcendental supratemporal conditions, while nevertheless remaining bound to philosophy:

Now of course, if, like Strauss, we deny the supratemporal selfhood, such a view of the Gegenstand-relation is not possible. Strauss must try to explain theoretical thought from within temporal reality, by the temporal subject-object relation within the logical aspect. Using Dooyeweerd’s terminology, Strauss’s philosophy is immanence philosophy [42]. That is why Dooyeweerd can say in Gegenstandsrelatie that Strauss’s views do not differ from modern epistemology. Strauss’s mistake was the mistake made by Kant, Husserl and the neo-Kantians (Gegenstandsrelatie, 87).

The Encyclopedia says that the Gegenstand-relation is what makes Dooyeweerd’s philosophy transcendental [43]. Since Strauss denies both the Gegenstand relation and the supratemporal selfhood on which it depends [44], he cannot have the same view of Dooyeweerd’s transcendental method.

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Endnotes

[1] Herman Dooyeweerd: “De Kentheoretische Gegenstandsrelatie en de Logische Subject-Objectrelatie,” Philosophia Reformata 40 (1975) 83-101 [‘Gegenstandsrelatie’]. See also my article “Dooyeweerd and Baader: A Response to D.F.M. Strauss,” [‘Response to Strauss’], where I examine some of Strauss’s disagreements with Dooyeweerd.

[2] D.F.M. Strauss, Begrip en Idee (Assen, 1973). Strauss’s doctoral supervisor was Hendrik van Riessen, who had himself done his own doctoral dissertation under Vollenhoven. In my view, van Riessen and Strauss continue along the lines of Vollenhoven’s philosophy, which is very different from Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. Vollenhoven uses many of the same terms as Dooyeweerd, but he uses these terms in very different ways. See my article “Dooyeweerd versus Vollenhoven: The religious dialectic within reformational philosophy,” Philosophia Reformata 70 (2005) 102-132 (‘Dialectic’) In Discussion, Strauss refers to van Riessen’s views with approval.

[3] Herman Dooyeweerd: The Encyclopedia of the Science of Law, ed. Alan M. Cameron (Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002) [‘Encyclopedia’].

[4] See my article, See my article “Dooyeweerd versus Vollenhoven: The religious dialectic within reformational philosophy,” Philosophia Reformata 70 (2005) 102-132 (‘Dialectic’).

[5] Discussion, 53:

Strauss refers to “modal properties observable in the concrete event…” (Discussion, 46). He says “Analysis is first of all the successive distinguishing of universal features which are identified” (Discussion, p. 52). On the same page, he refers to a child’s conceptual knowledge of “specified universal modal properties.” And he says, “The original discreteness of the meaning of number co-determines the possibility to discern differences between entities and properties” (Discussion, 53).

[6] Gegenstandsrelatie, 90:

[8] Gegenstandsrelatie, 90:

[9] In his 1923 article "Roomsch-katholieke en Anti-revolutionaire Staatkunde," February, 1923 Dooyeweerd specifically denies that modalities are qualities or properties of things:

The above excerpts from this article are included in Marcel Verburg: Herman Dooyeweerd. Leven en werk van een Nederlands christen-wijsgeer (Baarn: Ten Have, 1989), 58 [‘Verburg’].

[10] Gegenstandsrelatie, 91.

[11]Gegenstandsrelatie, 87-88:

[12] Dooyeweerd says that that the Archimedean point for our thought may not be sought in logic (Encyclopedia of the Science of Law, 2002 Translation, 35). And the Gegenstand-relation cannot proceed from the logical aspect alone:

[13] Dooyeweerd says,

[14] Dooyeweerd cites from page 125 of Strauss’s dissertation Begrip en Idee:

Dooyeweerd says, “Strauss’s argument is not only contradictory in a formal-logical sense. It also contains a genuine antinomy, as I shall demonstrate.” (Gegenstandsrelatie, 98).

[15] Gegenstandsrelatie, 100: “Strauss tries in vain to save himself from this impasse, which threatens to lead him directly in a logicistic pitfall…” In Discussion, Strauss recognized that Dooyeweerd had accused him of logicisim (Discussion, 56).

[16] Dooyeweerd says that the meaning kernels of the other aspects:

[17] Gegenstandsrelatie, 100:

[18] Gegenstandsrelatie, 100.

[19] Gegenstandsrelatie, 97:

[20] Gegenstandsrelatie, 87.

[21] Gegenstandsrelatie, 98.

[22] Gegenstandsrelatie, 94:

[23] Discussion, 53. Here again, Strauss’s view of the meaning of abstraction is different form Dooyeweerd’s. For Strauss, it involves identifying and distinguishing properties, instead of Dooyeweerd’s view of an epoché from the continuity of time. Strauss says,

[24] Dooyeweerd says that pre-theoretical concept formation does not yet know epistemological problems

[25] Gegenstandsrelatie, 97.

[26] Strauss says that Dooyeweerd’s transcendental critique upholds a false Kantian opposition between synthesis and analysis (Discussion, 55).

[27] Encyclopedia of the Science of Law, 2002 Translation, 80-81, but mistranslated in the present edition.

[28] Dooyeweerd says that deepened analysis first executes [voltrekt zich] an inter-modal synthesis of meaning, in which the non-analytic meaning is made into a ‘Gegenstand’ of the analytic aspect:

Dooyeweerd also says every analysis demands a synthesis:

[29] For Dooyeweerd, synthesis involves a dialectical method in theory. He refers to a theoretical dialectic that is relative, and which seeks a higher unity, as opposed to a religious dialectic, which cannot be bridged.

[30] Herman Dooyeweerd: Roots of Western Culture, (Toronto: Wedge, 1977), 8.

[31] Steen correctly observes the importance of the supratemporal heart for this synthesis. Peter J. Steen: The Structure of Herman Dooyeweerd’s Thought (Toronto: Wedge, 1983), 126.

[32] Dooyeweerd already refers to that which is opposed to our thought as ‘denkvreemdheid’ in "Een kritisch-methodologische onderzoeking naar Kelsen's normative rechtsbeschouwing", part of which comes from 1922, but completed in 1926. (excerpts in Verburg 34ff). In the 1946 edition of the Encyclopedia, Dooyeweerd refers to the Gegenstand as “foreign to our consciousness “(p. 9). See my Glossary entry for ‘Own’ at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Definitions/Own.html].

[33] ‘Intentional’ is not to be understood in a phenomenological sense of directedness to an object, but rather in an inner-directedness. See my Glossary entry for ‘Intentional’ at [ttp://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Definitions/Intentional.html].

[34] Encyclopedia, 1946 Edition, 6. Transcendental Ideas, which point to the Center, are possible only because of our supratemporal selfhood and its Gegenstand-relation.

[35] See Strauss, “Intellectual influences upon the reformational philosophy of Dooyeweerd,” Philosophia Reformata 69 (2004), 151-181, at 169 and 173. See also my “Dooyeweerd and Baader: A Response to D.F.M. Strauss,” where I show that Dooyeweerd uses the idea of Center and periphery.

[36] See also my ‘Response to Strauss’ for other examples of the Central/peripheral distinction.

[37] See my article, “Dooyeweerd, Spann and the Philosophy of Totality,” Philosophia Reformata 70 (2005) 2-22.

[38] In 1931, Dooyeweerd wrote about this distinction between concept and Idea. He related the distinction to the anticipations and analogies [retrocipations] in the law-spheres:

[39] Herman Dooyeweerd: “Introduction to a Transcendental Criticism of Philosophic Thought,” Evangelical Quarterly 19 (1947), 42-51. [‘Ev.Qu.’].

[40] Another possible interpretation is that each nuclear moment is a peripheral point from out of the supratemporal center, and each such nuclear moment in its turn becomes a temporal center with another periphery (its analogies). Such an interpretation would also affirm a Central/peripheral distinction, repeating itself on several levels. I don’t think that this is Dooyeweerd’s view, since if the kernel were a temporal center, we should be able to obtrain a concept of it. I prefer Steen’s interpretation that there are central eternal moments in each law-sphere.

[41] Herman Dooyeweerd, “Het Tijdsprobleem in de Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee,” Philosophia Reformata 5 (1940) 160-192, 193-234 at 181.

[42] Dooyeweerd says that the second transcendental Idea is that of the deeper, supratemporal unity, which is in the supratemporal selfhood. Anyone who does not accept that Archimedean point is practicing immanence philosophy, since the Archimedean point must then be sought within time.

[43] The Gegenstand-relation allows us to form Ideas of the transcendental supratemporal conditions, while nevertheless remaining bound to philosophy:

[44] As an act, the meaning synthesis presupposes the time-transcending I-ness or selfhood, which shares in the religious root of all of temporal reality (WdW II, 407; NC II, 472).

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Revised Jan 7/06