Herman Dooyeweerd was a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 juridical scholar by training, who by vocation was a philosopher and the founder of the philosophy of the cosmonomic idea. He received early support for his work from his brother-in-law D. H. Th. Vollenhoven

D. H. Th. Vollenhoven

Dirk Hendrik Theodoor Vollenhoven was with Herman Dooyeweerd the first generation of reformational philosophers, an intellectual movement with which Vollenhoven worked communally from his election in 1936 as President of the newly-organized group formed to advance the movement; the organization is...

. In recent years, it has been recognized that Dr Irg Hendrik van Riessen was the third leg of the stool in leading this scholarly movement in the Netherlands. Also of some significance were Pierre-Charles Marcel

Pierre-Charles Marcel

Pierre-Charles Marcel was a leading Protestant Christian pastor and philosopher who had been a student of France's leading evangelical-confessional mind M. Auguste Lecerf...

 of France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Von Alamassy of Hungary, and later Hendrik G. Stoker

Hendrik G. Stoker

Hendrik Gerhardhus Stoker , born in Johannesburg, South Africa, was a Calvinist philosopher who taught at Potchefstroom . He studied at PU and the University of Cologne, and he completed his doctoral dissertation on "Nature and the forms of conscience" under Max Scheler.Stoker taught at PU from...

 in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 and Cornelius Van Til

Cornelius Van Til

Cornelius Van Til , born in Grootegast, the Netherlands, was a Christian philosopher, Reformed theologian, and presuppositional apologist.-Biography:...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Overview of the cosmonomic idea

Dooyeweerd attempted to provide a philosophy which accounted for not only the differences in non-human reality, but also, between one thinker and another. Following Abraham Kuyper

Abraham Kuyper

Abraham Kuijper generally known as Abraham Kuyper, was a Dutch politician, journalist, statesman and theologian...

, and other, earlier Neo-Calvinists

Neo-Calvinism

Neo-Calvinism, a form of Dutch Calvinism, is the movement initiated by the theologian and former Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper.- Introduction :...

, Dooyeweerd attempted to describe reality as a creation of God, which has its meaning from God. This God-given meaning is displayed in all of the aspects of temporal reality - which has implications for science.

For example, even though a lawyer and a biologist might study the same things (say, fingerprints), they are interested in different aspects. They are looking at the meaning of a thing with different focus, though equally concerned with what is real. Perceptions of reality through this kind of scientific attitude, selecting one aspect as distinct from others for study, will necessarily be governed by fundamental assumptions about how these various kinds of meaning are related to one another in a coherent whole, belonging within the total range of all experiences. Dooyeweerd argued that this showed the need for a consistent and radically Christian philosophy

Christian philosophy

Christian philosophy may refer to any development in philosophy that is characterised by coming from a Christian tradition.- Origins of Christian philosophy :...

 which he sought to provide. Furthermore, he attempted to show that even the imaginations of men are part of that same created reality, and even where misguided they cannot escape being subject to the rule of God exposed by the Christian revelation.

Dooyeweerd self-consciously allowed his Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 perspective to guide his understanding, but in a philosophical rather than a theological mode of thought. He believed that this permitted the philosopher to gain insight into the principle by which diversity of meaning is held together as a unity, as he directs his thought toward the origin of things, which is God, and God's purpose for making things, which is found in Christ. This basic religious orientation should affect the way that the Christian understands things. In contrast to a dualistic

Dualism

Dualism denotes a state of two parts. The term 'dualism' was originally coined to denote co-eternal binary opposition, a meaning that is preserved in metaphysical and philosophical duality discourse but has been diluted in general or common usages. Dualism can refer to moral dualism, Dualism (from...

 type of religious ground motive

Religious ground motive

Religious ground motive is a conceptual construct of the reformational philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd. Dooyeweerd saw four great distinct value-systems that contested the general formative power over Western culture and civilization for within - in comparison, say, to an Islamic RGM...

, Dooyeweerd suggested that the Christian's basic orientation to the world ought to be derived not from human speculation, but from God's revealed purposes: Creation, the Fall into sin, and Redemption in Christ. This Christian religious ground motive is a fundamentally different posture toward things, compared to say, the "Form/Matter" scheme of the Greeks, the "Nature/Grace" synthesis of Medieval Christianity, or the "Nature/Freedom" approach of the Enlightenment, all of which are orientations divided against themselves by their reliance upon two contradictory principles. While the Christian religious view of things as Created, Fallen and being Redeemed has often been blended with speculative and dualistic schemes, it has never really become fully identified with them, so that there is historical continuity in Christian thought despite the fact that it has undergone numerous significant shifts, in Dooyeweerd's view. But the fact that they are capable of being blended convincingly exposes the transcendental rules to which both false and true theories are subject.

A religious ground motive

Religious ground motive

Religious ground motive is a conceptual construct of the reformational philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd. Dooyeweerd saw four great distinct value-systems that contested the general formative power over Western culture and civilization for within - in comparison, say, to an Islamic RGM...

 is a spiritual driving force that impels each thinker to interpret reality under its influence. Dooyeweerd wrote that, in the case of thinkers who presume that human thought is autonomous, who operate by the dictum that it does not matter whether God exists or not, such a thinker's basic commitment to autonomous thought forces him to pick out some aspect of the creation as the origin of all meaning. In doing so, the supposedly autonomous thinker is made captive to a kind of idol of his own making, which bends his understanding to conform to its dictates, according to Dooyeweerd.

Although he self-consciously exposes the religious nature of his philosophy, Dooyeweerd suggests that in fact, all thought is inescapably religious in character. This religious stamp is disguised when the supposed origin of meaning, toward which various thinkers direct their thought, is not called God, but is rather said to be some aspect of creation. This, he suggests, explains why humanistic science will produce bitterly conflicting ideologies. It helps to locate the "antithesis", the source of irreducible differences, between various perspectives. The "antithesis" must be accounted for as a foundational issue, in any complete philosophy, and this antithesis is religious in nature, according to Dooyeweerd.

Borrowing language and concepts from a wide variety of philosophical schools, especially Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl

Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...

, the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism

Kantianism

Kantianism is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia . The term Kantianism or Kantian is sometimes also used to describe contemporary positions in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics.-Ethics:Kantian ethics are deontological, revolving entirely...

, Ernst Cassirer

Ernst Cassirer

Ernst Cassirer was a German philosopher. He was one of the major figures in the development of philosophical idealism in the first half of the 20th century...

's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms--and, as some contend, Franz Xaver von Baader

Franz Xaver von Baader

Franz Xaver von Baader was a German Roman Catholic philosopher and theologian.-Life:He was born in Munich, the third son of F. P. Baader, court physician to the Prince-elector of Bavaria. His brothers were both distinguished — the elder, Clemens, as an author; the second, Joseph , as an...

, Dooyeweerd builds on this foundation of a supposed "antithesis" to make distinctions between one kind of thinking and another, theorizing that diverse kinds of thinking disclose diverse kinds of meaning, and that this meaning corresponds in some way to the actual state of affairs

State of affairs

The state of affairs is that combination of circumstances applying within a society or group at a particular time. The current state of affairs may be considered acceptable by many observers, but not necessarily by all. The state of affairs may present a challenge, or be complicated, or contain a...

.

Dooyeweerd developed an anti-reductionist ontology

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

 of "modal aspects", concerning diverse kinds of meaning which are disclosed in the analysis of every existent thing. He considered such modes to be irreducible to each other and yet indissolubly linked. Dooyeweerd at first suggested that there were 14 modes but later postulated 15 (Dooyeweerd 1997 Vol.2 p. 98). The indissoluble coherence of these modal aspects is evinced through their analogical relationship to one another, and finally in their concentration in the central religious selfhood which has a direct relationship to its origin: God.

Works and legacy

The majority of Dooyeweerd's published articles and multi-volume works originally appeared only in Dutch. During his lifetime efforts were already underway to make his work available to English-speakers. Translation of Dooyeweerd's writing has continued since 1994 under the oversight of the Dooyeweerd Centre (see link below). To date, thirteen books have been published in English, including his magnum opus

Masterpiece

Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....

, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee(1935-6), which was revised and expanded in English as, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought (1953-8). Political Philosophy (2004) with introduction by David Koyzis

David Koyzis

David T. Koyzis is a Christian political scientist and author.He has graduate degrees from the Institute for Christian Studies and the University of Notre Dame. He has taught at Redeemer University College since 1987...

 provides an introduction to Dooyeweerd's thought.

Dooyeweerd's influence has continued through the Association for Reformational Philosophy

Reformational philosophy

Reformational philosophy is a Neo-Calvinistic movement pioneered by Herman Dooyeweerd and D. H. Th. Vollenhoven that seeks to develop philosophical thought in a radically Protestant Christian direction.- Historical overview :...

  and its journal Philosophia Reformata

Philosophia Reformata

Philosophia Reformata is the name of an international scholarly journal currently published twice yearly in thick paper volumes, mailed to subscribers both individuals and organizations/institutions—including numerous libraries of universities, liberal arts colleges, theological seminaries, a few...

  which he and Vollenhoven founded in 1932. (The title of the journal is something of an arcane philosophical joke, which repristinates and shifts the meaning of the title from a 1622 book, authored by Johann Daniel Mylius, Philosophia Reformata

Philosophia Reformata

Philosophia Reformata is the name of an international scholarly journal currently published twice yearly in thick paper volumes, mailed to subscribers both individuals and organizations/institutions—including numerous libraries of universities, liberal arts colleges, theological seminaries, a few...

, a compendius work on alchemy, then regarded by some as a science.) There are also a number of institutions around the world that draw their inspiration from Dooyeweerd's philosophy.

In a commemoration editorial appearing in the newspaper Trouw

Trouw

Trouw is a Dutch daily newspaper. "Trouw" is a Dutch word meaning "fidelity", "loyalty", or "allegiance", and is cognate with the English adjective "true"...

 on 6 October 1964 upon the occasion of Dooyeweerd's 70th birthday, G.E. Langemeijer, Chairman of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences is an organisation dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands...

, professor at the University of Leiden, and appellate Attorney General lauded Dooyeweerd as "...the most original philosopher Holland has ever produced, even Spinoza not excepted."

Multi-volume publications

• A New Critique of Theoretical Thought (Edwin Mellen Press, 1997)
  • Volume I: The Necessary Presuppositions of Philosophy
  • Volume II: The General Theory of the Modal Spheres
  • Volume III: The Structure of Individuality of Temporal Reality
  • Volume IV: Index of Subject and Authors (compiled by H. de Jongste)
• Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy
  • Volume I: The Greek Prelude
• Encyclopedia of the Science of Law
  • Volume 1: Introduction

Collected essays, critiques, and compilations

• Christian Philosophy and the Meaning of History
• Essays in Legal, Social, and Political Philosophy
• Roots of Western Culture
• In The Twilight of Western Thought
• Political Philosophy
• Contours of a Christian Philosophy; An Introduction to Herman Dooyeweerd's Thought

Studies

• Jonathan Chaplin, Herman Dooyeweerd: Christian Philosopher of State and Civil Society (Notre Dame, 2011).
• Paul Otto
  Paul Otto (historian)
  Paul Otto is an American professor of history at George Fox University, and a noted researcher in the area of Dutch-Native American relations and wampum.-Education and career:...
  
  , "In the twilight of Dooyeweerd's Corpus: The Publishing History of In the Twilight of Western Thought and the Future of Dooyewerd Studies." Philosophia Reformata 70, no. 1 (2005): 23-40.

External links

• The Dooyeweerd pages (hosted by Andrew Basden, University of Salford)
• The Dooyeweerd Centre for Christian Philosophy
• De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee - Online, translated excerpts of The Philosophy of the Law-Idea (Amsterdam: H.J. Paris, 1935–36), by Dr. J. Glenn Friesen
• Andrew Basden (2002-12-01) The critical theory of Herman Dooyeweerd? Journal of Information Technology 17(4):257-269
• David T. Koyzis' summaries - Koyzis' reworking of Dooyeweerd's modal scale, and Spanish translation of his Introductory Essay to Political Philosophy (2004 publication of the Collected Works of Herman Dooyeweerd)
• "Herman Dooyeweerd's Contribution to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences". James W. Skillen
  James Skillen
  James W. Skillen is a Christian theologian and author. He was the executive director of the Center for Public Justice from 1981 to 2000, at which time he became president. He helped found the organization in 1977.-Education:...
  
   JASA. Volume 31 (March 1979): 20-24.