Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

Studies relating to Herman Dooyeweerd Linked Glossary of Terms

© J. Glenn Friesen 2003-2005

Linked Glossary of Terms
(references to De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, unless indicated.See concordance for correlation with pages in the New Critique. The concordance is in pdf format.)

Theory deepens our naive experience. Our naive thought is limited to such sensory perception (II, 404).That is why it is "naive." Our experience are opened up in theory. Concepts are deepened into Ideas (II, 420). Ideas anticipate the later analogical moments in the aspects.

For Dooyeweerd, our naive experience is related to appearance in only its outward sense. It has not made an inner synthesis of the deepened meaning of this reality.

Naïve analysis does not penetrate behind the objective outward appearance, and cannot embrace the functional laws of the modal spheres in an inter-modal synthesis of meaning (NC II, 470).

Naive experience is only of retrocipatory moments.

So long as the analytical function has not been deepened in the transcendental direction of time, and remains inert in the foundational direction of the temporal order, our intuition does not arrive at a free synthesis of meaning. (NC II, 474).

The modal anticipations deepen the entire primary meaning of the law-sphere in the coherence of its nucleus and retrocipations (NC II, 185)

Nevertheless, although theory deepens our experience, it lacks the integral nature of naive experience. The deeper, the more the lack in comparison to naive experience (I, 47).

Note: The NC translation speaks of an "inter-modal synthesis of meaning." This is confusing, and may have led to Strauss's error. The original Dutch only speaks of a meaning synthesis [zin-synthesis]. The theoretical synthesis is between our actual thought [an act from out of our selfhood] and the Gegenstand of abstracted aspects, which is not actual or ontical, but only intentional. See synthesis.

All deepening of experience, even in other philosophies like Platonism, relies on our intuition (II, 408).

Baader says that in the successive unfolding of life, there is either a deepening or a closing (Zeit 44 ft. 25). Our pre-theoretical experience as a "blind, unfree empiricism" (Werke 6,89 ft 1, 1,130). In Über den Zwiespalt des religiösen Glaubens und Wissens he refers to the "merely outer seeing" (58, ft. 14).

Dooyeweerd certainly agrees that the integral experience of naive experience is broken by the Gegenstand-relation. And although we can naively experience the coherence of the aspects, we are not aware of the separate aspects in our naive experience. Thus, there is a kind of unconsciousness here that becomes more conscious in theory. This deepened conscious knowledge is then brought back to our pre-theoretical experience.

For both Dooyeweerd and Baader, our pre-theoretical experience is deepened when, after the dis-stasis of theoretical thought, we return to a deepened experience by theoretical synthesis, which relies on our intuition. We move in the transcendental direction in our theoretical thought, and we return to our naive experience in the foundational direction. But it is a deepened experience.

The deepening therefore moves in two directions. We anticipate in the transcendental direction. But we return to the foundational, to our Ground. In Abhishiktananda's words, there is an "ascent to the depths."

This deepening is a rediscovery of our true selfhood and of God, brought about by the working of God's Spirit. Dooyeweerd says,

Slechts Gods Geest kan ons de radicale zin van de Woord-openbaring onthullen, die ons in afgrondelijke diepten tegelijk de waarachtige God en ons zelven ontdekt. Gods Woord leert ons wanneer het in reddened zin werkt. En waar het in reddened zin werkt, brengt het onafwendbaar de radicale omwentelling in de wortel van ons van God afgevallen bestaan.” (Vernieuwing en Bezinning 11)

[Only God's Spirit can disclose to us the radical meaning of the Word revelation, which in abysmal depths discloses to us simultaneously the true God and our selves. God's Word teaches us whenever it works in a redemptive sense. And where it works in this redemptive sense, it inevitably brings the radical revolution in the root of our existence which had fallen away from God.] (my translation; the translation in Roots 12 obscures the meaning).

And only this true knowledge of God and self gives us true knowledge of the world or cosmos.

The religious meaning of the created world binds the true knowledge of the cosmos to true self-knowledge, and the latter to the true knowledge of God. (NC II, 560).

Revised Oct. 27/05