Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

Studies relating to Herman Dooyeweerd Linked Glossary of Terms

© J. Glenn Friesen 2003-2006

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.)

There are two functions of the logical aspect of our temporal experience.

(1) The first is the function of distinguishing or analysis. In an early 1922 article, "Een kritisch-methodologische onderzoeking naar Kelsen's normatieve rechtsbeschouwing," Dooyeweerd refers to the categories of logic as identity, difference, relation and synthesis. They are within the logical aspect itself (Verburg 38). Pure forms of judgement are analysis, synthesis, affirmation and denial, hypothesis and categorical explanation. In a 1923 article, he refers to the logical categories as identity, difference, concept, judgment, relation, necessity. (Verburg 57).

(2) The second function within the logical aspect is that of somehow setting itself over-against the other aspects in the Gegenstand-relation. These other aspects then become its Gegenstand. They have been split out of temporal continuity or systasis by dis-stasis. This dis-stasis is something given within the logical aspect of reality itself. Thus, the dis-stasis is not a result of the Gegenstand relation; theory only makes manifest a possibility in the logical aspect (NC II, 472). No other aspect has this capability of setting itself over-against a Gegenstand. But the over-against relation must not be viewed as itself of a logical nature. If we identify the over-against relation with the logical, we fall into an absolutization of the logical, or a logicism.

We may say then that the logical aspect does double duty. It somehow provides the basis for the setting-over-against relation. And it also is the function by which we analyze those split-apart aspects. For me the question now arises, "Why does Dooyeweerd think that the logical aspect has these double properties? Why is it so important in the Gegenstand process, and why do no other aspects have this capability? Why does Dooyeweerd place the basis for the Gegenstand relation within the logical? Is this not itself an over-estimation of the logical? Another way that he emphasizes the logical is his view that all post-logical aspects (the normative) are founded in the logical aspect. This again stresses the importance of the logical.

I believe that the answer has to do with some unacknowledged acceptance by Dooyeweerd of the logos doctrine. Logos is the realm of meaning; logical thought is only a part of it. And yet it is noteworthy how important logic still is. But it is not self-sufficient. As logos, the analytical gives us the power of disclosing reality, of deepening our relation to it. In saying this, I am aware that Dooyeweerd criticizes Kuyper for his teaching about the logos [logosleer] in the article "Kuyper's Wetenschapsleer." Nevertheless I believe that it remains in Dooyeweerd. However, it has been relativized to a merely temporary use of this logos. Perhaps what he objects to is using the logos doctrine to speculate on universals as the ideas of God.

Sometimes in the WdW, Dooyeweerd refers to the logical aspect as the 'logos.' Usually this is not carried through into the NC translations. In his 1939 article "Kuyper's Wetenschapsleer," Philosophia Reformata, p. 193-232, Dooyeweerd criticized Kuyper for the logos doctrine as placing the center of consciousness in philosophic thought. The logos is for Dooyeweerd inclusive of all meaning, and not just logical meaning. It is expressed in the logical aspect as well as other aspects. In its all-inclusive sense, the logos is not an aspect (I, 65). In his "Advies over Roomsch-katholieke en Anti-revolutionaire Staatkunde" (February, 1923, cited by Verburg 48-61) Dooyeweerd has 10 pages entitled "Kosmos en Logos." He says that the cosmos is the whole ordered world of creation; logos is the realm of meaning. We can only speak about the cosmos when we have looked at the area of logos. The logos is cosmic in character and precedes all knowledge. It therefore seems that logos, as meaning, is wider than the cosmos, which is temporally ordered meaning. In this very early article, Dooyeweerd says that

…logos is fitted into the cosmic order in an essential relation [wezensverband] that we do not and cannot know because our consciousness is walled up [ingemuurd] in the logos and can never look out above the logos to its cosmic coherence. We know only the essential relation within logos. Within the logos are the giving of meaning (noesis) to objects having meaning (noema) and the meaning itself (noumenon) as the law-like fixed meaning that precedes each individual giving of meaning.

and

…the giving of meaning is the condition of all knowledge; it is nothing other than being conscious [bewustwording], the intuition [schouwing] of meaning. But the giving of meaning can itself diverge from the objective fixed meaning. e.g. we can mistake a tree for a man. [my translations]

This last example, of mistaking a tree for a man, is similar to the usual problem posed by Hindu advaitic thought, of mistaking a rope for a snake. The giving of meaning precedes all knowledge, and is dependent on our intuition [schouwen]of meaning. Schouwen, as giving meaning, is bound to various conditions that make schouwen possible. These are the modalities, to which he devotes a separate chapter.

We normally arbitrarily select this modality or field of view [gezichtsveld]. But logic, which is systematic thinking, focuses our attention on a certain gezichtsveld. But the logical system can only look at one field of view [gezichtsveld] at a time. Science then makes this field logical synthesis unites schouwen with denken. In order to fix on one modality, we have to distinguish it from others. Otherwise, concepts from other sciences slip in. If this field focused on is the biotic, we then have the logic of the biotic, or the special science of biology. If we restrict it to the physical modality, we then have a physical concept, a physical relation. But we cannot apply the idea of logical causality to other fields of view.

Now perhaps this early article has ideas from Husserl in the noesis and noema, but nevertheless we can see in it the rudiments of much of his later thought, particularly with respect to intuition as well as the meaning of the logos. And this article is consistent with his later emphasis that creation is ordered cosmologically and not logically. Dooyeweerd says in this 1923 article,

Het verband tusschen de gezichtsvelden kunnen wij niet in logische relaties uitdrukken, want de relatie heeft slechts zin binnen het ingeklemde gezichtsveld (Verburg 60).

[The relation between the fields of view can never be expressed in logical relations, because logical relation only has meaning within the closed-up field of view].

Logicism is mistaking cosmic diversity to be based on logical distinctions (WdW II, 23; NC I, 19). Logicism results in a reduction and flattening (vervlakken) of the cosmic diversity of the aspects into a mere logical diversity. It is true that the logical test of the principium contradictionos is dependent on the cosmological criterion. But the reverse is not true (NC II, 579).

Logicism as a whole is essentially founded in the translation of the retorcipatory or the anticipatory moments in the structure of the analystical aspeft into the original modal meaning-kernels they analogically refer to (NC II, 77).

Dooyeweerd also says that logicism results from the rejection by Strauss of the Gegenstand-relation, and his substitution of a view of theory that relies on the logical subject-object relation. See Dooyeweerd's last article, where he refers to the logicism in Strauss's philosophy. Cosmic diversity is more than logical diversity. And see abstraction.

Logicism is evident in some eastern views of nondualism. They emphasize the importance of going beyond concepts. But since concepts depend on our logical distinctions, they then believe that in going beyond concepts we also go beyond all diversity, including cosmic diversity. This results in that type of mysticism that aims for a "pure consciousness" where there is no longer any distinction between subject and object. Dooyeweerd rejects such a logicistic mysticism. Abhishiktananda sometimes speaks of the "dialectics" of logic that "sclerose" our experience. But he does not take Vedanta to its logical conclusion. He believes that that would be an overuse of logic. He reinterprets Vedantic terms in terms of the experience of One and Many.

Revised April 20/08