Normative

Dr. J. Glenn Friesen
Studies relating to
Herman Dooyeweerd
Linked Glossary of Terms

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Dooyeweerd
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List of Notes

De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee Volume I
Foreword
Introduction
Ground-Idea
Foundation
Law-Idea
Prism of Cosmic Time
Law and Subject
Philosophy/Worldview

De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee Volume II
The Gegenstand
Dis-stasis/ Synthesis
Intuition and Time
Conceptual Limits
Horizon and Levels
God, Self and Cosmos

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.)

axiological	NC II, 178 (axiological spheres), 184 (deepening under direction of normative funcitons of consciousness), 377-78 (axiological moment in human sensory perception)
norm	NC II, 156 (Love is not a norm), 189 (pre-logical aspects are not ruled by norms proper)
normative	I, 74, 129 NC II, 179 (normative anticipations), 184, 189 (guiding normative function) “Het transcendentale critiek van het wijsgeerig denken,” Philosophia Reformata 6 (1941), 1-20 at 8. The distinction between normative and non-normative aspects is a theoretical distinction. The natural sciences are directed to the non-normative aspects.
post-logical	I, 56, 65 II, 240, 401, 412
regulative	WdW II, 175 NC II, 237 (logical and post-logical modal laws are only given as regulative principles), 337 (normative transcendental direction)

Dooyeweerd sometimes speaks of the normative sides of reality as opposed to the natural sides. The normative sides are the post-logical aspects.

In his developing understanding of aspects, Dooyeweerd initially viewed the normative as one of the fields of view [gezichtsveld] (Verburg, 58).

Normative principles are given, but they must be positivized in relation to the subject. Dooyeweerd does not accept the view of absolute norms that are unrelated to a subject. He says,

On the other hand, the notion of absolute logical, ethical and aesthetic norms is thoroughly contradictory. It is an attempt to conceive of the specific meaning-modi of the logical, the ethical and the aesthetic aspects of experience apart from their inter-modal coherence with all the others. (NC II, 240).

The positivizing of norms depends on their historical situation. He says for example that the prohibition of interest in medieval times could not remain unaltered once the progress of historical evolution had reached a sufficiently advanced stage. (NC II, 241).

The so-called 'values philosophy' concentrates on the normative aspects, and allows the pre-normative sides of reality shrivel up into a mere object of consciousness (I, 74).

These normative or post-logical aspects cannot be objectified in same way as pre-logical; that is the element of truth in the 'Geisteswissenschaften.' Their logical objectivity is different (II, 390).

He says that it is confusing to call the central commandment of Love a norm. Dooyeweerd says that the term 'norm' should be applied only to temporal standards of what ought to be. The central religious commandment cannot be opposed to 'laws of nature,' in the way that norms can be so opposed (NC II, 156 fn2).

Notes revised Sept 26/07