Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

Studies relating to Herman Dooyeweerd Linked Glossary of Terms

© J. Glenn Friesen 2003-2007

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.)

Transcendence is that which is above cosmic time. The transcendent is that which goes beyond temporal reality.

The transcendent is contrasted with the immanent.

By 'transcendental,' Dooyeweerd means the ontical conditions that govern the temporal horizon. We can obtain an Idea of these ontical conditions because of our supratemporal selfhood, which transcends time.

The transcendental direction of thought begins with the second terminal law-sphere in the succession of cosmic time. That second law-sphere is the sphere of faith, which has no modal superstratum (NC II, 52). The transcendental direction of thought is distinguished from the foundational direction, which begins with the other terminal function, the numerical, and follows the modal spheres in the reverse order. The transcendental direction points to the religious root of our cosmos, in which the selfhood participates, and to the religious fulness of meaning that forms the foundation of all its modal refractions in cosmic time (NC II, 53-54)

There is an interplay, a spiralling between these two directions of thought. In the retrocipatory direction, we have a temporary resting point of thought, but the transcendental direction resolves this back into the unrest of meaning:

In other words, the retrocipatory direction of time offers to theoretical thinking, at least provisionally, some resting-points in the original meaning-nuclei. It is true that these resting-points are again done away with by the transcendental direction of time without which they would become rigid and meaningless. […] The only reserve to be made is that the pont of comparative rest in this way offered to philosophic reflection on the possibility of the modal meaning-opening is only a provisional resting-point. In the transcendental direction of thought it must necessarily be resolved into the essential unrest of meaning. (NC II, 190).

The transcendental direction involves an unrest of meaning that finally recognizes its own insufficiency:

In the Idea of a meaning-modus philosophical reflection oriented to our cosmonomic Idea passes through a process of successive meaning-coherences in the transcendental direction of time. The internal unrest of meaning drives it on from anticipatory sphere to anticpatory sphere, and so from one anticipatory connection to another. At last we arrive at the transcendental terminal sphere of our cosmos and reflect on the insufficiency of the modal Idea (NC II, 284).

A further complication is that in the transcendental direction of time, there is also an expression of the foundational direction of time.

After all, even the foundational relation in the normative process of disclosure is a relation that functions within the transcendental direction of time, because the deepening of the modal meaning is, as such, of an anticipatory character, no matter in which law-sphere it takes place. So it appears that the twofold direction of time finds expression in the transcendental temporal direction itself.(NC II, 192)

Therefore by maintaining the Gegenstand-relation, the theoretical Idea relates the theoretical concept to the conditions of all theoretical thought, but itself remains theoretical in nature, thus within the bounds of philosophic thought. It is just in this that its transcendental character resides. For in theoretical thought, the transcendental is everything that, by means of the inner (immanent) structure of theoretical way of thought, first makes possible theoretical thought itself; the transcendental is everything that stands at the basis of every theoretical conceptual distinction as its theoretical presupposition (Encyclopedia, 2002 Edition, 80-81, re-translated by myself)

(See Encyclopedia, 2000 translation). But Dooyeweerd rejects the idea that thought has a transcendental a priori function that can itself transcend reality enclosed within the temporal horizon (NC II, 573).

And the transcendental structure of truth is not identical with that of theoretical truth (NC II, 575).

In our selfhood we transcend cosmic time. Our selfhood is supratemporal. It is the transcendent root of temporal reality. It is also where all diversity of meaning coincides.

The transcendent is the religious dimension. From the religious supratemporal we descend to the temporal dimension, which encompasses the dimensions of the modal and the plastic dimension of individuality structures.

The transcendental is the movement within philosophic thought that tries to approach the transcendent from within time.

To the extent that we fail to have a conception of the transcendent, our self-consciousness and our ability to experience the perspectival nature of reality is also weakened. ("Het Tijdsprobleem in de Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee," Philosophia Reformata, Part II 1940 193-234).

Transcendent criticism differs from immanent criticism in that transcendent criticism explicitly approaches the other viewpoint from its religious, transcendent standpoint.

RevisedSept 26/07