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© J. Glenn Friesen 2003. |
Notes regarding WdW I, 19 1. Corresponds to NC I, 15. 2. NC has ‘radical unity’ for ‘fullness of meaning.’ Dooyeweerd does speak of a coincidence of meaning in the supratemporal selfhood. But I prefer to see this as fullness of meaning instead of 'identity' or 'unity' of meaning. Identity and unity are after all mathematical analogies of meaning; these are themselves meanings that coincide within fullness. 3. This coincidence of meaning is in the selfhood. The selfhood is not just the temporal coherence of functions. 4. One of the consequences of self-reflection is the immediacy of revelation of the unity of the aspects. Dooyeweerd's emphasis on the immediacy of our knowledge in self-reflection is being denied by some Reformational philosophers today. They want to interpret Dooyeweerd as saying that all our knowledge is mediated. This is a postmodernist interpretation that cannot be reconciled with Dooyeweerd. He says that our knowledge is limited by, but not to the temporal. And passages like this affirm that we have an immediate, i.e. unmediated knowledge. 5. NC refers to time as the medium of the breaking up of totality . 6. Dooyeweerd emphasizes here that the fullness of meaning particularizes itself into the diversity of meaning. This is what he means when he says that the temporal is an expression of the supratemporal fullness. this view of differentiation has not been emphasized by Reformational philosophers who claim to be adherents of Dooyeweerd. I suspect that this is because they begin with a different view of creation, preferring to see creation of an original diversity and individuality of meaning. but Dooyeweerd emphasizes in The Twilight of western Thought that even the idea of creation must be understood using the key of knowledge of the supratemporal self being the root of creation. I also believe that this is the basis for Dooyeweerd's disagreement with Vollenhoven regarding the nature of individuality. 7. The coincidence of the meaning-sides of temporal reality in the supratemporal fullness is really the reverse of the refraction of meaning by the prism of cosmic time. Meaning is not only from the Origin, but to the Origin. Baader says that sin is our unwillingness to want to return to the Origin. 8. Van Eeden refers to the convergence of or focus in the Self of all lines that describe individual life:
Van Eeden also refers to the image of the prism that splits white lite into a diversity of colours of existence:
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