Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

Herman Dooyeweerd: De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee

© J. Glenn Friesen 2003.

Notes regarding WdW I, 58

1. Corresponds to NC I, 94.

2. Verburg says that Kohnstamm objected to the term 'law-Idea.'

3. One of the reasons that Dooyeweerd gives for retaining the term 'law-Idea' is that 'law' refers to limitation. As I have discussed elsewhere, the law limits and determines temporal reality. Part of the limitation is the restraint. Determination includes the differentiation and particularization of meaning.

4. Dooyeweerd's third reason for retaining the term is not included in NC. This is that there is no dimension of philosophic thought that does not have the apriori influence of the law-Idea. The law-Idea also keeps us from being stuck in the special sciences. this negative view of the special sciences is not repeated in the NC.
The law-Idea forces us towards self-reflection about our enstasis (instelling).

5. He mentions Stoker's criticism that philosophy must also give account of the intrinsic unity of things that cannot dissolve into their law-side and subject-side [Stoker wanted to maintain some idea of substance]. Note: the Dutch here says "law- and subject-aspects." I assume that this is a mistake, and I have translated it as "law-side and subject-sides." He says that Stoker may be right, but then he emphasizes that the law-Idea keeps us from falling back into pre-theoretical naive experience. Now it is in naive experience that we have an experience of concrete things. Dooyeweerd elsewhere says that philosophy does not begin with things. Here he does not want to fall back into that attitude, either. Dooyeweerd does not accept Stoker's call for an acceptance of some idea of substance.

6. This is a somewhat negative view of both naive experience and of the knowledge of the special sciences. Our experience needs to be deepened. He believes that the law-Idea helps us to deepen this experience. and he does say that in the final instance, scientific thought must again appeal to naive experience. I believe that this is to the intuition that is within naive experience.

7. The NC translates "subject-side" as "factual side." The same term "factual side" is used again at NC I, 174 (which does not appear in the WdW). It says that the law-Idea implies the Idea of the subject, which points toward the factual-side of reality. (NC I, 96). This idea of the "factual" is not prominent in the WdW. Within philosophic thought, Dooyeweerd speaks of "states of affairs." The WdW in this passage refers to the "subject-side" and not the "factual side." To speak of 'facts' seems to me to be more along Vollenhoven's philosophy which begins with things and facts, and places law outside the cosmos.

8. Nevertheless, it is interesting that in both the WdW and the NC translation, subjectivity is known by Idea. We approximate even what the subject is.