Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

Herman Dooyeweerd: De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee

© J. Glenn Friesen 2003.

Notes regarding WdW I, 6

1. Corresponds to NC I, 4

2.“De zin is het zijn van alle creatuurlijk zijnde.” As the NC points out, there seems to be a parallel to Heidegger’s “das Sein des Seienden.” But Dooyeweerd's emphasis on meaning instead of being is not derived from Heidegger. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that Dooyeweerd continues to use the word 'Being' in reference to the Arché.

3. All of created reality refers to its origin, and is an expression of its origin. This referring and expression is basic to Dooyeweerd's understanding of meaning. He is opposed to any view of substance, because that would imply a self-sufficient being that did not refer to anything else.

4. The quotation is from Goethe’s Faust, Part I, line 446. The NC does not show this origin of the quotation. The line is spoken by Faust:

Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt,
eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt!
Wie Himmselskräfte auf und nieder steigen
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen.

[How everything weaves itself into the whole,
One in the other works and lives!
How heaven’s powers climb up and down
Passing the golden pails from hands to hand]
[my translation]

The “climbing up and down” also echoes the Biblical account of the angels ascending and descending on Jacob’s ladder:

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (Gen. 28:12).

The meaning of the "golden pails" seems to be the carrying of the waters of life emanating from God, the Source. This is made clear in the final scene of Faust, Part II, lines 12,045 to 12,049:

Bei dem Bronn, zu dem schon weiland
Abram liess die Herde führen
Bei dem Eimer, der dem Heiland
Kühl die Lippe durft berürhen;
Bei der reinen, reichen Quelle,
Die nun dorther sich ergiesset,
Überflüssig, ewig helle
Rings durch alle Welten fliesset–

[By the well that benefited
Abram's herds on ancient trips,By the pail that was permitted
Once to cool the Savior's lips;
By the spring that is still streaming
Hence in pure and bounteous glow,
Overflowing, ever gleaming,
Watering worlds with endless flow–
[Translation byWalter Kaufmann]

Dooyeweerd first quotes from this part of Faust in the student article that he wrote when he was 20 years old, "De Neo-Mystiek en Fr. van Eeden" [Neo-Mysticism and Frederik van Eeden] ((Almanak van het studenten corps van de Vrije Universiteit, 1915). In that article it is in the context of the philosophy of Plotinus, whom Dooyeweerd says is the philospoher of pantheism. It seems that Dooyeweerd revised this viewpoint, since the references in the WdW and the New Critique are not critical, but use the quoation from Goethe as a positive reference to how everything moves towards a Totality.

Dooyeweerd later gives another untranslated quotation from Goethe (I, 167; NC I, 205). It is from Goethe's Der Zauberlehrling ["The Sorceror's Apprentice," which we know from Disney's Fantasia]:

Die ich rief, die Geister,
Werde ich nun nicht los!

[The spirits that I called up
I now can not get rid of!]

5. NC confusingly translates 'I-ness' as ‘ego.’ But ‘I-ness’ is supratemporal, whereas ‘ego,’ in most discussions today, is fully temporal. Dooyeweerd also distinguishes between the ego ['ik'] as a temporal coherence of functions and the supraindividual selfhood. In this section, he sometimes uses 'ik' for selfhood, but he speaks of the "full" 'ik.' It seems to me that the temporal coherence of functions is in many ways similar to Dooyeweerd's view of the body as a mantle of functions. At death, this mantle of functions completely dies, but the supratemporal selfhood, which had expressed itself in these temporal functions, continues in the afterlife.

6. It is important to note that in abstraction, we abstract from the selfhood in our concepts! Thus, those who see abstraction as obtaining the universals from things are missing a central point. The abstraction from our selfhood is the epoché, the refraining from the continuity of cosmic time. In theory as Gegenstand-relation, we act as if our selfhood is the reduced logical function. I believe that when we function according to this reduced selfhood, we are thinking according to the "mind of the flesh" (I, 65).

7. Dooyeweerd says that we have been 'fitted' [gevoegd' into the temporal coherence. Elsewhere he says that we have been fitted into this temporal coherence along with the rest of temporal reality:

Het is een wereldsamenhang, dien de mensch wel in zijn zelfheid transcendeert, naar waarbinnen hij met alle schepselen, die met hem in denzelfden wereldsamenhang gevoegd zijn, in universeele gebondenheid aan den tijd verkeert (WdW I, 36)

Our supratemporal selfhood is therefore also fitted into temporality.

8. This idea of our central selfhood being fitted or placed in the temporal periphery is a key point made by Baader. Baader links this being placed [Gesetzt] to the law [Gesetz]. There is a play on words. (Begründung 29 ft. 12). Each creature is set under its law, in a region or place in which it is to serve God. Our bliss is found only in fulfilling this law and serving God (Weltalter 172, 178). Thus, Baader links the idea of being placed to the law-Idea. Baader developed the law-Idea and its significance for Christian philosophy (in opposition to autonomous thought), before Dooyeweerd. Kuyper acknowledges Baader's influence here.

9. The Dutch language does not permit the same play on words between 'law' and 'being placed.' But in one of his very first articles that mentions the significance of the law, Dooyeweerd makes a similar play on words between autonomy ['autonoom stelt'] and being placed or fitted 'gesteld']:

Al het bestaande ligt gebonden aan zijn objectieven zin, die zijn wezen uitmaakt. Het schouwen is gebonden aan zijn gezichtsvelden, het denken aan zijn kategorieën.

In deze binding van schouwen en denken ligt hun objectieven zin. Waar nu het bewustzijn niets meer autonoom stelt, maar alles heeft ontvangen, in alles gesteld is, als objectieven zin, nu de wet der heteronomie onbeperkt in al het bestaande gaat heerschen, ook in het zingeven bewustzijn, komt de vraag naar den wetgever, den ordenaar, den schepper van zelf naar boven. ("Advies re Roomsch-katholieke en Anti-revolutionarire Staatkunde," 1923, cited by Verburg 60).

10. He says that the 'I' expresses itself in its functions. He uses the word 'ik' here, but he speaks of the "full" 'ik.' I have translated this as the selfhood, but it is possible that he is referring to the individual selfhood or ego expressing itself in the functions. Then we would have God expressing Himself in the selfhood, which expresses itself in the individual ego, which expresses itself as a temporal coherence of the temporal functions. This interpretation is supported by the concluding words of this section, other I's ['ikken']. It is interesting that this does not appear in the NC.

11. Dooyeweerd refers to the actual thinking of the selfhood. This actual is an act. Dooyeweerd says that all actions are out of our supratemporal selfhood. These acts are then expressed through our temporal body (mantle of functions).

Notes revised March 22, 2004