Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

Herman Dooyeweerd: De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee

© J. Glenn Friesen 2003.

Notes regarding WdW I, 7

1. Corresponds to NC I, 5

2. Like the NC, I capitalize Idea, as distinct from concept. Dooyeweerd does not always follow this same convention of capitalizing 'Idea.'

3. This section shows that Dooyeweerd's whole philosophy is based on the view that philosophy is directed towards a totality. Today, postmodernism has challenged this whole view of philosophy. This raises new problems for dialogue with postmodernism that did not exist when Dooyeweerd wrote the WdW. I believe that his response would be:

a) If philosophy is not directed towards a totality, it is not true philosophy.

b) Our dialogue with postmodernism must be by way of immanent criticism, to show that in fact postmodernism has a metaphysics and a view of totality of its own. In this regard, I believe that my criticism of constructivism is helpful, in that it shows that the postmodern preoccupation with construction and deconstruction is actually hyper-Kantian. It is therefore more open to Dooyeweerd's transcendental critique than even modernism itself. In contrast to postmodernism and constructivism, Dooyeweerd emphasizes that we do not construct our reality, but find it as a given.

c) What we cannot do is to attempt to revise away those parts of Dooyeweerd's philosophy that we consider to be "totalizing." Unfortunately, some Reformational scholars are attempting to do just that. They can only end up by undermining the foundations of Dooyeweerd's philosophy. If we do not direct ourselves to our supratemporal selfhood, to totality and to our Origin, we will become dispersed in the diversity of the world. We will no longer know our true self, nor how it is distinguished from the other realms. Nor will we have true knowledge of God or of the temporal cosmos.

4. The reason that self-reflection is required is that the self is the supratemporal totality.

3. NC adds that Husserl's "individual self" functions in "time and space." Dooyeweerd rejects the view that this temporal self is the thinking selfhood. For Dooyeweerd, our selfhood is not the subjective logical function of thought.

Revised Jul 10/06