This essay presents an emerging conception of truth and shows how it appropriates Herman Dooyeweerd’s conception. First I compare my “critical hermeneutics” with other reformational models of critique. Then I propose to think of truth as a dynamic correlation between human fidelity to societal principles and a life-giving disclosure of society. This conception recontextualizes the notion of propositional truth, and it links questions of intersubjective validity with Dooyeweerd’s emphasis on “standing in the truth.” While abandoning his idea of transcendent truth, (...) I seek to preserve the holism and normativity of Dooyeweerd’s radical conception. Theoretical thought never finishes its task. Anyone who believes to have created a philosophical system that can be adopted unchanged by every ensuing generation shows no insight into the historical contingency [gebondenheit] of all theoretical thought. (shrink)

De moderne geschiedwetenschap worstelt sinds haar ontstaan in de 19de eeuw met het probleem van het historisme. De resultaten van de moderne geschiedwetenschap werden aan het begin van de vorige eeuw met enthousiasme begroet en deden een ongekend grote belangstelling voor het verleden ontstaan. De ‘nieuwe’ historische methode, die bestond in een positivistische, empirisch-analytische aanpak, bleek in zijn toepassing echter een katalysator van een manifest relativisme in de geschiedwetenschap. De idealistische geschiedfilosofie werd erdoor ontmanteld, maar ook de geschiedenis zelf werd (...) steeds nauwkeuriger en preciezer ontleed. Wat bleef er aan samenhang en betekenis in de geschiedenis over? Het boven dit artikel afgedrukte citaat van Troeltsch geeft de kern van het probleem aan. Het is de historische problematiek van het ‘vergruisde beeld’, zoals J. Romein het eens aanduidde. In dat ‘vergruisde beeld’ is ook alles wat zin, waarde en norm heet in de geschiedenis ontbonden. Het gaat althans schuil achter massa’s feiten die zich maar niet samen lijken te willen voegen in een algemene betekenis. (shrink)

It is no easy task to respond to the 95 theses on Herman Dooyeweerd by J. Glenn Friesen. The theses are not complete in rendering Dooyeweerd’s thought. For example, his analyses of the history of philosophy and his legal philosophy are hardly touched upon. Yet the theses cover a wide range of topics that are central to Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. Therefore, to give a wellargued assessment of all of them would require more than one issue of this journal. Fortunately the editors (...) have put severe restrictions on the amount of space that is available. So I will limit myself to some comments. My first comment concerns the method of Friesen and the misunderstandings it sometimes leads to. Second I mention some points where I disagree with his interpretation. Third I discuss the idea of supratemporality. I agree with Friesen that it is central to Dooyeweerd’s philosophy but I have problems with the views of Dooyeweerd himself. Then I will deal with another issue where my main problem is with Dooyeweerd, the idea of theoretical thought as opening up naïve thinking. I end with some concluding remarks. They concern my general assessment of the theses and what I see as the importance of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. (shrink)

The notion of societal structural principles is the foundation stone of Dooyeweerd’s social philosophy, and of the political and legal philosophy grounded in it, yet it has so far received little detailed critical analysis or constructive reformulation among reformational scholars. The aim of this paper is the modest one of illustrating the kind of analysis still to be done if the notion is to be put to more constructive use within social theory. I shall say little about the epistemological or (...) methodological implications of the notion, concentrating on its central ontological problematics. I shall do so by discussing the notion with special reference to its specific application to one particular societal structure, namely the state. Part I analyses Dooyeweerd’s general account of the notion of societal structural principles. I identify there a number of critical problems running through the paper, especially: a) the problem of how structural principles secure the internal unity of a societal structure; b) the distinction between the invariant character of societal structural principles, and the variable forms in which they are positivised; and c) the undeveloped link between societal structures and the structure of the human person. Part II illustrates these problems in relation to Dooyeweerd’s account of the structural principle of the state. Part III briefly sketches the direction of a possible reformulation of the notion of societal structural principles in the light of a more fully elaborated philosophical anthropology. (shrink)