Herman Dooyeweerd

Background

Dooyeweerd, Herman was born on October 7, 1984 in Amsterdam.

Education

The Free University, Amsterdam, doctorate in Law 1917.

Career

Professor of Encyclopaedia of Jurisprudence, Philosophy of Law and History of Dutch Law at the Free University, Amsterdam, 1926-1965. Rector Magnificus, 1930-1931 and 1950-1951. Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and Letters, 1948.

Secretary/Treasurer, 1954-1964.

Views

In 1964 the President of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and Letters rated Dooyeweerd as ’the most original philosopher the Netherlands had ever brought forth'. This was in substance due to Dooyeweerd's creation—from the 1920s onwards—of a genuine Christian philosophy. Dooyeweerd showed that every philosophy proceeds from a non-theoretical point of view. He made clear that even in humanist philosophy the autonomy of reason could not be theoretically proven. Dooyeweerd elaborated this hypothesis in a ‘transcendental critique of theoretical thought’, first published in 1939. Another important part of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy is formed by his theory of modal spheres. He explained that in theoretical thought one abstracts one aspect from reality to analyze it theoretically. Dooyeweerd distinguished fifteen different modal spheres, which are placed in an irreversible order of cosmic time: the numerical and the spatial aspects, the aspects of movement, of physical energy, of organic life, and of psychical feeling, the analytical-logical, the historical and the linguistic aspect, the aspect of social intercourse, the economic and the aesthetic aspect, the juridical and the moral aspect, and the aspect of faith. In their cosmic coherence every modal aspect supposes all the other aspects, but each modal aspect has its own nature which cannot be reduced to another modal aspect. During the Second World War Dooyeweerd wrote an extensive work entitled Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy. Of this work, dealing especially with the history of Western philosophy, only the first volume appeared in Dutch in 1949. The trilogy as a whole is hoped to be published in English in the near future. In this work Dooyeweerd exposed his new insights regarding the four religious basic motifs of Western thought that rule Western thought: the Greek motif of form and matter, the Christian basic motif of creation, fall and redemption, the Roman Catholic basic motif of nature and grace, and the Humanist basic motif of nature and freedom.

Interests

• Philosophy of religion.

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Kant and Husserl.